#and that's a huge reason why Oscar and the rest of his siblings all work hard n' junk

[slumbergoblin]

Wow Oscar! That’s a lot of sisters!!

#pmatga #my ocs #oscar morin #my art #I was laying in bed a couple of nights ago and just said 'I think it'd be neat if Oscar had several siblings' #I didn't mean for them to all be women but here we are! #also a fun-not-so-fun fact: Oscar's mom passed due to a fatal accident when he was maybe 14 or 15??? #could not tell you what the accident was because the idea is still fresh in the brain #his mom was cool :( #she was a very inspirational woman to all of her children #and that's a huge reason why Oscar and the rest of his siblings all work hard n' junk #these guys are also not important to the plot (other than oscar maybe) #I just wanted to draw his sisters #character lineup #the morin sisters

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

Road trip to nowhere in particular. Bobby just likes to drive. Reggie just likes to point out cows and horses out the windows. Maybe he counts them. Maybe he names them. Either way Bobby has to pretend to be annoyed/mildly amused even as he is experiencing SO MUCH LOVE

hi this is both sadder and longer than i intended for it to be so it is now also available to read on ao3 here. warning for allusions to child abuse.

seems like i’d take a new road | boggie | 2.1k

--

It's still barely bright outside when Bobby pulls up and parks the car a few houses down from Reggie's, so he doesn't risk waking Reggie's parents. As he gets out of the car and goes to knock on Reggie's window, Bobby rubs his eyes, wondering what kind of insanity possessed him when he suggested they leave so early.

Reggie's already sitting on his bed when Bobby comes up to the window, hands folded in his lap, backpack at his feet. The light from the lamp on his bedside table casts shadows across his face, makes him look thoughtful, and quiet. He looks up almost as soon as Bobby comes into view, like he knew, somehow, that Bobby would be there.

Or he just heard you coming, idiot, Bobby chides himself, but when Reggie grins, eyes way too bright for the hour, Bobby feels a matching smile tugging across his face without his permission.

—

"Okay, okay," Reggie says, as soon as he's plonked himself into the passenger seat, rifling through his backpack immediately, "I've got snacks, and soda, and sandwiches for lunch later, and some mix CDs, but I don't know which one we should listen to first, since—"

"Reg," Bobby interrupts him flatly, even though it's absolutely killing him not to laugh. "Seatbelt first, thanks."

"Oh." Reggie sits back, abashed, and buckles in before returning to the contents of the bag. "It's just very important that we have the right mix for the drive. It has to fit the atmosphere. That can make or break the whole trip!" He's gesturing all over the place with his free hand, still half-buried in the oversized backpack on his lap.

"Right," says Bobby, as though he's totally on board.

"So," Reggie hums, "We've got a selection, so, I'll just read them all out to you—"

"Don't worry about it," Bobby tells him, turning the key and pumping the gas a few times as the engine rolls over before it properly coughs to life, "you just pick something."

Reggie stops, looks up at him wide-eyed. "Are you sure? I know that I like weird music. Alex would die before he let me choose a CD."

"Do I look like Alex?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie's face splits into a huge smile.

"I know the perfect one. It's gonna be so good, Bobby, promise."

—

This is how Bobby spends the next half an hour listening to a burned CD of all Reggie's favourite country songs, as the sun rises over the road and he takes them out of the city. Even this early, there's traffic, because LA is a nightmare city from hell and Bobby hates it, but leaving early has definitely given them an advantage. Reggie winds his window down and rests his arms on the window edge so he can sing Tim McGraw out to the city of angels to wake her up and ready for her the day, and Bobby settles in for the drive.

They'd both been going nuts, was the thing. Bobby’s just had too much work to do, and there’s always so much noise at home, his little siblings underfoot and on top of him and exhausting, as much as he loves them.

Bobby knows Reggie doesn't have such benign reasons for wanting to get away for the day. However, Bobby also knows better than to push him on it, especially when he's in such a good mood, belting the lyrics to Memory Lane (when Bobby swats him and tells him the song sucks, Reggie just smiles bigger, belts even louder). Reggie pretty much universally refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Like last week, when he'd called Bobby from his home phone, whispering a request to pick him up — please, just for a few hours, Bobby, and then I'll get out of your hair, it's just — and Bobby had been able to hear the banging and yelling even on his end of the call. Or when he'd turned up at Bobby's place with a black eye last month, had ended up sleeping in Bobby’s studio, curled up to Bobby on the couch, shivering even under the blankets Bobby brought out for them.

It's difficult to reconcile that image, of Reggie teary and silent and meek as Bobby had given him a pack of frozen peas to press over his eye, who had only shaken his head when Bobby asked him what happened, with this image, of Reggie with his head half out the window, singing and beaming in the morning sun. Tim McGraw's voice fades out, only to be replaced by more guitar (which sounds exactly the same to Bobby's ear) and Reggie's face lights up as he whoops, says, "This song is SO good, can I turn it up?"

Forget the morning sun. Reggie's brighter than it is.

Bobby makes sure his resigned sigh is extra theatrical before he says, "I guess so."

—

The next hour or so continues mostly this way, as Los Angeles becomes a more scattered, widespread set of houses and then eventually not much except desert. They share a packet of Haribo bears, Reggie insisting on giving Bobby the 'best colours' even though Bobby is almost certain they all taste pretty much the same, but he rolls his eyes and gives in when Reggie insists there's a subtle difference. At one point, the CD comes to an end, so Reggie swaps it for the next one. Which is also full of country. "Alex never lets me play any of these," he says defensively, even though all Bobby had done was glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

Bobby just shrugs and says, "I can see why."

And Reggie delightedly retorts, "Hey!"

After winding through the open, rocky expanse for awhile, things turn a little greener. Suddenly, Reggie breaks off singing to lean so far out the window that Bobby instinctively grabs the back of his shirt in his fist.

"Jesus, Peters, ass in the seat!" he huffs, mostly because his heart is still pounding.

Reggie has the decency to look a little sheepish as he sits back down, but still more excited than anything. "Sorry, Bobby, just — there's cows! Look, a whole field of them!"

There is, in fact, a whole field of cows. "Well, don't traumatise them by falling out the window."

"There's so many," Reggie continues, like Bobby didn't even speak, and then continues at a muttered volume, "one, two, three, four—"

"Are you seriously going to count all of them?" Bobby asks. This needs to stop. If Reggie's going to be this distractingly cute — no, just distracting — the whole trip, Bobby's going to crash the car, he can feel it. "You know they're going to move around and stuff."

"Oh," says Reggie, humming, "you're right. Hang on, I should name them so I can tell them apart. What are some good cow names? I think the big one up on the hill looks like a Betsy. And the brown one is totally a Buttercup."

Bobby groans, his heart growing three sizes in his chest, like he’s the Grinch or something. "Franco," he suggests at last.

"Franco?!" Reggie bursts out laughing. "You think 'Franco' is a good cow's name?"

"Is it not?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie laughs harder, throwing his head back and wrapping his arms around his stomach. The sound of him cackling almost drowns out Dolly Parton's voice still crooning from Bobby's stereo.

This Reggie. Versus the one who lives in Bobby's memory, tiny and silent, frozen peas held to his face with one trembling hand.

"Francesca," Reggie is saying, through his wheezing laughter, "now, Francesca is a good cow's name."

"Would you shut up about naming the cows and pass me a soda?"

"The calf is called Henry!" Reggie insists, as he leans to dig through his backpack. When he pulls out a can of soda and holds it out to Bobby, still flushed pretty-pink from laughing, his hair sort of a mess in his eyes, nose scrunched up extra cute, and Bobby feels his stomach softly flip over.

Well. That's a feeling he should repress.

"Thanks," he says, careful not to brush Reggie's fingers as he takes the can from him. Reggie doesn’t seem to notice. Thank god.

"You're welcome," says Reggie quietly, snuggling back down into his seat, looking out the window again. He points and says, "That one's called Oscar."

Definitely repressing, Bobby decides. Immediately. Forever. He can't have a crush on Reggie. Like, the band, and the fact that the last thing Reggie needs is for one of his friends to have feelings for him, as if he doesn’t already have enough going on. There are so many reasons he shouldn't have a crush on Reggie. Down, he tells the feeling, pushing at it in his chest, go down, stay down. "Is he?"

Reggie is oblivious, cheerfully rambling on, with no idea that he is causing Bobby a serious internal crisis. "Yeah. And that one's called—"

Bobby hopes it stays that way. He turns Dolly Parton up a little bit, and keeps driving.

—

They park and have lunch at the top of a hill looking over the valley. Reggie regales Bobby with some needlessly complicated story of the relationship between all the cows, as if they’re living a little soap opera down in the field. If Bobby’s going to be honest, he can’t follow the plot, but that doesn’t stop him staring at Reggie’s profile, the way he looks perfect here, at home among the grass and in the bright sun, how he comes alive being out here.

Bobby’s never really known what to think of the future. Before the band, he didn’t have much in his head to imagine. All his thoughts of the future were of his little siblings, what their lives would be like, but it was Luke who had first interrupted him and asked, “Well, yeah, but what about you, man? What do you want your life to be like?”

Maybe Bobby will save up and buy a farm out here, when all the band and touring stuff is done. So Reggie can come visit. Hell, maybe he’ll just buy Reggie a farm, with their millions of dollars they’re going to make when they’re all famous rock stars like Luke says they’ll be.

If we all have that much money, Reggie will buy his own farm, the voice in his head that keeps him in line sharply reminds him. Push them down. Push the feelings down.

“Here,” he says to Reggie, shoving his sandwich over. “You wanna finish this? Then we can get going.”

—

On their return drive that afternoon, Reggie is quiet. When one of the CDs loops back to the beginning, Reggie ejects it and doesn’t put in another one. The quiet is okay, Bobby thinks. It gives him a chance to catch his breath, to focus on the road, to forget all about his revelation from earlier in the day.

Winding back through the city, the sun dips lower in the sky. The city lights start to come alive as the evening sets in. Reggie starts to fiddle with the edge of his flannel, shift in his seat, like he’s nervous. A few times he breathes in, like he’s going to talk, and then doesn’t.

Bobby waits him out. He knows Reggie hates being pushed, hates stammering and fumbling for words when he doesn’t have them yet.

Still, he’s surprised when Reggie actually does break the silence. “Can I—” he starts, swallows, and then stops.

“Can you?” Bobby prompts, when Reggie doesn’t continue. His instinct is to reach for Reggie’s hand, but he does what he’s been doing all day, and pushes the thought down. God, what if Reggie’s noticed? What if that’s what he’s about to say? For a moment, Bobby feels cold, and nauseous. He sets his jaw.

“CouldImaybestayatyourplacetonight?” Reggie blurts out, all in one go.

Bobby breathes what he hopes is an imperceptible sigh of relief. Sure, it means a night of knowing Reggie’s out in the studio, probably cold. It means Bobby will inevitably climb out of bed, and out his window, bringing his extra blankets, to curl up with Reggie on the couch, to make sure he stays warm. Because that’s what always happens when Reggie sleeps over. And that’s a whole lot more complicated now that Bobby knows that he—well.

But Bobby looks at the worry on Reggie’s face, his stupid puppy eyes, and he can’t say no. Could never say no to Reggie anyway, he thinks. He needs to be there for Reggie, and that’s why his feelings have no place in this mess. “Of course, Reg. No problem.”

No problem, he tells himself, and does his best to mean it.

--

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!!):  @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @multifandom-queer @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @malecacidd

#chickwiththepurpleguitar #jatp #julie and the phantoms #boggie #bobby wilson #reggie peters #ask #my fic #boggie brain rot

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 127

Annnnd a-one, and a-two, and a queue-queue-queue!

This chapter has one of my favorite things in the world to write - Interpersonal relationships (if you are surprised, I’m going to assume you are new here....).

Specifically, one of my biggest pet-peeves is when friends or siblings are written in a way that shows that the author doesn’t actually have any friends or siblings they are close enough to that all rules of societal politeness go whizzing into some far-off dimension as soon as they are in proximity.

When I get to write a chapter with such close friends/ersatz-siblings and also have @baelpenrose cackling and egging me on, it literally makes my whole day.

P.S: If anyone has wondered about the ages of the characters, several are clearly lined out in this chapter......

EDIT: Fixed some insane formatting issues.

“The food festival, Sophia? Really?” an incredulous voice asked before the door to my office even opened all the way.

I resisted the urge to scream, but did surrender to pinching the bridge of my nose and breathing slowly. “Hello, Arthur. Do come in. Long time no see.  Of course I’m not busy…” My one day each week to have a few hours to myself - no mentees, no assistant, even Tyche was off work….

“We saw each other last night when I came over for dinner after sparring with Conor, and  you’re never busy on Saturdays, Alistair makes sure of it.” He dragged a chair in front of my desk for what I felt was the sole purpose of putting his boots on my desk instead of the conference table.

“I thought you two didn’t even like each other, how did you - “

He waved a hand dismissively. “Enemy of my best friend’s enemy is my friend, that sort of thing. Anyway - “

“Did you just call me my own worst - “

“You are, let’s not pretend otherwise. Anyway.” Arthur arched an eyebrow at me and waited for any further objections, but I couldn’t think of any. “The Food Festival. It’s my one favorite tradition on this ship until armed combat becomes a spectator sport, and you are putting Parvati and Hannah in charge of it?”

After a beat pause to make sure he was done, I glared at him. “Everyone has asked me that, and I don’t understand the issue.  They’ve both helped in the past, even before they started training to replace me.  I’ve handed more and more off to them each time, and they did great! Plus, they have three months, it will be fi - Wait, why do you even care, Arthur?”

He held up one finger with the authority of a deity who would have smited me if he could. “One, Parvati Fletcher does not like mapo tofu. You do. Specifically, you like it from that one vendor who grows her own Sichuan peppercorns and uses them like they are an infinite resource. Two, I spend entirely too much time working with Zach Khan, and he won’t shut up about how stressed Hannah is. Three - “ I was seriously starting to get concerned he actually could smite me at this point - “As much as I love you in the most platonic way possible, you are an obsessive, compulsive perfectionist who insists on doing everything herself and running herself into the ground so that everyone else has the time of their lives. So why are you trusting this, the largest and oldest event on the Ark, entirely to other people?” Dropping his boots from the desk, he leaned forward, palms down until we were nearly nose to nose.

