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dem-obscure-imagines · 3 years

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Stealin’ Hearts

George “Digger” Harkness x Reader

Fandom: DC Extended Universe

Summary: You’re a superhero and you just found out your soulmate is the notorious diamond thief, Captain Boomerang. You want to trust him, but you’re not sure you can just yet, so…now what?

Note: This is the sequel to He’s a Challenge. I really wanted to write a second part lol so here you go!

Warnings: Alcohol mention.

Word Count: 1.5k

Reader is: Female (but I would be willing to rewrite another version for a male or gender neutral reader.)

When the jet landed, you let go of Boomer’s hand and led him out onto the roof of your family’s secluded forest mansion. He looked down at the sheer size of it, his eyes wide.

“What?”

“Nothing, just…It’s not what I expected.” He admitted, hauling his duffle bag full of his few belongings over his shoulder. You led him in through the door and down the stairs to the balcony that overlooked the lower level of the house. You saw your siblings were congregated there, River looking particularly anxious, his arms across his chest. Rose and Ryan were sitting on the couch, talking, but their discussion stopped when they noticed you and Digger standing there, looking down at them.

“We’re here.” You called awkwardly.

“I see that.” River said, his eyes guarded as he looked the notorious Captain Boomerang up and down.

You led him down the stairs to where the others were and he hesitated, but followed after you anyway, a sheepish look on his face.

“So, Mr. Harkness, I’m not sure if (Y/N) told you why you’re here.”

“Well, I know we’re soulmates, so…” he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, obviously anxious about the whole situation. “I kind of figured that was why.”

“Well, yeah, but also no.” Rose laughed, motioning for everyone to sit down, so you . “(Y/N), why don’t you explain?”

You exhaled a long breath, nodding. “Yeah, I guess I can.” You looked up at Digger and he smirked. “Yeah, so, uh, our mom is the queen of an alien planet. So like…we’re royalty. And because of that, through our laws, you get diplomatic immunity because you’re my soulmate. I mean…unless you do something super fucked up and then I can’t help you.”

He was quiet for a long moment, his expression confused, but also evaluating what you had just said. “You mean to tell me my soulmate is a princess.”

“Yeah.” You shrugged.

He grinned. “Wicked.”

***

With every room of the mansion you showed Digger, the more and more impressed he became, taking everything in. He was still expecting you to take it all back at some point, tell him it was all a big joke and he wouldn’t be living in your giant mansion for the rest of his days.

That was strange to him, too. This weird sense of security. He’d had a rough upbringing, that much was for sure. He wasn’t used to stability, even in his adult life. He’d been constantly on the run, in and out of prison, doing whatever he could to make ends meet and try to establish something for himself, and…here it was. It had fallen right into his lap.

You pulled open a door and led him into another bedroom. There were a few generic pieces of art on the wall. The comforter was charcoal gray and there were a few navy throw pillows on top.

“I’m sorry it’s so empty in here.”

“Why are you…?” He paused for a second, looking around the spacious bedroom. It was nice, clean…way better than the tiny, dingy jail cell he’d been in for the past few years. “Is this my room?”

“Yeah, is that alright? It’s next door to mine, so I figured…”

“It’s perfect, princess.” He smiled softly, shaking his head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

“Well, believe it.” You chuckled, stepping further into the room and opening the drawers on the dresser. “We didn’t know what size you were, so we guessed, but we picked you up some basics. I didn’t know what all you had…”

Digger was silent, watching you with careful eyes. You barely knew him and yet you’d done all of this for him, going out of your way to get him clothes and bedding.

“And this is your bathroom.” You opened the door to what he had assumed was a closet or something, but no, he now had an entire bathroom to himself as well. “I know the shower can be a little confusing, so let me know if you need any help with anything.”

You blinked up at him, waiting for some kind of reaction. “You good?”

“Y-yeah, I just…” He chuckled and shook his head. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”

“What, did you think we’d throw my soulmate in the dungeon?” You smirked, watching the way he couldn’t help but crack a smile at that.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you for it.”

You were both quiet for a moment before he asked, “Do you mind if I take a shower real quick? I haven’t had a warm shower in…” He didn’t finish the thought. You both knew it had been a while since he’d had a bathroom to himself, let alone water that wasn’t already cold by the time he got to it.

“Go for it. I’ll be down in the living room when you get out.”

***

When Digger came back downstairs, you were almost shocked, looking at him. He’d trimmed his beard, combed his hair, and he was wearing one of the cozy gray hoodies you’d picked out for him. He looked nice. You couldn’t help the heat that rose to your cheeks when you took him in.

“What, princess?” He raised an eyebrow, walking over to sit down next to you.

You set the book in your hands down on the coffee table. “Hmm?”

“What’s that look for?”

“You look nice, is all.” You shrugged.

He grinned. “You think so?”

“Mmhmm.” You nodded. Once he was closer, you could smell the eucalyptus shampoo in his slightly damp hair. You leaned in the tiniest bit, terrified of moving too fast, but he leaned in a bit too, only to be interrupted by—

“GIRLS’ NIGHT!”

You looked up at the sound of the voice with wide eyes, chuckling when you saw none other than Harley Quinn standing there with a bottle of wine.

“Boomer? What are you doin’ here?” She asked, looking at him.

“I found my soulmate, Harls.” Digger said, smiling as he did.

She looked between the two of you, her eyes widening in realization. “Wait, are you two…?”

“Yeah, we are.” You confirmed, slipping your hand into Digger’s. He embraced it quickly, giving it a proud squeeze.

“But I thought your soulmate was some dude named George…?”

“Digger is just a nickname, mate.” He chuckled. “My real name is George.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Harley nodded. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

“You know it’s Wednesday, right?” You said, glancing down at your phone to double-check.

“Oh, is it? I thought it was Thursday.” Harley laughed. “My bad.”

“You can hang out if you want to, though.” You offered, motioning to the couch.

“Don’t mind if I do.” She ran over and hopped onto the open end of the couch next to you, setting the wine bottle on the coffee table before crawling over to whisper in your ear, “He’s a keeper, (Y/N). You’re in good hands.”

“Oh believe me,” you smirked, “I know.”

***

It was a few months later. Much to your surprise, Digger stuck around. Part of you had expected him to leave that first night with all of your family valuables in his duffle bag, but he…hadn’t. Instead, he’d been coexisting peacefully with your siblings, spending significant amounts of time trying to get to know you better, reading, cooking on occasion, and helping with chores around the house.

He remembered in vivid detail the first time you’d trusted him enough to fall asleep with him. It had been innocent enough, one of your first times cuddling together. Your other siblings were all out of the house, so you and Digger had the house to yourselves. Naturally, you had popped in a movie. One thing had led to another and you’d ended up fast asleep on his chest.

He took a long moment to look at you, something he had never felt before welling up inside of him as slow breaths worked into and out of you.

Something changed then, and since that moment, he had been pretty attached to you. Not that you minded. It felt natural. He was your soulmate, after all.

“Princess, have you seen my—” Digger popped his head into your bedroom, frozen in his tracks when he saw you there, laying on your bed, reading a book.

“What?” You asked coyly.

“Nothing, I just…” He smirked and stepped into the room. “Would you like some company?”

“Weren’t you looking for something?”

“Yeah, my heart, and it seems you’ve been hiding it in here with you.” He replied, walking over to your bed and climbing on next to you. He gently guided your book away from you and took its place on your chest instead, looking at you with his sparkling eyes, his weight comforting on top of you.

“And here I thought you were the thief.”

“Reformed, darlin’.” He said, unable to keep the smile off of his face. For one of the only times in his life, not only did Digger feel safe, but he finally felt happy, and he knew as long as he was by your side, that feeling would never fade.

#captain boomerang #captain boomerang x reader #captain boomerang imagine #digger harkness #digger harkness x reader #digger harkness imagine #george harkness #dc #dc imagine #dc comics #tss #tss imagine

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famigsart · 2 years

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The fair had been Harleys idea. Ever since this basket case he considered a friend noticed his …interest in Dottie, she had made it her buisness to “make the magic happen!”

Not that Digger minded much. It wasn´t like…like he was bad at this whole dating people thing. He considered himself rather good at flirting up the cuties! Okay, did not work on that Sword Lady. Did not work on the security lady at BelleReve. Did also not work on that bar guy few weeks after. Neither on…you get the point. Other than getting laid here and there Digger hadn´t had too much luck lately.

So when Harley casually invited him, Abner…and for whatever reason Nanaue to the fair, Digger did not refuse. To his surprise neither did Abner. Right at the beginning, Harley grabbed Nanaue and ran off with the shark, ensuring Abner and Digger could walk over the fair togethere. The other man seemed to accept this rather quickly as he let Digger lead him on. Both probably didn´t have a lot of…nice childhood memories about fairs and such, so going there without the nostalgic feels wasn´t that great.

They ate the way too sweet junk food, rode the alarmingly rusty rides (those were fun at least as Abner clung to him the hole ride) and looked through the booths. At one booth, a kind of shooting gallery, Digger stopped. There was a unicorn plushy on display - a POLKADOT unicorn plushy! Digger was already buying a few shots when someone tugged at his sleeve. A teenage girl with blue hair stood beside him, looking somewhat grumpy.

“You don´t need to bother Mister. This booth is a scam! Me and my girlfriend just wasted our last fairmoney at this joke of a game…you cannot win here.”

The man inside of the booth just chased her off with some harsh words and turned to Digger. “Sore loosers those kids. Couldn´t even hit the target at ALL. Should have gotten themselves a boy to win them a price if you ask me.”

Digger honestly did not care. Not at all. He just wanted to win this unicorn, hand it to the shy man beside him and be an amazing date. Said shy man however seemed to care. He also tugge at Diggers sleeve and looked at him with tose big, sad, dark eyes. “Digger I´d rather go. I am not that good at aiming anyway.” Digger snorted, a little amused. “I promise this won´t take long Dottie. I just want to win you a nice little price and we are off to go, good?”

The owner of the booth raised an eyebrow, watching the two men critically. “Good luck with that.”

Just as the girl had said, the booth was a scam. The riffles aim was totally off and the target seemed to move just a little bit. After a few rounds Digger had enough. He grabbed the booth owner by the front of his shirt and almost pulled him out. “Wha-” “SHUT UP! Listen bloke, I am a simple man with simple demands. I. Want. My. Price. But with your shitty game here I can´t get it. So you are going to allow me to hit the target with these.” He pulled out one of his sharpened boomerangs and showed it to the other man. “And why on earth should I allow that…BLOKE?!”

Diggers voice dropped dangerously as he held the boomerang to the mans throat. Beside him Abner wheezed. If in panic or amusement Digger couldn´t tell. Dude often laughed when nervouse. A habbit Digger found cute. “Because if I can´t throw my boomerang at this target I will have no choise but to make YOU my target.”

…

Long story short, Captain Boomerang EMPTIED the booth. He won each of the girls a plushy…why? Because he was a show off and because it made Abner - who was pale and nervouse after Diggers little stunt - relax and actually smile a little bit. Than Harely and Nanaue showed up, having looked at the whole thing from afar. Both got a plushy too. And finally - he won the unicorn!

Abner hadn´t looked that amazed at first, seeing the rather silly looking plushy whish resembled his chronic illness. Digger hadn´t considered that one…but than Abner smiled shyly and patted the thing on its head. “It´s really fluffy.” He simply stated, still smiling. Digger laid an arm around the other mans shoulder and walked them away from the booth, feeling rather proud of himself.

Abner spoke up softly. “So…why did you win a…unicorn…for me?” Digger remembered something Harely said…something about Abner feeling uneasy about being…flamboyant. Better play this one safe than?

“Why? Mate unicorns are NEAT!” He pulled his coat a little and showed Abner what or rather who was sitting in the inside pocket of his coat. “And Pinky needs a friend!”

#abner krill #george digger harkness #shipping #harkrill #tss #Suicide Squad #captain boomerang #digger harkness #polkadotman #polkadot man #fanart #fanfic #kind of

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anunvalidcritic · 3 years

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What If...: S1-EP1

(DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION IS MY OWN AND CAN BE DEEMED INVALID TO THOSE WHO DON’T CARE FOR IT.)

This is the first draft I have saved from the ones created about a year in advance so we’re gonna start with this series lol. I know I’m extremely that’s because life has gotten in the way, but as Joni Mitchell once said, “I’ve looked from both sides now” and I’m ready to get this shit started!

What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?

“Time, space, reality... it’s more than a linear path. It’s a prism... of endless possibilities.” - THE WATCHER

RED SKULL was lookin’ bad.. as usual, lol

HOWARD really just made a miniature TONY lmao. This man really said, “What are you crazy?! I push the buttons. I’m the button guy. Tech and bullets don’t mix.”

...well, your son changed that...

AGENT CARTER, a real one

Now imagine if she would’ve come out buff af like the HULK?? food for thought.

“A skinny kid from Brooklyn...” - THE WATCHER

Now, what did STEVE ass think he was gonna do???

This colonel ain’t shit.

Bruh... now Ik she’s upset... but she really is just fuckin’ that entire wall.

“Maybe you haven’t found the right partner?” - PEGGY

He slammed that shield down like it was nothin’.

NOW THAT LANDING WAS FUCKIN’ DOPE

PEGGY WTF!?!?!?!

THOSE MEN ARE OUT OF COMMISSION!!!!

Usin’ that shield like a fuckin’ boomerang

BRUH SHE WENT STRAIGHT FOR HIS FUCKIN’ KNEE!!!!!!!

PEGGY was basically doin’ a slight jog alongside that motorcycle.

Memorable Dialogue

DUM DUM - “Since when did dames fight like that?”

*sees CARTER demolish a group men*

DUM DUM - “Since today. Understood.”

CAPTAIN CARTER - “Are you the 107th? I’m here for Sergeant Barnes.”

