#AND THE WORST PUNCHLINES AND LEAST FUNNY JOKES KNOWN TO MAN

[bitegore]

sick to death of writing for this stupid creative writing class. i am going to write some sort of fanfiction or I will actually die i think.

[shoppinghauer]

I'm gonna add something because I love The Simpsons. Even the older episodes had a charm out of context. I'm latina and I watched the latin dub. A LOT of jokes, if not all of them, were changed to fit LatAm humor. Granted, the humor was still 80's-90's stuff but the writing was so good, the jokes landed even if you wrote over the USA context.

In the english version, Homer lies to the FBI and tells them he and the other drunkards were discussing Ludwig Wittgenstein, an austrian philosopher known for his obscureness. While in the latam spanish version, he says they were dicussing Gabriel García Márquez, a literature Nobel prize, more known to latam audiences but also culturish enough to sound snobby.

Now, don't get me wrong, by the 90s, specially in Mexico, USA culture was extremely popular. After 1992 and the introduction of the NAFTA, usian cultural imports were more and more mainstream, after all, this is the decade were globalization garnered strenght.

However, if you notice The Simpson's narrative structure, the episodes were "dreamlike": the main plot wasn't the one that introduced the episode but a minor, side plot b that suddenly opened the path to the main one. This allowed to deepen side characters and relations beyond their punchline and beyond the Simpson's family while mantaining an intelligible structure.

Gags were written for characters no the other way around. The Simpsons were by no means a perfect product, after all, they gave us "flanderization" as a concept. It was predictable though, there are just so many jokes you can make about the contrasting personalities of each character before it gets stale.

Nowadays, the contradictions that made each character unique were polarized or eliminated. Ned Flanders was the "just a cut above the rest" better neighbor, not a Jesus freak. Patty and Selma were the bitter spinsters who traveled a lot, had lots of free time and most importantly, were right about Homer. Smithers was a sycophantic yes man whose crush on Mr.Burns was less a "haha gay funny" character and more a "who in their right mind could fall for the worst person alive". All of these tropes were relatable to people worldwide despite cultural differences. In fact, a lot of dub actors and actresses work on top of them adding the cultural context it needed to succeed. Fast forward to 2000's. The cultural differences have flattened. With the popularization of the internet, inside jokes become memes, funny only within the context of online humor: fast and non-sensical.

News travel at lightspeed, to have a cultural context you must swallow these bullet speed pellets of pop culture. Celebrities become more and more niche and the shared culture becomes fragmented. The dreamlike narrative of older episodes cannot stand this, there is just no solid enough context that frames the gags. Notice how modern usamerican sitcoms build their own lore and derivate their own jokes after it. the office, community, even friends, thrive on the in universe drama their characters provide. The closest we had to a popculture sitcom was The Big Bang theory and it proved too bland to actually be good the way the Simpsons were.

In Latam at least, corporate greediness stopped letting the dub actors work on the writing. Now everything had to be approved by Fox. This flattened even more the context and made it homogeneous among dubs.

The fall of the Simpsons is not only because of the writers and company greed but also because how culture is created in a post-internet world.

Watched this video (very well done):

These are the comments that can pretty much sum up the title for you:

[dandelioncrownns]

random grishaverse facts/trivia (mostly tgt/kos, tbh), because i love useless details. Also, attempted organisation, because i like order too. + ft. my unwanted commentary

the darkling

has a sweet tooth

loves animals and nature in general

for those of you who have read demon in the woods, he got to meet the white tigers :)

his bedchamber walls are carved into trees bc he loves the woods

his favourite trees in particular are pine trees (or just evergreen trees in general)

he used to be afraid of the dark (many possibly worrying? interesting? implications to this; i won’t get into it here tho)

he likes bright colours, but wears black all the time basically for the aesthetic

he met his younger half-sister, Ulla, when he was a seer’s apprentice in Fjerda 

the darkling is a musician! He plays the fiddle, and growing up, he played the balalaika and oud (i wonder if he can read tablature,,) 

His father was a very powerful heartrender (maybe this is why the corporalki are valued so highly by him?)

genya

she got an amplifier between the end of R+R and the start of KoS (kestrel bones)

Genya used Dekora Nevich, the Ornamental Blade, to poison the King

It smells like cinnamon and is a warm golden colour

the royal family / nikolai’s bio family 

the King once cut himself on his own sword

genya named the queen’s dog 

until she was like 11, Genya was like the daughter the queen never had (omg i really wonder how Nikolai and Vasily felt about that? ik it’s not really mentioned, and Nik kinda acts like he just met Genya is S+S, but they must have been a lot closer, right?? I mean genya was almost always at the grand palace with Queen Tatiana, and nikolai just really wanted his parents’ attention, there must have been some kind of maybe one-sided jealousy/sibling rivalry thing, right?? I digress- for now)

also the queen in a dog person

p. sure Nikolai is a mommy’s boy

(possible explanation:) he looks exactly like his real father (except for his eyes). Nikolai even has the same laugh as Magnus

the queen was also fed up with Vasily and his horses

Vasily rides a white gelding horse and Nikolai rides a speckled grey horse (called Punchline)

speaking of, vasily is definitely a horse girl, but like... just the worst (darkling 🤝vasily)

Queen Tatiana’s letters to Magnus Opjer were “very racy” 

 She doesn’t approve of women in trousers

Linnea is ~1 year younger than Nikolai

she is good at math + studies engineering at ketterdam (I wonder if maybe she and Nikolai crossed paths when he was at uni- they’re around the same age, so maybe?)

The King and Queen hired a clown for nikolai’s 10th birthday (the worst birthday party he’d been to, inclusive of the night Vasily died, according to Nikolai)

Nikolai is afraid of spiders (and also clowns???)

nikolai:

he can juggle

Nikolai sucks at learning languages 

he once spoke Fjerdan so badly a man named Knut offered him a ruby to stop

his Kerch seems pretty good tho

Nikolai met The Darkling when he was 14

Nikolai is a baritone (as is Jesper!)

In his free time, Nikolai writes bad poetry (remember that time he got stabbed w/ a letter opener bc his poetry sucked?)

he went through an emo phase/ existential crisis before becoming sturmhond.

during said emo phase, he wrote rhyming poetry pretty much exclusively

He also took philosophy classes at uni (PPE?)

alina:

alina tried on the same rose dress that the Queen watched vasily die in

Nikolai gifted Alina a VERY low-cut cobalt lace gown (In the words of Nadia, “The bodice might as well be cut to the navel.” )

Alina hates herring, but Zoya and Nikolai love it

She is VERY sarcastic and snarky!! I feel like this gets glossed over so much in the fandom, and just why?? (she’s so gloomy and over everything 90% of the time, i love it so much)

So this isn’t technically a fact-fact, but there is no way Alina wasn’t at least a little bit into women. Did you read how she talked abt genya? Zoya? there’s no way she wasn’t into them

Alina doesn’t really like hard cheese

zoya + zoyalai:

Zoya’s horse is called Serebrine

Zoya can use her lightning as a defibrillator (I’m sure other squallers can do this too with the right training)

Zoya likes Nikolai’s hands (and Nikolai likes Zoya’s feet lmao)

she has ‘weird (long?) incisors’  

she definitely had a crush on Nikolai since Ruin and Rising

kaz:

Kaz grew up on a farm in Southern Kerch, in Lij

Kaz is a both a cat and a dog person  (he just likes strays)

Matthias is a dog person, obviously

All the other crows are cat people 

He likes hot chocolate

both he and nikolai like brandy

hates cereal

Kaz is obsessed with magic + likes puzzles

actually very funny if he wasn’t terrifying (honestly?? at leat 70% of his dialogue is just witty quips/jokes)

Kaz’s right leg is the one he broke, and the dregs usually get their tattoo on their right forearm

the other crows:

Jesper has been known to go line-dancing (and would like country music) 

Mal and Jesper were friends in S+S!! (Probably) Jesper has a not-really-secret crush on sturmhond. 

He also had a VERY not secret crush on Kaz before wylan, ofc

Matthias’ middle name is Benedik

Nina would win in an arm wrestling contest against Jesper

Inej has a thing for Kaz’s eyes

Nina was at the orphanage with the other grisha kids in R+R

In the opening scene of CK, Jesper was wearing a navy waistcoat with little gold stars (his fashion is just top tier honestly)

grisha- powers, etc.:

A solar eclipse would have no effect on the Darkling’s powers, but it would make it harder for Alina to summon.

Fabrikators can make flowers bloom

The twins have shark teeth amplifiers

Adrik and Leoni are saints

general world stuff:

Gay marriage is legal in Kerch!

there was a landbridge connecting Shu Han and Kerch but the council of tides covered it

Antimony is used as mascara

kruge is pale purple paper currency

ravkan currency has Nikolai’s face on it (ig not anymore tho?)

Hringkälla is celebrated on March 20th

the distance between Ivets and Os Alta is only about 100 miles? (i’m just going to willfully ignore this, because thats,, so small?)

Mermaids and dragons exist(ed) in the grishaverse

misc:

the daughter of the duke of ivets has a daughter who can play the harp

there is not fourth tale of krigi

The baroness Natasha Beritrova is fifty (as of KoS) and has lands near caryeva

Elke Marie Smit is from one of the most powerful Kerch families and is just 16 in KoS

Oncat is an orange tabby

Anya liked Joost a lot :( (I got way too attached to them at the start of SoC and was so sad + confused when they died lol)

david eats hard boiled eggs for his working days in the shops

‘Malyen’ is the Ravkan version of ‘Malcolm’ (very fitting)

Nikolai brought the kids at Keramzin toy boats + frequently sends Alina and Mal gifts 

The triumvirate would also visit them every feast of Sankt Nikolai too :)

star signs / birthdays (ik the gv constellations aren’t the same as ours, but idc):

Inej: Cancer (june 21st - july 22nd)

Kaz: Capricorn (december 22nd - january 19th)

Nina: Leo (july 23rd - august 22nd)

Jesper: Gemini (may 21st - june 20th)

Matthias: Taurus (april 20th - may 20th)

Wylan: virgo (august 23rd - september 22nd)

Kuwei: aries (march 21st - april 19th)

Darkling: aries

Nikolai is most likely either a gemini or cancer (but he could also be a Leo or Taurus). Whatever it is, he is a summer baby.

Alina and Mal have the same birthday (they were given the Duke’s birthday when they came to the orphanage)

heights:

Jesper is 6’2” - 6’3”

Kaz is 6′

Matthias is 6’4

Nina is 5’9”-5’10”

Inej is 5’3” - 5’4”

Alina is ’short’ (5’3”?)

Mal and the Darkling are ‘tall’ (tbf, like all the characters are tall >:( I want my short people rights)

Nikolai  (well, stumhond, but i think they’re the same height) is described by Jesper as tall (so 6’2”+?? why is everyone so tall??? I-)

Zoya is several inches shorter than nina (zoyalai height difference lets go)

Kuwei is slightly shorter than Wylan (who is about 5’8”?)

there’s definitely more, so if you made it this far and have any more, pls add to the list!

[abluescarfonwaston]

The wolves all go out of there way to bring home a few books every winter. Just whatever they can find and fit in their bags. They won't ever be able to replace the library they lost during the sacking but the slowly growing collection does give then something else to do during the long winter nights.

It also becomes a bit of a competition- as it always does between them - to bring the best book, the book with the most interesting story of how they acquired it, and the most Valuable book (the definition of which changes every year).

Lambert makes it his goal every year to bring the most indecent romance novels he can. I'm talking novels labeled Erotic. I'm talking Porn with just enough plot to get published. Sometimes the others will try to one up him by bringing something even steamier. No one has ever beaten Lambert though.

Much to Vesemir horror the new library is a majority erotic novels (which they do try to hide from Ciri when she arrives).

One year Lambert brings home a story about a wandering knight and his faithful squire. He likes to read excepts to the wolves to get back at them for insulting his cooking, ripping the fancy blanket he won last year, beating him at qwent. Any opportunity really.

And the first few chapters are them going to brothels and wooing ladies. the standard stuff.

But then. Then they start sharing beds and brothels and the other partners just. fall away and they're Only with each other.

Lambert LOVES reading this to Geralt especially cause it can Actually make Geralt blush and run from the room. He's NEVER managed that with Geralt. Fuck YEAH.

And Geralts Dying. Because he recognized the prose during the First Chapter. and the pen name the writer used.

Dandelion.

Jaskier had written a gay romance novel about the two of them. Chocked full of the squires effusive praise for the ‘knight’.

And then one day Lambert stops reading it. Seems even shorter than normal with everyone.

"Lambert you wanna stop being a prick and read your dumb gay romance novel to us? Promise to only throw food at you this time." Eskel said.

"No. that was a shitty Fucking book and I hate it."

"Oh did the gays die again? Lambert you know they won't get published if they have a happy ending. Just rip the last pages out like always."

"No! The knight went and rode off into he Fucking sunset with that damn princess! Left the squire behind without a Fucking word!!!! I hate that Fucking knight and wanna rip his Fucking dick off!"

"Oh. Huh. Well they didn't die for once. happy ending."

"It's not a happy ending Eskel how -

"The knight and the princess were Fated to be together Lambert! all the foreshadowing was there!"

"The princess treated him like a moron! The squire Actually knew him and cared about him!"

"The squire caused him nothing but problems Lambert! Of Course he went with the princess who loved him and could give him the peaceful life he craved! Not every damn bi man has to end up with the guy Lambert!"

Eskel and Lambert continued their Screaming match. Vesemir appear to be regretting his every life decision. Ciri popped in the earplugs and continued reading her book. Geralt stared into his ale, frozen.

"What happens to the squire Lambert?" Geralt asked his drink quietly.

"THATS THE WORST PART. HE SMILES AND SENDS THEM OFF. LIKE HE ALWAYS KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN AND WAS HAPPY FOR THEM. AND YOU CAN JUST TELL HOW HEARTBROKEN THE MOTHERFUCKER IS AND WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY WITH THAT."

"This is why we told you not to bring gay novels Lambert. You always get upset with how they end."

"It's not Fucking fair."

Geralt’s chair screeches against the stone as he stands up - an oddity since they all Hate that noise and actively avoid making it.

"Where are you going?" Eskel questioned as he stroad to the door.

"I need to talk to Jaskier."   

"And how do you intend to do that? Gonna ride down the mountain in a Fucking blizzard Geralt?"

"I." The door slammed closed behind him.

"Should." Ciri started. "One of us check on him?"

"No." They all said in unison.

(They did all at some point check on him)

Ciri was first. with a timid and then assertive knock on his door before she entered. Crawling into his arms and burrowing into his chest.

