#I can’t believe I was hallucinating a web series this entire time

[izzyscursedcorner]

Well this is unfortunate.

WAS MARBLE SKY AN ILLUSION ALL ALONG?

[mattmaddensketch]

GTA 6 Release Day, News and Rumours

It could not look like such a large bargain for a seven-year-old video game, but despite its age, Grand Theft Auto 5 is still popular. It stays among the most-viewed games on live streaming platform Twitch and is consistently in the top 5 games used by Vapor. Folks with Xbox Video Game Pass Ultimate or Xbox Live Gold will have access to Grand Theft Auto Online, and the online solution that Rockstar Games constantly updates. Grand Theft Auto 5, the 2013 title from Rockstar Games, has been included in Microsoft’s Xbox Video game Pass. Players with a Video game Pass membership can now access the ready free on Xbox One.

Many players reported connection troubles and video game ices up throughout load screens. Rockstar launched a technical spot on 5 October to resolve the issues, yet problems lingered the 2nd week complying with the launch as some gamers reported their character development as having gone away. I launched another technical patch on 10 October combating the concerns, and also Rockstar supplied a GTA$ 500,000 (in-game money) stimulation to the accounts of all gamers attached to Online considering that launch as compensation. Lots of customers complained about their Grand Theft Auto Online experience, yet normally recognized its flexible exploration and vibrant content as strengths because of the widespread technical issues present at the launch. This time out, the player controls three various personalities Michael, Trevor, and also Franklin, who ultimately collaborated to implement a collection of bold break-ins.

291 Rockstar Shut Down GTA Online, Red Dead 2 Servers Today To Honor George Floyd Rockstar Gamings will briefly make both Red Dead Online and GTA Online hard to reach to the slain George Floyd today. GTA V is an enormous game, with an enormous world to discover, a lengthy major story, and also an incredible number of side missions. Each character has specific objectives that introduce them to new NPCs and added money - running a tow vehicle as Franklin, or going on a killing spree as Trevor, for instance. You can even get associated with the stock exchange and generate income from the business you’re duping throughout the video game.

It’s vague if GTA 5 on the Impressive Games Shop sustains cross-play with the Steam variation of the video game, which is worth remembering if you intend on meddling with the still-updated and extremely preferred GTA Online. The tale was rather interesting and also exciting - you can even switch over in between characters in between several objectives, and each character has their distinct character, funny bone, and amusing family/friend dysfunctions. GTA 5 is not a game for teens and also kids alike, because of the constant styles and options of severe physical violence, where you can select to hurt or murder criminals and innocent civilians alike with various sorts of weapons and dynamites. There’s one intense scene where you select various tools to sadistically torture a man. 

Finishing the tale missions alone must take you around 30 hours, and the adventure need not end there.

It could also be special to PlayStation for a time, before dropping down to the Xbox and also COMPUTER.

The following PlayStation and Xbox are coming out at the end of this year, which is just how Rockstar did it last time.

Other rumors have Grand Theft Auto 6 arriving as late as loss 2021 or early 2022.

Sex-related material is visual and solid in this game - even more explicit than the previous grand theft auto video games. It likewise offers strip clubs in this game where the player picks to provide lap dancings with highly intriguing women (one is a transsexual) and also their buttocks and breasts graphically noticeable.

Grand Theft Auto V

The video game became based on an extensive online dispute over its portrayal of women, particularly in the reaction's wake against GameSpot journalist Carolyn Petit when she declared the video game was misogynistic in her testimonial. After Petit’s evaluation web page got over 20,000 mainly unfavorable remarks, lots of journalists protected her right to a viewpoint and also regretted the video gaming area’s defensiveness toward objectifying. Television personality Karen Gravano, and starlet Lindsay Lohan both submitted suits against Rockstar in the allegation that personalities in the video game were based upon their similarities. Australian outlet store, Target drew the video game from their 300 stores, complying with a Change.org request against depictions of physical violence towards females in the game.

They are motifs of rape, incest, hooking, pedophilia, and also sexual sadism in this game. Drugs play a major function and counterparts in this video game, where personalities smoke, consume alcohol, use drugs, and also secure meth labs, where even principal characters own kids have implied drug/ alcohol addiction. Some scenes make a character get in a significant hallucination (high) state where they can’t perceive fact, and kill, make-believe animals like aliens and beasts.

The COMPUTER, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One versions present an exclusive feature, the first-person setting, where the entire video game can be played via the eyes of the lead character. Cars have detailed interiors, various from each other; capturing resembles that of a committed FPS game. The video game has produced several disputes connected to its physical violence and also the representation of the ladies. A mission that calls for gamers to make use of torture devices in a captivating examination of polarized reviewers, that noted its political commentary but felt that the torture series remained in poor preference. The mission additionally received an objection from political leaders and anti-torture charity groups.

Amazing game with unlimited opportunities, however, for adults for the “free country” theme where you select to perform poor or good options - significant “do anything” discrimination. This article or section describes “enhanced version” content in the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC performances of Grand Theft Auto V and/or Grand Theft Auto Online, which is missing on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 versions. Grand Theft Auto V expands the multiplayer attribute present in Grand Theft Auto IV. The multiplayer is treated as an extra title and also is called Grand Theft Auto Online. In GTA Online, multiplayer crews from Max Payne 3 can be carried over to GTA V. GTA V has multiplayer functions connected to Rockstar’s Social Club. One most distinct feature is that the character swapping function is carried out in a Google Earth-styled manner and was displayed throughout a Game Informer trial, which was revealed to have run efficiently and also without lag.

[cuttoothed]

CONVERSATIONS IN A FRAGILE LANGUAGE FOR THE FIC ASK MEME, ive reread that one so many times you have no idea tooth

Conversations In A Fragile Language

This is a tough one, because I’ve forgotten a lot of the details, and while I occasionally read my own fic, this isn’t one I’ve gone back to. So apologies if this is a bit scattered.

The initial idea I had for this was the very first scene, with Jon “running away from home” and Martin intercepting him. The idea of him setting a fire as a diversion came later, which admittedly raises some problems, considering his reaction to burning Gerry’s page, but who really cares about consistency with canon anyway right??? I sort of tried to retrofit it later that he hadn’t destroyed anything important, but I’ll freely admit that was a cop out.

The second idea I had was Martin killing Jon to prevent the Watcher’s Crown. Everything else in the story served to connect those two points, so of course it naturally had to be a “stopping the Watcher’s Crown” story. However it was pretty vaguely sketched out, which I think really shows, especially in the earlier chapters. There were a couple of plot threads (like the book they pick up early on) that I had intended to go further with, but which ended up taking a back seat to the Webbier aspects. (The book does get referenced briefly again when Jon takes a statement from a guy in Longyearbyen, as a nod to what I originally intended.)

Speaking of Jon taking statements, I’m going to take this opportunity to be publicly pleased about the fact that I wrote Jon recognizing random people on the street with statements and just taking them, before it happened in canon. I’ve never predicted anything correctly in this series, but damn it, at least I got one horrible detail accidentally correct! My version is a bit less creepy, admittedly, as in this timeline he doesn’t know about how the dreams affect people (though he does begin to suspect), but I’m still quite proud of myself for using a plot point that later happened in canon. (This fic also featured a corpse that was full of eyeballs when it was autopsied, so I guess I’m up to two correct horrible predictions now???)