“Sophia Reid, I swear on any god I can kill if you are dying…”

“WHAT!?” I squawked, jerking back and standing so fast I knocked my chair over. “For the love of little fish, I’m not dying! I haven’t had a near death experience in four years, thank you.”

“Three, not counting the fact that there is a reason Alistair makes you drink anything through a straw anymore.”

“How did - Nevermind.” I shook my head and tried to focus on the topic at hand. “No, I’m not dying. Nor am I injured, having a midlife crisis, rethinking my life choices any more than I ever do, or so much as in possession of a stuffy nose.” Taking a deep breath, I rolled my eyes and started counting off before I could stop myself. “Conor and Maverick and I are fine. No, I’m not arguing with Tyche again. Yes, I’m still going to therapy. Else is fine. No new sentient plagues or rogue cult leaders that I’m aware of. Nor have I become immortal, queen of the universe, savior of humanity, pregnant by Noah, or possessed.” Carefully, I picked my chair back up and sat down.

“Good...to… know?” He gave me a funny look. “Who asked the most disturbing one?”

“Immortal or Savior of Humanity?” I asked for clarification. “Those were Maverick and Derek, respectively.”

The look only got worse. “I meant ‘pregnant by Noah’, but fascinating to see where your priorities lie….?”

“Oh. That was Charly.”

“Dammit,” he swore softly. “I had her pegged for ‘possessed’.”

“I’m pretty sure she is, but the suggestion that I am came from Tyche, on no fewer than 3 occasions, by 4 different entities. She seemed pretty hopeful that Else was potentially mind-controlling me in an effort to make me take a nap,” I admitted.

“That tracks.” A nod of approval prefaced the question I had been avoiding - successfully, thus far, I might add. “Now that you’ve ruled out every possible plausible reason that you would entrust this to literally anyone other than a clone of yourself, why?”

“Why what?” My face was composed in an expression of innocence so convincing that I probably deserved an Oscar.

“I can and will convince Charly to turn all your coffee to decaf, so help me, Sophia.”

Realizing that he was, legitimately, worried about me and at the limits of his usually-impressive patience, I held up my hands in surrender. “Fine. You get the scoop.  Please record this and send me the loop, so I can just flick it at people who ask, please?” When he nodded, I exhaled slowly.  “It is no secret to anyone that I never wanted this job. I made the mistake of establishing the Food Festival, which as you point out is the largest event of the cycle on the Ark - the last three years, literally everyone attended in some capacity.” When he opened his mouth to argue, I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the Festival. What basically started out as a potluck because we were homesick and needed to meet - you know, the rest of humanity - is a huge, three day holiday.  It’s amazing!” I spun in my chair, arms flung wide for emphasis, before stopping to face him. 

“It also consumes my life, for months, to prepare for.  And that’s just implementing changes to make it more accessible so people don’t miss out! That doesn’t include adding things to make it more interesting or keep it from getting boring, or whatever. I literally don’t have time to do any of that!”

“So, you’re inflicting this on them instead?”

“Inflicting?” I snorted.  “Hardly. This is their final exam, their capstone project, their dissertation.  If they pull this off, I will gladly hand the entire office over to whoever is elected, cheerfully and knowing the Ark is in good hands.  But, they have to pull this off.  It’s the only major part of being Councilor of Resources and Relations that they haven’t done yet by themselves.”

He rubbed his face, looking somewhat impressed. “That’s honestly not what I was expecting.”

“I don’t think it ever is, honestly.” I shrugged at the question he glanced towards me. “For Evan, it was coordinating the weapons exhibitions.  Charly managed to pre-empt her own by designing more efficient aqueducts and filtration for when we reach Von - you know, the ones that also produce light?”

“Of course she would invent glow-in-the-dark plumbing. Who else?” Something caught up with him. “Evania Josue got away with planning an event? Seriously?”

“Oh, that’s right… you weren’t on Level One…” I murmured. When he only looked more confused, I clarified. “She was Maverick’s co-pilot when we needed people to pilot the Ark, which was not designed to pilot manually, via dead reckoning, using cameras pointed out the few viewports we have, for several weeks after the sensors were sabotaged.”

“She was whose co-pilot?”

“You really never heard this story? You practically live with seven people who were there…”

“Usually I get the bits about ‘Sophia nearly got her brains bashed out’ and ‘that traitorous bitch’, then start tuning out while I try to decide what it would take to get Charly to teach me necromancy… If Evan was the co-pilot, then why is Maverick….”

“Not in line to replace any Councilors? Arthur, we know that would be a disaster for him.”

He nodded reluctantly. “Your younger partner is a nice boy.”

“For fuck’s sake, he’s thirty seven!” I groaned.

“Nice man, whatever,” he waved off. “Which is exactly what I would like for you as a partner. You need nice partners, and blunt siblings. But I see what you mean about him being a Councilor… he’d be miserable.”

“What was yours?” I asked mischievously, dropping my chin onto my hands.

That earned me a flat stare, until he finally surrendered when I didn’t flinch. “The Twentieth/Early Twenty First History curriculum.”

“Seriously?” That had literally been the first thing he had done when Eino tapped him as a possible successor.

“I didn’t budge on points even he admitted he would have, out of fear of offending people.”

“Which is a fear you very much lack,” I pointed out.

“The truth is the truth. Coating it in sugar only makes it taste worse.” He shrugged nonchalantly before suddenly looking dangerously like he was thinking again. “There’s two of them.”

“Yes, Arthur. Hanna and Paravati are, in fact, two distinct and separate women-type-lady-people.”

“Thank you, Fee, I was well aware.” I suppressed a growl at the nickname - he knew I hated it. “I meant, only one can win the election, smartass.”

“Better to be a smartass than a dumbass,” I muttered.

“Sophia, you are forty five. Please grow up just a hair?”

“Tyche doesn’t want to be HR forever, you know.”

That brought his mind to a visibly screeching halt. “Wait, what?”

“What what?” I asked. “She does it because she is phenomenal at it, but it isn’t her passion.  She only stuck around as long as she did to make sure I didn’t trip over a chair and brain myself while I was at work.  When I’m gone, she’s gone, loser take the spoils.”

He whistled softly before shaking his head. “It’s bizarre to think of you two retiring around the same time I’m just starting the position.”

“I’ll have been a Councilor for a decade when I step down,” I pointed out.  I almost included unless I die first, but that never seemed to be as funny as I thought it was.

“But you aren’t that much older than me,” he sighed dramatically. “Anti-aging technology is frustrating.”

“Annnnd this is a natural extension of your career, with a ten year break thereabouts the middle.”  My grin was so bright it made him scowl before I finally got a begrudging smile.  “Think of it as getting elected head of the school board.”

The groan he let out probably echoed for several levels throughout the ship. I had basically just pointed out that he was becoming that which he most hated.

Or not. He seemed to recover with a gleam in his eye. “Pfft. Dean of Students, at the very least.”

<< Prev   Masterlist  Next >>

#the miys #humans are weird #found family #siblings #humans will pack bond with anything #aliens #post apocalyse #post post apocalypse #science fiction #original science fiction #haw #hfy

[aion-rsa]

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’s Success And Why Anime Will Never Be the Same

https://ift.tt/3vfTW9R

When Mugen Train rolled into U.S. theatres on April 23, a world of new and exciting possibilities opened up for the anime industry. Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer): Mugen Train broke box office records after dethroning long-standing record holder, Spirited Away, to become the highest-grossing anime film worldwide with $440.15 million. 

Needless to say, the anime world has been shaken to its very core. With a surge of people picking up Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba as their first-ever anime after hearing of its global success, anime veterans may be wondering just how the industry will continue to grow from here on out. Let’s take a look at how a touching story about a boy and his sister rose to such critical acclaim and managed to break every record imaginable. 

What is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba?

Demon Slayer (sometimes referred to by its Japanese title Kimetsu no Yaiba) follows the life of a young teenager—Tanjiro—as he tries to free his sister—Nezuko—from a demon’s curse. Wanting to return her to a human, as well as seek revenge against the mystery assailant who murdered his family, Tanjiro sets out on an adventure across the globe in search of answers. The series ran for 26 episodes in the Spring of 2019 on several Japanese networks (including; Tokyo MX, GTV, GYT, BS11) and later aired on US networks (including Adult Swim and Toonami) and also streaming sites such as Funimation. The show was well-received and quickly amassed a following of loyal fans. 

However, after Mugen Train was released in cinemas, it gained traction from several atypical news outlets (the LA Times for example) due to the sheer amount of money it was generating. It seemed like people who weren’t fans of the original series, nor fans of anime in general were lining up for the chance to watch Mugen Train. It begs the question; just why is Mugen Train so popular?

The Simple But Effective Plot

One of the leading reasons linked to the success of Mugen Train is the franchise’s accessibility. The premise is fairly easy to understand (a tale of unconditional sibling love) and while the fantasy elements of demons and magic remain prevalent, they are not bogged down in reams of exposition. 

This allows anyone to pick up the show with relative ease. 

However, for those that stick around, the deceptively simple premise explodes into a wonderfully rich and layered world with thoroughly interesting characters each fleshed out with their own backstories and surprising plot developments that keep the simple premise engaging for so many episodes. All in all, Kimetsu no Yaiba’s plot is simple at first glance but those who look a little closer will see a gripping narrative that has clearly been meticulously cared for. 

Awesome Animation

The animation quality is of the highest standard in both Demon Slayer and Mugen Train. Even those who are not particularly interested in the plot will find themselves captivated by the stunning visuals. Even smaller details like the artistically styled water that flows from Tanjiro’s sword whenever he completes an attack, are just breathtaking to see play out. 

Demon Slayer does not blow its entire budget on animating great fight scenes, however. The slower-paced moments are animated beautifully and the varied facial expressions lent to each character make for some hilarious interactions. Zenitsu (one of Tanjiro’s friends) in particular has an expressive face (not to mention the stellar voice acting quality of both him and his ensemble cast) which makes each episode’s action lulls a delight. 

The Excellent Source Material

A lot of anime are not created from the ground up. While several original shows are produced and sent straight to TV screens, a lot of anime emerge from their respective manga sources. Demon Slayer is no exception here, as the manga continues to release issues periodically, with a story that has long since moved past the events in Mugen Train.

Koyoharu Gotouge—the mangaka mastermind behind the Kimetsu no Yaiba series—has created a stunning piece of art in the form of his manga. Due to this, the animation will always have the inspiration to draw from (granted that it leaves enough space between its most recent episode and the most recently released chapter of the manga). Of course, several scenes will need to be created to fill in the gaps between manga panels, but the base storyline is there for the taking and will continue to be so as long as Koyoharu doesn’t get bored!

Charting the Show’s Success

Demon Slayer’s rise in popularity was remarkable. The show was fairly unknown in its manga form (at least compared to the audience it reaches today). However, this is par for the course for most manga. Without the aid of television advertisements, promotions, and other ways for the story to be advertised, manga sales will rarely result in such a worldwide phenomenon. All of this changes, however, when a manga receives its anime adaptation.

Read more

TV

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Breaking Down Every Sword Color

By Daniel Kurland

TV

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Season 2 – What to Expect from Entertainment District Arc

By Daniel Kurland

The manga was first published in Japan in 2016 but when the anime released in 2019, it steadily grew in popularity and, as such, entered into sponsored collaborations with various companies throughout Japan. Being a Shounen manga (an easy-to-digest, light-hearted, usually battle-oriented, anime aimed towards young boys) only added to its accessibility, and with Tanjiro’s face being plastered wherever you go in Japan, there was more incentive than ever to join the bandwagon! All of this then culminated in the release of Mugen Train. Having been bombarded with Demon Slayer since its anime release of course the many fans that had been created through its wide coverage would check out the movie. 

Make the World Take Notice

All of these positive qualities helped Mugen Train stand out from the crowd of its animated competitors, making it a great watch for the whole family. It goes without saying that parents will be much more inclined to take their children to see a movie that they themselves can find some form of enjoyment out of. Mugen Train, with its perfectly blended cocktail of an animated movie, capitalized on this perfectly. It provided not only stylistic and bombastic action to keep the kids entertained, but also a beautifully crafted and surprisingly deep story that teenagers and even adults can enjoy.

The impact Mugen Train has left on the anime industry is gigantic and, hopefully, we see more care and consideration being given to animated works. Long has a stigma engulfed the world of cartoons. “Cartoons are for children”, “Anime is childish” or “They’re not real movies”, have always been popular arguments of the naysayers. Mugen Train crushes this ideology and proves that anyone, of any age, can find enjoyment in watching anime. Similar to how the Korean Oscar winner Parasite opened the door for foreign films to make their stand at international film festivals, Mugen Train has made it clear that anime is a commercial force to be reckoned with. 

The Future of Anime

The popularity of anime is ever-rising and Mugen Train has played a huge role in this. Lesser discussed shows may be picked up by Western television or streaming platforms due to their niche demand. There already exist several ways to stream anime in the Western world. Sites like Crunchyroll and Netflix offer a wide variety to choose from. Hopefully they will be expanding their libraries even further in the near future

In the future, we may find ourselves witnessing more and more anime theatrical releases from studios wanting to capitalize on Mugen Train’s success (post-pandemic, of course). It is evident that animated works can create just as much money as big blockbuster action flicks. Perhaps, we may also see an animated feature film win not only the best-animated picture award but the best picture award in general at the Oscars. 

We may also see a rise in the popularity of manga. For one month, in fact, Kimetsu no Yaiba’s manga managed to surpass One Piece in overall sales (something absolutely unheard of since the advent of the unstoppable freight train that is the One Piece manga). Many people became so enthralled by the adventures of Tanjiro and his peers, that they could not help but pick up the manga to check out what happens next. Perhaps, thanks to Mugen Train and Kimetsu no Yaiba’s influence, we will see the birth of a new generation of manga fanatics who will, without a shadow of a doubt, preach to anime viewers that the manga version is “InFiNiTeLy SuPeRioR”. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Eager fans can watch Mugen Train at select theaters across North America, with the rest of the world hopefully being able to watch sometime this year. Let us know what you think of Mugen Train! What anime are you watching to fill the long and grueling wait for Kimetsu no Yaiba season two? Comment down below!