"We can go find him as soon as the snow melts. Okay?"

"I don't think he'd be very excited to see me." He mourned tucking her closer and burying his nose in her hair.

"It's Jaskier." She said simply about a man she only knew from their stories. "He's always excited to see you."

"You going to Brood all winter or do you actually want to figure out how to apologize wolf?" Eskel asked dragging him to the courtyard for a spar.

"There's nothing I can do. He'll never forgive me."

"Oh like he'd Never forgive you for the Djinn? Or for ripping his favorite doublet? Or telling him his singing sucked?" Eskel landed a hard jab. "And what happened every one of those times he'd Never forgive you?"

"That's different." He said returning the blow.

"Uh huh. Guess we'd better make sure you've got a damn good apology ready then?" Eskel smiled easily like he knew the punchline to a very funny joke. "Tell me what happened."

So he did.

Vesemir eased into the spring water across from him with a groan. He wondered how long he had before Vesemir started making fun of how long he spent in the bath again. Longer than if it was Eskel or Lambert at least.

They sat there and a question curdled in his belly until it forced its way out.

"How are we supposed to not get attached?"

"I think we're well past that point lad."

"But How? I can't. All these years and I still can't." He buried his head in his hands so he couldn't see how he'd failed Vesemir yet again.

"If I knew I'd tell you Geralt." Vesemir said, exhausted.

He glanced up and was Viscerally reminded how much Vesemir had lost over the long centuries of his life.

How he'd seen the school founded and fall. How he'd known every child who'd walked these halls and died in them.

How he knew exactly how many had died in the raid.

He remembered how Vesemir had fallen to pieces when the last Witcher he'd ever teach, Leo, had died.

And he remembered how Vesemir put himself back together for them.

"I can't. I can't Vesemir." If Ciri or Eksel or Lambert or Vesemir or Jaskier died. "I'm not as strong as you. I Can't."

"You will. You are." Vesemir squeezed his shoulder as he stood. "Make it worth the loss Geralt."

He sunk into the hot water and wondered how it could be.

He was half asleep when the door Slammed open and only had half a second before Lambert was cannon-balling into his chest.

"FIXED IT!"

He breathed through the pain. "Fix my ribs ass."

"You're fine whiny old man." Lambert shoved a book under his nose. the scent of barely dried ink filling his nostrils. "Read it!"

"Just tell me what happened. I'm not reading your handwriting in the dark." He said shoving it back.

"It's better than yours!" It wasn't. "The knight gets his head out of his ass and tells the squire he loves him and they go on countless more adventures." he puffed up proudly.

"And the princess? what happens to her?"

Lambert scowled at him. "Who gives a fuck about the princess?"

‘I do.’ He thought. "The knight does." He said.

"Ugh. uh. she meets another princess and they go ride off into there own sunset. okay? Happy you ungrateful prick?"

He smiled in a way that made Lambert gag. "I think that's a much better ending Lambert."

"Of course it is!" He preened from atop Geralt. Toes digging into his abdomen painfully.

"Now get out of my room or I'll throw you into the snow bank Lambert."

Lambert tried to call him on the threat so he made to make good on it. Lambert dashed from the room with a crass gesture.

That did sound like a better ending. He gripped his medallion and hoped that in the spring they'd get that ending.

An ending that lead into a very very happy beginning of something new.

[angeloncewas]

yeah i totally agree with what you said about satire and schlatt basically taking the easy way out. it seems like since that video he's kinda eased back from doing that shit, either bc the backlash or bc his friends have started verbally calling him out on it, both to his face and through making comments about him on stream (comments as in like saying they dont agree with what he did and saying they thought that video was terrible, not like them shading him or whatever ajsksk) which is good but also i wouldnt be surprised if something like that video happened again just bc like. it is his career and at this point he has to know what his larger fanbase is like to an extent, which means he also knows those terrible fucking jokes will make him money. i dont like that, but im also not gonna sit around and pretend like i cant see the fucking obvious, ya know? from what ive seen of him when he's not putting on a show for his main channel, or when he isnt around people who both encourage and enable his bad behavior (not saying this to shift blame, ive just noticed how he goes from making actually funny jokes that are harmless or, at most, a pretty obvious example of him poking fun at shitty people, at least imo, to like. straight up just being offensive when he's with people like swagger, miz, etc. vs ted, charlie and so on), he seems like a pretty good guy and its pretty clear to me that he doesnt hold the same views as the character he plays up for his main channel but that doesnt change the fact that his audience is now full of the worst kinds of people and that is how he makes money.

as someone who, again, watched idubbbz, as well as filthyfrank, they both stated they were playing characters and they didnt agree with the shit they were joking about, joji especially, but them saying that isnt very well known by even their own fanbase who just watches their main channel stuff, bc the one video where joji made that explicitly clear what he was doing, he later deleted for people harassing him in the comments (it was an old ass video where he basically said that playing those characters was giving him literal health problems, specifically stress induced seizures, and his comments were so bad that he never made an ooc video on his main channel again) and the one video i can think of where ian explicitly said he was playing a character was like an hour long podcast with h3, which most people dont even wanna watch bc it is a painfully uncomfortable one hour, considering the fact that they are supposed to be friends. besides that, the only other time they were really out of character was in vlogs with maxmoefoe, and they still did their offensive bits from time to time bc it was still going up on youtube, even if it wasnt their main channel. compare that to schlatt who has, as far as i know, never explicitly said he's playing a character, and the closest he has gotten to saying that was in some weekly slap video that i cant remember the title of bc all those videos kinda blend together if im being honest. like they definitely show a different, better side of him, but they are also all really short videos with only gameplay to watch and he never even promotes the channel, so its not like the shitty people watching him are like "hm time to take some time out of my day to go watch big man schlatt give people advice and be a genuine person for once", right?

idk. schlatt is just such a weird person for me bc like. he is a big comfort for me, i really do enjoy his content when he's not making bad stabs at satire (bc sometimes he does it right!! but a lot of the time, at least recently, he has just missed the mark entirely, to the point where it feels like he wasnt even trying to hit the mark at all), but he is also so uncomfortable to watch sometimes just bc he seems to either not know where the line is, or thinks crossing it is okay bc its him playing a character and that's not fun to watch as a minority who often ends up being apart of that "punchline".

that aside tho...yes, unfortunately idubbbz does still make content (and i say unfortunately bc it is not very good) though it seems like he is very slow to upload and last i checked, the views arent too great, but ive seen worse. probably the only thing that could bring back his views at this point would be a content cop, but like a year or so back he said he has no plans of continuing the series bc he finds it boring now, which is fair enough. i dont really keep up with him anymore, but as far as i know, he just got married to anisa and he streams on twitch sometimes, besides that the dude is a mystery to me!

—🦷 (also im sorry if this is formatted weird, for whatever reason tumblr has indented each of my paragraphs with one of those grey line thingys and it wont let me remove it. if it doesnt show up in the actual ask then ignore this!)

This is kind of old now (sorry), but I still wanted to respond because I really appreciate your perspective :)

> I always wonder how people not involved in the fandom view Schlatt. Because wasn't there this thing about Hasan genuinely thinking that he was conservative? And like he obviously doesn't now, but does that not impact how he sees him and his content? I don't mean to dictate friendships - of course - I'm just curious as to the impact of having that audience from an outsider pov. I remember being shocked what that thing happened with the pdp fan, but I later found that many people weren't because they knew the nature of the audience he cultivated; maybe I'm just stupid, I had no idea. (Not that Schlatt and pdp are the same, it's just a loose comparison.)

> No one should face harassment, but I doubt Joji deleting that video helped his case. (I mean ig it worked out in the long term considering everything that happened with his music, but yk.) I'm very sorry for the health problems he faced with the characters themselves though. I don't know much about him but that sounds awful.

> I have thoughts on The Weekly Slap, but I think they make me sound bitter and don't add much so just know that they're there ajfdkjdf. I will say that he doesn't seem like "Jschlatt" in them, and moreso just a guy. I know that he quit it for a number of reasons and one of them was not being comfortable with that kind of connection in relation to his increasing fame, but honestly I think his complete dislodgement from his fanbase isn't healthy either.

> I mean, I get it. I've watched a lot of content from a lot of people - ranging from kind of unpleasant to very unsavory - and it's kind of a weird feeling with YouTube and Twitch stuff. Idk it's like - when I go to the grocery store, I'm not wondering if the guy checking my things out is a racist. When I see a commercial, I don't wonder if that guy advertising chicken nuggets is a secret creep. But with content creation of this kind, it's just a weird thought in the back of my mind. I don't know if this makes sense lmao

> Weird that Idubbz finds content cop "boring." I guess the formula is kind of stale and half of the content was the edge, but it seems like the kind of thing that'd be perfect to capitalize off of around now. Cool that he got married... I think. I mean if he's happy ???

> Don't mind the formatting, and sorry to respond like WAY past when this conversation was relevant T_T. I read it right away but the timing got off with actually being able to type stuff out.

[fordanoia]

I Think I Saw You [Ch 2: Interference]

Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: - || Stan comes to Gravity Falls upon receiving a postcard from Ford, but he can’t find him and he has to figure out what’s going on. || Ao3 || Fic Tag

Prologue || Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || - || - || -

______(~6.3k words)______

Stan squinted up at the small ceiling light, eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light. When he could see again, he was able to make out shards of glass from the light bulb sitting at the bottom of the foggy dome.

Great.

He quietly flipped off the light switch for all the good it did and walked back to the pantry, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Light bulbs going out wasn’t that out of the norm though. Even as he tried to reason that out to himself though, he knew it was bull.

Sure. Light bulbs going out was pretty common. What wasn’t ordinary was faulty lighting that followed you into a different room in a house that was working with zero problems beforehand. 

That wasn’t normal. Nothing about this - any of this was normal. 

Stan sighed, rifling back into the cabinet for food and making himself a can of soup.

The house could have had bad wiring, and maybe it actually did, but not one light bulb even so much as flickered yesterday when he’d had every light on in the house at the same time.

It was suspicious, and he knew it was still just a light bulb blowing out, but he wasn’t an idiot. Well, he wasn’t that much of an idiot. There was ‘weird,’ and then there was ‘something is definitely going on here.’ Heck, Ford’s house was chock full of weird stuff and half of that stuff looked supernatural so it’s not like it would be that much of a surprise. 

In all honesty, he still hadn’t ruled out something supernatural for what had been going on with Ford. Not like he’d been able to rule out anything since he’d started actually thinking about how to find him though. 

In a matter of days he’d gone from not caring about Ford to caring a whole lot about finding him. If Ford hadn’t written him, Stan wouldn’t have even known or worried about this. Maybe Ma would have written to him about it though.

Ma’s letters had gotten a lot shorter and started showing up a whole less often a long time ago, but Stan still got them now and then. The few times she had mentioned Ford in her letters it had been with a quick, lone sentence slipped between sentences about something else entirely. She didn’t even use his name, it was always ‘your brother.’ Shermie was Shermie, but ‘your brother’ was only ever Ford.

‘Your brother’s off at school now.’

‘Your brother’s got a research job all the way in Oregon.’

The comments always stuck out in the middle of her words like a sharp tack. No matter how she tried to slip it in casually and pretend like stuff was fine, it still stuck out like a sore thumb. 

It was like some bad joke, except there wasn’t a punchline here. 

Stan smiled to himself, imagining how she would have told him about this. 

‘I’ve been doing tarot readings on my calls now. Your brother’s missing. Describing the card’s meaning adds up so much time.’

He tried to think about that, about how funny that part of the situation would have been, how funny it was because it was pretty much how it would go down if it happened. 

His own word choice eventually sunk in though. He hadn’t really thought of Ford as ‘ missing’ before. ‘Missing’ brought with it a lot of other meanings and implied situations than just ‘not home’ or ‘gone’ did. 

This whole thing with Ford may have looked bad... and it was, but if Stan could bounce back from going missing missing a dozen times then Ford could do it at least once, right? 

All Ford had to do was be alive.

The thought sat heavy for a moment with half formed ideas that he immediately pushed away. He didn’t need to get caught up thinking about- about dumb stuff. 

Ford was just... missing. Ford was just missing, and all Stan had to do was find him. That wasn’t too bad. It was still bad and Stan was having a hell of a time since he’d gotten that postcard, but it definitely wasn’t the worst situation Stan had ever been in. 

Stan had food, a roof over his head, and so far nobody in town wanted him dead! If it wasn’t for the missing brother he was trying to find, he’d be doing great.

Even weird spirits messing with lights weren’t that bad. It just was giving him some bad ideas about what was going on here. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if something in Ford's house could mess with lights though. Between all his nerdy science junk and the nerdy supernatural stuff, there was something bound to mess with electricity. 

Stan had spotted more than a dozen homemade looking gadgets around the house, and he didn’t know what a single one of them did. He’d tried picking up a small remote looking thing in the kitchen and pressed a button on it. It had made a quiet hum noise, let out three angry beeps, then shot out a piece of metal into his palm and shocked him.

He stopped messing with the gadgets after that one.

So there was a good chance Ford had something hooked up that was zapping the power in the house weird. Or Stan had awakened a vengeful spirit from its resting place of some spooky vase he’d nudged.

Either one was fine by him. Honestly, he already had plenty of people that wanted revenge against him so one spirit that couldn’t even throw a knife was really low on his list of worries for his own life.

Heck, even thinking about some ancient cursed spirit or invisible wizard floating around him made him feel better. It was like having company around. Invisible, probably floating company like an annoying upstairs neighbor he never actually saw.

“Hey,” Stan spoke, his lips quirking into a lopsided smile. “If there’s a ghost here then knock over a chair or something.” He half joked. “Oh, or slam open all the cabinets at the same time. I always wanted to see something like that happen.” If he was in a haunted house he might as well make the most of it.

He didn’t hear anything though, besides the noises of the microwave. Eventually the timer went off and Stan popped open the small door.

“Eh, suit yourself.”

Once he finished eating, Stan got ready to head into town. As fun as reading barely legible notes were, he could only figure out so much from them and he wasn’t going to find Ford in that house. 

Either he’d find someone suspicious in town or someone suspicious would come after him if he stirred things up enough about Ford. If they tried to get rid of Ford then chances were good they’d try to get rid of him if he just kept bothering enough people about him. 

Stan picked his bag up and headed towards the front door. He hesitated at all the mismatching locks drilled into the wall beside the frame.

He’d already seen it, but it was still an unsettling reminder. A guy doing fine didn’t have seven different locks on his door. 

His ears buzzed in the silence, the stagnant air at his back pressing in on him. 

On a whim, he looked backwards into the dim hallway and reached for the light switch near the door, keeping his finger against it as he flicked it on.

