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aconstantstateofbladerunner · 4 years

Text

Complete Butterfly Outline

Howdy friends. The following is the complete chapter by chapter outline for Butterfly. Now that the fic is finished and some people want to see it, I figured there was no harm in sharing. Maybe this will help some of you better your own outline process. Note that not everything that appears here made it into the fic, and some things that did don’t appear in this outline. Some events are also in different order due to me changing my mind during the actual writing. Feel free to ask me questions about those discrepancies or anything else. Please enjoy!

Butterfly

The first over-night trip off campus since the training camp is supposed to be a break from anxiety. But between concerns of history repeating itself, a major research project, and a bleak introduction to chaos theory, Izuku has too much on his mind to properly enjoy the fresh air. But those worries are a light breeze compared to the thunderstorm that accompanies what he finds on the outskirts of town. Or rather, what finds him.

1. Chaos Theory -thankful -comic book assignments -sound of thunder -butterfly effect -field trip

2. Yakku -bus ride -small town hero work -interject about butterfly -Cheat-A demonstration -talk with all might

3. Small time -community engagement -reports of stolen food -first day tour and fun, photos with fans -heat lightning -second day early morning patrols -groups: Sero, Toruu, Deku with hero -different route than normal -bullies, can’t threaten with quirk, but has his body -investigate diner -dead bodies

4. Let’s Talk About Anything Else -deku falls back on a table -kitchen covered in blood and black feathers -body: slash across stomach and eyes, other exposed shoulder blades -three form a perimeter while hero investigates -backup arrives, kids dismissed -hug -might have gotten there sooner had they taken a different road -statements and debriefs -return to hotel, can’t eat -hang out in room, read to pass time -talk about comic projects -nightfall’s, others return -Momo makes plushies -animal jokes -can’t sleep

5. The First Rung of the Spiral -third day, more patrols -stolen food in the night -seminar “That was... definitely higher than in practice.” “Oh good, it wasn’t just me.” -feels like a warm hug, full body feeling of when all might ruffles his hair -“this is mine. This is me.” -izuku gets through but get sick afterwards from anxiety -secret lake, something in the distance, canceled -watahashi - cross bridge -hibiki - echo -takuya - open also -dead deer -sleep on bus by All might, anxiety subsides

6. Nothing is Okay -week passes -Tsuyu dreams of drowning, talks to Deku -anxiety returns with a vengeance -occasional intense back pain -counseling with hound dog, recommends something from home -pissed that they didn’t receive immediate grief counseling -speak with recovery girl about pain, nothing physically wrong -prescribes a sleep aid, anxiety meds left open -return to dorm to find his leftovers missing

7. Part of the Job -training: escort -dread and erased quirk -deku’s team loses fake civilian -takes it hard -stays later to talk to Aizawa -more complaints about missing food -Mineta brings thank you gift, gourmet popcorn -pain hasn’t stopped -return for movie night: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths -brief talk with iida -if we were to meet ourselves, we wouldn’t recognize ourselves -“saying the same thing over and over isn’t exactly helping either.” -deku can’t sleep, returns to his own bed

8. Yakku’s Finest -small town investigation inconclusive, murderer remains at large but reports of stolen food have stopped -diner money left untouched but larder picked clean -blood set, attacked in the night -quirk discussion, vague, strained relationship, -teleported in from somewhere, teleported away -DNA testing to be done on feathers “Did you ever go to investigate the houses with stolen food? When was the last instance reported?” “Four days after the murder.” “How far back can your quirk see?” “One day.” “How many days has it been?”

9. Dread -awake from pain -reading news updates -school forum rumors about stolen food

10. The Mind Killer -earthquake rescue training -keep notes on others to make up credit -dread not as bad -still has brace, sleepy and sick from concussion -pretends to be better -argument after almost throwing up -getting late -all might was never able to find his all star Superman trade reading online -picnic table with mirio, suneater, and eri -babysitters -talk about projects, mirio did shadow cat and suneater did animal man -brings up Superman’s suneater -all might approaches, chastises him for staring at a screen while he has a concussion, offers Superman trade instead -discuss the fall -what’s one more scar? -“why didn’t you tell me?” -“I don’t know” -“you could have been killed.” -dread tells him he only cares for one for all -phone call -mom going out of town -izuku lies -banging down the hall -getting closer -deku hides behind door -thing hesitates in his room, goes to door -wing claw and eye reveal -calls for help, thing vanishes -no evidence -“I felt it breathe on me.” -most don’t believe him

11. Ache -hospital -nothing wrong -can’t enjoy getting the brace off -another little scar -recoverygirl argues with nurse -all might arrives with stuff -tells izuku to call his mom -confesses to illness -schedule specialist appointment -nothing on cameras -explain Midoriyas condition -compare notes with Jakku -all might calls Gran Torino about izuku’s symptoms -aoyama thinks about Midoriya during earthquake simulation -others ask about the seizure but he doesn’t have answers -put together a card and nice dinner to welcome him back -try to make food himself -update from Aizawa : Midoriya coming back, tired, don’t bother him -izuku breezes past everyone, uraraka follows -has an attack on the stairs -never happened before -retreats to room, leaving uraraka behind

12. From the Outside -bakugo dreams of the sludge villain -sees deku in the crowd, yelling sorry -wakes up, goes to bathroom -finds a black feather, thinks it’s a prank -realizes he would have done the same thing back in middle school -destroys it (invisibitch) -thinks he’s being merciful -izuku keeps thinking he sees the creature out of the corner of his eyes -pain comes randomly -can’t sleep -anticipation of pain keeps him awake -rubbing against ribs -move up appointment -talk with midnight -fanmail activity -“I am the American father waiting on the porch with a shotgun for whatever pathetic excuse for a date is gonna try and take my little angels to the prom.” -wants to hug him, he hates hugs -“I can only do so much” “so much is better than nothing” -rumors of people suddenly unable to use their quirks -might be an illness or one for all hurting him -gives in to anxiety medication -needs to get in contact with a specialist for nerve damage -takes up hound dogs suggestion of something from home

13. Nostalgia For The Future -deku goes home for a plushie, brings todoroki -mom isn’t home -todoroki likes his house, feels small but full -nothing about his dad -“would being his son make his obsession more or less weird?” -declares intent to become a hoarder -confesses to dream about losing his quirk and father hurting him for it -Despite recent trauma, deku hasn’t dreamt at all -swaps a book from all might for one of mom’s -nerve specialist, dendrite -rash -“as a fan I was impressed, but the doctor in me couldn’t help but cringe”. “See? He gets it.” -neurotoxin as anesthetic (but why) -all might watches procedure -“the scene brings to mind ritual sacrifices from old movies” -maybe attacked during procedure, mess with vitals and life support -chemical evidence that izuku’s brain is firing off pain response -common fixation in young empaths, recreate perceived trauma in themselves -“was there?” “...I could see bones poking out...” -basic testing comes up negative -“When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras”. Here we have a zebra -someone is using an empathy quirk on him -someone ate his leftovers -old all might plushie pats bunny -he was so done. So done, that as he laid down to make a futile effort at sleep, it crossed his mind that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to never wake up. -izuku did wake up; to see Mini-him standing on the ground with a hole in his chest and a slash across his eyes. -wake up to bunny plushy with tears that mirror original victims

14. The Rolling Thing With Wings -Aoyama saw it this time -“Midoriya’s villain is real”, -something is for sure on campus -Aizawa and other teachers immediately go out and search -cold rain -lights catch black feathered mass that rolls away -Aizawa can’t get a good look -thing tries to flee but keeps getting cut off -uses dread quirk, flattens teachers -finally sees it, it cancels his quirk before he can -vanishes -hound dog smells izuku -back to dorm, all might and students comforting izuku -plushie remains the same but camera footage shows nothing -Aizawa and izuku compare dread effects -realizes it may go after his mom

15. Bittersweet Release -Inko arrives at mustafu train station early in the morning -phone call from Aizawa telling her not to go home -wait to be escorted by heroes -calls izuku, he confesses to what’s been going on -doesn’t want to risk putting her in the line of fire -kids spend the nights in the dorm shelter -“The villain was able to hover right over Midoriya’s bed while he slept. Any one of those nights he could have killed him. And since we didn’t have any evidence, we assumed he was having nightmares like everyone else. Do you understand the gravity of what your inaction could have brought on?” -discussion of feelings with hound dog -apologies for doubt -rejoin students -news, villain warning issued -connections to missing food -anyone paying attention could figure out victim is izuku -harsh criticism of UA -izuku elects to take responsibility -hound dog leaves for meeting

16. Table Scraps -hound dog comes in late, cloth tied around mouth in place of muzzle -villain smelled like Midoriya, that close -teachers check security, limited evidence, suggest a quirk that can reverse/move outside of time -connection to missing food -Noumu theory is proposed due to multiple quirks and black appearance -all for one still in prison, twice? -similar to Yakku, get in contact -pathfinder shows map of trails -only found perimeter -entered town to chase the bus -villain seemed to stop existing -one missing quirk: night vision -meanwhile, pro heroes patrolling near apartment -“oh please. All mights had a kid at UA since my parents were in school.” -spot a figure go up the stairs and enter with a key/silhouette in the window -nobody from the family is supposed to be nearby -go inside and confront the middle school-aged boy, mass under shirt -find him wandering the house, ignoring them -introduce themselves -he goes to sit on the main bed, eating, heroes angry -“waiting” “for who?” “My family” -“my house” -“NO”

17. Voight-Kompff -stitches out -out running for the first time in weeks -one for all makes him feel whole, pictures the previous users welcoming him back into their embrace -breath deeper -“this is mine. This is me.” -“izuku wasn’t a spiteful person. Not at all. He got angry at villains for hurting people, yes, but he couldn’t recall at time where it felt personal. So it came as a bit of a shock when he found himself pondering if the villain’s wings were hollow, like in birds. They would break easier that way.” -“hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. But knowing his luck, he’d treat it like an inevitable.” -full cowl practice interrupted -“once it’s gone I can be with mom.” -medical exam with officers present -increase in students asking for sleep aids -izuku called back again, this time with teachers -karma for complaining about uraraka -gives back minihim -2 heroes murdered in his apartment the previous evening -it isn’t the artificial dread, it’s real -Like before: no security footage, food stolen, wiped search history, this time it seems clothes and personals were also stolen -“quirkless virus” show similar symptoms as victims of all for one -some have different quirks than before, usually minor -most are regular civilians, no hero, cop, or medical staff until murders -murder of diner owners still unclear -pattern, no pain on nights food is stolen -stealth quirks, likely to make another attack -DNA of feathers came back -same as izuku

18. Powder Keg -toga told to investigate league contact -warehouse trashed, dead everywhere -“Oh, yeah, no, they’re dead. And whoever did it was super sloppy.” “Hang on, Dabs, I’m getting another call.” -answers dead guy’s phone -“how did I ever survive without the preserve jars?” -rumors of someone who broke into UA by themselves, after Izuku -elects to investigate -Superman presentation -outside heroes on campus -Outfield, izuku debates talking to him -unsure if they know the dna connection -calls mom, asks about family -we didn’t want you to feel like you were being replaced -class exercise, warned not to push it -izuku does something during exercise that spooks outfield -sleep in shelter past three nights -villain warning issued -other students don’t know about Izuku’s DNA -sleep in shifts -all might stays close -tries to text mom good night, signal can’t get through the concrete -eri is there, tries to cheer him up “Zawa said there’s a bad guy after you.” “She’s your biggest fan.” “She might have to fight Kota for that.” -tells her she should go somewhere else since the bad guy is targeting him -she’s having none of it -later, eri and all might asleep on either side of him -keeps an eye on the door -hears sato’s phone buzz, he waves him off to signal his shift is over -lays back, tries to relax -sudden tightness in chest, opens eyes to see the other one standing on the ceiling directly above him

19. Fish in a Barrel -Aizawa realizes its a set up -the other one tries to stab him with the wing spike, eyes glowing red to erase his quick -rolls to cover eri and calls to the others -hits him in the head, disabling quirk -takes out lights -everyone tries to go for him, easily thrown back -slashed across multiple chests -the other tries to go for the door, todoroki freezes it -the other burns and breaks it down, vanishes -chase with bakugo, find toga -“my dad could breath fire” -teacher question how it could have gotten in with so many standing guard -it must have come in with them -mislead the heroes -comfort eri -wounds tended to -Tooru seriously hurt, crying, outlined by blood -idea floated to move izuku somewhere else -toga found wounded at the edge of campus

20. Walk Without Rhythm -“you’re sending me away?” -talk about moving izuku to protect the others -say goodbye outside, the want to lure it -switch trains last minute -dread fades -Aizawa says goodbye -appearance change -tooru wake up in hospital with parents -They met all might, other kids here and awake -tiger comes in with brace, izuku broke his shoulder -all might went back to help -discuss, don’t think the nomu was intentionally hurting them -tell that to midoriya -what are they doing with him -encounters old bullies who act like fans -Aizawa back with the others, discuss -public place. Hundreds of people. Broad. Fucking. Daylight. -pathfinder there, nomu was inside for hours, quirk that displaces itself -nomu is intelligent, understands aizawa -only superfans and former students know him -izuku mentioned his father was as much of a fan -toga unresponsive -maybe move him to another safe house, evidence that the other is locating quirks through police records, he’s gotten through most defenses -victims have minor records -mom moved around too, discouraged from contacting her -better to hide, all might’s house -end of the day, tired and sweaty -brush appearance change out of his hair, hug -it’s the first time all day he’s felt like a person -“I’m sorry I left you behind”

21. All in All -izuku stays up late to call his dad -argue about timing -“sorry I didn’t call. I wasn’t sure of your schedule in this mess and I didn’t want to bug you. “Sure” -mostly unaware of what’s happening, mom told them to talk -changes the subject to the Jakku seminar, tries to relate to quirk hurting him -thinks his dad only likes him for his quirk -“you can’t keep crying like this every time you’re stressed. Youre sixteen, way to old to be crying like this. You’re a hero. Villains aren’t going to wait for you to get yourself together.” -“look, if you’re not gonna be invested in the conversation, maybe you should hang up, and we can talk later, ‘Kay?” -Skype call with Toga -managed to talk to it briefly, voice changer -the villain didn’t like her, in denial -said he would fix it -crusty and gross, waste of a healing factor -deku-kun is here, isn’t he? -tells jokes to distract from Dad -all might’s in specialty housing for tall quirks, modestly decorated with comic merch and newspapers -device to hide his life signs -fanart from Young Izuku on the fridge, bought the magnets just to put it up -old classmates posting about him online, he’s a cool hero -forum trolls, could probably take them -“I thought you were supposed to be discouraging me from picking fights with villain’s every other month.” “Oh hey look at that, you made a quip” -talk about feelings ⁃ is my rambling annoying, endearing -“it’s okay to still be upset, you know. You don’t have to move on right away.” -year newspaper -butterfly returns to U.A., breaks window, noises, squeezes through naked -students pretend to sleep, half in costume -it passes over them

22. Idle Imprisonment -day 2, report comes in, three critically wounded policemen not far from u.a. -izuku does class work ⁃ all Might pins points on a map, far off -day 3, more reports of missing and mismatched quirks: tracking and radar -day four: 4 civilians and 1 hero murdered, several others injured -feathers through the eyes -mt lady back in action -izuku can’t take it, wants to go out and confront butterfly -massive argument with all might, hides in room again -“cabin fever!?” -all might figures he’ll try to sneak out, overhears him struggle, his windows don’t open

23. It Matters -later that night, all might offers dinner, goes to watch tv -izuku slinks out and eats with him on the couch -“think I don’t know how it feels? To be stuck inside safe while the thing that hurt you is running free to do more harm?” -“I miss it sometimes, but I get to spend more time with you” “I’m not worth it.” -“if it hadn’t hurt me, I might not have met you. Either my time limit didn’t force me to hear you out or I might not have come back to mustafu at all.” -back and forth about izuku’s worth, “are you trying to convince me to be happy or regretful” -“ok, lets try this: what do you hate about me?” -“I hate that you don’t trust me.” “And you constantly treat me like a little kid! Hate that too!” “You are a kid!” -“I want you to tell me one thing you don’t like about me. As a person.” “Why?” “If I have to be honest about how I feel so do you. You only ever say nice things. You act like there’s nothing wrong with me but there is. If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to keep guessing.” “... back in the shelter, after the villain attack... that was the only time I’ve ever heard you truly laugh.” “... that’s it?” -“I, I’m not a fan of how you talk about that video of my debut.” “But, But It was a great rescue-“ “It was awful,” he snapped. Midoriya recoiled. Good. “It was so awful. Hundreds of people died. Most of the people I pulled to safety didn’t pull through. I hear them screaming still in my dreams. I hated every second of that night. And I hate that you love it.” -“That shot one shot, the one people plaster everywhere, of me coming over the ridge carrying a dozen people? Half of them were already dead.” -“How did you even see that anyway?” “Mom said the news was running a special for the twenty-five year anniversary... I watched it with my dad...” “and you would have been what? Two, three?” -talk about debut -tells him about Nana and his childhood -hid from villain’s like this “I loved her like my mother.” “Did she love you as a son.” -“it doesn’t matter.” It does. -talks about how izuku is great -never initiated a hug before, what else could he do besides pull him closer? -“I hate yelling at you. You’ve had too much of that in your life. I just want you to be happy.” -“and I’m going to keep you here until you realize how much you matter” -caught between child and adult, wonder what he’d be like had he never influenced him -will the scars on his arm grow with him? -he wanted to just keep holding him, to make up for all the times he should have but didn’t. -carries him to bed -“I can walk.” “I want to carry you.” -he’s going to be okay. He’ll grow up. Conquer the world with his smile. Be the unshakable pillar the world needs, all Might had no doubt. But not tonight. Someday, but not tonight. Tonight, he is a small terrified child, separated from his family, and on the run from an unknown horror. Tonight, he deserves a moment to be scared and sad, and be comforted. -life sign hider gone -prays he stays just this small forever -he’s like a son to him -he stays for a while after he falls asleep, just to be sure

24. The Other One -all might dreams of his death at the hands of all for one/wolfram -wakes up to alarm, needs to eat -izuku inspired him to keep living, gets up to check on him -remembers the dream theory, goes to check his fridge -closes it, butterfly is right there -smells him before he sees him -running down a list of ways to get a hit in, major blood vessel in the temple -“Hello” silence, “are you all might?” Ask about fighting the ‘same’ villain Beat him with the help of his student Butterfly gets angry, the other one -“he’s almost shocked to here a human voice come out of it... a young voice.” Other what -comes into the light, more scar than skin -talks him down, reaches out to touch him -doesnt believe -same shoes, faded and frayed and falling apart, but the same -never one to talk down hostage/suicide -says his name -butterfly stunned, cries at the kind touch -hug -same eyes -he’s izuku again

Reveal post - https://lckhr.tumblr.com/post/175255988293/okay-villaindeku-is-so-popular-right-now-but

I want to add to this real quick because I just dug up my original notes I wrote at 2 am last summer when I first thought of this fic and it reminded me of some stuff. The world of My Hero Academia is set up in such a way that whatever bullshit power you can think of will probably fit. A lot of superhero universes have that, but something about MHA makes it so much more pronounced. Combine that with the idea of All for One, a quirk that lets the user wield an unknown number of powers, and there is some serious potential to absolutely abuse the setting. The idea was to create a lone villain that could perfectly counter everything thrown at it, to the point where it feels like a supernatural monster. Security? Quirk that prevents cameras and sensors from recording its image. Evidence? Quirk that rewinds time on displaced objects. Witnesses? Quirk that prevents people who are already asleep from waking up.

