#I really showed off my comic lettering chops on this one too

[aroihkin]

Finished this back on March 29th, 2015

Reblogging myself all these years later because this is still probably the best art I've ever done and I'm still proud of it, and SoLavellan is back on the brain.

Alleyana says:

Climb.

If love is surrender, then whose war is it anyway? by Aroihkin

Deviant Art version (linked) isn’t split up. I have to do that because tall image + tumblr = re-sizing nightmare.

(Edit: here’s the in-progress post. I’m a dumb and linked the wrong one!)

[jonkentt]

dear captain sam,

Sept 10 ‘21 ~Secret Admirer~ @samwilsonfest

Sam’s sitting at the kitchen island, reading the cartoons from last week’s newspaper. He can never have the current ones cause Cass has to read them first. He’s cutting out a Garfield panel to hide in one of Bucky’s books later when the man himself walks in a drops a piece of folded construction paper on the table.

“What’s this?”

Bucky shrugs his leather jacket off and hangs it by the door.

“Donno, Sam. I don’t snoop other people’s mail.”

“That was one time and it was an accident.”

Bucky smirks and comes over to plant a kiss on Sam’s cheek before opening the kitchen cupboards.

“The note’s for you, Sam. But I’ve been sworn to secrecy about its author. Curry sound good for dinner?”

“Mm, yeah.” Sam unfolds the blue paper and finds a note scrawled in crayon.

daer Captain Sam, I think your really great! thanks four being a hero!

Sam smiles. His insides go all warm and fuzzy. He pictures Bucky being stopped on the sidewalk by a kid, handing this note off knowing it would get to Sam. Brave kid. He smooths the paper out and clips it on the fridge with a magnet. Bucky has started chopping up potatoes at the counter. Sam hugs him from behind and rests his chin on his partner’s shoulder.

“If you see my secret admirer again, tell them I loved the note.”

“Will do,” Bucky promises with a wink.

A week later, Bucky brings Sam a folded piece of pink paper and beams at him.

“Your note-writer was ridiculously happy to hear you loved it. They made you this and I only know it’s amazing because they showed it to me.”

Sam laughs and unfolds it. A crayoned version of himself waves back at him with a huge smile. He’s wearing the Cap suit with the wings flared open behind him.

“I think it’s a great likeness,” Bucky comments. Sam’s crayon head is massive and his goggles are comically big and round to match.

“And look,” Bucky traces over the paper with a vibranium finger. “It’s a bunch of stars in a heart shape. I told them to be really proud of that.”

Sam laughs again. “Yeah, they should!”

Under him is a row of puffy clouds and the same childish scrawl as the first note.

Captain Sam, Your a star! Im gonna fly like you one day and see the stars too.

Sam’s heart swells. That’s going on the fridge forever.

The next week, Sam is standing at their bookshelf when Bucky gets home. He’d already stuck a month’s worth of Garfield comics in Bucky’s copy of Lord of the Rings. Now he’s rubbing his chin, deliberating his next read with his bottom lip stuck out in a thoughtful pout. Bucky can’t resist kissing him.

“God, you’re so cute.”

Sam grins. “I know it.” Bucky gets lost staring fondly into his brown eyes before remembering his task.

“Ah!” He pulls two notes out of his pocket this time. One is yellow construction paper and the other looks torn from a notebook. “Delivery for a Mr. Wilson.”

“Ooo, yes! Do I have time to read these before we leave?”

“Yeah, ‘course babe. Gotta look for my bike gloves anyway.”

Sam opens the letter first. It’s in neater handwriting, maybe a teenager’s.

Mr. Sam Wilson, thanks for being a hero in more ways than one. My kid brother is thrilled to send his drawings to Captain America. I tell him we are so lucky to live in the same town as our hero. Mr. Bucky is really nice about it and he always talks about you like you’re his hero too. Thank you for sharing yourself with the world. Mum used to worry about me a lot after I came out, she worried I would feel alone. Seeing you on the TV helped because now she knows I’ll always have someone like me who I can look up to. She says if you can be a Black and gay Captain America, then I can believe anything is possible for me too.

Sam sniffs and wipes his nose on the back of his hand. He reads the note again then grabs his jacket and finds Bucky sitting on his motorcycle out front.

“Here, read this.”

Bucky gingerly takes the note and Sam can tell when he’s read it cause his eyes well up and his chin quivers.

“Buck, are you crying?”

“No.” He wipes at his eyes. “What’s the other one?” Bucky nods at the yellow paper in Sam’s fist.

“Oh, I forgot to look!”

Sam leans on the bike beside Bucky and unfolds another drawing. Sam’s still in his Cap suit, still has a giant head, and this time Bucky’s in it too. His metal arm is twice as thick as his other one. They’re holding hands and a cluster of blue hearts are floating above them. Sam hears a sniffle and looks at his partner.

“Yeah, okay, I’m definitely crying.”

Sam laughs, kisses a tear from his cheek, and leans into his chest, Bucky’s arms wrapping around him. Sam looks back at the drawing and his heart feels full to bursting. They’ll have to frame this one.

Bonus:

A few weeks later, Bucky startles Sam by dropping a box in his lap. He just laughs when Sam looks up at him.

“I think your admirer got his entire 2nd grade class to write to you.” Sam’s face lights up. “Better start reading now, Cap, if you wanna finish today. I’ll make popcorn.”

[smokeybrand]

Smokey band Movie Reviews: Wowza

The Suicide Squad is the best film DC has made since The Dark Knight. That’s it. That’s the review. If you want to know why i can say that with unassailable confidence, you can continue reading but from this point on, i am literally just going to gush about this f*cking thing like a straight up school girl.  It’s that good and you should go watch it right now. This is about to be a love letter to the best film I've seen all year, mostly because i haven’t seen any A24 flicks, but this thing is a fantastic consolation for that glaring disappointment.

The Inspired

The writing in this movie is easily the best the DCEU has to offer. I say that knowing there are some people who believe BvS is f*cking Shakespeare and MoS is Hemingway. They’re not. They’re both dogsh*t. The Suicide Squad absolutely is everything the neckbeard fanboys want those films to be. I marvel at how well the events blend, how organically the character interact, how real they feel in a movie with a giant kaiju space starfish as the driving conflict for the plot. It’s f*cking inspired and lays solid ground work for very exceptional aspect of this movie going forward. Your film starts on the page and James Gunn understands that sh*t very well.

The emotion in this movie is palpable. I literally teared up toward the end. That’s rare for me because I'm kind of an emotionless monster but that line, “I’m a superhero!” f*cking gut checked me. Gunn has done that to me three times. “WE are Groot.” "He may have been your father, boy. But he wasn't your daddy." It wasn’t Pete swinging in after the “On your left.” in Endgame but it was close. Dude is too good at that sh*t and it’s weird that Marvel is willing to let him go. They better lock that dude the f*ck up!

Chemistry is everything for an ensemble like this and this cast definitely has that. I bought their interactions without having to suspend my disbelief, not like in other, lesser SKWAD films. I particularly like the relationship between Ratcatcher II and Bloodsport. That sh*t was sweet and brought a legitimate smile to my face.

I mentioned how well this film was written but, aside from the brilliant plot that made all of these misfit killers relevant, the character work really goes a long way to selling this narrative. Like, you absolutely fall in love with Polka Dot Man by the end of this thing. They made Peacemaker an irredeemable bastard. Like, do you know how well you have to develop a character played by John f*cking Cena, for people to hate him? He’s the White people version of The Rock! That’s near impossible but they definitely pull it off. It’s like Gunn watched the first SKWAD, saw what they did with El Diablo and just decided to do that. And when i say “do that’, i mean actually write these f*cking characters as people instead of stereotypes and tropes.

The Great

This is an ensemble film, which means it lives and dies by it’s cast. Well, this motherf*cker is living mas! Not a single character was miscast in this. Not a one. From the supporting characters like Alice Braga’s Sol Soria and Peter Capaldi’s Thinker, to the expendable distraction SKWAD. Loved seeing Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang again and i even like Pete Davidson’s Blackguard. I can’t stand Pete Davidson. This cast is MCU levels of excellent but, of course, there are standouts.

Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag does the best work of his career. This dude almost always sucks in the roles he takes on but I'm starting to think that’s because of the direction he’s given because dude kills it as Flag in this. I genuinely liked him this time around. He felt like a real person and not some caricature of whatever the generic US Marine is supposed to be.

Margot Robbie is the live action Harley Quinn. She embodies this character like Ledger did Joker and RDJ did Stark. It’s that good and this version of Harley is easily the best. She feels complete, like she’s finally the Harls in the comics and i love it. This Harleen is who the character should have been from the jump but a lot of that was on Margot. She had to grow into the character, develop her ability because the first time she donned that Puddin’ necklace was rough. She’s come a long way and so has Harley.

I touched on this before but John Cena’s Peacemaker is a f*cking bastard. This casting genius because of the message behind the movie. I’ll get into that later but casting the most All-America motherf*cker to play the villain in a film about US involvement in Sovereign Foreign nations? And for Cena to literally play up his Patriot shtick only to turn out to be an allegory for the sordid reality of America? Bro, this sh*t got over. Cena is outstanding as Peacemaker. This cat really does have the chops to be a movie star. Looking forward to this show they gave him, for sure.

Polka-Dot Man is arguably the best character in this entire film. I love what Gunn wrote for him and absolutely adore how David Dastmalchian gave the character life. He had the best arc in the entire film and i really enjoyed his journey. When he got his moment, i teared up a little bit. Dude deserved that. Dude earned that. For me to have such a visceral reaction to that scene is testament to how well  Dastmalchian did his job!

Listen, i love Idris Elba. I do. Cat has all of the swagger. He’s easily as charismatic as Obama and i dig that. However, he just plays Idris Elba. Like, his Bloodsport is literally just John Luther but, you know, murder prone. That’s not a bad thing, it definitely works, but, if I'm being honest, as a character, he’s the weakest of the lot but that’s how good everyone is in this. Idris f*cking Elba is the weakest character in this cast! What?? It’s not even like he’s bad or anything, he just plays the same dude over and over.

And now we get to my favorite character in this flick, Ratcatcher II. Listen, i have no idea who the f*ck Daniela Melchior is, but she is the absolute heart of this film, the moral compass of this team, and she never shirks away from that challenge. She has outstanding chemistry with Elba and the relationship between their two characters is the sweetest sh*t I've seen in a long time. It reminded me a lot of Logan and Laura. Melchior, if he chooses, can have a great career in Hollywood because she’s a real talent.

The Good

The plot to this thing makes sense. It’s not something as intricate as The Dark Knight but it’s head-and-shoulders better than anything the DCEU has produced and objectively sh*ts on the SKWAD that came before it. Destabilizing a small Latin American nation feels more like something Waller would have theses assholes do, rather than trying to kill a f*cking god with boomerangs and bullets. This movie is everything the first SWKAD attempt wants to be.

The violence and gore in this is ramped up to a eleven. There is a lot of grotesque sh*t in this thing and it starts the second Blackguard gets his face blown off. Like, his entire f*cking face. You see ALL of that sh*t and SO much more. Like, it gets grimy and i appreciated that. A SKWAD film needs that blood. This is a team of remorseless killers. We, as the audience, need to feel that and this flick delivers.

James Gunn can direct his ass off. When they announced he was going to be in charge of this film way back when, i knew it was going to be legit. When they announced t was a hard R, i needed it in my life. We’re talking Guardians with murder. Were talking the quintessential James Gunn vision and what a vision it is. Not only did he direct the f*ck out of this movie, but he wrote it, too! Mans has the only writing credit on this production. This is all him! It’s wild seeing the difference between directors on display. Gunn delivered a film that one could argue is the best of the year while Zack Snyder made f*cking Army of the Dead. The discrepancy between the quality of these two films is why i hate Snyder so much and have all of the love for Gunn.

The imagery in this thing is f*cking top tier. There are shot that are legitimate art It's a weird juxtaposition considering how bloody some of these scenes get but, f*ck, is it gorgeous!

I have to mention the editing. I usually don’t bother because it’s always adequate and, admittedly, it feels only slightly better in this film but it’s competent. It’s better than the first and you really feel that sh*t. Like, i watched the movie in preparation for this one and, oh my god, the difference in an actual team of professional film editors really cut a great film. Who’ have thought letting a f*cking trailer house construct your movie that it would end up feeling like a ton of trailers strung together and be bad?

This movie is overtly political. It has a lot to say about the influence of the US abroad. It doesn’t shy away from the realities of our international policy and really hammers home the reality of what the United States is, rather than the way we portray ourselves to be. This culminates in a struggle between Flag and Peacemaker; Both soldiers to the core but on opposite ends of the American ideal. It’s actually really brilliant and, if you aren’t paying attention, will go over your head. This is how you instill your politics into a film. This is how you execute ideals in a narrative. Gunn has a lot to say and he says it in the loudest way, but with the quietest voice.

The Okay

The only beef i can see people having with this is the exposition dumps. There are a few but they kind of stall the overall flow. I didn’t mind them too much because, by the time we get to them, the film has built up so much good will by being just fantastic.

The Verdict

I f*cking loved this movie, dude. Look how long this list of dope sh*t is. I literally itemized all of the reasons why this flick is so great. I can’t articulate it and more clear. I told you at the very beginning, literally the first thing i wrote, that The Suicide Squad is the best film in the DCEU and i mean that sh*t. Grace Randolph is a f*cking hack. Don’t listen to her incredibly bias opinion. Just f*cking go watch it and decide for yourself! It’s in theaters right now and on HBO max for free.

[daggerzine]

Stephen Smith of The Morning Line opens up.

I believe that Bay Area musician Stephen Smith began sending me stuff to listen to/review with his band The Morning Line a few years ago. I really like the band’s brand of melodic rock/pop and was curious to know more. I then realized it was the same Stephen Smith who had been in Boston faves Salem 66 many years before. I then wondered what other bands he had been in that I had maybe checked out (or own records by) so I tossed him some questions that he was more than happy to answer. Read on and give the band a listen, they really deserve your time.

RAWK

Where did you grow up? Was it the Boston area?

North Shore of Chicago until about 14, then high school in the Boston suburbs. I stayed in and around Boston, with stints in New York, L.A., and North Carolina, until I was 25. I was into music as a kid in Chicago, but too young to really be going to shows or anything. Boston was where I really had my musical coming of age. There was a surprising amount of stuff happening in the Suburbs. I saw Husker Du in Concord. The Dead Kennedys in Waltham. And Boston was only about 45 minutes away by train. I remember going into the city and buying records at Newbury Comics, with Aimee Mann behind the register.

What was the first instrument you picked up?

Why I started playing french horn at 11 or 12, I don’t know. It didn’t last. I started playing guitar pretty quickly after that. My first electric was a Stratocaster. I was probably 12 years old. 1979? It was used, so I’m guessing it was an early 70’s one. Got stolen at CBGB while I was loading in in the mid-80’s. Thieves work fast! Let me know if you’ve seen it.

What was the first record you remember buying? As a kid nay band knock your socks off?

My memory is embarrassing, but I recall three early purchases. Singles of ELO’s “Turn to Stone,” and Gary Numan’s “Cars,” and a Beatles comp called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music.”

The most recent album from 2019. 

What bands were you introduction to punk/new wave/alternative music?

I remember very distinctly tuning into WLYN (later WFNX) and hearing Gun Club’s “Sex Beat”, and Bush Tetras’ “Cowboys in Africa,” and being amazed. I’ll tell you what, though, high school girlfriends were absolutely key to my musical education. Gang of Four? X? Learned about them through my first girlfriend. The Replacements? Through my second. I’m the great beneficiary of other people being better informed than me. Through these same people, I became aware of what was going on locally, and was turned on pretty early to stuff like Christmas, Volcano Suns, the Proletariat.

Was Expando Brain your first band? If not what?

As a fifteen-year-old, I had a couple bands with friends playing covers (I remember Gang of Four’s “Essence Rare,” X’s “Riding with Mary,” “Brand New Cadillac”). But Expando Brain was the first “real” band. I think I was 16 when we started that. Being that age and getting to play shows (like that CBGB one where I lost the guitar), make a record, and be ever-so-slightly enjoyed by some people, was a thrill. I suppose obviously.