I initially intended for the ending to be ambiguous as to Jon dying or not, because I am a slut for angst. But I got horribly attached to the version of the characters and their relationship I was writing, so I couldn’t go through with it. I love a good angsty ending, but I’m a sap at heart.

I’ll hold my hands up and say this is far more a relationship story than a plot story. Plot is not my strong point, guys. It was really fun and cathartic to write Jon and Martin moving from a boss and subordinate dynamic, to being equals and partners. Especially Martin getting to verbally smack Jon down a couple of times about still acting like Martin’s his responsibility to take care of. Obviously I couldn’t have predicted the immense pining that season 4 had in store for us.

In terms of the actual story, I really wanted it to be about the characters trying their best to find a solution, and failing at every turn, and eventually having to go to extremes and sacrifice their lives and/or humanity. It starts with them seeking information (which doesn’t help), then looking for help from people who know more, like the ancient Archivist and Adelard Dekker (which almost gets them killed), then seeking dangerous allies (which goes nowhere), to finally turning to the Web, who’s been waiting all along for her children to come back to her. In a way it’s similar to what Jon’s going through in canon right now, desperately looking for answers, but finding nothing to really help or direct him.

The idea of Martin having experienced A Guest For Mr. Spider as a child was kind of the linchpin. Once that idea came to me, the rest was fairly obvious, both in terms of the Web manipulating them together, and what Martin would be willing to do to save the world (and save Jon). I guess we’re seeing this season what Martin’s willing to do to save Jon, and I’m not sure I wrote him ruthless enough, to be honest.

I did quite a bit of research on locations and transport for the travel. Like, looking at train schedules and flight layover times. If you really wanted to for some reason, you could recreate the travel routes pretty much exactly. Also the locations and landmarks in various cities should be about right, as well as a decent amount of historical detail, though a lot of that was embellished.

My favorite location, of course, was the Reading Room of the British Museum, which I still believe is a very valid location for the Watcher’s Crown to take place. Look at this place filled with knowledge! Look at the skylight staring down from overhead! Look at the layout of the floor like a giant freaking eye with a pupil in the center! Closed for use since 2007. And it was designed by Robert Smirke’s brother. If I ever get one more prediction right, it will be this one.

Speaking of the Watcher’s Crown, man, that chapter was hell to write. It was just a lot of psychological torture and depression and angst and cosmic horror, and it was very difficult to get into the right frame of mind for it. I finally got it done thanks to the album Zeit, by Tangerine Dream, which is a dark, ambient, electro-prog mindfuck that is the closest you can get to pure existential dread in musical form. I listened to it a lot while writing that chapter.

What else...hmm… The Liar’s Knife was a rip off of homage to the Subtle Knife from His Dark Materials, which of course is referenced during the Svalbard trip. I can only imagine that both Jon and Martin would have devoured those books as kids, and would both have adored them for very different reasons. Lee Scoresby was Jon’s favorite character. Iorek Byrnison was Martin’s.

Introducing a tool of the Spiral (and then having Jon get stabbed with it) was also an excuse to bring in Helen, because I so desperately wanted her and Jon to speak again, on better terms. They’re...getting there in canon? I think?

Was Jon’s near death experience real or some sort of hallucination? Who knows? Helen might, but on the other hand she might not. She’s not great at what’s true and false.

What’s under the Dark/Vast compound at Ny Alesund? Could have been an enormous Dark/Vast hybrid creature, or it could have been caverns of equipment running experiments to reach alternate universes. Could be both! It's definitely both.

The ending is sappy as hell. I can’t help it. I am soft for these idiots, and while in canon the best we can hope for is that they get a brief moment of connection and understanding before one of them dies, in this story they get an entire chapter of talking about their feelings, and a happy(ish) ending, damn it!

Phew, I think that's it. Apparently I had more to say about this than I thought - thanks for asking!

[amandaoftherosemire]

Sing For Me - Chapter Thirty-seven

Fandom: Marvel Avengers AU

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X OFC (Sasha)

Characters: Bucky Barnes, OFC Sasha, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, OFC Zoe, OFC Kat, OFC Maddie, Princess Shuri

Author: @amandaoftherosemire​

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 2400

Format: Series (Complete)

Warning: Language, angst.

Summary: Sasha tries to wake up. Kat has a chance to talk to Zoe.

A/N: Not consistent with Marvel canon. The first chapter of Sing For Me went up at the end of February 2018. I’m trying to get the story completed by that anniversary. To that end, the next chapter is almost finished and should be up within a few days. I never intended for this to become a novel, but here we are. If you’re still reading, I love you.

Banner by @hellzzzbelle

Sing For Me Masterlist

Chapter Thirty-six here

Chapter Thirty-seven

Sasha had no idea how long she'd been hacking away at vines and branches when she finally broke through. All she knew was that she was hot, sweaty, and exhausted. The dress she'd started in was torn near to shreds, thanks to the rapiers disguised as thorns lining the pythons masquerading as briars. Between that and the time she'd taken to cut the skirt as short as possible to give her more freedom of movement, not to mention tearing off the sleeves, she was almost nude. Her bare skin no longer pristine, she was covered mostly in head to toe scratches and welts.

What fabric was left kept changing from blue to pink, however. She figured the afterlife was either weirdly symbolic or her hallucinations were weirdly straightforward. As she wiped at the sweat on her forehead, she couldn't help but wonder at the sharpness and realism of the experience.

With a final burst of energy, and profanity, along with a few more swings of the now filthy and green-stained blade, she slashed through the last few branches that stood between her and freedom. Laughing with not a little relief, she stumbled on bare feet and legs into a wholly unfamiliar forest.

The laugh dying on her lips, she looked around in stunned and furious disbelief. "Son of a goddamn motherfucking piece of fucking garbage bitch! What's this fucking bullshit supposed to mean?" As she muttered further obscenities, she hefted the sword over her shoulder and took off into the forest.

Kat was looking down at the serene façade that cloaked Sasha as she ignored the debate that raged around her when she felt a small hand on her arm. She turned her head to look at Zoe and smiled gently.

She had a lot of complicated feelings regarding her half-sisters.

Katya had hated Sasha with a vicious and bitter envy. The eldest of Alexandra’s daughters had been given everything, a family, a life, a choice. The others were left with nothing but neglect and pain and, at least in Katya's case, utter subjugation. Knowing Sasha was not to blame for the agonies she'd endured had made no difference when she'd looked into her sister's eyes and found no more recognition than when she'd looked into her mother's.

That lack of recognition had allowed Katya to hold on to the resentment long enough to complete her mission. Using her version of their talent to manipulate Sasha into seeing her only as a romantic rival helped to keep that hate and resentment solid. Those hatefully familiar eyes had felt like wasp stings on her skin, watching her with hostility and distrust. It hadn’t been difficult to maintain an answering hostility.

Once Katya had been able to drop the manipulation and show something more closely resembling her true self to Sasha, however, she’d been shocked by the change. Rather than feeling like needles, the sensation of Sasha’s regard became like gentle, teasing nudges. As Sasha’s captivity had dragged on, the more charming Katya had found her.

Not that Sasha was charming in her captivity, far from it. As a matter of fact, she was a raging bitch the vast majority of the time and she only got worse the longer she remained under Valentin’s thumb. Katya had loved every fucking second of it.