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train is available on VOD in North America now.

The post Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’s Success And Why Anime Will Never Be the Same appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3wHVOcp

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I just spent hours going through the search results for ‘meta’ on your blog, and there’s so much interesting stuff there, and it’s way too late at night now, but it was so worth it. Anyway, I love your leverage meta and was wondering if you could talk about the leverage crew interacting/working with others? (ie two live crew job, the last dam job), especially when they’re allies and/or people they’re actively working against in different scenarios (like chaos)

First of all, thank you so much nonny, that means so much to see that you appreciate my meta! I put a lot of thought into it and it gives me such joy to see that others appreciate my rambling and overthinking about fictional characters. Truly, you have made my evening. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

Second of all, this is such an interesting meta question and I’m excited to answer it!

Oh man, if anybody was in any doubt that the Leverage team are hugely protective of each other, their interactions with their allies would blow that misconception out of the water. Note that I’m not including Sterling in this because that would be a whole post by itself and I personally don’t see Sterling as an ally. He’s been their ally at times but they’ve never really trusted him--he’s more like a comfortable antagonist. But anyway.

When the team has to deal with an ally, or team up with anyone really, they close ranks. Mr. Quinn is a bit of an exception since Eliot has no personal beef with him (more on that later) but Tara, Chaos, Archie? Slamming the fucking door in their faces. Maggie is the only real exception (gonna tackle her last). No matter how many squabbles might be going on, no matter if the rest of the team wants to strangle Nate with a piano wire (in a loving way), once someone else is introduced, they prove what a family they have become by uniting as one and going, and whom the fuckst might you be?

Let’s start with the longest ally relationship they have: Tara

Tara was, I think, a great addition to the team. I think she really challenged them and in ways that they needed. Eliot, Hardison, and Parker all quickly latched onto Sophie as a mom figure (in different ways--Eliot behaves like an oldest sibling with her, he’s old enough not to need her anymore but he knows he can turn to her if he needs her and she’s his ally when they’re making decisions, but Parker heavily relies on Sophie for guidance). Having Sophie ripped away from them forces them to stand on their own two feet more. It forces them to deal with Nate themselves instead of using Sophie as a shield. And Nate, well, we all see how he falls apart without Sophie and tries to blame her when it’s really himself.

The team closes ranks around Tara immediately. Nate doesn’t kick her to the curb for two reasons only: they need a grifter, and Sophie trusts Tara. Tara’s beautifully unapologetic behavior (insisting on getting a profit from their jobs, not babying Nate) doesn’t help in keeping the team at arm’s length, but Tara knows her worth and knows they’ll come around, and sure enough, they do.

Oddly enough, Tara’s really great for the team because they prove to themselves that they really are a family by her being there. Season one’s theme, as stated by the producers/writers, is all about family, and in season two we see the team really internalize that and realize that it’s true, they are a family. Through the adversity of losing Sophie and having to adjust, they recognize what they have truly become.

(I would argue that this is also the season where the OT3 realizes how deep their feelings for one another are as a result, but that’s another post for another time.)

By the end of the season of course we see them accept Tara as a friend and ally even if they’re loathe to admit it because all the members of the team are loathe to admit when they’re wrong about something. But their interactions with Tara show the team how they’ve become set in their ways, in their dynamic, and makes them question why, and makes them realize what a family they are.

Which is why it’s such a beautiful ending with Nate going to jail and the feeling of betrayal when they realize he’s not coming with them--they’ve spent all season going oh shit, we’re a family, we’re really in this together, okay, and then to have Nate make his plan without them and to abandon them even if you can understand that he did it to protect them...

So yes, the team’s interactions with Tara basically show them what a family they have become and set the entire thing up for Nate’s sacrifice at the end of the season, bless you Tara, you queen, I’m single, please call me.

The other ally that the team has that they’re automatically sort of forced to accept (the way that because of Sophie they were forced to accept Tara) is of course Archie.

That motherfucker.

Look Archie is a charming bastard but he’s still a rat bastard and I will punch him in the face if I ever meet him and y’know what he’ll probably understand. The fact that in The Last Dam Job we see him say to his bewildered daughter “that’s my daughter” about Parker, proving that he STILL, after EVERYTHING, hasn’t introduced Parker to his family? Ahaha. We are in a fight, sir, we are in a MASSIVE fight.

Archie only appears in one other episode but like Nate’s dad shows us so much of who Parker is and why she’s the way she is. We’ve got Parker’s family backstory, her asshole father whom she killed, but there’s still a big gap between that and how she became a thief, and Archie fills that gap. And the way the team reacts to him is fantastic because the only one who closes ranks around him is Nate.

Nate, who also has a rough relationship with his father, Nate who treats Parker like his own daughter, Nate who mentors Parker into becoming a mastermind. Nate who was also a father. Nate hates Archie, because Archie should’ve helped teach Parker to become a person, and instead he taught her to become a weapon.

Hardison, Eliot, and Sophie? They are extremely protective of course and they are not fans of Archie, but they are a bit busy getting Parker to safety, they respect how important Archie is to Parker, and they are proud of Parker. They know who and what she is. They know that Archie will see the proof in the pudding.

But Nate, Nate is so goddamn offended, and I think this is the moment he realizes that Parker really is like family to him, and really takes responsibility for her growth. I think this is the episode where Nate goes, oh, she’s going to be my successor. Parker is going to be the new mastermind.

It’s so great to watch as Nate’s the one knocked off-balance by an ally, rather than the OT3, showing his hand more than the others.

Then there’s the other main player during The Last Dam Job: Chaos

Oh Chaos. We all love to hate you. Chaos is absolutely everything that fuckboy nerds often are, the thing that makes women hide their love of geeky things, he is the gatekeeping asshole that thinks nerds are still the most oppressed class and probably goes on rants about fake geek girls.

The seething hatred that Parker, Hardison, and Eliot have for Chaos is hilarious but understandable, but what’s interesting is how nobody in the team seems surprised by what an asshole Chaos is. Sophie and Nate just kind of roll their eyes at him. Eliot’s angry at Chaos for Parker and Hardison’s sake. Hardison feels that his professional pride is offended, that anyone would ever consider Chaos and Hardison to be in the same category, and he’s angry at how Parker is treated by him. And Parker is pissed off by Chaos’s objectifying comments.

But none of them seem surprised.

You know the moments when the team is taken aback in disgust by someone, we see it all the time when a team member realizes just how awful a mark truly is. Even Nate has his moments where you can see him actively wondering if maybe he should just scrap the whole plan and throw the mark out the window. But with Chaos, it’s par for the course.

Because sadly, very sadly, as I said--Chaos represents what we expect nerds to be.

Okay so brief history recap, the whole ‘nerds get bullied’ was a thing that absolutely happened for a period of time back when reading comics and science fiction was considered lowbrow. Comics were for younger children, not high schoolers, fantasy writers were considered hack writers (you can read Ursula K. LeGuin’s excellent essays on the matter), and in fact a lot of parents thought reading comics and science fiction and the like was bad for you. Then when computers first came onto the scene, they were very new and difficult to navigate. Something parents are finding nowadays is how damn easy it is for their young kids to navigate and use electronic devices, and so kids will often, to the horror of their parents, get onto social media sites and see things they shouldn’t because the parents didn’t realize how easily their child could access and learn to use these things. Because back in the ‘80s, it was a lot harder to navigate the internet and computers. So if you were hugely into them, you were an outlier.

But those days of comic books, science fiction, and computers being things that only fringe communities got into are LONG gone. Women have always been a part of those communities although, surprise, nobody wants to mention it, and they’re even more so nowadays. Even when Leverage was being filmed, superheroes were cool! Several Batman movies had been wildly successful, the Sam Raimi Spiderman films had been box office hits, Lord of the Rings had won A MOTHERFUCKING OSCAR. In fact, it SWEPT THE OSCARS.

Geeks and nerds were no longer someone to laugh at and bully, especially straight white male nerds. And yet, these sad excuses for human beings continue to whine and bully and show their true racist, misogynistic, self-centered mindsets by insisting that they are bullied and ignored and can’t get dates because of their “nerdy” interests.

Newsflash: it’s not because of your interests, it’s because you’re assholes.

Chaos represents that. He is the WORST kind of nerd, and unfortunately, probably the kind of nerd that gets into the criminal world because he has a superiority complex and a chip on his shoulder. So if you watch the crew, they’re all pissed off by him, but none of them are surprised by him.

In fact, that’s why they recruit him for their team in The Last Dam Job!

Chaos tried to murder Sophie, he tried to murder Sophie’s old friend, he makes derogatory and objectifying remarks about Parker, and it’s all EXACTLY par for the course for hackers. Hardison is the hacking exception. He’s a gentleman, he’s black, he’s emotionally mature and aware, he’s thoughtful, and his “age of the geek, baby” catchphrase isn’t bitter and plotting “oh how I shall make you all rue the day you bullied me” it’s ecstatic and fun. He knows that the people who don’t appreciate his skills will come around in time. He’s not going to be an asshole about it.

The team recruits Chaos for the job not just because he’s the last person that their enemies will expect but because if they went out to find another hacker, they’d run into people who were just like Chaos in personality and behavior. Chaos is, at least (and ironically given his moniker), a known evil, he’s someone they understand and therefore can to a certain degree control. The team goes damn easy on him during this job. They could’ve taken the opportunity to make his life MISERABLE while he was distracted working for them. But they didn’t. They just roll their eyes and make quips about wanting to kill him.

Note that the other people in the Two Live Crew Job, the hitter and the thief, are treated very much as novelties. Eliot and Parker seem amused by them like they’re shiny new toys, but we also get the impression that they’re glad to see the back of them because the shine of these new toys would wear off rather quickly. Meeting someone who’s exactly like you is fun for a short bit but it can’t last--you’re too alike for any kind of relationship (platonic, romantic, or otherwise) to work long-term.

Chaos is hated by the team and they absolutely close ranks around him. Eliot and Hardison don’t even take their eyes off him and Eliot tells Mr. Quinn to do the same. The whole team works to keep Chaos away from Parker so that she doesn’t even have to deal with his presence. But given the insane revenge that the team has planned against others who’ve tried to kill them, and especially given that the last time someone made Parker upset Eliot and Hardison literally offered to kill the man, it’s unusual that they let Chaos off so easily. And it’s not out of a sense of “you’re our ally” honor. They screw over Sterling when he’s supposed to be their ally as well (although Sterling is also screwing over them, so...) so it can’t be that.

I honestly think it’s that they feel that Chaos is one symptom of a disease. He’s one type of cancer in a long, long line of cancers. Knock him down, and another incel asshole is gonna take his place.

So why bother? Why bother, when instead they can just keep Chaos on a tight leash. Better the devil you know, and thanks to his inability to shut up and his ego, they know Chaos very, very well.

Then we have Mr. Quinn, who is very interesting in that he’s one of those instances where you have to read into Eliot’s silences to get a lot about him. Now, unlike Moreau, I’m not saying that Quinn and Eliot were ever a thing. They could’ve been, sure, but I don’t personally get that vibe from them. What we get from Quinn is a window into how the rest of the criminal world sees Eliot.

Now, we learn in The Girls’ Night Out Job what the criminal world thinks of Parker. “You’re the Parker?” People know of Parker and how crazy she is, even if they don’t necessarily know her gender. We get a lot of what the criminal world thinks of Sophie, from Sterling to British nobility to everything and everyone in between. Hardison doesn’t have as much of a repuatation yet but as I’ve stated elsewhere Hardison is twenty-two at the start of the series, he’s still establishing himself, even in the relatively young game of hacking. But other than Damien Moreau, we don’t really get a huge look into what people think of Eliot (and Moreau isn’t even a proper look at Eliot the professional, he’s a look at Eliot the person, but I’m not recapping my entire goddamn Moreau/Eliot meta it’s under my tag y’all can go find it).

So Quinn is our one foray into how Eliot is seen by the criminal world, and the overwhelming emotion is: respect.

Unlike Chaos, or even Parker and her counterpart from the Two Live Crew Job, Quinn and Eliot respect each other and don’t take anything personally. They sort of accept that they’re on opposite sides out of a sense of honor--staying loyal to the person writing their checks--but it’s nothing personally antagonistic. And we see this with the other hitmen that Eliot tangles with 90% of the time. There’s no personal beef, it’s just doing their job, (and we get hilarious exchanges like Eliot being frustrated with amateurs, “how are you gonna improve,” etc), and that’s extremely fascinating considering how very personally Hardison, Sophie, Parker, and even Nate take it when they’re up against someone of their own field.

It all, for me anyway, harkens back to the talk between Sophie and Eliot in the boxing ring about Eliot’s rage and violence, and how he explains that he doesn’t let it own him and he has it under control. Being a hacker is who Hardison is, being a thief is who Parker is, being a grifter is who Sophie is (and that’s part of what spurs her season two journey to find herself), and Nate, well, we all see for five seasons how Nate struggles with his sense of identity. But Quinn and other hitter allies show us that being a hitter is what Eliot does, it’s not who he is. Eliot is a chef, he’s a boyfriend, he’s a lover, he’s a protector. He separates his identity from the job and it’s incredibly healthy of him and he’s possibly the only one of the team who can do that and I think that’s absolutely fascinating and another way in which the Leverage writing team uses Eliot to deconstruct the trope of the violent small-town white army boy hitman and blow it up to smithereens.

Because normally, Eliot would be the person most married to his job, the person least in touch with his emotions, the person constantly tempted by violence and to lose himself in his role. But instead he can walk away from it. In fact he wants to walk away from it, he wants to distance himself from the violent person he became and the things he did, he wants to become someone new (and did, when he fled Moreau and Toby taught him how to cook).

Mr. Quinn is our key to going, oh huh, hitters and bodyguards, ‘retrieval experts’, they don’t identify themselves with their jobs the way the other roles do, and that sets up a really interesting dynamic and I love it.

Finally, we have arguably the most interesting ally, which is Maggie.