25. Butterfly: Origin -“as hard as he tried throughout his life, Toshinori knew he could never be Superman.” -“He wants to hurt your boy/ but he is my boy” -all might feeds him, too thin, still heavy -talks him into taking a bath while he makes him a warm meal -Texts his izuku to be silent and contact Naomasa -stolen possessions with his clothes, folding quirk, , flattening, sticker quirk -cries at the red shoes -butterfly comes back out, reveals wings -all might makes him a cutout shirt and sling for vestigial wings -its a cold night,hairdryer, hopefully izuku sees the opportunity -“he’s so gentle. The boys arms are thinner than his. It’s wrong. He feels like any pressure greater than a brush will shatter bones. He could break his fingers with a pinch. But maybe he should. This is a villain. It tried to kill my boy. But he is my boy.” -“did you ever fly?” “Once” -“it’s okay, you didn’t know.” -getting scolded for hurting himself is universal -so is being a chatterbox -considers Christmas present in the closet -tells him to lay down on the couch and watch tv -butterfly asks about one for all, consent -admits to killing Mirio -all might asks about all for one, vague backstory -noticed something was wrong after usj -“he said there was a time where there wasn’t a single child in Japan born without his permission.” “It was a mercy killing at that point.” -more time in a day, imprisoned for seemingly twice as long -drawn to yakku by picture of lodge that looks like apartments -“I heard someone say my name” -lie, offered to trade quirk, got in a drunken fight -has both parents quirks, implied to have killed Dad -wanted to scare his izuku into going home, no one was there, took it out -has mom’s quirk, “someone else lives there now.” -tried to find mom, “once he’s gone, I can be with mom.” -“I’m only hurting me. I’m not worth it -inter-dimensional quirk, -Inching closer to all might -you didn’t say that, the other you did -all might confronts him on his crimes, defense is that they started it -“you’re not right” -puts head in all might’s lap and moves his hand to his head -found izuku, jealous of his life, not sure what to do -realizes that izuku has one for all -“WHY” -describes the sludge villain incident -compare outcomes -butterfly gets upset, prepares to strike -all might says sorry

26. Bizarro -izuku listening in the whole time -attacks butterfly as he’s about to strike -wounds all might in the chest -butterfly screams accusations -brutal fight, bitten ear -izuku stands up to dread -ripped vestigial wings clean off -fight, flees at approach of heroes -wind and rain enter through broken window, mess up all mights hero shrine -izuku still feels like he has grime on his hands from the wing -its me -hospital, all might severely injured but stable -sneaks into room -stabbed where his lung used to be -“Did I ever apologize for saying you couldn’t be a hero?” -apologizes through tears for saying izuku can’t be a hero -sad hugs -tells nurse that he’s his son

27. Same -thinks butterfly is holding him -Aizawa says nurses told him all might was with his son, calls it inappropriate -hesitant to leave all might -please don’t take him from me -all might holds onto him for as long as he can -Aizawa wants to call them over dramatic, but this feels warranted -it’s me, i know -news from kids perspective -Sero -escorted everywhere, never alone -no way to tell what’s going on -wake up, check the news -need to confront butterfly -meeting in a moving vehicle -Pathfinder there, special sunglasses -how many were killed, lie -Butterfly’s notes, crinkled and overfilled, izuku can read them -addresses, quirks? -safe places, food, Trying to find home -plan A, swan dive -he was trying to get me to kill myself -plan b, kidnap to other dimension and kill, pose as the same one having been tortured -what’s plan c? -more missing quirks and murders, offensive capabilities -pathfinder attacked, quirk stolen -team of heroes go over what they know about him -analysis of wing he ripped off -rapid nerve death, theorize that his healing quirk is killing him -why hasn’t it? Quirk preventing organ failure -once the body runs out of fat, it goes for muscle -after muscle, it goes for cardiac muscles -that’s what the dread is, empathy -perpetually on the brink of a heart attack -means they might be able to go all out against him -uses inter dimensional quirk to conceal movement -ask izuku what he could mean by the right quirk -memory alteration, body swap -all might Skyped in “You’ve been trying to clean up the mess the other you made, let me do the same.” -you didn’t fail, the other you did -how to restrict movement, only ever does it outside -shelters never built in his world -set a trap, need a place that doesn’t exist in butterfly’s world

28. The Net -go through the tunnels to the main shelter under the school -can’t discuss the plan Bakugou tries to ignore him and unpack his stuff Izuku flinches from contact -says goodbye to classmates I love you all, thanks for being my friend... you have no idea what it’s meant to me -don’t talk like that, it makes it sound like you’re not coming back! -hugs -midnight cries -talk with Bakugou -shapeshifter butterfly -it’s a forced smile. “Forced” is the only way to describe it yet if feels like it isn’t enough. -new bunker at UA -limited air conditioning -pathfinder walks him through messing with his quirk -i got your letter -did you know them? They were good people -didn’t mean to be so harsh, people get hurt when you aren’t good enough -step outside briefly, the world is so much more vibrant without his quirk in the way -“it’s a tomb” “yeah. Let’s make sure it’s not yours” -obvious trap, he won’t be enough -need bait -all might about to be discharged -agrees to stay as the casualties of the trap will be sent to the same location -inko enters, told to wait for her son there -got stolen stuff back -izukus first all might toy -talk with all might, maybe izuku’s Dad, left around the time he was quirkless -I want to push him forward, but also want to shield him from the world -welcome to parenthood -asked for blood drawn

29. You Shoot It -dream of deer in the woods, all turn to look at him together, one missing a face -toga disguised as izuku’s mom, distract him long enough to ceil the doors -no sign of butterfly -concern -butterfly enters by bending the door, an army of bugs -Izuku watches from another room, he’s a last resort -toga tries to convince him to stop fighting, can’t -something off -tries to stab him, nothing -turn around -cut to Aizawa -Bakugou seizing, that’s not Deku -“suit up” -strangled -fight -Cementoss seals the door -upgraded -pain sharing, metal feathers, ribbon skin, black bone, fero blood, wing spears, teeth bombs, throw feathers, telekinesis, fire breath -attacks do nothing -it’s an illusion -turn around, butterfly strikes while looking at him reveals partially healed form, antlers Flee out the room, fighters overrun by cockroaches Erasure is his most powerful quirk Izuku flanks him and kicks him in the skull, blocked by antlers -antlers become bendy and grab him Butterfly tries to go for izuku’s eyes using mom’s quirk -other heroes quickly tossed aside -chase down izuku through the maze -fold hole in the wall -punch in the jaw, teeth explode -izuku nearly overpowered -held down completely -strangled

-Aizawa and the class rush to the entrance, blocked off -must be a fail safe, butterfly was meant to break in -break down the doors -what if butterfly manages to escape -mina’s acid, strong punching, laser, explosions Aoyama asks for braces or someone to hold him while he blasts the ground -anger he doesn’t have the right quirk -knows his is the only one that can disable butterfly -they have to take the risk

-held down completely, erasure flickers -Pathfinder hits him with a baton and tries to choke him, distracting him -only one eye -izuku breaks free with 100% -smashes Butterfly’s eyesocket with his knuckle -blood splashes in his face as he flees -scream behind him -arm strained, can’t tell if it’s broken -pathfinder’s fate unknown -brief visions, body swap quirk Realize butterfly has been holding back because he wants a healthy body Test how much

-aizawa run through the maze -find pathfinder -hear screaming

-leap though illusion and snap off one of butterfly’s wings -tear membrane with own feather, cut between broken bones -it tries to crawl back to him -illusion breaks, revealing deer skull -flee, openly crying, bleeding tears -lock hands, izuku breaks others fingers, -wings burst from his back, heroes hold back wings -powers through pain and dread Leaps up and smashes the floor to pieces -butterfly screaming at him Jump at each other -Spears izuku in the back Break through the ceiling -Aizawa erases his quirks -restored appearance fades, more decayed than ever -izuku kicks and breaks his neck

30. YU SHOOT ITT -izuku was fading -a round face, a thin face, green eyes both -something shiny bobbing in and out of sight -butterfly stream of conscious -reuse lines from before -senses izuku in the other room -force shared pain and empathy as he’s dying -izuku screams in agony -felt his stomach split again. A candle to a forest fire. Pathetic. “This is mine. This is me.” -shared perspective -why do you deserve to be happy and i don’t -you kill people, tired to get me to kill myself -but before, i didn’t do anything wrong -why did it all go so bad? -gets up, floats with his quirk -barely copies normal movement -Floats to the door -Aizawa stops him -hard to breath -feels his mom and all might comforting him -that’s really mom -force the connection harder -stop screaming i wanna hear what mom’s saying Aizawa cuts him off again, he cries Feels his bones sink -“do you think if I die in this world, I can still be with my mom?” -goes down struggling -“it’s not fair”

31. At Rest, At Last -izuku flatlines but is revived -undo the latches on his costume Taken back for surgery Sit in the hall and cry for hours -a defibrillator is for a different kind of heart attack -so that’s what it was? A heart attack? Doctor rushes by with an ice box Explain to aizawa that izuku flatlined -butterfly is dead, new despair -took his stomach for izuku -inko and all might go to see butterfly -inko wants to see him, takes a moment to recognize him -that’s her baby -screams -hugs and apologies -all might would have gone to stay with him -they both despair but are thankful for their son -“he was barely five years old, and he was ready to accept that his family didn’t want him.” -goes back to izuku -his hand is bigger than hers, when did that happen?

-final casualty count, pathfinder dead (?) along with several police officers -doctor recounts the autopsy -butterfly was dead on his feet, practically killed him -barely enough muscle to hold his own head up, let alone stand -“in my unprofessional opinion, this was a mercy killing.” -Aizawa looks at the body, that’s midoriya -Aizawa wants to try and bring him back with eri, Might not work, Might traumatize her -argue, all Might says he was too far gone, they wouldn’t be able to shield him from criminal charges, record like his would net him the death penalty anyway, stuck in a cage again, all that hate and fear in his heart left to fester in a padded cell for the rest of his life -thinks he would come after izuku again, what do you think that screaming was? He was trying to take him down with him. -not hurting anyone else, not hurting himself -“He said he wanted, more than anything, to rest/stop fighting/for the pain to stop, and now, he has.” -“Aizawa-kun. .. Please let him rest.” -Aizawa leaves before he can break down

-toshi looks over butterfly -“an innocent butterfly, drowned in mud and crushed under the boot of the world.” -not innocent, but he felt someone should be there to see him off -Apologizes -runs hand through his hair, shushes him even though he’ll be silent for quite a while -hesitant to leave him -that’s my boy... That could have been my boy -bodyswap lingers in his mind -kisses his hairline, touch of cold lingers -goes to wash his hands and face before returning to izuku -wakes up later -“he’s dead” “I know.”

32. All Those Moments -

-aizawa drives back to ua with midnight -she tries to joke with aoyama about makeup, he’s not having it -won’t go into details about butterfly -mic greats them at the gate, hug -comes back to dorms to welcome party “Midoriya’s villain is dead.” -they cheer -Bakugou pulls him aside to try and get answers -people who’s job it is to save lives should never celebrate the death of another human being, be relieved, be thankful, but do not celebrate -don’t cheer for death -cries while holding eri -mic and midnight ask him what’s wrong -he was just a Kid

-do you want to be buried or cremated, inko can’t stop thinking about that phrase -3 services in three days -mass wake for officers -izuku makes rounds, “your child/spouse/parent” saved my life -inko almost couldn’t get out of the car -izuku said he had to come -pathfinder funeral, mention the teens and neji -he saved my life, i want to be worthy -crematorium, limited service in his home town -service in jakku -speak briefly to stripes -ask to speak at the wake, doesn’t have the best luck with speeches -mom asks why, he didn’t really know him -Jakku heroes offer him a job, we’ll save you a spot says he never wants to come back here -pass a boarded up diner -I’m his mother, i should be here -never spoke with butterfly, never in the same room when he was alive -cold gripping horror at burying her own son -service ends in slow motion -no words exchanged -silent for the whole long drive home -dotes on izuku at home -not home, couldn’t bare the thought of sleeping where someone died -all might rented a place/or all might’s apartment -he carries around his all might and blankie -makes him food, watches tv -cuddle in her bed like when he was small -her sweet baby boy grew up to face unfathomable horror -wants to promise no one will hurt him again, they both know she can’t

-villain graveyard -“Izuku Midoriya, 16 years old, at rest at last tailored clothes around his wings, buried is his shoes -izuku goes to butterfly, stares His bones wouldn’t burn He suffered 16 years old, seventeen in a few months, he’ll grow. Live. Make sure he keeps living ⁃ Took midoriya to view the body before it was buried. Stared, said nothing -all might dusts of the grave, leaves a few flowers and food -still conflicted, butterfly was worse case scenario, uses it as motivation to protect his boy -he longs for some sign. Waits for some great vision that the boy is well in the end. A butterfly wing broken wings that still flies. One on the tombstone. It’s the dead of winter. Him coming to him in a dream, face full and bright and back bare of those fowl wings that shackled him to the earth, and promising him that he’s not in pain anymore. But it never comes. Butterfly died in agony, after years of torture, alone. -“Toshinori wasn’t a religious man, but he still hoped that, if something did become of young butterfly in the en`d, that he at least got to rest.” -he might be moving into the same new building as the Midoriyas -picks up Izuku from first therapy session, not much to say -you’re my boy aren’t you? -don’t want to say anything that makes him spiral further Do you remember what happened before this all started? -we talked about Superman, you said your name was inspired by all Star Superman -and... -rumors about being his son, “I don’t mind” -cry, hug and a kiss on top of his head -sixteen years old, he’s my son -return home -izuku stares out the window Take him to the tokoyaki stand Sit on the beach wall -cuddle like they did the night before butterfly attacked -izuku crawls up his sleeve and presses his forehead -yeah. Yeah you’re mine.

⁃ When Butterfly was around, he never had nightmares. Now that he’s dead, Izuku has nothing but. -izuku can’t sleep, -home doesn’t feel like home anymore -people died here, in this world, and the other one -has nightmares when he’s awake too, they’re memories -likes All Might’s thin arms, likes to be carried, better than those too big that held him like a pet while the bones in his back pulled away from the rest of his body. -checking himself in the mirror, scars on his chest fading fast, no evidence if he covers it up -asked the doctors to remove his scars when he went back to get his stitches out, just the ones from Butterfly, back to what he was before -regrets it -looked butterfly in the face, up close, in the eyes, and though: that’s not me. It can’t be -looks at himself now, his own face in the mirror, and thinks: that’s not me. It can’t be -too thick, skin to smooth, hand in his hair to search for antlers -I’m me, aren’t I? -text from friends, excited to have him back -compulsion to go outside, he does -it’s cold out without a shirt, starting to snow -I could just go -wants to run, from what? -doesn’t want to face the others How can he just go back to normal? -if i don’t say something now, i never will -wake up mom, I’m ready to talk about it now -sees all might in the kitchen again, mom too -visions of the other ones life

-Bakugou s body, swollen and broken -desperation to find a school that will take him -walk past the gates -sell blood -luxury apartment -All for one, first quirk are the cherub wings, small, but his -not the only one, testing multiple quirks, isn’t sure when he becomes the favorite -wings are painful coming in, all for one holds him -gave in eventually -can’t see all of the wings in the mirror, shine green in the light -lakies make fun of his failure, requests quirk to stop crying -creates copy of all for one -usj, something wrong, gets erasure -flees out the window, can’t get home, returns willingly -tested on with mutation quirks as punishment, cries when he discovers minor telekinesis -isn’t there for Kamino allegory, acts desperate to save Sensei, erases immortality quirk -tries to go home again, authorities mistake him for villain, programmed to attack -he finds Dad. Dad, who hadn’t so much as touched him in a decade, picks him up and holds him like its nothing. He kisses his head and calls him baby and tells him everything is going to be alright because he’s here now. And it was for a while. He fed him and bathed him. He sleeps tucked close to his chest like when he was little, even if the wings took up a lot of space. He has to comfort his father when he cries for mom, since he can’t cry anymore. He and takes him to the doctor. They don’t know how to help him. He says he wants everything but moms quirk to go. Dad doesn’t understand why he has it. He doesn’t listen. He never does. At least you aren’t quirkless anymore Steals dad’s quirk to teach him a lesson about being quirkless Dad only came back for mom. He said so. He was missing for over a year and only came back after mom went missing. He blames him. He burns off the tips of his wings. -they think he’s a villain -Kills mirio -trades quirks for money, later just food -chase anything related to mom -wanders to Jakku, ua goes there around this time of year and he saw an ad for a lodge that looked kind of like home -hears his own name -demands the bridge quirk guy trade him, had enough -kills. Jumps. Sees himself, up on a stage in a hero costume from his dreams, smiling among deafening cheers. And he shares his dread. -sees both of himself, locking eyes in the ambulance, round face, thin face, green eyes both, watching and feeling each other die

-run back inside -wake up mom and all might -i don’t think I’m me anymore -stuck with all this anger and hatred and fear -can’t tell the difference -all might says he feels guiltily instead of angry -but i am angry -writes as he talks -it’s like one glass of water being poured into another glass of water -hard to tell where the first ends and the second begins and you can’t separate them -did he take something from you -don’t know -“after all that, do you still think you made the right choice?” “Never came into question.” -has his whole life ahead of him -going to die eventually -takes out notebook -“Butterfly” crosses it out, rights his own name -lies between the two people who love him most -all might’s hand on his chest, holding him -other arm curling mini him to his chest -mom has his blankie -izuku has his all might plushie -tomorrow, he goes back to all his friends at the best hero school in the country -people like him, he has fans -almost too good to be true -this is all butterfly wanted -all i ever wanted -more than i could have ever asked for No one stalking me, no one chasing me -I’m home -do i deserve it though? -have to make decisions, could spiral -have to go back out into the world and keep living -for now, he let himself feel happy -the two sides agree to feel happy -“this is mine. This is me. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” -and for now, I’ll let it make me happy -this is mine, this is me -deep under guilty happiness, lies dread he knew could only come from himself. -this dread could only be his own. Maybe it was always. -it’s mine. It’s me. -whoever i am, I’m alive -no matter what i do, whoever i am, I’m me. I’m me.

#butterfly #long post #writing #behold the process #and yes #all of my outlines are like this

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liskantope · 4 years

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Some not-so-brief reactions to major Disney films 1968-1988

A little while ago I wrote another collection of quick commentaries on major Disney films (which I’m watching one by one through Disney+) from their inception with Snow White in 1937 to The Jungle Book in 1967. I was planning to round off my next collection at another 30-year mark, but the little mini-reviews I’ve been writing are beginning to look so long-winded in aggregate that tonight I decided maybe I should stop at this point. Also, last time, without fully being aware of it, I stopped at the end of what is considered Disney’s Silver Age (coming after Disney’s Golden Age, also included in the last set of commentaries), and apparently 1968 to 1988 is considered Disney’s (Bronze and/or) Dark Age (the Disney Renaissance kicking off with The Little Mermaid in 1989), so there’s another reason it makes sense to cut it off here.

I’ll keep watching the major Disney features, one a day, through the 90′s works, but whether I’ll find time to keep writing about my impressions of each film I watch, I can’t guarantee anything.

The Aristocats, 1970

This is a beloved favorite of mine. I got the video in later childhood, having previously admired the main number “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat” (still the highlight of the movie, from my adult point of view) and having read the story in a Disney book. After seeing it many times in childhood, I rewatched it only a few years ago when it showed up on Netflix. Around that time (or maybe just afterwards), I noticed that my favorite cartoon/Disney reviewer YouTuber Phantom Strider occasionally mentions that he dislikes The Aristocats -- he doesn’t put it on his top 10 worst Disney movie list or anything, but he’s made some disparaging remarks without going into detail. Watching it once again this month on Disney+, my verdict is that, yeah, it’s subpar in quite a few ways, but my more critical adult sensibilities will never override the fond feelings I have for this movie.

Since this is the next movie on the list after The Jungle Book, I couldn’t help constantly comparing the two, and I did see some parallels. In both cases, the story is pretty weak: this time, a family of cats gets kidnapped and stranded far from home by the greedy butler villain and have to pass through several adventures to get back to their owner. In both cases, the plot is a very linear one involving small adventures and minor characters having little bearing on the overall arc (this is perhaps slightly less the case with The Aristocats, where the new acquaintance Thomas O’Malley stays with them the whole time, and at least Scat Cat’s gang makes a return at the end -- minus the unfortunate and entirely unnecessary character of the Chinese cat -- to fight for the protagonists). In both cases, the voice acting is great and includes Phil Harris and Sterling Holloway. In both cases, the villain’s motives are rather flimsily stated -- the butler villain is more comical and slightly more rounded out, and the fact that his motive doesn’t make a lot of sense is perhaps meant to be part of the comedy. The Aristocats has far more filler material, including a useless but somewhat amusing and ultra-cartoonish sideplot about our butler villain losing his hat and umbrella and having to return to the countryside to get them (it’s more amusing than it sounds, trust me).

The Aristocats is simply weaker in almost every way than The Jungle Book. Although I like all the music, including “Scales and Arpeggios” which I only just learned was written by the Sherman Brothers and I appreciated a lot as a kid who practiced the piano every day, the only truly memorable song was “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat” (not written by the Sherman Brothers), whereas in The Jungle Book there are multiple numbers of that caliber written by the Sherman Brothers at nearly the top of their form. This film can also be compared to One Hundred and One Dalmatians and again comes out looking worse -- Dalmations sort of perfected the whole “animals coordinating a rescue” type plot, and The Aristocats only seems to make a feeble attempt at it.

One interesting thing about the pacing of the film that as an adult I’m a bit taken aback by is how quickly the ending of the movie runs. I was shocked when I rewatched this for the first time as an adult on Netflix, got to the ending of “Everybody Wants To Be a Cat”, and saw that there were only 15 minutes of running time left: that includes the late-night discussion between the romantic leads, the arrival at their home, Edgar re-kidnapping them, Roquefort going for help and nearly getting himself killed by Scat Cat’s gang, the whole action sequence of the actual rescue, a final scene with Madame welcoming O’Malley and rewriting the will, and the final song. We don’t even get to see Madame’s reaction at seeing her beloved cats alive and well, which is one of the ways this movie compares unfavorably with Dalmatians. There is some real artistry in The Aristocats, but the amount of effort put in is clearly not up to the standard of Disney’s finest.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1971

I mainly knew this movie through the song “Beautiful Briny Sea” growing up. Eventually I did watch the film one time; I also read the book it was based on (I can’t remember which came first). I remembered very little outside of that one song, the fact that the characters travel in a bed, and David Tomlinson (who I knew well as Mr. Banks) being in it as an jarringly un-Banks-like character. I had entirely forgotten the fact that the story takes place during World War II and that this is crucial to the plot. I knew this as the Disney movie that tried to be Mary Poppins and failed to be anywhere near as exciting or resonant. However, I was still very curious to rediscover, two decades later, what the movie was really all about.

The story is really quite good on a level that appeals to grownups as well as children -- not as deeply as Mary Poppins, mind you, but distinctive and captivating. (I think this has something to do with the story being as much to do with the adult characters as with the children.) The acting is also solid. It only increased my respect for David Tomlinson’s versatility as an actor, in fact, and it was fun to see the likeness of the dignified and proper George Banks display so much awkward vulnerability and eventually get himself into so many slapstick situations. Unfortunately, the only memorable song is “Beautiful Briny Sea” -- I mean that quite literally, as sitting down to write this a couple of weeks after watching, I’m finding it hard to remember much about any of the other songs.

Also unfortunately, the song “Beautiful Briny Sea” is sort of a beacon in a murky area as, halfway through the film when we switch to the animated portion, the movie suddenly gets... quite bad. The live-animation hybrid is consistently done to weak effect, first of all. For some reason, only Mary Poppins made this effect believable, ahead of its time. Secondly, I understand that we have to suspend our disbelief to enjoy a children’s fantasy film, but having the group plunged into water without themselves or their book appearing wet or having any issue breathing is pushing this a bit far. Thirdly, the writing gets rather silly. As soon as they come across an animated codfish who welcomes them to the area, the oldest kid Charles (always the skeptic) says, “Now I’m hearing things! Fish don’t talk.” Nor do fish “walk” along the bottom of the sea with a cane while fully clothed and smoking a cigar, Charlie, so what was your first clue that you’re in a story where things you thought impossible are happening?

The whole crew later gets up onto the animated island of Naboombu, where Mr. Banks Professor Browne is forced to referee a soccer game between teams of anthropomorphic animals as part of his efforts (somehow) to get his hands on the lanyard of the island’s arrogant monarch (who rather resembles Prince John from the next film on this list) which winds up evaporating as soon as they get back to their own world anyway. The ensuing soccer match is by far the most bizarre part of the film, or of any of these films really -- it feels much more like some wacky Saturday morning cartoon than Disney animation. Browne the referee winds up getting (literally) dragged into the game; the live/animation hybrid is done especially poorly here. Once the characters get back to the “real” world, however, the movie becomes good again, with a fantastic climactic conclusion that left me smiling at the overall effect of the film despite its weaknesses.