Every clench of Valentin's jaw, every snarl that curled his lip, every flush of rage that stained his aristocratic cheekbones, once daily terrors, became sources of dark triumph under Sasha's influence. Even when he took his anger at Sasha's defiance out on her, Katya internally did an entire cheerleading routine every single time she heard her tell the tyrant no.

By the time Valentin had given her the mission to kidnap Zoe, she had seen him defied so many times in so many ways, she’d seriously considered doing so herself for the first time in over a decade. Though her courage had ultimately failed her, escape had started to seem not just possible, but necessary once Valentin had collected the set.

Because despite what she had wanted to believe, the younger Alexandra did not resemble their mother in anything but eye color. Aware they were being monitored, and thus unable to speak freely, they'd nonetheless developed a form of communication no less powerful for all it was silent.

One day a few weeks in, while guarding Sasha as she waited for Valentin to arrive with new torments, Katie was comforted, if only for a moment, that she was no longer alone in this nightmare when Sasha surprised a laugh out of her.

Sasha had been psyching herself up for the showdown with Val by complaining loudly and with her usual plethora of colorful profanity of her disappointment in her archnemesis. Not that he wasn’t evil, just broadly drawn, she assured with astringent condescension. It was just that she had hoped for a higher caliber of villain. That’s all.

That moment, able to laugh at the man who’d made her a slave, to tear him down and see him as human and thus vulnerable, was a seed planted in her mind.

Immediately following that feeling of comfort, the gratitude at no longer being alone, was a wave of guilt stronger than any she’d felt before. No one deserved this hell, let alone anyone decent, and her sister was a fucking decent human being. In Katie’s world, decency was a rarity more precious than diamonds.

That may have been part of why she had been so astonished to feel an answering sensation of compassion from Sasha in response to that wave of guilt. Her power was concerned with perception. She had the ability to not only see herself through the eyes of others, she could also manipulate how they saw her. Neither Sasha nor Wanda used their powers on Karen because she had manipulated their perceptions so that they saw her as utterly harmless.

Katya had felt Sasha's contempt. Katie felt her kindness. Kat was going to pay the debt.

As for Zoe, she couldn’t really explain it, but Kat had had a soft spot since the day they met for the little girl who now spoke quietly inside her mind.

They'll be at this all day. Kat was fascinated by Zoe's mental voice. It was an astoundingly unusual sensation to have thoughts form inside her mind to which she felt no connection. They can't agree on an acceptable level of safety for me. Bucky has the final say while Sasha's out, but he'll argue it to death with Nat and Steve first.

How do you think it'll go? Kat was entirely uncertain as to how this worked so she tried to think more loudly in response.

Nat'll say yes. Zoe’s face was still a little swollen and stained with the tears she’d shed as Sasha lay dying, but a fierce little smile played at the corners of her mouth. Steve will say it's too dangerous. An indulgent eye roll at that. If you can convince Bucky it’s safe enough, he’ll probably let me try.

Zoe’s palm skimmed down Kat’s arm to trace the gold lines that shimmered softly under her tattoo. The phoenix was fresh, the colors vibrant, the tail feathers covering the back of the hand and curling over the webbing between thumb and forefinger to her palm. The gold lines wove through and were several degrees warmer where they rested lightly on their still lost sister. Rather than the condemnation Kat expected, Zoe’s face held open curiosity and understanding under the conspiratorial smirk. Do you really need my help, or did you just want to talk to me?

Kat stifled a laugh and pushed out a little more power to keep the others’ attention away from their silent interaction. She didn't want to admit it, but she now needed this for more reason than just the care to keep secrets safe. She needed to know that she had ultimately done more good than harm in abducting her little sister at Valentin's direction, if for no other reason than that she’d brought Zoe and Sasha together. She smiled gently. I think I need your help, but I might be able to do it myself. I also want to talk to you.

What do you need? As she asked, Zoe tilted her head to rest it lightly against Kat’s arm in a gesture of affection and support. Zoe could hear the mutter of Kat’s worry, fear, and guilt and hoped to ease whatever she could.

Kat was stunned by the simplicity of the response, the trust it took to offer so openly. Her throat tightened as both grief and gratitude tangled inside her. Though she mourned their inevitable estrangement, she was nevertheless grateful for the chance to see Zoe assured, compassionate, and unafraid.

Even more confident that Zoe would have the answers she sought, Kat rushed to ask the most important question. I need to know how far I can trust King T’challa and Princess Shuri.

Kat was not disappointed. Rather than answering immediately, Zoe seemed to mull it over before her response slowly sounded in Kat’s mind. It depends. With what?

Kat scanned those in the room to see if anyone was paying attention to them. She pushed out a little more power, determined to finish this conversation. The gold lines warmed slightly, and Zoe’s mouth spread in a conspiratorial smile as she looked up at her sister, her quick brain putting the pieces together.

Kat shrugged a little and looked sheepish. I have all the data on Morozov's vibranium project. It could help the princess heal Sasha, but it could also be used to rebuild his weapon if someone had access to enough vibranium.

Sasha trusted them with what’s left of the weapon, even the intact part. Zoe’s face had fallen into serious lines, her memory of being strapped into the ghastly machine one of her most horrific and pernicious nightmares.

Okay. Kat took in that information slowly, already feeling better about what she'd revealed to Her Highness. Judging by the speed with which Shuri worked at a table along the opposite wall, Kat had already given the scientist more than enough information. Still… But what do you think?

Zoe turned a confused and slightly concerned expression on Kat, the mutters of Kat’s worry beginning to infect her. Kat responded with the truth, not sure she knew how to sugarcoat it even if she thought she should. The chair wasn’t made only for Sasha. Me in the chair caused fear. Sasha caused pain. What do you think you could do?

Zoe’s eyes widened and Kat could tell this was the first time anyone had considered the possibility. That alone made her feel better about trusting these people with the source of her worst nightmares.

Valentin had made Katya do terrible things.

Kat watched her little sister’s gaze turn inward and grieved a little at the entirely too adult expression on the child’s face. She wondered if Sasha also felt torn between the need to shield Zoe versus the reality of her ability to do so.

Zoe’s face was set and determined when she looked back to Kat. Shuri is smart and decent. I’d trust her with it, and I’d trust the King to protect it. Kat fought the urge to laugh out loud at the look of sly amusement Zoe shot her as the next words appeared her mind. And yes, Sasha worries about that all the time.

Kat didn’t quite suppress the snort. Good to know. Especially as the princess already has the scent. As she thought the last, she tilted her head in Shuri’s direction. Zoe’s eyes followed to find the princess already had the image of something that looked like a necklace spinning in the air in front of her. It was clear she was on a roll.

Zoe turned back to Kat, her face a study in confusion. Kat shrugged. I couldn’t let Sasha die when I knew how to save her. Maddie’s attention skimmed over her skin, leaving both comfort and exhilaration in its wake. She glanced up to meet her beloved’s warm whiskey eyes. She could never distract her Mads for long. I owe her everything.

So… what are we waiting for?

Kat turned to meet her sister’s gaze once more and couldn’t help but notice a definite tendency towards recklessness. Cooler heads to prevail?

You sound like you think there are cooler heads in this room. Zoe’s expression had become downright smug in her amusement.