Tell me about your time in Salem 66? Howe did you initially meet those ladies?

I don’t remember how we got together! I’m going to guess it was David Savoy’s doing. David managed Expando Brain for a while. He later managed Husker Du, before passing in early 1987. I think he got me together with them. I was 18-19 at the time. They were all 5-10 years older, so we wouldn’t have been traveling in the same circles.

It was absolutely thrilling for me. They were a great, interesting, band. They had “made it,” in my youthful eyes. Signed to Homestead Records? Come on. Gerard had rejected Expando Brain. So I was gonna be on my favorite label (well, maybe SST aside)! I was only in the band for nine months (I think I was a pretty relentless pain in the ass), but so much happened in that time. I think it was all in 1986. We did a tour through the south, so I saw places I’d never seen. We did another tour as a part of our travel to make “Frequency & Urgency,” so I got to see California, an unknown place that loomed so large in my imagination. We stopped in Needles, on the CA/AZ border, and I skated the pool of the motel we stayed at (very poorly). We made the record with Ethan James, who had recorded one of my favorite records of all time (“Double Nickels on the Dime”). I got my first tattoo while we were in L.A. making the record. It was just a dream for a 19-year-old who wanted to be a musician. In some minor way, I *was*.

Waiting for the pizza delivery. 

Was God’s Eye next? If so how did that band begin (and end)?

Yes and no. After getting booted from Salem 66, I went to school. Spent a year at Vassar College. There, I started the first version of God’s Eye with my brother, Tim, who would drive out to Poughkeepsie from Boston now and then to rehearse, and with Ivor Hanson, another Vassar student, who had earlier been in Faith and Embrace (and has gone on to lots of other things, musical and otherwise). I was just writing riffs then, nothing very substantial, and that came to an end at the end of the school year. At the same time, I answered an ad in the Village Voice. A band in North Carolina, apparently signed to a major, was looking for a guitar player. I noodled some notes onto a tape, took a picture, and sent it. I got an audition, then the gig. The band was called the Right Profile and, at the time, they were signed to Arista. ….but no record ever came out. Sort of a roots/American thing before that was a thing. Maybe Petty-ish? I hate to pigeonhole. So I moved to North Carolina. The band was led by a guy named Jeffrey Dean Foster, who is still making great music today. The drummer was Jon Wurster, a name I’m sure you know. For about nine months – again - I played with them. I was the wrong guy for the job though. I didn’t really have the kind of sideman chops they needed. Can’t remember if I jumped or was pushed. Maybe some combination. As an old man, it’s been nice reconnecting with them through the miracle of social media. A year or two after that, I restarted God’s Eye with my brother. In candor, it wasn’t very good. I had decided I needed to sing in a lower register, and it was really just bellowing. Despite that, we had remarkable success. We were managed by Boston dynamo Joyce Linehan, who would later go on to work at Sub Pop, work with Joe Pernice, and work as chief of staff to the Mayor of Boston. She got us much further than we (I) deserved. We made an album, an ep, and a single for Domino in England. The album also came out on Rough Trade in Germany. We got to play some dates in London. Nothing ever came out in the U.S. We had some interest, but it never materialized.

Anything in between that band and your move to the west coast?

Near the end of God’s Eye, I also played a bit with Green Magnet School. They needed a bassist, and I pitched in. Chris Pearson, one of the guitar players in the band, returned the favor, adding a second guitar for God’s Eye. I was lucky to be able to record a single with GMS, the Sub Pop double-single with Six Finger Satellite.

When did you make your movie to the Bay Area and what prompted that?

Frustration with music prompted it. I remember having breakfast with an exec from Stone Roses’ label. Silvertone, if I recall correctly. He sounded so into it! He was gonna put out the God’s Eye record in the U.S.! But it didn’t happen. I decided I needed to have more control over my life, so I bore down, finished college, and moved across the country to San Francisco, sight unseen, to go to law school.

The latest single from earlier this year. 

Were you in any bands before the Morning Line in San Francisco?

In law school I met a fellow student, Jason Hammon, who was in the midst of a pretty successful rock career. He was in Dance Hall Crashers. We stayed friends and, in 2000 or so, we started a band called My Fellow Astronauts, with his brother Gavin (another DHCrasher) and my friend Scout (Scout Shannon & the Willing Deceivers). We played some shows, recorded some demos, but nothing ever came of it.

Tell us about the beginnings of The Morning Line?

It’s 2004 or so. My friend Marco Baroz (Lucy & the Long Haul) played bass, David Knupp played guitar, and somehow we found David Shollenbarger. Maybe craigslist or something? David had played for awhile with Agent Orange. We were in our late 30’s, and knew not to take it too seriously. But we made some demos, and an album in 2007 (“Stay My Satellite”). We were and are very fortunate to have a friend named Peter Craft, who has a great studio called Boxer Lodge, and great skills. We got to spend a year working on the album, and get it just the way we wanted. We self-released, but got a few reviews and a few fan letters, and that’s all I could hope for. Eventually, the lack of success that comes with being in a band of forty-somethings took its toll, and the band was pretty much dissolved in 2008. But Peter (also a terrific drummer) and I kept making demos. I wrote some stuff I liked in about 2015, so we started recording again using The Morning Line name. “Stephen Smith” is too generic to get the job done.

“Smoke,” from 2017, is a collection of things we did over a few years. “North,” from 2019, was a focused, intentional album project, all recorded with Peter, David Knupp, and Brian Mello (the Bellyachers). That’s the band today. I write the songs and sing, but it really wouldn’t sound like it does without them, especially Brian (I don’t think Peter or David will be offended by that).

I know you just released a Morning Line single. What’s next for the band?

Not sure! I’m still riding the high of getting a couple songs done with all of us in quarantine! We’re talking about putting out a collection of odds and ends: demos, the songs from this new single, some remixes. But I’m not sure. We’ll be putting out a couple of those old outtakes as a Big Stir digital single in June. An album of all new material is probably in the future, but I’d guess at least 18 months out. We’re . . . deliberate.

Prior to COVD was the band actively playing locals shows and or doing any touring?

Not really. We play from time to time, but it’s mostly a recording project at this point. You’d be surprised how little interest there is in watching an obscure group of fifty-somethings peddle their wares.

A man, his dog and a weird-ass mountain (ok, hill). 

Who are some of your favorite current bands, local or otherwise?

I’ve been oddly incurious about new music the past few years. I just looked at the Outside Lands schedule and was like, “scarypoolparty? What?” I know that’s inconceivable to you. I tend to get excited by friends’ new products. People I’ve mentioned here, like Brian Mello and Scout Shannon, have had things out over the past year or two. My friend Russell Tillitt has something coming out. Jeff Shelton’s Well Wishers. Just off the top of my head. Bigger name stuff? I like the new Besnard Lakes record. The most recent Sleaford Mods. I’d be happy to hear the new Wrens record, which I suspect may never come.

What are your top 10 desert island discs?

You know how hard this is. Every day a different answer, right? Here goes:

Neil Young – Live Rust The Clash – London Calling Wrens – Meadowlands X – Los Angeles Gang of Four – Entertainment Replacements – Let it Be Jesus Lizard – Goat Jam – Sound Affects Teenage Fanclub – Catholic Education Wipers – Over The Edge

Those and a hundred others.

Final words? Closing comments? Words of wisdom?

Thanks for giving me the chance to think about this stuff. It’s fun to do a little reminiscing. As you know, there’s a deep bench of older indie-rock folks out there, still at it, and doing it pretty well. Thanks for giving us some attention.

 BONUS QUESTION: Red Sox or Giants?