Robin Hood, 1973

This was a Disney classic that we owned from the time I was fairly small, and that I watched more times than almost any other one, with Alice in Wonderland being the only possible rival I can think of. I went what was probably close to a twenty-year period without seeing it or missing it until a couple of years ago, on a transatlantic flight when it was one of the movie options on the plane. I was taken aback on that rewatching by the fact that... Robin Hood just isn’t that good. When I later saw my parents (I think this was on the way to visiting them), I told them of this revelation, and they told me, “We never thought it was that good either, but you seemed to like it.” I guess I can see some of the appeal to my much younger self, but less easily than I can see the appeal of the some of the other so-so films like The Aristocats -- there is something about Robin Hood that is eye-catching on the superficial level but ultimately shallow. At the same time, I’ll always have to feel a bit sentimental about this one because of the role it played in an early period of my life, introducing me to words like outlaw and in-law and taxes (I vividly remember thinking in early watchings that Taxes was just the name of the unpleasant wolf character), helping to develop my understanding of what poverty looks like, and also introducing me to the concept of political satire (under an anti-free-speech monarchy no less. The scene shown in the video just linked is my favorite scene of the movie, by the way.)

I think my main criticism of Disney’s Robin Hood could be summarized by saying it oversimplifies what could have been a nuanced story, way more than it needs to. This shows most starkly in its clearly-marked division between good characters and evil characters. Naive Good-vs.-Evil plots are very much part of the Disney brand, but I can’t think of any of their other films which takes that aspect to this much of an extreme in developing the characters, so that the entire cast is very openly divided between the white caps and the black caps and (this is the most important part) to the detriment of individuation between the characters. The personalities of all the characters on the Good Side seem pretty much interchangeable throughout the film. Oh sure, Robin Hood has Plucky Hero stamped on him with Designated Sidekick Little John, and Maid Marian has Love Interest stamped on her, and so on. They get into different situations because they all play different roles in the community. But there are no deeper differences between them. Friar Tuck, for instance, is the local religious leader, and you think he might present a more thoughtful, pacifistic, and spiritual point of view to his comrades and enemies. But no, he shouts at the Sheriff and chest-bumps him out of the church and engages him in physical combat just like all the other characters do. All of the people on the Good Side are in complete lockstep throughout, and this makes their part of the story deeply uninteresting.

King Richard is never developed as a character; he is a faraway abstract entity throughout the film, which makes his sudden appearance at the end (which is what really saves Nottingham and finishes the story) very ineffective. (Let’s not get into the fact that he’s described as heroic for going off to participate in the Crusades -- “While bonny good King Richard leads the great crusade he’s on” -- talk about sugarcoating history!) This is part of what I mean about oversimplifying: they could have injected some complexity into the political story beyond “usurper taxes all the money out of the people because of his personal greed until the real king returns and makes everything lovely again”. I strongly believe it is possible to present real issues in a way that is both mature and engaging to children and that it has been done even in other Disney features. Disney didn’t try very hard to do it here.

I’ll give the writers credit in that the three main bad guys, Prince John, Sir Hiss, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, are somewhat individuated, partly I think out of necessity because the Bad Side of any story has to consist of people who quarrel amongst themselves. Prince John is actually well enough developed as an insecure, petulant child with no idea what it means to lead a country that I enjoy watching him even as an adult. The parallels between him and President Trump are unmistakable, and I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more memes about this. Still, by the end of the film, even he was starting to wear on me.

Another aspect of the movie that bypassed my attention as a child but bothers me as an adult is its blatant American-ness in retelling a very old, extremely British story. As in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, all of the accents, except for those of two of the main bad guys, are American. The rooster narrator of the story sounds particularly American and plays folk music throughout of a style that strikes me as the epitome of American.

The way the script and animation deal with bodies and obesity is particularly interesting in this one. Four of the characters I can think of are portrayed as fat, including one of the main bad guys (the Sheriff “Old Bushel-Britches” of Nottingham) but also three of the good guys. Minor quips are made about this by some of the characters, but overall it could arguably be considered a rather positive, good-natured treatment of this issue for its time. It is the source of some physical humor, and some of the body-related physical humor in general slightly raises my eyebrows as an adult -- there is a boob grab, for instance (well, fake boobs as part of a disguise, but still).

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, 1977

I had avoided watching any Disney rendition of Pooh for a long time before watching this one last week. I got to see a lot of Pooh in earlier childhood because of videos given as gifts by other kids’ parents, which my mom (who loves the original books by Milne and hates Disney’s interpretation of them) let me watch only with great reluctance. I soured to the Disney Pooh franchise as I got older and remember in high school getting sick of how many things were decorated with animated Pooh characters, and how few people knew the original books.

Starting to watch this film, I had no idea which of the Pooh stories would be included or whether I would remember seeing them before. As it turned out, I remembered almost none of it: I knew the theme song well and was slightly familiar with the early song about Pooh climbing the honey tree (it must have been on one of the Disney Sing-Along videos) but didn’t remember anything else until vaguely recalling some of the later Tigger stuff (I remembered, before it happened, that Tigger escapes from the tree by sliding down a paragraph of text in the book, one of many instances of extreme fourth-wall-breaking that runs as a theme throughout). As it happens, although The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh seems to go along pretty smoothly given that it makes no pretense of having a unified story arc -- something I give it credit for -- it is actually composed of four short films produced throughout the decade beforehand. This explains why I only remembered the Tigger stuff near the end: we must have had the quarter-length film Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too at my house for a while, but not the other three. (What I actually watched the most, I think, was a video of TV episodes called “Newfound Friends”, which I’ll look up on Disney+ out of curiosity but probably won’t include in this list.)

I remain anti-Pooh[Disney_version], but this anthology film wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be. The first story about Pooh and the honey tree was actually pretty good. I am not opposed to Sterling Hollaway’s portrayal of the title character. Eeyore’s voice is way too flat, but otherwise most of the characters are portrayed okay. I distinctly remember reading Rabbit as a female character as a kid, and on hearing his voice again I suppose I can understand why. Tigger is the most offensively adapted: he is one-dimensional in a very obnoxious, not-so-amusing slapstick way. His portrayal would have come off better if they had given him more of a child’s voice, which is more appropriate to the book version of his character anyway. The gopher character is pretty annoying as well; he’s rather useless and unnecessary given that he’s not in the books (he even has a fourth-wall-breaking line about not being in the book). Some of the stories from the book are meshed together in a way that does a disservice to each of them, and the movie might have been better if it had committed to adapting fewer of Milne’s chapters. The story about Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s front door is done in a distasteful way, with Rabbit turning the back half of his body into part of the upholstery (an idea that Walt Disney had himself when he first read the book!). The songs weren’t great, and I wish that some of Pooh’s poetry from the books had been adapted to song instead.

Leaving those details aside, this is an earnest attempt at turning Pooh into an animated feature which turned out to be not too terrible given my low expectations.

The Rescuers, 1977

I remember watching this once as a kid and almost nothing sticking with me apart from the fact that the main villain (who I remembered nothing about, not even really the gender) had two pet crocodiles. I watched it a second time on Netflix a few years ago, I think within the same week of watching The Aristocats on Netflix.

I have one word for this Disney animated classic: weak. The story is not all that interesting. Having watched Dalmatians and The Aristocats in the few weeks before hand, coordinated animal rescue plots were starting to wear on me. There is no music except for a few forgettable songs not sung by the characters. Eva Gabor makes Ms. Bianca a beguiling character, but the rest of the characters are completely forgettable. The main male character, Bernard, has the blandest voice ever. Even the little girl being rescued, while sympathetic, is not very unique or interesting. (There is something subtly heavy and haunting about having her teddy bear as her best friend through most of the film, though.) At the time of writing, I’ve already halfway forgotten what the villain’s sidekick was like. There are a bunch of other animals who are fun to watch in animation but don’t stick in my mind, apart from Pat Buttram’s drunken rat character (because it wouldn’t be a Disney film of the 40′s-80′s without some alcoholism in it).

The villain, Medusa, is a particular fail here. She is basically a lame Cruella de Vil 2.0: modern, non-fairy-tale-ish, greedy and materialistic, drives like a lunatic, etc. After watching, I found out that the story writers initially thought of simply bringing Cruella back as the villain in this movie, but decided against the idea of it being in any way a sequel to Dalmatians (remember that at this point no Disney sequel had ever been done -- the 1990 sequel to this film was the very first!). I think they should have gone with that idea: bring back one of the most celebrated Disney villains, rather than come up with a new one who is a lot like her but with subtly less pizazz.

Random observation: this has to be one of the only classic Disney stories where the animals can talk to exactly one sympathetic human (the girl) but no other human. If I remember right, I don’t think even Cinderella can understand the words of her mouse friends.

Anyway. Some people say the sequel is much better than the original here. I haven’t seen The Rescuers Down Under yet, but I hope it’s true.

Pete’s Dragon, 1977

This is the first movie on this whole journey that is so obscure that I don’t think I’d even heard of before, let alone seen, and that’s despite the fact that there was a remake in 2016. (The one thing that rang a bell for me while watching was the idea of a dragon playing tic-tac-toe on its belly, an image I possibly saw in an isolated context.) I questioned whether I should watch yet another 1977 Disney film at all, when it would be mostly live-action and was obviously so obscure. In the end, I’m glad I watched this, partly because the story did grip me on some level, but mostly because this film is so very entertaining in how badly done it is.

Pete’s Dragon, in almost every way, is bad -- hilariously bad -- the sweet spot of Bad: the kind of bad that’s actually interesting to examine and yet also shallow enough to make for good Bad Movie Night watching. It’s hard to know where even to begin. The consistently terrible acting of almost everyone, especially in every single line of the boy protagonist (I hate to trash a child actor like this, and part of it was probably bad direction: for instance, someone should have taught him to go easy on the pointy finger). Almost none of the right emotional notes are hit at the right time in what is a very heartfelt story. Only Helen Reddy as the female lead and Jim Dale as the charlatan doctor strike me as good actors doing the best they can with a terrible script and bad acting around them. Then there are the cheesy, poorly-written, often poorly-sung songs. (Did I mention that in one song, each of Pete’s main abusive guardians continue to sing, each in an unperturbed, full-throated voice while being flung in the air by an invisible dragon and plunged into the water?) The awkward choreography. The weak visual effects (as with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, they really didn’t know how to pull of hybrid animation well. I’d go easier on them for this if Mary Poppins hadn’t nailed it 13 years earlier.) I could go on and on.

It made a lot of sense to me when I read afterwards that Pete’s Dragon was originally written as a stage musical, because there is something unusually stage-musical-ish about how the songs are written (for instance, having subsets of the ensemble throw out response lines in unison) and the way the choreography is done. I’ll say as someone who has been in stage musicals that these elements can feel a bit awkward even on the stage; they look to me more awkward in the medium of film; and they’re especially awkward when the songs, choreography, etc. is as poorly written as it is in this film -- someone who hates musicals wanting to teach a friend to hate them too might well choose to show their friend this movie and pretend that it’s a representative example.

Even through all this, I was able to appreciate that the story is pretty good, and I came to care for the sympathetic characters, however badly acted they were. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of a small coastal village in northeast US (called Passammaquoddy, apparently a real bay in Maine). So, by the time I was partly through watching this (fairly long) movie, I felt very committed to continuing, enjoying it as I was just as much for its entertaining badness as for anything else.

I want to end by mentioning one musical scene in the movie that took me by surprise because it was actually good, and funny and catchy and overall entertaining. It’s our introduction to the charlatan Dr. Terminus, and so it’s self-contained. If you want a taste of a part of the movie that I think is head and shoulders better than the rest while reflecting exactly what I mean by a stage-musical-style musical number (not making any claims about how good in absolute terms this scene is, though), here is a YouTube video of it (the song “Passammaquoddy”) (warning: mildly off-color taste on body type and disability stuff). I would actually enjoy leading a song like this in a musical.

The Fox and the Hound, 1981

These more obscure Disney films are getting more and more interesting. I distinctly remember knowing about this one as a kid, seeing VHS boxes of it at friends’ houses, etc., but I never had much interest in actually seeing it. I watched it for the first time on Disney+ with great curiosity, coming in knowing literally nothing about what the story would be about except “a fox and a hound are friends”. I was pleasantly taken aback by the new setting of backwoods American farmland and by unusually quiet, low-key tone.

The main thing I can say about this movie is that it’s far and away the least Disney-ish of the animated ones I’ve seen so far. If nobody had told me which company made this movie, it would never even occur to me that it was done by Disney, except for the presence of Disney icon Pat Buttram’s very recognizable twangy voice (perfect for this movie, not really appropriate for the setting of Robin Hood). It’s hard to explain just why I feel this way. Maybe it’s something to do with the pacing and the sort of quiet story. Or maybe it’s the fact that none of the animals seem to be drawn in the traditional Disney fashion (that is, we’ve seen fox and owl characters before in Disney, and for some reason their counterparts in The Fox and the Hound aren’t recognizable to me.) Or maybe it was the almost complete lack of songs. Honestly, trying to write this, I can’t quite pin down what made this a slightly offputting Disney-watching experience.

Despite feeling affection for the characters from the get-go, I actually found myself rather bored throughout the first half of the slowly-progressing movie. Then I perked up in the middle, actually thinking there might be a death, and of a rather morally ambiguous character too (this didn’t feel like a Disney film, so it might break the rules?). After that I felt enthralled to the point of breaking down and finishing it after having previously decided to leave a bit left over for the next day. I’m really not used to not having any idea how stories will end when going through Disney movies, and I guess I couldn’t handle even that small bit of suspense.

In the end, I thought the story, and how the story was rendered, was pretty good -- not stellar, but genuine. I don’t know about how overly-neatly everything was wrapped up with the main antagonist Amos Slade doing a complete 180 at the end, but after all this is Disney even if it doesn’t particularly feel like it and I shouldn’t be surprised at a happy ending.

Random side note: I wonder if Big Mama (the owl character) could be criticized as sort of an African-American stereotype and thus what Disney+ would call an “outdated cultural depiction”, or if it will be in another ten years.

The Black Cauldron, 1985

We continue with our sequence of more obscure Disney flicks. I guess this era is called the Dark Age of Disney for a reason, and one could say that this movie epitomizes such an era both in its role in the evolution of Disney and in its actual content. I don’t recall even hearing about this one as a child. I’ve heard it referred to as an adult only in the context of its successor being advertised as fun to provide a contrast with the overly-dark box office failure that had just come out, so I came in expecting a not-very-worthwhile movie that would be uncharacteristically dark and un-fun.

All I can say is, wow! The Black Cauldron, while indeed uncharacteristically dark (in ambiance at least, less so in subject matter), is genuinely, seriously good!

Within literally the first two seconds of the film, I knew that I was in a Medieval setting (not having known anything whatsoever about the story prior to watching) both from the music and from the backdrop. This remained the case throughout the movie. Everything in its style is boldly, wholeheartedly Medieval, not like some other Disney movies where the Medieval setting is watered-down and phony *cough*swordinthestone*cough*robinhood*hack. The only other movie on this list so far which comes close to succeeding at this was Sleeping Beauty, but that is such a different type of film, with such a different animation style, that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. Honestly, I don’t think that the flavor is so thick even in Sleeping Beauty. The art of The Black Cauldron actually feels closer to that of Magic the Gathering than anything else I can think of from Disney. The effects of the animation are absolutely gorgeous -- in a rather dark way, mind you, not bright and colorful like what is usually associated with Disney.

The story is complex by Disney standards and I had zero familiarity with it beforehand, so for the first time I actually had to check myself to make sure I was paying attention. The characters are reasonably developed with engaging dialog (though slightly hesitant and sparse, with unusually little humor). It was a little jarring to hear “the Forbidden Forest” mentioned by one of the characters and remember that Harry Potter wouldn’t be around for over a decade. The main villain is one of the scariest ones of Disney and I would imagine may have been somewhat influenced by Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor, who had made his debut only a couple of years earlier.

I said that the last film on this list seemed distinctly un-Disney-ish, and I can say the same about this one in its own way -- maybe this was an experimental trend at Disney studios during the first half of the 80′s. The Black Cauldron has even less music in it than The Fox and the Hound and may be the only animated feature I’ve seen here with nothing resembling a song at all. One strong impression I got throughout, especially when the dungeon sequence started and the princess was introduced -- and this isn’t exactly a compliment -- is that something about the pacing, dialog, body movements, etc. seriously makes this movie feel like I’m watching a video game. (For personal context, I’ve never been a gamer, and most of my exposure to video games comes from watching college roommates play during the late 00′s.) I can’t justify exactly where I get this feeling. Also, the princess is strangely voiced and feels particularly like a non-player (video game) character somehow. I’m now curious as to whether there have ever been any games based on this movie or whether it had faded too much into oblivion by the time gaming reached the right level of progress.

Anyway, The Black Cauldron may not be especially fun or enjoyable to kids, but for an older person in the mood for some spooky Medieval fantasy animated entertainment, I recommend it as a fine movie.

(Fun trivia: I had believed that the successor on this list was the first animated feature to use computers to assist in animation, in the clock/gear sequence, but apparently this one actually was. Also, to date it was the most expensive animated film created.)

The Great Mouse Detective, 1986

Now for a classic that I had been greatly looking forward to. We didn’t have The Great Mouse Detective at my home growing up, but I know I saw it a number of times and later remembered liking it so much that on a whim in college, around the time I revisited Mary Poppins, I borrowed it from the local Blockbuster. I distinctly remembering feeling a little sheepish checking it out, but the young guy at the register actually said something like, “Yeah, that’s one of the best ones.” Years later, one of my best friends during graduate school was hanging out at my place and the conversation went to us agreeing on how excellent The Great Mouse Detective is and musing over the fact that nobody ever seems to talk about it, and we decided to watch it together as it was on Netflix at the time. We didn’t bother to log out of my roommate’s Netflix account to watch it, and he was later very irritated at me about the fact that Netflix was now constantly offering him children’s animated features. Anyway, it seems I’m far from the only one who has often viewed this one as perhaps the most underrated Disney classic of all time. (Further evidence: it comes second in WatchMojo’s list, with their winner being its predecessor!)

The Great Mouse Detective was billed as “All new! All fun!” to assure audiences that it would be a departure from the heavy seriousness of its predecessor, and in this it generously delivers all the way through. It’s based on the just-silly-enough-to-be-delightful premise that in late Victorian London there was a mouse version of Queen Victoria living in Buckingham Palace and a mouse version of Sherlock Holmes (our title character) living under the human Holmes’ flat in Baker Street. Our villain, the dastardly Ratigan, is hatching a plan to take over all of Mousedom via a plot which is incredibly silly, but the movie, which is consistent in its unpretentiousness, is able to pull this off just fine. All of the characters are nicely fleshed out (there’s a case to be made about Fidget’s character reflecting ableism but let’s leave that aside). Ratigan is the juiciest villain we’ve seen since Cruella de Vil. The plot is actually pretty complex, not at all like the predictable fairy tale / fantasy type plots we’ve often seen, yet not so complicated that it would lose the audience (or if it loses some kids, they will still be entertained by the great voicing, music, and animation). The action is, bar none, the very best I’ve seen so far on the animated movies of this list, and the movie is somehow packed with action -- every single sequence of it is superb, and the climactic scene inside of Big Ben is a revolutionary masterpiece of animation (by the standards that existed at the time). The abrupt transition to that scene, beginning in near-silence, is one of the more delightfully, deliciously chilling Disney moments for me.

This is not one of the great Disney musicals, but all three of its three musical numbers are still very enjoyable. I remember learning in college that the same person wrote “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” and “Goodbye So Soon”, but I only just now internalized that the composer was Henry Mancini who I love from The Pink Panther and Victor Victoria. There is a certain type of wit and humor in the lyrics of both of those songs which I don’t know how to characterize in words except to say that it’s sprinkled with phrases either containing self-contradictons (“You’re the best of the worst around”, “You’re more evil than even you”) or redundancy (“No one can doubt what we know you can do”) or just plain wordplay (“Even meaner? You mean it?”, “With time so short I’ll say so long”). None of it makes a pretense of being extremely witty or anything; it’s just mildly dry. I don’t know what to call this kind of humor and can’t think of another example of it, but it consciously (though subtly) influenced the vibe I was going for with the section headings in certain of my earlier Wordpress essays.

Perhaps Lady and the Tramp can make a case for winning the Most Underrated Disney Animated Feature prize, as it seems more mature and elegant, but I’m not ashamed to say that I find The Great Mouse Detective every bit as enjoyable and that I still have enough inner child in me that I can rewatch the movie in my early 30′s and come out of it smiling broadly.

Oliver and Company, 1988

The first major Disney feature that came out in my lifetime! As with The Fox and the Hound, I always knew about this one growing up but was never really interested enough to watch it (even despite the fact that it was somehow loosely based on Oliver Twist, whose musical adaptation I was raised on pretty heavily) -- at least, I don’t think I ever saw any of it until one day in my young adulthood cable days when I caught it on TV. By “caught it on TV”, of course I mean that I probably didn’t see all of it, and it was interrupted by commercials and I was probably doing something else at the same time and not paying much attention. Literally the only thing I could remember was the line “Don’t want to mix with the riffraff?”

It’s just as well because in the grander progression of Disney creations, Oliver and Company turns out to be pretty skipable. Now I will say that I appreciate the variety of locations and cultural backdrops in Disney films and the amount of effort the creators put into carrying them out (something that was mostly lost on me as a kid). In this case, we are transported for the first time to contemporary New York, and it’s clear that the writers, voice actors, and animators went full throttle on making everything seem as in-your-face New-York-ish as possible. I don’t fault them for doing this, but it’s all done in a slightly brash way that doesn’t at all attract me to late-80′s New York culture.

