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dairy-farmer · 11 months

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TW: Emotional manipulation, threats of su!c!d3

Damian dies. Tim comforts Dick. Maybe he should go watch over Bruce but he knows that Dick and Damian's bond was different and far more special than what Bruce had. Plus, Tim can see how hard and how fast Dick started spiraling. So to save his brother, he put him on top of his priorities. He's always cuddling Dick and talking to him. He indulges Dick on whatever he wants to do and however he wants to Tim. This is what he learned all those years ago when Jason died and he joined the family from dealing with Bruce.

Unbeknownst to him, he may have spoiled Dick a bit too much. He was starting to obsess over Tim. Of course Perfect Little Timmy wouldn't die; wouldn't leave Dick. He's the only one of his brothers left that hadn't died. Maybe the nickname his mother gave him was a curse. Maybe Robins after him were always doomed to die tragically. Maybe he saved Tim from that fate all those years ago when he took Robin from him. But he still has Robin attached to his vigilante name. Maybe it's time for Tim to stop

He starts pushing Tim's boundaries, always using his grief as an excuse. He tries to lessen Tim's time patrolling by always calling while having a breakdown when Tim is barely halfway through his patrol. Then he starts planting seeds of thoughts on Bruce head about how he's put all of his children in danger and now, two of his children died before becoming adults. Is that what he wants for Tim? He's doing this so that when he gets Tim to cut down even more on his patrolling.

Getting Tim to do that was the hardest. They fought so bad, Tim left Dick again. But it was nothing Dick can't fix with a few slits on his wrists. It worked like magic

ANON THIS IS SO GOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dick, in his grief, unhealthily latching onto tim because he's lost all of his baby brothers and if tim continues down this path HE will die too and that...there's no way that dick will be able to survive that.

tw/cw: graphic suicide attempt

tim is so soft and so warm and he speaks to dick so gently because dick is a small and suffering little thing and tim must take care of him, must hold him. when dick would wake up from nightmares, sobbing, after damian's funeral- tim would be there. tim had even taken to sleeping in dick's rooms with him to try and help the rest of the manor get some sleep because dick's hysterical screaming from nightmares would end up waking all of them.

dick gets used to the sight and feel of tim. the way he smells of rosemary shampoo and cotton linen bodywash. the way his little body will spread with every inch to cover and hold dick as best he can. dick hadn't been able to eat for days after damian's death so tim had sat beside him and gently fed him sips of bone broth and crackers. once dick built up an appetite again tim had taken it upon himself to try and make all of dick's favorite meals, allowing alfred to have a break and quietly mourn. tim was a crutch those first few months after damian's death. he'd stand by dick's side and never flinch even while dick yelled and threw things around the room and when dick broke down crying once again tim would clear the mess around him and bandage him up.

so much tenderness. so much selflessness. how had dick never noticed how heart achingly kind his little brother was?

tim treated dick with more tenderness, love, and care than anyone else had in his entire life. he handled dick, who was in so much pain, with kids gloves. he wasn't like barbara, like bruce, like jason who kept urging him to go back to work, to go back to being nightwing, saying that they "knew he was hurting but-".

no. not tim. not tim who held dick while he cried and kissed his forehead and stroked dick's back until he eventually nodded off to sleep.

dick grew dependent on tim. he needed tim. he needed him to function. he needed tim to not die and leave him. not like how jason or damian had. so tim had needed to quit. he needed to stop going out and putting himself in danger. the streets of gotham would kill him just like it had the others.

but tim hadn't taken that well.

dick had tried going slow, had tried using subliminal messaging to get bruce to agree that tim should be permanently retired from caped work. but he should've remembered that tim wasn't that same bright eyed sucker that obeyed bruce without a second thought.

and he'd thought that tim's love would be deep enough that he'd give into dick's pleading.

but it hadn't. tim resisted. tim was going to start going out as red robin again. he said dick was getting better, that gotham needed him out there, that tim had already taken too long waiting to go back out there.

dick begs him not to and when that doesn't work he demands tim retire. and when that doesn't work he gets angry.

dick knew maybe he'd been pushing too hard too soon. tim needed...a gentle touch.otherwise he'd go storming out of the manor just at the suggestion he cut down on his patrolling, let alone fully retire.

even though tim would hardly be getting any patrolling done because when tim started slowly transitioning back to active duty, dick would strategically time his breakdowns to coincide with tim's departure from the cave. it had worked. until it didn't.

but dick couldn't just sit back and let his sweet baby brother die.

he couldn't lose the last of his sanity by losing tim on top of everyone else.

dick isn't as hysterical as the others may believe. he hasn't been sucked in by his grief and irreparably damaged like bruce and barbara whispered.

dick can still think clearly. in fact, he can think with startling clarity.

he waits until tim is exactly 13 minutes and 54 seconds away from the manor, having left angry and frustrated with dick about their most recent argument. tim wasn't planning on talking to dick for at least another few days but he'd "accidentally" left behind a flashdrive filled with important files on dick's bedside table that he'd thought he'd slid into the front ches pocket of his jacket. he'd be returning to retrieve it as soon as he patted it and noticed it was gone

dick knows he will because he's watching tim as he sits at a red light using a streetcam. dick watches as tim does the intital tap followed by a frantic double tap and a shake of his head that mean 'oh crap' as he realizes his drive is in the manor where a grief-stricken dick is probably sobbing his eyes out. dick waits until he sees tim do an almost seamless U-turn in the near-empty street and begins heading back to the manor where dick is alone.

tim is on his way back and dick counts down the seconds in his head as he slides into the bathtub.

the water is ice cold to help constrict the blood vessels and limit the blood loss. dick doesn't want to bleed out before tim and the ambulance that he'll surely call arrive. plus, the ice cold water will chill his skin enough to have tim panicking and frantic when he sees dick's half-open bathroom door and spots dick's head bobbing in the water.

dick doesn't want to die.

that's not what he's aiming for. but he cuts deep enough to make it look real, enough to stain the white tile of the tub and bathroom floor. he's using damian's knife, the one he'd kept for sentimental reasons, the one that was sharp enough to cut through anything like it was a hot knife through butter. it makes clean work of dick's flesh, carving through with no resistance from the crook of his elbow to his wrist. dick's flesh splits like its plastic wrap around a ball of pudding, the skin and muscle part open like it's nothing. a deep, black meaty cut with little bits of stringy flesh clinging begin to pour out precious warm lifeblood in a way that makes dick's stomach turn. dick makes a soft hissing sound as he carves flawless skin open. the first arm is already sending alarm signals to dick's brain, flashing with red lights about the pain and how switching hands to put the knife into the injured palm of the other hand is a big 'no no'. the second cut is shakier, uglier. dick ends up cutting off center and the end curves more toward his elbow than the hollow of his arm because the pain radiating from the other arm makes maintaing the grip on damian's knife difficult. but as soon as its done and over with, dick lets himself fall into the icy water he'd been standing in. immediatly the crystal clear water starts turning pink and then a deep carmine. dick looks like he's been attacked by a shark in his own bathtub. it might be the bloodloss but dick giggles a little at the thought. distantly, he hears the crackle of gravel being rolled over in the drive way and settles down more comfortably in the tub, trying to ignore the burning pain of his torn flesh.

dick has long since learned how to slow his own heartbeat. it's just a matter of quieting his breathing when he hears the sound of quick footsteps coming up the stairs and slowing to the door to his bedroom.

dick's eyes close just as he hears it 'click' open and tim's familiar footsteps tentatively creep in. dick can practically see it in his mind as his head tilts back and starts soaking his hair with his bloody water. he can see as tim peeks in, eyes exhausted and not wanting to fight and flashing with a bit of relief when he doesn't see dick on his bed crying so he steps in. one step and then two, closer and closer to dick's bed. tim needs to pass by the open door to dick's en suite bathroom where the light is on. another tentative step and another. dick can hear tim's loafers being muffled by the carpet as he finally reaches the bathroom with door open letting him get a clear view of the inside. dick hears tim reach the opening to the bathroom in another slow step and then just....stop.

tim lets out a scream that shakes the glass from the windowpanes in dick's room.

dick doesn't twitch or move an inch when tim's little hands dive into the water and desperately pull him out even if every gut deep part of him wants to grunt at hands wrapping around his injured wrists to pull him up and out of the tub and onto tim. dick flops on tim's chest, his head right over his heart where a frantic rabit heart is beating away. tim struggles and squirms, desperatly grunting and trying to lift dick's heavy body up and off him and onto the floor of the bathroom beside him. tim's hands press towels to dick's bleeding hands and its when tim flips open his phone that more of the blood loss lightheadedness starts creeping back up. even with his eyes closed dick is seeing stars and getting blurry vision, that along with the throbbing, pulsing pain radiating from both arms as tim tries to save his life by tightly wrapping towels around where he's bleeding. those expensive cotton towels are quickly getting soaked with blood and the pain of tim aggravating the wounds makes playing unconscious very difficult. but dick holds out.

tim will never leave him alone now. not when he thinks that every time he leaves dick this will happen again. not when there's a possibility maybe next time he'll be too late.

dick can already hear the fear in tim's voice as he begs the operator to get the paramedics here quicker. that fear will drive them together. that fear will let dick keep tim close and safe.

if the cost to accomplish that were a few ugly scars and a bit of blood then it was well worth it in dick's opinion.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks

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thestobingirlie · 4 months

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you understand my fave characters like no other before, are there any fic recs that you would want to bestow upon this humble ask??

this ask is about a month old lol, but here i am!!

in no particular order:

to have a friend

"Maybe life will be different soon. Now that I've been fully myself for a year, I know there's no going back. As it turns out, being a loner suits me beautifully. But there are times when I crash hard into the hope of finding my people. Friends who would stick with me through anything. A girl I can have a less hopeless crush on. There are adventures waiting for me. I know it." -Rebel Robin

Robin finds her people.

this fic is a must read!!!!! just beautiful. my favourite robin fic ever

the wine of life by littlearrows

After the Upside Down, Steve, Nancy, Robin and Vickie take the '90s to rest and grow up. Along the way, there's weddings, kids, a treehouse and one car breakdown.

(aka my stancy & rockie slice-of-life future fic)

theeee stobickancy future fic!!! it’s canon to me, no matter how the show ends lmao

honestly, all of littlearrows works are a must read, katie is a beautiful genius!!

the road goes ever on by MaryPSue

The Battle of Starcourt has been won, but its aftershocks are still rippling. Separated from the rest of the Party, Will struggles with feelings of abandonment, while El is trying to find her place with the Byers and come to terms with the loss of her powers - and the closest thing she's ever had to a father. Back in Hawkins, life is slowly returning to normal, or at least as normal as life ever is. The Party are starting to adjust to having two of their members at a distance, though everyone's still missing El and Will, Mike most of all.

But life in Hawkins never stays normal for long. Someone - or something - is following Steve and Robin, and they may not be the only ones under surveillance. A spectre from El's past makes an unexpected - and unwanted - reappearance. And an old enemy may turn out to be much more than meets the eye.

And sometimes, the bad guys are smart, too.