BUCKY - “Who are you suppose to be, Queen of England?”

*sees her ripe off the caged door*

EVERYONE - *GOBSMACKED*

Busted out that door like g’s.

Ofc STEVE’s iron suit looks almost identical to Tony’s first suit.

“I always thought PEGGY was a real knockout!” - Colonel

once again, ain’t shit

CAPTAIN CARTER + STEVE ROGERS = LEGENDARY DUO

It’s amazing how this voice actor sounds so close to Chris Evans.

Dudes, I’m telling you... a love like theirs cannot fuckin’ exist in the real world. That shit is poetic.

Damn STEVE!

PEGGY has always been a badass but she really showin’ out now.

SHE KICKED THAT MAN IN HIS FUCKIN’ CHEST!!! HE IS DEAD DEAD!! LUNGS ARE NO LONGER FUNCTIONING!!

Not him falling over kmsl

Well.... we all know the fate that lies ahead for her

She’ll get that dance soon...

__________

AHHHHH!!! I hate myself for not watching these episodes sooner! I really enjoyed this first episode of getting a glimpse of Peggy as the British female version of Captain America. She was a fucking badass and I can’t wait for what the next episodes have in store! Until then, remember that everyone’s a critic when their opinion matters the least.

-------

Here are the links to future episodes:

EP1 - EP2 - EP3 - EP4 - EP5 - EP6 - EP7 - EP8 - EP9 - EP10

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eyrieofsynapses · 4 years

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First Thoughts on YJ S4 Panel

WARNING: SPOILERS for the DC Fandome YJ S4 panel!

Okay, before I start chattering away, can I just saw how much I love this title poster? Because I love it. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT HOW BADASS IT IS.

Warning: this first bit is a teeny bit ranty, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t genuinely love the panel. It was really fun, but I have a few gripes with the amount of information we got. If you wanna cut straight to the cheery bits, check under the cut.

So... uh. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed? Because I’m not, this was good, we got info, it was nice to see the voice actors. But I’m... underwhelmed. I definitely wasn’t expecting a lot but this was still, mm, not as much as I thought we’d get. No poster, no previews of character designs, not a peep as to when we’re getting the new season, nothing on where it’ll be streaming, nothing as to new characters, nothing as to who’s going to be the villain, and the Q&A session was maaaayyybe 3 minutes long. Oof, guys. Thought you said you’d leave us with something that’d leave us “more than just ‘whelmed.’”

Essentially all we got was the title, and a few snippets of information regarding what the current status of the Team and its characters is. They didn’t really get the chance to talk to us at all about the actual season, either- I think Brandon spoke maaaybe three or four times? He got the title reveal, but, well, we knew that already, not that it’s their fault, but still. I love hearing the voice actors chat about their experiences and we got none of that, so that was disappointing. I’m wondering if there wasn’t some material cut, actually, because I distinctly recall seeing a clip on Twitter with Phil Lamarr talking about what it was like returning to the show, and it wasn’t in this. So what’s the deal, DC? Short-changing us on YJ again? When are we gonna get some actual news?

There is the little problem that their big reveal of the title was spoiled, oh, maybe three or four months ago, and that isn’t their fault, but it does make that revelation more of an “okay, well, glad that’s confirmed” rather than an “OH MY GODS IT’S PHANTOMS WHAAAAAAAT” like I think they were hoping. Still, that’s definitely exciting to hear, and the new title poster looks cool.

I got a “WHAT!!!” moment maaayybe three times, which is significantly less than I thought I would. There just wasn’t that much new info. But I think that’s less of a Grandon/production team problem and more of a world state and DC problem. I’m not annoyed at them, I’m annoyed at DC and at the pandemic, because I’m willing to bet their snippet was cut short by DC and what information they could’ve revealed just isn’t ready yet because of current events. Probably we would’ve gotten character designs if it weren’t for that.

As for the audio play, it was pretty good. They were definitely struggling what with having a distinct lack of people to pull from for a voice cast, but made some tongue-in-cheek references to it to take off the edge. I don’t think I realized just how many people voice for YJ until now... or how many characters each actor does. It’s a bit janky, and weird what with the arguing over who’s narrating the story (why, are they telling us the story, or are they telling it to someone else? Are you breaking the fourth wall, are you not? Make yourselves clear) but I’m blaming that on the fact that they’re more used to scripts than they are audio plays. These are different mediums, so there’s an inherent gap there; this probably would’ve gone better as an actual episode.

So, FIRST watch-through, here’s my HAPPY cheery thoughts and reactions, in no particular order! I might do a second one later, we’ll see. (Under the cut, because it’s long.)

Return of Bowhunter Security!

Clipboard makes a comeback!

The Supermartian marriage has taken place and they’re making reference to taking a long journey with Conner, M’gann, Bioship, Gar and J’onn. So... Mars? Do we finally get to see Mars?

Forager gets to be sassy! And a hilarious narrator! Which, c’mon, it’s Jason Spisak, honestly, I don’t know what I expected.

Ahahah, Jason makes the most delightful faces when he’s voicing Forager. (And a few flubs, but he’s good at covering them.) We all miss Wally, but man, he does a good job with this character. Also, hey, that’s how he does the clicks!

Rocket! Even though she had a relatively minimal presence, sigh. I’m hoping they build her character more this time, she always get short-changed.

ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM, repeat, ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM!!! YES!!!

And she also makes a reference at some point to being in this fight for ten years, which, HMM, do I hear a reference point for our time jump? They started back in 2010, so this implies that the season’s caught up to 2020. So... season one was 2010, season two was 2016, season three was... 2018, I think? So does this make the next time jump two years too, or am I off? It also takes place on February 23rd. Eh, either way, it’s absolutely not as long as a lot of people were fearing- heck, I’m thinking this might be the shortest jump yet. Yay!

I’m not sure if the Snapper Carr dialogue is cringy or hilarious. I’m going with hilarious because I’m betting this would’ve been great if it were animated. It definitely loses something without the animation.

Is... is Crispin Freeman playing four characters? Five? Will, Roy, Jim, Captain Boomerang... I think I’m missing someone, I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch this later, but wow. He switches between them so fluidly, too, that’s impressive.

Forget Freeman for a hot second, Nolan North, what are you doing, dude? Conner, Clayface, Mallah, at least one or two others, with a LOT of animal noises included... wow, okay. I definitely didn’t realize how many of these guys do two or three characters.

Phil Lamarr doing Brick, Black Manta and Kaldur all at once is definitely impressive. I’m gonna take a guess and say he likes doing Brick best. He seems to get a little grin sometimes when he’s playing the character.

Ahhh, Danica McKellar definitely likes playing Terrence Terror. Don’t ask me why, I’m just getting that feeling watching her. Villains are fun to play.

...Wolf? Where’s Wolf? Uhh, guys? Where’s our fluffy doggo? Don’t tell anyone but I’m scared.

Oooookay, that was unexpectedly gruesome. Dehydrating a man into sand? I mean, okay, it’s Clayface, but we didn’t know that till later. Eeeewww. Y’all, ik you’re going more dark, but that wasn’t an image anyone needed.

Jokes about Dadbod!Will are... hhh, cringy or funny, cringy or funny... I’m going sorta funny for now. Not enough to make me laugh, but enough to make me smile.

Okay, Will’s definitely still hilarious. Literally that entire scenario with Captain Boomerang was amazing, and only made better by the fact that it was entirely Crispin Freeman. The “are you the Green Arrow fanclub president or something?” “...you have no idea” moment, the “boomerangs are better and Batman said so!” “...okay, FINE,” FLINGING CLIPBOARD, Boomerang teasing Will for his dadbod and Will answering with a wicked uppercut... ah, man. This is 100% Roy/Will Harper and I am here for it.

I can see some people disliking this humor, but personally, I’m gonna just sit back and enjoy it. YJ has some quirky humor, but honestly, if you’re part of the fandom and you don’t like it, why are you even here?

Huh, Raquel’s a vegan and nobody’s making jokes about vegan burgers? Nice!

Oh, my gods, Forager deciding that Lian and Amistad playing with the food is an educational activity is AMAZING, 100% in character, and something I really, really want to see.

(Fanartists? Fanartists, pleeeeaaasse?)

Will and Artemis ribbing each other will never get old.

...wait. Hang on. Is Will the comedic relief character now along with Forager? Is this a thing? I guess it is. If you’d asked me who out of the original Team would replace Wally as the comedic relief back when I had finished the second season, I would not have thought of him first, but I think I’m good with this. It’s definitely in character to his comic version.

Ahh, Conner and M’gann’s relationship is still... interesting. Still not sure how to feel on this one. But hey, they’re married (?) now? Uh... nice?

Nightwing’s off on some mysterious mission, hmm? I’m assuming that’s because of Jesse McCartney not being there, but I think I’m gonna headcanon that there are Other reasons for this.

Yay, Clayface getting redemption! I love this in the Rebirth Batman: Detective Comics, so I’m 100% down for seeing it here.

Tim did that for Clayface! Sweet! Not a plot thread I expected to go anywhere from that one season three episode, but one I am very happy to see used.

...more secrets. Uhh, M’gann keeping secrets from Conner is... icky... again... but granted, keeping them because of confidentiality agreements is, well, a better excuse than she’s had in the past. Still, this is getting old.

Huh, so Waller will let out the Team’s secrets if they tell anyone about Belle Reve. I think this was already covered in the third season, but maybe not so explicitly. The reactions... hmm. Of course Conner’s okay with letting out all their secrets (and M’gann’s willing to... go along with that? ...okay...?), but the others, maybe not so much? Hmm. I wonder what Dick would have to say about that one. He definitely has something to lose. Not sure about Kaldur or Artemis, though.

Jason did NOT get to make any Wally references. That makes me even sadder than if he did make one that made all of us cry. C’mon, guys. Let him have his references.

I’m always a little meh on M’gann, but hey, M’gann gets to be a 100% certified badass! Saving Clayface AND taking down a ton of baddies with telekinesis, yay!

Oh, my gods. LOOPHOLES. WHAT IS WITH THIS TEAM AND LOOPHOLES. I love them so much.

The Team signing on as Bowhunter Security- oh my gods, all of the Team in fucking Bowhunter Security uniforms- oh my gods, so very in-character, so very true to YJ, so absolutely goddamn hilarious, I wanna hug whoever came up with that. That is the BEST mental image and it is a CRIME that they didn’t animate that.

And, of course, Kaldur just immediately goes along with it. The Team’s corrupted him fully now. I mean, we knew that, but he’s done now.

Black Manta attempting to roast Kaldur for his security uniform and Kaldur roasting him back 100 times worse is wonderful. “I wear my dignity on the inside, Father. Where do you wear yours?” KALLIE I LOVE YOU

Ooooo, Artemis is inviting Roy to the Team? This should be interesting. He’s definitely not totally stable, but it seems to me that Artemis should be able to more or less keep him in check. Hopefully. She had to deal with Wally for five years, surely she can keep Roy in check?

...hmm. We’re all thinking there’s gonna be a Red Hood arc... Roy’s joining the team... Roy and Jason did have that run as the Outlaws in the comics with Kory... and this version of Roy has the sort of temper and attitude that I can just see Jason possibly getting along well with... hmmmmmmmm...

Hah, villain shenanigans. Having Task Force X argue all the time is in character and admittedly sort of funny, especially as Black Manta’s sort of pulling a Kaldur and playing the absolutely exasperated denmother. I dislike BM thanks to him being a Baddie and all, but watching (listening to?) him struggle to contain them is enjoyable if only because I like watching him suffer.

Ahh, watching the VAs is fun. It’s definitely nice to see that little view behind the camera. There’s the little smiles, the tiny grimaces at the icky bits, the responses to various bits, the way their demeanor changes with each character, everyone egging Nolan on when he’s yelling for Clayface being disintegrated... I’m sad we didn’t get to see them chat, but watching them interact while they work is fun. Pity Jason and Stephanie didn’t really have any interactions, though, I bet watching them work together would’ve been fun. Ah well. Still fun overall.

There’s a lot of variation in where they are/what setups they have. Some of them seem to have proper studios, some of them don’t but they have mics, Danica’s on the lower bunk of her son’s room with what I’m betting are several sheets hung behind her, and then... well, then there’s poor Stephanie with earbuds and what I’m betting is her phone at her friend’s house XD Also, Greg’s library is really awesome, can I steal it please?

Green title card... I know people have been positing this for a while, but Lazarus Pit? Also, the thing people haven’t talked about: Mars?! Is this a nod to the Martians, since M’gann, Conner, Gar and J’onn seem to be going there?

Lots of speculation regarding Phantoms, but that’s been going around for a while, so *shrug* I’m not gonna spend any time on that for now.

Someone’s gonna have to write this out, methinks, for further examination. We’ll see if I get around to doing that or not before Fandome ends. I’m betting someone will record it and post it on YouTube, but a written-out version of the script would be useful. If I do, I’ll probably post it, so keep an eye out.

So... season 3.9, episode 1? Hmm. Does this come directly prior to the fourth season? I kinda wanna say it does.

I have more thoughts, but I think I need to do a rewatch first, maybe in a little bit. Anyway... not what I was expecting, I sincerely miss Dick and Wally, but lots of funny jokes all the same, and lots of interesting information on the fourth season even if it’s nowhere near the amount we wanted. I might be underwhelmed but I’m certainly not disappointed.

#dc fandome #dc fandome reactions #Young Justice #young justice cartoon #young justice: phantoms #phantoms #young justice season 4 #PHANTOMS IS CONFIRMED #underwhelmed but still feeling the aster #BRING WALLY BACK PLEASE #and no we're not gonna shut up about that

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365days365movies · 3 years

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January 30, 2021: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

So, now that I’ve gotten through the first of these movies, it’s probably time to talk about the director of all four films, George Miller.