I was struck in the first few minutes by a change I don’t quite know how to describe in words, except to say that the animation and even more the music feel palpably distinctly more modern than anything I’ve visited so far. The animation is simpler and more generic (luckily I have a fondness for kittens and they do succeed in making Oliver look adorable, but otherwise the visuals left me cold), and the music is a sharp reminder of the blander forms of pop music I remember growing up hearing. “Why Should I Worry?” triggered a recognition of the song that I had long forgotten -- apparently I used to know it very well but I’m not entirely sure how. The other songs are forgettable enough that I’ve already forgotten them. Interesting to find out that the principal voices were done mainly by Billy Joel and Bette Midler, marking another step on Disney’s road towards featuring more big-time celebrities in their voice acting (culminating in Robin Williams’ role in Aladdin several years later).

The story is very watered down compared to either the book or the musical version of Oliver -- understandable, I suppose, but I didn’t find it very interesting. The characters were lackluster, and the main villain Sykes managed to be even more forgettable than What’s-her-name from The Rescuers. This movie normalizes hitting on women by making catcalling noises, as done by two of the non-evil characters -- I wonder if this was put in because it’s considered a distinctive feature of New York culture, but either way I found its presence in the film obnoxious. I will say that the character of Georgette (played by Midler) stood out as very funny, and I enjoyed all of her scenes, but I don’t have much else positively positive to say about this one.

#disney films #the aristocats #bedknobs and broomsticks #robin hood #body issues #winnie the pooh #the rescuers #the black cauldron #Harry Potter #episode vi #the great mouse detective #ableism #oliver twist #catcalling #Our Current president #alcoholism

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diabolik-lovers-box · 5 years

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Matchup please^ω^

Mbti:- INFP-T

Horoscope:- Aries (but i am not like an aries)

Appearance:- 5'4 feet; short,straight and soft black hair with bangs; brown eyes, a lil curvy (than an average 16 year old), childish or high pitched (anime type) voice. I'm an Asian.

Personality:- I am an introvert and shy, other times cynical or "i don't care" thing. Understanding ,lazy, gets 70-80% marks, good at sketching anime, makes mini comics,do not have any friends (because i don't believe in friendships, maybe i am a psycho), have the talent to suddenly ignore people, gets easily embarrassed or flushtered, i'm little scared of boys, obedient and polite,makes a lot of sarcastic /dark jokes (dirty jokes too but only with girls), i'm quiet and annoyed around boys (but i don't mind fictional boys). And i want to learn Japanese!

Likes: Anime, night, moon, stars, lake, mansions, lolita dresses, browsing the internet (searching about anime, psycopaths, psychology) , thriller and mystery (i like horror movies too though i will be too scared to even go to the bathroom alone afterwards), potato chips, chic or cute dressing style, croissants, daydreaming, and my family (specially my lilttle sister)

Hates: too talkative people, outdoor sports,wearing miniskirts and like that (i actually don't hate them, i just feel super uncomfortable, maybe i have low self- esteem), being interrupt when doing something i like.

Favorite diaboy :- Shuu

Least Fav diaboys :- Tsukinamis

Your Diabolik Lover: Azusa Mukami!

He’s definitely good at making you feel comfortable around him and he’s pretty accepting of the way that you choose to run your relationships with people. He’s good at giving you space but also good at gently getting you out of your shell.

About Shuu: I didn’t pick Shuu because you’re both introverted and tend to cut people off and the two of you are a bit too similar in some elements of your personality and a bit too different in other parts.

#match up #Azusa Mukami #Shuu Sakamaki #match ups open #ask box open #anime matchup #match ups #submission

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bugbbites · 4 years

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I tried to make a lil mini comic about my main world of ocs,,, the story is called ‘Paper Crowns’.

(set in like,,, 1690s. Around the salem witch trials,, for reference. Geography-wise, the setting is similar to their world’s equivalent of our scotland.)

Two species exist, humans, and maeres. Humans are humans, nothing special. Maeres are gigantic (think�� a very large grizzly bear),,, wolf like creatures, their most notable features being their large wolf-like teeth, long fur that sometimes resembles a lion’s mane, and large, semi-retractable claws. They come in all shapes, colours and sizes though. They resemble having the general body shape of a grizzly bear (or tiger, depending on genes) with the muzzle and face of a wolf, and sometimes manes, like lions. Maeres are also the only beings known to possess magic,, they have the ability to shift their form into that of a human. Though, it takes a lot of energy to shift their form, and damages them if they shift for too long. Maeres who shift too often, or stay in a shift for too long will start to get marks on them that look almost like burns. These only worsen once they start to appear. To avoid this to a certain extent, maeres often only partially shift when they need to, not bothering with things like ears and tails (in this story specifically maeres only really shift for convenience, so they can fit into places like shops and houses). Also note that maeres have the ability to possess human levels of intelligence, that is if they want to. So here's where things get complicated. Even though they can shift, and are basically on the same level as humans in terms of intelligence and all that,,, Maeres often spend their whole lives living in the woods, never shifting, never learning, and completely isolated from humans. Why, you ask? Because the humans are absolutely terrified of them. But I mean, when you see a bunch of practically carnivorous giant creatures that look like bears but scarier killing and eating your livestock and other animals, can you blame them? Their magic was passed off as evil, and demonic. Some human religions even believed them to be demons.

The humans treated maeres as beasts and monsters, because that's what they knew them as. They never gave them a chance to even try and reach their full potential, instead exiling them to the forests, and even going as far as to actively kill or hunt any ones found living around human villages or kingdoms. They basically live in fear of each other.

Humans were scared of them for being gigantic scary animals that are their Thing is, since the maeres were never given the chance to integrate themselves into human society, they never got the chance to reach their full potential. Most of them live out their whole lives, barely surviving in the deep forests of their world. Never learning to speak, never shifting, never bothering to be anything more than what the humans thought them to be. Add on the fact that with most of the worlds maere population being confined to forests, and human hunting, the maeres don't have much food. Lots of what would be their natural prey would live and travel in open grasslands, but hunting there is near life-threatening thanks to being in view of humans, so a lot of the time at night especially, maeres will break into human farms, and eat their livestock. This only gives the humans more reason to fear them, but hey, their social status is less important than their overall survival. To be fair, maeres are inherently carnivorous, violent, and dangerous creatures, but they don't have to be. If given a chance, they have the potential to live in harmony with humans. But guess not lol.

The characters here were born in a village hidden deep inside the forests, in a spot with lots of rivers and trees, and thus a hotspot for maeres, and traveling sellers. Their parents were the ones to establish this village, their hope being that it could be like— like a safe haven, where humans and maeres could live together. No one would have to worry about hunting or starving because of their location, and maeres could finally have the chance to live their lives. They finally had a sense of community. All of this was ruled over by a human queen, a maere king, and their two children, oldest son Soren (blond hair- the hurt one), and younger daughter Everett/Red (blonde hair, red jacket).

Until their father, the king died. Their mother, with the villages well being and stability in mind, married another human from the village. He was a nice man, but not a maere. This angered some of the villagers. They feared that the village would collapse under the rule of humans. They feared their safe haven would return to a place of discrimination, where they were seen as lesser, and humans stood dominant. So to stop this, a group of 3 maeres broke into the family’s house one night, and murdered the king and queen. Soren and Red managed to get to safety in their cellar through all this, leaving them the last standing members of their family.

The king and queen were gone. The village was left confused, with no guidance. This forced Soren to step up. A timid, paranoid, anxious boy at the mere age of 20. He had never wanted to be king... and with his paranoia and anxiety disorders in mind... he really had no place to be. But the people demanded a ruler, and as the oldest, he had to be that person. But... Soren wasn’t stable. After witnessing what happened to his parents, he didn’t feel safe in that position of power... paranoia quickly swarmed him, with worries that he would be next... that he would be killed too, that he wouldn’t be safe until he eliminated the dangers. So he set off banishing anyone he deemed untrustworthy or suspicious. He was suffering hallucinations and nightmares, showing him the faces of his parents murderers, taunting him, and leading to kick out more and more people until— Until people started leaving on their own.

Everett had sat by and watched all of this unfold, unable to do anything about it. She knew how dangerous the deep woods were, and couldn’t bare to see any more of her friends leave, so she decided to confront Soren. Red is extremely impusluve, and driven by purely emotion (she’s... kinda a dumbass) so she didn’t consider the consistencies that confronting and yelling at her mentally unstable brother might bring. She met him in the field behind their house, and the two got into a shouting match. Soren was getting frantic, and threats were being thrown. Red slid a knife out of her pocket... no intention of using it, but as a precautionary measure. This sent Soren into a full on breakdown— all his worst fears were coming true. He had always thought something like this would happen just— just never with his own sister. So he shifted, and tried to attack Red in his maere form— Red did too. Red landed a few scratches on Soren before realizing the battle was a lost cause. She was stronger than him, and could end him with ease but... she didn’t want to do that. In a last ditch effort, she shifted back, trying to show him she didn’t mean any harm. She tried to reason with him one last time. But Soren didn’t listen. He ran st red, readying a swipe to the head, but before he reached her, he felt a pain in his stomach—

And looked down to see the knife buried deep inside. Kit, red and Soren’s childhood friend. Soren’s boyfriend... someone who’d been there since the beginning. They had grown up together, protected eachother, and kit had helped Soren through all his tough times.

Kit was holding the knife. He had been watching from the house, in case anything went violent, and... it did. So he ran outside, and took the knife from red, and..

Soren collapses to the ground— barely moving. He was a crying mess, apologizing, and broken. He still didn’t fully grasp what he’d done to deserve this... only that whatever it was, it was very wrong. That he was very wrong. Defeated, he stayed, still... ready to embrace death.-

And then the events of the comic ensue!!

Afterwards, kit cleaned up Soren’s wound, and he miraculously survived. Note he was extremely weak, and wasn’t back on his feet for weeks, but he was okay. The two never returned, instead living out the rest of their lives together, wandering and exploring the world. After they left, with Red as queen, the village started coming back together, and everything ran pretty smoothly from there.

Sometimes at night, Red still waits for them to come back. None of he three hold any grudges against eachother... their love is still strong.

Id love to give more info on the maere species, or story’s characters if anyone cares—

Also also Kit was made by @victoriel-trash !!! So props to them for his character and design!! And story development help—

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twracehorse · 5 years

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Cringing at my own videos

Training Videos Edition!

I got bored, needed motivation to start editing, went back to take a look at my older videos, and now I judge and cringe at them because that’s a given at this stage

Under the cut to keep your dash shorter :3

Determined Horse Training, the title I came up with to be a little unique. I obviously couldn’t use something akin to Northena’s “Training Is Fun...Right?” and I wanted to give it a proper title knowing this would be a series of videos. I thought, and thought, and came up with the title after thinking of Undertale and how you are filled with determination in the game. “I am filled with determination to train these horses!” is what I thought and so the title of the series became that!

I use // as a way to separate different topics I’m talking about

Brave Rebel- First off...the thumbnail. He was originally themed sort of after Nathan Drake from Uncharted, since I was into that series at the time. So the map was, you know, for the treasure hunting. But I didn’t want to stretch the map to fit and somehow decided that a brown background was a good idea?? // AH THE CLOTHES! THE NECK!! AHHH GATORADE OCEAN BLEHH. // Oh yeah I have a spelling error in the video “Let’s go defeat this traning day!”. // Been training with Sage from the start of the series. I wonder how many fails of their’s I’ve caught XD // Ah the rocks, the rocks that I caught Sage stumbling out of in a later training video. // Let’s not forget the double mouse thing going on that makes its appearance in many videos before I figured out to click off of the web pages (which had a music playlist going while training). // Omg there’s someone with the club name The Babies standing nearby when I turn in the final race. // Low-key still love this horse. He was my first true Soul Steed before we were designated to our starter. I don’t take him out much, the difference in horse animations from new to old is getting bigger and for dynamic photos, it just doesn’t look good ( @~@)

Cool Hero- The horse based off of Markiplier back when he had red hair. I also uploaded the video on his birthday! // The song choice....I mean it fits the theme, otherwise I’d pick a better song. // The mini references I’m still low-key proud of. // There’s quite the amount of gliding pons in this video and some horror texture pons. // I obviously had to max Markimoo at the observatory! // I also mimicked Mark’s outros where an image is boomeranging. It took a couple tries with my friend in the background, but it was worth it!

Violet Mystery- I hope when I introduced her as “The winner of the Jorvik Wild horse competition” I mean, she was the first coat to be picked. Back when it was only one horse coat is being made. They added the top two coats afterwards. // Oh yeah the character’s whole head would move to the side to keep eye contact with the camera. // It’s so weird to think that I caught a bit of footage of Swifty just before meeting her. Then again I remember NOT editing this training video until months later and uploaded it in September. Mind you that I got Cool Hero and Violet Mystery at the same time and Cool Hero’s video was out in June...oops. // Ironic that I have the pandoric cracks around when the horse is based off them. // People running up from the riding arena, ah the fog glitch that would happen when you left your horse in the riding area, ran all the way to the dino valley elevator, took it, and there was no fog in the valley!

Megalove- Ah the first Undertale horse! I mean technically still the only Undertale themed horse I have, but I do have others planned. Haven’t gotten them yet and some plans changed. // The thumbnail....why did I make the stickers super tiny?? // Finally changed Elsa’s hairstyle to the ponytail I still wear to this day. We need updated ponytails with side bangs! I know we have the awesome braided ponytail in Mistfall, but there’s too much forehead! // Also the first training footage with the meet up....was 4 hours long. This was back when I recorded all stages of training and went through the footage in real time....I’m glad I changed strategy. // Can’t remember if crashing into a jump and the jump of the music timed at the same point was on purpose or if it was editing magic. // Oof cringing that I put comic sans as Sans “talking” in the video nnngghhhhh! // Ah my old club name Royal Ambassadors. I gave that club over to my side account Chiara Monsterhope for obvious reasons. // Annoying Dog in the credits, I still love that

Lucky Hero- I’m still proud that I came up with his nickname Vien short of Vienna where the famous riding school is. He, along with Brave Rebel, are my top horses. Please get an update eventually boys! // Finally Mac users had clear water! I was so happy over this you do not understand XD // Warriors by Imagine Dragons fits this horse, but quite a pain when I got Dark Warrior and didn’t want repeating songs. // Oh yeah early on, the Lipizzaners had a weird reflective tail glitch going on. // Vien was the first horse of mine that I got the day of release, bright and early in the morning! // I love how in the face of danger, an approaching bull dozer, I just stare at it. It wasn’t even a “oh no I should get out of the way” and instead was “huh that’s a thing”. // ALLY CHUM! I forgot that was a nickname to good friend!

Grey Ghost- OH BOY HERE WE GO!! Honestly my favorite training video. It was so much fun to edit with the music and the Halloween stickers hidden around the screen! Despite waking up at 5am to train for that aesthetic™. // Okay but that mushroom with the dark green sign did legit give me a spook. My body froze for a second and then I remembered that Slenderman doesn’t exist in Star Stable XD. // Ngl two of the stickers are hard to see cause of their surroundings. // GALLOPER THOMPSON MY MAN! Honestly I waited till midnight for him to be in Goldenleaf forest, just to see what would happen if you were racing and he caught you. By the gods of editing magic, the song was at a good point that fits perfectly with that scene. // For the scarecrow race I did actually take two different takes. I failed the first one and when I was editing I noticed that the two runs looked similar. So I put the first part of run 1 and cut before I failed and then put the remaining of the race with run 2. Looks almost seamless!

Silent Promise- My favorite mare in my stable! She ends up being my AoT cosplay photo horse...until I get the actual themed horse XP. // Shadows were a little glitchy at first. // Why am I using Rud instead of Rude. Like I know why cause that’s how we got around the filter, but I didn’t need to put it like that in the video. It’s like back in my WolfQuest days where I learned to use Cuz as a short version of Cause and it bled into my text vocab. // The witch bombs...I wanted to make it dramatic, but in hindsight it’s just tasteless really. Also to note that the sound which was fine before uploading, got more rough once it was on YouTube

Small Potential- Real cringe theme here, Hetalia. It was fun while watching and all that, but since then I’ve seen some well done anime! Growth! // I love the nickname Finny. Not too sure if I want to keep this pony or not, sadly. // The Christmas remix song is because I had no other ideas XD

Brave Eagle- Oh this is another slight cringe theme. Even more cringe is the fact that I had to re-upload this training video since it got blocked all over the world! due to the Hamilton musical songs. So I....had to layer over the songs with other songs....it’s a whole mess and was a whole pain since I had to re-edit the sound effects. // I’m proud of the thumbnail though....that’s it

Winter Dust- Why did I make the “there’s a new app with these foals you can train” with the dramatic music? // I think because I had less levels to train, I tried filling that space with “cool looking shots”. // Ah, yes, my How To Get Over A Jump wikipedia step by step

Hollow Phantom- Had to bring a creepy vibe even though it was February. So he’s like a Halloween not Halloween horse. // Can you believe that I found the main song from a Haikyuu!! crack video? XD. // That zoom on the pony surrounded by magic shires was weird. We’re saying “SO TINY” but the clip was so short it was done and over without much sense. // Mmm that slight irritation that the music and clip didn’t match with the drop. // Tried to blend the music together with itself....it’s obvious. // Of course had to max the Galloper horse where I first met the phantom himself

North Guardian- I wanna talk about the thumbnail....that background...is literally just the horse’s hindquarters. I wanted something mossy since the horse is sort of based off of Pelagia from Shadow of the Colossus. I couldn’t find good enough backgrounds, so I used the horse itself. // Again that urge to want to make the clip and music match but ahhh

Lucky Lucky- Still wish I could name this horse Gold Luck or something. // I think one of the camera turns during a race was just to show off the rainbow nearby. // Ahh! back when we could say “demon” in the chat. // Hmm instead of letting the clip run, I could’ve just cut to Reed calling the askew fence “a disgrace”. // Text was onscreen for just too long. // Trying to do the riding arena jumps with a good camera angle. But at that point, the camera kept moving and wouldn’t hold still. I’m glad it’s better now. Maybe I’ll try it again with a future horse. // Huh, forgot to add sound effects when I hit something on the last race

Silent Surprise- Cause I had to let the people know that I bought the horse after watching the Belmont. // AH STILL THE NECK! // 2 minutes in and we haven’t even gotten to the actual training yet. // Another day, another SSO glitch, this time it’s shadow rocks. // Oop missed a sound effect

Hot Spot- THE MUSTACHE! // I forgot I put a filter over the video to give it an old timey look. I should do more like that if it’s in theme. // Of course I had to have The Wanted be playing with this song since it’s old west sounding. // What was the purpose of editing the scarecrow race like that? XD. // Random running clip. // Walking the whole bobcat race would be nice if I didn’t keep moving the camera

Pumpkin Candy- As much as I love my Halloween horses, this training video isn’t up to the standards that the first Halloween training video set up. It’s still got Halloween themed music, it’s still got stickers hidden in the video, but it doesn’t feel the same. // Having text be their default instead of making them the same agh. // The spooky filter I overlayed the clips with changes at times. Would be nice if it stayed consistent

Dragon Dawn- Hmm now that I have more songs to choose from (getting into another artist as much as I did with The Wanted), I would have another song playing to fit the horse better. Maybe Euphoria or Mikrokosmos. Oh well those will be for future horses eventually! // Didn’t drop with the music...disappointed

Thunder Spirit- The horse that trains through three months. You can easily tell by the Valentine race, the rainbows of March, and April Fools. // Man I really need to work on making the text not be so BIG. // The first rainbow race had lots of sound effects. After that one I was just like “yeah not doing that again”

Sun Chaser- Eh the slowed down music is not the best idea. But I think it was also an intro to a remix of the song. So it was only so long and I had a bit to say for the intro of the horse. // The second clip of the mysterious Icelandic cryptid you can’t see them once it zooms in....annoying. // Too much of a slow build up with another cryptid spotting. // Also using the same sound but slower after just using it...smooth (not). // You know the very last clip of the horse as he’s turning around on the beach? Yeah that’s the exact moment I did the intro for the horse XD

Dragon Warrior- The contrast between me and Sage’s bantering vs the sadder song (I found the song because of a Zeno AMV) well it’s kinda weird having laughs and then sad melody. // YouTube again ruins the quality of the mic as it sounds fuzzier than it was pre-uploaded. // Low-key recording voices was fun aside from having to make sure the clips matched the voices and clicking of the mouse. // I’m still annoyed I couldn’t find the perfect snoring sound effect when Sage’s Connemara is sleeping and starts gliding away

Smoke Mirror- A little too much of a pause between text in the intro. // I love how I’m wearing a Halloween shirt because no other shirt matched with the blue of the hat except for the dress it came with THAT I GOT RID OF!

Obsidian Mystery- I love the thumbnail for her training video. It’s so spooky and cool! Favorite thumbnail of the entire series right there. // Ironic that with the three Halloween horses I’ve had. The two with the upbeat music are the ones where Galloper was present that year. The one where Galloper was missing that October, the music was softer, generic Halloween music. Not intentional, but it works. Though the first Halloween training video still gets the trick-or-treats because it has nostalgic music. // Some text isn’t easily visible

Dark Warrior- The horse I wish I could name Secret Warrior cause that would make SO MUCH MORE SENSE than Dark Warrior, but here we are. // Since Warriors by Imagine Dragons was in a previous training video, I had to search for another song to fit the horse. I literally went through those anime character theme song videos to find one! That was a terrible jump cut of the song

Ember Flame- Coming Soon

#Star Stable #Star Stable Online #SSO

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alanaswriting · 6 years

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Reminiscing

Carl Grimes x Reader

Summary: You and Carl reminisce old memories one night

masterlist

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: none

A/N: here’s that cute carl imagine i talked about forever ago!

Please don’t steal, plagiarize or repost my writing. I work really hard on my writing as I imagine all writers do and it would suck to find out someone else is trying to claim it as theirs

ー

Your barely illuminated eyes were focused on the bright stars lingering in the night sky. There was so many of them. The small flickers of lights themselves could’ve filled the whole night sky if they were just a little closer. It would’ve been overwhelming brightness. They were probably dead and gone by now though, dim bodies of what they once used to be, the brightest objects in the sky floating around space endlessly with no responsibilities or such to hold it in an orbit, drifting all on its own. You were only getting to see what they used to be due to the logic of everything. You were seeing what they once were.