Separated by miles and misunderstandings, with communications failing and their enemies somehow always one step ahead, Hawkins' strange little fellowship find themselves caught between holding on and moving forward. If they want to survive to see another November, they'll have to face the past - and each other.

very fun body horror fic!!!! i just love fics that interact with the upside down outside of strict canon.

the very best people by scioscribe

“Why are you messing up my undercover operation, Steve?” Dustin said. “Do you want another tear to open up in the space-time continuum and suck us all into the Upside Down? Do you want the entire world to turn into squishy, mind-flayed zombies because you and Robin couldn’t get your shit together?”

(Or, the one where Steve and Robin go undercover in an evil suburb.)

stobin pretending to be a newly-wed married couple to go undercover. what more could i want from a fic?

minor falls, major lifts. by millcrs

“Steve.” Shiv lowers her voice an octave. “Steve. Calm down. Just let me see, okay?”

“I don’t want you to see.” He smacks her hands away, feels the cut of a modest rock nip at his knuckles. Wambsgans outdid himself.

“Where’d he get that?” Steve laughs, points, and Shiv’s eyes flicker to her finger like she forgot all about it. “Fuckin’ Macy’s?

—

“Look,” Connor says, palms up and placating. “We can point fingers at each other, or we can be honest with ourselves and blame the commies.”

st/succession crossover; steve as one of the roy siblings. i’m soooo obsessed with the entire series!!

in a strange land by MrsEvadneCake

Doom comes to Hawkins, Indiana. Population est. 30,000.

It’s cold, that’s all, and the breeze is kicking up. That’s why Steve feels the chill go up his spine like someone dropped an ice-cube down his back.

“Why wouldn’t I be real, El?”

“The Aboleth got you.”

i’ve absolutely rec’d this before, but i don’t even care because it’s literally one of the best st fics ever, and i need everyone in the fandom to read it.

nothing really sticks by rosie447

Steve cuts his hair with safety scissors in the bathroom of Family Video. Maybe he's less okay than he's been letting on.

steve trauma fic, everybody cheer!!!!!

#stranger things #st fic recs #asks #anon

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starcanwrecked-confessions · 2 months

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ABSOLUTELY LETS FUCKING GO AROACE RICHIE

i’ve been cooking up a story, so no one take this idea from me, but richie absolutely went through every possible label before he discovered he’s aroace.

like, he started watching anime and was really into it so he assumed he liked girls, but after a while (maybe some experimentation with ruth 👀) he knew it wasn’t for him. so if he’s not into girls, he must be gay, right?

so he’s gay for a lot of his high school years, thinking that his envy for the popular guys is really attraction. ruth’s horrifically horny ways makes it clear to him that he doesn’t want sex, which takes him a long time to admit but he does eventually become comfortable in his identity as gay asexual. but it isn’t until pete starts dating steph that he bears witness to a real relationship and starts to wonder what he actually wants. when he finally sees how romance is supposed to be, he can’t see himself in that position. and he can’t help but think he’s doomed to be alone forever.

maybe one or two breakdowns later, pete and ruth are at his side and swear to him that no matter where their future relationships take them, they will always be best friends and richie will never have to be alone.