Miller’s an Australian director and medical doctor. Yeah, dude went to medical school, and in his last year there, started getting into filmmaking! Nice. He immediately came off as a budding director, and made his official directorial debut with his first film...Mad Max. Yeah. Very interesting guy. Today’s entry is his second film, and he’s since made films including Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe (yes, the pig one), Babe: Pig in the City (yes, the OTHER pig one), Happy Feet (not the pig one) and its sequel, Happy Feet Two. So, a pretty good filmography!

But throughout it all, Miller’s flagship passion was the Mad Max franchise, continuing with this movie, and eventually ending with Fury Road. And from what I’ve heard about these remaining two films, I’m in for a ride. Pun half-heartedly intended. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

An elderly narrator brings us in, telling the tale of the Road Warrior, Mad Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). He speaks of the downfall of modern society, punctuated by increased savagery, and the takeover of gangs on the world’s highways. People are ruined and forgotten, and they lose themselves. And these people include Max, who’s wandered out into the wilderness since losing his family. Yeah, Jess from the last movie? Dead. Guess she wasn’t doing so great after all.

Max and his dog are on the roads of Australia, where things have definitely changed. Ho longer around any vestige of civilization, the Road Warrior’s driving the Interceptor, being chased by punks on motorcycles, led by Wez (Vernon Wells), a cray, screaming dude with a bike and a mohawk..

After the chase, Max happens upon a recently-wrecked truck leaking gasoline, a much treasured resource in this post-apocalyptic landscape. Wez leaves, having been defeated, and Max gathers the fuel and goes his way. He drives through the desert until finding a mini-helicopter (a gyrocopter, it’s called), abandoned on the ground.

After taking care of a carpet python (Morelia spilota; don’t know the subspecies), he finds himself ambushed by the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), who holds him up for his fuel. However, using his dog, Max gets the upper hand. Frightened, Gyro tells him of a huge supply of fuel somewhere in the desert. He agrees to show him in exchange for his life. Max agrees, and does this.

Yeah, he tied a string to the trigger of a gun, and tied the other end to Dog’s bone. Fuck yes.

Gyro’s true to his word, and he takes him to an oil refinery in the middle of the desert. It’s being used and guarded by a gang of some kind. Max sets up camp, tying Gyro to a dead tree and spying on the gang. That night, many gang members leave the refinery, and return the next day. I should mention, at this point, that we start to see some of the crazy vehicles I love so much in Fury Road. Which, yeah, HERE for that!

Anyway, the bikers, including good old Wez, go after a guy in a tricked-out buggy, incapacitating him and...taking...his wife. Yeah, these movies are really leaning on that to vilify their bad guys, huh? First it was Toecutter’s gang and the young couple, and now it’s these random people. Not the best gimmick in the world, but...OK?

Well, Max goes down to take their gasoline, and finds that the man has lived. Max brings him back to a small settlement, where they take him in. Meanwhile, a child with a boomerang, called Feral Kid (Emil Minty), watches. Cool.

Max is taken into the settlement, where oil is being refined as well. The settlers definitely don’t accept Max, and are ready to take his car and oust him into the wilderness without fuel. And then, the bikers return. And there are a LOT of them.

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These are the Marauders, and they’ve taken some of the settlers captive. They’d gone out, only to be taken captive by Wez and the others. But Wez isn’t their leader. No...no, that would be the Warrior of the Wasteland! The Ayatollah of rock-and-roll-ah! THIS...is Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson)!

...Am I in love with this movie? Holy shit, I might be I mean, LOOK at that dude! With his voice and his scraggly-ass hair and Jason mask, he notes that the settlers sent out sentries to find a truck, with which to carry their gasoline and take it out of the desert. And as this is taking place, Feral Kid pops up, throws his steel boomerang, and kills Wez’ right hand man. WHAT

YES. MORE PLEASE. Feral Kid’s boomerang is thrown at him, misses, comes back and severs the fingers of the hand of Humungus’ mouth of Sauron dude, Toadie (Max Phipps). Humungus tries to calm the throngs, Wez included, and ends up putting Wez in a Sleeper. He tells the settlers to “just walk away, and [he] will spare [their] lives. Just walk away.”

...Yeah, I love Humungus. And his inevitable death saddens me more than I can properly say. Anyway, the settlers start debating whether or not they should walk away, and Max uses a little music-maker that he found to befriend the Feral Kid. The leader of the settlers, Pappagallo (Mike Preston) tries to convince them to flee with their fuel to a safe place. They continue to argue, until Max interjects with an offer.

Max can get them the vehicle to carry the tanker of gas that they have, but demands as much gas as he can carry, and the return of his vehicle. They agree to his terms, and Max heads off into the night to get the truck from earlier, with gas canisters and Dog in tow. With a little help from Feral Kid, he escapes the notice of the Marauders waiting nearby.

He catches up to Gyro, who’s managed to break free of the tree (well, mostly), and is quickly caught by Max in order to carry the gas canisters for the truck. They get back to Gyro’s gyro, where someone has died after being bitten by his...nonvenomous snake. Yeah, these films haven’t shown very high knowledge of zoology, huh?

They take to the air in the gyrocopter, and easily fly to the truck from the beginning of the film. They get it started, and Max leaves Gyro behind, although he protests to this, and follows behind in the copter. And then.he drives past Wez, who’s still enraged after losing his partner to boomerang hit.

By the way, I didn’t mention this about the gang, but they’re literally all wearing what looks to me like leather bondage gear? Like...I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what that is; it’s pretty obvious. ESPECIALLY Humungus and Wez’s partner, lemme tell you. Just a note, as this change in visual tone and style is going to carry throughout the rest of the series.

The Marauders run Max down, and Gyro saves the day with his snake, throwing it at one of the cars chasing him. Max JUST makes it into the Settlement, but a couple of the Marauders make it in as well, Wez amongst them. He kills a Settler using his favorite weapon, HIS OWN HEAD (fuck, this movie rules), and makes his was through the compound.

Max climbs the top of the wall, and uses a flamethrower on some of the men. Feral Kid throws a boomerang at Wez, who runs off with the rest of the Marauders. Gyro also arrives, landing in the settlement. Pappagallo, in the process, is shot in the leg with an arrow. Unfortunately, the damage sustained to the truck will take 12 hours to fix.

The Settlers thank Max for his help, but that doesn’t mean he’s staying there. That night, however, Humungus retaliates, and strings up their captured settlers for all to see, torturing them throughout the night. Nobody will make it out alive, by his promise.

For the time being, Max and Gyro are still in the settlement, waiting for their chance to leave. Gyro tries to sneak away with a young woman, but she opts to stay out of loyalty to the Settlers. Also, her hair looks like a Who from Whoville. It had to be said...it had to be said. Pappagallo berated Max for just leaving, rather than helping the rest of them and driving the tanker. Max shoves aside Feral Kid, and he takes off.

However, this is NOT the best move on Max’s part, as he drives RIGHT THROUGH the Marauder camp, and Wez isn’t far behind him. Using a NOS system (EAT IT FAST AND FURIOUS FRANCHISE), they easily overtake Max and run him off the road, DESTROYING the V-8 Pursuit Special, and injuring Max something fierce. Somehow, though, he manages to escape. But one of them KILLS DOG WHAT THE FUCK MAN

Max crawls away and escapes, but is found by...Gyro! Gyro picks him up with the copter, and takes him back to the settlement. He wakes up in a medical tent, still quite hurt. Pappagallo details the plan: use the tanker as a distraction to allow the others to escape. Max, although still injured, volunteers to drive the tanker after all. He doesn’t say exactly why, but he is now stuck there without a method of egress, and he’s the best chance they have. I’m going to choose to believe that he does it for Dog. JOHN WICK STYLE BABY

The time has come. On both sides, they head for conflict. Gyro’s air support, dropping bombs on them. But he’s quickly shot down. Meanwhile, the settlers get out in vehicles of their own, taking advantage of the distraction of the tanker. And once they’re all out…

Now, all eyes are on Max and the Marauders! With the assistance of Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey), Feral Kid, and a few more settlers, Max tries to outdrive Wez and his group. And a LOT of shit happens here, so do yourself a favor and watch this video!

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Rebecca and the other two settlers die, leaving only Max and Feral Kid behind. A LOT of Marauders die in the process, and then Lord Humungus catches up. As they shoot out the tires, Gyro (still flyin’, baby!) and some of the Settlers show up as backup. And...yup, another video. Yes, really.

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After ALL OF THAT, Humungus ONCE AGAIN goes the way of Toecutter, and is killed by a head-on collision with a truck. Said truck careens off the road, and Mac and Feral Kid get out. It’s then that we see that the truck NEVER had fuel in it! No, instead it was a decoy! It allowed the vehicles, which actually contained the fuel, to escape to the safe North, away from the gangs.

The Narrator comes back, revealing that he’s the Feral Kid, and that their new leader was Gyro! And the Road Warrior. That was the last they ever saw of him. He lives now...only in his memories.

And THAT...was The Road Warrior, AKA Mad Max 2. WHOOOOOOOO!!! Second verse, same as the first; epilogue at the end of the weekend! LET’S GO PART 3

January 31, 2021: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

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jupitermelichios · 4 years

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So I decided to rewatch Suicide Squad and I have some thoughts...

This isn’t really a review so much as it’s just a series of thoughts and impressions. I will say that while it’s still one of the worst made films I’ve ever seen, it’s never boring, which is by far the biggest sin a film can commit. It’s bullshit but it’s consistently interesting bullshit which makes it better than something like Fant4stic, which is as bad and incoherant but also just incredibly dull. I don’t think this could ever have been a good film, there was too much massively wrong with it before shooting even started to have been salvagable, but I do think it could have been a lot more coherant if it hadn’t been for the reshoots, re-edits, re-edits of re-edits and all the the other stuff that happened to it post production. Unlike something like BvS, I get why some people liked this one.

On that note, while I am going to end on a few possitives this basically a roast so if you don’t want to read about a film getting picked apart, this probably won’t be your jam. But if like me you find critiques of bad movies cathartic, read on. I’m not the first person to do this, but I’ve spotted some stuff I haven’t seen anyone else talk about so hopefully there’ll be something new for you.

All the dialogue is just slightly off in a way that’s hard to pin down, in the way that a lot of comprehensible stuff written by computers and neural networks is just slightly off. It’s got that phishing email or pornbot quality to it. Literally the fourth or fifth line in the film is Griggs saying about the prison rations, “...Everything a growing young man needs like you”, which isn’t nonsense, but is clearly wrong, and a lot of the lines have that quality to them.

In a similar vein, Deadshot’s daughter is written like she’s five or six, but the actress looks about twelve. I actually went and checked how old she was when this released, because I know white people are often wildly bad at judging the ages of black kids and I’m bad at judging ages in general, but no, she was 12 or 13 when this was shot, so why’s she written like a toddler? She doesn’t give a good performance (which is not the actresses fault, Will Smith barely gives a good performance in this and he can do this shit in his sleep, there’s no way a kid could have risen above the terrible script and direction) which makes it even worse, because you’ve got this pre-teen delivering dialogue written for a kindergardener in a way that feel like it’s maybe the first time she’s ever seen the script, and it makes what is otherwise one of the most competant scenes in the movie feel just as off as everything else.

The Joker. A lot of people have written a lot about Leto’s Joker but I want to add two things to the discussion I haven’t seen talked about much before. Firstly, before the electro-shock torture and acid bath, he and Harley have no romance. Like, explicitly, there is no romance, or even cammeraderie there. He’s her patient. She’s his jailer. He didn’t seduce her, he just tortured her until she gave in. That’s literally shown in the film. Even after the torture when she’s now on side he still really doesn’t like her, and not in a Paul Dini BTAS he doesn’t like her but he also wants her around kind of way. He doesn’t want her in his life. He orders her to leave him alone and she fucking stalks him. That’s not even subtext, she is specifically his stalker, because apparently the solution to the relationship being abusive was to retconn Harley into also being a creep as though that somehow solves something.

Secondly, Joker isn��t smart. Not only is he no longer emotionally intelligent (and comics Joker is many terrible things but he’s probably the most emotionally intelligent character in DC, that’s a lot of what makes him so dangerous because it’s how he manipulates people) he’s not intelligent full stop. His great plan for breaking out of Arkham? Some of his goons from the outside literally just shoot their way in to get to him. Even leaving aside the fact that Arkham apparently isn’t set up to deal with that kind of violence in this world despite Batman having been opperating for a decade, that’s not a clever plan, and it’s not Joker’s plan. 'Hope some of my dudes are loyal enough to come get me’ isn’t any kind of escape plan, and nothing we see after that point suggests that this was a moment of weakness. Joker just straight up isn’t very bright in this, which is weird because that’s one of the few genuinely consistent character traits he has. He’s no Riddler, sure, but he’s really smart and that makes him hard to contain.

Ayer made Harley functionally a sex worker in this, and it doesn’t actually matter that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex work or that sex work is real work, because David Ayer definitely thinks there is, and also really really hates women. David Ayer hates women so goddamn much. The only thing Slipknot does in the entire film apart from die is hit a woman just for being a woman.

When Waller arrives at Belle Reve, Croc is doing push ups. And that’s fine, it’s a classic movie shorthand for ‘bored prisoner is also fit and strong’, but the actor isn’t actually doing pushups. He’s got one knee tucked under his body to support his weight, and is clearly actually just sort of bobbing his head. What I suspect happened is that the prosthetics on his arms and chest were too heavy to allow that kind of movement, which would tie up with the stiff way he holds his arms throughout the film, but he’s not even bothering to pretend very hard and it adds to this pervading sense of off-kilter wrongness the film has.