“I think that’s Venus.” His voice is soft and silky, it floods your eardrums as his index finger comes into view pointing at a bright light in the sky.

“No way, definitely Saturn, see how that one is brighter? That ones Venus.” You explain trying to educate the older boy only for him to go quiet.

He thinks about it as his deep blue eyes shoot between the two lights, not being able to pick just one to focus on. He was completely infatuated with them both. They were mesmerizing. It was something you thought they had in common with him.

“You think so?”

“Know so.”

The two of you continue to stare at the stars and other planets with wide eyes and open minds. Carl was thinking questions like what was out there? How far did the universe go? Did it ever end? Who was trapped out there? Were there people in space when the apocalypse started? While you were thinking questions more like, what was the purpose? Were there other universes where this wasn’t happening? Were there other universes where you and Carl had never met to begin with? The possibilities were endless.

Carl’s breathing was echoing through your ears and surprisingly it was comforting. Carl was alive and the shallow breathing beside you proved it. His heart was beating and his mind was probably racing with thoughts. The idea of his brain firing little bolts of electricity to power his thoughts brought back memories from in the beginning.

You were always intrigued by science, thinking of how your brain worked and the way you could even think the thoughts you were pondering right now was amazing. You were so self aware of your body and mind, it amazed you. Almost as much as the night sky did.

You’re mind flashes to the presentation of the human brain at the C.D.C and you almost wonder if anyone else remembers that. Certainly Carl did, right? You would talk about it for months on end afterwards. He had to have remembered it.

“Do you remember the C.D.C?” Your voice is quiet and you can hear Carl’s breathing pause, he was caught off guard by your question clearly not expecting it.

“Barely.” He mumbles, his voice was full of confusion.

Why would you bring that up?

Your lips turn into a small smile as distant memories flood through you brain, flashing in red for importance. The memories were bookmarked in your brain in a file that was cherished, full of smiles that couldn’t be forgotten. During your time at the C.D.C was when Carl and you tried wine for the first time. He hated it, as did you. You read comic books together, you played board games and ate a real dinner. It was one of your last memories of humanity being normal.

You remembered the way Jenner showed all of your group at the time that video, what happened to someone’s brain after they died of the infection. You remembered how lifeless it looked and how infected it appeared when the brainstem sparked up again. There was hardly anything left of the human brain, it was dead practically. According to Jenner it was.

Everything was different for you after that. The reality of your situation finally sank in and despite only being about 9 you knew that this was the start of something horrible and the end of something wonderful.

“You remember the way the brain looked when he showed us that video?” You ask only for Carl to slowly yet hesitantly nod.

“I almost forgot about that.” Carl responded as you turn your head to look away from the starry night sky.

Your gaze was now focused on Carl, the freckles covering his cheeks looked like dirt in the dim lighting and slightly messy strands of hair was covering his forehead. His hat was nowhere to be seen so the sight of him without it was different but comforting regardless. He looked so peaceful, so normal.

He almost looked like someone you’d see from before. He needed a haircut maybe and more t-shirts and less flannels. It was nice to picture Carl as an average teenage boy but you knew it wasn’t realistic. The two of you felt anything but average. Regardless, the idea was amusing to toy with in your thoughts.

“Do you remember getting shot?” You ask which causes Carl to scoff before a genuine chuckle falls from his lips.

“Which time?” He questions which causes the both of you to laugh a little too hard.

Carl getting shot wasn’t funny at the time. In fact, it scared the shit out of you both times. You thought you lost him the first time and although you were young and not fully aware of what death truly meant you were horrified. You had already lost one of your best friends Sophia and you’d be damned if you were losing Carl too.

The second time around was worse. God, it was so much worse. You really thought you lost the boy who’d meant more than anything to you. You sat there beside him in that small suffocating room holding onto his hand and scolding him the days afterward. You really didn’t know what you were scolding him for because getting shot wasn’t exactly his fault but you were. You told him to be more careful in his sleepy haze, he didn’t catch it though until you told him multiple more times when he was conscious. You were so distressed.

“The first time.” You grin and Carl sighs almost remembering the pain he felt back then.

“Yeah, I remember everything. It hurt like hell.” Carl says in a truthful tone.

“Yeah, but you were a toughie. You jumped back with even more angst than before.” You tease leaning your head against Carl’s shoulder and grabbing onto his hand.

Your fingertips graze his and you notice they’re coarse and rough beneath your touch. He always had rougher hands and despite the amount of mini lotions you’d scavenged for him he never used them. Regardless you intertwine your fingers with his and hold onto his hand gently. It felt comforting knowing he was right here. After everything you’d both been through you never got sick of touching each other. It reminded you both that the other was alive and still here.

It was comforting.

“Do you remember the prison, when we used to watch the fences together?” Carl questions and you roll your eyes at the thought.

Rarely did you guys ever actually watch the fences, you had your eye on them, sure, but it was mostly fucking around and throwing pebbles at each other or reading comics. It was a stretch to say you actually watched them, because honestly, you didn’t. You’d never admit that to Rick though.

“Yeah, that was fun.” You admit, looking up at the sky again.

It was silent for awhile and the two of you were thinking the same thing on a loop in your young minds.

Would you live long enough to reminisce moments like these?

“Do you think we’ll live long enough to reminisce this?” You ask the boy beside you, not taking your eyes off the stars this time.

He pauses and you can almost hear the gears turning inside that pretty little head of his. He takes a deep breath continuing to think before eventually he comes up with the answer he was looking for. He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t be. But he knew he had to put on a confident exterior, he had to act like he was certain at least.

“We will.” Carl says, confidence flooding his tone of voice.

And you would. You would live until you were old and grey. You’d start a family one day and be an active part in building the new world. You had so much to look forward to and Carl knew that much. You would make it.

Carl, on the other hand. Carl would be the boy you’d never forget. Carl would be the person you’d look back on with regret and grief. You would live your life to the fullest, not only for you but for him too. You’d experience all the things you wished he could and savor it. You’d tell him all about it every night, talking to the stars in a similar position to what you were in right now. Except he wouldn’t be beside you then. You’d be on your own.

You would carry him in your heart forever.

But as of right now both of you were unaware of the painfully cruel future that awaited you. You were both happy and satisfied. You had hope and Carl had faith, the both of you made up for what the other lacked and you were certain things would be okay in the end.

So you continued to sit under the stars reminiscing with the boy you loved. You’d reminisce again in the future surely, you just didn’t realize you’d be reminiscing about him.

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scatterbrainuk · 5 years

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Okay so I’ve read the World Turned Upside Down book, seen the posters and teases released and finished the comic, so now comes all the theories lol. (Spoilers)

I know I’m late posting theories but its been hard getting time to write them down. So here goes.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE COMIC & THE TEASE FROM THE COMPANION BOOK FOLLOW

�� 1. The Rats. We all know by this point one of the episodes is titled Mall Rats, and its unlikely the title is talking about kids hanging out at the mall. The poster pretty much confirms this as running towards whatever horror has escaped the upside down are many rats. When Hopper found that large chamber in the tunnels there were multiple piles of bones and furred flesh from the wildlife that had either stumbled into or been dragged into the tunnels to feed the vines and Demodogs. So its possible that some rats may have entered the tunnel, made contact with the upside down atmosphere that could carry the Mindflayers essence/virus/whatever and become infected/possessed like Will was. The only thing that debunks this is that everything connected to the mind flayer supposedly died when the gate closed, which would mean any rats infected should have died as well. Another possibility is that some rats may have made it through the tunnel all the way to the gate and entered into the upside down where they have been corrupted and mutated by the Mindflayer ready for when the gate is reopened. Which comes to my next theory (we’ll come back to the rats later):

2. How the creature(s) crossover. One thing that has never been established is how the original Demogorgon from season 1 opened those mini gates (they don’t have a name so im going with it) whenever it snatched prey and took them to the upside down. I say minigates because unlike THE gate these ones were small and closed themselves after an amount of time. The Demogorgon opened at least 3 in the byers home itself. It also used ones we didn’t see it open like the one it used to catch Barb & the one in the woods with the deer. Janes the one who originally opened the first gate after making contact with it but afterwards it seemed to be able to open any gate it wanted whenever it caught the scent of blood. But then in the comics we see Will finding the mini gate he talks to Joyce through in season 1, though its not fully formed and more like a window. Now it wasn’t till season 2 we learned that the Demogorgon & everything “alive” in the upside down is just a vessel for the mindflayer to control, so did it inherit the ability to open gates or did it lose that ability when that particular Demogorgon was destroyed? In season 2 it already had a stable gate that didn’t close after a while so it may not have seen the need to use it & focused on expanding into Hawkins through its tunnels. On the other hand if it doesn’t have that ability maybe the creature(s) will cross through a random minigate that opens if they do indeed still open. Again what debunks the minigate theory is that everything from the upside down appeared to die when the gate was closed, so if there are minigates to the upside down there should have been a “signal” that would have kept them alive. That being said we never saw what became of that piece of the mindflayer that was exorcised from Will in the cabin. Maybe because it’s a piece of the mind flayer itself it is able to survive the gate closing and took possession of those rats to survive, slowly growing its shadowy essence/virus through them and its goal of the season is to get Jane to reopen the gate.

3. The Poster’s Monster. We can only see what might be part of two arms or legs and its knee’s/elbows. But if you can find a good enough picture you can see all the disgusting detail of what I think it might be made of & what its name might be. Remember the rats running towards it? I think their running to become part of it. Those little thin protrusions running up and down the limbs look very much like tiny ribcages don’t they? Also I cant find a clear enough picture online but someone had a close up pointing to one of the rats on their Instagram story & I swear I can see a rat face near one of its knees/elbows. In the World Turned Upside Down book the sneak peak mentioned that this season would have some disgusting body horror moments reminiscent of The Fly which I took to mean that it would be a human going through a disgusting transformation, but know I wonder if whatever escapes the upside down or has been in hiding since season 2 is slowly building itself a new body out of the rats it has infected. Then as it gets bigger it starts looking for other bodies to assimilate/mutate. This also fits into a real life disgusting phenomenon that is also the name of a Dungeons & Dragons monster: THE RAT KING. In real life a rat king is created when a large swarm of rats is so big that multiple rats end up getting their tails knotted together through having to crawl over & around each other in tight spaces. Google it but be warned its pretty gross since they do not survive as they cannot move and get to food/water whilst stuck & in some cases their feces have glued some of them together. The D&D equivalent doesn’t have a picture but is basically a wererat. Doesn’t match what I’ve just described but since when has any of the creatures from the upside down looked like the D&D monster their named after? Another thing that makes me think it’s a cluster of bodies is from one of the pages of the last issue of the comic series. Its hard to tell if what Will is seeing once he’s connected to the mindflayer via that vine in his mouth (that’s also impregnating him with baby Dart) is real since earlier he was hallucinating that he actually was Will the wise but I cant help but notice how similar the horror he is seeing has a similar look to our mystery monsters limbs. I feel like this whole section is a tease of whats to come & just how many worlds the mindflayer has taken (WTF is that massive jaw bone from?!!)

I have more theories on other stuff but this has taken long enough to write so think I’ll stop there for now. I don’t know which I want more when season 3 hits: for my theories to be true or for them to be something else entirely. I just hope whatever answers are revealed they make sense within the world the Duffers have created.

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wingshead · 5 years

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headcanon / meta post based around de-constructing the thematic qualities in the five-part series man out of time by mark waid.

Bucky: What about you, “Rembrandt?” You oughta start makin’ plans. Steve: If my country wants me to keep serving, I’ll serve. But they might not. Seriously, what purpose does Captain America serve outside of combat? I wouldn’t be surprised if they took the suit and shield and sent me home with every other soldier. Bucky: Ha! They’re gonna have you be the first man to break the sound barrier! First man to climb Mount Everest! Heck, you’re gonna be the first man on the moon! Steve: You think? Bucky: That’s my two cents. So I ask you back: Is that what you want? Steve: I’ll do whatever needs doing. Bucky: That’s not an answer. My brother, you have been running a mile a minute since they shot you up with the super-soldier serum. There is not an American alive who doesn’t owe you (and me) a thousand times over. So, what? Do? You? Want? Steve: Honestly? I just want to sleep.

So right off the bat in the first few pages, it’s pretty clear from the beginning of this mini series that we’re getting a look at a side of Steve that we don’t see very often in the comics, and it directly deals with Steve’s exhaustion & uncertainty. For all his boosting the morale and fighting on the front lines, Steve has an exhaustion with the war and the fact that he for as long as he fought in it, he never stopped working, fighting, and obeying orders the entire time. He has never once complained, other than when he was frustrated in the beginning at not doing more. Minus obeying orders (seeing how for a good portion of his run with the Avengers he’s been the de facto leader/ co-leader of the team), Steve continues on the same way now in the future. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s got enhanced stamina and agility and an eidetic memory. He’s dedicated to the cause : both as a man wanting to do the right thing, and as a soldier wanting to serve his country.

And Steve is very much a soldier, he may have only fought in World War II for a number of years, but he’s fought in many other wars afterwards, and fought alongside other men as well - both as Steve Rogers and Captain America.

But unlike the other GIs and men out in the battlefield that had something or someone to come back to, Steve didn’t. Even back then. He didn’t have family left to go home to : didn’t have a girl. Didn’t really have any friends either. He’s fully immersed in Captain America: the man has become the symbol, and without the symbol, Steve’s not sure who the man is. The question Bucky asks him, ‘what do you want?’, is a difficult one to answer for Steve, because for all that Stevewants peace in the world and the war to end, he doesn’t know what he’ll do in the absence of having a war to fight. A purpose. Despite the fact that it was a pretty god-awful movie, the line ‘God’s righteous man, pretending he can live without war’ in regards to Steve is a pretty accurate one. Steve is constantly at war : with the world, and with himself. He hasn’t known life without a battle or a fight for most his life. The idea of peace and normalcy is a tempting one, and it’s Steve’s goal, but he doesn’t know what his role would be in a life where he’s no longer needed to be Captain America anymore.

Throughout the five part series, Steve’s thoughts are shown in a recurring type-face in the form of a mission report. It shows his distrust with the people and the world around him, and the fact that even in completely new terrain, Steve’s first instinct is to think like a soldier still in a war, & act like he’s behind enemy lines. The last thing Steve remembers is being thrown from a plane armed with a bomb that Zemo had set, and now he’s waking up to strangers in strange costumes. He fought with the Invaders, and super-beings are not new news to Steve : he’s fought with them, and against them. Considering the last thing Steve remembered was being in enemy terrain, he’s suspicious still of the Avengers at first, and Steve tries to maintain a cover that no longer exists. That never existed. He’s still reporting to his higher up. Steve is using his inner reconnaissance report as a crutch : trying to hold onto something familiar, even though it’s not real.

And then there’s the whole issue around his hallucinations, the people and fantasy that he makes up in his head to cope with the reality he’s faced with. This one…kind of speaks for itself. The fact that Steve on the outside looks very composed and calm with the situation, when the panels seen through his eyes show a very different and more disturbing story. His cavalier attitude freaks a lot of people out, both Rick and the medical staff that Steve sees after being shot, but despite the fact that Steve ACTS like he’s fine waking up in the distant future, the fact that we can see that he’s replacing people in the present with people from his past shows that he’s really, really not dealing with what’s happening to him. it’s obvious that waking up and being faced with a time that’s not his own isn’t something that Steve can readily or easily accept, and it’s traumatized him to the point where he’s had to make up an entire world around him to compensate.

But it’s not only limited to the hallucinations. A few times in the comics Steve has what’s known as the thousand yard stare. A blank, long and limp look that isn’t directed at anything. The thousand yard stare was coined in WWII to correspond with war veterans where the intense trauma they faced had left them haunted, and not all there. It’s reflected in their gaze. The dissociation. And dissociation is exactly what Steve is going through right now. He couldn’t possibly be in a more dissociate state at the moment, with everything and everyone he knows gone from his life forever.

Dr. Dysart: Hang on. You can’t just leave! There’s paperwork and payment and – Steve: Alright, I’ll play along. Call this number. This man will clear everything. Dr. Dysart: There’s only six digits … Wait. President Roosevelt … ? Steve: Tell him I said hello. Dr. Dysart: Son, stop! What did you mean when you said “even here”? Where do you think you are? Steve: Huh.

The issue, and the tail - end to Steve’s conversation with Doctor Dysart really hits home the extent of Steve delusions here, and its only expanded on when he meets Rick on the streets of New York. Steve has deluded himself into believing he’s in a dream, because it’s easier for him to accept the future and the changes if he thinks his mind is making it up and he’ll wake up from it soon. But despite this, he still keeps up appearances, showing that while he’s trying to convince himself all of this isn’t real, a part of him deep down can understand that it isn’t, and he can’t freely give away classified information.

Another one of Steve’s hallucinations, and another way for him to compensate for his loss and not face the reality of it all. He sees Rick, a young kid & a friend of the Avengers, and his mind immediately turns him into Bucky. Bucky, who last he’d seen, had been on top of a plane that had blown up. Bucky, who Steve had asked about when he’d 'woken up’, and didn’t get an answer for. ‘Bucky’ looks the same age as he did when Steve last saw him in 1944, despite the fact that in this 'dream’ of Steve’s they’re decades in the future. “It’s good to see you, partner. I was worried about you.” he tells Rick-Bucky.

The guilt and the fear of admitting that the possibility of Bucky being dead is not something that Steve, at that moment, was equipped to handle.

He chooses instead to use a coping mechanism, replacing Rick’s presence with the image of Bucky’s. But during the entire conversation with Rick, despite Steve seeing him as Bucky, he can hear what Rick is saying and understand clearly how it doesn’t fit in with what Bucky would say. Steve understands this, but he chooses to ignore it. He tries to keep playing along with his little game, and keep up the illusion as long as he can. Desperation, maybe, to see when the 'dream’ will end, how far he has to play along before he can wake up.

And yet.

Yet, despite the fact that Steve believes he’s in a dream, he still remains ultimately unchanged in one of his biggest character traits:

The first thing Steve did when stepping back into New York was rush to the aid of a young woman getting robbed. Despite Rick calling him crazy, and Steve believing he’s in a dream - therefore whatever he does should logically have no real consequence - he decides to help Rick in finding the Avengers.

The illusion doesn’t break in the face of everything that his 'brain’ keeps coming up with – the internet, females as Doctors, foreign languages, modern slang, etc etc – until he’s faced with FDR’s death. It’s what makes the illusion snap inside of Steve’s mind and it breaks him out of his trauma induced delusion forcibly. He ends up leaving Rick and going after the man they’re after himself.

And when Steve finds out it’s an alien, when he’s faced with yet ANOTHER oddity that he couldn’t possibly come up with, faced with the reality that he’s really in the future and Bucky’s not here, faced with his world crumbling around him – all Steve can do is laugh. He laughs. Like it’s funny, because it’s the only thing he can really do. The only other option is cry and grieve and face the fact that he’s lost EVERYTHING.

Despite snapping out of the hallucinations and coming to terms with the reality of things, Steve remains vehemently determined to find his way back home. Despite being impressed and overjoyed w/ the future’s accomplishments, he wants to go home. but despite his stubbornness to go home, he listens to the President’s orders above all else. Bitterness possibly at Tony, for exposing him to all this information, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go home afterwards because of it. Steve’s silent breakdown by the foot of Lincoln’s statue, a small figure in comparison to the cold marble, all by himself with his head in his hands, cuts a very solemn and tragic figure. The juxtaposition between both Steve’s current attitude now - solemn, sad, beaten down - to how his attitude was just earlier in the issue - awed, inspired and impressed - as well as Steve sat hunched in front of the Lincoln Statue, which sits tall and proud, is pretty remarkable.

Steve was impressed by the future but from an outsider’s point of view : like sitting in a class, watching a documentary play. What you see astounds you, but it’s a documentary and it ends, and you go back to your own life. Steve expected that. He expected to go back to his life. The future held many remarkable things but it wasn’t, in his opinion, his time. It wasn’t his world, no matter how much better things seemed. Then you have Steve sitting in front of Lincoln’s statue : two larger than life figures that dedicated themselves to their country. Both etched in time, both someone many people know of. Only Steve’s not standing still in time : he’s just out of it. He’s out of place.

It’s in the fourth issue that you really start seeing the shift in Steve’s attitude. He’s downtrodden : he feels beaten down, lost, and at a crossroads with no clue where to go. Thor’s words, while probably meant in a good natured way, didn’t help. The next few pages show even more examples of the juxtaposition that Steve embodies : he fights alongside the Avengers and accepts his duty, given to him by his President and country, but he doesn’t stop searching for links to his past either. He tries to find evidence of Bucky and Peggy’s existences, and eventually visits his commanding officer, General Jacob Simon. A man from his past, who opens Steve’s eyes to all the corruption and cruelty of the world, when Steve had been shown only the good and the progress by Tony, a man from the future. There’s a clear divide shown, between Steve fighting for peace, justice, and good both on his own against what General Simon tells him about as well as with the Avengers, and Steve being crushed by the weight of all the evil, the injustice, and the cruelty of the modern day world. Being exposed to the horrors.

He feels even less, and less like he belongs, despite having a spot on the Avengers, and while he shows his disgust and disappointment with General Simon, he hides his feelings well from his teammates. He’s distant to them, as seen when Iron Man tells Hank Pym that he barely ever sees Cap anymore. Steve is silently grieving: for his life, and for what he’s woken up into, something he fought to protect and create that’s not as great or beautiful as he thought it would be.

The entire issue is very much reference to the opening conversation between Bucky and Steve at the start of the series: Steve, being tired and wanting to sleep but doing what he’s asked to do, being where he’s needed. Only now Steve has a home he needs to get back to, but the war he’s fighting is more internal and impossible that it’s one he’ll never really come back from, one he hasn’t come back from even in today’s comics.

