“Spidey, about before. You know I think you’re the best, right? And not just the superhero stuff. You’re a big brain, too. You should be over there with Reed and Tony, saving our butts.” “Right, like I’m in their league.” “Okay, so let them do their thing. You can go work on a fallback plan.” “Johnny, look at the time. There’s no way I could… possibly… come up with… a fallback plan!”
(ASM #648)
I saw this and my immediate reaction was 'oh no that's the vibe. Oh Noooooo'
I’m still not over Scotty brooding over Mira Romaine while he’s up on the Enterprise at the beginning of this book like:
Tooncast Latin America (2015)
Bonus points if the original wife was incidental enough (one line about a marriage added to a treaty, Airplane dropped the plot thread, etc.) that Bingge doesn't know this is OOC.
Just sitting there thinking 'my own kind shizun was here all along, languishing unappreciated because of my unceasing voracious ambition, what have I done?! I have to make this right!'
Meanwhile Shen Yaun was just chilling and helping out. Thinks it's neat to finally meet the protagonist but he'll probably forget wife #whatever immediately. 'Oh well back to my books...'
Bingge has been running himself ragged for MONTHS looking for HIS 'nice Shizun'.
What he doesn't know is that Shen Yuan transmigrated into wife #216 (the one from the sexy slime chapter...) the same night he came back and have been living his best life in the palace's library every day. He's been 'giving' his night with Bingge to the harem member who managed to sneak him in a 'Flower of Transing your Gender'.
It's kind of uncomfortable to wear a woman's clothes when he's just a totally normal straight guy, but he's FINE!! He's low enough on the totem pole that he is ignored for most of the harem drama and since he's a DUDE now he isn't pulled into any wife plots! Now he gets to study all the monsters he could ever want! Plus, just occasionally glimpsing the 'best wives' like Liu Mingyan, Sha Hauling, and Ningying is pretty cool, too!
Things are going GREAT until he passes by an upper courtyard one morning and finds a Beauty Devouring Harpy-Lizard has three wives cornered and is about to eat them! Oh no! Well, this is probably a wife plot, so Bingge will come any moment now to save them....
any moment now....
any moment....
...
WHERE is he???
Shen Yuan uses his new Beast Knowledge and his stolen body's mild cultivation to tame the lizard. Turns out it's just a juvenile and they can wean it off eating pretty women if they feed it enough regular meat! Now Shen Yuan has three women in his corner, too! They can help keep him off Bingge's radar while he stays in the palace!
Except... well... it keeps happening.
Beasts attack when Shen Yuan is nearby. Bingge doesn't show up. And then Shen Yuan has to deal with it! He's forming his own harem inside of the harem and he doesn't WANT that!!! Bingge will kill him!!!
It all comes to a head when one of the IMPORTANT wives, Ningying, is cornered by a Ravenous Rainbow Gem Tiger! Even using all of his cunning and smarts, Shen Yuan isn't sure he's going to make it! He manages to get Ningying out of there, but he's on the back ropes...
Then Bingge shows up just in time to save the day.
Oh and he looks BAD. Hair unkept, bags under his eyes, like he hadn't been eating; even with Airplane's shitty Cultivation rules the protagonist shouldn't look like this! Shen Yuan INSTANTLY starts fretting over him. Bingge doesn't seem that impressed, probably used to it by now and thinking that this is just gunna lead to The Usual Business. But he gets this little nagging feeling when Shen Yuan invites himself back to his chambers. Shen Yuan bullies him into bathing, brushes out his hair, makes him eat something, and gets him tucked all nicely into bed. And without a hint of papapa in sight!
In fact, Shen Yuan just... pats Bingge on the head and makes him promise he'll sleep and then leaves.
Bingge staring at the ceiling of his bed, taken care of, no sex expected... squints and has his 'wait a fucking minute' moment.