(too many thoughts on this lil dude)

~~~

#confession #starkid #hatchetfield #richie lipschitz

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let-us-cultivate-our-garden · 1 year

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It's abundantly clear that they're not going in this direction but the whole puritanical thing is why I always thought redemption would've been the best way to defeat Belos. Sure if you kill him, you defeat him, but if you force him to admit both that he was wrong the whole time and has done horrible things AND that he is still capable of changing and doing good instead of being doomed to Hell forever, then you defeat his IDEOLOGY. That's much more powerful IMO.

1000% agree with you there, anon. If you simply kill Belos in battle, he will die thinking himself a martyr. If he dies after a complete mental breakdown and realizes that all he did was for nothing, then sure there will be tragedy and some schadenfreude for those who hate the character, but you did nothing to confront the ideology that made Belos in the first place. You just killed a man. You did nothing to actually address where bigotry comes from, or how trauma can deeply warp a person, especially without proper help.

Honestly, the worst form of punishment for Belos is not death or to be eternally trapped somewhere (that idea is ironically enough, a very Christian worldview) but to hold him accountable and to bring true justice. Make him realize that the people he hated for so long had good in them and that they are willing to accept his change of heart if he takes the proper steps to repair what he nearly destroyed (and to also acknowledge that most people may not even want to be anywhere near him but he should still takes steps to atone regardless).

Puritan ideology teaches that people are born sinful and are either predestined for Heaven or Hell and no action in life can change that. What better way to counter that view then to go the opposite route and say that people can change for the better BUT actions must be taken to address and repair the harm done to the community.

Give me restorative justice not retribution!

Unfortunately, the show doesn't really go too deeply into ideologies, it's a very relationship-centered show, which is one of its strengths. But I can't help but think of the missed opportunities of not showing more of Gravesfield and how toxic ideas are grown and cultivated in communities and not from individuals. How much stronger the show would be if it didn't pin all of its evil on one bad dude and if the Boiling Isles had systemic problems that were present before Belos.

Giving Philip a redemption arc would be the ultimate repudiation of Christian fundamentalism because it would break the cycle that allows hatred and bigotry to grow.

Thank you for the ask!

#asks #the owl house #toh critical #emperor belos #philip wittebane #restorative justice #give the evil puritan a redemption arc #he would hate it #forced to confront his sins and wrongdoing #becoming more and more like the people he tried to destroy #poetic justice #redemption arc

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eldritch-araneae · 1 year

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So; I finally finished watching earthspark; and I truly want to hug Bee; like a lot; my bot does not deserve all that happened to him. I also need more information about breakdown and brawl. Also where was Optimus. Also megatron gets a hug. And Tarantulas and hashtag!

Where is grimloc?

Bee needs a medic, by the way.

There are many more questions and feelings.

But I will end this here.

You also get a hug!

Rev

I have a lot of thought about this! Earthspark Spoilers under cut!

1)Bumblebee def needs a hug and I really hope he will receive some, poor guy! That's a great set up for his character arc as well, which I thinking will happen in second season. His struggles with the alt-mode, agent Schloder being so obsessed and incredibly angry as Bee, and the whole thing with Breakdown. Can't wait to see how this gonna play out.

2) Yeah I also wonder who will treat Bumblebee's injuries? Will it be one of Autobot medic? Or one of Terrans will take this role?

3) About Optimus it's very interesting how he was absent, there are mostly theories how he's being mind controlled by GHOST and such so I wont repeat those, bc I have an additional thought that maybe Optimus is working on better solution. Perhaps with work with some government people to get legal protections for cybertronians on Earth, but he must do this in secret bc GHOST might find out ( and lets face it, Megatron is unreliable in current state).

The reason why no one think of this is bc everyone projecting IDW, and I sincerely hope the ES writers didn't go the exactly same path as comics. Decepticons being oppressed while being the military faction, and Autobots being the oppressors while they are mostly represented by civilians and workers never sits well with me. Besides there an an official continuity where the roles are reversed and it's called Shattered Glass. Ofc there is still big possibility that writer still copied the IDW formula, which would be super disappointing to me, but I'll live. As long as they butcher Bumblebee ahaha. But so far I do like it what I see in the show in current state. GHOST being corrupted organization ( and we don't know if it was always corrupted or it got corrupted over years) but it's the only somewhat support Autobots had and Optimus knows it and he also knows it will affect everyone (which why he hides a lot of Autobots and Terrans in first place). And he's know there is some shady shit on, but doesn't know what exactly (and same with half of GHOST bc Schoder isn't aware either) that's he's trying to find a better way. (Side Note: Tbh, I think about how Croft's possible end goal is got get full control over cybertronians ( and even over humans, we saw how immediately she gain full control over Mandroid and he fails to see it bc of his own hatred) to use them as war machines to her army! Even Optimus kinds implied it when he said "I'm afraid GHOST might use them (Terrans) as asset", like asset for what? There is only one answer for it and we all know military do with those assets.)

Optimus is very interesting, he's really in bad situation right now, and he tries his best to solve it, but its really difficult and he often has to morally compromise just to prevent another war from starting.

And Megatron, even tho he good intentions to break down the oppressive system on Cybertron, he failed, and the main reason why he failed bc he surrounded himself with enemies like Shockwave (which I'm surprised on one else pointed this out yet). So his faction turned into yet another tool of oppression, bringing the war to Earth and trying to conquer it. And what I find interesting is just the fact Megatron isn't there yet!

Right now to me he appears to be someone, who only started to accepts his mistakes, but he doesn't take full responsibility yet. He doesn't realize that his movement was doomed to fail bc of ppl like Shockwave and the fact his still call him a friend after how badly Shockwave treated Terrans really screams it.

And if this gonna be a story not how Megatron isn't actually a traitor of Decepticons, but he was surrounded by traitors and Megatron finally realising it - this would be very cool and thousands times better than whatever it was in IDW!

And I much prefer the situation that a lot of cons joined the cause bc they were ether lied to, or were in desperate situation and Shockwave took advantage of this. This would make perfect sense for "not all cons are evil" and "cons are evil and they choose to be".

#ara talks #earthspark spoilers #transformers earthspark spoilers

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danandphilnews · 2 years

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First half of 'We're All Doomed' stage show, transcribed

Spoiler alert!

[source]

Warning, if you accidentally clicked this: FULL SPOILERS for Dan's We're All Doomed tour! This is your chance to back out now.

Thank you to Jane for providing audio and to Cal and Keelin for help transcribing!

[Dan over speaker] hello and welcome to doomed radio. I’m your host DJ Dan here bringing you the soundtrack to the apocalypse here at the end of the world tour. I’m here with a very important message that photography, video, and audio recording is strictly prohibited so if you’ve got your phones out during the show someone that works at the theater will dropkick you and rob your device. We kindly ask for your cooperation. Now it’s time to drop some bangers. See you soon.

[plays dan’s diss track] [plays tour playlist]

Dan singing: Everything's fine, totally fine I hop out of bed and brush my teeth Make some toast or maybe muesli Fine, everything's fine [doorbell] Oh, who's that? It's my neighbor Valerie - I love people! Lookin' out the window while the tea is brewin' The bees are a'buzzin and the pigeons are a'cooin It must be a sign that nothing's out of line Because everything is fine... For you and you and you and you and you And you and you and you and you- [Dan. Daniel. Are you having another breakdown?] Everything's fine, everything's fine! La la la la la la la [He's lost it.] I love to sing- [You're spiraling. How long has it been since you've spoke to your therapist?] I'm fine. [You have clinical depression.] I'm going online! Hello, internet. [Really?] So much respect and intersectionality [Bullshit] All I see is rainbows- [It's time to stop pretending. You're clearly in denial. The world is literally ending] Yes, everything is swell, it's going terribly well [There’s drought, there’s war,??? self destruct, the ocean's on fire, we are literally fuc-] FINE, yes everything is fine For you and you [Dan, you have social anxiety and hate people.] It's fine. [Tigers are going extinct. Seagulls dying in oil on the beach.] It's fine. [Alexa is listening, plotting to kill you in your sleep. What are you going to do about the climate emergency?] SHUT UP! Everything's fine, totally fine Everything's in perfect harmony [*something*] DANCE BREAK It's fine, it's fine, it's fine fine fine It's fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine

[Dan. Come on. The world has got problems. You have got problems. Everyone here can see that. *something* deal with issues. It might be uncomfortable, like that time you pretend to love boobs for twenty-eight years. The truth is always here in the back of your mind. Dan, you need to be honest. What do you really think?]

WE'RE ALL DOOMED.

Are you happy? We're totally screwed. We are facing the destruction of our planet. Society is being ripped apart, if we do not kill each other first we're going to get nuked or a giant meteor is going to obliterate us while we sleep. What is the point in making it through our pointless little lives if anything we do has any meaning? When there is no point, no reason, no bloody hope at all.

[Well, that was a bit dramatic.] Seriously. [When I said be honest, I didn’t mean go all the way in the other direction and have a total melt.] You know what? I hate you. [Well, I don't particularly like you either.] I AM YOU. [And that's why we're in therapy.]

It's okay. It's okay. Bring it back. Start small. Just be a normal guy, doing a normal show. Look - there's your audience. Why don't you say something to them? Ask how they're doing? Crack off some regional banter? Joke about the weather! No, not the weather, actually. It’s burning us all to death. Just say hello.

INTRO HELLO, IPSWICH! Yes, I am Dan, I am doing a show. That’s why I’m here, that is what is happening. People of Ipswich, how are you tonight? [happy screams] Liars. Ooh, happy screaming. You can’t try that shit with me. I’ve got xray goggles for fear and anxiety, okay. That’s alright. I’m happy to go along with the lies. That’s why you’re all here, yeah? To leave our problems at the back of the doors and hope that at no point I leave a long enough silence for the intrusive thoughts in the back of your head to pop up and remind you of the one thing you’re trying not to think about right now.

I wouldn’t do that to you guys! Come on, really. I’ll distract your mind, it’s fine. Fill the voice with noise. Blah blah blah, blah blah. Look, we’ve got some lights. Here’s a funky sound! Ooh, it’s a picture of a dog. Wow, listen. I’m making jokes. Airplane food, am I right? Clean up in aisle two. That’s what she said. There we go, all your problems are gone, death isn’t inevitable, and we are gonna have one good night!

Okay guys - this is serious. This is an affirmation. All of you here are just gonna have one good night. [audience screams] Hell yeah. Now I’m sure what you’re wondering is - if we’re here to have a good night, why am I doing a show called We’re All Doomed? Valid. Mainly I just thought it would be really funny to scare the shit out of people walking past the theater when they see this. *something*, Mamma Mia, Mary Poppins, We’re All Doomed?! [screams]

We have a poster. It’s very tacky and pleasant. That’s just a jump scare for people at the bus stop isn’t it? Who is this very extremely tall child wearing a sandwich board looking like a creepy preacher from a town central/extra in a Kanye music video. Hi, it me. The branding is mainly black, obviously, because I’m a fucking emo. I’m one of those people that only wears black. So philosophical and fashionable, yeah. More like a performative acceptance of the darkness in me, so I can procrastinate any kind of emotional feeling that might be required *something* you know what I’m saying. But I look cool, yeah?!

But to be fair. There is a pop of color in there, the accent of orange just for contrast. As so many of you so helpfully pointed out, it’s literally the Pornhub logo. [audience cheers] *something* But it is too late, okay. We’ve printed the merch, the posters are up, get over it, okay. Get over it. To be fair I think we could have had the tour sponsored by Grindr, that’s a missed opportunity. Could have had a themed segment where I react to strangely toxic men telling me that my facial structure is too effeminate. Reporting me for not sending him feet pics. Or reporting me for catfishing as Dan Howell - which has happened, by the way. People have tried to catfish using my pictures. Don’t know what they’re thinking, should I be Timothy Chalamet, Troye Sivan… no, no. I need someone believably sad, lonely, and horny: Dan Howell. They gotta be careful. I don’t know who they’re gonna get nibbling on that line, but some of these fuckers are crazy.

We’re All Doomed is not just for the memes on the screens, though. This is a tour that I felt I had to go on to get out of the house and out of my head. It’s a show about the thoughts that are lurking and swirling in my mind. I want to be honest with you guys, do that uncomfortable oversharing thing. I am not just here to talk about having a weird crush on Tony the Tiger, okay. What, you don’t see it? He could throw you across the room with those arms. And cover you in frosting, rwar.