When Steve is finally, finally transported back to his own time by way of Kang, at first he’s shocked. But shock gives way to relief. Not joy ; not excitement ; relief. Steve is relieved to be back home. But throughout the issue, his expressions mainly seem too serious, too somber to match the eagerness and impatience he’d displayed earlier in the series about getting home. A man even asks him, “How’s it feel to be back home? Pretty terrific, I bet!”

and Steve pauses for a bit before answering with a ‘it’s good’. But Steve’s not smiling, despite having said he’d missed this just a few seconds earlier, Steve is showing anything but happiness. He’s finally back in his own time, and catching up on things, but – his perspective has changed. Most telling of this fact, is that slowly over the course of the first seven pages, the color fades. It fades so that everyone in the background is in black and white, but Steve stays in color. It’s a total juxtaposition to the first two issues, where Steve hallucinated and imagined everyone in the future / present to be someone from his past. The only difference now is that the people in black and white are the people from his past. The only people in color are the images of his teammates he sees on a circus poster, in place of the actual carnies. The people in the 40s are the ones that Steve knows. Except now Steve knows more. He’s experienced something extraordinary and new : and he’s changed because of it.

Steve has, for all his emotional displacement in the future, adapted mentally to the cultural and societal shifts that it offered and gave. It causes a rift between him and the 1940s, where things are different from what he’d seen in the future, where progress hasn’t yet been made, despite all the issues and problems that had been created in the future, something important happens in this final issue.

Steve realizes that even when he’s home he has no one, nothing to stay for or come back to. It’s shown in his worry and constant thoughts for the Avengers, because they are in the future and they are something he has to go back for. Bucky is not there. Steve feels he can do for the Avengers what he couldn’t for Bucky : Save them. And he does.

Steve: It’s odd. All I wanted was to be back home, Noonan, and now that I am…I don’t feel ready to put down roots. Why is that? Noonan: Eh. We all gotta get readjusted, am I right? Don’t be sad, be proud! We fought the good fight, and the job is done! Steve: It’s not that simple for me. I have…I had these friends…And the last time I was with them, they were in trouble. I couldn’t help Bucky…And now I’ve failed them, too. Noonan: I don’t know what you mean by “failed 'em”, but if it’s that important…there’s nothing you can do? You know what Captain America says, Rogers: “there’s always a way.”

Steve realizes how he doesn’t belong ; not to the future, and not to the past anymore either. Most people when they think of Steve, and hear the words “man out of time”, tend to only associate it with him being a man of the past in the future. And that is true. But that’s only half of it. Steve is a man out of time in all regards. He says it himself in several different medias, in the movies, in the comics, in different eras : he never fit in, even in his own personal life. He always stood out. He didn’t want to, but he did. But the past is what Steve knew: it held his life, and his potential for a normal one after the war. Now Steve is enlightened, he’s seen the future. He’s lived in it. This issue is showing that even when he DID go back to his own time, and had every opportunity to stay, he couldn’t. He didn’t fit in. It didn’t fit him. Steve lives in a future where it’s very much the same, but he actually serves a purpose.

This goes back to the fact that Steve is a man who fights for peace but is at constant war – and is made for it. However much he dreams of a normal life, it’s not in his cards. We can come full circle here, and draw back on Bucky and Steve’s conversation in the beginning: Steve doesn’t know what he wants to do after the war is over. Captain America is what Steve knows best. Fighting the good fight. Living in the 40s, after the war is over and peace reigns is certainly a tempting thought for Steve, but it’s not a realistic option for him. Not anymore. Not with everything he’s learned, and not with how he is. He goes back to help the Avengers because that’s what he’s always done: help. The Avengers gave him a PURPOSE. Steve may not fit in, and he feels a lot of disassociation with the world and the people, the current culture, but he’ll protect it.

#& 〉 ooc.#〈 ˟ YOU MAY NOT BE INTERESTED / BUT WAR IS INTERESTED YOU.﹥ headcanons. 〉#reposting this here because man out of time is such an amazing look into steve's character #and his coping when first waking up to the modern world #what an honest to god must read .... sad as it is #a lot of people think that steve hasn't gone through trauma / doesn't suffer through ptsd #that he just kind of soldiers on without much problem #like yeah things get to him but he's steve rogers: he's infallible. unflappable #but then you get to issues like man out of time. or issues dealing with dimension z #even the early captain america issues in the 1960s #and you realize...that is not the case #this man is just incredibly talented at stuffing those emotions and trauma down so far back #no one really notices #except for sam / sharon / bucky #and god bless their souls for that

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daresplaining · 6 years

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So what's Matt's relationship with Stick like? It's clearly very complicated and I don't know what to make of it. Because Matt seems equally frustrated with Stick (telling Jessica, Luke, and Danny that Stick is very good at manipulating people), yet also clearly felt affection for the guy (given how he teared up when telling Foggy what happened).

Yes, it’s… complicated.

In the comics (as in the show), Stick enters Matt’s life during a period of turmoil. Matt has just lost his sight, and finds himself trapped in a new, torturous world that he doesn’t know how to deal with and can’t discuss with his father. His whole childhood was defined by confinement, with Jack’s well-meaning over-protection forcing him to sneak out on his own to indulge his restlessness nature. After his accident, Matt sees this one source of freedom closed off, seemingly forever. He feels powerless, frightened, angry, and alone.

Caption: “That night. In the gym. It used to be Matt’s favorite place– but now it’s filled with cries of frustration– tearful fury– and low sobs that speak of defeat. He can’t see. He can’t see. He’s useless.”

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1 by Frank Miller, John Romita, Jr., and Christie Scheele

Stick saves him from this despair. He understands Matt on a fundamental level– something Matt has never experienced before. (He and Jack are very close, of course, but they don’t fully get each other.) They’re similar people– two big personalities capable of challenging each other, which is part of what makes their interactions so much fun. Stick offers Matt hope and– more importantly– power. With Stick’s help, Matt fashions something he saw only as a weakness into a new source of strength, and he rediscovers his own freedom and independence, which has become even more important to him since his blinding. And while his training is hard, and Stick is an unforgiving teacher, Matt is a stubborn, hard-headed thrill-seeker, and in between the frustration, pain, and occasional terror, he enjoys learning to fight and use his powers. While Jack cares for Matt in mundane ways, Stick understands his need for freedom, adventure, and empowerment, and encourages behavior that his dad would never, ever allow.

(Pictured below: Jack Murdock nightmare fuel.)

Caption: “The nights are the best. When Matt wakes before dawn– and, as always, Stick is there– and they dance, unseen…”

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1 by Frank Miller, John Romita, Jr., and Christie Scheele

Caption: “He remembers feeling alive– in a way he never had before. The city was alive, too: he could hear every night-sigh, every bellow of rage, every desperate cry of hope. Catch the scent of an insomniac’s three A.M. cigarette. Of pooling blood. Of shedding tears. All of it– the pain and the joy, the terrors and the triumphs– washing over him as he sucked in his breath, made the leap… captured the night in the palm of his hand. But no matter how high he leaped, how far he went, his teacher pushed him higher, farther.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #349 by J.M. DeMatteis, Cary Nord, and Christie Scheele

Matt: “Stick! I made it, Stick! That was awesome! Right? It’s like I was flying! Whaddaya got t’say to that, old man? Huh?”

Daredevil vol. 3 #25 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

(Stick calls Matt “punk”, Matt calls Stick “old man”. Aren’t they great?)

Matt knows that, essentially, he owes his life to Stick, and their team-ups when Matt is an adult reveal a functional working relationship and sense of mutual trust.

Matt: “Hallucinated, just as I was taking that last shot. Relived a promise to my father that I made as a child. That promise made my childhood a misery, Stick. The neighborhood ridiculed me horribly, made me so angry…”

Stick: “All the things that’ve made you feel that way… they’re obstacles in yer mind, keepin’ it from workin’ right […]. You gotta dig deeper now, Matt. You gotta face the enemies in yer head. An’ they’re just as real to you as if they was flesh and blood. They can kill you. Scared?”

Matt: “No.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #177 by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Glynis Wein

But Matt also resents him, to a certain degree. While “I hated that man. But he taught me well” (from DD vol. 3 #25, excerpted above) feels like an oversimplification, it speaks to Matt’s conflicting feelings regarding his teacher. The main comic doesn’t show us their initial falling-out, so we have to assume it’s the same as what happens in the Man Without Fear mini-series– which isn’t entirely within the regular continuity, but exists alongside it and often informs it. (You’ll notice we’re referencing it a lot in this post.) In MWF, Matt’s training ends when Stick deems him too volatile and emotional, as evidenced by his all-encompassing relationship with Elektra and his violent treatment of the people who killed his father. (The actual degree of violence in Matt’s revenge quest varies between MWF and the normal continuity… but in both cases he goes out and attacks people for emotional reasons, so we can assume Stick’s response is the same.)

Matt: “Stick– what–”

Stick: “Shut up and listen. That girl is poison. She’s on her way to the worst side and she’ll drag you down with her. It’s bad enough you failed me. I won’t have you joining the enemy. I’ll kill you first.”

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #3 by Frank Miller, John Romita, Jr., and Christie Scheele

(We have major issues with the way Elektra is portrayed in Man Without Fear, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Being cast aside in this way would be enough to make anyone resentful. Stick is right– Matt is extremely emotional, which often impacts his judgement– but Matt also has a lot of pride, and rejection hurts. His reunion with Stick as an adult is short, as Stick ends up sacrificing his life to protect Matt, Natasha (Black Widow), and Stone shortly thereafter. But he lingers on as a kind of sentient ghost, haunting both Matt and Elektra and offering up advice, for a long while afterward– which allows their relationship further exploration. Mostly, we’d characterize Matt’s attitude toward him as grudging respect and admiration. Matt would never choose to hang out with Stick, he recognizes that he’s a massive jerk (takes one to know one, right?), and he is fine with not having been chosen to join Stick’s super secret boy band. But he’s also willing to go to Stick for help when he needs it, and to trust in his advice… and as we said, he is grateful for everything that Stick has given him.

The situation in the Netflix show is similar– with one vital alteration. The sting of Stick’s rejection is far sharper in this universe due to Matt’s young age (616 Matt and Stick didn’t cut off contact until Matt was in college), and the fact that he doesn’t encounter Stick until after his father’s death. By switching the order of events and removing Jack from the narrative early (we’re not huge fans of this choice, for the record), Stick’s significance in Matt’s life increases. In the comics, Stick is a mentor and parental figure, sure– a kind of counterpoint to Jack– but in the show he is Matt’s only parental figure (that he knows of, anyway). When he has lost the one person he had in his life, Stick appears. And Matt clings to him all the more tightly because of it. 616 Matt would never have made Stick a dang bracelet. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship because that warm, fuzzy parental role was still filled by Jack. But Netflix Matt needs someone to hug him and take him to the park and tuck him in and do all the normal caregiver things… and that’s not what Stick is there for. He doesn’t want to get attached to Matt the way he grew attached to Elektra, and he certainly doesn’t want Matt getting attached to him.

Reaching out for that kind of love and being rejected, losing another father, is a terrible experience for young Matt. Thus, his resentment of Stick is far more powerful in this universe– but so is his emotional attachment. After they get their initial, obligatory name-calling out of the way, Matt is friendly to his mentor when he first reappears. The discovery of the bracelet among Stick’s belongings clearly hits Matt like a truck, showing that on some level, he still cares that Stick might think of him as a son.

And while he doesn’t have much time to mourn, he cries when he realizes that Elektra has killed Stick.

(This moment, by the way, is probably multi-faceted grief. He is upset that Elektra killed someone, he is upset that she had the capacity to kill Stick (who is her father figure too), and he is upset that Stick is dead. It’s just a depressing situation on all levels.)

This underlying attachment– which, evidence suggests, is mutual, and part of the reason Stick broke off contact in the first place– clashes with Matt’s anger and resentment, and the manipulation that becomes apparent throughout both seasons of Daredevil and The Defenders. On the surface, Netflix Matt hates Stick and his lying and scheming and emotional abuse. But underneath… it’s complicated.

#Daredevil #Netflix Daredevil #Stick #Matt Murdock #Asks #Commentary

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inhumansforever · 6 years

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Lockjaw #1 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

Writer Daniel Kibbelsmith and artists Carlos Villa, Roberto Poggi and Chris O’Halloran bring us the first in a four-issue series exploring the adventures of everybody’s favorite giant teleporting dog. Quick recap and review following the jump.

This first issue opens up on the morning of what appears to be a very special day for Lockjaw... Situated in the Inhuman citadel of New Arctillan on the dark side of the moon, Lockjaw gazes out onto the cosmos and his preternatural sense of smell seem to detect a potential threat. Something quite not right is afoot and Lockjaw springs to action. Fist, however, the narrative offers us a quick glimpse of some of the other members of Lockjaw’s fellow Royals. This includes Medusa and Black Bolt who appear to be *ahem* intimate once more… as well as the always irascible Karnak eating cereal, and Crystal reading a story to her daughter, Luna. Then Lockjaw teleports off.

The narrative switches to earth, to the apartment of Dennis Dunphy, the one-time costumed adventurer and former Avenger known as Demolition Man (or D-Man for short). Dennis has had a hard time of late. Following a tumultuous career as a superhero with some highs and many lows, Dennis had retired from the life and settled down with his boyfriend, Steve. Unfortunately, things with Steve didn’t work out and Dennis has been very much down in the dumps ever since the break up. And his sadness gives way to anger when he sees himself as a clue on the TV gameshow, Jeopardy!, and none of the contestants can recall his name. Then the show goes to commercial before the host can offer the correct answer and it leaves Dennis so enraged that he punches the television.

And this is made even worse when the broken glass from the TV set leaves Dennis with a pretty bad gash on his forearm. Dennis had once possessed superhuman powers, enhanced strength and durability (qualities bestowed onto him by the villainous Power Broker), but these abilities have since gone away and the cut on his arm is bad enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room.

Exiting his apartment Dennis encounters his neighbor, a kindly albeit kind of homophobic elder woman named Mrs. Gillespie. She is petting her pet bulldog, Bixby, and invites Dennis to a party honoring the dog’s thirtieth birthday.

Mrs. Gillespie seems like kind of a kook so Dennis doesn’t give much thought to her claims that her dog is actually thirty years old. Besides, he’s in kind of a hurry to get to urgent care for some stitches on his forearm.

Elsewhere, Lockjaw teleports to earth and arrives at a local park and makes quick friends with a nice little girl chasing butterflies. Good boy.

Over at the hospital, Dennis’ sister, Ruth, has arrived worried that his wound might have been the result of a suicide attempt. Ruth means well but it’s rather demoralizing to Dennis that she had thought things so rough that he would try to kill himself. It’s basically rock bottom for Dennis, but the good news is there is nowhere to go from here but up.

Dennis returns too his apartment building and discovers Lockjaw standing outside barking loudly. He doesn’t recognize Lockjaw and seems to assume he is just a really big dog who might be lost. Yet before he can investigate the matter further, Dennis is hit in the back by a hamster in a mini flying saucer. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write…

Suddenly Dennis and Lockjaw find themselves facing off against a veritable swarm of miniature flying saucers operated by talking hamsters. The lead hamster recognizes Lockjaw, naming him a secondary target, instructing his fellow hamsters to apprehend the canine Inhuman. Mrs. Gillespie and Bixby come out of the building to see what the ruckus is all about. The hamster identifies Bixby as the primary target and its fleet engages. With Bixbee in danger, Lockjaw goes a bit wild and takes out the swarming saucers with heightened brutality.

It isn’t long before the saucers have to retreat. Afterwards, Lockjaw and Bixbee meet up and share a knowing sniff with one another.

Then Lockjaw is off. Dennis still thinks he is a lost dog and runs up to see if he can check for a collar. Doing so accidentally causes Dennis to be teleported off with Lockjaw.

The two land in the Savage Land, the secretive refuge of prehistoric life hidden deep in the antarctic. Lockjaw has teleported to a place in the Savage Land where his one time ally and fellow Pet Avenger, Zabu the sabertooth tiger, is residing.

Zabu growls at first, but his friend Ka-Zar (Marvel’s analog to Tarzan) assures him that all is well. Dennis is rather confused over all that has happened, but he sees Ka-Zar and is taken aback by the man’s physical beauty.

And it is here that this rather silly first issue comes to a close with the promise of continuation with the next installment...

A very goofy and fun ride. Carlos Villa’s illustration along with Roberto Poggi’s inks and Chris O’Halloran coloring all work really nicely for the story. Villa draws a rather funny looking Lockjaw with an especially big face with accentuated floppy joules. It’s very much that kind of cute come funny looking often associated with pugs or bulldogs.

Villa’s penciling very much excels in the one action scene, where Lockjaw and D-Man fend off the hamsters in flying saucers. He is especially good at showing off dynamic scenes and I’ll be looking forward to more action scenes as the series progresses. O’Halloran’s colors really stand out, with an especially good use of electric blues that capture the cosmic nature of Lockjaw’s powers of teleportation.

There’s a lot of mystery here and it remains unknown what exactly is going on. It would seem that Bixby is likely Lockjaw’s brother and that there may be something special about Lockjaw’s siblings that has put them in the crosshairs of these hamster-like creatures.

We know from Black Bolt #5 that Lockjaw was a dog whose mother was exposed to Inhuman experimentation on old Attilan. The experiment appeared to imbue the her pup with special powers, but it wasn’t revealed whether or not Lockjaw’s mom had just one puppy or a whole litter. I’m guessing that it was the latter and that Lockjaw has a number of brothers and sisters out there. Along with an extended lifespan, these dogs may also possess other powers, powers that these saucer flying hamsters could want to exploit. I suppose we will have to wait and see how this all pans out.

Daniel Kibbelsmith has made an interesting choice in selecting D-Man as Lockjaw’s co-adventurer in the story. D-Man a peculiar character… He first showed up in the pages of The Thing as part of a story that attempted to bank off growing popularity of professional wrestling. He then teamed up with Captain America, getting a costume that was an overt knock off go outfits worn by Daredevil and Wolverine. He was homeless for a time, mentally ill for a time, an Avenger for a time. He was recruited into Wonder Man’s squad of Revengers and even mind-controlled into becoming The Scourge. Then he was killed off and I don’t recall how he was eventually brought back to life.

D-Man has kind of been a cypher who various authors have used for different reasons and different plot-lines in a variety of different comics. Kibblesmith departs from this and offers up a more fully fleshed out version of D-Man. He depicts Dennis as a sarcastic yet lovable loser who is down on his luck. He’s lost his powers, lost his boyfriend, things have gotten pretty bad. He’s a guy who could really use a good old fashioned adventure alongside a giant teleporting bulldog in order to turn things around…

Dennis provides up a good point of view for the reader (particularly necessary for a main character who is a dog and cannot speak). Dennis has no idea what exactly is going on with Lockjaw, the nature of his mission, nor the origin of these villainous space-hamsters. Us readers are equally in-the-dark and I’m looking forward to joining Dennis in discovering the truth behind these mysteries. Hopefully other readers will feel the same.

Of course as a big time Inhumans fan I was especially intrigued by the opening scene on New Arctillan. Very interesting to see Medusa and Black Bolt back together and I wonder if this acts as something of a spoiler regarding what will be revealed in the 12th and final issue of Ahmed and Ward’s Black Bolt series.

In any case, it was nice to see confirmation that Crystal has reunited with her daughter, Luna, and both are doing well on Arctillan… and also nice to see that Karnak has apparently been forgiven for his past transgression in the pages of Secret Warriors and has been welcomed to reside on Arctillan with the rest of The Royals.

Lockjaw #1 is my kind of ridiculous fun and I definitely recommend it. Four out of five Lockjaws :3

#Lockjaw #Daniel Kibblesmith #Carlos Villa #Roberto Poggi #Chris O’Halloran #spoilers #Inhumans #review

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saiilorstars · 4 years

Text

It Had To Be You

Ch.27: I Know // Story Masterlist

Fandom: The Flash

Pairings: Barry Allen x Female OC

Pronunciation of OC’s name: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~

Chapter Summary: Thawne starts putting the pieces together for his final attack on team Flash while they're distracted with one talking gorilla.

{Previous chapters}

"So, you figured it out, then?" Noah laughed in Belén's face.

The ombre-blonde stood outside the pipeline, arms crossed, with a deep glare on the laughing man. She expected nothing less than this but it didn't mean it wasn't infuriating. He had known this whole time that Plasticine was Maritza, and much more that Maritza had been the one to get him to work at CC Pictures with her to be a spy.

"Maritza is gone and I need to find her and Rayan. Do you have any idea where they could be?" Belén got straight to the point of her visit.

Noah planted his palms against his pod's wall and smirked. "Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you a thing."

"Do you know something?"

"I've no idea where Maritza is but I'm pretty sure Rayan and Pixel are at the usual place."

Belén waited a moment before speaking again. She wanted to give Noah the chance to do something good but it was clear that he was not on the same page. "I'm taking care of Maritza's son and he's asking for his mom. What the hell do I tell him, hmm? You may be evil but even you didn't hurt kids, huh?"

Noah rolled his eyes. "My eyes were on STAR Labs, and for the last time I don't know where Maritza is. If she hasn't appeared with your brother then maybe she's not with him either."

Belén pursed her lips and thought for another moment. She had thought that was a possibility too. Perhaps Maritza was on her own this time, without Rayan at her side. It would explain Pixel's solo appearances in the city lately. Plasticine had vanished. Belén wasn't sure if this was better or worse, honestly.

"You all played me, you shot me...all I am asking is for you to tell me where Rayan or Maritza are, please," Belén wanted to spark the last shred of decency Noah had, but it appeared like there was nothing left.

He laughed so loudly that Belén was sure if there was anyone in the cortex they would have heard by now. "Forget it," she spat and moved to close the pipeline down.

"It doesn't even matter now, Belén," Noah started talking once her hand moved for the control panel. "Maritza's gone, Rayan is losing his mind, and Pixel will just destroy the city out of sheer fun. Your family's done - it's been done."

"We'll see," Belén upheld a glare as the pipeline shut down. But even when the pipeline was closed, she could still hear his laughter's echoes.

~ 0 ~

Rayan's finger boredly circled the cool metal of a pipe while Angie babbled on about the latest clothes she stole the previous night.

"Piece of cake!" she laughed and jumped to sit on one of the old crates of the warehouse. She pushed some of her hair behind her shoulders and looked over to Rayan only to find out he hadn't been listening to her at all. "Excuse me, I'm talking!"