Rick Flagg is supposed to be ‘the best special forces opperative this country has’, but he’s... really bad? He’s no use in any of the fights, he’s incapable of working with a team and has zero interpersonal skills, and when he’s assigned to be a bodyguard, he immediately starts fucking his client which is like, bodyguarding rule 1. He’s really bad at his job. (Which would be fine if the explanation was that he’s a fucking psychopath who’s 100% willing to just murder a civilian in the line of duty, but he’s meant to be Hannibal Smith more than Dirty Harry, and also if he is here because he’s a psychopath, why did Amanda Waller assume June Moon would be into that?!) He even has to be blackmailed into joining the opperation, so he’s incompetent, unprofessional, causes unecessary conflict, and isn’t even loyal to the project, so why him and not, I don’t know, literally any other character?

On the subject of June Moon, she goes (alone) on an archeological dig in a rainforest somewhere, finds a cave full of human remains and ancient artefacts, and literally her first action is to deliberately smash one of the artefacts, presumably just to see what would happen? IDK! We never get any explanation for that, but it’s definitely meant to be deliberate and not accidental when she smashes it! Why are archeologists in movies all so terrible?!

People have joked a lot about the fact that the movie changes the purpose of the squad from ‘plausibly deniable black ops, especially on American soil’, to ‘punching Superman’ but kept Captain Boomerang on the team, but there is actually an explanation given. A really really stupid explanation. Amanda Waller says that he’s there because ‘he faced down a metahuman and survived’, referring to him surviving being arrested. By the Flash. Who is famously non violent, and in fact in the next film in the series specifically says he’s never fought someone. So Boomer is on the team because he didn’t die when Flash picked him up and carried him to a police station, and Amanda Waller thinks that’s some kind of achievement. Like that isn’t the case for literally everyone the Flash has ever caught. And Flash is a street level hero, so that’s a whole lot of muggers and purse snatchers who are apparently capable of fist fighting Superman by Waller’s logic.

(On the same note as the Joker, Waller is also now incredibly stupid, but she’s mostly stupid for plot related reasons, so it sort of gets a pass? It gets more of a pass than the Joker at least, because making him comics-smart wouldn’t have necessatitated changing anything else about the film)

Re: Waller’s stupidity, her whole plan for recruiting El Diablo to the squad is... show him a video of him setting fire to some dudes. That’s it. She doesn’t even speak to him, she literally just holds up the video to the little window in his tank and seems surprised when that by itself isn’t enough.

And then when Flagg is like ‘hey let me try persuading him with actual arguments instead of just a weird video’, Diablo’s response is “You think you’re the first person to ask? I won’t do it. I’m a man not a weapon”, which gives us the amazing insight that in Ayer’s version of the DCU, there are apparently just... other Taskforce Xs running around. Other government agencies recruiting metahuman soldiers. So what exactly was the point of the half an hour or so of footage of her persuading the brass to go along with it? Because apparently they’re fine with this if every agency is doing it!

Tone? What even is tone. Griggs both has an antagonist but banter-y relationship with and brings cookies to the prisoners, but also he tortures them and is implied to be sexually abusing Harley, and like... you can’t have it both ways, Ayer. This is a one or the other situation. They can’t have a fun and jokey relationship with a man who is explicitly torturing and abusing them. Tone. You need to pick a fucking tone!

The decision to add a subplot about Deadshot being involved in a custody battle with his ex-wife was a fascinatingly terrible choice, and honestly tells you a lot about Ayer’s relationship to MRA talking points. Like, we know nothing about Deadshot’s wife except that she raised a cute well adjusted kid, so probably a pretty good parent, and that she doesn’t want her daughter to be spending time with a MASS MURDERER! So definitely a good parent! The comics just kind of handwave away Zoe’s mom most of the time, which was the right choice, because Ayer wants us to be on Deadshot’s side here, but it’s literally a choice between "a serial killer but you take credit cards” and a normal loving parent and somehow he thinks serial killer is the right answer? WTF happened in Ayer’s life that he thinks this is a choice where we side with Deadshot?! And it’s not even visitation rights or anything, Deadshot wants full custody. And the film thinks he’s in the right!

Not once, at any job I have ever had, one of which was a tourist attraction that required all visitors to wear a pass, have I ever seen someone wear a visitors pass on their sleeve. Not once. And it’s honestly such a good summary of the pervading wrongness of this film. This doesn’t feel like it was made by people. It feels like it was made by middlingly intelligent algorithms trying to pass as human.

Someone please tell me what the fuck any of this set is supposed to mean. The pose feels deliberate, but it’s not invoking anything I can see except the hanged man from the Ryder-Waite tarot deck, the halo of knives almost looks like it’s pseudo-religious imagery except that it’s not a full halo, the circle is incomplete on one side because of a broken piano, does the piano mean something? What about the babygrows, do they mean something? Does the Joker... want kids? Kill kids? Think Harley’s pregant? What the hell is any of this supposed to mean, and if, as I suspect, it was never supposed to mean anything why the fuck did they go to the trouble of making it?! What exactly does the hours this took to put together add to the movie?

David Ayer has a really weird relationship with both gang culture and latino gang culture specifically. He always feels the need to shoehorn them in somehow, and it’s this weird love-hate relationship where he apparently thinks latino gangs are so cool they have to be in everything, but is also so fucking racist he’s incapable of having a latino character who isn’t in a gang. Also in order to shoehorn them in here, he basically removed all of Joker’s henchmen (except for one scene which serves no narrative purpose) and replaced when with generic racist-stereotype LA gangs.

The fact that Griggs just hands Harley the phone in front of all the other guards and soliders was A Choice. Made even more so by the fact that Griggs never actually pay off. He gives Harley the phone, she tells him he’s “so screwed now”, and then... nothing. He’s just gone for the rest of the movie. He’s not even in the epilogue back in prison scenes.

I fucking love that the first thing Waller does is tell the world’s best assassin her real name. That is just... *chefs kiss* Everyone in this film is so fucking stupid.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming and I remembered the line perfectly, and I still had to stop the film because I was laughing too hard for “Ah would advise naht gettin’ killed by her, her sword traps the souls of its victims”. It’s the ‘that wizard came from the moon’ of film dialogue, and no one could have made it work, but the southern accent is really what makes that line delivery. I don’t know why, there’s just something about it in that drawl that it just endlessly hilarious.

It really is impressive how every character in this manages to be an offensive stereotype, sometimes multiple offensive stereotypes at once.

I love how Flagg’s right-hand woman is a samurai with a magical possessed sword that traps the souls of the damned who also isn’t military and refuses to speak English most of the time, but the squad are too weird for him. “You won’t believe it, this guy Boomerage, he’s got these bent stick things, and when he throws them they come back! I am freaking out, I can’t deal with this. Oh hi Katana, trap any damned souls lately?”

Harley is explicitly malicious in this in a way no other version of Harley has ever been, which is a Freudian nightmare when you combine it with her also being more sexualised than ever, and more infantalised than any version outside the Arkham games. Someone get Ayer a goddamn therapist. (Also in the vein of everyone being dumb in this, Harley is now an absolutely terrible psychiatrist and all her diagnoses are explicitly wrong, so that’s fun.)

The fucking pink unicorn-bundle of money switcheroo. There’s nothing to say on it that hasn’t already been said but holy shit. How do you fuck something up that bad? How? It’s like looking into Chekov’s nightmares and finding a pink stuffed unicorn staring back.

I love the way the soliders just come and go in this. Are they dead, are they alive, have they abandonned the cause? Why the fuck knows? Certainly not the editors!

I love how we’re supposed to be really sad about El Diablo being dead, but not care that Croc is seemingly directly underneath the explosion and definitely about to die, that’s fun.

I need to know if it was Ayer or Cara Delavigne’s choice to make Enchantress be just.. doing a little dance. Duing all the ‘tense’ moments. Because there are probably things which undercut tension more than the bad guy having a bit of boogy, but not many.

Enchantress gets so many costume changes, and I want to believe that they’re all from different versions of the film but I honestly think it was deliberate and I need someone on in the design department for this movie to tell me why because it add nothing.

I think the best thing about the stupidly on the nose liscenced soundtrack is that it just disappears once they arrive in Midway city. After spirit in the sky it’s original music all the way until the final scene. The great soundtrack DC stans insist this film has is literally only in the first 50 minutes and the last 2 of a 2hr+ movie.

The glorification of abuse in this is... seriously fucking something else. Twilight doesn’t have a patch on this. 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t have a patch on this. This shit is disgusting, and the fact that they pushed so hard to get it a child friendly rating is just morally bankrupt.

Possitive note to end on:

The dialogue is way too on the nose and exposition dump-y but the scene in the bar works pretty well. It fulfils its role in the story, and gives us a decent dose of team bonding.

Deadshot and Harley have great chemistry, and Boomer is perfectly cast, in a way that makes me really hopeful for James Gunn’s take on the team. A writer who knows how to write friendships could do a lot with the three of them, and they’ve been the core squad since 2011 so they’re the ones who matter. It probably helps that whatever Will Smith’s faults as an actor, you could cast him opposite a housebrick and they’d somehow have great chemistry.

#suicide squad #roasting suicide squad #bad movies #you could build whole academic careers just talking about all the things that went wrong in the production of this film #and some of it was studio interferance for sure #but a lot of it was ayer being incompetant #and trailerpark being incompetant #and kate hawley somehow being incompetant despite being fine on other movies #likewise john gilroy the creditted editor #lindsay graham and Mary Vernieu doing the worst jobs of their respective careers #i'm glad this movie didn't tank the careers of the creatives #and so upset it didn't tank the career of david ayer #how can you write this and fucking Bright and still have a job as a writer #how

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incoherentbabblings · 4 years

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Take Back the Cake, Burn the Shoes, and Boil the Rice (7/11)

Within two months there have been two murders of Gotham newlyweds moments after the ceremony. The only connecting factor was both brides wore the same designer’s work. Needing to establish who exactly is behind the crimes, Bruce enlists Tim and Stephanie to have the biggest wedding Gotham high society has seen in decades, putting a target on their heads not just for the killer, but Gotham society too. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Ao3 Link Here!

“Hey…” Tim said, still lying on the floor.

“Dude!” Conner’s voice came through, exuberant. “Bart you were right! He did answer!”

Bart’s high-pitched giggle ran straight through Tim’s bones. It cut off abruptly as he processed Conner’s incredulity.

“Why do you guys always think my plans are bad?”

“Shush.” Cassie’s voice also drifted in. Tim must have been on speakerphone. “Tim… what is going on? Like… is this for real?”

“No way.” Said Conner. “You would have told us. It’s gotta be fake. Weird fake, but fake.”

“…It’s not fake.”

“Pardon?” Bart asked, being awfully polite. “Why didn’t you keep us in the loop? Or are you channeling Batman this month?”

“It had to be real. Like super real. No heroes, no nothing.”

“Bullshit, Tim.” Conner’s tone was fond, but a little exasperated. “Kara’s been on my ass about it too. Some of us have secret ids yaknow. No metas in Gotham rule aside, we could help?”

“I mean… it’s complicated. There’s a bunch of murders recently.”

Cassie sounded worried. “We saw the news the other day. You and Stephanie were shot at?”

“…Yeah. Someone’s targeting brides who wear this designer. Steph and I were trying to make ourselves the next pair on the list… the guy botched it and shot Bishop Sherborne.”

“So… once Batman catches Mr Always the Bridesmaid Never the Bride… then what?” Asked Conner. “No more wedding, I guess. Which – yikes – bud. I’ve seen the stuff online. Some people are being brutal about this whole thing. You have too many fake engagements people aren’t gonna believe a real one after that.”

Cassie piped up again. “Not to mention Steph is gonna be thrown into limbo, right?”

Tim was silent as he listened to his friends. He couldn’t explain. This is why he didn’t tell them. They weren’t doing it intentionally, but they were setting off all his alarm bells. It seemed Bart heard something in the silence that the others did not, and asked, more than a little befuddled,

“Wait… you and Steph aren’t together together for reals are you? ‘Cause, you really should have told us! Like no bachelor party? Really? No me as your best man?”

Conner sounded very affronted when he cut in, “Eh. No. That’s me.”

“You can have a girl as your best man right?” Cassie pondered. “Nowadays? I’d be good at that…”

Tim rolled onto his front, utterly depressed. “I don’t know. Know what I wanted… Know what Steph wants…”

It seemed Tim’s sadness finally clicked in the minds of his friends, and Conner lowered his tone.

“You getting your heart broken bud?”

Tim’s eyes grew wet. “I can’t help her.”

“Help her how?”

Cassie began to shoo the other two away. “Let me speak to him. One to one.”

“I can still hear the phone you know.”

“Shut up, Conner. I don’t want you and Bart butting in.”

“Rude.” Bart chirped, but did as he was told. There was shuffling, and the sound of someone being kicked, but soon enough it was just Cassie on the other side of the phone.

“Can’t help her how?” She repeated Conner’s statement, and Tim heard him huff in the distance.

“We… we both want to be together.”

“That’s…that’s good Tim. Right? So, what’s the issue?”

Tim sneered. She wasn’t making it sound good. They just wouldn’t understand, but Tim continued to try.

“But she… I thought she was in a better place. I thought I was in a better place. But the stress is getting to her. She’s tired of being judged. And that’s all I can offer her.”

Cassie was quiet but full of conviction when she responded, “I don’t believe that.”

“No but…Cassie I’ve never seen her like this. Like she’s three steps away from jumping out the window. And that’s supposed to be me. I don’t know how to show her, that she doesn’t need to be frightened. That other people don’t matter. People just aren’t coming on side, not entirely. Not even her helping Bishop Sherborne when he died was enough. And she’s losing her drive.”

“Could you…” She mused it over. “Have you got an event coming up?”

“The engagement party.”

“No, no. Something smaller. Something about your job. Something you could share with her. Show her she doesn’t need to be afraid to share a life with you. Start small to build back up confidence. Steph’s…she’s a little rough round the edges.”