60/40 Giants. It's nice to have a team in each league.

 https://themorningline.bandcamp.com/

[meteorherd]

top 5 tv shows

hiii liz thank you ^_^

1) UMM tbh i think my favorite show right now is ducktales 2017! i just love how much care's been put into it, you can tell the people behind it really loved the original + the comics and ultimately made it a love letter to original saturday morning stuff from disney...like it is so so cool how the reboot has an ongoing story and the way the characters develop and bounce off each other is actually some of the best ive seen from any show animated or not! honestly really surprised how much i ended up loving this :)

2) the good place if i ignore j*meela 🙂 i think tgp is one of the only shows ive seen and followed from start to finish so it will always be special to me despite my issues with it

3) pretty much any cooking show i love watching those...umm i usually like watching chopped and grocery games but anything is good tbh

4) derry girls omg its literally so funny...i normally do not care about shows where so many people are white but they can have a little poccie power since its about the troubles

5) the owl house! i love how wacky it is and i love the characters, but i have to say the romance part of it is the most realistic portrayal ive ever seen, it's so nice to have gay rep that isnt too subtle and also doesnt seem rushed either, i cant wait for s2 :)

[psychedelic-ink]

New Dawn(by lunna-star-8)

Dear Sabo and Ace,

Things haven’t been the best since Marineford, smiling hurts and Luffy shows no sign of waking up… I don’t know what to do… I keep expecting to wake up and the war never happened, but no amount of wishful thinking will get me that… Either way, I’m still not quite sure what day it is, the only time I grabbed a newspaper I ended up reading the comic strip instead. Sorry about that, I’ll end up finding what day it is, eventually. Adding to the list of things I don’t know, I have no clue where we’re heading but, before either of you worry, let me tell you that I trust Law.

And no, don’t make those faces, he saved Luffy and he saved me after the war. You’d trust him too. He’s a nice guy when—-

My letter got interrupted by a loud siren and the feeling of the floor suddenly tilting all to one side. I held onto the bed that was clearly secure to the floor but I felt the whole submarine rattle for a minute before the siren quieted down and I heard the unmistakable sound of canon fire.

Without so much as a second thought, I put my notebook and pen to the side before I darted to the door, I try to push it open but it wouldn’t budge – he wasn’t kidding when he said he’d find a way to keep me in the room. But neither was I when I said it wouldn’t be that easy, I looked around the room because it had to have…

I smirked when I saw the bared square hole on the wall “Vents.” I climbed on top of my bed to be able to reach the opening. It was relatively easy to get the grid off and I could see Law’s office from where I was and my math told me I should be able to fit in the space “If you don’t stay in bed, your wounds will open up again. So stay in bed.” His voice basically rang in my head as I stared at his office. It’s not like they needed me, they’re a more than capable pirate crew and it’s not like I’d be much help in my current state anyway…

Suddenly, I remembered Ace and his blood on my hands, I remembered Bon’s voice as we passed through the gate, I remembered Luffy’s screams when he took a hit from Magellan for me… I looked over my shoulder to see him still lying unconscious where he had been since I woke up and as I blinked, I could see Law in my brother’s place hurt and bleeding, plagued with nightmares he couldn’t escape from… I thought of the kind polar bear, Bepo, that had been nothing but supportive since I woke up… Or Ikkaku that always seemed to have a friendly smile saved for me…

When another canon blast was felt across the ship, I turned back to the vent and made up my mind, I was going out there and try not to be seen. I wouldn’t fight unless I had to but I would not sit still and wait for someone else to take another blow for me. I forced my claws out and used them to help me onto the vent, with a lot more ease than I expected, I pushed my way through the tight space until my head came out right on top of Law’s desk. Immediately I noticed that his two massive bookshelves were missing which I assume were what was now blocking the infirmary’s door. By generating a bit of wind, I managed to trip the chair backwards so it was out of the way and then set my palms over the desk, easily slipping my legs out of the vent and allowing gravity to softly flip me onto the floor. I checked, nothing seemed to be bleeding or ripped or even hurting – much, or more than usual, you don’t just miraculously recover from something like that war without constant aching limbs.

Snapping myself out of my amazement, I opened the door and made my way out trying not to be spotted. It wasn’t hard, the halls were empty due to everyone being engaged in battle, after some wrong turns and a couple of canon shots later, I had made my way outside without being seen.

“GET TO STRAW HAT AND TIGER LUNA, MEN!” some marine called out as he ran for the submarine… Hadn’t we been through enough? Hadn’t they taken enough…?

Not a second after the marine first stepped onto the submarine, I saw the light blue aura of Law’s ‘room’ before the man was chopped into pieces, he was screaming but as live as anyone. As I saw the man’s pieces fall to the floor, I peeked around the corner to see that Bepo was the only one on the deck, easily kicking the ass of a bunch of marines that seemed to have underestimated the bear, beyond him, on board of one of the marine ships, I could make out Law in his yellow hoodie and white hat fighting marines like the supernova he is – “Sadistic little bastard…” I chuckled to myself but then shrugged “Can’t really say I wouldn’t do the same with his devil fruit though, seems fun.”

I looked back around the battlefield, feeling the tiger in me wanting to join in the fight, standing at the side-lines wasn’t really its thing and, to be perfectly fair, can’t say it was mine either. My eyes shift down where the marine is struggling to, literally, put himself back together – I couldn’t resist, I manipulated the air around him to lift his limbs as I stayed as hidden as I could. Clearly, the marine had no idea what was going on as I started to throw his arms and legs at the heads of other marines around, I have to say that I probably should’ve felt a bit bad for the man, but I didn’t. I left the head for last, trying to talk myself out of doing what I was thinking, but who knew if I’d ever get the chance again? Not to mention, it would be cathartic after everything. Pulling it closer with some softer breezes, I ignored the marine’s complaints before figuring out where I’d be aiming and grinned – the ship where Law was. I took a couple of steps back before quickly taking them back and kicking the head probably hard enough to crack his skull. It landed right on the head of another marine and— oH, ShIt! Law turned to the sub. I really hope he didn’t see me, or I’m dead meat.

I looked up at the dark blue sky that was lighting by the second and at the dark oceans behind us… “We can still see the sky, we can still see the ocean, it’s not like it’s hell here!” Usopp said once. We were in Enies Lobby, in the middle of a Buster Call and those words stuck with me, they rang true in my heart and came back to me as the ocean breeze caressed my hot skin. There was a fight going on behind me, my heart was racing as I was painfully aware that at any moment anyone could round up the corner and see me or even a marine ship could come around or anything, really! And here I was, longing for the horizon that calls my name… It felt like ages since I last heard the calling of the sea, that pull in my heart like the tides, that whisper in my ear as the wind passes, beckoning me to take a leap. It made my skin crawl with excitement, it made me want to take to the waves once again…

The call to the sea that all four of us shared – that all four of us share.

Expecting enough time to have passed for me to be in the clear, I peek out of the corner again only to be faced with two people. Reflexively, I punch one in the face and flip the other over my shoulder dropping him straight on the floor before I realize that it’s two guys from Law’s crew, I had seen them before “Oh! I’m sorry!” I quickly say realizing that the red haired one was holding onto his nose, where I had hit him “You really shouldn’t sneak up on people like that…”

The one on the floor grunted “Can’t you scream or something, like a normal girl?”

I shrugged “It’s called a fight or flight reaction; I hope you realize.” He glared at me from the floor “I’m still sorry though.”

“It’s fine…” the red-haired dismissed seeming to have established that I hadn’t broken his nose “Makes us wonder what the captain’s so worried about, you can clearly fend for yourself.”

I frowned “What do you mean, worried?”

The one on the floor got up as he chuckled, rubbing his back “Kicking severed heads around isn’t exactly subtle, you know?”

I rubbed my face in annoyance “Damnit, he saw me, huh?”

The red haired nodded “Oh yeah. Turned to us like, get that damn girl below deck before I have to go deal with her myself!”

I looked over at him with an eyebrow raised “And that’s ‘worried’ to you?”

“It is with the captain.” They both replied in unison and I found myself tilting my head in agreement.

“What are you doing out here anyway?” asked the one with – I had just noticed – a penguin hat on “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep? I don’t know, in bed at least?”

I rolled my eyes “Yeah, like I’m gonna stay in bed while you guys are out here fighting. I don’t think so.”

“Well, you kind of have to now.” The red haired one said “We have orders to take you back and that’s what we’ll do.”

I looked between the two of them, feeling like a scolded child but it’s not like I had a lot of choices “Fine!” I give in, knowing that there was no point in arguing “But just so you guys won’t get yelled at.”

“Very considerate.” Penguin hat guy quickly replied as they escort me back to the door I had very expertly sneaked out of.