A quick note on Maggie: While she is an ally, Hardison, Parker, and Eliot seem to view Maggie as separate from most of their other allies because she’s Nate’s ex-wife. Tension with Maggie comes more from Sophie and Nate. Eliot does flirt with her and score the date with her but the moment he realizes who she is he seems to go on the date purely for spying purposes for Nate--her being Nate’s former anything immediately puts her in this special category for the OT3 where they’re more excited to watch Nate responding to her than they are anything else. The OT3 don’t see her as any kind of threat--they rightly recognize that any interpersonal issues attached to her are Nate’s to deal with, and the OT3 have always been good about detaching themselves from Nate’s problems, calling Nate out on them, and not taking on Nate’s problems like they’re their own.

And I love how they write Maggie. She’s an ally who’s a civilian and the team treats her differently as a result. The OT3 want her for juicy information on Nate. She’s never once treated like a harpy, like a bitch, as a one-dimensional prop for Nate’s backstory. Sophie likes and respects Maggie. Maggie is a foil to the team because she reminds all of them of Nate’s fallibility, and she really shows them how they’re seen in the eyes of the public. She likes them, she’ll even join them occasionally, but she doesn’t 100% endorse them, and the team knows it, so they use her judiciously. In The Last Damn Job they use her precisely because she’s not a criminal, and you know that the team would welcome her into their lives if she wanted it, but also maintain a distance out of respect. They all adore Maggie, they find her fascinating, and it’s such a delight with the way ex-wives or ex-girlfriends are usually written.

They say that to really know a person, you have to know their friends and their enemies. And that holds true in this show. To see the status of the team, you have to look at how they treat their allies and their enemies, and so through seeing their allies, you see the team better. And I love that. A+ writing.

So those, nonny, are my random rambling thoughts on the team’s allies! Sorry it took me a few days to get to this, I hope you enjoyed it!

#mads answers things #leverage #leverage meta

[in-tua-deep]

This ask was going to be too long so imma have to split it up! 1. Hey! I think your headcannons and your writing are just so, so, so fantastic! I've been lingering around the fandom for some time now and this blog has really had me hooked! Wanted to know if you had some headcannons on Allison? I have a lot of questions regarding her and her powers, but also her career? Because? She's? A? Movie? Star? And? International? Celebrity?

“2. Like, we hear just a sliver about her work, about the romantic comedies and such, and we know she’s enough of a name to be hounded by photographers at premiers and to be talked about by gossip mags, but what level of celebrity is she? Because people don’t seem to always recognise her when they’re walking around in the city, but she is established as “super famous” and Vanya calls her “one of the most famous people in the world”.“

“3. What has her career been like? How was it starting out after everyone knew her from The Umbrella Academy? Did she ever win an Oscar? Is Patrick also an actor? Does she ever get discredited for her career due to her powers? How much did she really rumor her way to the top? I know I’m throwing a lot at you, but yeah, just wanted to know what you thought about it!”

Allison!! gotta love Allison, i have no idea about some of those questions rip honestly i think some part is just,, they live in a populated area. That could be Allison Hargreeves who is supposed to be on the other side of the country, or it could just be someone who looks like her idk. I also,, admittedly don’t know enough about celebrity lifestyles since i don’t follow actors for the most part oof BUT i can provide headcanons anyway!!

so first and foremost: I think that baby Allison learned very quickly that there were solid rules she couldn’t get around and as long as she operated within those rules she could get away with almost anything. And the top rule, the untouchable rule, was hammered into her as soon as it was revealed what her power was: Don’t rumor Reginald Hargreeves

and yes i do believe that this lesson was hammered home with pain the first time Allison opened her mouth to her father and “I heard -” came out of it. You don’t rumor Dad, or else it isn’t going to be Klaus who has the story about the broken jaw being wired shut (maybe it doesn’t even have to be broken)

and since Grace is a robot i don’t think she’s capable of being rumored, and so there’s that threat hanging over Allison’s head when Grace shows up. He made Grace to deal with Vanya’s powers, but he’s always been a multitasker. If it’s discovered that Reginald has been rumored, he has a backup immune to her powers to punish her.

Allison, as a child and definitely to some extent as an adult, is manipulative. She knows how to get what she wants, and she knows that she wants to be safe. Which is part of the reason, I think, she latched onto Luther the way she did instead of any of her other brothers. Luther was the golden child, their leader - he a) had at least some level of their father’s favor and was the most likely person in the family to be able to stay his hand should something happen and b) was in charge of the mission and as such could have Allison take the safer or less gross jobs as he’d want to protect her

I mean, I definitely think she was genuinely fond of him from the start and everything, but those calculations definitely factored in with why exactly she started to favor him so blatantly over the rest of her siblings

i think she was pretty content with her life right up until she saw her first movie or flipped open a magazine and saw glamorous actors and actresses and was like “i want that. i want to do that. i want to be at the top of the food chain where no one can hurt me or order me ever again, and i have all the power” because Reginald is pretty much the only one she’ll take orders from, though she does accept Luther’s orders more often than not (she has rumored her siblings before without a single ounce of guilt - in fact, rumoring her siblings used to be a part of her training until it got dangerous)

so when she leaves home, she does so glamorously already with a lead role waiting for her that she may or may not have rumored her way into getting. the world may never know.

and she keeps going. she needs some rumors, doesn’t need others, because Allison genuinely is a very good little actress. She’s been playing manipulation and walking the line her entire life, she’s good and that deserves to be recognized

and then she meets patrick

and she falls in love

and it’s real. I don’t think she rumored Patrick (I think that little ‘I heard a rumor you loved me’ thing was a nod to the comics, where Allison rumored Luther into loving her. The wording is loose and almost naive, she doesn’t specify romantic or platonic or familial or whatever love idk) I think she actually did her level best to NOT rumor patrick

because at the end of the day what Allison craves above all else is something real 

so she falls in love with patrick. they date. it’s hard, because it’s one of the first times that she actually has to make an effort. And Patrick is charmed by that! He thinks she’s wonderful, and Allison undertakes her biggest role yet: making herself the perfect romantic partner for Patrick. Because she loves him, and she doesn’t want to lose him, and she doesn’t want to take the chance that all her jagged broken edges and childhood trauma would scare him off

and they get married, and allison doesn’t invite her siblings because she’s still scared he’ll see how broken she is from her childhood and her broken siblings and want to call the whole thing off or something i don’t know. but she doesn’t invite them. it’s a big huge wedding, and some of them send her congratulations and everything, but none of them come. She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken

and then she has Claire! Beautiful magnificent Claire, and Allison loves her so much her breath is stolen away at times. But she’s not good with Claire the way Patrick is, she panics when Claire cries and doesn’t know what the different cries mean. She goes to mothering classes and feels like the worst person in the world because it doesn’t come naturally to her, and if it doesn’t come naturally does that make her a bad mother?

But Claire grows up, and Allison gets more and more stressed about her worth as a mother because the only parental figures she had were: Grace, a literal robot who never got tired, never got angry, and was literally programmed to be the perfect mother for them all. and Reginald, who ruled the house with an iron fist and ignored her on the best of days and paid far too much attention to her on the worst and she constantly wavered between wanting both of those things.

and she didn’t tell patrick about any of that, so he’s oblivious to her growing distress because god damn none of the Hargreeves excel in communication 

the first time Allison rumors Claire all she can feel is guilty relief. Because Claire is happily playing with no sign of the tantrum she was about to throw and Allison is frazzled because she’s trying to deal with being a mother on top of not giving up her acting career and she’s tired and stressed and doesn’t feel like she can talk to patrick about it because the last time they talked he suggested she take a break from her career and she needs her career and just - 

She only does it a few times. Not many. Not enough that she thinks it warrants an intervention or anything - just when Claire is being so difficult and Allison is so tired and - 

(she maybe does it more than a few times)

and Patrick finds out. And they have a big fucking row over it. and Allison promises not to do it again because she loves Patrick (Patrick asks Allison with betrayed eyes if she ever rumored him and she can proudly tell him no but - he looks at her and she realizes that he doesn’t believe her and that hurts unbelievably a lot)

and she manages, for months, to not do it. To deal with Claire’s screaming tantrums and not rumor her. And it’s HARD

but then she’s reading Claire a story, and Allison is so tired and strung out, and Claire is demanding another story and won’t go to sleep and it just - it slips out. A habit she’s trying to train herself out of. And of course the one time she slips up Patrick is right there and - 

They’re getting divorced. They’re getting divorced and Patrick wants full custody of Claire - he says he doesn’t trust her around her own daughter anymore. And it would be so easy to rumor him, to make all of this go away but - isn’t that what got her into this mess? The fact that her go-to solution is rumoring whatever she doesn’t like? She accepts the judge’s decision. She goes to the therapy. She works on being able to get back to her daughter.

then reggie dies and the whole thing happens and Allison goes home and

suddenly the goal of being a good mother mixes with learning what a good family looks like and so Allison decides she’s going to make an effort and be a good sister for Vanya. And old habits are so easy to fall into (she snaps at Allison when the wound of Patrick not letting her speak to Claire is still so raw, falls back and aims at the weakest target to make herself feel better and she hates herself for it) but she vows to do better

this got really long so i’ll cut it off here but if u want more like,, present day or no apocalypse allison or her relationships with her sibs feel free to ask for those this was just mainly aimed at before canon Allison lmao

#ask me #heavenisacafe #all such great questions!! #i don't know the answer but good questions to ask nonetheless! #tua #the umbrella academy #allison hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #luther hargreeves #tua patrick #tua claire #claire hargreeves

[biggreenneatbox]

RWBY Sexuality Headcanons

Fuck it; 2018 is rounding off, I’m a lottle drunk and I remembered saying something on @ladyvallhalla‘s Twiiter post. Let’s expand, shall we?

These are my personal headcanons for characters’ sexualities in RWBY, and the ones I often drift to. I’m branching a little bit from the main four but point’s the same throughout

Fisrt, a disclaimer - I really enjoy | OmegaInfinity |’s story “Linked in Life and Love” on Fanfiction.net. In it, the use of Mate Marks is explored, where Faunus can mark their partner(s) and various things occur.  Ever since then, I see ALL Faunus as Bisexual (I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll explore and explain that in a bit). Some prefer one gender over another, but most would happily join in a polyship if their partner so wanted. There are some exceptions, like Adam because fuck Adam with everything sharp, poisonous and deadly in this world and the next!  So, all Faunus will have an * next to their name, to denote that all of them are Bisexual to an extent, and that this is what I HC them as displaying most of the time.

Ruby Rose

Asexual

Our Silver Eyed Cinnamon Bun doesn’t really care for anything like that. She loves weapons, and she wants to protect her friends. As time progresses, that doesn’t change and that’s just who she is.

If I was forced to put her with anyone, I’d say Oscar due to their similar-ish ages (ignoring one huge outlier in the boy’s head). But honestly, Ruby saw someone younger tagging along. This is the first time since attending Beacon that she has actually had a chance to lead someone who hasn’t had as much world experience as her. She jumped at that chance, took him under his wing and gave him the Rose / Xiao Long Hospitality and Big Sis Role that she had grown up experiencing with Yang.

Weiss Schnee

SO tough to decide!

Like, seriously. I put down “Confused” on the original tweet, but with it being a tweet I couldn’t expand on that. 

Weiss has lived a life of luxury, getting what she wants a lot of the time, not being given it if she doesn’t want it. There were a few smaller things she had to do on her Father’s request when she was younger, and she didn’t particularly enjoy that, but she stomached it as best she could to please him.

When she became of age to date, he forced her into it, and she was not happy at all. For a long time, it was shitty suitor after shitty suitor, so she outright denied a lot of people a chance at getting close to her, because they were just what Jacques wanted.

Neptune comes along, and suddenly there’s someone she finds attractive, but that goes nowhere and she’s at a loss.

It’s only when she has to deal with Shitty Neptune Henry Marigold does she really find that type of person repulsive.

Similarly, when RWBY reunites, she feels love like she has only really felt before in Klein, who loves her like a daughter and because it is his job. This is true, unconditional love, and she doesn’t know what to do. So, she does nothing, and accepts it as what it is.

Blake Belladonna*

Bisexual / Homosexual

Dated Adam (regrets for rest of life) = Likes Guys  In love with Yang = Like Girls Put ‘em together = Bisexual

Though, as mentioned, I’d have to say she leans more towards Homosexual in my mind as tome progresses. Maybe that’s just how much she and Yang seem to gravitate towards each other recently, but I think that there’s really no one else for Blake. 

Yang Xiao Long

Punsexual / Homosexual

Sexually attracted to the greatest pun in the room.  … Providing it was a girl said the pun.

I see Yang as once having aboyfriend at Signal when she was much younger. This was as she was just *ahem* developing, and she soon learnt that boys are idiots who only wanted one thing, especially aat that age. She would have said something and tried to move on, if not for the fact he said things about Ruby. She got detention that day for breaking his noes with a single punch. Tai was secretly pruod. 

That was Yang’s first boyfriend, and one of the soul reasons she hasn’t had a second. Non eof the girls said things to Ruby.

Speaking of, at Beacon with tht one scene EVERYONE seemingly sites as th reason for Yang being bi, yknow “I know I do~”, that’s sisterly banter; it’s a big sister trying to get her younger sibling to interact with others. Plus, Yanf assumed Ruby would be into that. Yang was wrong.

Jaune Arc

Straight 

Stupid and blind, but straight. Took after his big sister saphron in that regard - chasing after the girls ;)

She was better atit though.

Nora Valkyrie 

Rensexual

NOUN: Capable of romantic and sexual feelings towards people of the name “Lie Ren” exclusively.

Seriously, they wewr made for each other. Nora just persues it more, especially in the Poser / Beacon Era of the show.

Though, outside of that, I say she’s actually Pan(cake)sexual. She seems like someone who doesn’t care at all who she’s with, long as they’re both happy.

Pyrrha Nikos

Straight

Same scenarios as Weiss in her childhood and young tennagey ears, though less confused by the end of it.