“She’s from Gotham.”

“Exactly. But the more she does that sort of stuff with you, the more people will get to know her and that squidgy centre you talk about. I mean those engagement photos were beautiful.” Tim burned red. Of course, they had seen them. “And I want her red dress more than life itself, but that’s not her. Not you really either. You both do stuff outside of nightwork… do that stuff together y’know?”

Stephanie had asked him about his work. She had asked several times in fact. She had been on multiple visits to his office, watching as he went through conference calls, reports and other dry white-collar work whilst she sat with her college notes spread around her. She herself had said she was interested in what he did. Tim blinked, a plan coming together.

“…Thank you, Cassie.”

“My pleasure.” She said, sounding smug. “Is she there with you now?”

“No… we… we had an argument. She’s gone to cool off on patrol.”

Conner pinched the phone then. “Not to sound judgy, but man… she’s got a temper. And you said when she gets angry, she gets stupid.”

Defensiveness replaced depression, and Tim’s tone became a warning. “Conner.”

“I’m just saying. Think you should go find her.”

“She’s competent Kon.”

“…Sure.”

It was very difficult to not take an imagined slight to Stephanie as a slight against himself. “What’s that mean?”

“Listen, dude—”

A frantic beeping from his phone interrupted Conner. It was the distress signal of Batgirl, one that she did not ring often, or ever, and Tim’s heart stopped.

No. No. No.

“Have to go.”

“Wait –”

“It’ll be over in two weeks so bear with the radio silence.”

“Huh? Dude don’t shut us out after –”

“Bye.”

And he hung up, then rushed downstairs.

**********************************************************************

She had fallen, because if Stephanie suspected of how she would die, it would be from gravity being a bitch. Some bastard had shot at her, she had jumped to avoid it, then collapsed through the roof – rotten wooden beams giving way under her weight. She had crashed down with a horrendous smack, and likely had a concussion. Her neck had snapped in such a way that left her terrified to move her head. Her leg felt damp. Struggling, she pressed her little beacon. Someone would be on their way soon. Outside the building, she heard that man whooping in victory, trying to figure out a way in.

She was in over her head. She wasn’t paying attention. And now she was in agony on the dirty floor of some shithole in Gotham, a murderous drug lord wanting a piece of her.

Wow, she really was spiralling down.

And somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to blame Tim. He hadn’t caused these issues. He’d been honest with her, given her multiple opportunities to back out. And she had hurt him, in every manner of speaking. Even if he had been putting her under pressure… she didn’t…

She didn’t even blame Bruce, who was only trying to protect people, and entrusting his family to help him do so.

Her issues were hers and hers alone. Maybe she’d never really dealt with them, maybe she’d never really worked her way through them. Maybe she just buried it all. Ignore it, and it will go away.

She wasn’t sure how long she was left alone on the floor, safe from the man outside, but however long it was, it wasn’t enough for her to get back on her feet. Her head lolled on the ground, and she tried to push herself up. Keep moving, that’s all she had to do. She’d been through worse and coped. She only managed to get onto her hands and knees when someone grabbed her blonde hair and ripped her back, making her cry out in shock. Her neck clicked oddly. Her left leg limply dragged across the floor, leaving red streaks behind her, whilst the right spasmed, trying to get a footing so she could kick herself upright and punch the bastard, but her head injury was disorientating her beyond being of any use.

“Can’t believe it’s that easy to take out one of you lot.” The cold feel of a pistol pressed against her jaw. If fired, it wouldn’t kill her immediately. This guy wanted her to hurt.

No. She had to apologise to Tim. She had to… She had too…

She had no time to prepare a snarky comeback, because one of the family’s hook shots had rammed itself into the guys arm. He shrieked, hand dropping the gun and her hair, allowing her to roll away into the corner to get a better look at her leg.

She looked up, to see Tim, fully dressed as Red Robin amongst the rotting rafters, angrier than she had seen him in a long time.

She got caught between sharp relief and guilt. Tim had come for her. Dutiful, loyal, Tim.

Letting her head thump against the floor, Stephanie flittered in and out of consciousness.

Tim, meanwhile, had lost his temper.

He knew he was a bit overprotective of Steph. He also knew she was competent. She had been through a lot with and without him, and as Batgirl had saved Gotham multiple times over. He wasn’t a white knight coming to rescue the damsel, but something feral would be set off seeing her in danger. Didn’t matter if he was fifteen or twenty, someone hurting her, someone touching her, was enough to set him off.

It wasn’t like with Captain Boomerang, where everything was calculated, cold and methodical. Steph was hurt, Tim had the means to make the man who did it hurt.

And hurt him Tim did.

Stephanie watched most of it, not really in the right frame of mind to do anything but watch. She wanted to call for him, pull him back to her. But then she would black out for a moment. When she would reawaken, any chance at orientating herself would be lost from the view in front of her.

Bones were meant to be inside limbs, right?

Tim’s torture continued until Dick yoinked him away.

“That’s enough. Okay? Don’t make the same mistake as me.”

Dick was home? The thought was enough to cause the red to fade, and for Tim to start to catch his breath. His stomach began to drop. He’d done something stupid?

No. Where was Stephanie?

Nightwing had him held in such a grip that was designed to allow Tim to break out if he wanted, but also jolt into him some semblance of what he was doing.

Tim blinked, then wriggled out of Nightwing’s hold. His brother looked more than a little white at the scene before him. Tim’s chest was heaving, and he could feel sweat dripping off his chin. Slowly he turned to see what damage he had done, then immediately looked away. He had done something stupid. And potentially murderous. For her. Again.

Stephanie had somehow pulled herself into a sitting position, one leg laying limply at an angle. She was breathing heavily, trying to control her body’s response to the pain. Her head was tilted, resting on her shoulder, as if it was too heavy for her neck to support.

“Batgirl…” And then Tim was at her side, looking for the injury in her leg. She hissed when he got close, but from what he could see, there was no fracture, only a puncture wound.

“Landed on the crates. Mother of all splinters..!” She felt her eyes rolling around, vision a blur, and grunted to herself. Play it off. It’s not serious. She hadn’t messed up. Not really, not as bad as before.

Her tone was deliberately light, but Tim couldn’t bring himself to smile. He had realised that his hands were wet and didn’t want to pick her up if he was going to smear her in more blood.

“I’m sorry.” She said, taking Tim away from his brooding. “I hit you. I shouldn’t have.” She looked like she was going to start crying, the pain in her leg and head coupled with the guilt seemingly too much. “I don’t want to hurt you and I did. I’m sorry.”

Tim wanted very much to pull back her cowl and stroke her hair, but restrained himself.

“I shouldn’t have grabbed you the way I did.”

“No but –”

He shushed her and she whimpered. Shamefully, he gripped and wiped his hands on his cape, trying to make himself somewhat presentable, then very carefully, very gently, picked her up in a bridal hold. She cried out but reached up to wrap her arms around him.

Nightwing called both the police and an ambulance, staring at the dying man on the floor. Dick couldn’t do anything to help him, too many broken bones to even move him safely.

Tim watched Dick’s face grow cold.

“I’ll take her back to my apartment.” Tim said.

“No, you will not.”

Tim’s temper spiked again, though holding Stephanie he was unable to act on it as he would have liked. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

The signature sound of Batman’s cape fluttering, and the distant noise of sirens approaching, made the potential argument end.

“Nightwing, drive them both back to the Manor. Have Batgirl checked over.”

There was something very odd in Bruce’s tone that Tim wasn’t used to hearing, but it made him a little frightened.

“As said injured party member…” Chirped Stephanie, head craned back and straining her neck. “I feel like… I need a medical.”

“Hurry up!” Nightwing ordered, making his way to the batmobile. “You can drive my cycle but put Batgirl in the back.”

Four hours later, out of her costume and several stitches in her leg from where she had received the mother of all splinters, Stephanie’s head began to clear. She remembered Tim swooping down, and she remembered him hurting that man. Badly. Really badly. All because she lost her footing. All because she was in the wrong headspace to go out on patrol.

She was better than that. She knew she was.

She stayed silent, but when Tim returned to her side, the two stared at each other for the longest time. Neither knew where to begin.

Bruce started it for them.

“Do I even need to say what went wrong tonight.” There was no question in his tone. Just a flat, tightly bound anger that Stephanie nearly whimpered at the sound of. She shook her head.

“I messed up. I let my emotions get in the way and I got hurt when it was easily avoidable.”

If Bruce was impressed by her self-awareness, it did not show. He turned to Tim. “And you?”

Tim said nothing. Only glared. Stephanie pressed her hands to her eyes, she wouldn’t be able to block out the sound of the oncoming argument, an argument that was her fault, but that didn’t mean she was going to watch it.

“Tim.” Bruce pushed.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Nightwing, who had been sat a little back from the whole scene, piped up. “You know that’s a sack of bullshit Tim.”

Tim’s ears burned red, and Bruce didn’t miss the look of betrayal on Tim’s face at his brother. Seemed like that look was all Bruce was seeing recently.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Tim repeated.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“This is just one more thing in a continuing dangerous trend with you and I have half a mind to –”

“I don’t answer to you anymore!” Tim was turning as red as his uniform, but Bruce would not be moved.

“You’re both grounded until the wedding is finished.”

Ordinarily, Stephanie would have fought back. Bruce was not the boss of her. Even Babs barely counted as a mentor anymore. Not really. She was her own keeper, and Bruce attempting to parent her was just an embarrassing effort at best.

Now, with her hands pressed over her eyes, blind to anyone’s expressions, she nodded her consent.

“Promise.” She warbled.

Tim on the other hand, was in the mood to fight. He was so wound up from the day’s events, with no outlet, that it poured out of him defiantly. His voice cracked childishly.

“No! No, no! She didn’t do anything wrong and her injury isn’t even that bad!”

Dick watched Tim grow increasingly frustrated and frowned. What the hell had he missed the past six weeks? Bruce was going to return in kind with an equal aggression that would only serve to blow the roof off the cave, so Dick decided it was his turn to intervene. He got up and shoved past Bruce, physically grappling Tim and dragging him away from Stephanie. Bruce could cool down for a moment and talk to the crying girl. He’d try to give Tim a reality check.

When they reached the stairs, Tim wriggled out of Dick’s grip, eyes still on Stephanie, but his anger was directed straight at Dick.

“What do you think you’re—”

Dick grabbed Tim’s arm again, shaking him, making Tim look at him. “I think Tim, you’ll be needed to look after Steph. Yeah?”

“I don’t need to be grounded to do that. I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m not being punished for something I didn’t do!” Tim protested, tugging back to remove Dick’s hand from his arm. Dick huffed, feeling Tim was letting his ego get in the way of the point he was trying to make.

“I really don’t care about that. I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re both off kilter. Take a break. Look after each other.”

“I am not –”

“Tim look at her!” Dick hissed. Bruce had moved over to Steph’s side, and sat next to her. Tim watched as the two talked.

“What happened?” Bruce asked, voice somewhat softer.

“I… I’m having a bit of a freak out at the moment.” It was an odd thing for her to confess to Bruce of all people, but he seemed to be listening. “The whole… pretending to be in love mission is throwing me off more than I thought it would.”

“Pretending?”

“Oh God…” She moaned. Where did Bruce get off sounding so confused? What did he even think of her and Tim as a couple? Were they that transparent in their pining? “I’m finding it emotionally taxing.”

Always easier to be flippant. Say exactly what you mean, but hide it under a layer of sarcasm as a back door exit in case the sincerity of the statement was called into doubt. Bruce did not doubt her. Instead, he asked her something else.

“Can you keep going?”

“I swore to.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Then Bruce leaned forward, grabbing her wrist. He tugged it away from her face so she wasn’t hiding her eyes. At the look she gave him, so tired and sad, his grip moved down to her hand, and she squeezed back.

“I can keep going.” She sniffed, her bodily pain catching up with her miserable mood. “Not gonna lie, Batman… I feel like I’m slipping back into bad habits.”

“That’s why I said no patrol.”

“I know.”

“You going to listen?”

She nodded. “No Batgirl for a couple of weeks…Promise.”

“At the very least you can catch up on sleep a bit.” It was meant to be reassuring, but Bruce’s claim made Stephanie snort a gentle laugh. “And work on whatever is troubling you.”

Stephanie’s smile faded. “I can try. That’s all I can do at the minute. I’ll fix it.”

“Okay. I’ll get Alfred to give you a painkiller to help put you down tonight.” Bruce looked to Tim, who was in the corner with Dick. He looked equally miserable but chewed his lip and walked back over.

“I want to take you back to the apartment, Steph, if you want me to. I’ll take a couple of weeks off with you.”

She nodded. “I want that. Lemme get my drugs first.”

Bruce’s eyes hardened a little as he inspected Tim, who was stubbornly avoiding his gaze. Their conversation would have to wait. Once dosed up, Stephanie wrapped her arms around Tim’s shoulder, and hoisted herself up so she could hop over to his car.

“Goodnight Bruce…thank you.”

His mouth twitched, but with what emotion, Stephanie couldn’t tell.

When they got back, Stephanie managed to get settled on the bed. Tim promised to stay up with her to ensure she wouldn’t pass out with nobody to check on her. She lay like her limbs were made of lead, her head resting on a pile of pillows trying to support her neck.

“I’ll be okay. Alfred said since I can hold a conversation and my pupils are normal, I’ll be fine.”

“Your pupils are not fine. They’re as big as dinner plates.”

“That’s the painkillers.”

“I know… I just…”

She smiled. “You worry.”

“Yeah.”

She looked down at her hands, wringing them together. Her fingers on her right hand settled on her engagement ring, and she sighed.

“I’m sorry Tim, for everything. The argument and the hitting and me being a brat for weeks…You don’t… you don’t deserve any of this.”