The hallway illuminated in a soft warm light that did nothing, no changing brightness or unsteady flashing that could hint at anything else being here besides himself. 

If Stan just kept his eyes on the hallway, and not down at the mess near his feet or into the shadows of any of the rooms, it looked like a cozy wooden shack. It looked like a place that could have been nice. It would have been too. If the rest of the house didn’t practically scream that something was wrong. If Ford wasn’t...

Stan scoffed at himself, and flipped the switch back down again before undoing the locks on the front door to leave.

  All things considered, it looked like a pretty regular small town, and for some reason something about that pissed off a small part of Stan. 

Okay, maybe... half of him...

Okay, so it pissed him off, but he didn’t know why. 

Something about Ford choosing to come to a small town. He couldn’t care less to follow down the why of it though. Besides, that didn’t matter. A small town right now was great because it meant less places Ford could be holed up at and that he didn’t have to waste gas to get around.

He drove around once to get his bearings and hopefully spot something good. The snow had been plowed off of the roads and he’d seen a few people walking around on the sidewalk. No sign of Ford, of course though. The universe couldn’t make it that easy for him apparently. 

The town had a pretty basic layout with everything centered around the town square and a water tower you could always see that made it easy to tell where you were in the town.

Stan parked at the nearest place to Ford’s house which turned out to be a diner on the side of the road not far from the outskirts of town called Greasy’s Diner.

The diner was in front of the woods and the building itself was shaped like a friggin’ log laying on its side. He went inside, the bell ringing as he opened the door.

It didn’t look too busy. There were a couple people scattered throughout the small diner, and only one waitress who was standing behind the counter. 

She had bright blue eyeshadow and shiny earrings that caught the light when she turned towards him with a smile, cheerfully greeting him. “Hi, stranger! What can I get for you?”

“Do you have a menu?” He asked, with absolutely zero intention of buying anything as he sat down on one of the stools at the counter.

She turned to point at a chalkboard that had a small list of items on it. No big surprise when he saw the same breakfast food every diner had. 

“I might need a minute.” He said. 

“That’s alright, take your-” She stopped suddenly, her voice quickly and excitedly picking back up. “Wait a second, I know you!”

Shit... Shit.

Stan laughed tensely, turning his face away and pretending to look at the arm wrestling machine. “Me? Ha, no way. I just got into town, see. You must be thinking of someone else.”

He hadn’t even been to Oregon before, how did she know-?!

“No,” she insisted, “you’re that- you’re the mysterious science man from the woods, right?”

Stan’s mind stopped running through where he could have seen her before, and he looked back at her again.

She lit up at his reaction. “I knew it!” She said happily. “I knew I recognized you. I’ve got great eyes.”

His own face recovered before he did, giving a practiced, winning smile. “Close! I’m actually his brother.” He stumbled over the final word.

"Oh brother, huh?" She said with interest, and then the light just behind her began to flicker, and Stan wasn't looking at her anymore. "Well, nice to meet you, I'm Susan-!"

"Does your light always do that?" He interrupted. 

Susan turned, catching sight of the flickering bulb. “Ohhh, I just replaced that one!” She took a step stool tucked away, and set it underneath the lightbulb, stepping onto it to reach the light.

As soon as she started touching it though, it stopped flickering, and she set her hands on her hips with a self-satisfied smile.

Then the next hanging light bulb started flickering. 

Amidst the waitresses’ commentary that he was tuning out, Stan realized the light was flashing a pattern he recognized. He pushed himself to stand, hands on the counter, staring at the signal. It wasn’t perfect, but it was there. Three short, three long, three short, and over again.

Whatever was doing that, it was signalling S.O.S..

When Susan's hands settled on the flashing light bulb, it stopped and the next light bulb over immediately picked up the pattern.

A small cry from his right finally broke his attention from the flashing bulb, and Stan glanced over. A light bulb hanging over a booth burnt out, and Stan realized all the lights past that one had gone out already, leaving the far end of the diner dim.

The next closest light, the one hanging over the counter, fizzled out then burnt out next. Stan glanced to his left and saw the same thing happening on his other side.

One by one, it kept happening, the lights going out slowly all in a line headed right to him. Indiscreet murmurs made it hard to hear the buzzing of fluctuating electricity. 

And still, still, the light bulb right in front of him was signalling S.O.S., flashing quicker, more insistent, as the lights burnt themselves out in quicker succession the closer they got to him.

Stan braced for an unseen impact that never came as the last few lights broke. 

As it reached the last bulb, the one that had never stopped flashing over his head, the bulb shattered. Sharp, thin sounds of glass hit the counter and floor, punctuated by Susan shouting in surprise. 

“Darn transformer!” Susan said, brushing her apron free of any glass shards.

He slowly shook his arms to throw off any glass on him and ran a hand through his hair. 

“The transformer?” Stan slowly looked at her. “The transformer ? Transformers don’t do that. Lights don’t-” He cut himself off, glancing up briefly at the broken light bulb that had been flashing S.O.S. not even knowing where to begin thinking about that yet.

She looked back at him, confused before awkwardly picked out a dustpan. “Well, sure.” She thought for a second, then added on as she swept up the glass. “Well- You know, the power used to go out all the time here. All across town! It’s probably just that starting back up again, actually!”

“Why though?”

She hummed. “I dunno.” Susan said as she dumped the broken glass into a trash can then carefully wiped the counter for any glass. “Always thought that it had something to do with whatever mysterious thing your brother was working on. It stopped a few months ago though. Maybe he’s working on something again in that house! Have you been to his house yet? I bet it’s filled with all kinds of experiments.”

“Not yet. I better go see him actually. I’m shoplifting something to eat anyway.”

“Huh?” She stopped cleaning to look at him. 

“Uh- I said I’m eating with him anyway.” He smiled at her. “Hey, has anyone ever told you you’re really good at wiping counters?”

She immediately brightened up at the compliment. “Oh, thanks! I wipe in zigzag patterns! ”

“...I noticed.” He backed up to leave. “Well, anyway see ya.”

“Bye! Come back soon.” 

The door chimed after him once he left. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned out onto the sidewalk heading further into town.

Okay. Okay . 

His thoughts just kept swirling around over and over, none of them settling long enough for any of them to go anywhere. He already didn’t know what was going on here, and now? Now there was something weird in the mix that apparently wasn’t just stuck at Ford’s house?

Maybe it had something to do with all this, maybe it didn’t. Either way it wasn’t telling him anything.

“You know I’m kinda busy right now, yeah?” He muttered to the air. “You need help? Then actually say it or- hell.”

Stan stopped walking along the strip outside of some shop front. The large glass wall showcased some antiques set up front for display and past that there were shelves lined with more knicknacks. He leaned close to the glass, taking in a deep breath of air and letting it out to fog up the window. 

“Alright.” He said, writing a question mark into the fogged up glass. “Say something.”

He waited, watching the fogged spot. 

Instead of messages getting written in the glass, one of the lights on the strand lining the window began to flicker. You know what, fine, that worked too.

Three short blinks, S. No- four. No. No, it wasn’t- it wasn’t morse code. It was too erratic and fast. It was just... flickering.

“That’s nothing, you’re saying nothing.”

As if angered, the light bulb burnt out in response. Then three more of the lights started flickering then quickly burnt out. Again though, it wasn’t any kind of morse code, it just looked like a light going out.

Stan turned on his heel without hesitation and walked down the sidewalk. “Yeah, yeah, I got that the first time.”

The ghost- spirit, whatever it was - he didn’t care and he didn’t pay attention to it. As he walked, lights would dim or flicker when he passed by them. If he couldn't understand it then there was nothing he could do about it anyway. 

This was exactly what he needed, one more confusing layer on this whole thing, because apparently now there was a spirit involved in all of this now. This was his life now. 

He couldn’t even care less if he was being haunted right now, at least up until it started throwing knives at him. What he did care about though was if it had anything to do with what was going on or if Stan really had just accidentally cursed himself when he was rifling through Ford’s junk. 

He also wasn’t sure why it would need help and even less sure what he could even do to help a spirit that he couldn’t even understand. He was half thinking it was just messing with him.

Why did it signal for help, then just decide to go back to ‘spooky flickering lights’ instead of using morse code again even if it was just S.O.S. over and over? It didn’t make sense. Nothing since he’d gotten here made sense.

Stan twisted his knuckles against each other through the fabric of his pockets, ignoring the occasional flickering light. Eventually the lights stopped, taking the hint.

  He might not have had any leads about where Ford was at, but he knew at least one place Ford had to have visited.

The library was a pretty small wooden building, cozy and by the looks of it empty too. Ford probably would have thought it was the perfect place. 

The second Stan pushed in the front door, he heard a buzzing to his left and the light in the small foyer flickered haphazardly. He rolled his eyes, ignoring the bulb burning out and kept walking inside.

A quick glance around, he didn’t see anyone around. After looking down a couple aisles though he spotted someone glancing over a row of books. Stan was about to dismiss it as another patron before they glanced over at him and jumped.

Their hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun that looked like it was gonna fall loose when they turned their head from whatever hair tie or clips that were holding it together. 

“Oh-! Uh.” They paused, looking at Stan, uncertain. “Ford?”

Fucking Bingo. 

Stan walked closer so he could talk with them. “Hey, really close. I’m his brother. I was actually looking for him.” 

“Oh.” They straightened up. “Sorry, uh... I haven’t seen him around here lately.” 

Stan hummed. “Hey, you work here, right?”

“Yeah. Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “Yeah, could you tell me what books Ford’s got checked out right now?”

They agreed easily enough and led him back towards the circulation desk and turned to the rows of small square drawers on the back wall behind the desk.

Once they pulled out one of the drawers, the desk lamp Stan had only just really noticed started to flicker, and Stan shot a warning look at it. 

It stopped flickering. 

The librarian, Lee going by the name tag that was close enough for him to read now, turned back around, looking at a card in their hand. “Yeah, this is it.” They said, looking up and holding the card out to him. “Here.” 

As soon as Stan grabbed it the desk light suddenly burned out into a dark grey as it went out.

The librarian paused with their hand out, looking over at the lamp before focusing back on Stan again and retracting their hand. “Uh, anyways, this card has all the books he had checked out. They're all overdue..."

"Ha, yeah, that's Ford for you." Stan said with a short smile. “Booknerds, am I right?”

Their mouth opened a couple times like they had a couple different things to say before they finally settled, frowning at him. “They’re really overdue...”

Eh, that’s on him for trying to talk about nerds to a librarian. “Yeah, yeah, right. I’ll tell him when I see him.” He looked down at the card, quickly realizing the dates on the books checked out. 

"Hey, nothing's been checked out in the past few months." Stan said, looking back at them. "You got a newer card?"

"That's it." They answered simply. 

Stan half smiled, feeling a laugh curdling and souring in the back of his throat. "Come on, ha, you're telling me he hasn't been here for what, weeks?"

Quietly, they looked back at him with a half concerned expression. 

The silence quickly stagnated the air around them.

He cleared his throat and checked the card again, reading it all the way through this time. “Okay then...”

It looked like there were still five books checked out. Most of them had some kind of occult or supernatural title like 'Exploration of Demons & Spirits’ except for one that had a really long title about neural oscillation and electricity. His thoughts went dead in the water, trying to make sense of that one.

Who went and decided a title could go on for two or three sentences?

Even the short titles didn’t stick out to him much past them being about supernatural ghosts and fairies. No matter how he turned all the titles over in his head all he could take away from it was that Ford was reading up on ‘supernatural stuff and science junk’ which covered everything Ford studied. 

Stan heard the tail end of a question, “-ng alright?”

“Huh?” Stan looked up to see Lee watching him. 

“I said, is he doing alright?” They asked again, brow slightly furrowed. 

Lee had only been the second person he’d talked to Ford about today, but It felt like Stan was getting asked the same annoying question for the thousandth time. This person had to know something.

“How'd he look when you last saw him?" Stan asked instead.

They paused awkwardly and glanced aside, meandering with their words. "The last time I saw him... he seemed like he was in a hurry. Maybe he had a work deadline? I think he was stressed out.”

“Did he ever mention some guy?” 

They paused. “I’m... sorry, what?”

“I said, did he ever mention some guy?” Stan repeated himself. “When he was stressed out, did he ever talk about anybody. Or have any friends? Hell, did anybody ever come in here with him or seem like they were looking for him?” 

Lee’s eyes widened before their whole face shut down into an even expression and they took the card back out of his hand, busying themselves with putting the card back in its place. "I actually don't know." They said in a clipped tone. "Sorry."

Stan wanted to reach over the desk to pull them back by their shirt. He knew, he knew he was asking suspicious questions and he should have been playing it cool. They were hiding something though. 

“Hey, buddy.” Stan said, waiting for them to turn back around.

They tensely turned back towards him with a polite expression. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Their fingers tucking into the edge of the check out desk.

"Cut the bull." Stan told them, well beyond irritated. “Whatever, you know, I don’t care, but whatever it is I need to hear it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“I don’t-” Lee put up their hands. “Look, he was getting really suspicious about people last I saw him, but I don’t know anything about- whatever all this is about.”

Stan felt something in him, some tiny thread just snap.

“You have to know more than that.” Stan said, not even looking at them now. “You talked to him.”

He started to walk around in a short circle and gestured as his voice climbed, getting gradually louder. “This was the goddamn library, he was probably here- what? Countless times. More than- more than the friggin' grocery story or any other stupid building in this whole town outside of his own house!”

Stan pulled his voice back down, straining his voice. “Someone has to know something about my brother.” He said, finally looking back at them. 

If even the damn librarian barely knew anything about Ford...

Lee was watching him, fidgeting with their hands. “Alright... Uh.” They pushed their hands flat onto the desk, continuing calmly. “Look, he was here a lot, yes, but he didn’t talk about himself a lot and... and I really don’t know why he stopped showing up.”

“He never mentioned a name...?” Stan tried, hoping for something.

“No. Have you tried asking his neighbors or friends?”

Stan shut his eyes for a moment, all of his energy just leaving him all at once. “He lives out in the middle of the woods, and... and if he has friends I don’t know who they are or how to find them.” 

Stan opened his eyes back up again. “I’m just trying to find him.” He said. “I know you just work here or whatever, but I don’t know anybody that knew him and I don’t know where he’s at. Just...” He breathed in, feeling his ribs pressing in on him, “gimme something here.” 

They looked at him quietly and then their eyes shifted downwards in thought “He did come here once with someone a couple times... but that was- half a year ago?”

“You know who?”

Lee shook their head. "I don’t. He came every now and then, without your brother, but I haven’t seen him in a while either. He was tall and lanky though." 

“Anything else?”