I was resigning to having to sit it out, when I see Bepo hit the floor bleeding, two swords coming down on the bear – I’m reacting before I’m thinking – I rush over. I know I’m not strong nor fast enough to stop the marines, but I can cover Bepo.

And that’s what I do.

I throw myself over the injured bear, acting as a shield between him and the blades and I brace myself for the pain to come, but instead, I hear what seems like metal hitting metal. I open my eyes to find out that both boys from before had stopped the swords with their bare hands and proceeded to kicking the marines away. With adrenaline rushing through me like a river after heavy rain, I helped Bepo to his feet and got us back to the same door I was so reluctant to pass through before. He struggled to stop me, he didn’t want to leave the battle, his friends were still fighting but I wasn’t about to even give him a chance to argue.

Yes, I’m the queen of ‘I get to do stupid stuff while injured that I sure as hell won’t let anyone else do.’ Have anything to say? Fight me.

Bepo needed a doctor – Bepo needed Law. But his captain was now stuck fighting a Vice-Admiral and it’s not like there was anyone that could ‘take over’ sort to speak. The only way to get Bepo help was to get Law but the only way to get Law was to get rid of the Vice-Admiral and they were right, it’s not like I was in any condition to get in a real fight, let along one with a Vice-Admiral…

There was, although, something that I could do. I didn’t like using it, aiming was a bitch and I kind of decided that it had been a bad idea to even try it in the first place, but it was also the only technique that I had that I could use right now that could: face up to a Vice-Admiral; be used from a distance; and not tear my body into grated cheese.

I carefully helped Bepo to sit down by the door and turned back to face the fight. Behind me, the sun was starting to break through the darkness of the night and I took a deep breath before I held out my arms in front of me, palms facing each other and I took another deep breath. I felt the air shift around me as I focused it between my hands, with my mind I gave it the shape of a bow and with my right hand, pulled back the non-existing string, forming an arrow of concentrated air in the middle as I did so. I felt the straightened air currents slice through the bandages on my hands and arms, the blood starting to be pulled into the air circuit, tainting it slightly red.

“When Sabo died, we said we wanted to get stronger so we wouldn’t lose anyone else. You took that burned off our shoulders by promising us that you’d never die. We believed you. I believe in you. You live in my heart now, in the memories I have of you, in the letters I write you, hence, I have no choice but to look after myself. I also can’t get stronger if I can’t get better first and I need to get stronger to protect Luffy and all the people I care about. Time to step up. I will come back a better version of me.”

With my thoughts decided and feeling the air settle into shape, I took yet another deep breath “RED GUARDIAN!”

I called out my attack aimed at the Vice-Admiral, my right hand fingers released the tension and between one second and the next, I felt a warm familiar touch over my right hand, but before I could turn around, I saw, to my amazement, that my arrow had caught fire in such a way that it looked like a big red bird.

My own thoughts came back to me “I will come back a better version of me.”

“A phoenix.” I could almost hear Ace’s voice right at my ear…

And then the next second arrived. The fire bird hit its target, sending the Vice-Admiral flying backwards into a wall on the ship in a blaze of fire before he fell face first on the deck of his ship. My jaw was on the floor, had I just done that?

Movement in the corner of my eye makes me turn to see Bepo sitting on the floor, still clearly in pain and the bleeding didn’t seem to have even slowed down “LAW!” I called out to the doctor that quickly ‘shambles’ his way closer to us.

He rushed to his friend’s side and looked him over with truly concerned eyes, examining the damage, gave the two guys from earlier some orders and then called over a very very tall guy “Jean Bart…” he spoke coldly as his eyes scanned the marines still standing “Sink them.” Without another word, Law disappeared into the submarine and Jean Bart went to do what he had been ordered.

Left alone once again, I held my right hand that still felt comfortably warm and remembered the feeling from before. I looked behind me only to be blinded by the rising sun, I couldn’t help but smile with him as a single tear slipped down my cheeks…

[itsblosseybitch]

Griffin Dunne: Who’s That Man? (article from ARENA magazine, Sept/Oct 1987)

Double Exposure: The $4.5 million it took to make Martin Scorsese’s black comedy After Hours and the twitchily neurotic lead performance were both the work of the same man, hybrid movie producer and actor whose next assignments involve the likes of Sidney Lumet and Madonna. David Keeps spends some after After Hours hours with Griffin Dunne. 

Griffin Dunne, leading man to Madonna in the soon-come Who’s That Girl, is not the sort of actor who swoops into a photo session with an entourage of managers, publicists and gofers. He enters alone, armed with a briefcase full of business pertaining to the next three or four films he will produce, and introduces himself with a winning humility and, on this particularly sweltering Manhattan afternoon, a perfectly reasonable request for a Budweiser. He graciously and gracefully agrees to a quick bit of barbering and slips into samples from Paul Smith’s autumn collection -- clothes that look very roomy on his slight five-foot-seven frame -- without a fuss. “Are you sure these weren’t for David Byrne,” he jokes. Griffin Dunne is one cool character. 

The same can not be said for the neurotic yuppies he’s portrayed in After Hours and Almost You, two critically acclaimed films that were released back-to-back in Britain and helped to establish him as the archetypal Manhattan man. “That’s a coincidence,” he explains over breakfast at a Greenwich Village eaterie a few blocks from his home. “The pictures were actually filmed a couple of years, but I guess if you looked at them as a double-header, you’d see similarities because the main character is New York. One thing I have noticed is that the guy I’m playing always wears a blazer. I’ve got to be careful about what I do next. Those jaded laconic New York type roles are creeping up on me,” he continues, his almost-black eyes widening as his voice rises in mock terror. “I may never work again and die a pauper because these two pictures are so much alike!”

Now there’s an unlikely prospect. Having successfully produced Chilly Scenes of Winter, John Sayles’ Baby It’s You and Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, Griffin Dunne is in the unique position of being able to pay the bills and choose his acting roles carefully or develop properties for himself. The latter is an option he has exercised only once (After Hours), the former is an admitted luxury. “The problem with success is, the more successful you become, the more careful and calculating you have to be. While I dread being an actor and never knowing where my next job will be coming from, there was a great freedom in going from one stupid comedy into a play in some no-name theatre down on Pitt Street in lower East Siobokia. I get sent a lot of scripts as a producer and I don’t want to spend my time looking for parts for myself. I have an agent to do that. But that still doesn’t give me the opportunity to pick up the phone and say ‘Get me a script that is completely different from anything I’ve ever done, and I want to start working Wednesday’. “

There was a time when the very prospect of working in films - as an actor or a producer - was something to be avoided. Born in New York City on June 8, 1955 to actress Ellen Griffin Dunne and Dominick Dunne, who evolved from a television stage manager to a producer and now, a writer for Vanity Fair, Griffin was raised in Los Angeles amongst the privileged sons and daughters of Hollywood. He attended a pre-preparatory school at age 11. “All boys. You wore a coat and tie and got little swats if you got out of line. It was called Fay School,” he recalls with a shudder. “It was a bitch to say ‘I go to Fay School’.” He turns his head to the side to improvise a dialogue and with a sneer asks himself sarcastically, “How’s Fay?” “Fine thank you,” he mumbles, suitably humiliated. In his final year it became his job to order films for school entertainments. His very appropriate choice was Lindsay Anderson’s public school drama If... “It was a real underground thing. The attendance rate was incredible. They were hanging off the rafters. If you know the picture you know it takes them forever to kill those fucking teachers!”

The Fountain Valley school in Colorado proved a more nurturing atmosphere for the lad. Influenced by his uncle and aunt (the literary lions John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion), Griffin thought he would become a writer. “I just knew that film business was the last thing on earth I was going to be in. It’s like if your father goes to work in a car factory in Detroit, the last thing you want to do is go into the automobile business. I didn’t sit in judgement of Peter Benchley’s (OP NOTE: author of Jaws) drinking habits, but it was just too close to me. I was really verbal about it. Openly vitriolic, I would never be in show biz. I said that right up until a friend talked me into auditioning for this play.”