Kat thought about it for approximately three seconds before giving in. She recognized an iron will when she saw one as she lived with it. There was no stopping Maddie when she put her mind to something. All that could be done was to either minimize the damage or mitigate the danger. Everything she’d seen or heard of her younger sister told her she’d found another of her kind.

Keep your palm on my tattoo and put your other hand on Bucky’s arm. DO NOT let go. I’m going to both boost and buffer. The vibranium is going to shield you so you don’t get dragged under again. You’re the conduit, though, so you need to reach out and call her back.

So casually Bucky barely glanced at her as her hand made contact with his metal arm, Zoe moved to stand between where Bucky stood at Sasha’s head with his hand on her neck, and where Kat stood at Sasha’s arm, holding her hand. She moved in the ways she’d been taught to avoid drawing attention, not that she’d needed to worry. Between the intensity of the argument raging around them and Kat’s talent working at almost full power to shield them from the attention of the others, no one in the room was giving them even the least thought. How?

How did Sasha wake you after the explosion?

Zoe thought back to that moment, when she heard Sasha calling her, promising she was safe. For the first time in her life, she’d trusted wholeheartedly and had started the ascent. It had felt like swimming up through molasses, or clawing through cotton, and she’d had to sink back down and rest a few times, but she’d been willing to try because of that voice drawing her on. She called for me. I heard her and climbed out.

Same channel. Only you’re doing the calling now.

Chapter Thirty-eight here

Taglist:

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[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘A Guest for Mr Spider’ (S03E01) Analysis

After hyperventilating for a while, because IT’S HEEEERE, I got down to listening to the first episode of season 3, and … well, it wasn’t what I had expected, but it was an absolutely fascinating contextualization of a character we’ve known for a while, and also sets the scene for what we might expect going forward in season 3.  Come on in to hear what I thought about …

 The statement of Jonathan Sims, former Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, regarding a childhood encounter with a book once possessed by Jurgen Leitner.

Hooooo … this is going to be a pretty long post, because we have A LOT to get through.  This episode was exposition-rich without feeling like an info dump, which is a credit to Jonny Sims’ writing.  We got really surprising amounts of information about Sims as a character and about what brought him to the Institute.  But we also got some discussion of recent events as well, from a Sims who seems perhaps a week out from the events of the finale.  

First, we got confirmation for something I had suspected throughout season 2: a lot of Sims’ paranoia was induced by the Not-Them.  But then again, while Sims insists that it was all the Not-Them, I think it was more complicated than that.  I have a feeling that, given the very specific reactions that Sims was having compared to Tim or Martin, it was likely a combination of the Not-Them, the Beholding pricking at him and warning him that there was danger nearby, and his own natural paranoia being hugely exaggerated.  Because Sims has always been a little paranoid.  

He is, however, a lot more self-aware in this episode than he has been in quite some time.  He knows that, for the majority of the last season, he really wasn’t playing with a full deck.  I doubt he’s as recovered from the events of season 2 as he thinks.  While he does sound saner, he still frays and starts sounding a lot more broken again when he discusses the fact that his former colleagues now likely think him a psychopathic killer.  A lot is hitting Sims all at once at this point: the loss of his job, being on the run despite the lack of wide-scale manhunt (my guess is that the investigation into Leitner’s death is going to be a very secret thing, likely undertaken by Daisy alone), and having lost people he might not have even recognized as friends before he did indeed lose them.  Sasha is dead, and Martin and Tim both suspect him of murder.  As dismissive as he was of his assistants, I think he’s feeling their loss a lot more keenly than he thought he would.

But most of that remains subtext or only hinted at, because Sims might think he’s no longer the Archivist, but something is still driving him.  Something has made him find a new tape recorder, new tapes, and to start recording again in the exact same manner he did at the Institute.  One could say it was habit, but I think that the Beholding is still claiming him.  He is still the Archivist, and as such the compulsion to behold and to record is overwhelming to him.  The only way he can start to make sense of everything that happened to him and because of him in season 2 is to finally recount the story that started him down this path, that committed him to the study of the paranormal, and that even seems rooted in some of the stupider decisions he’s made in this podcast’s run.

One thing I noticed, even early on, was that Sims was ready to dismiss almost any statement—no matter how compelling—as insubstantiated nonsense.  And yet whenever Jurgen Leitner’s library came up, he took that statement, even flimsy and without any proof, as 100% fact.  Sims was a believer in Leitner’s library and its horrors, if nothing else at the beginning of this series.  And in this statement, we learn why.  Sims himself had an encounter with one of those books, and it changed him in a fundamental way, setting him on the path to become the Archivist.  For Sims, Leitner was the definition of all that was horrific, supernatural, and evil.  Sims readily admits that he was functioning in a very (understandably) self-centered manner at the beginning of his tenure as the Archivist.  He had experienced the horror of a Leitner book, and so that was real. His fear and his suffering were real, but everyone else was likely lying or hallucinating or drugged.  Sims is a deeply self-centered individual, not because he’s a narcissist, but because he has defined himself as something independent of … well, just about everything and everyone else for basically all of his life.

In addition to being a nicely creepy story, we finally get a lot more insight into what formed Jonathan Sims into the man he is today, and even in his childhood he seemed to be defined by two characteristics that seem to have spilled over into his adulthood: isolation, and a belief in his own intelligence that very frequently veers into arrogance.  We also know that Sims was “a child of the 90s”, so is likely in his early to mid-thirties (I think of children of the nineties as those who remember that period as their childhood, so were likely … five or six in 1990?  Making him 32 or 33ish?).  We also know he looks considerably older than his actual age, even to the point of already having graying hair.  We know that both of his parents are dead.  His father died when he was two of an accidental fall, and his mother died a few years later due to complications of a routine surgery.  As such, the only caretaker Sims really knew was a grandmother grieving her dead son, and who resented having to care for a rather difficult grandchild.  Sims’ sense of isolation clearly started early, as while he doesn’t seem to have any outright hostility toward his grandmother, there is a definite distance in the way he discusses her.  She tried her best, but they were clearly never particularly close, and Sims in turn never really developed any deep bonds in his childhood.  The entire statement is devoid of mentions of friends or profound connections.  Even the person who eventually saved him from the book wasn’t a friend, but instead a bully who used to torment Sims, and whose name Sims can’t remember.

This all fits so well with everything we’ve already learned about Sims.  Sims really doesn’t get the idea of family.  think Martin’s story didn’t resonate with him nearly so much as it might with others partially because of the Not-Them’s paranoia, but also partially because the idea of completely upending his life and lying about something fundamental like who and what he was for someone he loved was something that Sims didn’t quite comprehend.  Sims has always functioned for himself first and foremost.  Putting others before his own self-interest is something he is clearly working to be better at.  Indeed, he does have moments of great selflessness, like when he tried to protect his assistants by sending them home in ‘The Librarian’.  But while Martin is naturally caring, and puts others before himself even to a fault, such actions are not natural to Sims.  

Instead of friends, Sims has always preferred books.  But even in that, Sims was difficult to please.  He apparently disliked reading anything that seemed familiar, meaning he would only ever read any given author once, and any given subject once.  His grandmother took to buying every second-hand book she could find that was 50p or less, and just presenting him with piles of books to sort through and choose ones he actually found interesting.  

And second-hand books, of course, lead us straight to the library of Jurgen Leitner.