“Uh.” They shrugged their shoulders. "He... might have had blonde hair? It was too long ago, I’m sorry, I really couldn’t tell you.”

A guy. A guy that was maybe blonde.

“Great...” He said.

“You know- he picked out textbooks mostly. I could check through some name cards and see if maybe I can spot him.”

Stan perked up a little. “You really think you would recognize him by some  books he checked out?”

“Well- maybe.” They said. “The textbooks don’t get checked out that often except by students so it’d stick out.”

Wait.

“You said textbooks? Do you remember what kind?”

Lee steepled their hands underneath their chin, squinting in thought for a long moment.

“... Math?” They finally said. 

“So definitely another nerd then.” 

That sounded like someone Ford could be friends with, also could be someone that was behind this. Either way if Stan could find him, he’d consider that a win.

“It’ll take me a couple days to check through the cards though.” Lee said.

“You’re actually going to do it?” Stan asked, a little surprised. 

“I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna beat the guy up or nothing, right?” They half joked, smiling.

That depended on what the guy was like.

“Oh, course not.” Stan scoffing and waving his hand nonchalantly. “Ha, no. No, I’ve never even gotten into a fight.” He said casually, swinging his arms then planting his fists against his side.

A brass knuckle fell out of his coat pocket and hit the thin carpet with a dull thud.

Stan swiped down to pick it up, putting it back in his pocket before the librarian could see it. “Paperweight.”

“You carry a paperweight around with you?”

“...It’s Ford’s.”

“Ahh.” Lee nodded their head in sudden understanding. “Okay, well, anyway, try coming back here in a couple days.”

“Will do.” Stan turned to leave with a wave. “If you see him then just let him know I was looking for him.”

  After long enough of poking around town, it’d turned dark and he’d gotten zero leads after asking practically half the town. Nobody besides the librarian had even seemed to know Ford’s name or anything about him. People only seemed to know him as the mysterious man who did science out in the middle of the woods. 

Even the seediest looking place in town, a bar that didn’t even look bad, hadn’t given him anything. Well, he could get a job smuggling some dogs, but he’d come back around to that offer later. 

He’d even wandered around the town after it turned dark and the streets had cleared out in the hopes someone would just jump him for asking too many questions. The town stayed quiet and he remained untouched even through barren streets and dimly lit alleyways though.

His faint reflection followed beside him in every darkened window he passed by as he headed back towards his car at a sluggish pace. He got so used to the accompanying shadow beside him that he didn’t even glance over when he saw it out of the corner of his eye anymore.

Which was why it took him an extra moment to realize that there was a second shadow casted onto the brick wall beside his own, moving at the same pace as him.

Stan spun on his feet to see the culprit, already pushing his fingers into the brass knuckles in his pockets.

He just turned to an empty street though. He glanced back again to the wall, only seeing his own shadow there, alone.

“Where..?” He looked down both ends of the street, not seeing or even hearing the signs of another person. Stan double checked again thinking maybe he’d missed a trashcan or something someone could have ducked behind when it finally hit him.

If there wasn’t anything physical around him, that didn’t leave a whole array of options.

“Hey.” He said. “Hey, buddy, I saw you.” 

The spirit, because what the hell else could it even be now, hadn’t done anything for a long time now. The flickering lights had sometimes started as morse code that never went past two letters and the rest of the time just looked like flickering. They always ended with a burnt out light bulb no matter what though, and after the millionth time he’d figured the thing was either purposefully trying to mess with him. The lights messing up around him had been steadily lessening throughout the day, and he hadn’t seen anything for the past couple hours so he thought the thing had finally gone.

Instead, it was apparently still hanging around him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

The low light washing over him began to flicker and Stan looked up at the lamp post responsible. It flickered (not morse code) then burnt out.

Stan lifted his hands. “Ooooh, spooky lights. Talk to me when you got something new, pal.” He turned to keep walking to his car.

He could hear buzzing lights behind him and ignored it. He was fully prepared to ignore it too until he saw a lamp post at the end of the street falter. 

It only flickered once, staying on, then the next lamp post coming towards him flickered as well, before moving onto the next one. 

Stan sighed heavily.

“You already did this bit before too, buddy.” Stan said, as the flicker kept heading in his direction through the lamp posts overhead. 

The light flickered overhead of him, and then a light behind him flickered, going past him this time. Confused, he turned to look behind him. 

The flicker of light bulbs was heading in a clear path back along the street.

After a moment, it happened again, the lamp post over his head flickering once and then the flicker went in a line down the street and back around a corner further into town.

He perked up, watching it happen again.

“You better be actually showing me something.” He warned, following the faulty lights.

There wasn’t any answer, no surprise there, but he kept following the trail anyway.

Stan was frustrated and tired of shooting in the dark all day, and right about now he was willing to check out anything out of the ordinary for some answers.

He wound up back in the middle of town again and saw the trail turning around the corner into town square. Before he could make it there, the street lamp at the corner shattered with an explosively loud buzz of energy.

Stan slowed to a stop and the flickering lights that were still trailing in the same direction picked up speed, urgently flashing in a fast line to the corner building, some dance studio.

He ran to the dance studio, trying to avoid stepping all over the glass shards on the sidewalk. The studio had large windows that made it easy to see inside, but he didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious inside.

Stan paused and checked for a door when he heard the buzz of electricity further on, and looked around the corner that led into the town square. All the lamp posts he could see from where he was at had gone dark.

He pushed against the building’s edge, running into town square, glass crunching under his feet every time he went under another dark lamp post until he went into the street.

“What the hell...?”

More than half the square was shrouded in darkness from broken lamp posts. To his left was the only side of the square that had any lamp posts left, and he could see them still breaking.

He heard the distant buzz of electricity and tinkling of glass hitting cement as the remaining lamp posts’ lights continued shattering, one after another. The first one he’d seen had bursted within a second, and it had been loud, but he swore these were quieter and taking longer to break. After a few more broken lights he was sure, with each one it was taking longer like the thing was running out of energy.

The trail of flickering lights had since stopped by this point so Stan just kept watching the breaking lamp posts.

With only a few lamp posts still shining, a lamp post weakly flickering for long enough that Stan wound up walking towards it. Even once he got to it, it was still going. Within seconds, the flickering eventually died down to nothing.

He looked at the building in front of him.

“Ice cream shop’s super important, huh?” He asked, slowly walking under the lamp posts that were still lit, no flicker from any of them. 

Maybe something was here, but he also wasn’t going to break into five different shops to find it. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for though. 

He continued wandering around the square. Nearly every window to every building was dark. The library, the museum, the shoe store, all of them. If there was anything or anyone suspicious around here then he wasn’t seeing it.

Stan stopped, watching one of the still shining lamp posts. “You ran out of juice, didn’t you?”

After a moment, the lamp post dimmed slightly, but so briefly Stan would have missed it if he hadn’t been staring right at it.

Alright. He rubbed his face with his hand.

“Again,” he said, starting the walk back to his car again, “this vague, ominous shit isn’t helping me understand whatever you’re trying to get across.”

He got into his car and turned on the radio, flicking through stations until he found something playing music he liked. The music station he’d picked out turned to quiet static once he was inside the woods though.

His car made its way along paths that wound around trees that took him further and further away from town. Driving to Ford’s shack was a lot easier this time, following his tire tracks still leftover in the snow from when he had left.

Stan sighed, pushing buttons for a station that was strong enough to make it through the thick trees. He eventually let it go, leaving the static on so he wouldn’t be driving in absolute silence. It filled the car with sound and made it feel less empty.

Driving through the woods was actually pretty nice when there wasn’t a blizzard threatening to push his car this way or that.

A garbled voice came through the static, a few words unintelligible through the static before it went back to silence.

He continued to drive, reaching for the knob and turning up the volume.

Sound came from the radio again, syllables half mangled. “ -t an - e y. ” It sounded like-

Stan slammed on his breaks, car sliding a few feet on the snowy path before stopping. He stared at his radio, cold needles pricking up his forearms. 

The static fluctuated, then more sounds came as a distinct voice forced its way through the static. 

“ S t--- ----. ---l o ? St an, s--- - a n- -- - -e-r ---? -- --- -. ” 

A cold weight settled into Stan’s stomach.

“...Stanford?” 

[kob131]

New "So This is Basically X" video from Jello Apocalypse is on RWBY, and it's a bunch of pretty much crapping on the show.

(Note: read the Edit section for my recollected thoughts. I’d jus rewrite the post but that’d be like covering my mistakes)

… You know what? My dog just died so I am in no mood to tolerate this bullshit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vYbF3_TAk

A. ‘Added into the show at the last minute’ he says as his own fucking image directly states that the ‘last minute’ was the fucking Red Trailer. AKA the fucking psuedo-pilot. He had so many other chances like Neo or ABRN or the fucking Maidens but nope decided to do the ONE wrong thing.

B. ‘Hoitty Toitty Princess’ Yeah, because she was abused by her dad for years as well as watched her mother degrade into a lifeless husk. Again, could have made an actual point but decided to just spew out the most basic shit ever.

C. ‘Lose every fight she’s been in.’

*cough* WHITE TRAILER *cough*

Also: Fucking Missed Oppritunity: 3 *ding*

D. ‘Weiss hates Ruby’

That stopped in Volume 1, try again

E. ‘How many ears do they have?’

2 or 4

‘Human ears?’

Always

‘Animal ears?’

Sometimes

‘Neither?’

That’s you

‘BOTH?’

Sometimes

‘Why do some of them only have tails?’

Genetics

‘Humans are racist against the Lagoos’

Says the man who tried guilt tripping half the population through racism accusations.

Missed Fucking Opportunity: 4 *ding*

E. What couldn’t find say bullshit to spew about Yang? Missed Fucking Opportunity: 5 *ding*

F. Those are fucking one offs characters. Homer’s Vegas wife isn’t referred to as a side character, why should most of these be any different?

Also: ‘Never explores any of these!’ *shows team CFVY who are getting their own fucking book*

Good to see you still suck at making a point.

G. ‘Show isn’t about the characters!’

We get it, you’re slurping the anti-RWBY crowd’s cock. Make a valid point that not everyone and their grandmother’s grandmother made years ago.

H. *tries citing Neptune, a character that had about twenty minutes of screentime total as ‘eating up’*

Are you gonna do SOMETHING worthwhile? Because these jokes fall flat with a basic knowledge of the show.

I. ‘It’s about the over the top spectacle fights!’

Which not only were far less frequent in other ‘similar’ shows but they sometimes just #ate up screentime.

Missed Fucking Oppritunity: 6 *ding*

J. *butt metal!*

*cites Flynt, a fucking JAZZ musician*

What’s next? ‘Durr, marvel movie orchestra? BAD1′

K. ‘durr, clipping issues!’

*Slaps Fist Of The Blue Sky: Re:Genesis onscreen*

Come back when you make a point.

L. Jello, at the 2:10 mark you’ve done nothing but either say the same standard bullshit (which gets disproven within a minute of research*) or make shitty Take That! jokes.

About fucking RWBY. Egoraptor’s Ocarina of Time and ScottFalco’s Pokemon videos are mocking the shit out of you because you somehow made a worse version of both, about a less subjective medium with a fucking barrel full of fish. Guess that ‘Vote’ video must’ve fried them braincells huh?

M. Dust is elemental gunpowder, how is such a basic concept too complex for you to handle?

N. ‘Steal Dust and never bring it up again!’

Probably because the ending of Volume 2 was the END GOAL of stealing the dust you dumbass.

O. The magic comes straight from the fucking gods, Semblance and Dust have been used in Remnant science. Or is my cheap ass phone magic because someone from the 17th century doesn’t know how it works.

P. *points behind Jello at the massive burly man with the title ‘Lord of the Rings’ on it’s chest*

Have fun with him.

Missed Fucking Opportunity: 7 *ding*

Q. Wanna bet if the RWBY haters didn’t slurp Chibi’s cock he’d be bashing hibi instead of praising it.

R. *join the plot*

Ruby is the fucking plot.

S. So I’m guessing you’d call Hercules’ rage against Olympus and Hera ‘him getting a little mad?’

That’s okay, just like how you’d say your little ‘vote’ video was just ‘you having a little brainfart; amirite?

T. Ah yes, Volumes 1 and 2, which had the least defined characters, the most wasted screentime, the least plot, the least likablke versions of the heroes, the most side characters (INCLUDING NEPTUNE WHO YOU MOCK)-

Literally EVERYTHING you’ve spewed out your mouth was in the first two Volumes and 4 and 5 are the worst ones. Sure.

Missed Fucking Opportunity: 8 *ding* (Should actually be about 8001)

U. ‘Speaking of garbage *which is a segway I could put anywhere in this video’-

Good to know you’re aware of the piss poor quality of the video. Now if only you’d learn to keep your trap shut.

V. Ozpin was never suppose to be morally grey, next.

W. …

*pulls out Qrow and Ruby and replaces it with Yang and Liar Bitch McMass Murd-I mean Raven.*

Wow, context kicks your ass.

X. Jello.

What is the plot of RWBY?

No ‘Well there IS no plot’ bullshit. Tell me. What. The plot. Is.

… You can’t can you? This is the fucking Vote video all over again. You’re talking about a subject you have no clue about, spouting off whatever you think will get you the most positive PR and did no research whatsoever, Except with the video so infamous you had to DELETE it, politics is an inherently difficult subject matter that is easy to screw up (well, not to your extent.)

This is a web show.

Made by two drunk interns and an animator who took inspiration from BLAZBLUE.

And you have NOT made a SINGLE valid point.

The closest you got was the lip movements but you CLEARLY weren’t talking about the Volumes where it mattered so fucking credit.

Y. Blah blah blah ‘Bumbleby bullshit because pander’

Z. Qrow: ‘Oh ad my sister sold me and the daughter she abandoned twice before to the literal devil. Also why I am saying the bird thing is a curse? I defended Ozpin. My sister is the one claiming it to be a curse. Because she wanted to get away from the immortal pseudo-Greek villian which is a common feeling most people would think to do since it appeals to the inherent pragmatism in humanity but I overcame it through my niece’s determination to do the right thing in the end because just being pragmatic and doing what is most likely to succeed goes against one of the few things that make human beings what we are!

… Now I’m gonna go say my political opinions like I’m an important figure and not a walking punchline only known for mildly entertaining content that has suffered such a drop the Simpsons are looking at me in pity because I have a massive ego. And then when people call me out, I’ll delete the video and mock them like the child I am.’

*cracks open a beer* I don’t care if that’s cruel. He wants to talk like he knows shit? He can take it.

Edit:

https://twitter.com/alle1304/status/1137340212315643904

Well I owe him an apology. Over thinking he was pandering to the hate mob as well as my stupid attitude.