Pyrrha had a lot going for her with her skill in the arena. As she made tours and attended various promotional events, people tried to woo her. It didn’t work, and she apologised for it. She wasn't in the wrong, she didn’t like disappointing anyone (it became an automatic response as time went on)

Her mother and father weren’t rich like Schnees were, but they had enough. Pyrrha honestly mad e more than them in three tournament wins than they did in the same time, and that’s not including the fourth win under her belt. So people just wanted to be with Pyrrha for the sake of dating a celebrity, rather than dating and marrying Weiss for the position of near uncontested power.

Then Jaune came along, someone who saw Pyrrha Nikos for her, not “Pyrrha ‘The Golden Girl’ Nikos”, or “Four Time Champion, Pyrrha Nikos”, or “the next teenager whose life I’m going to completely tear asunder and condemn to a life of solitude and pain.”

She loved being around him because he was genuine, if a bit slow on noticing. And for those brief final minutes of her life, she was happy to have found him.

Lie Ren

Straight

Nora wont let him be anything else.

Nah, he’s had Nora with him for a very long time, longer than his own parents. They’d technically been dating since they were old enough to know about it. 

Another HC I have about Ren was that he had an endgoal in mind when attending Beacon. The Grimm that killed his parents needed to die. So he became stronger to join Beacon, then deal with it upon graduation. It’s why he held Nora’s hand after Kuroyuri and not vice versa - the thing he’d been after was gone, and a weight was off his shoulders. He didn’t need to worry, and he could live a life again.

Oscar Pine

Straight, BUUUUUUUUUUUUT...

He’s a young child with a man born in the First Age of Humanity locked inside his head.

Ignoring Ozpin’s presence, I’d pair him with Ruby. 

Otherwise, no.

Sun Wukong* / Neptune Vasilias

Straight

I adore Sea Monkeys. It’s a guilty ship of mine. But they’re straight. Sun followed his boner after Blake, and Neptune is a serial flirter. Even with...

Ilia Amitola*

Homosexual

She needed mentioning, for obvious reasons.

Personallu, even with my Faubus HC of them all being Bi still holding fast, Ilia is one of the other canon exceptions to the rule. She really wouldn’t want to be with anyone other than another girl. If push came to shove and she had to be in a poly, lest lose her girlfriend to a man, she would let her date him whilst she herself still dated her, but she would not date him personally.

“I’m Ilia. This is my girlfriend Gretta. And this is Gretta’s boyfriend, David.” This, she’d allow. She wouldn’t enjoy it, but she’d allow it.

Emerald Sustrai 

Straight, yet Bi-Curious

I see it as Emerald not knowing what she is to anyone. She has only let one person really close, and that was Cinder. Cinder treated her like a kid, sure. But growing up without that parental figure made her look up to the Maiden to Be as that sort of figure. As time moved on, Emerald was wondering if these feeling were growing more into something romantic. 

She never acted on those feelings in case things went south and that was Cinder gone from her ife forever or her own life gone forever. Still, she is unsure. Even now, as SPOILERS HERE, CANNOT WRITE

Cinder Fall

Sorry, I just love this GIF, I had to use it.

Whatever she needed to be

It always seemed to me that Cinder would do whatever she wanted or needed to get information. It never seemed below her to use her looks and charm to work her way into where she needed to be. Some dude wanted to turn on the charm? Sure, let’s see what he’ll spill. A woman flirting with her at a bar? Well, if she’s got something of use to her - physical possession or pertinent knowledge - then might as well flirt back.

Honestly, I couldn’t classify her if I tried. I’m sure there’s something that would describe how I think she is. Drunk me doesn't knoe shit.

No romantic connection to anyone, but will seek a sexual partner of either gender if the need arises.

Aaand, that’s everyone I care about writing this for.

Have a happy new Year y’all!

#rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #Team RWBY #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #pyrrha nikos #lie ren #Team JNPR #oscar pine #sun wukong #neptune vasilias #ilia amitola #emerald sustrai #cinder fall

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #16: In honour of the next episode of RWBY Volume 5 taking us back to Raven and the Branwen Tribe, I leave the fandom with this curious question to ponder on.

Do you think it’s possible for the Maiden powers to ever reject a host?

This is something that I’ve been curious about in regards to the Maiden powers. So far, this question has been proven false considering that Cinder did successfully manage to acquire the Fall Maiden powers despite taking it by force from its past user after killing her.

Nevertheless, since not a lot is known about how the succession of the Maiden powers work, this leaves a lot of leeway and opportunities left for speculation. Personally, I wonder if there is a specific trait or rule to one gaining the Maiden powers. I know there’s the one where the power can be passed on to a person who the past Maiden was close to or at least was in their thoughts last before passing on. But is there more to it than that? I ask this cause up until this point, this particular knowledge of the Maiden powers succession has been working in the villain’s favour so far.

The evil baddies want the Magic of the Maidens to attain the relics. Fine. Just hunt them all down one by one, kill them and just make sure that one of your female lackeys are standing ripped and ready to take it. 

I found it interesting the way how Cinder used a particular kind of Grimm (one that resembled a spider if my memory serves correctly) to steal the Fall Maiden, Amber’s power or at least some of it. It makes me wonder if it wasn’t for the fact that Cinder had successfully retrieved a portion of Amber’s power forcing the rest of it to go to her, would it have been possible for the power to reject her.

Is it possible for the Maiden’s magic to reject its user, thus destroying or at least physically impairing the unworthy ones in the process? 

I ask this because I’m curious to see just how Salem and her forces plan on taking the remaining Maiden powers; not just to see their methods but mostly to see who is going to be the vessel to harbour such a high potency of magic. As shown in the World of Remnant tale about the Old Hermit Wizard and the First Four Maidens, it is possible for one person to harbour all the powers of the maidens or at least it seems like it.

Before blessing the powers to the first maiden candidates, Ozpin hosted most of the magic in his own body. That means it should be possible for one person to carry the Maiden powers, right?

So, is Salem planning on turning Cinder into this Avatar version of the Four Maidens where instead of separate Maidens, it just all of their magic within one body with the individual being the master of them all? If Salem’s ultimate objective is to turn Cinder into the; I’m just gonna refer to it as the Avatar Maiden, Master of all Four Seasons so that she can have someone who can access the power of the relics under her control then that’d actually be a fascinating addition to the story and would certainly add more intimidation to Cinder’s character and role in the series.

However, herein lies one potential underlying flaw. Cinder herself. This is why I ask the question of if the Maiden magic can reject a user. What if...Cinder and the gang attempt to take the Spring Maiden’s power by force, the same way they did with Fall. The interesting countering twist this time is that the power ends up full on rejecting whoever is forced to be its next successor. Amongst the villain ranks, this could be either Emerald or Cinder.

Either way, what if...Team CMEW attempt the steal the Spring Maiden’s power and it fails completely. In order for the Spring Maiden power to be obtained, this would disappointingly mean losing Vernal. 

This is sad for me because I quite like Vernal. Don’t know much more about her character as yet but I’d like to. I certainly like her character design and the interest to learn of her story and see her fleshed out is there.

She’d have to get in line behind Oscar Pine but I genuinely want to know more about Vernal beyond her Maiden title. I’m praying this time around viewers do get to actually know the current Spring Maiden before her so-called inevitable fate to die for her powers. I’m definitely hoping it’s not gonna be a running gag where the Maidens are only there to be axed off immediately and since we never got to learn about Amber beyond the fact that Lionheart said she was inexperienced as a Maiden, I hope that we do get to learn a bit more about Vernal.

If she is to survive, let her last for at least another season and even be instrumental in the potential Victory for Haven.

I’d like to see Vernal and Yang somehow bond like sisters too or at least have a friendship or respectful comradery. They both share close relations with Raven that could be presumed as mother-daughter. As I made mention in my ♦last musing, I pegged Vernal to have a somewhat child-parent relationship with Raven.

The concept of her also having a romantic bond to Raven is still on the table though. After all, we don’t know how old Vernal was when she became a Maiden nor how much time she’s been in the Branwen Tribe since she was taken in.

We don’t even know how old Vernal is now. Since the RWBY models for female characters are ambiguous when it comes to guessing a characters true age, I’m going to assume that Vernal could possibly be in her early twenties (19-22).

She definitely strikes me as being over or at least the age of eighteen. Either way, she’s legal...I guess. So if the CRWBY did go in that direction for their relationship, I guess I can see it happening, perhaps.

Y’know like Slade/Deathstroke and Terra from DC Teen Titans: The Judas Contract only less...fucked up messy.  Or a better example Batman and Batgirl in some versions of the story where they were actual a couple despite the age difference and the fact that some fans have always mostly viewed Batman as a mentor character to Batgirl (I’m looking at you The Killing Joke).

I’m neither saying that this is true nor am I saying that I ship it (I more favour the mother-daughter relationship for Vernal and Raven better). I’m just saying it’s possible  Ruling out all the cards here guys.

There is no doubt in my mind that of all the bandits in the Branwen Tribe, Vernal is closest to Raven. She seems to be one of her most trusted allies. Maybe even her second in command. She certainly has the authority as evidenced in Chapter 3 of Volume 5.

But if Vernal is sadly to be taken down, I hope her sacrifice would not be in vain. As a matter of fact, if the CRWBY writers do intend on not allowing Vernal to last another season, I’d like to see two things happen.

Firstly, let her go out like a badass. If a full-on brawl between Maidens is to occur in the next episode or at any point in the future, I can definitely see Vernal having the upper hand, not just because she has Raven and the entire Branwen Tribe on her side but mostly because she has had way more time and experience mastering the use of her powers than Cinder (which I imagine would be a pleasant shocker to our one-eyed Fall Maiden).

But if for some reason, Cinder does overpower Vernal or use some sneaky underhanded tactic to force her to submit to her powers being stolen, this brings me to my second want.

In a surprising twist of events, let the Spring Maiden power go to Raven. I can see this being a huge possibility because of what Qrow informed Team RNJR back in Volume 4. According to Qrow, the Maiden power will go to whoever was closest to a Maiden or was in their thoughts last upon their deaths. If Raven and Vernal are indeed close, it would make sense that her powers would go to her.

I would very much love to see this happen because not only would it be a great way to integrate Raven into the main cast with the chance to develop her side of the story beyond the title that she’s the proclaimed bad mother to Yang, but it would be a huge metaphorical middle finger to Salem and her forces.

You thought you could just saunter into the Branwen Tribe, kick everyone’s asses, disrespect their leader and steal the Spring Maiden’s power? Well jokes on you. Spring chose a bird to be the next Maiden.

Spring would chose Raven and I would not be shocked if this is something Raven has prepared for beforehand. Unless it’s a twist within a twist that Raven wasn’t expecting for Vernal to die nor for her to become so attached to the young girl.

Making Raven the new Spring Maiden succeeding Vernal would be great because it would mean she’ll have to be protected by the main team. She’ll probably wish to run away but I can imagine Qrow convincing her to stay where she can be protected which would add for some glorious Branwen Siblings conflict and resolution.

It would give Raven and opportunity to grow close to Yang since she’ll have to protect her now; healing that wound with time.

It would also mean a very awkward reunion with Ozpin, finally cracking open that delightful can of worms that is their past history together.

It can also open the door for an example where a Maiden successor did not want her power and responsibility. Yes Vernal ran away but initially she did accept her role as the Spring Maiden.

If Raven is forced to be the new Spring Maiden without knowing that Vernal had already chosen her a long time ago, it would be funny because then Raven would be like Ozpin. Cursed with powers and responsibilities that she was forced to receive (the Spring Maiden powers) because she failed to stop something in the past (the Death of Vernal) and now she’ll have no choice but to live with that curse; the only freedom being in death.

And even then, she can’t bring herself to accept death because if she died, how else was she going to get vengeance and justice for her fallen comrade.  

But that’s just a hunch. Who knows what’s to come for the remainder of this volume, much less the rest of RWBY.

I’m not even sure how tomorrow’s episode will play off.

Beyond my continuing aspiration and episodic campaign for Oscar to get more screen-time and development as HIMSELF AND NOT OZCAR (seriously it’s been THREE BLOODY episodes now. COME ON CRWBY! GIVE BEST FARM BOI SOME DEVELOPMENT WHILE THE SEASON IS STILL YOUNG) I don’t know what to expect from Chapter 9 other than it focusing on Raven’s group for most of it. However, I still stand by my hunch from last time that I want Raven to be captured by Cinder and her posse and used as leverage to lure out, not just the Spring Maiden but also the Mistral Team.

I also still stand by my previous hunch that in the event of Raven being abducted, she’d make sure to send Vernal safely to Mistrel into the arms of Qrow. I want a rescue mission to save Raven because this would prompt Yang having to save her mother which would be a lovely parallel to what Raven told Qrow in Volume 4.

Raven told Qrow that her promise was to save and/or protect Yang once. That was her deal. She’d continue to watch over her from afar but would only intervene to protect her life once which she already did way back in Volume 3 against Neo. If Raven needs to be saved, I can definitely see Yang dealing her mother the same hand. She saved her once and now it’s Yang’s turn to save her once, that way they’d be even.  

Yang would probably save Raven and then totally revert back to hating or at least not liking her guts afterwards but at least Raven would be safe and might even be proud of and respect her daughter and her strength afterwards.

It’s funny though. Yang probably figures she needed her mom in her life to make her strong, failing to realize the true meaning behind why her mother left. I wonder what kind of person Yang would’ve been if Raven was more present in her life.

I’d imagine it would’ve gone like that one alternate reality episode of Grey’s Anatomy where Meredith dreamt how her life would’ve gone if her mother had been happy and it turned out to be not as great as she expected.

Maybe Yang would’ve been a power-hungry huntress obsessed more with strength than compassion if she was raised by Raven. Tai Yang did say that Yang possessed some of her mother’s qualities so if Raven had decided to take Yang and raise her in the Branwen Tribe rather than leave her behind with her father, not only would Yang have possibly turned out more like Raven but she would’ve never had her close relationship with her sister Ruby.

We’ve seen how great of an influence Yang is on Ruby’s life and how deep their sisterly/family bond goes. We’ve seen how devoted Yang is to her family, particularly her little sister. If Raven had raised her, Yang might not have been who she is now. Maybe it’s for that very reason Raven why left her behind.

She didn’t want to raise another version of herself, thriving on the same things that drove her down a rather grim path. Raven didn’t want Yang to become more susceptible to making the same mistakes Raven made and are still paying the price for.