The description of ‘A Guest for Mr Spider’ is somehow even more chilling than most of the other Leitner books, because it’s a picture book.  The implication there seems to be that it specifically targets children. The strange, horrid, twitchy illustrations depict a series of flies in various costumes coming to visit Mr Spider, only to vanish as more and more of Mr Spider’s home is covered in brown ink and Mr Spider becomes more bloated.  The final consumption of Mr Horse and his son sets clear the context that the book wants children.  It will take older people, and indeed it does end up taking the 19-year-old bully who snatched the book from Sims before he could finish it, but this was a book meant to be found and read by a child.  A child who, like Sims, recognized the book instantly as something wrong and horrific, and yet who was powerless to stop reading.  Who would be drawn through the streets to a house that wouldn’t be found later.  A house full of darkness and webs, and long spider legs.  It puts one in mind of Raymond Fielding.  I wonder if, when reading the statements regarding the house on Hill Top Road, Sims saw reflected in those experiences that house from his own childhood.  Did he read Ronald Sinclair’s statement about Fielding, about the children bound in webs in his basement, and think of himself and that nameless bully?  Or did he ever think to tie those spiders together with Mr Spider?

I wonder if he might not have done.  Rather than focusing on the house and the spiders, Sims seems to have focused all his fear and his anger at Jurgen Leitner.  He would dismiss the statements about spiders readily enough at the beginning, but never a statement about Leitner.  In Sims’ mind, the supernatural was rare, with the majority of the statements he read—even those on tape—made up of hoaxes.  But Leitner was evil personified, and had tapped into some primal power that he wielded to harm 8-year-old Jonathan Sims and reshape his entire perception of how the world worked.

It shines a whole different light on how profound actually meeting Leitner must have been for Sims. Leitner wasn’t some great villain or all-powerful master of the things in his books.  He was a stupid, arrogant man who thought he could control and define things without control or definition.  He was, as Sims says in this episode, a spoiled child.  He looked at the nightmares in this world and thought he had the ability to confront them and contain them purely because he was interested and had a big enough ego to think he could.  He decided to create a way to hold the supernatural to his own whims, much as Robert Smirke had done with his architecture.  But whatever power Smirke wielded that made him so lastingly effective, Leitner lacked.  He contained the books only for a brief time, and then they all found their way back into the wild, potentially more readily available than they had been before. Even his and Gertrude’s scheme to destroy the Institute could well have been similarly short-sighted, and just another effort to exert control from a man who was ultimately just as powerless as anyone else.

This man, who Sims had so feared and hated, is remarkably similar to Sims.  They both believe that if they confront the horrors of this world, they will somehow have the ability to resist and defeat them.  They are both isolated, both believe themselves more intelligent than they actually are, and are both supremely arrogant.  Leitner isn’t a monster.  He’s a cautionary tale.

And now Sims lacks that driving fear of Leitner.  He lacks a job, and he’s realizing that everything he set out to do in season 1 and even his desire from childhood to protect people from the darkness has roundly and repeatedly failed.  He wanted to organize the archive and failed.  He wanted to disprove the majority of the supernatural statements that weren’t directly related to his own trauma, and he failed.  He wanted to keep his assistants as far from harm as possible, and he failed.  And now he’s on the run.  He’s out in the wild without direction or any real idea of what he needs to do.  

So he falls back on compulsion.  He records his own statement, lacking anyone else’s.  He hides and he looks at the shattered remains of his life.  Something is going to happen, I’m certain, to roust him from this hiding space, and to plunge him into the wider world of the supernatural.  Having him out of the Institute may well be exactly the boost to his skill and his understanding that Elias thinks it will be.  He will see the powers of his world in a much more direct fashion.  He may well be able to get statements from faction members who would never set foot inside the Institute.  And he will likely be in terrible danger from all of them. We still don’t know what it means to be the Archivist, but we know that whatever it is, members of other factions want the Archivist.  They want to use him, or tell him things, or get information from him, or kill him. But Sims’ position makes him marked, not only by the Beholding, but every supernatural entity out there.  And this season, I think we’ll learn a lot more about what that really means.

This was quite the episode for big reveals regarding the backstory of Jonathan Sims, and what makes him the man he is today.  So much of it jives perfectly with the man we’ve gotten to know.  He’s protective of others, but in an abstract way that speaks more to a belief that this is the way he ought to be than a sense of genuine connection with others.  And yet he believes enough in this abstract sense of right and wrong that he is willing to put himself in danger to protect innocents.  It was why he tried to deck Michael when he realized a woman had been snatched right under his nose.  Looking back, that experience must have been even more traumatic for him than it had seemed at the time, given how closely it resembled what happened when he was a child. There was someone else walking through a door, never to be seen again, while Jonathan Sims stood by helpless to stop it.  So many of the previous statements have new resonance now that we know how closely Sims’ own experience mirrored them.

His early isolation, as well as seeing someone snatched up by Mr Spider, goes a long way to explaining why he wouldn’t reach out to Martin or Tim throughout season 2, even when he knew he should.  It explains why he’s been so hesitant to foster anything but the most professional relationships with them, despite Martin’s best efforts.  He’s never learned how to connect with anyone on a deep and meaningful level, and he’s only now realizing how detrimental that can be.

More than that, there is a guilt in Sims, unacknowledged and perhaps unconscious, that this bully he can barely even remember died and thereby saved him.  Imagine the guilt that rears up when Leitner revealed that Gertrude had three assistants, and they all died.  Imagine his guilt when he realizes that Sasha is dead and he never even noticed because of the Not-Them.  Imagine his guilt when he realizes that Tim and Martin are unable to quit, and are therefore meant to die for him as well.  These people he could almost call his friends, and some great and unknown power will kill them just because that’s what the assistants of an Archivist do.  There may well be some unconscious belief that if he just pushes them away, if he keeps them as far from him as possible, and if he stays away from the Institute, he can save them.  I doubt that’s the way it works.  I think that something will draw Sims and Martin and Tim back together, but I think that Sims is always going to be operating with that low-level terror that more people, people he cares about this time, people with names and faces he will remember, are going to end up dying because of him again.  Sims has massive amounts of survivor’s guilt, I think, and he doesn’t even realize it.

Conclusions

Starting the season out with a deep-dive character study wasn’t what I expected, but I really liked it. We now have a good idea of what’s going on with Sims right now, and have a better understanding of his head-space. He’s staying with Georgie, the hostess of the ‘What the Ghost’ podcast, and someone Melanie once mentioned actually spoke pretty well of Sims.  It’s still not clear if Sims and Georgie were once romantically involved, but he’s now staying in her guest room and cat-sitting for her.  Their conversations are awkward, like two people who haven’t interacted in years and are suddenly together and realizing how little they have in common.  

I’m interested what they’ll do with Georgie.  I’m honestly hoping she’s not another outsider character, as we already have that in Basira Hussain.  It would be more interesting if she was already an insider, perhaps a member of the Open Eye or working with Trevor the Vampire Slayer or something.  She’s said she’ll believe anything.  What if that’s because she’s already seen so much and has way more contacts in that world than Sims?  What if she’s not just a random character, but the gate through which he’ll be thrown head-first into the wider world of the supernatural in TMA?  That would be a fun twist.