However I still stand by a lot of what I said: He missed a LOT of opportunities to make a good point and instead went with the lowest common denominator stuff. Like with making the joke about Weiss hating Ruby. It’s not funny because the joke is based on heavily outdated information and is just blatantly untrue.

There’s a reason why his ‘Welcome to *Website*’ videos are funny. Because while it is an exaggeration of what happens on the websites, it’s still basically true. Humor works when it strikes hard, either by throwing something so absurd at you that you’re forced to laugh because you don’t understand it, so raunchy that you laugh at the absurdity in which something so wrong was said so earnestly or by saying something so true that you’re forced to laugh to make light of the situation.

Jello’s video doesn’t do any of that. It either says a bunch of basic stuff that doesn’t work with knowledge or is saying things in a satricial way that people , EARNESTLY say, basically invoking Poe’s Law on himself. (The law of ‘Without a clear indication, a satire of X can easily been taken as an earnest belief in X.��)

This isn’t to say I was justified in what I did: it’s just even in a rational state of mind, the video is too flawed to be funny.

(Also no, I don’t regret what I said about the Vote video.)

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: Movie 43

I want you all to know I sat at my computer for many minutes trying desperately and ultimately failing to find some way to talk about anthology or sketch comedy films. I kept trying to come up with some comparisons to how well the horror genre handles these kinds of films (for the most part anyway). And I was totally going to come up with some brilliant, cutting lead in to talking about the black hole of talent known as Movie 43.

Sorry to disappoint you all. It’s a sentiment I share with just about every single actor in this film.

Movie 43 is a sketch comedy film, though honestly the “comedy” part should be in quotations because it takes a mind heavily impaired by illicit substances to find humor in this film. And look, I’m no comedic prude; I get a laugh out of stuff like Freddy Got Fingered, I’m not so snooty I’m above Scary Movie or getting a chuckle out of Step Brothers, I’m not only in to high concept British comedies or anything. But this, this really is bad on a level that even The ABCs of Death wasn’t, because as disgusting, vomit-inducingly bad as that film was, at least it was full of no-name actors with nothing to lose and no dignity to begin with seeing as they were in The ABCs of Death. This movie is not only stuffed to the brim with famous actors and actresses, most of them were roped into appearing in this out of strict contractual obligation rather than any real desire to be in the film. A lot of actors just got sucked in and guilted, only a small handful of them even showed up to the premier, and only Stephen Marchant has anything nice to say about being in the movie. Everyone else has at least enough dignity to be ashamed of their involvement.

I guess there’s no sense in prolonging this: let’s take a look at one of the most abysmal comedies of the modern age:

The Pitch: This is the framing device that is used for the US cut of the film, and thus the framing device I saw, in which a disgraced movie director played by Randy Quaid pitches his numerous shitty ideas to a producer, with said shitty ideas being all the sketches in this film. So basically, what you’re watching is what I can only assume was the actual pitch for this movie, and thus it sucks. There is nothing entertaining about this framing device; it really says something when the international version’s framing device, where kids look for a banned movie on the internet, sounds a lot better as a framing device.

The Catch: So apparently this was the first sketch filed, and it was used to sucker other celebs into joining the film. And I mean, it has Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet, and who wouldn’t want to be in a movie with those two? Well, when Hugh Jackman has testicles dangling from his neck, I sure wouldn’t. This isn’t really the worst sketch because of its content, but it is awful because it just hurts so much to see something so embarrassing. You feel so bad for Jackman for having those fake testicles on his neck, and you feel bad for Kate Winslet for having to act through this with Jackman. It honestly makes me depressed just thinking about it.

Homeschooled: This is probably one of the few sketches in the film that actually approaches being amusing. In it, parents played by Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber talk to another couple about how they homeschooled their kid, and how they made his homeschooling feel like authentic high school, complete with the parents bullying, hazing, and just making their poor son’s life into a living hell. All these jokes are pretty standard and basic, and of course they gotta throw in some incest jokes too and top everything off with some Oedipal imagery, but it could have been worse. Really, when it comes to this film, “could have been worse” is the best you can ask for.

The Proposition: Have you ever wanted to see Chris Pratt’s ex-wife ask him to take a shit on her? No? Well congratulations, fucker! You’re a normal, functioning human being, and not either of the writers for this shitty segment. This segment ends with Chris Pratt being hit by a car, exploding in a massive shit tsunami, and then his girlfriend finally accepts his proposal. What a load.

Veronica: Out of the entire movie, this might be the most inoffensive clip of the bunch; it’s not funny or anything, but it’s at least not as tacky and offensive as the others. I guess it helps that Emma Stone and Kieran Culkin are just really hamming it up for this one, as if they know they’re in a terrible bastardization of an indie movie scene and just want to make the whole thing look as dumb as possible. It’s not a good sketch, but it’s almost okay.

iBabe: So there’s this new life-sized nude replica of a woman you can use as an MP3 player. The fan was place din a certain spot that’s causing problems. Can you guess the spot, and the problem? If you’re the age of twelve or older, you sure can, and if you can, there’s really no reason to watch this pointless sketch.

Superhero Speed Dating: Batman is a dick to Robin. Tee hee. What a funny fucking joke. Next.

Machine Ki- Ok you know what? Fuck it. I am talking about the fucking speed dating segment, because it is just such an obnoxious, unfunny joke. Batman is just rude, condescending, and worst of all a total cockblock who doesn’t respect his partner, which is the sort of thing you see a lot in parodies of Batman mythos. And it’s just so… totally opposite of what Batman is, it doesn’t really subvert his relationship with Robin in a funny way either, it’s just “Haha what if Batman was a dick to his student?” And it’s just not funny. It’s lame, it’s lazy, and it’s a sign of someone with an extremely shallow knowledge of Batman.

Anyway…

Machine Kids: So it was kind of supposed to just be a joke, interrupting this segment to rant about the last one, but there is honestly just nothing I can say about this one. It’s a sketch that exists, I guess? It’s not particularly funny, it’s just something that’s real.

Middleschool Date: You know what’s really funny? Girls getting their periods. That’s the entire joke of this segment. If you don’t think girls getting their periods and teens freaking out over not understanding basic life facts is funny, this won’t amuse you. It also has a rather nonsensical ending, which certainly doesn’t help it out much.

Happy Birthday: This is it. This is the sketch that most closely approaches the realm of being funny. It’s about a guy catching a leprechaun for his buddy’s birthday, but the leprechaun is an obscene, nasty little bastard. It’s funny seeing Gerard Butler play a leprechaun, the joke is okay, the sketch doesn’t really overstay its welcome, and it has a juvenile but kinda amusing punchline. Maybe it’s just because everything else in the movie is so bad, but this one just isn’t really one I can muster a lot of hate for.

Truth or Dare: Halle Berry and Stephen Marchant go on a date and begin playing, well, truth or dare, and soon enough things go from risque to downright insane. If you’ve ever wanted to see Halle Berry make guacamole with a prosthetic boob, well, here you are. I feel it’s not worth it considering how nasty and disturbing the end is, but Marchant sure is unashamedly proud of being in a sketch with Halle Berry.

Victory’s Glory: This one is just boring and filled with bland stereotyping. It’s one you’ll forget exists as soon as it’s over.

Beezle: In the midst of the credits, we see how far James Gunn has come as a creator when we are subjected to this edgy piece of garbage he created. It’s about a girl who thinks her boyfriend’s animated cat is trying to sabotage her relationship, which he is. It has sodomy, brutal murder, bestiality, all that charming stuff from the man who brought us Guardians of the Galaxy. I guess this really is good as a showcase of how far he has come as a writer and director, because this ain’t Guardians, it ain’t Slither, and most importantly it ain’t good.

So… yeah. As you can see, there’s really nothing of value to be found here. Like yes, there’s an okay sketch in the middle of all this, but there were some passable ones in The ABCs of Death, and that movie was still shit. I’m sure you’re expecting some witty summation of this movie and its flaws, maybe a reiteration of how depressing it is to see so much talent wasted for unfunny jokes, maybe some sort of comedic take on all this garbage.

Well, that’s not happening. Even thinking about this stupid movie for this long has sapped my strength. I’m going to lie down. Fuck this movie.

[hamelin-born]

Another Semi-Crackish Revelation Scenario

@sparklecryptid

Set in the Royal Bastard AU - another version of the Revel Scenario that was burning in my brain all the way home. I decided to try and write it down - maybe I didn’t capture the feeling (I was pretty burned out by the time I actually got to my computer) but it was a fun thing to come up with.

The scenario is that Nyx is in trouble.

This is not an uncommon occurrence. Nyx gets into trouble on a regular basis - getting into trouble is, quite literally, his job sometimes. Not like this, though. Not like this.

Not when he is outside the Wall, and he and some of his fellow glaives have run into an enemy force that outnumbers them and outmatches them by - far too many to one. Far, far too many - they fight. They’re the Kingsglaive, they’re Galahdian, and they will fucking fight to their last breath to tear out the enemy’s throat with their teeth if need be. But everyone is faced with the grim all-but-certainty that they’re not coming home from this one. 

Furthermore, in order to showcase their defeat, the enemy commander (is it Caligo? I want to say it’s Caligo) decided to literally televise the fight and openly broadcast it in real-time to every receptive channel. The whole world is watching. 

Ironically enough, that’s the factor that ends up saving them.

It’s not quite time for the Last Stand, but it’s getting far too uncomfortably close, and Nyx is fighting with everything he’s got in a display of skill and strength that, in other circumstances, would leave onlookers very very impressed indeed. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough, against an endless hoard of enemies, and he trips and he stumbles and

And there’s a sudden explosion of purple across his vision.

And Ace is there. Ace is there, through the judicious use of desperate, semi-experimental long-distance warping and running like hell and maybe stealing a car or two along the way, because like fuck was he going to watch his boyfriend be killed on live television. And all Nyx can do is stare at him, eyes white in his grimy face as Ace steps forward.

The Armiger blazes to life around him, unfolding like an ethereal purple flower, weapons twisting and glimmering in what almost seems to be anticipation as it swirls around the lanky brunette. There’s no expression on Ace’s face - only a look of intent, of a man telling the world that this is the way things will be. Of Ace demanding the world re-configure itself to his will - and it does. It does.

Ace is walking towards the enemy. And Nyx, at least, recognizes the particular set of his face and the shift in his gait that lets him recognize it as The Murder Walk.

Ace, meanwhile, is thinking about something Ardyn told him once. About how, when, if he ever had to really fight, to fight. Don’t be just you, his Uncle had said. Be a force of nature.

“...be a fucking hurricane.” Ace mutters absently to himself, and attacks.

It’s a little while later when he and Nyx have a chance to talk. The rest of the glaives are shamelessly listening in.

“You okay?”

“...you have magic. And I know you’re not Crownsguard or Kingsglaive. How do you have magic?”

“Um. You know how the King went on a roadtrip to Galahd when he was still Prince?”

“Yeah.”

“He had sex with my mom.”

“...are you saying that King Regis is your father?”

“Look, my Mom said he was, and I have magic.”

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?!”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt! Look, we were kids when I found out, and I knew that Libertus couldn’t hold his mouth shut to save his life - shut up Libertus - and I figured that what you don’t know people can’t hurt you to get at! Besides, I was doing my best to ignore it all! And by the time we’d grown up enough to really get secrets, it would have been just - too hard to tell you!”

“...you’re an idiot, Ace. Even for a Lucis Caelum. Especially for a Lucis Caelum! And - ohshit, does King Regis even know about you?!”

“Well, he does now. That camera’s still broadcasting.”

“Oh fuck.”

“S’okay, I knew it’d come out one way or another - “

"Why didn’t you tell him?”

“What was I supposed to do, just walk up to the Citadel and say ‘hi, I’m Ace, my Mom was Katrina, you had sex with her before you got married to the queen, I’m your bastard son’?! It’d be a fucking mess - royal bastards are always a fucking mess, can you imagine what we’re going to be walking back into when we head home? We’re probably gonna be taken into custody the instant we get back behind the wall, if we’re not outright arrested. I didn’t want to have to put up with all the damn trouble that would come of it, the - the politics and the scandal and fucking everything. I didn’t want to be trouble, I didn’t want to be trouble for the King, and the Prince - gods, that poor kid, can you imagine what it’ll be like for him? I’m happy being a bartender, I didn’t want -”

“Fuck it, Ace, c’mere, I’m sorry, shh, I’m sorry, okay? I’m so fucking sorry, this is all my fault.”

“Screw you, Nyx. I’d do it a hundred times over to make sure you’d be okay.”

“Not worth it, Ace.”

“You are.”

“No I’m - wait a minute.”

“What?”

“Your Uncle.”

“What about him?”

“You said he was a relative of your dad’s! But King Regis doesn’t have any - ”

“Okay, so the relationship’s a bit more distant, I call him ‘Uncle’ to simplify it - by a lot - but he’s still a blood relative and - “

“Ace. Tell me that your crazy asshole of an Uncle isn’t a Lucis Caelum. For the love of all that’s holy, please, please tell me that he isn’t - “

“Look, who do you think taught me how to use the Armiger?”

“Your Uncle. Who is nuttier then a ton of fruitcakes. Who has the worst fashion sense of anyone I’ve ever known. Who is fifty tons of crazy in a fucking trashcan of a bad coat is a Lucis Caelum?!”

“He’s also probably watching this broadcast right now, you know.”

“Oh shit!”

“You know he’s just going to show up out of nowhere sometime soon and just go ‘Rude.’”

“It’s creepy when you sound just like him. I keep expect to turn around and just see him grinning at me out of nowhere. And - wait. Your uncle is from Niflheim, how the fuck can he be a Lucis Caelum?!“

“Half the refugee quarter has relatives in Nifleheim! I didn’t think it was that big of a deal! It’s even down on my paperwork - somewhere - and I think he wasn’t born there, he just works in the Empire. And - look, Uncle’s a crazy fucking bastard, and I’m more then half convinced that he just works in Nifleheim because he thinks it’s so fucking funny. Not because he’s loyal to them or anything, I mean, he keeps telling me stuff about troop movements over coffee and he’s like literally one of my best sources of info about what’s going on in the Empire. The man’s a damn cat, you know, the way he just seems to think that, that - “

“That the world’s a big joke and he’s the only one who knows the punchline, and he’s holding it over your head every hour of every day?”

“That’s Uncle, yeah.”

“And just like that the number of Lucis Caleums in the world has abruptly doubled. Any other things you want to tell me?”

“I died once.”

“WHAT?!”

“I got brought back pretty quickly, I think, it was from before you and I met each other - “

“Ace, we met each other as kids, are you telling me that - “

“It’s a long damn story, and we should probably start heading back soon.”