If I did a show about all the reasons why I’m stressed at humanity’s doom, then all of my problems become your problems. You know how they say a problem shared is a problem halved? Well there’s like a thousand people here right now. Forget halving, I am decimating this bitch. Literally and now a tiny piece of my problem is inside all you. [audience reacts] Don’t act like that.

Now, the problem when all the world is such a dystopian nightmare is where to begin. But our mission for tonight, therefore, is to look at all the ways in which humanity might be irrevocably fucked. And who knows, maybe you will find something to be hopeful for the future. And if not, at least we will have had one good night before we all go up in flames!

Now where to start… hmm. Nature is dying, robot rebellion is coming, our phones are secretly filming us shit. You seem surprised by this. They’ve got you in 4k popping a squat and they don’t give a shit about it. Why don’t we start there? Let's talk about the screens.

SCREENS Social media is 100% the downfall of humanity, and I say that as someone whose entire life relies on three apps. Not youtube, instagram, and facebook - onlyfans, facetuner, and *something.* While I heat my toast in the morning.

Every day when I wake up, I am terrified to reach over to my phone and see what things have been happening in the world. And thus… the doom scrolling begins. You know what doom scrolling is right? You sit back just a moment to look at your phone - then it’s FOURTEEN DAYS LATER. You lost your job, you smell like shit. All of your houseplants are dead. You go to scratch your leg, it’s not there. The cat ate it to avoid starvation. Our phones are literal black holes full of the worst things we can find. Terrible natural disasters and awful news about your favorite celebrity. Or the worst thing at all - that really annoying friend asking if you want to go for a coffee some time.

Yeah, that’s the worst thing. I would rather lose a hundred hectares of rainforest than spend an hour in Cafe Nero making small talk, staring into a latte wishing it would jump out of my cup and drown me. No - come up with an excuse. I’ll just say my grandma died. It works for everything, that’s a great excuse. The only problem is you can only use it once. Or twice for the other side of the family. Or more if you have a polyamorous lesbian grandma. Anyone here plan on becoming a polyamorous lesbian grandma? [audience cheers] Alright!

But for real, *something* we can’t look away from it. As humans we are naturally drawn toward the doom and gloom. It’s an evolutionary need to perceive every possible threat. Flight or fight, yeah? Or flight or curl up in a ball and *something* to death. *something* Social media companies know this. They know we want to see things that are terrible, so they feed us with an endless stream of bite-sized tragedy that are like anxiety hit tracks.

[something happening on the screen] Doom! Doom! Doom! Aww. Doom! Doom!

See what I’m talking about? It’s that easy. But it’s not just the bad things. I think it’s also the good things that make you feel terrible when you see status updates from your popular attractive friends living their best lives, ugh. Truly nothing is as insufferable as other people’s joy. They got engaged, they got promoted, they went on holiday and touched an elephant. They ran a marathon and they raised loads of money for charity. What a twat. Has anyone here run a marathon before? [audience laughs] Fuck. I found my people, okay.

You done exercise before? [No.] What was that - oh, you’re saying ‘um’ because you’re in a wheelchair, you have an excuse. I love the extremely confident ‘um’ from you there. We’re all desperately trying to turn our lives into content. I think instagram is just a horrible place filled with fake people trying to present these perfect lives. Some of us are just more secure in the knowledge of how insecure we are, and I think we should get credit for being honest with ourselves. Yeah - *something* No. Not in this house. Guys, we need a word for this.

But *sensually?* experiencing life around us has definitely taken a backseat to capturing it on camera. Even live events like this - the key word being live. I get it. You obviously want to take some kind of memory for posterity, but we’ve all been at a gig where there’s some guy in the front row holding up a fucking second generation ipad air *something* - GREG! Drop the fucking tablets *something* so I can see Dan outline his fashion statements.

Okay. But I get it, the urge is strong. That is why I asked you kindly to try and connect with me in this room tonight. Not physically, *something* obviously. I want you to connect with each other. Find each other after the show. Talk about the good time you had slash *something.* But if you don’t publicly post spoilers about the show just for the Australians that have to wait for 2023 for this shit *something* there’s not gonna be an Australian in 2023. It’s gonna be me doing this to a koala in a fallout shelter. However, just in case someone is secretly filming this on a spycam or perhaps streaming this to a contraband twitter space from a phone in their pocket now.

I have an announcement. Hi, and welcome to the *something* I’m your host Dan Howell and I’d like to confirm for the record, I’m a Tory. I’m actually straight. I have a six pack, a sixteen inch penis, and a tattoo of *Armie Hammer?* on my left butt cheek. Oh yeah. Armie Hammier. *something* The reverse Call Me By Your Name. That’s when you take a bite out of the peach then come in it. [audience boos] I thought I was allowed to express myself! Are you trying to bully me back into the closet? I see how it is.

Look. I think the internet is fucking amazing. It is a place where people can come together and find communities, they can share information, get representation that they wouldn’t get in real life. It saves lives. It saved mine. If I didn’t escape the bubble of my homophobic childhood I might not be here today. It’s the reason why we are all together in this room right now, and I think that that is awesome.

[audience cheers]

But on the other hand we’ve got guys filming themselves throwing milk on the floor in a shop - wow. And I hear fascism’s back in style, oh well. Play some Muse(?). Did you see what happened to Gabbie Hanna the other day? Girl potentially having a breakdown on TikTok and some guy turns up at her house to secretly film her because, I don’t know, banging content? Is this where we’re heading? Is this the future? This is what I’m afraid of, right? The internet just gives us all this power to make our lives amazing but it’s also drawing us toward doom and desperation and I’m afraid that if things keep going the way they are, we’re going to crash and burn.

[visual element]

Now perhaps the biggest danger of our social media addiction… Can you guess? Is data harvesting, okay! Because every single thing you do is being monitored. The likes, the dislikes, the friends, the transactions, the incognito tab - they know all of it okay. I want to give a shoutout to the FBI agent assigned to my internet. That guy has seen some shit. He needs therapy. But our privacy is all up for grabs, and to demonstrate this I am now going to grab a member of the audience and force them to show us their camera roll. [drumroll sound effects]

Why would I do that? Hell. What! No. But for real, l that is what every app is doing to all of us right now. [audience screams] Bunch of exhibitionists. When we think about privacy, we only really care about two things - our browser history being exposed and our nudes being leaked. But the truth is unless your password is the name of your dog, you’re probably fine. Anyone here have the name of their dog as their password? What’s your dog’s name? Percy? That is a short fucking password, okay. Oh, dear.

Privacy is really an issue for all of us, thinking about it. But the truth is that our news or searches for Sonic the Hedgehog mpreg gore are not very interesting. No offense. What they wanna know is every single boring thing you do. The posts you like, the ads you click on, the images you scroll by just for a second and think ‘hmm, I would.’ Don’t shame me, okay. You want to fight, don’t you. Okay, I see how it goes. But what is the evil end goal for all this data harvesting, you’re wondering? It’s just adverts. They just want to give us more personal adverts, how nice of them. It’s like digging through someone’s trash and then turning up at their front door like, ‘Hey, want some of this?’

I swear to god I only get adverts for things I literally just bought. I’ll be, I don’t know, buying some oranges so I don’t get scurvy because I don’t ever leave the house, and instagram will be like… hath thou considered this citrus? Bit late, mate. Why don’t you give me something that I need, like toilet roll. Ideally before I run out and have to start tearing pages out of my promo copy of Tom Daly’s autobiography. Do not make me put Tom Daly in my ass! Again. Legend.

In 2020, it was leaked that Facebook had a secret operation called Operation (?). That sounds nice, doesn’t it? They want to find out if their algorithm had learned to exploit our attraction to devices by deliberately putting (?) and political views together, and it absolutely was. And you know what they did when they found out facebook was doing it? NOTHING. Because when society is being ripped apart, you scroll past loads of ads. It’s great for business! And that might be scary, right. Because if the apps can control the content we see, they can control how we feel. Facebook makes you angry. Instagram makes you sad. Duolingo makes you horny. No? You might say… hornay. You don’t like that? Can anyone say horny in another language?

[audience interaction about saying horny]

This is scary, right? Thinking that the phones have this much control over our lives? WRONG. I think it’s a great thing. I would love for my life to be controlled by a machine. Or maybe I just crave domination, I don’t know. Life is hard. I don’t want to make these decisions. What t-shirt am I going to wear today, what bus do I have to catch to be on time, which pornhub category will I dive into and then feel deep shame about for several months? I do not want to make these decisions, okay. I just want an ad to be like Dan, wear a blue t-shirt for once. Get the 12 local bus and stop being (?). Dive into DILF tag for a good time.

Now, we’re not quite there yet. But one thing's for sure - we will all be replaced by robots one day. I have a couple of friends that are already halfway there. [Phil on screen] THey can do anything we can do. They can build cars, harvest crops, keep you on the phone to the bank for half an hour before I realize I’m just realize stupid. But surely there are some things that these AI programs can’t do? Mm, you’d be shocked. They’re replacing our pets with indestructible metal dogs. Have you seen that? What the fuuuuuck! Oh, don’t worry, they’re just for delivering items across terrain. Definitely not hunting down (?) in 2032 (?) with their metal snouts. If that dog humped your leg, you’d end up with third degree burns.

But what is safe? Human consciousness, art, love. No, none of those things! Love isn’t real. Love is just a toxic manipulative relationship where you need something from someone so you give them affection and the occasional disappointing orgasm. Unless it’s the love you have for your mother. Hopefully. But what about art? The creative reflection on life that separates us from the beats and the binary code? Are there any artists here? [audience cheers] ART IS ALREADY DEAD. A computer can do anything way better than you! Some of these AI art programs are a bit shit and you’re not quite redundant yet. I’m sure you all still have PTSD from that time I asked one to show Dan Howell experiencing happiness for the first time. Yes, (?). They say that the eyes are the window to the soul and my soul is an asshole.

I got access to the big boy Dall-E and I made this AI visualize my fantasies.

[section of AI images appearing on screen]

But hey - so maybe they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our art. Perhaps this is the last bastion right here. Human communication. We want to have connections with real people. We want to share stories, move each other emotionally, make jokes about depression and penises. And surely a robot could never replace this, right?

Well. I’d like to introduce you to someone.

[deep fake of Dan appears on screen]

Hi, Dan.

[deep fake: Hi, Dan.]

I’m so turned on right now. I commissioned a deep fake of myself to prove definitively that even I could be replaced or even subversed by a machine. He’s also running my onlyfans.

[If you want feet pics, that’s extra.]

This computer generated me can do all kinds of things I can’t do. He does exercise. You could juice an orange with those biceps. He can juggle. He’s really good at (?).

[I hate my job and my audience terrifies me.]

He’s also heterosexual.

[I am attracted to the form of breasts.]

He has an easier life than me. He’s everything I’m not. Outdoorsy. Active. Brave. Look at that. So realistic. I don't know how many of you noticed, but he actually did all the programming for this tour.

[I am so excited to go back on the road. I love living on a bus sharing one toilet between nine people.]

Hell, I could even be a deep fake right now. If (?). It’s a fucking joke. (?)

He can sound like me. He can look exactly like me. But he cannot replicate my mind, because I am a complex human consciousness made of real experiences and emotions.

[But Dan, your consciousness follows a simple formula.]

Sorry, what?

[Your writing is a simple formula, too. I might even say predictable.]

Okay, rude.

[Popular topic plus personal experience divided self-depricating relatability minus obvious sexual innuendo equals Dan’s content.]

It’s not that simple. I’m speaking from the heart, here.

[Did you know I’m socially awkward? Just kidding, it’s depression. Also, do you know I’m gay? I like penis.]

Okay, anyone can do an impression.

[Dan, I can even predict where the show is going and how it will end.]

Spoilers.

[I can even make the point of the show in a much more entertaining and profound way.]

No, no you can’t.

[At the end of the day, maybe all you can do is-]

*Dan speaks over the recording and ends it*

CONSPIRACY THEORIES Now I'm sure you're thinking this is all sounding a bit tinfoil hats. "Ooh, Dan, the apps are controlling our minds. Alexa is secretly keeping a list of everybody that doesn't say thank you so she can ?? Dan! Aren't these just conspiracies?" Hell yes! And I love a conspiracy! Do you?