I’m also hoping that, now that we’ve established Sims, we get to see what’s happening at the Institute. What is Elias doing to clean up after season 2?  Was that Daisy on the teaser trailer?  Is she hunting Sims?  If she is, does she intend to deal with him the same way she deals with other supernatural threats?  Is Martin the Interim Head Archivist?  Is Tim still there?  What is their relationship like now?  There are so many questions.  We’ve gotten a surprising number of answers about Sims, so I’m hopeful we’ll start to get a few about our other favorite characters as well starting next week.

[mst3kproject]

Invaders from Space

Apparently 'Earth is saved from incompetent alien invaders by an unattractive bachelor in a stupid superhero costume' was a genre in 60's Japan.  There was Prince of Space, Invasion of the Neptune Men... and here is Invaders from Space, which differs from the other two mostly in that the aliens have different costumes.

So who's menacing the world this week?  Turns out it's the evil Salamander Men of the Planet Kulimon.  Earth is clearly no match for that, so the Emerald Men (whose planet is stated to be two billion miles from us – significantly closer than Pluto) send Star Man and his nifty translator-wristwatch to deal with the situation.  What follows is... episodic, to say the least.  Like Time of the Apes or Mighty Jack, it's been patched together from multiple installments of a series.

In my first draft of this review, I tried to describe the whole plot blow-by-blow in order to emphasize the strangeness and choppy feel of it.  That quickly got way too long, though, so I'll summarize: the Salamander Men attack the Earth with a variety of super-weapons, including a deadly disease, a sound so annoying it melts brains, and a magic wand that changes the Earth's orbit.  Human scientists work very hard to find solutions to these problems, while Star Man just goes around having badly-choreographed pretend fights with whatever nests of Salamanders he can find.

Believe me, that doesn't begin to capture this movie.  Invaders from Space exists on a Robot Monster-like level of illogical storytelling.  The Salamander Men make Phantom of Krankor look like a tactical genius and the Buttplug-Headed Neptunians look well-organized.  We have no idea why they want to invade the Earth, besides a one-off reference to it being 'the richest planet in the universe' – what does that even mean?  Their bio-weapon is a disease spread by dancing.  Their bases on Earth are a giant egg at the bottom of the ocean and a 'castle' that looks like a geegaw you'd buy at a cheap ripoff of Disney's Enchanted Tiki Hut. They hypnotize people by breathing fire at them and escape fight scenes by jumping into the water and exploding.  What am I supposed to say about that?

Star Man himself doesn't make any more sense.  He's a slightly paunchy early-middle-aged guy with panty lines and his nipples visible right through his costume.  His 'ability to disguise himself as an Earthling' is supposedly supernatural but seems to just consist of him putting on a suit and tie.  He's got an antenna on his head that recieves signals from a crystal ball.  All the fight scenes between him and the Salamander men alternate between looking like a circus act or like a couple of broke cosplayers who can't agree on whether Joel or Mike was the best host... when they're not just circling each other as if they're about to tango.

The entire film has a 'then this happened... and then this happened...' kind of feeling to it, as if it's about a series of events that aren't necessarily connected to each other.  Nothing ever seems to escalate, and plot points like the alien disease and a salamander scale some kids find in their house are just forgotten about and never dealt with again.  One kid hallucinates a thunderstorm and this is never explained.  All this makes the movie feel much longer than the seventy-five minutes it actually is, because there's no sense of it going anywhere.  When Star Man punches out Orlando the Super-Salamander underwater and makes him explode (look, I know that sounds like something that would happen in Spongebob Squarepants but I swear to you, it's in this movie) it feels like that ought to be the end, but then we have the attack on the Tiki Geegaw and the movie goes on for another several minutes.

One possible reason for some of these narrative problems is that Invaders from Space is really two episodes of the Super Giants series of short films.  A total of nine minutes was left on the cutting room floor, which may have contained something important, and yet I have a hard time imagining what it could be. After all, if the 'alien disease' plot got a proper ending, why would they cut that while leaving the bizarre dance numbers?  Same with the lost salamander scale... but that plot point is so much smaller than the disease one that I can't imagine why they left it in if it didn't get an ending.  Maybe it had something to do with convincing the scientists that they're facing an alien invasion, which is only a theory in the first part of the movie and then becomes an accepted fact in the second.

What's that you say?  Your brain is stuck on 'dance numbers'?  Yeah, there are a couple of those.  One is some weird tribal thing with fire sticks that the Salamander Men do around three captured children, for no apparent reason besides to terrify them.  The other is the dance show they putting on as a way of spreading their disease, which looks like something a bunch of undergraduate performing arts majors put together and thought was deep and meaningful.  The scientists conclude that dancers with such superhuman agility can only be space creatures, but the actual performance isn't anything special.  There isn't even any wirework to substitute for special.

The hooks where the wires attach to Star Man's back and ass in the flying scenes are clearly visible, by the way.

That brings us to the shoddy and ridiculous costuming.  Star Man's outfit looks like he made it in his basement.  The Salamander Men are more elaborate, with lots of scales and antennae and big lenses over their eyes, but still silly and made of fabric that could have come from the Japanese equivalent of Joann's.  Parts of them have glitter on them.  There were at least a dozen full costumes made for things like the big fights and the scenes in the Salamander Council Chamber, but at times that was still not enough and they had to fall back on the Attack of the The Eye Creatures technique of wearing just the head with a black bodysuit. Shockingly, they had even less shame about this, too – the head-only The Eye Creatures at least stayed behind the bushes, but the head-only Salamander Men are right out in the open.

One thing I can say about Invaders from Space is that the children in it aren't too annoying.  They actually go to the adults when necessary instead of trying to do everything themselves, and they aren't automatically experts on the goings-on like they would be in a Gamera movie.  There's even a pretty awesome bit where one of the kids, having been told that throwing the crystal ball on the ground will summon Star Man, decides to get extra milage out of it by throwing it on the ground via a Salamander Man's teeth.

So the movie is terrible, but like Prince of Space or Robot Monster it's just plain weird enough to be kind of mesmerizing.  There are bits that are insufferably boring, but other parts are laugh-out-loud funny.  There were multiple moments when I thought I'd found the perfect stinger for the end of the hypothetical MST3K episode, only to have it topped a few minutes later.  My current choice would be the part where the Salamander Men summon their greatest scientist to stop the Earth's rotation by waving their arms and chanting what sounds like, “Orlando, Come!” but that'll probably change the next time I watch the movie.  I mean, there's also that amazing bit where one of them sighs and says, in a disappointed voice, “I thought we were indestructible... but we're not.”

I'm not sure if there's any actual analysis that can be done on this movie.  If Invaders from Space has anything to say, it's buried too deep in the weird shit for me to tease it out.  One thing I did learn from looking the film up on Wikipedia is that Star Man's Japanese name is Super Giants, which is weird because there's only one of him and he appears to be no more than slightly tallish. Also, the Salamander Men are called Kapia-Seijin, or Kappa-People.  A 'kappa' is a Japanese water monster, said to be scaly with large eyes and webbed feet, that lives in swamps and lures people in to drown.  I can certainly see the resemblance between that and the Salamander Men, and possibly some of the stranger things they do originate in odd bits of kappa mythology.

(Speaking of odd bits of kappa mythology, the Wikipedia page for the creature includes a Japanese woodcut that appears to show an old man driving kappa away by farting at them.  I'm glad that wasn't in the movie.)