That was Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story and Griffin knew instinctively that he was the best man for the job. “Somehow I just knew I could say these lines better than anyone else. It was like being the only one in that room who spoke that particular language.” An actor was born and a bullshit artist began to operate. “I was the guy who ran the drama club, the art paper, the student council planning board. Teachers treated me like an adult, they really thought I was going places. They said ‘You’re not like the other students.’ I was, of course, a source of total disappointment, because I was exactly like the other students. I would get high and take the car off campus and try to get laid at every possible moment as soon as their back was turned.” 

Then, just as he was about to make a dramatic triumph playing Iago in Othello, he was busted. “Got caught smoking a little hash,” he winces. “All that was really there was what was in my lungs and it just trailed out of my mouth as I denied what was happening. And the teacher did not get a contact high and forget what he was doing. What they were saying was, ‘We’re going to change the rest of your life for that amount of smoke in your lungs’.” He was sent packing, forced to face up to parents who were “grief stricken”, he says with a comic frown, “chopped off at the knees.” Convincing the school authorities in a brilliant final thespian act that he needed to take the bus home in order to have time to think about his misdeeds, he hit the highway and hitchhiked home.

The odyssey that followed could’ve been a foreshadowing of the hassles that befell him as the stranger-in-SoHo in After Hours. “I was very worried about getting into any more trouble. And every car I got in was the most troublesome, criminal car. One guy would be driving a huge Cadillac convertible that he’d bought with a bad cheque. Another guy was AWOL from the army and there was this kid who’d just left ‘Juvie’ (Juvenile Hall) who was only a year younger than me, but also about four feet shorter. We’d spend a good deal of the time daring him to do things like climb out of the hood of the car to straighten out the antenna as we were crossing the desert. As soon as he got out there the driver would floor it, going about 95 miles an hour and swerving to throw him off. I thought, ‘OK drug possession, hot car, and manslaughter, all on the way home. Look at it this way, Mom, Dad, I was only kicked out of school for smoking hash!”

He lived in Los Angeles for the last gasp of his teenage years, working in a bookstore and as a shipping clerk for a cooking utensils firm, while going for auditions that were few and far between. After a few small roles on TV, he moved to New York to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where, ironically, in the days before Dustin Hoffman, Griffin’s father had left his studies when he was told that he was too short to be a leading man. Though Griffin was spared the same advice, he worked more steadily in the restaurant trade - even selling popcorn at the candy counter of Radio City Music Hall - than he did in the theatre. Then he met Amy Robinson and Mark Metcalf (OP NOTE: misprinted with an e), two equally frustrated, equally unemployed actors, and the trio decided to become producers. 

(OP NOTE: Since Dunne, Robinson, and Metcalf were/are baseball fans, the original production company’s name was Triple Play Productions. When Metcalf left to focus on his acting, the company was renamed Double Play Productions).

“We went out to Cambridge and met Ann Beattie, who had written Chilly Scenes of Winter and she said it was like three of her characters walked into her living room.” Not surprisingly she allowed them to buy the rights for a film version at a very reasonable price. At age 23, Griffin Dunne had become a producer and had his first property. The trio turned the process of pitching the project to studios into an acting exercise. “It was exactly like a performance, but it was easier than going in on an audition. Here I had something tangible to sell, a book that I was passionate about. It’s hard to do that about yourself. What do you say? ‘Look at this interesting aspect of me. Then if you shade it with these particular attitudes I look like this!’ I wouldn’t want to see anybody do that.”

First released as Head Over Heels, and re-released more successfully in 1982 under the author’s original title, Chilly Scenes of Winter set the stage for the fledgling producer’s next triumph, John Sayles’ Baby It’s You, which introduced Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano to a large and appreciative audience of young filmgoers. In the meantime Dunne had appendaged several screen acting credits to his dossier, largely of the messenger boy variety.

“I’ve passed a ton of envelopes,” he laughs. “In this one film, The Fan (a potboiler starring Lauren Bacall as the intended victim of an overwrought admirer) I played a stage manager who was to hand a letter the killer gave me to Maureen Stapleton. The letter read ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you,’ and sure enough he does. So they spend the rest of the movie looking for the killer instead of asking me for a description. When I told the director, he said ‘Yeah, well, fine, can we just shoot the scene please?’ So I just couldn’t resist on one take. I went up to Miss Stapleton and I said, ‘Here’s a letter from the killer -- oops! -- I mean the man outside’.”

He was able to use his comic gifts more successfully playing the sidekick role, “the very dead one” in An American Werewolf in London (OP NOTE: Title misprinted without the ‘An’) and the clean-cut brother of a gangster in Johnny Dangerously, “a big silly comedy.” Then a script crossed his desk which he simply could not ignore, for it contained all the elements he looked for in a film as both a producer and an actor. It was called After Hours, and it was the tale of a lonely word processor who meets a beautiful girl, loses her, loses his money and his house-keys and spends the rest of his evening on the run from assorted temptresses and loonies in the lofts and streets of New York’s SoHo. 

Griffin Dunne was no stranger to the inherent weirdness of such a scenario. “Last weekend I was out of town and a friend was in my apartment. I said don’t use the bottom lock. She did, and so I was locked out of my own apartment. I called my neighbors to let me in, but they were locked out of their apartment too. I found that out from the neighbors below. The owners are from Japan and they’re coming to get their apartment from me. I’ve now been through so many locks it looks like a Uzi got at the door. The locksmith is now an old friend of mine. I have the worst time with keys. I believe the first stage of manhood is when you live on your own and you’re given this set of keys. I’ve been through so many keys. They just leap out of my pocket!”

Griffin Dunne became After Hours’ hapless anti-hero Paul Hackett and his run-ragged energy leaped off the screen. Despite the fact that the entire film was shot at night, director Scorsese demanded that he remain celibate during the course of the shoot. For added punishment, Dunne himself also acted as the film’s producer: “As an actor your job is not to have distractions and be in a loose state where, when things are thrown at you, you can react accordingly. As a producer your job is to constantly anticipate problems, disasters, flare-ups, fiascoes. You’re in a constant state of tension. You have this little rubber ball with spikes sticking out of it in the pit of your stomach. In After Hours if there were times when it was five in the morning and I was starting to run out of anxiety adrenaline, I could think of how much the picture was going over-budget and I would suddenly get this hollow look in my eyes, my eyebrows would start creeping up on my forehead and I was ready to roll! But I never as an actor looked at the director and thought, ‘Gee, he’s shooting too much film, I must tell him to stop.’”

Though After Hours was a huge critical and commercial success, it pointed out some rather disheartening facts about the American film industry. “People are so obsessed with how much pictures cost. It really pisses me off,” he says with a furrow of the brow that makes you an instant sympathizer. “All anybody talks about with After Hours is that we made it for $4.5 million.(OP NOTE: $4.5 million in 1985 would be about $10.8 million in 2020) Who cares? Is it a good movie? Is it a bad movie? For some reason English films have avoided that. Probably because they were made with pounds instead of dollars and the critics are too lazy to figure out the currency conversion.”

Now he’s on a roll and it becomes quite clear that Griffin Dunne, as an artist and as a businessman, cares about the cinema passionately. “There are a lot of [OP NOTE: misprinted as off] young filmmakers trying to get off the ground here. It’s treated so condescendingly,” he splutters. “Those kids made that Personal Art film. Art film is a bad word for everybody - it’s a personal film. Or it’s an independent film, which must mean it’s personal. ‘Those kids made that picture and just look what they did. And their grandmother gave them $2.5 million for that?’ I don’t think it was their grandmother,” he continues with a lethal iciness. “I think they went to a major financing entity and they got the money, it’s playing in theatres now. GO SEE THE GODDAMNED MOVIE!”

(OP NOTE: Sir, this is a Wendy’s. All joking aside, I would love to hear the off-the-record version of this rant)

All of this seems particularly annoying to a man like Griffin Dunne because he’s proved that it can be done. “It’s just treated like it’s so cute. Now it’s possible to make films like Mona Lisa, Withnail and I or one of Stephen Frears’ movies in the States. There’s a lot more avenues of finance and they’ve figured out ways of distributing movies where they actually make serious money and it’s easier for people to get their money back on videocassettes and all the other rights. What we’re having a little bit of a problem with is the material itself. How do you find a script that doesn’t reek of being an Independent Movie?”