“I shouldn’t have grabbed you the way I did. And I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.” He fought back.

“No…not really.” She wrung her hands. “There’s no excuse. I’m better than this… better than my dad.”

“You’re not your father.”

Stephanie nodded in response. He thought she believed him.

Tim, who up until this point had been standing on the other side of the room, moved to sit on the bed. He was facing away from her, but Stephanie could see both of their faces in his mirror. The guilt that was rippling across his face was hard to watch, so she stared straight forward instead, looking at the fat yellow duck at the foot of the bed. Tim saw her do so, and his fingers curled up in the bed sheets.

“Can we get some things out in the open? Like, brutally honest out in the open?”

“Interrogating someone whilst their high on painkillers? Sure. But can I start?” She asked. Tim screwed up his nose and nodded. Stephanie kept her eyes on the duck. “Why did you hurt that man so badly?”

Tim’s palms became sweaty, and he nervously wiped them down his sweatpants.

“He hurt you.” He offered lamely.

“No. This was… this was different.”

“It is related to why Bruce and I don’t get on much in the suits anymore.”

Understatement. She didn’t know what he’d done. She couldn’t know…

“You think you have to be that harsh? Your fighting is getting colder and crueler. I worry…”

“What I was doing before wasn’t working. I’m not Jason. Not that far gone. But I’m not… not the same person I was when I was fifteen, Steph.”

Please don’t abandon me for it.

Stephanie shifted, creeping out from under the covers. She curled up behind him, her sore leg still stretched straight, and then reached around so she could link their fingers. She was smiling a little dopily, and Tim would have found it sweet if he could have gotten the day’s events out of his head.

“Look at us. You’d think we’ve been through some traumatic things the past few years.”

Tim raised his eyebrows at her teasing. “Weird that.”

Steph laughed, though it sounded a little slurred to his ears.

“You know, I figured out a long time ago. Why I love you.” She whispered conspiratorially, begging Tim to play along. Eventually she would conk out, drugs and injuries tiring her out too much to stay conscious, but Tim let her take the conversation off track. Her breath and hold were so warm it was nearly feverish. She had seen him nearly murder a man, but then she had let him pick her up with blood stained hands, and she now held his fingers like nothing was wrong. Maybe the pair of them were beyond help, but Tim couldn’t give up the idea of a happy life for Stephanie. Preferably with him in it but…he wasn’t too picky.

“Why?” He muttered.

“You’re so gentle. So gentle. No other guy I know comes close to it. And, yeah, at first, I was infatuated with you because oh so cool Robin, so brave, so smart… but when you stayed with me despite the pregnancy… I don’t know how to put it… you have a giant brain and a giant-er heart. I don’t care about how well you can hurt people. That’s never been part of it. And I believe you’ve never enjoyed that bit of superheroing. Knowing you had come for me, that made me feel safe, that was all I needed. Watching you nearly kill that man…”

“I panicked.” He confessed. “You’d left on such shaky terms and then your beacon went off and all I could see was red. I was so upset.”

“I was frightened for what you would do. For a second.”

Her stating her worry seemed to almost traumatise Tim. An uncomfortable length of time passed as he worked through what she said in his head. Stephanie didn’t know him. She didn’t love him. Not who he was. Not really. That violence was part of him now. She said she knew him, but with who he was now staring her right in the face, she did not want it to be true.

She leaned closer, her breath a warm whisper against his neck. “I told you. I won’t let you forget. Especially seeing that violence tonight. I promise Tim. That’s not you.”

He choked a little when he responded, trying to play it down and play it off.

“I try not to think about it. The moment I do for too long, I’ll believe Bruce is right to be worried.”

“Nah. He’s just being a dad.”

A long moment of silence passed. Stephanie continued to play with Tim’s fingers whilst she did nothing but think through the day’s events. Finally, she pressed her forehead against the back of his neck, against the burn scar he had received what felt like so long ago.

“Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you love me? Actual quantifiable reasons.” She shifted behind him, uttering more to herself than him, “Gimme an ego boost.”

Tim answered immediately, “Because you’re brave. Because you refuse to accept your lot in life. Because you’re beautiful. Because you came back to Gotham when you had every right to leave forever. Because somehow, after everything he’s done to you, you don’t hate your dad.”

“Don’t like him either.”

She didn’t respond to any of his other points. She was trying to accept them as truth, as Tim had yet to lie to her for all of this hellish two months. But something just prevented her from absorbing it. That wasn’t her. Or maybe it had been.

“Not the same thing.” Tim sighed and leaned back. The way she was sat meant his head thunked on her collarbone. “Steph? You’re a good person. Even if you doubt it sometimes. Reason enough.”

Steph’s breath washed over Tim, smelling of the medicine she had slurped down earlier.

“I hurt you.”

“Remember when I throttled you and kicked you in the stomach?”

“That was different.”

“What do you want me to say? I’m a big boy and can handle an argument here and there. This pity party, Steph… it helps no-one. Speaking from experience here.” Tim’s mind drifted back to his conversation earlier. “I have an idea. Well, Cassie suggested it actually.”

“You spoke to the Titans.” There was a flat curiosity in her tone. It wasn’t aggressive, just resigned.

“They’re getting sick of being ignored. Don’t think embarrassment is going to cut it as an excuse anymore.” Tim watched as Stephanie looked away, ashamed from being chided. “Listen. I want you to come with me to do some stuff for work.”

“What stuff?”

“Tomorrow I’m visiting the community centre down the road. There’s an after-school club for kids whose parents work crazy hours. We funded the renovations and pay a few members of permanent staff. It’s just a fluffy photo op, but you might enjoy it more than anything else I do for my job.”

“How old are the kids?”

“Middle school and down.”

She sat still and thought it through. Tim sighed. “Listen. You once told me that I was going to drive myself mad one day.”

“You are going to drive yourself mad one day.”

“Why?”

She huffed, already knowing what angle he was playing. “Because you worry too much and have overly controlling tendencies when left unchecked.”

“…Yeah. Sure.” He tried not to sound too resentful as she relayed his flaws so dispassionately. “So, where’s Miss “The Only Variable You Can Control Is Yourself”? Huh?” Tim nudged her jaw with his forehead, causing her to grumble. “You do you, Steph. The rest will fall into place. Come with me to this event. Play some foosball with kids.”

She screwed her eyes shut, and Tim watched her at the awkward angle. Finally, her internal battle ended, and she nodded her head.

“It’s another thing for the job if nothing else.”

“I’m not asking you to do it for the mission.” Tim breathed. He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. “I mean it’s a side perk sure, but I just want it to remind you that you’re not a bad person.”

Stephanie finally pulled away, back under the covers of the bed. Her eyes were wet.

“I’m maybe not a bad person but I am a mess. Don’t know why you put up with me.”

“That’s okay.” And Tim crawled over to her. Being unbearably tender, he pulled all of her hair to one side and began to braid it, hoping it would help her sleep better than her usual tangled mop allowed. A sudden memory occurred to him, and he smiled absentmindedly. “You’re worth a few stomach ulcers.”

She looked at him suspiciously at his weird statement, handing him a hair tie from her wrist as he worked his way down. “I haven’t changed my mind. About what I said. I’m not emotionally ready to be with you. Not strong enough yet.”

“Do you want to be?” He asked, tone light, trying to not pressure her too much. He finished tying off the braid with an exaggerated snap of the elastic.

“With you?”

“Mm.”

“I do, Tim.”

“Then I’ll wait. After this mission is finished, we can… start from scratch again. Take it slow.”

“…I like the sound of that.”

“And in the meantime…” He got under the covers next to her. “We work on one thing at a time. Like a checklist. Number one, sleep and work off that injury.”

“Tim…” She smiled, but it was brittle and fell very quickly. Tim stroked loose strands of hair away from her face, and she shut her eyes. “How do you know I’m not just using you? You could be with someone like Tam right now. Why stay for the promise of maybe?”

“Well, firstly, you don’t have a manipulative bone in your body.”

“That’s a lie.” Her voice was starting to slur. She was growing heavier and sleepier with each moment.

He quickly rebuffed her rebuttal. “Mmm? I don’t know about that. And secondly,” He rested his hand on her cheek. “I don’t want Tam, or anyone else. Just you. I want to be happy. So, I want to stay in Gotham. I want Bruce to get off my case. I want to help people. And I want… I want you. That’s all. Think that’s…pretty standard for a guy in his twenties.”

Softly, slowly, Stephanie had moved closer and closer whilst Tim mused aloud. When they were sharing a pillow, Tim’s eyes drifted down to her lips again, and chewed his own nervously.

“You can kiss me.” She said, tone still flat. “If you want to. For real.”

“…Not good for you. You said. Once.”

“Once.”

But Tim knew she was only saying so to punish herself. He may have been sick in love with her, but he still wasn’t so far gone as to make out with someone who, as far as he knew, was still pretty high on painkillers.

Then their foreheads were touching, and Steph’s hands were burying into Tim’s hair. He felt awfully cruel when he did so, whilst knowing it was the right thing to do, but Tim reached down, under the sheets, and pushed four fingers into her stitches.

She shrieked, rolling away on to her back. Her cry turned into one of laughter, then she groaned, writhing a little under the sheets as the pain in her head and leg sharpened at the sudden movements.

“No funny business madam.”

Breathlessly, she grunted, nodding a little too fervently.

“Sure, sure.”

She was becoming that last stage of manic before the exhaustion caught up with her, so Tim tried to gently press down on her limbs, one by one, hoping to create a reassuring weight to help calm her down.

“Things will be better in the morning. You’ll see.” He laid back down, wrapping an arm around her, essentially making them spoon. His hand reached for hers, and he began to play with her ring. “Wanna take it off? To sleep?”

She shuffled backwards, until the curve of her spine pressed against his chest. “S’okay.” And then she yawned, nuzzling her way into the pillow.

They lay in comfortable silence for a long moment, before Tim reached back to turn off the lights. When his hand returned to hers, she called his name, though it sounded distant and fuzzy to her own ears, as she was half asleep when the thought came to her.

“Tim?”

“Mm?”

“You promise to wait for me? Just a bit longer?”

“Promise.”

She squeaked happily, then promptly began to snore. Gone. Tim chuckled, then closed his eyes.

#timsteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #dc #my fic tag

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

Text

Justice League Spectacular #1 (1992)

Just off-panel: Bibbo's ice cream truck.

I probably shouldn't be reading this or Justice League Quarterly before I read the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League but what can I do? That's the order they were placed in the short box! It would be a different story if free will were not an illusion but since it is, my hands are tied. It's either read this or, um, I don't know. Die from a temporal paradox? I won't risk it! I was looking through a bunch of my old writing and art last week and discovered a bunch of the kind of sentimental and sort of intellectual crap young people write. It's the kind of stuff you hide away and never show anybody ever and hope that when you die, it'll just get tossed in a dumpster with your old porn and Magic the Gathering cards. But it got me thinking about how brave I am! So brave! The kind of brave you wouldn't hesitate to call some jerk who signed up for the military because he couldn't live as a civilian. No, no. More braver than that! And being this super brave kind of person, I thought that maybe I should share some of this old poetry with everybody! But not yet! You have to work up to being truly brave! So instead, I'll share this piece of artwork I did that was supposed to be the first in a lengthy and disgusting series. It's of Lord Fondlerot, a character I created for the Dwarflover online comic I used to do. He was really into fucking things and I thought, "Hey! I should do a series of drawings where he fucks every creature in the monster manual!" But instead of doing an entire series, I drew one picture and grew either bored or disgusted with the concept. So here's that one picture:

Lord Fondlerot fucking an Axebeak.

Now you're probably wondering just how terrible my poetry must be if I'm opening with that! Well, you'll see soon enough! This issue begins with Sue Dibny still alive and visiting a Florida theme park with her husband, The Elasticated Man. Wow, remember when Sue Dibny was killed and all the heroes freaked out about their secret identities and considered doing intense brain damage to every single person who ever knew any of their identities until they found out that The Atom's ex-wife Jean Loring had gone cuckoo for Atom's cocoa puffs? She wanted them back so bad that she began threatening and murdering the loved ones of all the super heroes. It was the kind of story DC sometimes does where you read it and think, "Well, the twist at the end of that mystery was definitely worth the destruction of the most stable marriage in the DC Universe and also the death of Firestorm and Captain Boomerang! So good!" I mean it doesn't make you think that. It makes you think the exact opposite. Tom King would eventually do pretty much the same thing in Heroes in Crisis but instead of Jean Loring fucking up by accidentally killing Sue Dibny and murdering more people to cover her tracks, Wally West fucks up and kills Poison Ivy and some others and then tries to cover his tracks. But at least Tom King's had all of those entertaining scenes where the heroes are doing therapy and we get to see how much they're all suffering from PTSD. That's always a fun aspect of super heroes we never get to read enough about. Dammit! I keep doing it. I meant it was the opposite of fun! Although I still liked it because sometimes I just like seeing other people in pain. Not in a sick perverse way where I pop a boner or something! Just in that way where you sit around all day thinking, "My life is terrible and everything is wrong and I hate my parents for bringing me into this wretched existence and the only thing that might make me feel better is to learn that Superman sometimes feels the same way." Oh, remember when Tom King was writing Batman and he had that two issue Booster Gold arc where we got to see how fucking insane Booster Gold was from living through all of those horrible, wretched, dark alternate timelines? And the only way he can deal with the trauma and the PTSD is by making a joke out of everything? I'll have to think of that as the canon Booster Gold when I'm reading Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League. Maybe it'll make all of Booster and Beetle's inappropriate joking more appropriate. Back to the story, Sue Dibny, alive and well, and her husband Ralph "The Elasticated Man" Dibny are busy showing a bunch of European diplomats around the non-Disney World theme park.

See? You can tell they're European because they're all smart and shit.