While Episode 6 of Volume 5 made it seem as if Raven thinks very little of Tai Yang, that doesn’t change the fact that once upon a time, she did believe he possessed certain good qualities.

Good qualities that she not only fell in love with him for but also wished for him to instil in their daughter.

Sure Raven left for her own reasons but, why would she leave Yang with Tai if she didn’t think she would be better off with him? Yes, Yang eventually had to take the reins and help raise Ruby after Summer left and Tai became somewhat distant with work but before all that happened, Yang was admittedly in better hands. She was in a family among people who loved her and cared for her and valued things like trust, empathy and compassion with strength being secondary; values I don’t think are a core aspect of the culture in the Branwen Tribe. Doesn’t seem that way to me. Call her a bad mom as much as you want but, Raven doesn’t strike me as the type to just abandon Yang with her father if she didn’t think he was good enough or trustworthy. 

After all, if that’s the case then why is he still one of her very few close bonds even after all these years of separation?

Maybe that was Raven’s intention all along.

But, what do I know? I’m just a fan with some musings. Dunno what’s to come in the story tomorrow but like always, I’m uber excited.

That being said, see you all in RWBY Volume 5: Chapter 9!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)

#rwby #rwby volume 5 #cinder fall #rwby vernal #raven branwen #rwby theories #rwby musings #rwby volume 5 chapter 9

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior for January 10, 2020 – 1917, Like A Boss, Just Mercy, Underwater

Well, it looks like we’re back to the usual business now that it’s 2020 with the first weekend with four wide releases – two new movies and two expanding after opening in limited release over Christmas. I’m running a little behind on this so I’ll work on finishing a few reviews before Friday but for now, you can just get a general idea of what’s coming out so you can make some moviegoing plans.

The big movie that I’m most excited for people to see is Sam Mendes’ WWI epic 1917 (Universal), starring George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman as two soldiers sent on an urgent but dangerous mission to the frontlines to prevent an invasion that could leave thousands of British soldiers dead. It’s one of the most exciting movies I saw last year, which is why it ended up on my Top 25 at #2. I already reviewed the movie for ComingSoon.net and did some interviews for VitalThrills.com, so I probably don’t have a ton more to say about it, but it is the one movie I can recommend whole-heartedly this weekend. It is easily one of the best movies I saw last year (twice!)

This weekend also brings the high-concept R-rated comedy LIKE A BOSS (Paramount), which pairs Rose Byrne with Tiffany Haddish and Salma Hayek, three very funny women and great actors in a movie directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl). Essentially, Byrne and Haddish play long-time besties who have been building a small grassroots make-up company and then Hayek comes along as a huge corporate mogul who wants to buy them out who makes a deal that will allow her to get a larger percentage if the two friends break up. You can probably guess the rest. (My review will be posted later tonight since it’s under embargo.)

Mini-Review: It was almost immediately apparent as Like a Boss began that this movie wasn’t going to be for me. It wasn’t the premise or the characters as much as it was the fact that it expects the viewer to be somewhat savvy about the make-up business, something I know (and care) little about.

Byrne and Haddish play best friends Mel and Mia, who have turned their shared love of make-up into a thriving local business that gets the attention of Salma Hayek’s Claire Luna, a big-shot exec at a corporation who wants to buy a stake in their business but with a catch. If for some reason the friends break-up, Luna gets the majority share of the company. This is literally the difference between a 51% and a 49% stake… so not really that big a deal.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this because there’s so much talent involved that generally deserves better, but Haddish has yet to deliver anything on par with her Girls Trip role, and that doesn’t change here. Mind you, I’ve been a big Rose Byrne fan for quite some time, and she’s really been great in movies that allow her to go between humor and drama, but it feels as if she’s trying way too hard to keep up with Haddish, who has actually toned back her character to be more of a 4 or 5 on the Haddish scale.

Jennifer Coolidge seems to be doing the exact same thing she’s done in everything from Legally Blonde to Two Broke Girls, basically acting like a dimwit, and it’s a shame because it’s not really a good part. There’s also Mel and Mia’s three best friends who are so useless at bringing anything to the story that it’s unclear why they’re in the movie at all except to act as a Greek Chorus.  This leaves it up to Billy Porter to steal the movie with but just one scene, and pretty much the only one that delivers a laugh.

I’m not sure if the makers of this movie thought that it would be seen as another pro-feminist movie that women flock to, but the problem might be the simple fact that it’s written and directed by men. That certainly couldn’t have helped, especially since this movie is clearly trying to be another Bridesmaids by pushing the R-rated envelope.

The thing is that if you’re going to make a comedy, you should at least try to make some effort for it to be funny, and the fact that Jennifer Lopez’s Second Act takes place in a similar environment but finds a way to be funnier is telling that Like a Boss just isn’t up to snuff.

It’s doubtful Like A Boss will be anyone’s worst movie of the year, but that’s because it isn’t particularly memorable and will likely be forgotten by February.

Rating: 5/10

Another movie expanding nationwide after a platform release is Dustin Daniel Cretton’s prison drama JUST MERCY (Warner Bros.), which stars Michael B. Jordan as young defense attorney Bryan Stevenson, who finds himself trying to get prisoners on Death Row exonerated. The movie also stars Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillian, a man falsely accused of murder who becomes Bryan’s biggest case to date while Brie Larson plays Eva Ansley, who works with Bryan. I was kind of bored by the movie the first time I saw it, but I gave it another chance recently and generally liked it more, especially towards the last act. I may write a review before Friday if I can find any time but I’m pretty slammed this week.

The last movie of the weekend is actually one I’ve been looking forward to, since the sci-fi thriller UNDERWATER (20th Century Fox) is my kind of movie. It stars Kristen Stewart, Jessica Hardwick (from the Netflix series Iron First), TJ Miller, Vincent Cassell and John Gallagher, Jr. as a team of scientists who are trapped 6 miles below sea level when their station is hit by a catastrophe and they learn that they’re not alone down there. It’s the new movie from William Eubank, a talented filmmaker who I interviewed years agofor his movie The Signal. I’m also still working on my review for this so please check back tonight/tomorrow for it.

Mini-Review:

It’s a bit of a bummer this new undersea horror-thriller probably won’t get a fair shake from critics, because it’s being released in January. Far too many film critics just love their clichés, and when it comes to January movies (other than the ones premiering at Sundance), they expect everything to be horrible. They go in with that thought in mind and then nitpick to make sure they’re theory is right. Maybe it’s true, but it’s also not particularly fair when you have a movie like Underwater that delivers exactly what’s being sold.

The underwater drilling station Kelper rests on the outskirts of the Mariana Trench, and no sooner then we meet Kristen Stewart’s electric engineer Norah, Kepler is hit by a powerful earthquake that tears the station apart, as she and a few of her colleagues do what they can to survive. They soon learn that they’re not down there alone.

Yes, the premise is a bit of a horror cliché we’ve seen many times before, mostly in space thrillers like the classic Alien, but director William Eubank (The Signal) clearly has chops to direct a much bigger-scale movie like this that involves a lot of underwater FX-work.

While the dialogue isn’t always great, and the attempt to make TJ Miller the film’s comic relief doesn’t always work, you generally like the characters played by Stewart, Hardwick, Cassell and Gallagher, which tends to be half the battle when it comes to horror films.  You actually care about them as they face bigger and bigger jeopardy.

I’m sure some women will take issue with Stewart spending a good portion of the movie in a skimpy bathing suit, as soon as she’s out of the bulky deepsea suit she wears for the rest of the movie, but you won’t hear any complaints from me about that.

Like I said, the movie gives you exactly what is being advertised and Eubank has created a movie that’s suitably claustrophobic and at times, legitimately terrifying.

Rating: 7/10

LIMITED RELEASES

The movie opening in limited release that I can recommend highly is Ladj Li’s police thriller LES MISERABLES (Amazon Studios), an amazing police thriller about a group of French detectives trying to deal with issues taking place at the local projects. I thought this French film (France’s shortlisted selection for the Oscar “International Film” category) was fantastic and shows a promising new talent in Li, who wrote and directed the film. If it’s playing in your area, I recommend checking it out, although I’m guessing it will be on Amazon Prime sometime soon as well.

I haven’t seen Jon Avnet’s THREE CHRISTS (IFC FIlms), which has Richard Gere playing Dr. Alan Stone, a psychiatrist in charge of dealing with three schizophrenic patients who all believe they’re Jesus Christ, as played by Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins and Bradley Whitford. It will open in select cities and On Demand shortly after.

Opening Friday in the States roughly eight months after it opened in the United Kingdom is Ron Scalpello’s crime-thriller THE CORRUPTED (Saban Films), starring Sam Claflin as Liam, an ex-con trying to win back the love of his family, while trying to get out of the tangled web of corruption surrounding him. The movie also stars Timothy Spall, Hugh Bonneville and Charlie Murphy.

Josh Hartnett and Margarita Levieva star in Anthony Jerjen’s Inherit the Viper (Lionsgate), playing siblings Kip and Josie, who are dealing in opioids as their only means of survival.  Kip’s attempts to get out of the family business put him and his sister and younger brother (Owen Teague) in danger. it will open in select cities and On Demand.

Ofra Bloch’s documentary Afterward (1091) debuted at DOC-NYC last year with its look at the issues between Israel and Palestine that came out of the Jews being driven out of Germany during World War II and settling in Israel where they were seen as an enemy by the Palestinians, while trying to give and receive forgiveness. This is a fantastic doc that will open on Friday and then be on VOD January 28.

Alison Reid’s doc The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber) is a little more obvious what it’s about, as it follows Anne Innis Dagg’s solo journey to South Africa in 1956 to study giraffes, featuring voicework by Tatiana Maslany, Victor Garber and more. It opens at New York’s Quad Cinema on Friday and at the Laemmle in Los Angeles on February 21.

Opening today at the Film Forumin New York is Renaud Barret’s doc System K (Artification Release), which looks at the city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the street artist performance scene that criticizes government corruption and the poverty that has struck the area.

The Sonata (Screen Media) stars Freya Tingley as a virtuoso violinist who inherits the mansion of her composer father (the late Rutger Hauer) after his sudden death, where she discovers a mysterious score with strange symbols that she tries to decipher with her agent and manager (Simon Abkarian).

This week’s Bollywood offering is Meghna Gulzar’s Chaapaak (FIP), starring Deepika Padukone as a woman attacked with acid in New Delhi in 2005 and how she survived it.

REPERTORY

It’s a new year so we’re back with more cool repertory stuff!

METROGRAPH (NYC):

My favorite local rep theater is beginning with two movies by Your Name and Weathering with You director Makoto Shinkai: 2007’s 5 Centimeters per Second and 2011’s Children Who Chase Lost Voices. On Saturday night, the Academy is back at the Metrograph screening Lina Wermüller’s 1976 movie Seven Beauties. Also on Thursday, you can see two “Metrograph Standards,” Jack Hazan’s A Bigger Splash (1974) and Edo Bertoglio’s Downtown 81. Welcome To Metrograph: Reduxwill screen Richard Quine’s 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle, Late Nites at Metrograph will screen Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low  (1963) while the Playtime: Family Matinees  selection is Danny Devito’s Matilda from 1996.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Folllowing up FilmLinc’s amazing Korean cinema series from last year, this week, they’re doing a special “The Bong Show” retrospective, highlighting the work of soon-to-be Oscar nominee Bong Joon-Ho, as well as other related films with Director Bong in person for some of them. It runs through January 14 and besides all of his feature films, there will be a showing of all his shorts on Friday night, January 10, as well as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure  (1997), Deliverance (1972), Intentions of Murder (1964), John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966), John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and more.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday “is the 1984 Supergirl movie, starring Helen Slater, which is almost sold out. Thursday’s “Cherry Bomb” pick is the 1988 film Shy People. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the horror classic Ghoulies (1984) and “Weird Wednesday” is Tarsem’s The Fall, the latter hosted by Vaiance Films founder Dylan Marchetti.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Today’s “Afternoon Classics” matinee is Norman Jewison’s 1967 film In the Heat of the Night, while the Weds./Thurs night double feature is Secret Ceremony and Boom!, both from 1968, both starring Elizabeth Taylor. Friday’s “Freaky Friday” is the 1985 film Re-Animator, while Tarantino’s own Django Unchained is the Friday midnight movie. This weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is the Studio Ghibli film Ponyo, while the “Cartoon Club” is also running this weekend. The Saturday midnight movie is Martin Scorsese’s classic Taxi Driver  (1976). Monday’s “Monday Matinees” is the Stephen King adaptation Misery (1990), while the double feature running from Monday through Thursday are newer films, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguilded from 2017, both in 35mm.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

On Wednesday, Film Forum will begin screening a 4k restoration of Russian filmmaker István Szabó’s Mephisto (1981) along with screenings of his other movies, Confidence (1980) and Colonel Redl (1985).  This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is one of my all-time favorite comedies, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot(1959), starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Apparently, the Egyptian now has two theaters? Sweet! As part of the theater’s “New Year’s Resolutions” its screening the 1993 horror anthology, Necronomicon: The Book of the Dead on Friday in the Spielberg Theater, followed at 10pm by Roar (1981). The Egyptian’s usual theater will screen a double feature of Airplane! (1980) and Stripes  (1981) on Friday. On Saturday, you can see Pacino in Scarface (1983), the sci-fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and Terrence Young’s Valley of the Eagles (1951) with an introduction by Joe Dante (schedule-permitting).  Also on Saturday night is a double feature of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Other (1972). Sunday’s “New Year’s Resolution” is “Get More Sleep!” in the form of Akira Kurosawa’s later film Dreams (1990), plus you can also see a 35mm print of The Blue Angel (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich as part of the theater’s “Sunday Print Edition.” Sunday’s New Year’s Resolution is Deliverance (1971)andWake in Fright (1972).

AERO  (LA):

As part of the series “The Films of Marty and Bob, the Aero will screen a matinee of Taxi Driver (1976) on Thursday – two days before the Alamo. (Oops!) Thursday night is a double feature of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 film All That Heaven Allows and Fassbinder’s 1974 film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Friday begins an “All About Almodóvar” series with a double feature of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown  (1988) and All About My Mother (1999), Saturday is Bad Education (2004) and Talk to Her (2002) then Sunday is some of the filmmaker’s earlier work, The Law of Desire (1987) and Matador (1986).