Well, I lied, I used to love conspiracies because, I don't know, conspiracies used to be funny. You'd hear about some bloke named Barry down the pub who knew the earth was flat and he had a mate that sailed to the edge and spill off the edge. And look he was obviously batshit and smelled like a salami but he wasn't hurting anyone! Apart from his liver and strange family. But! [laughs] I think all good conspiracies are simply stupid, epically unintelligent pieces of fun fiction that everybody can enjoy. Do you want to hear my favorite conspiracies? Here are my top three classic favorites.

Go.

Number one: Avril Lavigne ?? Classic. The story goes in 2006 Avril Lavigne died, presumably hit by a runaway skateboard or something, and her record label, desperate to keep making money from her touring, replaced her with a clone called Melissa! Now! You may think this is stupid, but can you tell the difference? Is this Avril or Melissa?

[shows something on screen] Ooh, what d'you think? [audience response] I like how you're like "I don't - fuck it - Melissa." This one? Oh, see now ?? What about this one?

[Liz Truss shows up on screen; audience laughs]

That's not Avril Lavigne, that's a fucking idiotic shell puppet that is an embarrassment to the country! [audience cheers]

Next conspiracy: chem trails! Yes, that's right, the naturally occurring streaks of water vapor that do come out of the back of every single plane. ?? it's piss tanks so we're all ?? are actually a cocktail of secret chemicals that are released to make the population stupid. Now, the only problem with this one is implying that the people that lose our luggage are being trusted with secret chemicals. You think RyanAir could successfully execute a bio-terrorist conspiracy? They can't execute a fucking frozen tikka masala. There you go, airplane food joke.

Next! It is: every TV game show is rigged. Obviously!? They can't be giving out max prize every single time, they have to save it for one episode a season. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire going a bit too well? How many atoms are there in all of space? Hmm! Oh what, you wanna ask the audience? Good luck, we've been pumping chem trails into the studio all day! We all know they get too close to 52k, secret hatch under the podium, swap out the card, go home with 50p. Well, The Chase ?? When they're looking for contestants they find thick people.

And those are my favorite conspiracies. They're great, right? The problem is that nowadays conspiracies are no longer being discussed in secret. Now teen tinfoilers are hitting the streets and taking action. I wanna know: whyyy are they so obsessed with the 5G towers? I need 5G, okay? I like fast Internet. I am not going back to 2006 watching porn on dial-up, sat in the kitchen, as the shaft of a penis slowly loads up the monitor of my mum's work PC, okay? No. We didn't need edging back then ?? Leave the 5G alone!

And these conspiracies they're not fun, they're dangerous. 'Cause yeah, 5G causes ?? And the freaking microchips in the vaccines. The queers are secretly going to overthrow society. And they're stupid, these conspiracies, they're like Trump toddlers knocked over a bowl of alphabet soup. I genuinely think that the people of Ipswich and not that came to the show just because it's the first one could come up with a better conspiracy theory that's more believable right now... It's time to play conspiracy theory madlibs!

CONSPIRACY THEORY MAD LIBS (**audience participation*) Popstar- Harry Styles Politician- Boris Johnson Verb- cumming Body Part- nipple Household Object- whisk Vegetable- eggplant

“Did you know that Harry Styles and Boris Johnson are secretly married? They consummated their marriage by coming on each other’s nipples and now they have two children called whisk and eggplant”

Song- bring me to life by evanescence Adjective- moist Animal- rat Group of people- furries “How are you feeling right now?”- horny

“If you listen to Bring Me To Life backwards there is a secret hidden message that the government is putting moist rat hormones in the furries in order to make them horny”

Make a noise- *fart noise* Influencer- Phil Lester Store- Primark Zoo Animal- zebra Children’s fictional character- Harry Potter

“There is a secret society called the *fart noise* and it’s run by Phil Lester. They meet every week in the basement of Primark. They meet to sacrifice zebras in order to appease their violent god, Harry Potter.”

Well, it's that easy to come up with a compelling conspiracy these days. And because of that it just feels like a lot of people that we know are - maybe not in a funny way, maybe in a concerning way - starting to go down the big conspiracy hole. And I think it is tempting to laugh at these people for just being stupid or label them as crazy, but I don't think that's fair, right? I don't think that they are necessarily evil. When people turn to conspiracies like this I think it's probably because they're depressed. Because society is fucked. People want something to hope for. They want to believe there's something more to life than just what we see every single day, so when they find out that there is a secret and now that they know the secret they are special and their help is needed to save the world, they just go all the way down then. Even if saving the world is screaming at confused ?? slipping hormones into the ?? turning teenagers queer. Ugh!

But the truth is there is no great conspiracy. There is no illuminati. There's no lizard people or secret government. It is just capitalism, working as intended. [dramatic choir music plays]

CAPITALISM Anyhow, concept: Perhaps literal billionaires could pay just a bit more tax and some people wouldn't have to be homeless? [audience cheers] Crazy commie thinking! If you wanna think like that you are gonna be licking raw concrete off the floor of a freezing Gulag whilst polishing a giant golden statue of Jeremy Corbyn! Okay? Oh god, no. That is what my granddad says to me every single Christmas, and this is a stupid thing, right? Not a hard thing but ?? [audience laughs] Oh dear. ??

The thing is when you look at any mainstream political party in the first world, no one is proposing a revolution. You've got all these crazy billionaire defense squads that are so scared to change anything when in reality no one is trying to turn this into Soviet Russia - just Denmark, okay? Same shit, same problems, just ever so slightly less horrifically evil, but nooo this is a crazy radical plot to give people marginally better public transport. [sound effect]

I personally, no matter what might happen to my crazy (plan or) career, will ever not feel financially stressed, because I have somehow ended up financially supporting my own family. Even if they haven’t always emotionally supported me. I once came home from school crying and told my mum that someone called me gay. She misheard me, thought I said "fat" and suggested I might cycle to youth theater on Saturdays. Yikes!

So I cannot look to anyone to bail me out if I fuck up. If I am on the stage like this where I say something horrible and I get sued - have I done that so far? [audience responds] What was it, was it the granddad thing? ?? I might be forced to move back to my homophobic hometown and that is not an option for me, okay?

Now, millennials, if you want some advice ?? That if you want to pay off your student loans, you just have to cancel your Netflix subscription, guys. If you want to pay off the average student loan of about 46,000 pounds you only need to cancel Netflix for 416 years. Which as it happens was the exact length of the latest Stranger Things season. Those episodes were thicc as fuck. ??

It is hard to visualize the scale of ?? the world when it is just these big numbers, so I have come up with an inappropriately whimsical metaphor: bubbles. But for this I’m going to need some help so welcome to the stage my unpaid intern, Bubbly Ben.

[something happening on stage]

Alright, you ready for this shit? Here we go. I will blow one bubble to represent the average UK salary. Do you know what it is? Any guesses? Depressing fact: 24,600 pounds. Here we go.

Fuck! ?? Whoops.

What about doctors, huh? How many bubbles do they deserve to get comparatively, do you know what their salary is? I like that you actually went quiet there. Well done, smartypants. It’s their job to literally keep us alive even if we swallow superglue, Phil Lester.

What was the UK’s most desired profession - you’re fucking right! Being a youtuber. Depressing. Now, your mileage might vary depending on success and shamelessly. But according to Forbes in 2020, Logan Paul made 18 million pounds. [audience reacts] Yay, Youtube! Filming dead bodies! Wow. What the fuck am I doing on an eighty day world tour talking about depression? I could just get punched by KSI and ??.

The big dog himself - Mr. Jeffery Bezos, the richest man on Earth. Now Jeff has frequently paid zero on annual federal income tax. In fact on his taxes in 2011 he claimed tax credits of $4,000 for his kids. I’m sure he needed it. But now after a few tough years for everybody, Jeff’s net worth is a cool 160b dollars. Release the bubbles!

Don’t worry, they don’t stain. Probably. We’ll find out.

The reality is that going by this shit bubble analogy, I’d have to release over 530,000 bubbles to accurately represent the amount of Smaug-like hoarding taking place here. So we are all told to be angry about that guy taking our bubble or that guy taking five while Jeff here is sat on a fucking bubble bath of warehouse workers tears, scrubbing his back with the spines of books that are suspiciously cheaper than ??

You may be thinking - Amazon’s convenient, they have everything! True. But you don’t get to number one just by being good. You need some smart business decisions like making your delivery drivers piss in bottles so they keep working longer. Did you like my bubble gun by the way? Got it off Amazon. Oh sorry I didn’t find any organic farm to shop local suppliers of bubble guns in my local area, no. And this is it guys - we live in a society! And until the government forces businesses to play nice, nothing is gonna change. So hey, if you’re an elderly political that isn’t gonna live long enough to see the suffering, starvation, and inevitable revolution, who gives a fuck, right? Keep your foot on the pedal and with a little luck you’ll leave it to your fucked up kids to inherit your empire of a desolate planet.

[sound effects]

CLIMATE CRISIS Of all the problems in our human society - the doom scrolling, the inequality, there is something truly terrifying on the horizon: climate change.

Yes, the boss level of all pain and misery, and it is truly the ultimate existential threat and yet our problem is half the people just don’t think it’s real or simply don’t give a shit. And yeah, I get it, change is scary, okay. I totally lost my shit when they changed the font on the twitter app.

This is arguably almost as serious as that. But some of these climate deniers, they have spent their whole lives driving land rovers, eating twelve steaks a day, just throwing beer cans out the window and now some short Swedish girl pops up on the tv and calls them evil? This is a violent paradigm shift. It’s like when people tell me to stop sexualizing cereal mascots - I will not do it. No, no. The Sugar Puffs monster can demolish my bussy. I’m revealing myself.

Now, I’m pretty green, personally. Maybe because I don’t go outside. Turns out ?? use of heat occasionally. I’m basically vegan which means sometimes when I’m sad I have a milk chocolate and then cry thinking about the cows. Which makes me sad so I have another chocolate. It’s a vicious cycle. A delicious, vicious cycle. Also I might have had sushi once but it was on my birthday. I didn’t eat the sushi, I thought about it, okay!

Yet again I am literally on a global tour right now. My mission to save my soul and give you all one good night might as well be flying a burnt out car into Greta’s driveway, and yet the rub is just one hundred companies are responsible for seventy one percent of all global emissions. And that just means our individual actions pale in comparison to a handful of corporations and their shareholders. We’ve got all the guilt about this stuff while they’re just a bunch of comic book villains demolishing rain forests and setting the ocean on fire and embedding immortal microplastics in every single living being.

Some people are gonna be in for a shock when the system comes crashing down. And hey, where are we even gonna live when half the earth is a scorched desert? If only we knew who to call.

[sound effects, something on screen introducing next section]

DENIAL My name is Dean Niall, realtor to the dying stars and today I am here to let you in on the secret up side of the current ecological collapse which is - serious savings! Are you a young person that’s afraid to get a property line because the boomers are a bunch of money grubbing bastards? Booo! Well, feast your eyes on what they left behind.

[visual heavy segment where he advertises property during the apocalypse]

So is this it? Is this our fate, hmm? I think it is kinda terrifying to feel like we have no control over our future, so maybe I can lift the mood of the room by reminding you all that at literally any moment the sun could burn and in seven minutes all life on earth would go up in a blazing ball of molting plasma, yay!

Alright! Now you feel better, don’t you? Your problems seem so insignificant because they are insignificant. It could be anything! A fuck off rock coming from outer space, alien inviasion (although lets be honest, I’d probably like a cheeky probe), the bees having colony collapse disorder. If the bees disappear we’ve got four years until all life on earth shrivels and dies. Now that’s a stinger. It could be anything. A black hole could just get shit out of space from the solar system and we would instantly turn to string! At any moment. Like now! Are you ready? Have you got your affairs in order? Have you cleaned your browsing history so your family doesn’t find your smut stash. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter! Have you prepared? Prepared to be string? Cool. In the face of such unimaginable cosmic horror, there is truly no hope at all.

You know I thought that talking about these problems would make me feel better, that’s kind of the point. But I’ve got to be honest, we are boned. I thought that doing this tour would uh, be a kind of ??, give me something to look forward to.?? But there is nothing to look forward to but the inevitable end. What’s the point of even trying? You know what, I should just have just eaten the goddamn sushi. I should just post feet pics and get more followers. I should have sold all of your data to china, cryptocurrency. I should have bought the deep fake for meet and greet. I could have posted every conspiracy I have on facebook. I should have done this tour on a private jet, crashed Harry Styles house, put the whole thing on a fucking ?? ipad. [words get increasibly buried under a heavy bass]