"And if it was interesting, I would have paid attention," Rayan looked up from the pipe briefly to glare at her. "I asked you to go find Maritza and instead you steal from...Forever21?"

"It wasn't Forever21, and-"

Rayan balled his fist and forced a water pipe above them to come crushing down on the ground between them. As the water spilled, Rayan moved around the pipe he'd been messing with - using his power to deflect any water drops from hitting him - and walked straight up to Angie. "I haven't seen my sister in weeks and as far as I know, she's not living with Belén either."

"Maybe she ran away?"

"Yes, but from what?"

"I don't know," Angie shrugged. "But maybe if you'd been paying attention you would have noticed how strange Maritza had been acting lately. She was keeping something from us."

"But what?"

The two had a mini-stare down until a gust of wind broke them apart. Angie fell off the crate and hit the ground with a thud while Rayan was pushed back against a pipe.

"Your sister was keeping a big secret from you, Mr. Palayta," the Reverse Flash stood between the two metas.

Rayan shook his head as he sat upright and immediately glared at the intruder. Maritza had told him about the second speedster who'd murdered their father - this one had to be it. He focused his eyes on the speedster and used all of his power to control the intruder. However, after a minute, the speedster mockingly laughed.

"Don't bother with that blood control - my molecules move too fast for you to even attempt to control."

"Then I'll just kill you the old fashion way," Rayan began to get up on his feet when Reverse Flash sped towards Rayan and pinned him against a wall.

"Or we could be smart and you can listen to what I have to say and offer."

"I say we listen..." Angie sat upright and rubbed her back. "Mostly cos I don't feel like fighting in my new clothes."

"I'd never talk to the man who killed my father!" Rayan gripped Reverse Flash's hand curled around his neck.

"What if I were to tell you that I know why Maritza ran?" Reverse Flash smirked when Rayan froze. "Or how about I mention my knowledge of the Flash's identity?"

That piqued Rayan's interest. Though he had a cloudy mind, everything snapped back to the present at the mention of the Flash, or even Belén for that matter. "What do you want?"

Reverse Flash let Rayan go and surprised the two metas by pulling off his hood.

"Dr. Wells?" Angie got up on her feet and threw Rayan a look. "We were right - that guy was always hiding something."

"First of all, my name is Eobard Thawne and second of all, as I told Belén, it really was not my intention to kill your father, your entire family was collateral damage," Thawne explained calmly. "And do you know who's at fault?"

"You," Rayan accused.

"No, the Flash. I wanted him, I still do, and because of him I had to go through so many people - including your sister - to get him. And if things continue they way they are, I'll have no choice but to kill her too."

"Fine," Rayan said all too easily, even for him. "Belén chose him anyways. Our entire family is broken."

"Well, I'm sorry to say that it does not get better. See, in my time - because I'm from the future by the way-" Thawne paused only to take in the two's comical faces, "-she's, how do you say, the Mrs. Flash?"

"NO!" Rayan's face went completely red within the minute. He thrust his hands forwards, picking up multiple crates and crashing them against the walls. "You're lying!"

"Are you willing to wager on that based on everything you know so far? Everything you've seen so far?"

Rayan breathed heavily, his chest rising as anger bubbled underneath. "What the hell do you want?"

"I want to get home and you want revenge on STAR Labs - I'm sure there's something we can come up with together. After all, your mind is still sane enough for a decent plan."

~0~

Searching for Eddie and Thawne was a much more complicated job than anyone could have thought. Days turned into a week and still no one could find them. Feeling so overwhelmed, the group had finally brought in Nina to officially help them as well. Nina searched from above, Belén through the small spaces, and Barry anywhere else in the city.

Feeling even more cautious, the group decided to never be alone. Where one went, another person was to accompany. There was a special emphasis on Iris, being the one of them who suffered more considering her boyfriend remained missing and she had no idea why. Belén tried spending as much time as she could with Iris, but the woman seemed to be a little distant. Belén didn't press for any talking that Iris didn't want to do - she was just there to be with Iris.

But on the nights that Iris preferred to stay alone - although for the time being back at her dad's - Belén was to spend her nights alone at home...or so she thought. Barry had taken Iris' words very seriously, figuring that although Belén was focusing on helping to catch Wells - or Thawne at this point - she too was hurting as her siblings were basically hunting her down for a death match. She was still processing how her own life had been altered because one man chose to do it.

Barry made it his job, or his responsibility, to make sure Belén knew she wasn't alone no matter what.

Belén stopped being surprised each night she found her boyfriend on the other side of her front door with an idea of how to spend their night. Even though he didn't spend the night, it made her feel good, safe, and best of all she wasn't lonely.

One night it was dinner.

...that they bickered about because they couldn't decide whose lasagna was better.

"I'm Italian, Barry! My lasagna will top yours any day!" Belén shouted at him.

"Hey, adding something new to the recipe doesn't mean it'll taste bad!" Barry argued right back with the same determination she had. It was clear that neither would back down, which meant they needed to find a solution fast.

"Auntie Belén!" Axel skipped into the kitchen from the backyard. "What are we eating? I'm hungry!"

The two metas glanced at each other with the same idea popping into their heads. That night Axel had two different plates of lasagna he could taste and when he happened to choose the plate Belén made, Belén cheered and gave a smug smirk at Barry.

"Told you," she even added.

"This is not a pretty side of you, Bells," Barry said with a small 'tsk' afterwards.

The next night Barry came over, it was series marathon night and both decided they owed Cisco by catching up on the Walking Dead. When Axel was put to sleep, Belén and Barry settled on the couch and watched the series for as long as they could before sleepiness would take over.

"It's still unbelievable their effects are this crappy," Barry would say every five minutes or so.

Belén, sitting beside him, rolled her eyes. "Barry…"

"I know, I got it, shut up now," Barry nodded and forced himself to keep his mouth shut for as long as possible. Two minutes later, however… "The aim was completely disproportionate-"

"Barry," Belén looked at him expectantly. They were just trying to watch a television series and here he was rambling on about the reality of things. It was so...Barry.

"I know, sorry," Barry apologized and lowered his head a little. But, when he looked back at the television, he just couldn't control himself. "Oh c'mon-" he flapped a hand towards the television, "-that could never happen!"

"Oh my god!" Belén exclaimed and hit him with one of the cushions, giving up on ever being able to watch television without him yapping through it.

"I'm just saying-"

"SHUSH!" she nearly jumped over him as she pushed the cushion over his face. Maybe this way she could get an episode in silence!

The next night, feeling guilty he had ruined their marathon day, he offered a movie night...where he promised he wouldn't speak unless it was for a good reason that did not involve science and logic.

Belén said he was on probation.

"Well, Axel is fast asleep," Belén returned from upstairs after making sure Axel remained asleep. "You are, and I quote, his favorite 'new uncle'." She moved around the couch and promptly took a seat on Barry's lap. Barry couldn't help but think back to the future article written by Belén's future self. He coughed awkwardly, making Belén laugh. "Calm down, Barry, he's four. Axel will call anyone his favorite aunt or uncle if they give him ice cream for breakfast."

"Sorry," Barry still smiled awkwardly. He hadn't the nerve to tell her about the article because he didn't want to freak her out. Most people didn't like seeing their future planned out like that.

Belén chuckled and looped her arms around his neck. "You're too cute sometimes." She pecked his lips once then put a finger over his lips. "Even if you do talk throughout my shows."

"Sorry," he apologized once more, prompting her to laugh again.

The next night, it was an active search for Thawne and Eddie. Due to that, Belén left Axel with Iris at the latter's home. Belén came back first when she figured it was time to head back for her own house, but somehow Iris convinced Belén to stay over for the night.

"Do you know where Barry went off to?" Iris walked into her bedroom just as Belén had placed one of her bags over her armoire.

Belén didn't look up as she was fixing Axel on the mattress beside Iris' bed. "Em, I think he and Cisco had a guy's night planned out," she was so good at lying now it made her feel sick. Of course she knew where Barry was. He was still out searching for Eddie.

"Hm," Iris crossed her arms, and Belén missed her suspicious look directed at her. "Are you sure that's where he is?"

This time, Belén looked up and saw through the mirror's reflection Iris seemed a little bit off again. "Uh, yeah, where else would he be? With another girl? You would tell me though, right?" she smiled and went back to digging through her bag.

"Of course," Iris said, biting her lip unsurely. "Just like...you would tell me...if there was anything...I needed to know, right?"

"Course," Belén said, this time without looking up.

Iris felt bad for not completely believing Belén's word. There was no doubt in Iris' mind that Barry truly was the Flash and that he had purposely not told her about it. She wanted to know who was in league with him, besides STAR Labs. Because there was also no doubt in her mind that Dr. Wells, Caitlin, and Cisco also knew about it and were even helping him to be the Flash. She was just unsure if Belén was in the dark like she was. After all, Belén had seemed clueless that the Flash liked her. Of course he would, the Flash and Barry were the same person but...maybe Belén didn't know that?

Belén realized how uncomfortable Iris seemed after finally finding what she was looking for. "Are you okay?" She turned around.

"Yeah," Iris gave her an odd look in return. "I think...I'm just going to sleep early today."

"O-okay," Belén nodded. "Axel is out for the night and I'll be as quiet as a mouse," she placed a finger over her lips. Iris gave her a thankful smile and started getting her pajamas. In the meantime, Belén hurried to grab the last of her things to go downstairs. She had no intention of sleeping until Barry returned.

So, she waited, even when she felt the sleepiness taking over.

And she didn't know what time it was but she spent it all in the living room watching television until she felt the familiar wind as Barry zipped in straight for his bedroom. She rolled her eyes as she sat up, turning off the television. She got up and walked up the staircase to see what he had come up with. Acknowledging the late hour, she knocked lightly on his bedroom door asking if she could come in.

Course she could come in, he told her. And stepping in, she found him already changed for sleep as well...and with a very tired face.

"No luck?" she asked, closing the door behind her.

"I swear I am looking through every possible place," Barry began to pace, feeling even more stressed knowing Eddie was being forced to spend another night God knew where with Thawne.

"Hey," Belén moved over, stopping him in the middle of his pacing, "I know that. We all know that, I promise. But Thawne is just from the future so of course he's going to know things we don't. Doesn't mean we won't catch him, just...maybe it'll take a bit more of our time."

Barry sighed again, the stress combining with general tiredness.

"You're tired, get some rest and then tomorrow we'll both go out and search for Eddie again," she suggested, more like subtly ordered, but nonetheless kindly. She gave him a goodnight kiss and turned to leave.

But Barry wrapped his arms around her from behind, this time refusing to let her go. "Can you stay here instead?"

The question made her momentarily blush. "Um...I mean, if you'd like…"

"I really would," he admitted, keeping his arms tightly around him in case she actually left. "If Axel wakes up, I'll speed you to Iris' room myself."

She chuckled. "Lucky for you, Axel rarely wakes up in the night. I guess we can talk for a while," she tilted her head up to meet his gaze. "Fair warning, I might take all the blankets in the meantime."

"Fine, but I'm taking all of you then," he kissed her forehead and brought her back to bed.

"Wow, your jokes are even worse in the night," she said before climbing into bed with him.

"Right now, they're not good at any moment. I'm surprised this one was good," Barry sighed. He reached for her body to pull her closer to his. "Thanks for staying a while more."

Belén yawned before replying, "I needed this too. My siblings are M.I.A. and I'm a little scared of when they'll be coming back for me."

Barry tightened his hold on her just thinking about Maritza and Rayan. "I don't think Maritza would hurt you," he admitted. "When I told her everything, she seemed more broken and confused than...evil."

"Hmm..."

"Maybe, with luck, this time away from her son and you might give her a reality check," Barry continued but stopped when Belén gave no response. He shifted a little to look at her face and realized she'd fallen asleep too. She must have been really tired, then. Barry thought about bringing her back to Iris' room where Axel was but...he didn't want to.

Maybe it made him selfish to keep her with him but...he was comfortable where he was right now. He felt good. Lately, everything in his life had been confusing and terrifying but Belén made the feelings wash away when they were together.

Those were the last thoughts he had before he too fell asleep.

~ 0 ~

When Barry woke up the next morning he felt no less stressed. Although, when he felt his girlfriend's patterned-breathing hitting just below his jawline, it did make things better again. He leaned his head just the slightest to kiss her hair, but unfortunately she breathed in deeply, signaling she was waking up.

"Sorry," Barry apologized quietly, still pretty groggy himself.

"Good morning. I guess I fell asleep here, huh?" Belén greeted, languidly blinking and shifting herself a little to look at him. She had her head resting on his chest and refused to move at least for another while more. "I hope Axel hasn't woken up yet. Did I steal your blanket like I promised?"

"Mm, a but, but I kept you with me like I promised."

"I stand corrected - your jokes are worse in the mornings. Well I'm sorry, but your bed is actually really comfortable, and I learned that one the first time I stayed here." Belén smiled to herself as she then admitted, "It smelled like you."

Although still a bit sleepy, Barry cracked a smirk. "Well, being honest, when I moved back in it still kind of smelled like you in here."

"Shut up, you moved in like a month later," Belén chuckled lightly.

"No, I'm not kidding, it really did. Blankets, pillows, hell, there was even one particular shirt I swear smelled like you. I thought I was losing it."

Belén made a face he couldn't see. "That shirt...was it green and black? Plaid?"

"Yeah," Barry sniffed, beginning to will himself to finally wake up.

Belén shifted once more so that she could tilt her head up at him on his side. "I may have accidentally worn that at one point. Sorry."

"You wore my shirt?"

"Uh, yes, yes I did."

Barry looked down at her for a moment, thinking about this and how much sense it made later. Then, with a smirk on his face, he looked up to the ceiling. "That's kinda hot…"

Belén's face flushed bright red. "Barry…"

"No, I mean it," Barry rubbed one of his eyes, "Feel free to wear any of my clothes whenever you want."

Belén continued to blush but giggled. "I will make a mental note of that."

~ 0 ~

Cisco was hard at work on the many cameras Wells used to spy on them. He was busy taking one apart when Barry walked in.

"Hey. You planning on keeping all those cameras Wells used to spy on us? That's kind of creepy, don't you think?"

Cisco looked up completely disagreeing. "First rule of mechanical engineering, dude. Never waste good tech." Barry rolled his eyes but the computer beeping at them took over the conversation. Cisco moved over to see the problem. "Central City Gold Reserve's under attack."

"Gold?" Barry repeated. "That's the case Singh wants us on. I'll be right back."

Quickly in his suit, he sped over to the location of the ongoing crime. He was able to see the remnants of a violent car explosion when he spotted an armed figure covered in protective gear along with a helmet.

"You picked a bad day for this, pal," Barry intended on going forwards when he felt some sort of pressure in his brain. The pressure turned into a fierce pain that froze him to his spot. He saw brief images of irrelevant things such a medical lab, but in the process he fell to the ground unable to see more.

And then, just like that, the pain vanished. The armed figure ran away.

~ 0 ~

Caitlin flashed a light in Barry's eyes after hearing of the attack. "Your eye movement is normal. No signs of neurological damage."

"Do you think the thief might have been a meta-human who put the whammie on you or something?" asked Cisco who believed it could be a plausible reason for Barry's condition.

"I... I don't know. When Rainbow Raider got in my head, all I felt was anger. But this was not that. This was just overwhelming fear," Barry tried to explain as best as possible, but really the feeling was all new for him as well.

Cisco sat down at the small desk in the side room with them and brought up the security feed of the site of the rob. There they saw both Barry and the armed figure going down as if they had been both attacked.

"Hmm. Looks like when you went down, the thief got disoriented too," Cisco pointed out, moving to the side so that Caitlin and Barry could see as well.

"Maybe we both got whammied," Barry weakly theorized.

Iris walked in at that moment, shocking everyone, but not that she cared. She was...upset, and very. "Then you know how it feels. Hi, Barry. Or should I say The Flash?"

In less than five minutes, Iris and Barry had relocated to the training room to speak more privately, or so they believed as they didn't know they were being heard by Caitlin and Cisco out in the cortex.

"How did you find out?" Barry failed to wrap his mind around this.

"When I touched The Flash the other night, I felt a jolt of electricity. The only other time I have ever felt anything like that was when you were in a coma after the accident." Iris shared a bitter chuckle. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner."

"I can only imagine how angry you are-"

"I'm not angry, Barry. I'm just disappointed." Iris shook her head. "Does Eddie know?"

Barry hated to put Eddie on the spot like that when the man wasn't even here to give his own defence statement, but Iris was so upset he thought it was just better to get through with the truth. "Yes, he does."

Iris' eyes filled with tears. "Is that why he got kidnapped?"

"No, I don't know why Wells took Eddie. I…"

Iris once again gaped. "Dr. Wells is the Man in Yellow?"

Barry sighed and began to explain. "Everything he's been doing, helping me... it was all a lie. Wells killed my mom."

"Is he gonna kill Eddie?"

"No, he's not. I'm gonna get Eddie back, I swear."

Iris crossed her arms. "Yeah, the Flash said the same thing yet here we are."

"Look, Iris, you have to believe me, I... There were so many times I wanted to tell you. You were the first person I wanted to tell, but everything started getting crazy, and I thought maybe Joe was right and I shouldn't say…"

Iris made a gesture for him to stop talking. "Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that my dad knew and he told you not to tell me?"

"He was trying to protect you. We both were-"

"Yeah, well, maybe it's time you both stopped," Iris lowered her hand and took a moment before speaking again. "Did everyone know before me?" she asked quietly, tilting her head. "I mean, what about Belén? Does she know that you're…"

But Barry couldn't hide it anymore on his face.

Iris sighed in utter deception. "Of course she did," she once again bitterly smiled. "Of course she did. How couldn't she, hm?" She shook her head and promptly stormed out of the room.

~ 0 ~

Feeling incredibly guilty he was the source of the newfound problem, Barry had a quick, brief conversation with Belén over the phone to warn her that Iris could very well be on her way to speak with Belén next...probably to show her disappointment. Well, Belén decided she didn't want to wait until Iris showed up. She would be brave and face her close friend first. And that was why she had come into CC Picture News that following night, knowing Iris would probably be delving into work to forget or to distract herself.

"Hey," she politely greeted Iris, the latter only looking up briefly before returning to whatever was on her computer screen. Belén sighed and walked over to the desk opposite of Iris'. "I know you know…"

Iris didn't give her another look. "And what do you happen to know, Bells? That I know Barry lied, that my own Dad lied, or that you lied?"

"It wasn't my place to tell you-"

Setting down her pen rather loudly on her desk, Iris' eyes flickered to Belén. "It was your place because you knew that my best friend - my brother - was out there on the streets being the freaking Flash. When you are this close to me-" she gestured between herself and Belén, "-it is your right to tell me."

"It wasn't," Belén insisted, unable to get a bit teary. "When Barry told me he was the Flash I was just as mad - hell, I was more mad. And I figured it out like you did, so it wasn't even him deciding to tell me. I wanted to punch him in the face for about two weeks after I learned."

"When you went to Starling, huh?" Iris had put two and two afterwards, thinking it was way more sensible than Belén just spontaneously visiting her mother in Starling.

"I left because of that but also for other reasons. But look, in the beginning I was so mad that I didn't want to hear what Barry had to say. I just thought that he was a liar and that he was just laughing at me behind my back. But then I realized it wasn't as easy to do. I was kidnapped - twice - because people thought I had a connection to the Flash. I mean, Barry has to carry that with him - he has to carry with the fact things can happen to people around him because of who he is."

"It doesn't matter," Iris laid it out the way she saw it. "Because I could have helped instead of continuously getting in his way, getting in everyone's way. We grew up together, we shared everything."

"I know, I get that it's difficult, but please just look at it from his perspective," Belén tried reasoning with her.

"You want me to look from another perspective?" Iris challenged, crossing her arms as she feigned to think for a moment. "Hm, well, let's start with you then. You must have had your share of laughs with Barry behind my back when I stupidly theorized the Flash had a thing for you."

"That was-"

"That was a proper concern for me, you know that? That you could get seduced or swooned by this man who could run at lightspeed and...and forget that someone as sweet and caring as Barry was right there with you," Iris' anger simmered as she revealed this thought.

"I would never have done that even if they were two separate people," Belén whispered.

"But I thought it could happen, because I didn't know," Iris' voice shook. "But I mean, Barry liked you-" she gestured with one hand, "-and so the Flash liked you," she gestured with her other arm like a weighing scale. "How much did you laugh?"

"No one laughed, Iris, I swear," Belén sighed. "Look, you deserved to know, I'm not going to argue, but this is what happened and I'm sorry. And…" she sighed again, pausing as she considered if her next move was even worth it, "...since you know about Barry then...I guess you should know who I am."

"What?" Iris lowered her arms, growing confused again.

"I'm the Azalea, Iris. It's the other reason why I left for Starling," Belén shrugged while Iris' eyes widened. "I was affected too, and I didn't tell anyone - including STAR Labs - about it for a very long time."

"H-how...what…?" Iris looked to the side, now dumbfounded. "So you and Barry were just...out there...saving people…"

"Well, not exactly always but...sort of...yeah…"

"Unbelievable," Iris sat down on her chair to think things through.

"I'm sorry," Belén said, but Iris said no more. Feeling like she was done, Belén grabbed her purse and walked out of the building.

~ 0 ~

"And so I told her," Belén recounted her meeting with Iris to Barry that same night, but much later. The two were at Belén's house, both finding it easier not to face Iris for that night at her place. "Like...everything. And now she's kinda mad at me too."

"It's my fault," Barry rubbed his forehead with a deep sigh escaping through his lips.

Belén scooted closer to him on the couch, draping one arm around his shoulders. "It's not-"

"It is. I should have never listened to Joe-"

"If you hadn't and something happened then you would've blamed yourself too. This is a game that's hard to win at, Barry."

Barry lowered his hand from his face and looked at her, the tiniest of smiles on his lips. "I should count myself lucky, I guess, that she didn't react like you."

"I told Iris the same thing," Belén said in amusement. "I really did want to punch you, you know."

"Well deserved, I guess," Barry gave a sway of his head. "And if Iris wants to do it too then I'll just let her."

"So does that mean I still get to punch you?"

"Uh, no, it expired when you left to Starling for a month."

"It has no expiration date!"