I suppose one thing we can get from this movie is that while the Emerald Men and Star Man may be our super-powered protectors, even they couldn't save the Earth alone.  The final blow was delivered by the humans, after we discovered that Salamander Men melt when exposed to copper sulfate (I choose to believe that the puddles left behind afterwards are bright blue).  The aliens, like the gods, help those who help themselves.

In the final analysis I'm not sure whether I'd recommend this one or not.  I still haven't made up my mind if I like it or not, never mind whether anybody else will.  It's not enjoyable in the way true bad movie classics like Space Mutiny and Starcrash are, where you just laugh your way through the whole thing.  At the same time, it's definitely not Monster A-Go-Go unwatchably dull, either.  If you like weird Japanese movies, you'll probably want to take a look at it – if you don't, avoid it like the dancing Salamander plague.

[blockheadbrands]

The White House and Spider-Man’s Anti-Weed Comic, Fastlane

Kevin Cortez of Leafly Reports:

It’s the final quarter of 2018, and everything’s coming up Spider-Man. We’ve seen so many reboots and incarnations of Spider-Man, it’s impossible to not be familiar with at least one version of the web-slinger comic giant. We’ve also been introduced to enough of Spider-Man’s universe—from Fox Kids’ 90’s animated television show to the numerous film reboots that have surfaced in last two decades—to familiarize us with his multiple rivals.

Venom, Vulture, Mysterio, Scorpion, Rhino, Shocker … there are handfuls of badies that Spider-Man has fought through his comic books, shows, movies, and video games. But, a lesser-known Spider-Man villain (and probably the worst of all) seemed to be an herb we called “marijuana.”

The White House, Radioactive Spiders, and Cannabis

If you were an avid comic book reader between 1999 and 2000, you may remember Marvel Comics’ Fastlane, a four-part story arc that involved Peter Parker warding off the influence of cannabis from a Daily Bugle intern named Sam Exmore—while also warning its audience of the dangers of smoking weed.

This four-part arc was placed in multiple Marvel Comics titles every other month, contributing eight pages in the dead center of over 60 ongoing comics. In addition to Marvel’s own comics, according to artist Gregg Schigiel, magazines such as Boy’s Life, Girl’s Life, National Geographic World, Schoolastic, Sports Illustrated For Kids, and more also published the comic arc.

The estimated circulation for the series was roughly 11 million.

The White House had commissioned Marvel for an anti-weed story arc as part of a media campaign to educate youth.

This comic book arc was funded by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as a part of an anti-drug campaign specifically targeting cannabis. Fastlane followed a movie star named Zane Whelan, who promoted the use of cannabis in the form of a “cool guy” idolized by children—but mostly Daily Bugle intern Sam Exmore. The story follows Spider-Man and Peter Parker exposing the harms of toking up to teach Sam that his idol is basically a loser who partakes in a dangerous habit.

Sound familiar? Saved By The Bell did a similar story arc in the 1991 episode “No Hope With Dope.”

Fastlane was split into four parts: “Media Blitz!,” “Feel the Rush!,” “On the Edge” and “Back on Target.” Gregg Schigiel worked on the comic book as an artist, while Steve Behling worked as its editor. John Fraser, Senior Vice President for Strategic Promotions and Advertising for Marvel, was in charge of putting the entire thing together. In a detailed interview with Comics Alliance, Schigiel recalled being approached by editor Steve Behling and told of a project spearheaded by John Fraser, explaining that the White House had commissioned Marvel for an anti-weed story arc as part of a media campaign to educate youth and understand how marketing can negatively influence choices.

Hard Rules and … Smoking Without Smoking?

Glenn Herdling was hired to craft the story’s script, working alongside the White House ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy), complying to the office’s every need and request. Behling and Fraser were flown to Boston to attend a conference in which they were explained the story essentials they needed to convey and produce.

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According to Gregg Schigiel:

“I distinctly remember asking one of the guys in the Marvel bullpen to describe what a bowl might look like and worked up some sketches as he pointed out what looked right or wrong, and almost like a police sketch artist, I worked up the bowl that Sam Exmore is so very attached to in the story.

There were very specific notations on the scripts that we couldn’t show Sam, or anyone, actually smoking. Smoke, pot leaves, holding the bowl, those were all fine, but no visual representations of actual smoking/inhaling. So you’ll notice there’s plenty of smoke, but no smoking.”

Illustrating smoke but “not smoking” was just one of the few nonsensical rules the White House gave Marvel concerning Spider-Man: Fastlane. Other rules included no punches (literally, no violence at all, despite Spider-Man having a showdown with Mysterio) and no signature cigar smoking for Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson. Mike Thomas, Head of Marvel Creative Services at the time, revealed that the White House was so politically correct, that dialog had to be changed concerning a truck driver who was yelling out of his window in one panel, to prevent the stereotyping of truck drivers.

Anything that could be deemed as scantly offensive was avoided for the sake of a clean, safe anti-marijuana PSA.

Of course, these rules aided in forming Fastlane’s terrible story. The comic follows Peter Parker and two new interns at the Daily Bugle, Toni Harris and Sam Exmore, as we watch Exmore track down his hero Zane Whelan for an interview, simply because he’s such a cool guy. Whelan is depicted as a Hollywood hot-shot who always wears a t-shirt with a cannabis leaf.

Hollywood’s Inconsistent Stoners and the “Cool Guy” Effect

Exmore’s character is a stoner teen who smokes pot only because Zane Whelan makes it look cool. However, Whelan’s pot smoking isn’t really depicted on any pages at all, and aside from his t-shirt, we’re not even led to believe Whelan smokes regularly.

Furthermore, adding to the story’s bizarre, loosely consistent beats, Mysterio seems to be the main bad guy in Fastlane, and his entire purpose in the comic is to eliminate those “who flaunt the image of Zane Whelan,” and Whelan himself.

In one scene, Mysterio grabs a Daily Bugle van with a crane, as the van shows Zane Whelan’s face displaying an advertisement for his new film Fastlane. The crane dangles the van in the air, and Peter Parker, Sam Exmore, and Toni Harris are within, terrified.

Readers are led to believe that smoking weed caused this over-the-top act.

Exmore almost falls to his death before Peter Parker manages to shoot some web fluid to catch him (without anyone seeing), but Exmore isn’t concerned with dying. He’s actually more concerned about losing his pipe—a pipe that looks more related to a crack pipe than a glass cannabis/tobacco pipe.

Later, when Exmore finally meets Whelan, Exmore is let down by the actor’s facade. Sam is upset that during Whelan’s music video shoot (the entire comic leads you to believe Whelan is a movie star, only to lead up to him shooting a music video for Fastlane, not an actual movie titled Fastlane) Whelan isn’t doing his own stunt work. This angers Exmore, who now believes his Hollywood hero is a fake.

Exmore tells off Whelan for being a phony who is just promoting an image for money.

Living On The Edge After the Exhale

Exmore then runs off the set and into the Daily Bugle van to smoke a ton of weed. “I can get that far out on the edge—even if the real Zane can’t!,” Exmore exclaims, hallucinating (seriously) from how much he’s smoked. He drives to the Brooklyn Bridge, gets out of the van, and begins walking along the edge of the bridge to “live dangerously.”