BREAK FOR INTERMISSION

#wad spoilers

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conceptalbon · 7 months

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drop the all hunger all restraint and poised bones annotated playlist bestie

i wanted to actually link the full spotify playlist here but i don't want to doxx myself and remaking it would take ten thousand years SO i'm going to add my comments here and link it later cool cool

1. i'm a fool to want you by billie holiday

this aligns with soulbond!george so perfectly in my head. his perspective on the whole relationship is that it's doomed from the start; he knows alex is not in love with him since before they share their first kiss, he knows this relationship will end before it even starts.

he promises himself he will end it on multiple occasions and yet he can't bring himself to do it. he wants to minimize the heartbreak of losing alex by breaking it off on his own terms but every time the possibility of it becomes real (especially during the infamous George Bakery Breakdown or, as we in the business call it, the gbb) he falls apart.

'i'm a fool to want you // pity me, i need you // i know it's wrong, it can't be right // but right or wrong i can't get along without you'

like come onnnnn it was ghostwritten by sb!george

2. wish on an eyelash by mallrat

i found this when i was nearing the end of the writing process already and went insane over how well it works with sb!au. literally almost every line is about them my god. but especially 'made a wish on my birthday // talk about you to heaven // i plan my days all around ya // planets orbit around ya'. it's so short but it talks about yearning and devotion in such a specific and hard-hitting way

it also works very well with a certain space au. 'i was lost till i found ya'? yeah.

3. futile devices by sufjan stevens (original version)

ah yes the song about how words fail when your feelings are too strong. in a story about characters whose feelings are so strong they literally develop a telepathic bond because they can't use their words. i am SORRY okay i love sufjan so so so much and age of adz is an incredible album and this song specifically creates a mood like no other does. this might be at the top of my spotify wrapped this year with how much i've listened to it and i adore the word choices in it and i am insane over it forever and always.

4. the bug collector by haley heyndericks

everything i write i write to spread our 'alex cares so much' agenda. i've done a tiny bit of director's commentary about him in the ao3 comments already but i will literally talk about him for hours if anyone will listen. the thing with alex in this fic is that he has never wanted anything without reaching for it with both hands. that's his modus operandi, which george correctly identifies (and incorrectly decides that alex not fighting for him means alex does not want him). BUT alex believes that he came on too strong when it was unwanted, thinks he has hurt george by displaying affection so directly and so he tries to tone down how intense he is as not to scare or hurt him further. still, he can't just Stop Loving him and defaults to acts of care that can be interpreted as more platonic (not really but that's what he thinks). he makes george avocado toast when he can't sleep, he skips his own debrief because he feels george's fear, he kisses his temple telepathically (god) when george is having a breakdown in the bathroom. he cares so much. in the words of haley heyndericks he must make him the perfect morning. he doesn't know how to do it any other way!

note also: alex saying 'you can be angry at the way i've expressed it but not at the feeling itself, george. i know you're not cruel enough for that' which is so important to me and which i can write an essay about because outward expressions of inner processes are The main theme of this fic and i have thought about this so much while writing. good god.

honorable mentions: flight risk by tommy lefroy (thee doomed from the start anthem! 'i wanted to be something you couldn't put down but i'm already gone' pleaseeeee), waltz right in by matt maeson (the second most listened to song in this whole playlist after futile devices, i'm so so so insane about it), gregory alan isakov's whole discography (very very galex coded!! gregory what a legend you are)

#asks #aharapb #galex #director's commentary

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lamiaviridis · 5 months

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💚 ⸺ @liecrafted 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬. ┆ 𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐃 - always accepting !

"i'd find you in every lifetime." ( okay this wasn't even a meme loki just told me i had too )

Overt desperation distinguishable from head-to-toe as the goddess stood before the god whom held a multitude of universes betwixt his fingers. She called out to him once she realized what he'd intended to do, struggling to get past the metal barriers that separated them. Though, Loki must have known she'd try, because the doors remained shut; using his magic to both bring life to the infinite multiverse and hold her back from saving him from his impending doom. Using every ounce of her raw strength, she was just able to summon all of Asgard's might in the form of a sword and cut through his barrier, though it wouldn't hold for long. She sprinted unto the gangway, frantic speed causing her to lose her footing, though she immediately took to levitating the rest of the way towards him. Her emotions were spiraling, thus as was her magic, though she still was able to reach him.

She held his torso in her arms, holding him close as if he were a leaf threatening to drift away into the harsh winds of a vortex. Lifting a trembling hand, she paused time if only for a few moments. But a few moments were all she needed to let him know she'd never stop fighting to free him of his fate. And, yet, a few moments were never enough to find a timeline, variants of them, a lifetime where they never had to worry about temporal looms nor infinite multiverses, but instead a life where she woke up every morning just a bit earlier than him to cook them breakfast, engage in moonlit consultation by the fire, tuck their children into bed and teach them sorcery. Whether it be in the royal halls of Asgard or a quaint suburban home on Midgard, she didn't care. She didn't care so long as she had him.

Cupping his face in her hands, lips twitching with the effort of postponing her breakdown, she pleads with him. ❛ Promise me. Promise me no matter how unbearable the weight of the worlds burdens you, you shall never break. And if you do, then ensure me that even if these branches absorb all of your magic, your life force, if your glorious purpose results in death, you will watch over me amongst the halls of Valhalla. Please. Assure me that, even as a ghost, you shall haunt me. ❜ Every utterance trembled as she begged him. She knew she couldn't stop him, thus she would ensure he'd at the very least promise to love her even in death.

#. ˚ ◞ ♡ IN CHARACTER ／ A love which is as unconditional as it is all-consuming.#. ˚ ◞ ♡ VERSE 02 ／ In the name of love madness claimed her.#liecrafted #;; i want you to know that i cried writing this #;; they make me sick i'm losing it

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androgynarcissus · 1 year

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you know i think what i find the most truly haunting about the second vincent's whole story arc is the fact that he is so separated from his obviously more beloved counterpart and it shows so clearly even if he was never that aware of it.

nearly everyone around him had met clyde and treated him accordingly: assuming things that he wasn't a part of, becoming puzzled as to why he was acting differently, etc. i feel like there was a distinct sense of alienation that showed each time an interaction like this happened, and his confusion and often frustration felt palpable as people kept alluding to this person who wasn't him, and it only grew increasingly uncomfortable to be judged based on people's perceptions of not-him. this is especially so considering how much he clearly believed in presenting himself so intricately and how that slowly started to unravel as it was rendered useless by anyone who claims to have met him before.

and don't get me started on the underlying notion that of his usefulness; there was always a sense that he was going to die, even if he never had a full enough view of the situation to put the pieces together. as soon as he stepped onto the page, it was instantly clear that he wasn't sticking around for very long, both due to his self-concerned tendencies and attitude and his place in the story. the reader would have already been aware of the extremely specific problem clyde was facing, and it would only be a matter of time until this perfect vessel could be put to use. his entrance following the whole deal that clyde needed a body was a slap in the face; who could be better to inhabit than a perfect copy of your previous self? he was introduced as a character you were meant to recognize as tragic, which made his journey all the more effective knowing his fate and dreading what would eventually, inevitably come to pass. he was introduced specifically to die, and you have to just hold your breath for every second waiting for it to happen.

and all of this makes me look back upon how it ended, which makes me utterly sick to my stomach every time i think about it. he was so ignorant of everything that was going on around him, making him such a vulnerable target among pre-established characters who had a sense of what goes on in the circus. he fell into every trap he could, going in blind and arrogant and untouched by dangers he was completely separated from in the real world. maybe he was lucky, managing to find company with nene/aphro and mell, who could at least steer him on the right path, but he was truly blind to whatever could have happened until it was too late to be taken back.

and what really gets me is the fact that he ended up so truly alone. by the time he'd stumbled out of the maze and into the jaws of the beast once more, he was both physically and socially completely alienated from everything around him. the people searching for him didn't even particularly like him, and one of them specifically knew the connotations of his presence in reference to clyde- who knows what would've happened if they were present during the last bit! he'd lost his primary means of communication and a distinct part of his identity, something that must have been so dehumanizing on his end along with the fact that he couldn't even express his grief in a properly cathartic way. the fact that he was physically by himself in the theater hall just hammers in how alone he was. his breakdown was suffocating, having to manage how overwhelming it all was and be effectively unrecognized through it all, so insignificant to the passive observer because of his lack of sound and to anyone aware of his situation because they already had the sense that he was doomed. nothing worked in his favor, and nothing could have because of the sheer separation from humanity he was faced with as soon as he stepped foot through the gates. and his grief was so palpable because of that, only exponentially worse because he didn't know what was going on. he might've realized a little too late what was so dangerous about the circus, but he never got to know how condemned he was in the first place.

and in the end, i think clyde knew that. i think he understood- if only through catching a glimpse of the end result, sharing his sorrow and passion and hopelessness -how isolated he must have felt, even if he was always meant to kill him in the end.

#i'm inconsolable #god.#hearing the music made him so desperate because he was in such an awful place!!!#and he was so totally left alone that he NEEDED that sense of connection that he was so deprived of!!!!#he was scared!! he was lonely!!#he was human!!!#tcod #the circus of dreams #the pond #vincent amadeus antoine #vincent antoine #circus of dreams #clyde #reflections

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jellicledelice · 1 year

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The Story Left Untold - a Demeter Playlist

Don't wanna ask For the moon in the sky Though I love you To that big old moon and back Don't wanna ask For the twinkle in your eye

I saw it once I'll make do with that

A Demeter playlist, following her life before, during, and after Macavity. Yearning for love, thinking you've found it, then realizing, achingly, that it wasn't worth the pain it caused - and that you must run away.

Party girl - Michelle Gurevich

Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me - Low

Caresse mes cheveux - Dolorès

Killing me softly with his song - Nancy Sinatra

I follow you - Melody's Echo Chamber

J'en déduis que je t'aime - Charles Aznavour

Michelle - Sir Chloe

I Lost Myself (I'm hungry... and that ain't right) - Meow Meow

Goodbye my Dictator - Michelle Gurevich

Farewell my Love - Charles Pasi

Before I Fall - Latchkey Kid

La Niaise - Leila Huissoud

Je ne t'ai jamais aimé - Babx

Wayward Hum - Vashti Bunyan

Those songs deal with difficult topics such a domestic abuse and running away from violence. Please proceed with caution.

This was partially inspired @white-cat-of-doom 's Demeter and Macavity fanmixes, which you can find here !

Breakdown and explanation of each songs below.

Party girl - Michelle Gurevich

What's your name? What's your art? Nobody knows About my broken heart

Yes, I'm a party girl Crazy girl See my lips how they move Can't you see I'm a natural?

To me, Demeter starts off life as a stray - and it's a lonely life being a stray. A nihilistic one, too : being a street cat, you're not sure you'll survive long enough to see the next sunrise. She's always hungry, be it for food or companionship, any companionship, any kind of love at all, because she's been missing it all her life. This leads to the careful construction of a façade : that of a careless, nihilistic, edgy person, when inside, she's not like that at all : she wants love, and comfort, and to have someone care for her.

Last Night, I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - Low

Last night I felt Real arms around me No hope, no harm Just another false alarm

So, tell me how long Before the last one? And tell me how long Before the right one?

Following that thought, another song about loneliness and hope for love. This kind of settles the ground for Macavity's arrival : Demeter is a runaway, has been all her life, and she secretly yearns for someone's unconditional love. She dreams and hopes, and finds herself foolish for it - but it can't be helped. Even if she feels there is no hope, she still dreams it. She just doesn't want to be lonely anymore.