“Heading back? Look, now that you’ve - pretty much dumped a lightning storm in the middle of the army, we can break through and make our objective in minutes. Who’s heading back? There’s a job, and we’ll get it done.”

“You reckless fucking bastard. Lead the way.”

[comic-movieheroesranked]

Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2009) Part Three

It’s rough coming right after a fantastic year of movies (2008) but 2009 did pretty well for itself. Terminator Salvation is our only sequel and we also get an X-Men spinoff with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Kids favorite shows come out with Astro Boy, Dragonball: Evolution, and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, and we got a couple of thrillers with Whiteout and Surrogates. We also get the debut of the controversial Watchmen! Let’s get started with numbers #40-21!

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL HIGHLIGHTED MOVIES ABOVE*

40. President Stone/Peacekeeper (Astro Boy)

"Declare war! This is gonna get me re-elected."

How did this guy even get elected in the first place? He's an idiot who thought the only way to stay in power was through violent technology. It's his arrogance that gets Toby killed and it's his arrogance that puts the whole city in danger when he still decides to use the red core energy. He ends up getting absorbed by the Peacekeeper and starts a city-wide battle with Astro that only ends when Astro sacrifices himself and connects the two cores. Stone is then arrested by his own men and taken away.

39. Delfy (Whiteout)

"They don't make them like that anymore."

Delfy was just a regular pilot who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He's the one who first discovers Weiss's body out on the ice and contacts Carrie. Afterwards, she makes him her personal pilot as she sets up an investigation. This new job ends up nearly killing him twice: Once when he gets buried under fifty feet of snow with the others inside the Russian plane, and another when Haden breaks out and stabs him. He recovers and ends up bonding with Pryce and Carrie for six months until the winter is over.

38. Abel Shaz/Breaker (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"Is that Double Bubble?"

Although he isn't the only brains on the team, if anyone needs advice on technology, Breaker is your guy. I will always enjoy the member of the squad who understand gadgets like no one else can yet doesn't truly understand most jokes that said. With the nanobite warheads being the most dangerous pieces of technology known to man, Breaker comes in handy in helping the team stop Cobra from bringing whole cities down.

37. Agent Zero (X-Men Origins: The Wolverine)

"It's funny how innocent people tend to die around you!"

For some reason Wolverine and Agent Zero DID NOT get along with each other. Everyone would be joking along with everyone else then all of a sudden they're both threatening to kill each other. The years after Logan leaves Stryker's team doesn't cool off the tension because those two are ready to pop off again when they reunite. It's a pointless rivalry though because we all knew Logan would come out on top, and it's not because he's the main character either. I mean, yeah, Zero is really good when it comes to shooting bullets and jumping over high fences but bullets don't do anything to Wolverine especially once he gets the adamantium in his skeleton. So when the two clash, Agent Zero ends up exploding in a helicopter and Logan...remains unharmed.

36. Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre (Watchmen)

"I don't hate him because he gave me you."

The original Silk Spectre and one of the few remaining heroes alive from the Minutemen. Sally Jupiter is retired now and totally missing the game, so much that she trains her daughter to be the next Silk Spectre. She reminds me so much of those pageant moms that now live through their daughter's lives to fill young again. Although I'd really like to know why, it's never really explained, only assumed, why Sally goes back to sleep with The Comedian, who tried to rape her previously. The result of their one night stand is Laurie, who ends up coming to terms with it by the time she finds out and confronts Sally about it.

35. Chi-Chi (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Just because my name is Chi-Chi doesn't mean I'm an idiot."

I liked Chi-Chi and I'm pretty sure the only reason why they didn't have her in the movie more was because they knew I'd rank her higher than Goku if they did. I mean if I were in the group hunting Dragon Balls I would have totally added her in once I saw her fighting skills but it never happens. Instead we just see her every time we need someone to flirt with Goku.

34. Maggie Greer (Surrogates)

"It's better this way."

Maggie is Greer's wife and together they lost a son before surrogates became globally used. This causes her to mourn in a unique way where she locks herself in her own room and just lives her life through her surrogate. Even though she cares for Greer, she ignores the distance between them instead for the new fun life she has as a surrogate. When the surrogates are destroyed, she almost kills herself but ends up connecting with her husband again in their child's old room.

33. Dr. Bill Tenma (Astro Boy)

"You're still my son."

It took me a very long time to like Tenma, and I was starting to believe that he was a lost caused until he pulled through in the end. First he completely ignores Toby when he was alive, treating him like a unbothered teacher would a student instead of a father, then goes into a huge depression after he dies. Because of this, he creates Astro, a robot version of Toby but then completely abandons him shortly after and then aids President Stone in capturing him and shutting him down. It isn't until after he removes the core from Astro that he finally accepts him as his son, returning the core and bringing him back to life.

32. Goku (Dragonball: Evolution) 

"Kamehameha!"

With Dragon Ball being a Japanese anime I was glad that there was a lot of Japanese influence in the movie. The setting, the background actors, even some of the core cast but you know who wasn't? GOKU! Like I don't understand the reasoning as to why they thought casting a white guy as Goku would be a great idea when Grandpa Gohan was clearly Asian! But besides that, Goku was lame! He wasn't exciting to watch, which is a huge shame because I loved the watching the show with my older brother when I was little.

31. Bulma (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Everybody has a price."

Bulma was my favorite in the movie. I loved the guns, loved how she handled herself with the boys, and loved all her cool technology that basically was the reason they got around (her compact motorcycle) and found the Dragon Balls (Her D.P.E.). Her interest with Yamcha was fun and flirty and when it came down to business she was ready to help any way she can. She definitely should have been Asian, but at least her character wasn't as bad as Goku's.

30. William Stryker (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"Welcome to the war."

Our mutant-hating government official is back and now we get to see how his connection with Logan came to be. On a mission to create the strongest mutant weapon for the government, Stryker creates a team of mutants, including Logan and Victor, to hunt down adamantium. When this costs the lives of innocents, Logan's out, which is bad business for Stryker since Logan's he key to his secret weapon. He creates an elaborate plan, staging the death of Logan's girlfriend, Kayla, and pinning him against Victor to bring him back so he can put the adamantium inside him and successfully create, Weapon X. Of course, everyone that's a mutant figures out he's playing them all and his plans go down the drain with the death of Weapon XI. His adamantium bullets are what cause Logan to lose his memories and they're eventually what kill Kayla, but not before she can control his mind and send him away for good...at least until he turns up again.

29. Cora (Astro Boy)

"Didn't your nanny-bots teach you not to sneak up on people?"

Cora accidentally ran away from Metro City to the surface world where she becomes a sort of leader to the orphan kids Hamegg takes care of. She's the first one to discover Astro and quickly befriends him and he proves he's a kind person. She's the only one who feels betrayed when it's revealed he's actually a robot, but she quickly gets over it and helps him save Metro City from President Stone. After everything is done, she's even able to reunite with her parents.

28. Edward Blake/The Comedian (Watchmen)

"This is a joke. This is all a joke."

The biggest asshole in this movie BY FAR. Like even though everyone had their faults and definitely weren't saints, The Comedian was straight up a bully working for the government. In his worst moments, he beats the shit out of citizens protesting, attempts to rape the original Silk Spectre, and ends up murdering a Vietnamese woman carrying his child! For some reason he suddenly cares about being a father when he wants to get to know his other daughter, Laurie, but ends up just drinking his life away until Adrian shows up to murder him. Even though he dies in the beginning of the movie, his bad punchline of a life haunts everyone throughout the film.

27. Wade Wilson/Deadpool/Weapon XI (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"You whip out a couple of swords at your ex-girlfriend's wedding, they will never, ever forget it."

Wade Wilson is very conflicting because even though he's missing his signature costume, he was absolutely spot on when he worked on Stryker's team. He's deadly with the sword, has the same healing abilities as Logan, and will never shut his mouth. Then things got weird. Somehow Stryker is able to gain control over Deadpool and turn him into everything he's not by giving him powers of previous mutants Victor has either killed or kidnapped. Mouth sewn shut, Deadpool becomes Weapon XI and is such a threat it takes both Wolverine and Sabretooth to take him down.

26. Kate Connor (Terminator Salvation)

"I'm a doctor, not an engineer."

I don't know why, but I kind of expected Kate to have a bigger role? Not that being one of the only doctors in the resistance isn't important, because it is, but I always thought she would be like what Barnes was, a second in command. Still, she was fiercely loyal to her husband and was his support when he needed her. He especially needed her towards the end of the film, as it was her hands that operated on him to save his life.

25. Dr. Lionel Carter (Surrogates)

"My son's death will not have been in vain. Not if it heals mankind."

Lionel Carter created surrogates because he wanted people with disabilities, like himself, to live a better life then his partners and company took it to a global scale and by 2017, ninety-eight percent of the world population used a surrogate for basic every day activities. After his son dies for being mistaken for him, Lionle decides enough is enough. Using all his resources he gets a hold of the weapon that killed his son to return the favor to the man responsible. He also creates the ultimate virus that will destroy all the surrogates and kill everyone attached to them. Thinking his plan will never fail, Lionel takes a cyanide pill before seeing his plan come to life.

24. Dr. John Fury (Whiteout)

"I never meant for anyone to get hurt, but Haden got greedy."

I'm not gonna lie, I felt some type of way when it was revealed Doc was working with Haden to smuggle the diamonds. He probably had the closest relationship with Carrie and their personal conversations were some of my favorite scenes in the movie so when it turns out he was working with Haden, the guy who cause Carrie to lose two of her fingers, I was shocked. I guess the silver lining is that once he was caught he didn't fight it. He explained why he did it then walked outside to the deadly snow storm, killing himself.

23. Ana Lewis/The Baroness (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"Do it. You already killed me once."

I'm so glad it was revealed that Ana was being brainwashed to act as The Baroness the whole time because I just could not accept her willingly participating in the death of millions all because Duke disappeared after her brother's death. No one is that dramatic. Still, as The Baroness she was a force to be reckoned with. She killed all of the men in Duke and Ripcord's old unit, gave Scarlett her first fight, and she helped nearly destroy Paris. Good thing for the Joe's that Duke's gorgeous puppy-dog face broke her out of her mind control and she was able to free him and help stop her evil brother once and for all.

22. Dr. Elefun (Astro Boy)

"Everybody has their destiny, Toby."

Out of all the older males in the film, I truly believe that Dr. Elefun cared the most about Astro. He never saw him as just a robot that can be used for his own personal gain (President Stone, Hamegg) and he definitely didn't think he was a mistake that needed to be destroyed (Dr. Tenma). He really took his time to get to know and bond with Astro, who was still trying to come to terms with himself. I think in the future Elefun will morph into a huge father figure to Astro.

21. Remy Lebeau/Gambit (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"You miss me?"

Gambit has been the mutant everyone wanted to see on the big screen ever since the first X-Men came out. He's always nearly made it in the previous films but was cut out at the last minute. Well now he's here and he was a little bit of a let down. He wasn't horrible but he had such a minor role. He's a mutant that escapes Stryker's island before going back to his thief lifestyle in New Orleans. His fight with Logan was cool because we saw his signature staff and kinetically charged deck of cards, but after that he just remains in the background. He takes Logan to the island then is the first one to talk to him after he loses his memory, going his own way shortly after.

[marvelleous]

i want you forever (right here by my side) - chapter three

summary: Phil Coulson and Melinda May. Their story, from the very first day. notes: i wanted to thank everyone who commented on the last two chapters! you guys are awesome :) thank you to @agentsphilinda​, @marcuskaen​ and @anarchycox​ for looking over this one for me!

songspiration: darling i’m a mess by sabrina carpenter

read on AO3

Previous Chapter

Phil loses his first team member to a rogue sniper in December of 1992.

He knows in hindsight that he should have seen it coming - they even had a class about dealing with the loss of one’s team mate or partner at the Academy. An hour long session every two weeks preparing them for the pain and loss they might have to experience in the future; teaching them the best methods of dealing with it, of coping. In their line of work - death is inevitable - but he doesn’t expect it to happen so suddenly, or hit so close to home. He’s lost people before, his father, his mother. But this time it’s different - this time that there is someone he can blame.

Himself.

He had designed this operation, had handled it from the very beginning. Every single detail had been mapped out by him; he’d been meticulous, organised. It was a level one mission, easy, simple, a milk run for the two level four specialists who had been assigned to his team.

It should have been a piece of cake; one last mission before everyone headed home for the holidays.

Phil has been in charge of half a dozen operations more difficult that this one, all with more danger, more risk. This was supposed to have been a basic retrieval op; two specialists, one to go in, and one to watch the other’s back. They had orders to drop and swap intel, and then get the hell out before they could be discovered.

It should have been smooth sailing.

But they had failed.

And now a good agent is dead.

Phil meets Agents Claire Matthews and Thomas Chan two weeks before their first and only mission together, at a field office in Seattle. He’s been a “fully fledged” field agent for nearly two and a half years, and has had a mission success rate of one hundred percent. He knows that the two level four specialists have been assigned to his team to give him a recommendation for promotion to a Level Two clearance, if all should go well.

He stresses and frets about their assessment in the days leading up to meeting the pair, but the moment he does, his worries are gone.

At his base in New York, Phil doesn’t have much of a chance to interact with higher level agents - they’re mostly level ones and twos who work together on low risk missions and occasionally deal with setup or clean up. Fury is level six, but he also first met the man after confronting him for being a stalker outside a convenience store, so he really doesn’t feel quite the same vibe from the guy. Two unknown specialists though - the prospect of meeting them gives him so much anxiety that he can barely sleep the night before.

In some ways, they are nothing like what he’s been expecting.

Physically they look like most other specialists Phil remembers from the Academy and occasionally encounters on missions. Agent Chan is very tall, muscled, and seeing him in his official uniform makes Phil question why S.H.I.E.L.D. trained guys like him when they could have men like that. Agent Matthews is a little shorter, leaner, but Phil has never underestimated the strength of a woman, and he feels a small swell of pity for anyone who might make such an idiotic mistake.

Personality wise… Phil doesn’t know how to react when Agent Chan manages to crack six jokes in the span of five minutes, and Agent Matthews just stands there beside him with an almost unsettling smirk each time a punchline is thrown into the air. His first reaction is to laugh - which is what Agent Chan appears to specialise in, but then again, he’s not sure whether the man’s jokes are meant to be funny, or if they’re some sort of inside reference meant only for Agent Matthews and that they’re purposely messing with him.

His internal conflict over the matter is quickly resolved however, when Agent Matthews makes a comment about the weather outside - there’s a blizzard - and Agent Chan drapes his arm over her shoulder, angling his fingers to tug at the end of her ponytail.