Dangit I missed the window, gotta catch the next drop. (Never underestimate SH fans, they brought the guy back from the dead and haven't rested since)
WATSON'S SKETCHBOOK VOL 1 is available to purchase! 178 pages of black and white comics, illustrations, and occasional essays on Victorian queerness, covering the Watson's Sketchbook story from A STUDY IN SCARLET through SECOND INTERLUDE. Many of the comics have been updated and cleaned up from their online versions. Also they are signed and I drew a little guy inside!
"Holy *insert swear*, Batman!" needs to become a bit, it is something I didn't know I needed in my life XD
In my opinion, the butt jokes are incredibly incredibly tired.
So here are several fun facts about Dick that you can use for comedic effects/running jokes instead:
His hatred of Capes. Listen we are talking about Dick wore a yellow cape for 9 to 10 years in universe Grayson. The moment he changed his costume, he straight refused to ever wear a cape again, the only time he had to wear one, it was as Batman and it was very very frustrating for him.
You know that when he watched the Incredibles with Lian and Roy or Damian and Edna Mode came on screen with her hatred of capes, this was his reaction:
Someone else finally understand him. She instantly became his favorite character.
His tendency to put unknown substances/evidence in his mouth and being able to identify it by taste and his knowledge of what Heroin taste like (yep still not over it).
It's both impressive (the fact that he can actually identify something by taste alone is impressive) and gross and even his closest friends don't understand why he is the way that he is, Do we think it's the Bat training or do we think it's just Dick (tm)... I feel like it has to be just Dick, right ? considering everything in Gotham is a toxin of some kind ? How many heart attack do we think he gave both Bruce and the Titans with that ?
Dick Grayson namer of superhero things: Listen, I just learned that Dick named the Arrowcave and now I just kinda love the idea of a running joke that every time a classic superhero in contact with Robin has a goofy name for something superhero related, it probably comes from the 9 year old superhero who thought it sounded cool.
The Titans are never letting that go and Dick doesn't want to talk about it (but he secretly still really like the names, they were cool when he was 9 and pretty practical when you think about it, thank you very much).
Everyone has a crush on him (tm): Honestly it is pretty funny that everyone and theirs entire family have a crush on Nightwing (and also pretty consistent canon since Raven in ntt). The reaction of the batfam is annoyed because that's gross, it's Dick, theirs brother/son, and the Titans are amused (Donna, Vic, Garth and maybe Wally) or maybe sorta part of the people who have had a crush on him (Kory obviously , Roy, Raven).
You do need to be careful with that, but I think if you do the opposite of what DC is usually doing, you'll be fine.
Also you can also includes the disastrous first date with supergirl in that. She also had a crush on him and they date was so horrible that he considered changing superhero identity because it was so embarrassing (truly one of the greatest plot-point on Superman/batman world finest honestly and this series is genuinely my favorite modern/current series)..
His petty side when he doesn't like someone: Listen, Dick has a petty side, ask Helena circa Outsiders (2003), Talia (always), Jason circa the late 2000s (Morrison era) and Azrael (also always). When he doesn't like people but has to work with them, he is going to be a little shit because they have to know he doesn't like them. it's important. and the comedic potential of Nightwing, one of the most competent, known and admired hero of the community being so petty is excellent. 10 out of 10, I need him to work with someone he hates again just for the fun of it.
The last one is just an headcanon and do not have basis in canon as far as I know:
Sometimes, as an adult, Nightwing says Holy shit in front o fa classic superhero and that superhero does a double take because they are so used to him saying Holy goly batman (and that include Batman).
Oh hohoho this is gonna be GOOD
So I heard it was WIP Wednesday...? June of Doom preview, and, as you can see, I am not holding back on the angst (this is Lone Pine ca ~1980).
A master class in Menace. It's so light and lovely, but we KNOW...
After several train changes, Moriarty chasing them on his own personal train (??) and a boat ride, they arrive in Brussels to news:
THE FINAL PROBLEM - part 3 of many - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - bits from the next part of the chapter - the canonical moment where Holmes accidentally refers to Baker Street as "our rooms" and then corrects himself will haunt me forever.
This is in the Watson's Sketchbook series!
calmest peter parker evening (he dealt with everything before this dw)