In Adam Brooks’ Almost You, which was written as a vehicle for Dunne and his then-girlfriend Brooke Adams, he found exactly that. An offbeat comedy about an adulterous husband, the film was warmly received in Britain after having been crucified by the American press. (OP NOTE: As someone who enjoyed that movie, I think the reason for that is because British audiences are more comfortable with unlikable or dysfunctional protagonists than American audiences. Also, this was the Reagan era with traditional values and all) “I found the character very touching and pathetic, but when it came out you would have thought I was a war criminal. An immoral louse. The worst of it was they would never say my character’s name.  They would say ‘Griffin Dunne is a duplicitous, weak-willed human being!’ People fuck around on their wives, what can I say? The way people went on, because I fooled around when my wife was in a wheelchair, it was like one of those Reefer Madness kind of movies. Like I was condoning it,” he says, lapsing into a sinister’s narrator voice, “C’mon kids, go out and smoke heroin. And while you’re there get married and fool around on your wife who’s in a wheelchair. Come with me to...THE MOVIES!”

His next screen appearance should raise the stakes considerably higher and may establish Griffin Dunne as a solidly commercial leading man in romantic comedies. “I’d known about the script for years,” he says of Who’s That Girl. “It was the first screwball comedy I’d read that wasn’t a rip-off or a parody . The characters were really contemporary. Over the years I just slowly watched it get put together, slowly, slowly coming around to me. I had a feeling it was going to work out and I have that feeling very rarely.” It’s the story of one Loudon Trott, the standard “uptight kind of guy” whose world is thrown into utter chaos by the appearance of a dizzy but dazzling vixen. “I’m one of those inside-the-little-globe-there’s-a-madman-dying-to-break-out characters. But I was going as much against the nitwit-nerd as possible. I wanted to wear the best suit I could find. I look unlike anything I’ve ever looked before. You don’t wake up with hair like what I’ve got in this picture. I don’t even know what the hell I look like.”

The vixen is, of course, played by Madonna. “It was externally pretty crazy,” he says of the shoot. “A lot of paparazzi and fans. I guess for my survival I just shut it out. It didn’t bother her, so why should it bother me? If it bothered me it would show on the screen, but nobody would say, ‘Gee, he doesn’t seem to be there right now, it must be the fans.’” He laughs at the very thought of it. “I’ll fight for a disclaimer at the end of the picture!”

He’ll have to juggle his next acting assignment between efforts as a producer. Running On Empty, the coming-of-age story of the son of Sixties dissidents living on the lam, is set to be directed by Sidney Lumet with River Phoenix in the leading role and Robin Williams has been signed as the lead for a Disney-financed version of the stage comedy The Foreigner.

[OP NOTE: While Running on Empty was eventually released in 1988, garnering Phoenix a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Golden Globes, The Foreigner never materialized. I’m sure there’s some amazing stories that have yet come to light on the latter].

And industrious though he may seem, Dunne admits that he’s really good at not working, too. “It’s a talent that I’ve evolved over the past year or so. When I’m not working it never crosses my mind. I’m into maps. I’ll chart a trip and get a really good radio in the car, record a lot of tapes and hit the road. I’m really good at getting out of town and going to the beach. My problem has been collecting a lot of things over the years, but I’ve lived in sublets for the past 11 years, so I haven’t been able to settle into any pattern yet. Now that I’m moving into my own place, I’m glad. I’ll have people over so they can admire my spoon collection from my various journeys and I’ll even have shows. I will promise to bore them senseless with my passions.”

It’s unlikely he’ll be able to make the same claim in a professional capacity; his involvement on both sides of the camera and casting office have certainly produced an exemplary cross-breed of moviemaking professional, one that box office superstars-cum-executive producers of their own vanity projects could most certainly learn from. “One of the things I like about being a producer,” Dunne explains, “is that it’s opened me up on how to read a script. I like to think of the whole picture now, not just my role.” But having an awareness of what makes a film succeed in an increasingly byzantine business has not dulled his enthusiasm for acting, nor dimmed his onscreen spark. “It still is fun,” he demurs. “It should always be fun to get paid for taking fencing lessons.”

Always a wit, Griffin Dunne does seem most comfortable making a joke, even if it is at his own expense. Asked which of his screen characters he’d feel closest kinship to in real life, he deadpans, “I use so much of myself in them that I can’t imagine wanting to hang out with any of them.” And he’s equally nonplussed about his reputation as an independent force in the motion picture industry. The man simply has taste and if he likes to wear as many different hats as he can in this business, well, that’s his business - and he’s certainly very modest about his accomplishments.

“It’s difficult,” he concludes. “for me to say ‘I’m a rebel. I’m a maverick’ and put on little cowboy hats and stroll out of here into the sunset.” Especially, we both agree with a laugh, since it’s not even high noon yet.

[timeagainreviews]

Five-ish Possible Showrunners for Doctor Who

It’s nothing new that people are displeased with Chris Chibnall as showrunner for Doctor Who. Throughout his tenure, he’s consistently been the weakest link in the chains holding the show together. That being said, people weren’t very happy about Steven Moffat either, and I’m sure even Russel T Davies had his fair share of detractors. It seems that no matter who is in the role of showrunner, someone will always find something to complain about.

After last night’s episode, I’ve seen the usual wingeing about Chris Chibnall. People have been calling for his removal as showrunner. Personally, I feel like Chibnall has actually progressed as an artist since he first took the reins. Series twelve was a marked improvement upon series eleven. But all of this talk got me thinking about who might be better suited to for the job. What people would I like to see in the hot seat? Let me reiterate- this is not me calling for Chibnall’s removal from the show (kinda). This is simply a thought exercise. Feel free to comment your picks as well!

1. Edgar Wright

When devising this list, Edgar Wright was the first person I thought of for the job of showrunner. With such titles as "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," and "Scott Pilgrim vs The World," under his belt, it's easy to see why. Already established as a great British director, writer, and producer, he clearly has the chops to take the job. This is the man who was too weird for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and they once put out a movie about a talking raccoon with tree friend and love for heavy artillery.

My only reservation is whether or not he would actually take the job. It's not as though Mr Wright is in low demand. Would he be interested in taking what is most likely a pay cut while also working on the BBC's tight budget? If the Beeb could be smart enough to let the man have artistic freedom, we could easily end up with one of the best series of Doctor Who in years. Even if it only was just for one year.

2. Ben Wheatley & Amy Jump

This one may seem like a bit of an odd choice, but maybe not as odd as you would imagine. Coming from a more art film background, this husband/wife duo are more than capable of bringing the goods. Having both worked in film and animation I could see their skills put toward Doctor Who with great success. Neither one of them is a stranger to the process of writing, producing, or directing.

You may find them a bit of an odd choice as their black comedies like "Kill List," and "A Field in England," are anything but family-friendly. However, I might remind you that Wheatley himself has already directed two episodes of Doctor Who during the Capaldi era. Once again, it comes down to the basic question as to whether they would actually want the job. Had Wheatley never taken the job directing Doctor Who, I doubt I would have even considered them as a choice. But when you consider the dour sadfest that is "Broadchurch," suddenly they don't seem so strange.

3. Lawrence Miles

I know, I know. Lawrence Miles is easily one of the more controversial figures in the Doctor Who fandom. Outspoken and sometimes downright rude, he's burned his fair share of bridges. I myself have been at the receiving end of his snakiness via twitter. Even with all of these things factored in, I still want to see it happen. He's just that good of a writer. Also, this wouldn't be the first time a non-show writer has become showrunner. Remember Russell T Davies? Though I will concede that he did have a proven track record in television.

Listen, I get that this will never happen, but hear me out. When I first started getting into Doctor Who novels, I began with the Eighth Doctor Adventures. As with most book series, I began reading them in release order. I found some of the books to be fairly entertaining, and some were downright a chore to get through. And then I started reading "Alien Bodies." It was like a light suddenly went off in my head. This wasn't just good, it was brilliant. My enthusiasm for the entire series was given a jolt of energy.

He hadn't just written a good story, he gave the entire series some actual direction. Before "Alien Bodies," it felt as though most of the writers were still wishing they were writing the Virgin Media books. He even managed to breathe life into the companion Sam Jones, who I had found rather dull up until that point. His ability to write even the cheesiest of villains (such as the Krotons) in new and interesting ways was a breath of fresh air. He also introduced us to his Faction Paradox, which would go on to become its own cult favourite series of books. The fact is, the man had vision, and for that, he'll always be one of my favourite Doctor Who writers. If they were to hire him as showrunner, I would not complain.