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

This weekend, the Quad will screen four movies by Bernard-Henri Lévy: 2012’s The Oath of Tobruk, a double feature of Peshmerga and The Battle of Mosul, and Bosna! With an introduction by Lévy. Sorry, but I’m not really familiar with his work enough to elaborate. 

MOMA  (NYC):

The Museum of Modern Art has started a new series called “Show Me Love: International Teen Cinema” running through January 19 with some interesting selections including Diane Kurys’ 1977 film Peppermint Soda, Greg Araki’s 1993 filmTotally Fucked Up, Satyajit Ray’s Teen Kanya (Two Daughters) (1961) and more.  Another series that will run through February is Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon, which will show some of the comedic actor’s best movies, including 1963’s Irma La Douce on Wednesday, Blake Edwards’ Days of Wine and Roses (1962) on Thursday, George Cuckor’s It Should Happen to You from 1954) this Friday. (Most of the movies will be repeated later in the series.) Tuesday’s matinee returns to “The Films of Marty and Bob” with New York, New York(1977).

IFC CENTER (NYC)

The IFC Center is in the middle of a comprehensive “Films of Studio Ghibli” series with a bunch of Studio Ghibli animated films, which will run through next week, as will the 75thanniversary digital restoration of the cinema classic Casablanca. This week’s Late Night Favorite selections are David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI is in the midst of a “Curators’ Choice 2019” made up mostly of new movies vs. repertory stuff. Saturday will be a tribute to the late Carol Spinney with a screening of the 2014 doc I Am Big Bird.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

The Nicolas Cage love continues with the 1997 action movie Con Air.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday’s midnight movie is Rene Laloux’s 1973 animated familyFantastic Planet.

Next week, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are reunited for Bad Boys for Life, taking on Robert Downey Jr. as (Doctor) Dolittle.

#TheWeekendWarrior movies Reviews 1917 JustMercy Underwater LikeABoss repertory

[avaalons]

Chris Evans Fic: Disney Princess Series Part 2 (Reality)

Sequel time! This is a sequel to Disney Princess Obsession, requested by the lovely @pegasusdragontiger, who wanted Chris and Sleeping Beauty to be reunited: “Sequel to Princess Obsession, She is cast in the next Avengers movie with Chris they are awkward and flirty with each other and do interviews together to promote the movie. In an interview the interviewer ask’s their favourite part or ride in Disneyland Chris of course answers as dot he fellow cast mates and everyone looks to her and she say’s she hasn’t been to Disneyland everyone ask’s why said well 1)her family never had the money and the other she hasn’t had time and Chris desides to take.”

***

So, I’ve got to ask, how has working together been since Chris’ epic humiliation after the Oscars?

‘Really dude? We’re really going to go here again?’ Flushed pink tinged Chris cheeks as he barked out an embarrassed laugh. It had taken weeks and weeks of hardcore charm offensive from him for you to drop your guard around him after his put his foot and most of his leg in his mouth when he met you on the press line at the Academy Awards, and then again when he was asked about you in an interview. And now in every interview on this fucking press tour, his massive blunder was brought up time after time.

You’d been polite of course, from the moment you met him. You’d taken a deep breath, pushed your shoulders back and, when he walked into the room for your introduction, you stuck out your hand politely and addressed him as Mr Evans. You were going to be working together for the best part of the next twelve months and you wanted to set very clear boundaries from the start. His bright expression had fallen a fraction but he had recovered quickly, shook your hand warmly, closing his free hand over yours, sandwiching your dainty fingers between his palms.

‘Please, its Chris,’ he’d said, ‘And I just wanted to say that I am beyond sorry for…’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it! I found it funny, honestly. Nothing to worry about.’

You’d cut him off quickly with a smile and a wave of your hand, your other one still snug in his fingers. You absolutely did not want to listen to an apology for his comments. You hadn’t been offended when you heard about it. You’d been flattered even! He seemed like a nice guy, friendly and open, and that was difficult to come by in your line of work. But this movie was a huge win for you and you would be doing everything in your power to ensure your time on the movie was a success. And that meant keeping Chris Evans, his blue eyes, dazzling smile and warm hands at arm’s length and then some. Right after he let you go. Any second now.

He did, eventually, after a few more absent-minded gentle shakes and a slightly awkward silence, let you go with an ‘okay then,’ and a ‘let’s get started shall we?’

And it had been fine, really. The cast were close and you were made to feel nothing but welcome. After a few weeks, you couldn’t help but defrost a little bit, swept up as you were in the easy atmosphere and natural banter that flowed between them all. You and Chris had found an easy rhythm and, dare you say it, had developed something resembling a friendship. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but that was fine by you. It was safe and you weren’t doing anything to make anyone question your professionalism.

But these interviews were getting on your last nerve. You felt for Chris, he was the one getting the brunt of the humiliation of course, but he bore it well. He laughed it off every time, talked about how professional you both were and how you had graciously accepted his apology. A couple of times, he’d even offered you a fist bump as a show of camaraderie and to make it clear to anyone watching that his verbal eruption had resulted in only friendship.

You were irritated though. There were six other cast members on this particular interview and it must have been annoying for them as well. This must have been the seventh or eighth time this question had come up and it really had nothing to do with anything. So you brightened your smile, leaned forward on to rest your chin on your curled fingers coquettishly and turned your attention to the interviewer.

‘Working together has been brilliant! He’s a funny, intelligent, very sensitive guy, not to mention he’s fairly easy on the eye right?’ At this, you held out your palms and gave a exaggerated wink to the camera for good measure, 'I mean, what girl on this planet wouldn’t be beside themselves if they heard the Chris Evans talking about her like that? And, as it turned out, it was a great ice breaker when we officially met for work for the first time.’

A chiming laugh and an affectionate light punch against Chris’ shoulder completed your scene perfectly and everyone in the room laughed along with you. Once you knew you had the interviewer and other press people on side, you cast a subtle glance in Chris’ direction and he gave you an equally subtle smile. He appreciated the intervention and the interview could move on.

Okay, next question. So, let’s talk everyone’s favourite subject - Disney. We’re all familiar with Disney parks right? So what’s your favourite Disney theme park ride?

You waited patiently as your fellow cast mates answered, sometimes debating, or bringing a lesser known or forgotten ride to mind. You stayed quiet until Chris turned to you.

'And what about you, what’s your favourite ride?’

You stalled slightly, unsure of the best way to respond without starting a pity party.

'Unbelievable I know but I’ve actually never been to Disney! So, honestly, I wouldn’t know.’

Chris’ mouth dropped open, 'What?! You were a Disney Princess! How can you have never been to Disney? Were you born an adult and skipped being a kid altogether.’

'Oh, you know, we just lived a long way from a park and… we just didn’t manage to get to one,’ you shrugged like it was no big deal, wishing the questions would move on.

Chris placed a hand against his chest dramatically, pretending to be speechless as he drew laughs from everyone in the room. You laughed along too.

'Really Chris? It’s not a thing. Lots of people have never been to Disney.’

'We’re going. You. Me. Hardcore Disney park visiting. I’m gonna get you some Mickey Mouse ears and make you go on every ride, make you queue up for photos with characters, eat in every country’s restaurant in Epcot. It’s going to be amazing.’

Everyone continued to laugh at his enthusiasm and ridiculousness and he placed his hand on your shoulder, almost as if making a deal. You thought he might have noticed your discomfort because he moved the interview on pretty quickly after that, keeping the attention on him and away from you.

Eventually, the day came to an end and you could all retire back to your hotels to freshen up before dinner. As you were striding through the halls, you heard a voice behind you.

'Hey, wait up!’

You span around to see Chris approaching you with a light jog.

'Everything okay?’ You paused your walk and waited rfor him.

'That thing about Disney before. Why have you never been? Really?’

You shrugged, 'There’s no big mystery here Chris, my family just couldn’t afford it. I have loads of siblings and there’s no away my parents could have got us all there. I used to watch the tv ads but I got over it. Grew out of it.’

Chris was quiet for a beat and he leaned against the wall with his shoulder, tucking one foot behind the other. You wondered if you’d made him uncomfortable. You had reached a level of friendliness but you weren’t really at the sharing stage.

Eventually though, he found his words, 'You don’t ever grow out of Disney, I promise. I already spoke to my mom. You are officially invited on the trip.’

That really threw you, 'Chris! I can’t go on your family trip! It’s a family trip for a reason.’

You’d met some of his family members briefly during shooting when they would visit but you’d had certainly not spent enough time with them to be invited on their annual trip.

'Unfortunately, now the whole of the clan know that you have never experienced the wonder of Disney, they won’t let me go without you sooooo… if you don’t go, I don’t get to go either. And that would really break my heart,’ there was that easy smile. You needed to be careful.

'Chris… this is too much. What will people think? It’s not like we can wander around under cover. You’re not exactly inconspicuous.’

Chris just laughed, 'Sweetheart, if I cared what people thought, I’d never open my damn mouth, as well we both know. So, of course I’m not going to kidnap you and throw you on a plane, but I really do think you should experience Disney at least once in your life, and you may as well do it with a bunch of people that are shameless Disney nerds. So, if you’re not doing anything over the holidays, you should come with us. My mom likes having a lot of people around. When I’m a good boy, I get to take a friend.’

His grin was infectious.

You stalled, trying to decide. You felt like you were on the edge of cliff and one good shove was going to send you plummeting. This was everything you said you wouldn’t do. More than you said you wouldn’t do, in fact. Much more. This would force this professional friendship you had into something resembling a real, outside-of-work relationship. Platonic, of course.

'Don’t take this the wrong way but… this is definitely a friend thing, right?’ You had to maintain some semblance of boundary.

He cocked his head on one side, curiosity etched into his features, 'Of course, unless you…’

He raised an eyebrow and used his index finger to gesture between the two of you.

You instantly wished you hadn’t said anything and as a result, was too hasty in your response, 'What?! No. No! Of course not. No way. Just friends.’

That stupid, curious grin was still dancing on his lips, 'Just friends, right. But this means you’ll come with us, yes? I assume that there’s no reason for you to refuse since we’ve established that we are just friends.’

You’d been backed into a corner, you’d realised. Now, if you refused, it would seem like it was because you had feelings for him or something.

'Yeah. Yes. Okay, that would be really great. Thank you. For inviting me. And thank your mom too. Just let me know when I need to be there and I’ll sort my air travel and hotels and… stuff.’ 'Amazing. Best news I’ve had all day! I’ll go message the family group now. Don’t worry about the logistics, you’ll be staying with us anyway. We get a villa. I’ll email you the details,’ he shifted from the wall and made to walk in the direction of his own room, 'I’m excited! I love it when I’m with someone who’s seeing it for the first time.’

'Even when said person is almost 30?’

'Especially then,’ he gave you a slight wink before starting to walk away, one hand tucked in the pocket of his jeans. After a few paces he called out over his shoulder, 'Check your emails in a little while.’

'O-Okay,’ you called back. You still weren’t quite sure what you had agreed to, but there was a smile on your face and your steps felt lighter as you walked back to your room.

And if you did check and refresh your emails every five minutes for the rest of the night, you didn’t beat yourself up about it.

#chris evans #chris evans imagine #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fic #chrisfic

[so-flashtastic]

Not an ordinary damsel || 0.2

READ PART ONE HERE

Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is one of CCPD’s best detectives, and Barry Allen being the only one in the forensics department, causes them to interfere with each other more than they like. You see: Y/N and Barry doesn’t like each other so much. But when Y/N suspect Barry to be the Flash, she gets herself into a bit too deep trouble.

Pairing: Barry Allen x Sarcastic!Reader

Warning: Zoom’s involved, therefore we don’t know about Kid-Flash yet, and Jessie Quick isn’t a speedster yet either;) And to those who are sensitive to swearing ‘n such, I’m sorry?

A/N: So because I have tons of requests, I will mash some of them up if I think they will work out nicely (and hopefully they will!). In this case, I hope it’s ok for you, galactichoran and lisagust14 <33

“Are you alright?” A vibrating voice made it impossible for Y/N to get any picture in her head of whom the man behind the mask could be. “Uhm… I thought you just did the huge stuff,” was the first thing that popped up in Y/N head, which happened to be the lamest thing to say to a superhero of all the things it could have been. No no, save the wittiness and such to non-metas, Y/N, nice work. “You don’t think a possible rape is worth stopping?” When Y/N didn’t have anything to say back – which rarely happened, Flash just smirked at her and sped off. “Wow…" 

ϟϟϟϟϟ

Yes, even the queen of sarcasm, the witty detective, Y/N Y/L/N had a soft spot for The Flash. Though because of her encounter with the superhero of her beloved city, her deep respect for the guy had turned into something bigger. 'The Flash Daily, by Iris West', after reading several articles, Y/N finally found a reliable source – it was unbelievably how many fanfictions one could find by searching for The Flash on the web. West, as in detective Joe's daughter?

For the first time in a long time, Y/N didn't get Phillip the intern to bring her a Belly Burger for lunch but decided to go for a cup of coffee. That is if you count deciding for not taking a cab, but to walk to meet her mother at Jitters... "Y/N! There you are!" Y/N's mother looked thrilled to see her daughter again, after all: It had been months since they last met.

"His mother must be so proud of him," Y/N had almost forgotten the part of her mother being one of the older admirers of The Flash. "Yes, I'm sure, mom," Y/n sipped her coffee, not noticing her green-eyed colleague entering the café with his own company. "Have you ever met him? Oh dear, I hope not Y/N, you need to be careful here in the big city – you are careful, right?" Being raised half an hour outside Central City, Y/N always counted the minutes before her mother would start on the topic of her security. "Mom, I'm a cop, I don't need a hero to save me," Y/n referred to The Flash: her mother's only reason for not monitoring her so far away from home. "You're a detective that solve murders, Y/N, you're not Superman," 

He had to fight the little laugh that tried to escape at her mother's words. Sitting back to back with Y/N Y/L/N in a public place was something Barry Allen wouldn't think he'd do voluntarily. Yet that's the position he currently found himself in. He had to admit: it was priceless to be able to listen to his coworker's conversation with her mom – to hear the soft side of her that he never had experienced before. "Yo Barry?" Cisco got his attention away from the Y/H/C behind him. "Hm?" Barry said, only to receive a look from Cisco that he returned with confusion. "That's her! The girl behind you!" Cisco whispered in enthusiasm, while Caitlin almost facepalmed in sympathy for Barry. Jay, however, just watched the others' expressions, before he laid his eyes on Y/N.