The first stop in the park is to Alice's Wonderland where the diplomats are attacked by the Royal Flush Gang. They are a gang whose theme is playing cards and not expensive toilets. Their powers are the ability to ride on gigantic cards and to make poker puns.

If looking good in tight fitting costumes is also a power, it's my new answer to the question of which super power would I choose..

Ten's outfit reminds me of the days when nipples were allowed to show through tops without being erased away through some kind of editing software. The 70s were a wild decade! Sure, there were also nips on television in the 80s but the 80s, generally speaking, sucked and were a huge contribution to the downfall of America.

The King of Spades mansplaining their entire concept to the Queen of Spades.

It's true that the royal flush beats any other poker hand but I doubt Superman is going to surrender after this concept is explained to him because, in the end, they're not fucking playing poker. It turns out Maxwell Lord paid the Royal Flush Gang to make a little trouble so the Justice League could beat them up and get some media attention. But the Justice League has apparently broken up and The Elasticated Man just isn't hero enough to save the European delegates all by himself. He might have been if the Royal Flush Gang had done what they were told and not really fight back. But why would they do that?! Wouldn't they still be in trouble with federal agents?! Booster Gold finds Blue Beetle busy pouting in the old Justice League cave headquarters. Booster has decided to try to cheer his old buddy up although why wouldn't Booster just travel to a timeline where Ted Kord is already cheered up? Is that how time travel works in the DCU? Or did Booster already try that, it went horribly sideways, and now he's a little more fucked up in the head when he returns to the "real" timeline?

For some reason, Ice and Fire have also come down to the cave. Probably to accidentally go on a double date with Booster and Beetle. Booster and Fire and Beetle and Ice hear a news report about the Royal Flush Gang and decide to go save Ralph. Superman also hears about the situation and heads to Florida where he's almost immediately defeated by The Royal Flush Gang. Not because they're dangerous and competent super villains but because some mysterious benefactor has give them weapons capable of knocking out Superman's powers. Maxwell Lord is not that benefactor so who could have done it? Certainly not Guy Gardner, right?! What would he want with getting the Justice League back together. Isn't he busy being Warrior or something by this point? Power Girl, Metamorpho, and Guy Gardner all join in on the fight. The guy behind it all is that Weapons Master dude who is desperate to get a new weapon for his arsenal: a Green Lantern ring. The attack on the Royal Flush Gang fails to get him the ring so he decides to attack directly. But not in this issue! He has to wait for a regular series issue. Ice uses Guy's ring to contact Hal Jordan because somebody finally decided this Justice League wasn't really a big league Justice League. Everybody reading it knew it for years. But I guess Dan Jurgens was assigned the task to get a new, more believably powerful League together. So Hal Jordan flies around to pick up some new members to save the day. He chooses The Flash and Aquaman which seems about right. But he also chooses Crimson Fox which seems like sliding backwards into goofy Justice League territory. Not that I totally approve of Aquaman but I have to admit he's a "serious" choice for the League.

Doctor Light also joins the party. Although why she'd keep the name of a pedo, I couldn't guess. Just become Lightwoman or something. But no! Once some jerk earns their doctorate, they just have to demand to be called Doctor.

I'm sorry. I was too distracted pointing out that Doctor Light joined the fight and how her namesake was a pervert to comment on Metamorpho acting like a huge fucking pig. Crimson Fox beats up some guys dressed as cards and admits that she's a boring idiot whose favorite part of the game is shuffling the cards. I understand the need to think up some kind of goofy one-liner when you go into battle but shouldn't you at least try to think up one that doesn't make yourself sound like a pathetic asshole? Weapons Master's plan failed but he figures he has enough information to get Green Lantern's ring next time. He'll then sell it to a Dominator for a few bucks and maybe some slaves. The big hitters talk it over and decide they should start a new Justice League without the approval of the United Nations. Yeah! Who needs some stupid Earthly authority when you've got an invulnerable Kryptonian, an all powerful space cop, and the king of the seven seas! All they need is a Greek Goddess and a mentally ill furry with a long history of violent behavior and they'll have the big team back together! Booyah! I mean, without that stupid Booyah shit because Cyborg is basically a toaster at this point. Maybe. I don't know! What am I, Johnni DC, Continuity Cop?! The heroes make one more decision: split the group into two Leagues. So once again, they're forming Justice League America and Justice League Europe. How come I don't remember this shit?! Did the comics get canceled in '92 and then immediately fired back up? I don't seem to remember two different incarnations of these teams. Maybe I should have stored my comic books in chronological order so it would all make sense. Justice League Spectacular #1 Rating: C. I just read the letters pages and it looks like this comic book takes place between JLA #60 and JLA #61! So editorial decided the teams needed to be shaken up and the best way to do it was to disband the League in the regular series, have a special one-shot comic that gets them back together but with a different roster, and then send them back to work in the next issue of the regular series. I guess I should just shove this comic book into the middle of the regular series so when I reread it all again in my 80s, it'll make more sense! Let's close with the worst drawing of Aquaman I've ever seen:

Actually, he looks a little bit like Grunion Guy.

#Justice League Spectacular #Justice League #DC COmics #DC #Dan Jurgens #Gerard Jones

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quinnybee-writes · 4 years

Text

Title: Leap of Fate

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Rating: G

Words: 2389

Summary: Hogwarts/Harry Potter AU

Sometimes all it takes to make your dreams come true is a little bit of skill, some hard work, and a stroke of luck.

And sometimes it takes dislocating your shoulder and embarrassing yourself in front of the entire student body.

On AO3

“Shou, c’mon, you’re missing it!” Shirakumo exclaimed, jostling Shouta’s shoulder for attention. Shouta shot out a hand to grab his Arithmancy book before it slid off his knee and glanced up to see what the fuss was about. He had mostly mastered the art of doing homework in the stands during Quidditch matches but sometimes even six years of practice was no match for his friend’s exuberance.

It was a semi-finals match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff and both teams were playing for blood. So many fouls had been called on both sides that the game was an hour in and had only just gotten into the second quarter. Shouta wasn’t entirely immune to the house pride of seeing Hufflepuff up by twenty points, but the feeling was somewhat tempered by seeing two thirds of the team’s Chasers and half of the two-man Beater line streaking off to start a midair fistfight with Slytherin’s Beaters. The only two players that seemed immune to the cutthroat drama were the teams’ respective Seekers, keeping their distance at opposite ends of the pitch in careful pursuit of the Snitch.

“You should throw him your handkerchief,” Shirakumo teased, nodding to where the Slytherin Seeker Hizashi Yamada was hovering near their seats. Shouta shot him a withering look that just made Shirakumo grin all the wider at him. His crush was an open secret between the two of them and Shirakumo mostly showed his support by trying to convince Shouta that all he had to do was make the first move and the rest would fall into place after that. Shouta couldn’t help thinking Yamada looked uncharacteristically stately now with the sun lighting his blond hair like a candle flame and his face sharp and attentive. Normally Yamada was as boisterous and carefree as Shirakumo, but Quidditch brought out a more calculating, straightforward side of him that made it obvious why he’d been sorted into Slytherin. Shouta felt his face heating and tried to go back to his schoolwork despite Yamada making it infinitely harder to concentrate on the numerology in his lap.

A darting movement across the pitch behind Yamada’s head caught Shouta’s eye. With three of the four Beaters wrapped up in the fight the Bludgers were barrelling around the pitch without restraint. One of them seemed dedicated to hassling the Hufflepuff Keeper but the other had taken a sharp boomerang turn around the goal hoops and was pelting full speed directly for Yamada’s head. Everything seemed to slow as the breath caught in Shouta’s chest and a panicked buzz rose in his ears. Even if the Slytherin captain Kayama managed to break up the fight in time, there would be no way for anyone to beat the Bludger to Yamada. Yamada could avoid it by dropping down out of its path, but he was so focused on scanning the sky for any hint of the Snitch that anything else happening seemed to be boxed off outside of his attention.

“Oh shit.” Shirakumo sucked in a hard breath as his mental math synced with Shouta’s. “Oi! Yama--wait, what-?” He cut himself off as Shouta shoved his schoolwork and wand into Shirakumo’s lap. Some absurd impulse grabbed Shouta by the gut and dragged him out of his seat before he had time to think better of following it. He vaulted the two rows of seats between him and the edge of the stands and threw himself headlong at the handle of Yamada’s broom.

A lot of things went very right and very wrong all at once. Shouta managed to grab ahold of the broom with both hands. His sudden added weight caused the broom to jolt straight down two feet; the Bludger whiffed past just above Yamada’s head, clipping the corner of a nearby staff tower before changing direction to go menace someone else. Shouta had a split second to take in Yamada’s expression of dazed realization before the combination of his own momentum and a numbing snap deep in his left shoulder ripped his hands off the broom. He made a grasping flail at catching himself but his fingertips grazed uselessly off the polished wood.

Shouta tried not to think about how fast he would be going when he hit the ground but the words “smash” and “crunch” and “splatter” kept jostling around in his brain without permission. It would be his luck to end up dead in a crater the moment he finally worked up the guts to get close to Yamada, Shouta thought bleakly. He still wasn’t too far away from Yamada now, a fact that only clicked into his scrambled mind after a few bewildered misfires. Yamada’s face had gone from wide-eyed horror to razor focus as he dove straight down towards Shouta. Yamada leaned out as far as he could over the handle of his broom and caught Shouta by the forearm, pulling them both out of the dive barely above the ground. The two of them overbalanced together and toppled the last two feet onto the grass. They bounced with a hard smack and rolled apart as the inopportune landing finally ended.

Shouta lay dazed in the grass as the sky spun above him. His left shoulder felt loose in his skin, full of throbbing cold-hot fire. Yamada, pale and sweaty and grass-stained, knelt next to him. Shouta thought he might be asking if Shouta was okay but his voice was drowned out in the uproar of the crowd and the dissonant, disoriented ringing in Shouta’s head. He struggled to sit up and assure Yamada that he was fine, just winded. As soon as he was upright, though, the world pitched violently upside down and Shouta had to turn away to avoid being sick all over Yamada. Yamada patted his back awkwardly as Shouta crumpled onto elbows and knees and heaved into the grass. Somewhere far away Shouta could hear a whistle being blown and Yamada shouting for a time out and for someone to get a medic to help him.

Shouta had dislocated his shoulder in the jump and the semi-crash landing had gifted him the added bonus of a “monster concussion”, in the words of Miss Chiyo. She clicked her tongue at the state of him and gave him a cheerfully disapproving lecture about avoidable danger as she patched him up and helped him into a stabilizing sling. Shouta couldn’t help thinking she had more of an inkling of his actual motivations than she let on when she finished by handing him a chocolate frog and ruffling his hair as he got up to leave.

Yamada and Kayama were having a quiet bickering debate a short way down the corridor as Shouta came out of the hospital wing. He felt his cheeks going red again as Yamada’s face lit up at the sight of him. Shirakumo came to his rescue by hustling up from the other end of the corridor, already giving him an earful to rival Miss Chiyo’s. Shouta gratefully overlooked the irony of being lectured on recklessness by a Gryffindor, pulling his hood up over his head and letting Shirakumo lay into him all the way back to the Hufflepuff common room.

Shouta mostly managed to avoid interacting with Yamada for the next few days despite Yamada doing everything he could to put himself in Shouta’s path. Under any other circumstances it would have been unexpected but encouraging to suddenly have Yamada’s attention to completely. Every time their eyes met, however, all Shouta could think about was how Yamada had seen him dramatically throw himself out of the stadium stands, dramatically almost plummet to his death, and then dramatically hurl all over a sports field. The self-inflicted humiliation of the whole mess made him want to bury himself in the cabbage patch behind the greenhouses and never be seen again. It didn’t help that everyone else seemed equally interested in his business now. One moment of impulsiveness had turned him into a minor celebrity around the student body and he couldn’t so much as walk down a corridor without a flood of whispers following his every step. Shirakumo had stepped up to help as much as he could. He met Shouta after every class and help him carry his books while his dominant arm was out of commission, doing his best to talk over the rumor mill and run interference when anyone got too chatty. Shouta appreciated his mostly judgement-free support beyond words.

No plan was ever perfect, however, and Shirakumo was a no-show to meet him after a very trying Transfiguration class. After ten minutes of hovering in the doorway Shouta’s back was aching from the overload to his right side and he decided to cut his losses and make his way back to the common room on his own. He sighed and started to shuffle down the hallway, figuring he’d probably meet Shirakumo halfway.

“Here, need some help?” A pair of hands reached out and took his stack of books before he could answer. Shouta turned to tell whoever it was that he was managing just fine and came face-to-face with Yamada. Yamada gave him an awkward crooked grin and tucked Shouta’s books under his arm along with his own. Shouta felt a hot blush streak up his cheeks and all the way to the tops of his ears and looked away before Yamada could see it.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“That’s my line, dude,” Yamada said with a laugh. “That was a crazy move you pulled. I mean, that Bludger was gonna take my head straight off and you were just like, ‘not today, asshole! Nyoom!’” He mimed diving forward, unburdened arm stretched out in front of him. “I get pretty bad tunnel vision when I’m out on the pitch, I never even saw it coming,” Yamada admitted with a slightly guilty laugh. “You did, though, that was amazing!”

The heat in Shouta’s face cranked up another ten degrees. He was saved the need to think of a lucid reply as Shirakumo came running up to meet them looking frazzled. “Sorry, Shou, Tensei wanted to talk about our match next weekend and I couldn’t get him to stop,” Shirakumo panted. He brightened slightly as he realized Shouta wasn’t alone. “Oh, hey! Yamada, right?” he said, doing a reasonably good impression of someone who didn’t deal with his best friend’s unruly crush on Yamada on a daily basis. “Killer save last weekend, man, that match was nuts!”