“Hey Claire, what do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”

Phil watches with uncertainty as the question hangs in the silence for a moment, before Agent Matthews elbows Agent Chan sharply in the ribs with a huff.

“Frostbite. You get frostbite when you cross a snowman with a vampire. You told me that in Switzerland last month when we were buried in six feet of snow.”

Agent Chan doubles over in laughter, drawing attention from all the other agents at their desks, as Agent Matthews rolls her eyes at him and claps him none too softly across the back of his head. Phil stands opposite them, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck and maybe his confusion is really obvious, because the pair seem to take pity on him - at least Agent Matthews does - because she grabs Agent Chan by the arm and begins to escort him out of the room, waving for Phil to follow.

He can hear the snickers from behind him as he hurries to follow the specialists - he thinks that working with them for the next few weeks might not be so bad. They seem to be easy going enough and clearly work well together. And Agent Chan did have some pretty good jokes. He hopes that maybe he can even try a few himself. It would be nice to have someone around who could appreciate his humour.

Phil has always been a very observant person. He prefers to stand in the shadows and watch the interactions of others over making a point to participate. His training at the Communications Academy had only reinforced this - you could learn so much about a person just by studying their movements, facial expressions, reactions to things. All agents, from those in administration to their tactical teams had the ability to conceal their basic emotions to a certain degree, even from each other - but this was one area where his skills exceeded expectations. It was his job to learn everything he could about a person just by looking at them.

And in the three days he’s worked with Agent Chan and Agent Matthews, he’s learned much.

Agent Chan is very talkative. Likes to make friendly conversation with whoever he can, likes to “get to know” other people. He jokes around, can find something hilarious in just about any situation. Phil thinks that it might be a coping mechanism, to make light of unfortunate situations, to find hope even in the worst scenarios. But despite all the smiles, Agent Chan is also very quick to anger - there might be some underlying issues there. He’s a man with many emotions - Phil sees this first hand when attending one of their training sessions to scope out their skills. The files had a comprehensive list - but seeing it for himself made all the difference in the world.

Agent Matthews is a very attractive woman - only an idiot would deny that. She could easily pass for a model or an actress, but Phil thought her skills were much more impressive than her appearance. He had always known that female field agents and specialists were often disregarded by the more close minded. He saw it for himself from time to time. He never had to intervene; those imbeciles usually scurried away with their tail between their legs and blood pouring from their noses.

Phil is in one of the training rooms, watching the specialists hone their skills, when a pair of Level Two field agents begin to stir up trouble - snickering to one another in a way that he knows means trouble is coming.

“Look at Barbie’s legs, wonder what they’d look like wrapped around -”

The man, Agent Landon, doesn’t have the opportunity to finish his remark, because before Phil even has a chance to react, Agent Chan has the guy pinned up against the wall, arm at his throat, holding him up so his feet are dangling, unable to reach the ground.

As much as Phil might enjoy seeing a sleazebag who would make such comments pummeled into the ground, he’d hate to lose his specialist for his next mission, and decides it’s probably for the best that he try to intervene. He doesn’t have much standing as a Level One, but he might be able to talk some sense into Agent Chan. He can’t hear what the specialist is whispering, but from the look on the other guy’s face, Phil’s guessing that the words are none too pretty. He’s halfway across the room when Agent Matthews beats him to the punch, running over to her partner and placating him with a hand on his elbow. Phil is not even sure that words are exchanged between the two, but then Agent Chan slowly lowers the guy to the ground, holding him against the wall for a moment longer, before drawing his arm back and breaking Agent Landon’s nose with a sickening crack.

Agent Landon’s buddy scurries forward and grabs him by the arm, presumably dragging him off to medical, and Agent Chan is shaking his fist, opening and closing his hand with a grimace. Phil takes a step back, unsure of how to handle this situation, scratching the back of his head for a moment before making the decision to let them handle it themselves. There’s not much he can do but sit back and watch at this point.

Agent Matthews drops down onto the mats, pulling Agent Chan with her and begins to inspect his hand. Phil can’t hear what they’re saying; this would be a convenient time to have super hearing to be honest, but they both look pissed even as she runs gentle fingers over his bruised knuckles. He’s pretty adept at lip reading, but that is a skill that is not really required in this particular situation - Agent Matthews is clearly angry that Agent Chan defended her, lost his temper, and nearly smashed a colleagues face in, and Agent Chan is clearly annoyed but also ashamed of how he handled the situation.

Their frowns eventually morph into smiles as they speak - and not for the first time, Phil questions the relationship between the two specialists. S.H.I.E.L.D. has it’s protocols, but no rules that people aren’t willing to break, for a good enough reason. Plenty of agents are in relationships with coworkers - but most aren’t involved with those that they actively work with. It makes for too many distractions in the field, especially when you are too busy watching your partner’s back to focus on the mission.

The logical part of him thinks that it’s too dangerous, too risky. They already put their lives on the line out there - it’s too easy to be distracted, lose focus and put others in danger.

The still hopeful part of him thinks that a love like that may be the best kind of love there is. Committed to the cause, committed to your partner. Out there fighting together, having someone by your side who means everything to you. The closest to a normal life a field agent like him will probably ever get.

He doesn’t see it happening.

But that doesn’t stop him from wanting it.

Phil likes the S.H.I.E.L.D. van. He really does. It has heating, video surveillance from the forty best vantage points - thanks to the tech patching them through back at the nearest base, and is basically a glorified metal can to hold their gear and keep him from getting shot at. And so he sits back and watches the fuzzy feeds, a standard issued bullet-proof vest over his suit and tie, and a gun in it’s holster, ready to act if need be.

Once Agent Matthews returns with the intel, she’ll be picked up by another car, driven by a field agent that had joined their team last week. Phil would wait for the all clear, before giving Agent Chan the signal to leave his post, and they would take a second path back to their safe house and wait it out for a day before heading back to base. He has it all planned out to the very last detail - even choosing Agent Matthews’ outfit for the evening himself.

She had taken one look at the gown and shoes and snorted, enough to voice her disdain but kind enough to not comment out loud and really hurt Phil’s feelings. Even when she had changed at the safe house, modelling the dress for them, she had done so with an expression of displeasure, only smiling once Agent Chan had moved over to her, tugging on a stray curl and whispering something in her ear. Phil had felt his face redden at the display, still not entirely sure of the relationship between the two. He had closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand, and when he opened his eyes again, Agent Matthews and Chan were back to business, disassembling rifles beside him.

He can see Agent Matthews now too, in several of the videos on the tiny screens on one wall of the van. She’s moving around at the party, making small talk with all the right people before she goes in to retrieve the intel. Phil can only faintly hear the noise of the party, her voice and laughter drowning most of it out of the surrounding sound. In contrast, Agent Chan is completely unseen - he’s on the rooftop of the neighbouring building, positioned so that no one can get a glimpse - if S.H.I.E.L.D. has surveillance, there is no telling who might have it too. It’s not a risk Phil is willing to take just to keep an eye on a Level 4 specialist who can take care of himself.

Agent Matthews makes a comment about it to him, saying she respects his way of thinking, but that she’d prefer that he reconsidered.

He stands by his decision.

It soon becomes his biggest regret.

“Eagle is in the hutch. I’m on my way out.”

“Copy that.”

Phil tracks Agent Matthews’ movements through the different monitors as she makes her exit, slow enough as to not arouse suspicion, but fast enough to escape before discovery. She is in the doorway of the building when the chaos begins.

“Hey Claire. What did the grape do when he got stepped on?”

Phil can actually see Agent Matthews roll her eyes, even through the less than quality black and white image, and he can definitely hear the huff of annoyance she lets out.

“Really?”

“He let out a little -”

His words cut off there, the same moment a loud bang echoes through the night, and Phil can hear Agent Matthews’ scream, see a blur falling through the air, before the exact moment of impact.

The van shakes with it.

He can see the crumpled form of Agent Chan’s body, the front half hanging into the driver’s seat through the smashed windshield from eight different angles on his wall of surveillance.

Phil forces himself to take a deep breath, clenches his hands into fists to try and stop them from shaking as he jumps straight to “Plan F” - the last resort.

“Agent Sutton, we need evac. I’m calling in the clean up crew.”

He shoves the radio back into his pocket, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and slams his hand against the “use only in the case of emergencies” button, before slipping out the back door, shutting it with a quiet bang.

They have five minutes before the van blows.

The ride back to base is quite possibly the most uncomfortable Phil has ever experienced. He’s sitting in the front with Agent Sutton, whose knuckles are white from how tightly she is gripping the steering wheel.

They can both hear the sounds of Agent Matthews’ cries.

Phil had offered to let her sit up front - he could keep an eye on the body. See up close the outcome of his failures. She had screamed when they tried to pull her away from Agent Chan, completely in hysterics, and they’d had no choice but to let her stay put, half lying on top of his broken body.

Her silver gown must be stained with blood now.

Just like his hands.

He doesn’t think any amount of scrubbing will wash it away.

They don’t speak again, not properly, until two days later, sitting opposite one another in the back of a jet flying them to Minnesota. He doesn’t know how to broach the subject - How does one apologise for killing someone’s partner?

He doesn’t have to.

“Thank you for saving my life, Phil.”

He looks up to meet her gaze, her eyes are red, he thinks that she probably hasn’t stopped crying since the incident, but he can see that her words are sincere. He must look confused, because she continues, voice cracking a little as she speaks.

“You reacted quickly. Got us out of there before any more damage could be done. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead too.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but the words just don’t come. He… he wants nothing more that to say sorry. Express his regret. If only he had listened to her, kept a closer eye on things. Agent Chan would still be alive. They wouldn’t be flying over to break the news to his family.

Tell them someone they loved was now dead.

Agent Matthews had insisted on going alone, but Phil was responsible, and he had to be there. To say sorry. To give her someone to lean on if they didn’t take the information well. He’s never done this before, but he expects it’ll be a common occurrence in the future.

He stays quiet because he doesn’t think she wants to talk - she didn’t say much in the two weeks he had known her - Agent Chan… he had done most of the talking. But now that he’s gone, there’s an uncomfortable silence that she clearly feels the need to fill.

He’s glad. The therapist he had sat down with for an hour yesterday had said talking about things is a way of coping. That for some, it’s cathartic. He… he really hasn’t been able to speak about his experiences yet. So all he can do is listen.

“We met first year, at the Academy. I dislocated his jaw when we sparred, and the next thing I knew, I had a best friend. He loved to joke around, talked so much that sometimes I wanted to tape his mouth shut. But what I’d give now just to hear one of his stupid jokes again.”

Phil thinks that he understands. He doesn’t have a best friend, a partner, but when Agent Matthews describes her relationship with Agent Chan, he can’t help but think about May, think about their brief but memorable moments together, think about how he might feel if she was dead.

It was not something he wanted to linger on his mind.

He’s memorised their files. They’ve been partners since their graduation in 1984. Losing your best friend of more than ten years… he thinks back to how he was when his mother passed… feels an overwhelming sadness that time can only try to heal.

The pain never really goes away.

It’s December 23rd.

The significance of the date doesn’t click in Phil’s mind until he’s in the car with Agent Matthews, and he stares out at the world from his passenger side window.

There’s only two sleeps until Christmas.

The whole city is covered in a thick blanket of snow, the air is heavy with the falling flakes. The sun has already set for the day, and the streets are sparkling with lights; every house they pass is extravagantly decorated.

Phil sees Santa, his reindeer, and various other Christmas themed structures, all decorations that bring him back to his childhood in Wisconsin and climbing up onto the roof with his father to string lights around. He almost loses himself in the feeling of it - he hasn’t celebrated properly since his mother’s death. There had been Christmas during fourth year at the Academy where Garrett had gotten so drunk he’d publicly urinated all over the side of their dorm building. That was a funny, if disturbing, memory.

The car begins to slow down at the end of the street, and Phil doesn’t even have to ask to know which house belongs to the family of Agent Chan.

Season’s Greetings is written in multi-coloured lights across the roof, and there are a giant pair of salt and pepper shakers, wrapped with white string lights sitting on the front lawn. Agent Matthews parks by the curb where the snow had likely been cleared earlier in the day, and he can see her out of the corner of his eye, just sitting there, breathing in and out. He reaches over and softly pats her arm, and she forces a smile, nodding a few times, before undoing her seatbelt and opening up the door.

They walk up the paved pathway together in complete silence. Phil can almost smell the dinner cooking inside, hear the carols playing. What a way to spend Christmas. He hangs back, standing behind Agent Matthews as she goes to ring the doorbell. A robotic Jingle Bells chimes out - someone must have changed it for the holidays, and moments later, the door swings open, and Phil is greeted with the sight of a woman in a hideous Christmas sweater and a wide smile on her face, one that fades as soon as she recognises who in fact it is on her doorstep.

She doesn’t say another word, just opens the door and gestures for them to come in. Agent Matthews follows the woman into the kitchen, and gestures for Phil to stay back, so he’s left standing awkwardly in the front foyer, checking out his surroundings. This house feels like home. There is a Christmas tree set up in the sitting room - he can only see about a quarter of it from where he is - and photos line the walls. There’s several of Agent Chan and the woman, who Phil realises now must be his significant other. And he had been so sure too… about Agent Chan and Agent Matthews…

His thoughts are interrupted by the pitter patter of tiny feet, and he sees a little girl standing at the bottom of the stairs, in an equally horrible Christmas sweater, a teddy bear in her arms and an expression of curiosity.

“Where’s Daddy?” she asks him in her high pitched voice and Phil’s heart breaks as he hears the gut wrenching sobs coming from the kitchen.

His mistakes had torn a partnership apart. Torn a family apart. There was a woman who would never get her husband back, a little girl who would wonder why Daddy hadn’t come home for Christmas.

He tries to fall asleep later that evening, lying in bed at the crappy motel room S.H.I.E.L.D. had found for them last minute, but all he can see is Agent Chan’s body lying there, bones shattered, bullet in his skull, blood everywhere.

It turns out he’s not the only one who can’t sleep when Agent Matthews shows up at his room well past midnight, a bottle of cheap tequila in one hand and they drink their worries away. Phil doesn’t remember much of what happened that night, only that his dreams had been empty.

When he wakes up the next day, Agent Matthews is sitting cross-legged on the other side of his bed, filling in a mission report. She passes him lukewarm coffee in a styrofoam cup, probably from the vending machine in the hallway, and they’re silent as he slowly sobers up. She hands him the report when she’s finished with it, and pats his bare shoulder with a small smile.

“Thanks for being there for me. I really needed that. We’re flying back out in two hours, so you’ll have plenty of time to get ready.”