Caresse mes cheveux - Dolorès

J'en ai rêvé toute la nuit / I've dreamt about him all night Je veux que ce soit lui / I want it to be him Le seul et l'unique, ce beau chevalier / My one, my only, my handsome knight Sera l'amour de ma vie / He'll be the love of my life

Qu'il caresse mes cheveux / He'll carress my hair Qu'il se plonge dans mes yeux / Stare into my eyes Rythme son souffle sur le mien / Breathe as quickly as I Et me tienne la main / And hold my hand tightly

Demeter's dreams have been given form : a charismatic, well-spoken tom, whom, she hopes, will give her everything she's ever wanted. It's a very romantic song, full of childlike wonderment and hopes, but it's also a very sad song, falling into despair on the last verse. It's as though she suddenly realizes how foolish those dreams are, but, then again, she can't help but think - what if this time, they come true ? Wouldn't that be amazing ?

Killing me softly with his song - Nancy Sinatra

I felt all flushed with fever Embarrassed by the crowd I felt he found my letters And read each one out loud I prayed that he would finish But he just kept right on

Strumming my pain with his fingers Singing my life with his words Killing me softly with his song

Macavity is a talented manipulator. He's a smart fellow, too, able to figure out what people want quickly - so that he may reach his own goals. With Demeter, he uses that same tactic, using her vulnerability and her hunger for love to further his own agenda. Worst part is, he does love her, but he does not know how to love selflessly. So at first, he acts exactly like she would want him to : he's kind, loving, protective. Unused to having those desires fulfilled, Demeter is soon blinded with love.

I follow you - Melody's Echo Chamber

I need someone To be close When at night my own demons Sneak under my pillow

Not someone That comes and goes wherever I need you here Stay and show me your love

The honeymoon doesn't last very long. Soon, Demeter finds the real Macavity under his layer of manipulation and trickery : the moody, egotistical, selfish genius he truly is. She accepts him as he is, at first, still in the throes of her love for him... But how long will it last ? It's starting to feel like maybe he doesn't care about her, after all - at least not as much as he used to pretend he did.

J'en déduis que je t'aime - Charles Aznavour

J'en déduis que je t'aime / That tells me I love you J'en déduis que je t'aime / That tells me I love you

Par le froid qui m'étreint / The cold chill that chokes me Lorsque je t'apperçois / Whenever I see you Par mon souffle coupé / My gasping breaths Et mon sang qui se glace / And the icy blood in my veins Par la désolation / The desolation Qui réduit mon espace / That fills up my head Et le mal que souvent tu me fais / And the hurt you often cause me Malgré toi / In spite of yourself

More and more of Macavity's true nature begins to show through. Demeter now realizes he's nothing like who he pretended to be. And yet, she still defends him in her mind - perhaps to shield herself - thinking that he's not hurting her on purpose, that, truly, deep inside, he's good. Although, that thought gets less and less comforting as time goes on.

Michelle - Sir Chloe

You look so nice I've been so cold You wanna be my special one I cannot breathe Please just go home

Michelle Michelle You are a monster from Hell

Trying to make sense of his behavior is getting exhausting, and Demeter is so tired. She wants to go back to the way it was before, even when there is no way for it to happen. Macavity is a silver-tongued devil, and keeps her coming back somehow ; attempting to convince her that it'll be different this time, that he loves her. He almost manages to, sometimes...

I Lost Myself (I'm Hungry... And That Ain't Right) - Meow Meow

Maybe you loved me for an hour? A day? A week? I'm not sure when it all slipped away But I'm still lying, crying at your feet A ball and chain, an old refrain To the man who will not even speak

It’s no good for a proud girl to give so much away, It’s no good for a smart girl not to let you walk away, But I’m dying without you and dying within, My days were all about you, so where would I begin To live?

... Until it finally, frightfully dawns on Demeter that this story is doomed. That perhaps it never had any future at all. But where is she to go, in this situation ? He managed to corner her in a way that he is now the only constant presence in her life. What will become of her without him ?

Goodbye my Dictator - Michelle Gurevich

So goodbye my dictator, goodbye 'Cause everybody knows it's time You've had more than your share of pie Goodbye, my tormentor, goodbye Goodbye, my dictator, goodbye 'Cause everybody's sick and tired We'll all be dancing when you die Goodbye, my dictator, goodbye

All this bargaining and sadness soon give way to anger ; and all the pent-up resentment Demeter felt over how he treated her begins to overflow. She's done with him, with his cruelty and his orders and his schemes. She's leaving.

Farewell my Love - Charles Pasi

You walk alone Carryin' around that heavy load Let me ease your pain Forget my music and my name I'll be gone by tomorrow No more pain no more sorrow

Farewell my love Farewell my love

When Demeter leaves, Macavity doesn't know, of course. If he did, he'd try to stop her, and succeed - because the Mystery Cat always gets what he wants in the end. Demeter doesn't shut the door on him. She escapes, quietly, in the dead of night, and disappears. Perhaps he was a better teacher than she thought, because she leaves no trace behind.

Before I Fall - Latch Key Kid

You and I alone Far away from home Into the great unknown Hand in hand we roam

When Demeter leaves, she's not exactly alone. She brings Jemima with her - her daughter, the one heir Macavity desperately wanted, and that (with some luck) he'll never know exists. It's not exactly easy, fleeing with a newborn kitten. But however frightening it may be, Demeter is driven by the thought that her daughter will grow up free, away from Macavity's shadow.

La Niaise - Leila Huissoud

On s'est dit: "Faut partir de rien" / We thought "You gotta start from the bottom" Et puis se faire tout seul / And then build your way up Avec du vide plein les mains / With hands full of empty Tu l'imagines, ma petite gueule / Can you imagine, my big mouth Le sourire paumé en chemin / With my smile lost on the way Parce que ça plaît plus à personne / Since nobody likes it Quand la gosse se change en chien / When the girl becomes a dog Et que le chien grogne / And the dog starts to bite

When she runs away, Demeter goes back to her old life : the life of a stray. Except this time, she feels even more jaded, and hurt, and scared. Every light in the shadow is Macavity's eye ; every sound is his footstep ; every voice in the dark is his own. He's everywhere around her. She hasn't been able to truly escape, and it's torturous. Still, she defends herself and her daughter the best she can, in hope to one day find shelter.

Je ne t'ai jamais aimé - Babx

Je ne t'ai jamais aimé / I never loved you Pas même une saison / Not even for one season Et je maudis l'été / And I curse the summer Où tu m'as dit ton nom / When you told me your name

D’ailleurs de ce nom là / And besides, that name Je ne m'en souviens pas / I don't even remember it M'en souvenir me tue / To remember kills me M'en souvenir me tue / To remember kills me

Demeter has found a home in the Junkyard, among the Jellicles. Here, she and her daughter are safe, and protected, and loved - and most of all, hopeful. Relieved and finally able to put down her walls, Demeter wants to forget everything : her life with Macavity, her past, her pain and fear. But try as she might, it's a part of her now. And denying that she ever loved Macavity is a fool's errand, because she did, she truly did. But now, she can start anew. Even if it's hard to move on.

Wayward Hum - Vashti Bunyan

Peace and gentleness. At last.

#cats the musical #cats musical #demeter cats #macavity #cats playlist #demecavity #WOWEE it's finally done !!

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ac-liveblogs · 1 year

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Remember how you said it rocks to be the king? Genshin has made close to 4 million off mostly Scaramouche already. This game is doomed to never change because it makes so much fucking money. I know I'm someone who was always saying wtf is this revenue but seriously. Wtf. What's Mihoyo gonna do with all this money. It clearly isn't going back into genshin since the events are still them ripping off other games. I would say star rail and ZZZ but there has been no news on those games in ages.

Not denying a decent chunk of money doesn't go into the execs' personal accounts, but you probably shouldn't underestimate how much money probably goes into developing and maintaining Genshin Impact.

We get enormous explorable regions released regularly. We get new mechanics invented for events, and new gaming types added (the card game, most recently). And the server costs must be astronomical, considering the amount of players, and especially considering each player gets their OWN world. That is not cheap, and it'll be similarly expensive to develop new games on the side.

The game is CONSTANTLY developing and expanding - I don't know if you were around for year 1 events, but the writing quality has certainly improved (low bar), but just because the story still isn't great doesn't mean the game isn't evolving because it demonstrably is. I think the ways they reinvest some of that money back into the game aren't.... well-thought out (summer islands...god), but hey.

Not to say, again, a huge chunk doesn't just go into the higher ups' salaries. Which it probably does. I'd be curious to see the budget breakdown.

Also, we heard about those games earlier this year? That's not an uncommon amount of time for radio silence on games.

#replies #ac plays genshin impact

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thebibliomancer · 2 years

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #18: Lost in Space-Time, Part Two: TIME WAS...

March, 1987

Trapped in the OLD WEST -- it’s a SHOWDOWN -- up against the WILDEST OUTLAWS of the 1870′s!

Dangit, Englehart! You just wanted to do another cowboy story, didn’t you?

This man just can’t get enough of cowboys. He crammed one into the Celestial Madonna Saga aftermath too.

At least this trip to the olde times seems to have a more colorful cast and no Kang. I hope no Kang. I’m still Kanged out from that big Kang story that had all the Kangs.

Anyway.

Last time on West Coast Avengers: Hawkeye decided to recruit Firebird for the West Coast Avengers and took the team to go look for her. Instead of her, the team found some desert themed villains and their boss Dominus. Dominus tricked the West Coast Avengers into stepping on Dr Doom’s time machine and sends them back in time to get them out of his hair.

Meanwhile, Hank Pym stayed home to try to kill himself but Firebird (actually she’s calling herself La Espirita now) shows up and stops him by telling him the good news about Jesus. I’m exaggerating a little BUT ONLY A LITTLE.

See?

Over a two-page spread specifically to annoy me, La Espirita unpacks her less Jesusy argument in favor of life.

Although, Bonita has gotten even more into Jesus while she’s been off-page.

She tells Hank that he’s not a failure and she knows because she studied the Avengers’ files!

The coolest Avengers adjacent people are the ones who do the homework.

She points to his discovery of the Pym Particles, how he became Ant-Man, how he mastered robotics and invented Ultron-1.

Uh, hey, Bonita? That’s a bit of a sore spot?

And Hank argues that all of his accomplishments are so far back that he hardly remembers those days. He sidelined science to make superheroism his main goal and then he blew it!

La Espirita: “There’s always hope! Maybe you just didn’t do it right!”

Hank Pym: “‘Didn’t do it right’?! I did it four different ways!”

La Espirita: “But you tried to be a type of hero not in tune with your nature! You must try to be a hero as you are!”

Hank Pym: “What? The Amazing Lab-Man?”

La Espirita: “No! But use your skills as god gave them to you! Don’t try to be an Avenger like all the others! Be unique because you are unique! I came back to this compound to see the Avengers -- but I’ll stay to help you reclaim your life!”

Oh, so I guess she wasn’t just lurking in the bushes waiting to play guardian angel.

If the West Coast Avengers had waited a day, Bonita would have come to them and they wouldn’t be going on a cowboy adventure.

Makes you think.

And she’s given Hank a lot to think about too. When he protests that she doesn’t even know him, she replies “you’re a child of god, Hank -- as are we all!” and Hank throws down the gun and starts crying.

Now the healing can begin, I guess?

This is a weird subplot.

I guess I should just be glad that comics are mostly background radiation religious because otherwise I’m half expecting Hank to come out of this born again. Even though that’s not Bonita’s religion.

Anyway, the West Coast Avengers got sent back to cowboy times, right?

Well, they don’t know that yet.

They’ve just arrived in the stereotypical desert and are trying to get their bearings/having a breakdown.

Iron Man: “We’ve stopped!”

Wonder Man: “But when -- and where?”

Mockingbird: “Yes -- when? This could be prehistory! This could be any time -- there’s no way to tell in this desert! S.H.I.E.L.D. trained me in hard science, Clint -- not time travel -- !”

She’s been pretty chill about her life being comic book ridiculous but this is where she draws the line.

Hawkeye disagrees. This is all a perfectly logical chain of events to him! Which he ‘proves’ by recapping the previous issue.

Y’know, chased those four desert themed villains to a cave, met an alien spy, stood in a specific spot, sent back in time.

Nothing overwhelming there!

Mockingbird: “Oh, thank you, honey -- I understand everything now -- !”

But what she’s really thinking, in a thought bubble is: Maybe when I’ve been an Avenger as long as he has, I’ll think a story like that is logical -- but I doubt it!

Anyway, thank goodness they have Tony Stark, Iron Man, here to something something time travel!

Iron Man: “Well, any machine that Victor Von Doom can build, Tony Stark can operate -- so let me have a look at the controls -- ! Sure... there’s the temporal displace... the V.B.L. link...”

Cool technobabble, Tony.

Wonder Man Simon Williams gets annoyed with Tony here for JUST ASSUMING that he’s the only science guy here! Dangit, Simon used to science too! Sure, he seemingly hasn’t done any science in years and instead of getting back into science, he decided to become an actor but HOW DARE they not ask Wonder Man to do a science thing!