Readers are led to believe that smoking weed caused this over-the-top act. Almost immediately, Exmore gets back into the van and is hit by a truck that explodes, causing Sam to almost fall to his death before Spidey, and—comically—most of the Marvel Universe’s heroes, saves the day. Of course, this type of ridiculous government propaganda doesn’t really exist in 2018, but Spider-Man: Fastlane serves as an interesting scope of anti-cannabis PSAs from a not-too-distant past. The comic seems to be forgotten (mostly) by time, aside from Chris Sims’ oral history on the arc.

Since its original publication in 1999, Spider-Man: Fastlane has been featured in the collection, Spider-Man Fights Substance Abuse. It’s also been featured in the Reefer Madness Museum.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON LEAFLY, CLICK HERE.

https://www.leafly.com/news/lifestyle/spider-man-cannabis-weed-comic-fastlane

[candicearchuleta-blog]

Plot Spin.

When it pertains to creative writing, it is the ending of a story that is just one of one of the most tough aspect of the writing procedure for me. When the final line has been actually composed, or even keyed in, and also there is nothing else for the characters to accomplish, as well as success has actually been won and the villain beat - I lost a tear. I recognize I state this annually, however I would like to state it again ... you carry out an AMAZING work with the presentation method ... from interactions and also timetables, to entirely on time outfit practice sessions to satisfying performance opportunities by females ... it is one if the various, lots of explanations our experts like Breaking Ground! That creates a really unsharpened story unless you can carry style, energy as well as an unique sight to this, through which case you will possibly be actually better off trying to sell that as a movie procedure. Coincidentally, this story was actually posted the day just before the Physician Which Publication account The Stockbridge Showdown, which was likewise their initial comic account to showcase a solo post-Series 9 Twelfth Physician. Though the story itself need to be just created that's certainly not to say it should not be properly written. Just what that suggests for the future of Unbreakable is confusing - the variation has been actually strict under wraps, so there's no formal term coming from Shyamalan or Willis. After years pass, the great tasting preference and smell of the primary role in The Account comes to be moldy and bitter. If this had not been for the characters in the stories we enjoy, our team would have fully different stories. Benting the ending really did not strike me for years, when I finally did it, that was through accident. This is actually a terrific means from placing a positive twist on something that some parents consider as hazardous to youngsters as well as understanding. Eucatastrophe is actually a twist by the end whereby a hero that seemed doomed is actually spared. American Horror Account: Roanoke still seeks to repay the enigmas put together in the 1st one-half from the period - the series's just doing that now with a wink and also a handful of backstage mistakes (even more of that, satisfy). It wasn't because they failed to love each other anymore or had obtained married on a reality series. Your readers simply will not have the ability to connect to your tale or receive intrigued if they do not strongly believe the characters are definitely that you indicate them to become. This is why you need to invest a really good volume of time creating your personalities as completely as feasible. 2 or even 3 personalities, or even, at times, even one personality, appears adequate good enough for a short story. This is an old one, which is actually why people which were actually properly checked out in the style identified the variation quite early in M Night Shyamalan's movie. Pupils hang out in the 1st fifty percent of the time breaking down an existing involved story as well as creating several modifications to that. Once they end up being accustomed to the concept of programs accounts, pupils are actually encouraged to generate their own concepts for their very own account in sets or even little groups. Moreover, finely executed had actually been actually the aspect of the clever dodger, Mr Brownlowe and obviously Oliver Twist. For a fiction publication, the starting point might open by cultivating your personalities and their place within your account. In producing three-dimensional characters, I function to maintain all the personalities' emotions, activities, and also thoughts relevant to the story. If you liked this article therefore you would like to obtain more info regarding yellow pages uk twitter (naszamagia-twojezycie.pl) please visit our own web-site. A full progression of the literature is actually built in order that the visitor puts her rapt attention in to the spirit from the story. Whereas crazy Aaj Kal motion picture, there are simply 2 tales which depict love after that as well as now. Amongst various other jobs he is actually thought of also for four of his various other significant additions to literature: The Pickwick Documents, The Life and Adventures of Nicolas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Store and Oliver Spin. This could be completed through including an online video screen into one's streamer display screen style with Media Spin. Since you can't feel just what she says, the Hallucinator still works for story spins. He experiences he is in love with her, but he is actually likewise restless to find out just what she looks like. He despised themselves for the fat deposits and also whatever else; his self-hatred bypassed his love for me. Considering that he no a lot longer adored me in the exact same method, I no a lot longer liked him. His performance as an innocent male, (greatly crazy with his partner as well as not able to reside honestly along with an interracial marriage) sentenced from murder-- in AHS: Asylum, was incredibly removaling. This training considers some of the techniques you may misdirect audiences if you want to make a plot spin, as well as this includes a story instance which may be downloaded and install as a PDF. The Pendant by Guy de Maupassant is an instance from a tale that utilizes a change of fortune spin. Tips such as a charity event at a racecourse, where all the cash utilized as well as elevated on this specific day receive given away to a charity that involves every person's interaction in order to deciding on the charitable organization this must head to in the end. The modular style of Spin Banner Stands up products produce that ideal for almost any scenario. Popular for his viewpoint on education and learning, a number of his most memorable quotes are You can not possess No Little one Left Behind if you leave behind the money behind" and ... as moms and dads, our experts should find the power and the time to intervene and also find ways that can help our little ones adore reading ... our team have to believe outside the box right here ...". The story is simply Verbal's mention so which makes everything also quick and easy for this to become a huge lie. Remember that the even more on the market" a twist is, the even more you will definitely must prefigure and ground this in the fact from your imaginary universe. A noir investigator story possibly would not gain from dragons, unless monsters are an important component of the universe you are actually developing. Wonderful Story: The writer maintains the visitor presuming right throughout by utilizing unexpected, reasonable plot spins. This electrical generator will definitely cause those idea association minutes that result in something astonishing. In, probably, a clumsy method from stating it, the last twist must not be illogically birthed coming from the early plot, character qualities, and motivation, however neither must this remain in any type of technique telegramed before its own presentation. Policymakers have taken a regular outline and provided the film in a battered the formula from death. Having said that, there is actually one thing that I must allow the audience know, just before I end the story. The craft of a twisted end remains in deceiving the reader to feel something various than just what is mosting likely to be sprung on them. The Advantages of Being actually a Wallflower writer, Stephen Chbosky, likewise displays Charlie's psychological distress throughout the account. The Variation system is actually likewise light-weight so that carries out certainly not need a military from folks in order to get traits in place. She told him that his true papa was among 4 males who she would certainly made love with at a rampage in 1967, which is already a less-than-romantic tale. This course is actually for authors that have a particular passion in learning ways to create plots along with a spin - for use in either narratives or even novels. Although his account is actually inspired by a Hollywood film, he informed the movie decently. . While there really isn't a story without the personalities, there are always characters even without an account. Yet you could still make use of The Fool to carry out the smash hit plot twist just the same. You will certainly have a great deal from problem twisting it if that is actually the scenario. However, if you understand where your tale is going, this is actually certainly not therefore tough. Tangy - An additional sensation taken note through a mostly sour experience along the sides of the tongue prompting from a fruity experience. This is the most effective method to locate so-called clean concepts." When you examine that through this, originalities are anywhere.