His eyes follow her until she leaves the room, and then he flops back against the lumpy pillow hands covering his face, hiding his expression from nobody.

Phil returns to New York a week later, and his body is close to shutting down from lack of sleep. He can’t eat without feeling nauseous, can’t even close his eyes without the sound of screaming in his ears, the smell of blood surrounding him, the image of his fallen comrade ingrained into his memory.

He has a week and a half of mandated time off to “recover” for the ordeal, but he can’t help but drop in to work and pick a few things up from his desk - straighten things out before he confines himself to his tiny S.H.I.E.L.D. apartment for the next nine days. He sneaks in at three in the morning, shortly after his jet touches down, and expects to find the office empty - it’s technically New Year’s Day and everyone else is off celebrating.

He doesn’t have much to be positive about.

Until he finds his office chair occupied by the one person he is least prepared to see.

Melinda May.

She’s lounging in his seat, her feet up on his desk, and he’s pretty sure she’s combing through one of his mission files. She smirks when she sees him approaching, and he sits down on the edge of his desk, opposite her, swatting at her legs.

“Boots off the table.”

She snorts, rolling her eyes and begins to move, but instead of just lowering her feet to the ground like he’d expected, she pushes off and sends herself flying backwards into the desk behind her.

“All commanding now that you’re Level Two, Agent Coulson,” she quips, waving the file in the air with a smirk. He snatches it out of her grip and drops it back onto his desk, trying to mask his surprise with annoyance.

He had not expected a good recommendation. Not after what had happened.

“If I’m Level Two then you don’t have clearance to read that file, Agent May.”

“Shiny new promotion and already pulling rank. And to think I came all the way out to pay you a visit.”

She’s teasing him now, giving him a cheeky grin that has him wanting to smile for the first time in a week.

“What you doing here anyway? I’m not supposed to be back in till the 10th.”

It’s three hours past New Year’s Eve and the closest person he has to a friend is paying him a visit instead of doing whatever else it was she could be. He should be grateful to see her, but he can’t quite figure out what possessed her to turn up and wait for him in his deserted office.

“We have a mission at the end of the month to start thinking about. After your break of course.”

He nods slowly. Just thinking about another operation is enough to give him a headache. But at least with May around, he thinks it’ll be enjoyable enough. He sighs, glancing at the stack of files on his desk. The recommendation May had been reading is sitting at the top. He had been rewarded, despite his failures.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and he knows that it’s her way of comforting him. She doesn’t know why he’s upset; the official reports have yet to be submitted. She probably thinks that he’s just stressed and feeling alone in the holiday season.

Most people didn’t know it about her, but Melinda May always put others before herself.

“I like to think I know you pretty well. Heard you’d be back in town today; had a feeling you’d be here. Plus, my date was a total bust. Thought I might spend the first day of the New Year in better company, seeing as I’m stuck with my mother for the next week.”

He really smiles this time.

Maybe he can have one more night of peaceful sleep before the nightmares return again to haunt him. He has an appointment with another therapist in a few days time; he thinks he can hold it in till then. He hopes they clear him for active duty after the psyche evaluation.

He’s looking forward to working with May again.

He’s also terrified that he might fail again.

[deadcactuswalking]

The Beauty of “Doin’ Your Mom” by Ray William Johnson

Love him or hate him, Ray William Johnson is a pioneer of new media. He was one of the most famous YouTubers back in the day in what was about the late 2000s and early 2010s, and was really the first dude to make a true, long-term career on the platform, forming a company just to fund his Equals Three show, which, yes, it’s somewhat unwatchable but it’s vintage YouTube so I give most of it an excuse and play it off as dated comedy from someone who was actually old enough to know better, but it was a different time and I’m actually consistently impressed by Ray and how he continues to pop up everywhere as nostalgia for the early days of YouTube starts to seep into this post-ironic era of Internet culture, as people remember the remnants of the more sincere YouTube, with people like Quinton Reviews, TheGamerFromMars and wavywebsurf making informative videos about the classic YouTube and its viral videos that propel someone into stardom for at least about 15 minutes. Now we’re in the age of a company-fuelled platform that treats its community of content creators as the fries on the side of their order of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Do I miss the days of “Chocolate Rain” and when any viral hit could make it through the cracks? Of course I do, but it’s not like that can’t happen and memes can’t spread, look at how Lil Nas X has taken advantage of the memes surrounding “Old Town Road” to build his own career – and it was only a matter of time before massive companies learned how to use the Internet. I’d argue Ray is at fault at least in some capacity for making the transition to a talk show highlights website a tad cooler, though, and it’s not like he wasn’t making himself and his show (As well as his animated “Band” which I’m pretty sure is just him) a brand in itself. Ray overall was a fascinating man and still is, and whilst most of his content isn’t looked upon fondly, he does have a few gems in there, like “Orphan Tears” from the Your Favorite Martian days, one I still jam to every now and then, because it’s catchy and whilst incredibly dated now due to the club beat and Bill Cosby references doesn’t feel like it won’t last the test of time like most other YouTube content that has ever been uploaded, especially its music – including the more recent stuff from people like the Paul brothers, but before “It’s Everyday Bro” there was another iconic comedy hip hop track on YouTube that I’d argue is a much more judicious choice for analysis, and it was by Fatty Spins – often stylised as FAttY SPiNS for the sake of confusion – a hip-hop collective fronted by Ray William Johnson and his friends Micfri (The white dude) and Breeze, a singer and according to this song, guitarist? They released about six known songs and have since been lost in the sands of time, at least for all we know. This is my review of the hip-hop classic, “Doin’ Your Mom”.

SONG REVIEW: “Doin’ Your Mom” – FAttY SPiNS (Ray William Johnson)

This song only has 400,000 views on its music video as we speak and it’s on the official channel for the band (The description states Micfri uploaded it) so I’m perplexed, I thought it was much bigger but I suppose it’s either a late reupload or it was never as viral as I assumed. Anyway, let’s dive deep into “Doin’ Your Mom”.

Doin’ your mom, doin’-doin’ your mom, doin’ your mom, doin-doin’ your mom...

I’m not even going to get into the absolutely insane video that screams early YouTube but it’s pretty cute, it’s just a bunch of adults probably too old to be yelling along to the repeated refrain of “Doin’ your mom” but they’re having fun  with it at least, although Micfri makes no effort to actually lip-sync. My favourite shots in the video include of course the iconic intro where they walk on the street with a boombox like they just walked away from an explosion and the acapella version of the hook plays in the background like it was the most grandiose chorus in the history of music, but also honestly any shot where Ray is making a face, like at about 1:20, the shot with the green-screened purple background while the hook’s playing. I know this is intended to be funny (That’s why I didn’t do this for April Fools as I was going to; it felt too contrived) but there are parts in the video that seem so natural and like they thought the song was so much better than it is, and it’s almost more humorous than the song itself. Let’s briefly cover the instrumental while we’re here – it’s nothing all too special but it’s a fitting backing for the epic feel the song has, with the reverb and echo on Ray’s voice as he sprays over an odd yet VERY late-2000s fusion of rock and hip-hop, as there are some GarageBand-sounding guitars and a buzzing synth that help propel the intense strings that almost carry the song, with additional little tweaks like the twinkling synths adding a lot of punch but not making it too cluttered. Honestly, there are some parts of the song that seem like genuinely great musical ideas that may seem kind of wasted on this topic, like the screeching guitar solo or when the beat cuts out in the middle of each verse just to return with the guitar added and an additional synth melody, with both Ray and Micfri’s verses reflecting this change in a shift of their flow. I should probably add that Ray is actually a pretty good rapper for a YouTube personality, and his voice is suited for tracks like this (Yeah, somehow the chorus never gets old despite being repeated ad nauseum). As one of the comments said on the band’s Equals Three Wiki page (Yes, that exists and its comment section is hilariously absurd), he kind of sounds like he could voice Knuckles the Echidna.  That’s enough rambling about how oddly appealing this song is sonically and let’s get straight to the meat and potatoes.

COOL TRANSiTiON

The last line of the hook has always puzzled me.

You know we straight, we doin’ your mom!

“Yes, I had to confirm I am in fact heterosexual by engaging in intercourse with your mother”. I know “Straight” is part of hip-hop slang and refers to people who don’t engage in criminal or dangerous activity like gang violence...

Yeah, we straight but if you wrinkle up the situation, he will go grab the iron – Tyler, the Creator on “OKRA”

..But did we really need reassurance from Ray William Johnson that he and his friend Micfri aren’t shooting people? – Oh, and what does this have to do with doin’ my mom? I shouldn’t worry, the verses go into fascinating detail about how Ray and Micfri met my mother as they trade bars recalling the event.

I’m doin’ your mom, yes, yours! / I first saw her in the Wal-Mart picking out your drawers

Micfri’s first verse is probably the most normal verse here, and doesn’t really have anything I can make all too much fun of other than an awful pun, until it ends because the last line is... well...

Five minutes later, she agreed to get with me / So we went and rocked the minivan like, “Giggity, giggity, giggity”

Micfri goes painfully offbeat just to shove his awkward Family Guy reference in there because I guess it still was 2010 and the show was still relevant, although I’d argue it has more of a place on YouTube now that those funny moments compilations are piling up way more views than they should. That’s all fine, right? Like there’s nothing in this verse that is too interesting, but that dreadful joke transitions pretty hilariously into when Ray comes in...

I was ridin’ your mom like she’s Mario Kart / I gave her a lift back to her crib ‘cause her car wouldn’t start

Yeah, okay, he stretches out some sentences and mumbles a few lines so they barely fit the meter but it works in such a janky manner because the rest of the song is an absolute mess anyway so if anything Ray is just making it work, because, mmm, he just gets it. I love he pronounces words here as well, it’s odd as hell, especially when he accentuates “Car” with a high-pitched and slightly Canadian accent?

How many times I tap that ass? OVER 9000!

Oh, my God, I forgot about this part. This is obviously a reference to the ancient Dragon Ball Z meme where Vegeta says Goku’s power level is at “over 9000” in the 4Kids dub and it was probably funny then, but with the gang vocals and his enthusiastic delivery, it’s even funnier now with nearly a decade of hindsight. There are some jokes that legitimately hold up though, mostly because they’re not incredibly dated and instead rely on Ray’s wit.

Yeah, she called me Pledge ‘cause I knocked the dust off her

Come on, that’s actually pretty clever, I suppose. Ray’s still a comedian after all despite all the memery so he has some clever jabs throughout his verses at least, especially the second verse, which is... even more interesting.

I like your momma’s big butt, and I cannot lie

That’s a cool reference that doesn’t feel forced because it fits in with the song. Nice, we’re seeing some improvement.

We make sexy time, yes? And every night I tap that / She saw me butt-naked, now she thinks I’m half-black

Wh... What? I thought Ray WAS half-black? Is that the joke? I don’t know, I mean seemingly it’s saying how black men are stereotyped to be packing under there but HALF-black? Aren’t you underselling yourself a bit there, Ray? Also, he’s already half-black, or at least mixed. I mean, he’s said the N-word once or twice before on Equals Three so I assumed he had to have some sort of privileges. Is he just that insanely tanned? This is probably the second most questionable punchline in the song, we’ll get to the worst one in a bit.

And I blame it on the al-al-alcohol

Wow, this song really IS dated, huh?

She likes the donkey punch, she likes the dirty Sanchez / Sometimes, she even likes to fool around in YOUR bed

Okay, that is epic, and by that I mean it’s the only bar in this track that feels like it was a good diss directed towards the listener, because most of this song goes into grim detail about the intercourse with said listener’s mother but none of it is as ruthlessly personal as that one.

And I’ll be honest, she likes me to Chris Brown her when she acts like Rihanna

Oh... Oh... That’s, uh, that’s a big yikes from me, Ray, Jesus, okay, well, this was topical in 2010 but I’m still not going to excuse this. I don’t mind using Chris Brown’s domestic assault case as a punchline against him because he deserves all the vitriol he gets, but relating him leaving Rihanna bruised and bleeding after having her phone smashed and being punched and freaking BITTEN to having rough sex with the listener’s mother is insanely insensitive, and how the drum pattern cuts out for Ray to say the last part, especially with the reverb on his voice, makes it even more awkward. You’ll be glad to know, however, that Micfri immediately justifies that horribly problematic bar with easily the best on the track.

She’s so therapeutic when I need to cure my restlessness / I (Brrrrrr) motorboat your mom’s breastesses

I don’t know if it’s the “Brrrr” or the “breastesses” but this line is hilarious to me, and I have mostly no idea why it’s such a good one. Anyway, the verses are finished now, so you expect us to have just a few repeats of the chorus until the song ends, right? But no. We have a bridge, and it’s the gorgeous climax of the song (No pun intended) that honestly may just be the best part, other than the comments on its Wiki page, but we’ll get to that. Breeze croons the bridge in cheap Auto-Tune, and the amount of vocal effects that are added unnecessarily to accentuate the oddly profound lyrics here, that are said only twice but are so essential to why the song has aged much better than it seems to have on the surface.

I’m havin’ sex with your mother and that makes me (Better, better) better than you

There’s something I can’t describe about this bridge and the subsequent guitar solo that makes it work so effectively, and I’m left speechless by it every time. The best part is I’m not joking for the most part, and this song, despite its mind-numbing chorus and incredibly dated and at some times shockingly offensive lyrics, it’s aged incredibly well because it knows it will not be taken seriously and is entirely self-aware, but in a way that doesn’t seep into the song’s content. Most memes these days are TOO self-aware, so when a legitimate, genuine meme comes along that embraces it instead of revelling in it, I’m fully supportive.

You was at the club / Bottoms up when I first met you – The Boyboy Westcoast on “Bottoms Up”

Boyboy embraces the meme and he has a very lighthearted perspective and modest attitude on the song that makes his self-awareness less of an aging factor, and it’s the same for Ray, but some of the memes feel self-aware to a fault when they’re all too loud about the sarcastic manner in which they desperately cling onto a self-awareness that may not actually be there, like when the Backpack Kid did that awfully cringeworthy Verified video on Genius about his flossing song. The heart wasn’t there and it felt plastic and manufactured, but it’s all present in Ray, Micfri and Breeze, as they’re all having fun dancing in the video and while they know they’re really stupid and they look like lunatics, they don’t care... and disregarding the comments of the wiki page in which anonymous users respond to in-depth analysis and rankings of the Mario Kart games with “I will end you”, and no, I’m not kidding, that is the beauty of “Doin’ Your Mom”.

You know we straight, we doin’ your mom

deadcactuswalking

Seriously though check out the wiki page for both the song and the band (They’re linked here). The comments are beautifully absurd.