Wonder Man: They all ignored me when I was a coward, but now that I’ve gotten self-confidence, and Hollywood stardom -- Wonder Man’s getting tired of playing a supporting role!

So when Tony declares that the time machine is broken so that it can only go backwards in time and is skeptical about whether it can be repaired, Simon jumps in declaring he’ll take a look at it.

Wonder Man: “Let me take my turn at it, Iron Man! Simon Williams gave Stark International a good run for its money once!”

Iron Man: “ -- Until Stark International put you out of business -- ! Sure, Simon -- be my guest!”

Haha, ouch, Tony!

Still annoyed that Simon dissed the original Avengers and indirectly called you old, huh?

Before Simon can start trying to science harder than Tony, the West Coast Avengers hear a YA-HOOOO! beyond a nearby ridge. A YA-HOOOO! that Hawkeye recognizes.

Hey, it’s the Rawhide Kid, the Two-Gun Kid, and Ghost Rider (but not the motorcycle guy)!

So now the West Coast Avengers know they’re in the Old West. Handy that there were a bunch of cowboys around this specific middle of nowhere.

These specific cowboys are even engaged in very cowboy activities when the Avengers spot them. Hawkeye even suggests that the Avengers hang back and just let them cowboys cowboy.

Rawhide Kid kicks ass despite being a shortie, Two-Gun Kid shoots three guns out of three guys’ hands, and Ghost Rider lets himself get shot so the bullet can pass harmlessly through him.

Just normal, typical cowboy activity like never actually shooting bullets into a person.

After the... uh I don’t know if they were bandits or what they were up to but they sure get chased off. And while watching them go, Two-Gun spots the (West Coast) Avengers and gets really excited.

He gallops his horse forward to greet his “pard” Hawkeye.

Hawkeye catches his old pard up on what’s up with Hawkeye. Now there’s two whole Avengers teams, Hawkeye is leading one, and he married Mockingbird.

Iron Man is pretty excited to meet the Rawhide Kid because he’s read alllll the dime novels written about him!

Rawhide Kid: “G’wan -- who’d wanna write about a cowpoke like me?”

Steve Englehart holding up his hand, jumping up and down excitedly.

Anyway, Two-Gun exposits that in the Olde West it is now 1876, three years after the last time Hawkeye was back in past times and two years after Two-Gun went back to the past after getting his fill of the future/present.

And he explains that those dudes they were just fighting were robbing a stagecoach and working for several gang leaders who are the cowboy equivalent of supervillains.

There’s Iron Mask, the man in the iron mask who is invulnerable because he’s wearing an iron mask.

I don’t see how it matters. These good cowboys don’t seem to shoot anybody in the body anyway.

There’s Hurricane, a quick-draw guy in a snazzy shirt.

The Rattler, who brings the power of acrobatics to Old West crime.

Red Raven (yum?) who can fly thanks to a flying harness apparently made by I dunno some First Nations group or other.

Doctor Danger, Owner of Magnet.

And a guy who calls himself the Fat Man, who has a boomerang.

They were apparently inspired somehow by the stories of the cowboys and Avengers assault on Castle Kang.

The Sinister Six these ain’t. Hell, they ain’t even the Legion of Losers.

I do appreciate that their “powers” are kept within the realm of cowboy action. But Rattler and Red Raven (yum) break the aesthetic by having costumes indistinguishable from modern superhero/villain tights. They needed something more of the time period.

I imagine these outlaws having powers like “owns a magnet” is why Wonder Man is excusing himself from the plot. Iron Man could already mop up this whole group on his own; having Iron Man and Wonder Man would be over over kill kill.

So Wonder Man is going to fly off with the time machine and take it to the local blacksmith to help him repair it because he’s very sure he can do a better job than Iron Man can can.

(Part of the reason why Wonder Man thinks he can do a better job is that Doom’s time machine was invented around the time Simon Wonder Williams was in business with Williams Manufacturing. Sure, Simon hasn’t kept his hand in the science game but maybe that’s an advantage? Because Tony is probably getting himself confused by knowing about later technology. Except you’d think the time machine would be ahead of its time since I’m pretty sure that in the 60s, THE TIME MACHINE WASN’T A COMMON TECHNOLOGY.)

Anyway.

Since Wonder Man is going to be working on the time machine and the West Coast Avengers don’t have anything better to do, Hawkeye decides the team will help take down the Sarsaparilla Swilling Six, or whatever they call themselves.

Iron Man agrees with the decision on the basis that it will keep their minds off being TRAPPED IN THE PAST FOREVER.

Tigra volunteers to ride with Rawhide Kid and immediately starts flirting, to his consternation.

It’s going to be later revealed that he’s gay. That’s not relevant but I just remembered it. He gets a Marvel MAX miniseries.

Mockingbird rides with Ghost Rider But The Cowboy One Not The Skeleton Man.

Hawkeye rides with Two-Gun so the two pards can catch up. They’re good pards.

And Iron Man flies ahead to see if he can spot the outlaws. I don’t know how heavy his armor is and I don’t know if he can ride a horse but anyway they’re out of horses.

He’s uneasy about being trapped in the past but he’s actually more uneasy that Wonder Man will show him up by fixing the time machine where Tony couldn’t.

Iron Man: “So much for being the more mature member of the team!”

Hey, admitting it is the first step. To something. I dunno.

Anyway. Pard catching up.

Two-Gun is in a weird state. He wasn’t happy in the future/present because there was just too much strangeness for a simple cowboy like him. But after seeing all the wonders of the future/present, the year of 1876 seems... boring.

Hawkeye asks if Two-Gun would want to try the future/present again but he’s just not sure.

Tigra continues to flirt with Rawhide but he pays some compliments back, wondering why Two-Gun came back to the past/present if the future had women like Tigra.

Annnnnd.

Ghost Rider is being weird.

After being taciturn the whole time, he suddenly decides that Mockingbird is a goddess.

Oooookay.

Ahead of the riders, Iron Man has lost the fleeing outlaws. He chides himself for subconsciously assuming that cowboys are primitives because they seem to have outsmarted him.

Iron Man doesn’t think that he’ll be able to find them on his advanced sensors because men and meat without advanced technology doesn’t give much to detect but he tries anyway.

And his sensors ping something big and subterranean. Ah ha, thinks Tony, this is probably related to the outlaws clearly.

So he flies back to inform the others because:

Iron Man: “[The cowboys] should take the lead at the end, anyway! It must not have become permanent, since it didn’t make either the history books or the dime novels -- but just as Kang inspired this era’s ‘super-villains’, Two-Gun’s adventures with us have planted the Avengers’ spirit in this arid soil -- and this is one Avenger who wants to nurture that for all it’s worth!”

Tony be like well nothing we’re doing here is notable because I would have heard about it.

About an hour passes between Iron Man meeting with the others and telling them what he detected and Rawhide tracking the outlaws to a likely cave.

The West Coast Avengers plus cowboys charge in and see.... everyone.

Whoops. That’s a lot.

As the flying guy that flies, Iron Man immediately confronts Red Raven who is also the flying guy that flies.

Except, as far as I can tell, Red Raven is only a flying guy that flies. And Iron Man is walking, flying armory.

So Red Raven, a guy who doesn’t do anything except fly, has a bunch of dudes lasso Iron Man and try to drag him to the ground. Because this is cowboy times, of course, there’s lassos.

But Iron Man, who is a walking, flying armory, pulls back on the lassos and starts whipping around the army of lassoin’ mooks.

Hawkeye brags that Iron Man is the weakest member of the team and starts blowing up other mooks with his exploding arrows.

But he finds his arrows yoinked away by... DOCTOR DANGER, OWNER OF MAGNET!

Even Hawkeye, man who uses archery to be an Earth’s mightiest hero, thinks this is a ridiculous character concept.

And then Fat Man, owner of boomerang, knocks Hawkeye’s bow out of his hand with his boomerang.

Then Two-Gun shoots Fat Man’s boomerang to bits. Which. I guess. He’s just a guy now. He’s not even carrying an actual gun.

Doctor Danger, owner of magnet, tries pulling away Two-Gun’s two guns. And he also yoinks another arrow from Hawkeye.

Or Hawkeye let the arrow go because its one of his gas arrows.

Hawkeye pulls another one of his patented arrow based hoodwinks! Classic Hawkeye!

Meanwhile, Iron Mask grabs Mockingbird to use her as a hostage.

Geez, Mockingbird. He’s in a metal suit. He cannot be stealthy.

But Ghost Rider rides out of the shadows to save her.

Tigra squares off against Hurricane as he quick draws and fires at her feet. But she just dodges away because REFLEXES.

She dodges right into the grasp of Rattler but she shreds his costume with her claws and then hurls him at Hurricane, knocking them both out.

Wow. Tigra and Hawkeye knocked out two of these jokers each. And Mockingbird got captured. She is not doing well.

Oh and Iron Man rips off Red Raven (yum)’s wings because Red Raven is a man with the superpower of equipment based flight and owns a gun and has nothing else going for him.

Iron Man hasn’t even had to use his repulsors!

Granted, these are villains that are leveled to cowboy heroes. This is like rolling into the starting world in a video game with endgame heroes.

Iron Mask: “This can’t be happening! These -- these ringers have helped the kids best all my men! But Iron Mask is never caught unprepared! I’d hoped not to use him -- to keep him secret for my assault on the territorial capital -- but now -- Come forth, my secret weapon! COME FORTH!”

Haha what?

So Living Totem is from a 60s Rawhide Kid comic so he’s definitely in the idiom of this general cowboy times adventure, I guess.

But like.

Why?

Also: does he naturally look like this or did he decorate himself like a totem pole as camouflage when he was stranded on Earth?

In his original appearance, Rawhide Kid assumed that he was trapped underground by medicine men but I don’t know if he was just wildly speculating. Either way, this guy was buried underground but was freed when a silver mine Dug Too Deep and unleashed this hidden fun stuff.

Have no idea how Iron Mask convinced a giant alien that hates humans to work for his gang but there we are.

Anyway, Living Totem brags that he’s invulnerable to anything of Earth but that doesn’t stop the Avengers from collapsing a cliff on top of him.

To cap things off, this big boy was what Iron Man’s sensors detected.

Two-Gun and Rawhide drag the entire captured gang and gang leaders to the town jail.

I seriously doubt that the jail has enough cells for all of them but it lets Two-Gun feel accomplished.

And the Avengers West Coast assemble over at Boom-Boom’s smithery where Wonder Man admits that welp actually an old west blacksmith can’t actually help him repair a time machine.

Dangit, the irony of the situation is that the replacement parts they really need are transistors and even though Iron Man loves transistors like they’re his own children, the ones in his suits just aren’t the right type!

I actually do miss Iron Man talking about transistors whenever he did anything.

And the thing of it was the he did that because transistor revolution started in 1959, several years before Iron Man was introduced. So it was the big new technology and comic writers don’t often understand the big new technology except that it can be peppered through a story for flavor.

So if Iron Man was invented today, would his armor be crypto powered? God I hope not. Transistors were actually useful.

Anyway.

Two-Gun is right on hand to try to soften the blow of being stuck in the past.

Two-Gun Kid: “Hawkeye -- I know this seems like terrible news, but you’ve lived here before! If you have to stay, I’ll do everything I can to make you and your team happy!”

There’s really a deep friendship between these two pards.

Anyway, Wonder Man isn’t ready to give up yet.

Sure, the time machine is half-broken. Which is to say, it’s half-functional. It’s stuck in reverse so why not go further back in time?

Hawkeye: “HUH?!!”

But Wonder Man’s got a Wonder Plan.

They can’t go back to the present but they can go further into the past... say to the time of Ancient Egypt where Nicer Rama-Tut ruled?

As a refresher: Rama-Tut is just younger Kang and he was a dick who fought the Fantastic Four. But then Kang got old and tired and in a very Kangish way decided he hated himself at a different point on the timeline.

He gave up conquest and returned to rule Egypt, presumably without having to conquer it. Anyway, he was a cool guy give or take being a god-king ruler of a land that required at least some force to maintain power.

So if the West Coast Avengers show up, he’d probably totally fix the time machine! Because he’s a great guy, Older, Nicer Rama-Tut is!

Ghost Rider objects that this is a really dumb idea that could strand them LOST IN TIME FOREVERRRR but Hawkeye is going to do it anyway. Because giving up without trying ever reckless idea just isn’t the Hawkeye way.

Ghost Rider keeps objecting but Mockingbird tells him hey glad he’s concerned but Hawkeye said they’re doing the reckless plan so they’re doing the reckless plan because he’s the chairman of this wacky team.

Wonder Man proposes that the team try going back one hundred years first as a test before trying to go all the way back fifty centuries. Just to make sure they can control the time machine.

But when Wonder Man activates the time platform and it starts building up power, Ghost Rider goes wild.

He bonks Mockingbird, slings her over his horse, and rides off with her.

Ghost Rider: “Mockingbird must not be lost! The goddess must remain with the ghost!”

Hawkeye tries jumping off the time platform after his wife but Wonder Man and Iron Man hold him in place because “energy-flux” would tear him apart.

And I imagine having half of you in one century and half in another is probably bad for homeostasis.

Two-Gun and Rawhide realize that they’re going to have to go after Ghost Rider to rescue Mockingbird. Even though they have no idea how they’re going to reunite Mockingbird and Hawkeye even if they DO rescue her.

What a mess.

The Avengers -- and the PLOT -- have been split between three different centuries!

Hank Pym and La Espirita are still doing stuff in the 20th century. Mockingbird is having further mandatory cowboy adventures in the 19th. And the rest of the West Coast Avengers are on their way to the 18th!

Dammit, time travel!

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