“Thanks, but I think that honor belongs to Aizawa over here, if I’m being honest,” Yamada replied. Shouta was embarrassed by the pleasant frisson that went up his spine at the sound of Yamada saying his name.

“It was no big deal,” Shouta muttered, shaking his head. Yamada gaped at him, jaw hanging open mid-disbelieving scoff.

“Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed loudly enough to make several people stare as they passed. “It was totally badass!”

Shirakumo badly hid a snicker behind clearing his throat. Shouta shot him a capital-L Look that he took in stride. “It looks like Yamada’s got you handled this time, so I’ll catch you later, Shou,” he said, patting Shouta’s uninjured shoulder. He peeled off with a meaningful grin before Shouta could protest, presumably jogging off to resume his conversation with Tensei Iida. Shouta tried not to look annoyed with the circumstances as he and Yamada set off again. A tense silence started to form between them, but Yamada broke it before it got too thick.

“So, uh. Are you going on the Hogsmeade trip this weekend?” Yamada asked.

“No, probably not,” Shouta replied. “It’s easier to get a good table in the library when everyone else is gone.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in Yamada’s tone made Shouta immediately regret being so quick to answer.

“Are you?” Shouta asked awkwardly.

“Yeah, most likely,” Yamada said. “I usually go, it’s nice to get out and stretch my legs somewhere that isn’t class or practice or anything here, y’know?” He paused, then went on, “I thought maybe if we both were going I could maybe buy you lunch at the Three Broomsticks or something as a thank you for saving my skin.” He finished with another, slightly more tense chuckle.

“Oh. Okay, sure,” Shouta said, hoping his immediate change of heart didn’t come across as too eager. If Yamada noticed he didn’t mind, as he instantly brightened at Shouta’s agreement.

“Yeah?”

Shouta nodded. “I think Shirakumo’s free too unless Iida pulls him in for extra practice. We can all go,” he said.

“Oh. I mean, sure, I guess, but. I was actually meaning just us. Like, the two of us? I-If you wanted to, I mean. I don’t want to mess up your schedule or anything if you need to study, it’s fine,” Yamada rambled. He’d gone nearly as red as Shouta now, reflexively raking his free hand through his hair.

“No!” Shouta blurted, louder than he’d intended. “I mean. No, yeah, that--that sounds great,” he said, the breathless, giddy hitch in his chest making him chatter in spite of himself.

“Yeah?” Yamada’s face split into a huge, brilliant grin that Shouta couldn’t help but return as he nodded.

“Yeah. I-I’d like that,” he said.

“Cool! Cool, that’s, that’s great, cool,” Yamada said. A shrill beeping rang out, making both of them jump. Yamada swore and pulled up his sleeve to turn off the alarm on his watch. “Crap! I totally forgot, I’ve gotta go make up a Charms exam. Torino’s going to murder me if I’m late again,” he groaned with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, I gotta run.”

“Don’t worry about it, I was just going to the library anyway,” Shouta fibbed, nodding towards the open double doors a few yards away. He held out his arm to awkwardly reclaim his books from Yamada. “Thanks for your help.”

“Anytime,” Yamada nodded. “So...meet you in the courtyard on Saturday?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Shouta agreed, just barely holding back from saying “it’s a date”.

“Okay, cool,” Yamada said. “Catch you then.” He winked and flashed Shouta double finger-guns before turning and racing back up the corridor the way they had come. Shouta took a moment to take a deep breath and slow his fluttering heartbeat before heading his own way, unable to banish the grin still firmly on his face.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #hizashi yamada #shouta aizawa #Hogwarts AU #meetcute #fluff #Quinny thinks she's a writer

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jewishlensnart · 5 years

Text

So it’s the holiday season, which in a lot of households means presents. You know who has more merch than almost any other Flash villain (1. being Reverse Flash as of my last count)? Captain Cold!

Have a Len lover in your life? Need to give your family gift ideas? Peep this list, y’all!

I used to own...basically everything with Len on it. I had the largest Flash collection in the southern US until about 3 years ago, when I sold the vast majority of it, and gave away even more. These reviews come from in-hand experience. Let’s start with the Original Lad:

DC Direct Captain Cold

Holy macaroni, was this figure terrible. Yes it was comic-accurate at the time, but you could not pose it, you could not keep it standing, and the face when you removed the glasses? Nightmare fuel. Still, it was a figure from 2001, and they really were doing their best, so I’d have to rate this guy a 2 out of 5.

These next two came out around roughly the same time, but could not be more different in quality. First up, DC Direct Justice Captain Cold

Strictly speaking, this figure was beautiful. Yeah it was in the hyper-realistic style of Alex Ross, who I’ve never been a fan of, but it was toned down in a way that made it less uncanny valley. The figure had stubble painted on, and if you removed the hood (which you technically could but shouldn’t), he had hair under there! But still, this was a DC Direct figure from 2008, so it had all the same flaws that a figure from that time period tended to have: absolutely a bitch to pose, hard to keep upright without the base (I let mine lean against the wall whenever I needed the base for even more precarious figures), joints prone to snapping if you worked him too hard. Still, by far my favorite of the DC Direct/Collectibles Len figures, if not my favorite full-size figure. 4.5 of 5.

Meanwhile in big box stores across the nation, DC Universe Classics was releasing their best wave yet, wave 7. Man, I had that whole thing aside from Aquaman; Big Barda, Flash, Kid Flash, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and of course, Captain Cold

This is the ugliest Len figure. Hands down, the least visually appealing. Which is a shame, because it’s also one of the best! Completely comic accurate until you hit the upper torso/head area, a ridiculous amount of articulation, with the single best cold gun of any of these figures...but jfc that expression. The weird poncho/hood always bothered me too, because while it was almost comic accurate, something just threw it off the track and made it look more ridiculous than cool. 3.5 out of 5.

After the New 52 hit, DC Collectibles released 2 Captain Cold figures in rapid succession, one that was packaged alone, and one that came as part of a 7-figure set

Can you spot the differences? There’s just one: the Len from the 7-figure set is in a dark blue suit, and doesn’t come with the ice mace and ice dagger. Like all DC Direct figures before them, these DC Collectibles figures are pretty to look at, but offer very little in the way of articulation. They could be hard to keep upright, which was annoying, as neither came with a stand, and do not try to take off the hood. Nothing under there. Still, they were very pretty depictions of a popular redesign, so I feel alright giving these guys a 3 of 5.

DC Collectibles spat out a final Len figure for the CWverse line back in 2015

As a big fan of Wentworth Miller and his face, I feel this figure could have been better. I mean, I’ve seen Arrowverse figures that are spot on, and this one just is not. Maybe it’s because the goggles obscure a good portion of the face, I don’t know. That being said, I love this figure, and it’s actually one I re-bought at a convention recently, along with the Heatwave figure from the same line, that hadn’t been released when I’d started selling off all of my toys. The costume is show-accurate, the figure comes with an extra set of hands, and the gun is just really cool. This is a solid 4 of 5 figure.

These next toys aren’t action figures per say, as they don’t do much in the way of action, but they’re cute and I like them, for the most part.

Funko took over the market and the world back in 2010 when it first introduced the Pop Vinyl figures, but it took a hit TV show to get Flash villains other than the Reverse Flash into production. There are 3 Captain Cold Funko products currently out, the two Pop Vinyls and a Re-Action figure

Now, I love the first Pop Vinyl. The round, lifeless black eyes of the Pops have freaked me out for a long time, but with Len in his sweet goggles, this Pop is perfect for me. I actually have him on a shelf in my closet. The variant...look, I like how they included the actual real-life hairline Wentworth Miller has, but those creepy eyes just kill it for me. The Re-Action figure, by the way, is garbage. They’re supposed to be based on the lines of toys that came out back in the 80s, but all that means to me is little to no articulation, weird molds that look nothing like the character they’re supposed to be, and few if any accessories. Why is he wearing a tie??? Just. The worst. 5 of 5 for Pop 1, 3 of 5 for Pop 2, and 1 of 5 for the Re-Action figure.

There are a bunch of figures that came out before Funko’s reign that have little to no articulation, and here they are:

Action League Citizen Cold, from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold line

I love a good boy??? 5 of 5, absolutely perfect. No you can’t pose him, but he already comes in a dynamic, interesting pose. This is my absolute favorite of all the non-poseable figures, and I miss mine all the time.

Imaginext, a line of toys for very young superhero fans, made a New 52 Captain Cold a few years back

Honestly, Imaginext toys are ridiculous, and I love every single one of them. They’re great toys for little kids, and yeah, Len is completely bald underneath that hoodie and ice gun backpack, but he has a snowball cannon to compensate with, so who’s the real loser?! 5 of 5, beautiful.

Did you kno w that back in 2011, McDonalds put out a line of Happy Meal Young Justice toys featuring Captain Cold??? Did you want to know? Too bad, you know now.

My dad’s dog chewed up his ice projectile, rendering the actual immobile figure completely useless...but I still really like it??? Like, it’s a toy that came with food that I sweet-talked the counter guy into giving me. It’s a worthless little nothing of a toy...but I still like it. 3 of 5.

Pocket Heroes were a weird little line of 3-inch figures that came in two-packs. One of those packs contained Flash and Captain Cold

You can basically only move their arms and legs, and while this figure comes with a cold gun and a remarkably ripped set of abs and pecs, the design never really appealed to me. 2.5 out of 5.

I collected MiniMates once upon a time. 2.5 inch figures that were basically fancy LEGOs? Deal me in! ViniMates are uh. Not that.

ViniMates are 6-inch figures and I Do Not Like Them. Being made of vinyl makes them almost completely free of articulation, so the post you get them in is the one they stay in. Also, this one is based on the show-interpretation of Len and it seems to be smoldering at me. Don’t like that. 1 out of 5.

On the other end of the vinyl spectrum, the Mini-Mezitz line from Mezco is simply delightful.

Mini-Mezitz were 2-inch figures with articulation in their arms, legs, and neck joints. I love mine, and they have been hanging out on the top of my bookcase for like 7 years now. 4 out of 5, absolutely weird-dorable.

Eaglemoss once put my blog on the front page of their website without telling me, back when I was actively snapping pictures of my Flash collection. The Eaglemoss lead figures, once you get past the fact that yes, these dudes are made of painted lead so maybe handle with care, are a good staple in any collection. Captain Cold got two

Both Eaglemoss figures came with information booklets about Captain Cold, though the chess piece New 52 version focused almost solely on his New 52 history. They’re both very detailed, and I really like them. 3.5 out of 5.

I never watched Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid...but I saw this weirdass thing in a HomeGoods one day and just kinda. Stopped and stared.

He’s a train. Len is a train now. Don’t like it. 1 out of 5.

So there’s this company called Kotobukiya. They’re most famous for their bishoujo statues, but they make guys too. I had the Flash Kotobukiya statue, back in the day. I was not collecting Flash stuff when they made a Captain Cold one.

I’m actually apparently getting this as a gift from my boyfriend for Hanukkah. He finally got access to my wishlist. This statue is based on the Francis Manapul New 52 redesign, and it is what we call Big Sexy. Frankly, I give it a 5 out of 5.

No offense to Wentworth Miller, but my favorite Captain Cold TV appearance is always going to be his role in the JLU episode, Flash and Substance.

The JLU figures were all godawful, but hell if we as a fandom didn’t gobble them up back in the day. I had all the available Rogues, Len, Heatwave, Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, “Justice Lords Flash” (who was really just Reverse Flash, let’s be real), Mirror Master...it’s the most complete set of Rogues you can get, actually. But they were terrible figures; the Dorito-like shape of the shoulder to waist ratio combined with the narrow feet of the figure guaranteed that these toys would not stay upright without a stand. They had no articulation, and most came without weapons. But you could get three-packs of them in Target for like $12, and they were designed with children in mind, so. 3.5 out of 5, because frankly, the Timmverse designs will always tug at my nostalgia strings.

Captain Cold is available in two official LEGO forms

The first is from the Mighty Macros line, and features Len vs the Flash in a racecar vs snowmobile race. It’s very cute and easy to build. The second is the more challenging Gorilla Grodd Goes Bananas set, which also includes Flash, Grodd, and strangely enough, Batman and Wonder Woman. I never owned that set, and it’s pretty hard to find these days, regularly running $80 and up. Both sets are a 5 out of 5, though, because LEGO does not mess around when it comes to quality fun.

I saved my favorites for last. In the 70s, there was a line of toys called MEGOs, which were plastic-bodied toys with cloth suits. Mattel, and later the Figures Toy Company, would both do their own versions of Captain Cold

The first version, by Mattel, is amazing. Mine is literally sitting next to me as I type this. I took him to Universal with me when I won a trip to Halloween Horror Nights back in 2015, I take him to the movies with me when I don’t have anyone else to go with, he’s my little buddy. My dad’s dog, again, chewed his left arm completely off at one point, but I don’t care. I love him. As for the Figures Toys version, I actually won a fairly cheap auction for him earlier this week, so we shall see! I don’t know if I like how he has the whole “Super Friends hypothermia Len” look going on, but I do like how his costume isn’t just cheap, tearable vinyl. We shall see what’s under that hood soon. I give the Mattel one a 5 out of 5 for the years of joy he’s given me. The Figures Toys one is pending, but I’m gonna give a tentative 4 out of 5, because it really does look nice.

You could get Len in other forms, like as a game piece in the Heroclix and Dice Masters games, as a paintable figure for a Batman tabletop roleplaying game, as trading cards, as a set of guitar picks, as a card holder, as a very hard to find but still lovely statue from DC Direct, in official pin form from Funko and Fansets, on an old 7-Eleven cup, and of course, in the pages of the comics...but I’ve always liked toys, so that’s what I decided to go over. Hope y’all enjoyed this, and maybe got some ideas for your own collections.

#Len Snart #Captain Cold #Flash Rogues #toys #long post #image heavy

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