"Oh yes it does! And besides, you owe me too, you know."

Belén feigned offence. "And what for?"

"For going to Oliver for help," Barry made a face that really did have offence written all over it.

Belén dropped her charade and smirked. "Barry Allen are you jealous I chose the Arrow over the Flash?"

"I'm just saying that I could have helped more than Oliver. And it would have involved a lot less arrows on your back." Belén burst out laughing much to Barry's disappointment. "I'm being serious!"

Belén just laughed some more.

~0~

The next day, the group of metahumans had come across their mysterious culprit in armed clothing as he tried to steal golden bricks, only to be caught this time by the Flash and Joe. Upon tearing off the helmet of the culprit, however, they came to the shock of finding General Eiling underneath. Although quickly they realized that Eiling wasn't quite there with them as the man had gone through an entire transition to the pipeline without so much as a word.

"I don't get it, what's wrong with him?" Belén looked away from Eiling who was now imprisoned in one of the pipeline pods.

Caitlin was making a face that said she was just as lost as they were. "I pulled a bullet out of his shoulder and he didn't even flinch."

"And that should have hurt him like hell," Joe mumbled, as he had been there with Caitlin to provide any security should Eiling have acted in the process.

"It didn't even seem like he felt it," Caitlin continued with her story. "I did a complete body scan, and otherwise, General Eiling is perfectly healthy."

"So why is he just standing there like a robot?" Barry asked the million-dollar question.

Cisco walked into the pipeline after finishing his talk on the phone. "I just got off the phone with ARGUS. Officially, Eiling is on administrative leave."

"Unofficially, then?" Belén gave a tint of a smile.

"I spoke with Diggle's wife, Lyla, and she said Eiling's been missing for the past three months and ARGUS is covering up for it."

"There you go," Belén glanced back at the imprisoned man.

"Last time I saw the general was when Ronnie and us broke Professor Stein out of that military facility. I'm sure they're covering that up too," Barry remarked.

"So where has he been since then?" Joe inquired and moved up closer to Eiling's pod. "General Eiling, why were you trying to rob the gold reserve?"

"Maybe he's in some kind of a trance?" Caitlin theorized, but she would of course need more studies.

"General, do you remember me?" Barry tried his hand at it and received an instant reaction from Eiling.

"Flash," went the man in a gruff voice.

"How does he know you're the Flash?" Belén panicked and looked at Barry.

"I've no idea," Barry honestly replied, eyes now glued to Eiling.

"General...Eiling not here. Eiling bad."

"Maybe it's some kind of psychotic break presenting itself as dissociative identity disorder," Caitlin said shortly afterwards.

Eiling's eyes flickered to the brunette. "Caitlin. Caitlin good."

"Oh, uh, thank you?" went Caitlin who became confused. She hadn't even met Eiling face to face before.

"Mm. Forget multiple personalities," Cisco said, just totally freaked out. "You guys have seen the Exorcist, right?"

Belén couldn't help smile as she glanced back at him. "You and your movies."

"Keep talking to him, Barry," Joe encouraged the metahuman. "He seems to respond to you."

"And Caitlin," Belén added curiously, wondering what kind of connection that could have.

Barry looked at Eiling again, a bit nervous and out of good question. "Uh, why is Eiling bad?"

"Eiling hurt me. I hurt Eiling."

"Okay, uh, so if you're not Eiling, then who are you?"

"I... Am...Grodd. Fear...me."

Joe looked back at Caitlin and Cisco, the two sharing a look between each other, and asked, "What is a...Grodd?"

~ 0 ~

"Oh, Grodd is a...gorilla," Barry sounded unimpressed as he, Belén and Joe watched a short video Caitlin had put up for them in the cortex that showed Grodd the Gorilla being fed through a cage by Caitlin herself.

"You guys had a gorilla?" Belén was just dumbfounded STAR Labs went this far to study. "No, wait, and you named him Grodd?"

"Five years ago, Eiling and Wells were working on a project to expand soldiers' cognitive abilities during battle," Caitlin began to explain. "What we didn't realize is that Eiling was trying to create soldiers with psychic abilities."

Joe frowned. "What do you mean "psychic"?

"Eiling was trying to create these super-soldiers with telepathic and telekinetic capabilities," Cisco clarified for them.

"But when Dr. Wells found out about the terrible experiments that Eiling was doing, he shut down the entire project," Caitlin finished.

"So our psycho-killer has a soft spot for animals," Joe made another face and looked back at the video. "That's sweet."

"What happened to Grodd?" Barry asked, figuring neither really knew.

"We don't know," Caitlin admitted. "After the Particle Accelerator exploded, I went down to check on him, and his cage was empty."

"Wait, are you telling me that Grodd could've been affected by the Particle Accelerator too?" Belén turned to the two scientists. "Can that happen?"

Cisco contemplated on the concept with a sigh. "When the dark matter hit Grodd, all the drugs and serums that Eiling injected him with could've activated. Maybe the Accelerator explosion created a meta-gorilla-" and then he became excited, "-And I think we know what happens when a super-intelligent ape who's pissed off at humans escapes captivity."

"Oh my God," Belén was once again amused by his movie sharing.

Caitlin moved over to the desk and started searching for Grodd's old file. "Cisco's right about the first part. This is the first brain scan that I did on Grodd."

She brought up one brain scan of Grodd's to the computer wall for the others to see. A good section of the brain were lit up with colorful shades.

"Whoa. His primary motor cortex and Broca's area are lit up like a Christmas tree," Barry remarked with widened eyes.

"From Eiling's experiments. And this is the brain scan that I just did on Eiling," Caitlin pulled up a second scan on the side of the first, revealing two near exact brain color shades. "His brain is lit up in the exact same way."

"So Grodd and Eiling are connected somehow?" Joe deduced after a moment.

"I think that somehow, Grodd is transmitting neural signals to Eiling's primary motor cortex. Mind control, telepathy…" Caitlin theorized, "Who knows what Grodd is capable of now?"

"What do we think Grodd wants? Revenge?"

"I do not like the fact that Wells rescued Grodd," Joe looked away from the screens. "I don't think it's a coincidence that this gorilla shows up at the very same time we're looking for Wells."

Caitlin could see that perhaps Joe could be right. "Grodd and Wells always did have a special bond."

"It wouldn't surprise me if Wells was using Grodd to distract us. If we find Grodd, we find Wells. If we find Wells…"

"We find Eddie," Iris walked in determinedly, expecting a good share of arguments just to stay there. "And I'm gonna help."

Caitlin looked at the rest nervously, and decided she would step in for Iris' case. "Know anything about gorillas?"

A grateful smile spread across Iris' face at Caitlin. "I just might."

~ 0 ~

Iris was given a seat at the desk to show the information she had gathered over her blog period and time at CC Picture News.

"There have been reports of some sort of animal down in the sewers," she explained as she brought in an article having to do with the topic.

"Mm. Alligators. C.H.U.D.S. R.O.U.S'es?" Cisco thought out loud but everyone gave him blank looks. With a frown, he sighed. "Am I the only one who watches movies around here?"

Iris continued searching. "Uh, a few months ago, two sewer workers went missing. The search party reported hearing strange animal like noises down in the tunnels."

"Where exactly did they go missing?" Caitlin asked her.

"Uh, Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street."

Cisco then took a seat on Iris' other side to turn on the third computer. "There's an access point to the sewers about two blocks east of that intersection."

"I'll start there," Barry said without a moment's thought.

"Not alone," Joe warned him. "I'm coming too."

"Huh, wading through miles of rats, roaches, and human excrement... count me out," Cisco said but then got a sharp look from Joe. "Count me in?" he amended disappointingly.

"He's your monkey," Joe had a brief laugh as he walked out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

"Can we see them, still?" Belén asked Caitlin for about the third time after the men's cameras went online. Caitlin smiled and nodded her head, reassuring Belén that everything was going good so far. She knew Belén was annoyed that she had to stay back so Caitlin would answer her as many times as Belén asked.

"Well we can definitely hear Cisco yelp every time he sees a rat," Caitlin said thoughtfully before chuckling.

"Shush," they promptly heard Cisco over the comm.

Caitlin and Belén shared a mini-laugh afterwards.

"Belén? they heard Iris return. The woman had gone for a coffee down the hallway after their friends and her father decided to go on their own.

"Yeah, Iris?" Belén slowly looked at her, wondering where they stood in regards to their friendship.

"Why didn't Barry want to let you go?" Iris came up to the side of the desk they were sitting at, placing her cup over the taller side of said desk.

"Because your brother is overprotective, that's why," Belén sighed, but she knew Iris deserved a better explanation than that. "But that's not it. I...wanted to show you something." Iris gave her a questionable look but saw that Belén and Caitlin seemed to be on the same page. "Follow me," Belén started leading Iris out of the cortex.

Iris didn't ask any questions on their way into the pipeline, not even when Belén opened up the pipeline. But once she saw the familiar face of Noah inside a pod, her eyes widened in shock. "Is that...?"

"Oh, so now she knows too?" Noah jerked a thumb at Iris while looking at Belén.

"Why is he in there?" Iris was almost covering her mouth in shock. At first glance, Noah didn't look dangerous.

"Because he's Azul," Belén crossed her arms. "He's the one who tried killing us when the Trickster and James Jesse attacked, remember?"

Upon remembering, Iris fixated a glare on Noah. "You were Azul? This whole time you were playing us!"

"He was a spy..." Belén said slowly, "...for my brother and sister."

Iris opened her mouth with the intention of saying something when Belén's words registered in her head. "I'm sorry - brother? What?"

"My brother's alive, Iris, and he's a metahuman," Belén sighed as she got ready to say the next part, the most important part of the story. "And he's decided to use his powers for evil. Literally. Maritza's known about it all along and the reason she's gone is because Barry gave her an ultimatum: tell me the truth or leave. She chose to leave."

Iris looked between Belén and Noah with her mouth falling in a gape. "Oh my God..."

"You see why we didn't want to tell you everything? It's drama, and it's painful, and you didn't have to share the burden."

"If I had known I would have helped you," Iris said without the anger that had been lacing her words with everyone else. "At the very least I could have helped by just being there for you. Because learning all of this couldn't have been easy." Belén's gaze lowered, proving Iris' point. "I was there when you lost your brother, I could have been there when you learned he wasn't dead, but just...gone."

"I know," Belén slowly moved to close the pipeline. "It would have been nice..."

Iris could feel that Belén was doing her best not to show any tears. "Oh, Belén," Iris moved forwards to hug her friend. She expected to be there whenever any of their friends needed her from now on.

~0 ~

After a failed attempt of facing Grodd - that resulted in Joe's kidnapping - Cisco brought Barry back to immediately get checked over by Caitlin. Grodd had attacked Barry again, which resulted in the metahuman being knocked out cold.

Caitlin had pulled up his results of the brain scan and came to a familiar conclusion. "You're experiencing a spike of activity in your primary motor cortex. It's the same thing we saw in Eiling. The images you saw were some kind of psychic attack by Grodd."

Iris was in near tears at the side of the room. "First Eddie gets taken by The Man in Yellow, and now my dad…"

"And we're going to find them," Belén promised her, holding her hand. "We're getting them back, don't you worry."

"Hold up. I put a tracker in the tranq dart you shot Grodd with," Cisco recalled and started heading for the controller of said tracker. "As soon as it activates…"

Barry pulled off the device around his head meant to scan him and got up from his chair. "No, Cisco. I can't wait for that. I will search every inch of that sewer if I have to."

But Belén turned him around, slightly irritated he was entering his impulsive side again. "And then what, genius? Grodd is a gorilla that can telepathically attack you."

Barry knew she was right and sighed. He looked back at Caitlin and Cisco, pleading. "I don't... I mean... Can you guys build me something? Some kind of tech so he can't get into my head?"

Cisco looked unsure, matching Caitlin's expression. "I don't know. Maybe if Dr. Wells were here."

Iris looked between the two in disbelief. "I don't understand," she spoke up, making everyone glance at her to see her becoming upset. "Every day you guys figure out a way to help people. All of The Flash's powers and all of this equipment, and you can't save Eddie and my dad?"

"It's not that, we're just...a bit disoriented," Caitlin tried not to argue knowing that Iris was going through hardships. "We're lost, okay? But make no doubt Cisco and I are going to try. Aren't we?"

Seeing her looking at him expectantly, Cisco nodded his head. "Yes! On it! Now!"

And partly to avoid more accusations, the two scientists walked out the side room to get working.

Iris was left to look at Barry and Belén, and still mighty upset. "I can't get that sound out of my head. My dad screaming. Why did he insist on going down there with you? He's always preaching about being safe, but not once does he think about running into danger himself."

"That's just-"

"No," Iris said before either one could say more. "He's just a regular cop. He is not some meta-human with superpowers. He's not you two."

"We understand how you feel, and believe us, we're going to find him" Barry promised her.

~ 0 ~

It had taken them a little over two hours, but Caitlin and Cisco came through with a device meant to help Barry avoid being telepathically attacked by Grodd.

Caitlin presented to them a head device in her hands. "An anti-telepathy strip. It uses magnetic resonance to neutralize any foreign neurological stimulus."

"So it'll protect Barry from being mind-controlled?" Belén inquired.

Caitlin nodded but slowly came to a stop as she sighed and admitted to them, "That's the hope, but we have no way of knowing if it actually works."

Barry had faith in his friends' work and rook the device from Caitlin. "It'll work."

One of the computers started beeping and prompted Cisco to rush forwards. "The tracker just came online. We have Grodd's location."

Barry wasted no time and changed in a second. Belén sighed with full concern as he came towards them.

"You know we still have to work on your powers," he said as she continued to give him those worried eyes of hers.

"Doesn't mean I can't wish I was there with you," she countered glumly.

"We an't risk you losing control against a gorilla. A regular metahuman, fine. At least this way if we get our assess kicked it'll just be mine."

"My hero," Belén chuckled. She leaned forwards and gave him a short kiss on the lips.

"Always," Barry hugged her tight.

"Please get my dad back," Iris said after the two metas had pulled away.

"Promise," Barry nodded and sped off.

"Barry, what's your ETA?" Cisco had taken a seat by the desk in order to begin their plan.

"I'm in position," Barry called back.

"Wait for my signal."

Iris and Belén looked over to one of the computers on the wall. Iris saw two dots meaning to represent Barry and Grodd but was yet to understand what they were supposed to do next.

"Cisco?" Caitlin called after a minute.

"Okay. Here goes nothing," Cisco dramatically pressed on the keyboard."The steam's working. Grodd's on the move."

"I don't understand. What is the plan?" Iris asked from them, a bit impatient.

"He's maneuvering Grodd into a tunnel 5.3 miles from Barry…" Caitlin began and stopped as Belén gasped.

Iris saw her friend's off reaction and frowned. "So Barry can do what?"

"Oh, hell no," Belén glanced back at Cisco rather annoyed. "Is that why you didn't want to tell me?"

"Well, if we had then you wouldn't have let me say this-" Cisco took an excited breath in and exclaimed, "-Supersonic BOOM!"

"CISCO!" Belén half shouted but the man laughed anyways.

At the same time Barry took off from his position and made it towards the sewer. Soon as his balled fist made contact with Grodd, the gorilla grasped it effortlessly and threw Barry to the side.

Barry tumbled a bit until he landed flat on his back. "The supersonic punch failed." He pushed himself up and faced Grodd, seeing the gorilla narrowing its large eyes as it prepared for another mental attack. "Uh-oh. Here we go." He remained strong against Grodd, feeling nothing in his head. "It's okay, Cisco. The headset's working."

"Yes. Okay, uh, try some speed punches on him," Cisco suggested.

Barry nodded and endeavored in a series of super punches. "This isn't working!"

Cisco faltered as he came up with another idea. "Okay, what if you try…"

But Grodd acted first and seized Barry by the neck. Immediately the others saw his vitals acting out. Grodd threw Barry through one of the brick walls. From such a force Barry had to stay down over what felt like train railroad tracks. The built device malfunctioned after the strong blow and left Barry vulnerable against the telepathic attacks. Even as he tried getting upwards Grodd would mentally push him down with another attack.

Caitlin couldn't look at the screen anymore that showed Barry's vitals. "Barry's brain activity is off the charts. It's way worse than last time."

"That's because of the device failing, no?" Belén panicked as she got a glimpse of the screen.

"Grodd's attacking him psychically. He's paralyzed!"

"But it's at a railroad track!" Iris exclaimed.

Cisco hated making things worse but he warmed them. "Come on. There's a service train coming!"

Iris frantically looked at the three. "Do something please!"

"I can't stop the train!" Cisco said as he fiercely tried getting himself into the system.

"I-I have to get there!" Belén decided and made a move for her old suit when Cisco called her.

"You'd never make it and besides, you risk losing your control!'

Belén whirled around frantically. "I have to do something!" she ran back to the desk and situated herself between Caitlin and Cisco where the comm. was. "Barry, listen to me, okay? You have to concentrate on my voice. Whatever is happening to you, you have to fight it. I know you can do this. You've shown me how strong you are. I know you are so please, please stand up to Grodd. You can do this. Please. Barry, do it for me."

Her words rang true in Barry's head. He forced himself to get up, albeit wobbly, and quickly sped to the near wall as the train zoomed by. When it passed, he saw Grodd coming in through the giant hole of the other wall. Barry stepped forwards, back into the railroad tracks once he heard Cisco's warning. Grodd lunged towards him, nearly getting him if Barry hadn't sped back against the wall and the second train hadn't passed by. Grodd was swept away.

Barry then wasted no time and went through the tunnels to get Joe.

~0~

"Joe is going to be just fine," Caitlij emerged from the side room Joe was being kept in to recuperate. She had left Iris with him to look after him seeing the man was far more interested in getting back in the fight than to rest.

Belén had clung to Barry the moment he'd return from the tunnels. Even now she had her arm wrapped around him, refusing toblet him go in case he wanted to still go and find out what became of Grodd. "Maybe it's a good thing we didn't catch Grodd," she spoke up. "I mean, I doubt you guys have a super pipeline that can hold back a super-intelligent, telepathic gorilla."

"As always, right," Cisco pointed at her from the desk.

"Joe mentioned that Grodd called Wells 'Father.' And Wells must have ordered Grodd to come after us," Barry had thought about it long and hard and realized this was the only plausible reason. "It's why Grodd didn't kill Joe. I think Joe is right. Everything Grodd did, it was just to distract us." He then noticed Cisco's distant face. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Just thinking about this headset. It wasn't strong enough. You could've been killed out there, man."

Barry smiled. "No, dude, your tech worked, and it proved that we don't need Wells. The three of us took on Grodd and rescued Joe. Together, we can do anything."

"Actually, it was the five of us," Belén corrected, smiling. "If it wasn't for Iris, we wouldn't have even known where to begin our search."

Barry agreed with a nod. He lowered his head and kissed her hair. Perhaps he could relax just a little now...

~0~

Later on, Barry had wanted to see how Joe was doing before taking Belén home. In the meantime, Cisco had begun making other searches for their missing gorilla at the desk while Belén, Caitlin and Iris lounged about.

"You really think Grodd would actually still be in the city?" Iris looked at Cisco.

Cisco continued typing with eyes glued to the screen. "If he was working with Wells then I would assume though."

"Yeah, but where would they be?" Caitlin sighed as none of them came any closer to figuring out the answer.

"I don't know," Cisco answered truthfully. "He could be like Planet of the Apes and be plotting to destroy us again or maybe more classical like King Kong climbing up the tallest building in our city-"

Belén clapped a hand over his mouth. "No more movie talks, got it?" Cisco playfully narrowed his eyes on her. Belén slowly lifted her hand from his mouth and leaned back on her chair, laughing as she shook her head. "Sometimes I think this is the real reason we didn't work out as a date - you kept talking over the movie!"

Caitlin and Iris exchanged amused looks while Cisco became offended.

"I was trying to inform you!"

"It was a movie I'd never seen, Cisco, I didn't want to be informed," Belén shook her head.

"I didn't hear you complaining with all that popcorn you were eating!"

"That was me trying to focus on the movie!"

"But you say Barry does the same thing!"

"Yeah but at least he quiets down when I make him!"

Caitlin and Iris had to laugh as the other two got more worked up over their failed date. Unfortunately, Iris spotted Barry slowly coming into the cortex and immediately stopped. She whacked Caitlin and made the brunette see him as well.

"You two went out?" Barry walked around the desk leaving Caitlin and Iris behind him and Cisco and Belén in front.

Cisco exchanged a look with Belén, the latter getting more nervous by the second. He stood up and tried to explain as best as possible so there could be no room for doubts. "It was way before you woke up from your coma and then, as I'm sure you heard, it didn't work out!"

Belén got up as well to help Cisco out. The last thing they needed was to be divided among themselves while Wells was still out there. "We saw we were better as friends and that's how we stayed. Always."

Suddenly there were so many things that made sense to Barry. It explained why Belén and Cisco always seemed to share a closer bond than with anyone else. It explained why often times it seemed like Belén was more concerned for Cisco than a regular friend would be.

"You two…" he rubbed his temples, "...you two went on an actual date…? Like, Like with hand-holding, and-and kissing-"

"No!" went both Belén and Cisco.

"Well…" Belén sighed as she realized it wasn't entirely true. "It was...it was just at the end, and...and…"

"It didn't happen!" Cisco insisted. "Because we couldn't do it at the last moment. We leaned in but we couldn't go through with it."

Barry tried to understand that but the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. Picturing it was not helpful. He shook his head and looked at the two in question. "I-I..."

"Barry, you can't be mad..." Belén whispered, her heart actually hammering under her chest. Now all she was thinking was that she should have said something earlier, something even in passing...anything would have been better than Barry learning about it this way. "I'm sorry..."

Barry made a hand gesture for everyone to stop talking, despite Belén being the only one talking. Without saying a word, he turned and left the cortex.

Cisco drew out a long breath as everyone remained silent probably for their sakes. He looked over to Belén, seeing her close to tears, and wished he had never, ever gotten the idea to ask her out.

#arrowverseocs #ocapp #the flash #barry allen #the flash fics #barry allen fics #the flash imagines #barry allen imagines #arrowverse fics #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: Belen Palayta #oc: the azalea #fic: it had to be you

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