"Y/N Y/L/N, CCPD, I need to speak to Iris West, do you have any-" before Y/N could finish her question, the girl she was talking to quickly nodded, and pointed to the left. It wasn't as if Y/N was very scary when she walked 'in the field', but when getting a serious lack of sleep, she just wasn't the one to act all happy – even captain Singh was careful around her those days.

Pulling herself together, Y/n knew she had to break one of her many habits, and pull of a smile. if her theory was correct, she had to nail this, 'Time to prove Mr. Russel wrong, Y/N oscar-winner Y/L/N' "Iris West?" The woman in front of Y/N turned her chair to look at the one who had called her name. "That's me... detective? Is there something wrong?"

One hour wasted completely... Though Y/N had tried her best to remember and use the techniques from Drama class in high school, her natural attitude had escaped the surface of her act. Maybe it was the fact that she never got better than a C-minus in Drama, or maybe it was because Iris was very well with reading people, but her true nature was easily busted. But in spite of what most people would think when getting interrogated by a slightly grumpy woman suddenly like that, Iris liked Y/N. She found her sarcasm and charisma interesting and at the same time she could confirm Barry's comment on her nice smile.

“OK, bye mom... yes I’m home... no it’s just the TV... mom I have to go now... Yeah ok... Ok love you too... Yeah, ok, yeah, bye, bye mom," Y/N hung up. She never liked to lie – hence why she never did it. Never meaning giving a tiny white lie to her mother so she wouldn't get a heart attack when she found out her daughter was walking home from work at 1030PM. It was just that Y/N really couldn't bear the thought of a lecture about 'being a workaholic' and that she would 'die of stressing too much'. 

Not being the most observing type of person when thinking of the 24-hour open Chinese takeaway she had on speed dial, Y/N didn't notice the speedster in front of her. "Y/N Y/L/N, nice to finally met you," Zoom's manipulated voice almost made you jump – almost. "Well aren't I the lucky one? Getting to meet two speedsters in a week..." This was Y/N working with her c-minus the best way she could. Though she realized she could have just  saved that for her futuristic performances when she felt herself getting kidnapped by the most dangerous man in the city.

"1 bottle of beer on the wall, 1 bottle of beer. Take one down and pass it around, no more bottles of beer on the wall. No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer. Go to the store and buy some more, 99 bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of-" Having several of siblings and younger cousins, Y/N's ability to annoy people that were on a skill level out of this world, And whenever Y/N felt uneasy, or helpless, she would use her secret weapon. "Enough!" Let's just say that Y/N wasn't getting the reaction she was hoping for – not that she knew what she wanted either.

"You really need to work on your temper, dude," using lame and old phrases was also one of Y/N's panic-mode-characteristics.  "If I were you, I would shut up immediately," was all Zoom said to her through gritted teeth.  "Chillax," Y/N was mentally screaming, someone needed to shove a sock into her mouth before she started quoting mean girls.

At the office, there had been 16 hours of Y/N Y/L/N's disappearance, and some of her coworkers were starting to get worried – Barry included.  "Y/N's never had a sick day," Team Flash was currently in the cortex, Barry talking to the others while running on the treadmill.  "I'm sure she's fine Bar," Iris said in an attempt to cheer him up. "Yeah, dude, the almighty Y/N Y/L/N's immune system has to crash at some point," Cisco commented before going back to sipping on his Slurpee. 

"But you don't understand," Barry slowed down his jogging before stopping completely. He went to get the little towel and walked out to the others. "She came to work with the flu once, Joe and two others had to drag her home," he said while wiping sweat from his neck, remembering Y/N's pale face, dry lips, and teary eyes that day. "I agree with Barry, something's just not right here..." Joe spoke up, and before anyone could say anything more, Zoom showed up.

"Barry Allen," "Hunter Zolomon," Cisco mocked the evil speedster's way of talking and took a slow sip from his drink without taking his glare off of him. "Barry Allen, I'm here to challenge you to a race," Zoom made a pause to look over to Catlin, only to get a disappointed look back. "I'm not racing you," Barry almost spat in disgust. "All I want is to find out who's the fastest man alive – on either earths. If you win, you'll get to be the hero: You get your girlfriend and I leave... Now if I don't see you tomorrow at sunset... let's just say that your father won't be the only one I'll take from you," was the last thing he said before speeding off. Barry tried his best to not get hung up on the fact that he had called you his.

"Well... seems legit to me!" Cisco stood there, not seeming to get the big deal. "He just wants to race, kinda makes sense in a completely off-your-rocker sort of way,"  "Not entirely..." Harry commented, and started explaining the Magnetar power to erase a whole world, and even more with Barry as a power source. "So he wants to destroy every earth there is?" Joe asked, and Caitlin nodded. Her being Zoom's previous kidnap had its very few perks. "But can he do that? How many earths are there?" "Infinite. And he can get to every one of them," Harry answered his daughter's question with ease. "I guess I don't have a choice... I have to race him," his statement launched shockwaves to the rest of the team. "And I have to win," Barry thought of you: this would be the most demanding and important task, and your life was at stake.

"We could have the CCPD-" "No, I'm doing this alone, Joe, I don't want any more lives at stake," Barry turned down the nth try to stop him from accepting the race. "We don't want your life at stake either, Barry!" Joe outlashed in despair. "I'm the one that saves people, Joe!" realizing he had just snapped at the people that just cared deeply about him, Barry looked down to take a deep breath and start over. "Guys, I really appreciate your concern, but did you forget about Y/N? My innocent, civil coworker from CCPD? He got to her, and he will be able to take a whole army down, Joe. Guys, I'm the only one that can stop him, and save the multiverse, you have to let me do this," before he could get any reaction or answer out of them, Barry left STAR labs: He had to keep his head cold, focus on his running, get better. He couldn't think of Y/N's beautiful face in a rotten cell like the one on earth 2. 

It felt like days, but Y/N knew that wasn't the case.  "Hey Jay, how you doin'?" It hadn't taken long before she had figured out his way of speaking, and with the alphabet in front of her, they managed to hold the conversation rolling (a simple one at least, so her dear, old, masked, new friend wouldn't have to stress too much about it). "Better," she couldn't imagine how it must have been for him. Locked up in his own cage for forever. "You know, they have this speedster-" before Y/N could go on, the man of the hour appeared, and both Jay and Y/n knew better than to talk anymore.

"We're leaving," Y/N never knew how manipulated voices could sound so different from one another. By some way, The Flash had made her feel more safe, while Zoom just created a tight knot in her stomach. 'Because the fact that the first one's a hero and the second's a villain has absolutely nothing to do with it. No, no,'  "What?" Y/N couldn't believe how wrong that must have looked. 'Wow, Y/N Y/L/N, got the Stockholm syndrome, much?'  She couldn't just leave Jay behind though, no Y/N had to come up with a plan, and fast.

Figuring out that coding the message "I'm not bailing on you, I will come back and get you out" was pretty hard when you had about five seconds before getting sped away – especially with Zoom's no-communicating-policy (which Y/N had found out the hard way). So while laying in Zoom's arms (which was very uncomfortable), Y/N just hoped Jay got the vibe of her words. Funny thing being she didn't know that he'd gotten that exact message weeks ago.

"You know, you should work on that grip – not very comfortable. I'll probably get a Zoom's neck tomorrow as well, just say-" Y/N was interrupted by a very harsh hand covering her mouth. "One more word and you will regret ever meeting Barry," Zoom whispered into your ear. 'Meeting Barry? Why the hell does a evil speedster a grudge against a forensic scientist? Shite Y/N!' And just before Y/N figured it out, she heard a new voice.

"I tell you, Jay might be crazy pants, but he can pick a venue," though Y/N loved her cell-mate Jay, she knew that meeting two Jays in a week was a little to zero probability.  "Showtime, princess, now be quiet," and even though the two of them was just twenty meters away from the group of people, he still chose to speed off. 'Show off'

"Brought the whole crew with you, huh?" Y/N's willpower had never met a greater challenge than at that moment. And if it hadn't been for her being strong headed to not make a fool out of herself, her jaw would have met the ground by now. Because there in front of her was several people with a man in a familiar scarlet suit, but without his mask, Y/N understood momentarily what Zoom had against Barry, he was the freaking Flash. "Can't say I blame you," on the other side, Barry was fighting for keeping his face neutral, he couldn't let Zoom believe he had any feelings for the woman that was in danger in front of him.

"It's gonna be a hell of a show," Zoom's voice was really starting to annoy the hell out of Y/N. "Let her go," it may have been the whole body-suit-superhero-effect, because out of a sudden Allen's voice sounded extremely sexy for Y/N. "After we race," "Cut the crap, we know you plan to power up the Magnetar," 'Is that Harrison Wells?'  After getting all the facts of the current event to be, she was in shock. He was sacrificing himself. Barry Allen from the office. The one that now stood in front of her like the real superhero he is. And he'll never get the credit for that. 'And I treated him like shit... Well there goes my "person of the year"-award'

'Will it be weird if I also say something? Gah, what do I say? Come on Y/N, you're running out of time! He's leaving! Oh God Y/N, just say something!'  "Uhm, Barry?" 'Wow, OK you should have just stayed quiet... Oh he's looking at you! Shine bright, Y/N, say something! Now's the time!' "I'm sorry," 'OK, that's legit, that's ok, sums up everything, Jay would be proud.'And luckily for Y/N, Barry nodded and smiled understanding what she meant. "What are the rules?" This was it.

They were running at a speed that would have muted Usain Bolt. None of them could separate the two streaks – at least Y/N couldn’t, but by the things the others said earlier, she was sure Zoom was undefeated when it came to races. “Hey, are you ok?” Iris had walked over to Y/N. “Uhm, yeah I guess, just a tad bit worried for that idiot over there,” Iris smiled at her, she knew from the bits she’d heard from both her father and best friend, that this girl never complimented Barry. She had been right all along, and if her idiot-friend would make it out alive today, her ship would be ready to sail.

If one would dive into Y/N Y/L/N soul at that moment, and walked for about an hour, where there would be no jokes at all, one would see her deep concern for the boy she had fallen in love with. His cute smile that never had been used towards her, and his green, beautiful eyes that always changed when she talked to him. Now if her inner Jiminy cricket would have been so deep down in her mind, she would have scolded her for that, and that it would have been her own fault. ‘And now he’s sacrificing his life for you and the rest of the multiverse’ Y/N would then try and calm herself with the fact that he just had the heart of gold, and wasn’t sacrificing himself for you, he was just this bat-crazy-good guy.

With no warning what so ever, barry was suddenly in front of Y/N, and for the first time in forever, she actually jumped. “Oh God!” Before she could either yell at him for doing that or ask him how he was both with her and with Zoom, he spoke up. “I’ll explain later, go!” If she hadn’t seen the look on his face or heard the deep concern in his tone, Y/N would never have left, but she did, and she respected that: hence her doing just what barry told her to do – for the first time in her life, Y/N followed an order with no grudge at all.

“Because if that's out of phase, it'll counteract that one,” The time remnant – or was it the real Barry? Y/N couldn’t really tell the difference. One of the Barry’s were "creating a new pulse”, what that meant she didn’t know, but it was a very brave, very stupid, and very noble thing to do. “Wait, his body can't handle that!” Caitlin’s statement made Y/n’s whole body tremble. “Then what's gonna happen?” Jesse spoke before she had the chance, and what Wells answered her made Y/N’s mind collapse. “He'll die,”

White walls, sharp lightning, the smell of rubber gloves: This could only mean hospital, and hospital meant something happened to Y/N. ‘I freaking passed out. The multiverse was at stake and I just had to faint?! Ugh!’ Opening her eyes, Y/N looked around the room. Flowers and balloons from the shop in the reception. Moving over to reach the card, Y/N read it in hope for the handwriting she knew all too well. 'Y/N, get better, – Allen'  A wide smile formed her lips, it was from Barry, he wrote to her. Just on cue, her mom waltzed into her room, ‘On time like always, moma,’

"You're back!" Y/N had lost count on how many times she had heard that, but she knew that if she had earned a dollar for each time, she could have had that cappuccino from Jitters ten minutes ago. Point is: she didn't focus on all of the detectives she passed, her path was planned, and her mind was set: 'Bartholomew Allen, prepare for a visit from hell.'

For the first time ever (many first times have happened this week), Y/N barged in with no witty intros or comebacks in mind. "Why didn't you tell me!" God, she was happy he was alone. "T-tell you what?" Barry had almost slipped the test tube in his hands, but quickly caught it before it hit the ground. "That you're the Flash!!" When he didn't have anything to say, Y/n continued while striding over to where he was standing. "And you almost died last night! No, I'm pretty sure I saw you die – one of you at least! What the hell, Barry?! Don't do anything like that ever again, my heart won't make it!"  "Bu-" "I know it's your job, but you have to be more care-" Barry interrupted her (now softer) ramble with a passionate kiss. All of their feelings were suddenly on display, but in the end, they still didn't know what was more surprising: Her calling him Barry, or him kissing her. But neither of them minded.

ϟϟϟϟϟ

A/N: You know that thing they say about sequels? That they’re never nearly as good as the first one? Well... That’s kinda what I’m feeling about this^:/ Well, there was this little part that I liked, but then it went rubbish again... I blame that it’s !AM atm, but whatever. I have a break this upcoming week, so I’ll try my best make something good for y’all! xx

#Barry Allen #barry allen imagine #barry allen au #barry allen imagines #barry allen one shot #grant gustin #grant gustin imagines #grant gustin imagine #grant gustin one shot #grant gustin au #The Flash #the flash imagines #the flash imagine #the flash au #the flash one shot