4. Noah Hawley

Recently in an interview, writer Joe Hill recounted his brutal rejection letter from the BBC pertaining to his Doctor Who script submissions. Their response was basically "We would never hire an American, and if we did, it certainly wouldn't be you." Harsh. First off, that's a bit silly. Saying never to a group of writers based on their nationality is a bit myopic. Furthermore, the damn show was devised by a Canadian! I'm a firm believer of "the right person for the job." I am also of the belief that Noah Hawley could be that person.

Having produced both "Legion," and "Fargo," Hawley is a heavyweight in prestige television. Not only does he grant a degree of artistry to everything he touches, but he also adds a hint of surrealism. One of the things I've touched on in my reviews of the First Doctor era is just how surreal things can be at times. A British police box that travels through time is certainly not your run of the mill concept. Often times I think the showrunners forget just how weird Doctor Who actually is.

Hawley is also no stranger to the concept of science fiction, as Legion is actually a show based off of a Marvel comic book. It contains action, sci-fi, superhumans, strange prosthetics, and a healthy dose of surrealism. In this way, he elevates the source material while finding new and exciting ways to present it. If the BBC wanted to really put Doctor Who on the road toward BAFTA heaven, they would do well to consider someone like Noah Hawley.

5. One of the current writers

Out of all of my choices, this is the one I feel the least confident about. I say this because, well, I don't know much about their capabilities as producers. And when I say "their," I mostly mean Pete McTighe, Ed Hime, Vinay Patel and Joy Wilkinson. While there are plenty of good writers on the Doctor Who staff, these four have easily had the most stand out episodes in the last two series. McTighe is a massive Whovian geek who has shown his capability as a writer. Hime is a bit of a wild card with a penchant for the unusual. Patel has shown himself capable of writing strong drama and action. And Wilkinson, while having the least number of episodes under her belt, wrote what I consider one of the best episodes of series eleven.

Furthermore, it sticks with the convention of sticking to previous show writers as in the case of Moffat and Chibnall. As I said above, even RTD had a history with writing Doctor Who in the form of novels and audios. Having a person from the writer's room on set would be beneficial as they have already been steeped in the process. There's a pre-existing work relationship with not only the other writers but with the cast and crew as well. Out of all of the Doctor Who writers from the past few years, these four newcomers stand out among the rest. I would be intrigued by any one of them getting the job.

[juniperhillpatient]

Could you write Richie introduces Beverly to comic books? Obviously a friendship thing

Thank you for the prompt ❤️❤️❤️ I’m sorry it’s so late. I spent forever editing it and then Tumblr reloaded & I had to re-edit. Save stuff on Microsoft Word always, I guess.

 Anyway, this was so fun to write. Richie & Bev’s friendship is so important. I based this off the book partially because I’m currently re-reading and that’s where my mindset is and partially because I wanted to reference this really cool fifties horror comic anthology I have, so this is set in the fifties like the book. It’s just a fun little one-shot though so I think if you’ve only watched the movies this will (hopefully) be just fine!

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy  ❤️❤️❤️

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You cheated!”

“Did not.”

“Richie, come on, you distracted me by pointing to the window and stole one of my cards.” The two of them were sitting in Richie’s kitchen, a bowl of chopped melon and two cups of juice as well as an array of card games between them on the table.

“But I tawt I taw a putty cat!” Richie protested, waving his arms wildly. Then, in his normal voice. “Come on Bev, I wouldn’t cheat. I saw a cat out in the yard and because I am a good friend who points out cute animals, I wanted you to see it too.” He paused and rolled his eyes with an air of over-the-top drama and spoke in his most sarcastic voice. “I’m sooo sorry for being a considerate friend, Beverly, truly, sooo sorry.”

Beverly couldn’t help but giggle, but she stood her ground all the same. “First of all, it’s wet and gross out there so if there was a cat it wouldn’t have been cute it would have looked like a rat. Second of all, Richie, I would’ve won if you hadn’t done that and we both know it.”

Beverly recognized a spark in Richie’s eye that told her yes, he had stolen the card and would admit to doing so but not until after some decent banter. It was a lazy sort of afternoon, and this was not the first time the two of them had fallen into amiable arguing. There was a light rain pattering against the window. Maggie Tozier was sitting in the living room reading a novel by Beverly Cleary & Went Tozier was away working at the dentist’s office. 

Beverly appreciated spending time at Richie’s, and her willingness to play along with his shtick was her way of thanking him for inviting her over. Neither of them would ever in a million years bring up the fact that he’d been staring at the yellowing bruise on her cheek the previous afternoon when the losers were playing in the barrens, or that he’d obviously overheard her confiding to Eddie, as the two of them sat quietly off to the side, that she didn’t want to go home. Richie thought privately that Beverly had told Eddie this because she thought Eddie might understand such a feeling. Richie, however, never would have shared such an insight with anyone.

“Why I never,” Richie said, taking on the voice and demeanor of an overtly proper British person. “How dare you accuse me of such blasphemy!”

“Beep beep Richie,” Bev said, rolling her eyes. “What is that voice even supposed to be?”

“It’s a British guy,” Richie said in dramatic outrage. “I know you know what a British accent sounds like, Bev. Come on, give me something!”

“A British accent is more like this, Richie. Listen,” she made her voice much higher and did her best impression of a British accent. “Jolly oh, jolly oh good sir, oh yes indeed.”

“That’s terrible!” Richie groaned, falling back in his seat dramatically and throwing his arm over his face in disgust. They spent the next twenty minutes or so arguing over what a British accent sounded like and doing horrible impressions. The notion of playing any more games, it seemed, was gone. Beverly hadn’t expected card playing to last long anyway. Any kind of activity that required lasting attention was unlikely to be of great success with Richie. Richie had suggested they go to the movies when he called her up in the morning, there was a good monster picture showing at the Aladdin, but neither of them had any money. So, instead, they were spending the afternoon at Richie’s, to which Beverly had no objection. The Toziers’ place felt the way a home should. She thought Richie knew that she felt that way, and that’s why he often invited her over on days like today when the other losers were busy (Bill with speech therapy, Mike with housework, Ben with summer reading) or didn’t want to come out in the rain (Stan and Eddie).

“Alright you two,” Mrs. Tozier, whom Beverly liked a lot, interrupted just as Richie was halfway through a stream of truly profane words in an embarrassingly bad British accent.

“Sorry, Mrs. Tozier,” Beverly said in a hurry.

“Yeah, sorry, Mom,” Richie said.

“That’s okay. Just keep it down a little, alright?”

“Sure, of course, Mom,” Richie said.

“And keep that trashy language out of your mouth,” Mrs. Tozier told her son. “Especially around a lady.”

Beverly, who had been squealing with laughter before Mrs. Tozier entered the room, felt her cheeks flush. Richie’s mom, she thought, got what being a mom was about. She always had snacks, though usually healthy ones due to her husband’s dental profession, and often said nothing when Beverly would stay over late into the night on days when the thought of going home made her too sick to handle and she just needed to listen to Richie talk about nothing and make stupid noises for hours.

“Come on, let’s do something else,” Beverly said, putting the cards away as Mrs. Tozier left the room.

“Yeah,” Richie said standing. “I’ll show you my new ‘Weird Love’ comic!”

“Your -what now?” Beverly asked, intrigued.

“My new Weird Love comic. It’s a great one. It’s all about this girl who’s in love with a man who acts in a circus as a clown. She really likes him, except she’s embarrassed because she’s dating a clown.”

“I’m sorry what? What the heck are ‘Weird Love’ comics anyway?” Beverly asked.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” Richie cried. “You’ve never read a ‘Weird Love’ comic? They’re great. They’re horror comics but about romance. Like, people who fall in love with monsters.”

Beverly shivered. “Who would want to fall in love with a monster? Or a clown? Yuck.”

As Beverly followed Richie out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room, thoughts of another clown, a distinctly unlovable clown, clouded her mind. She shoved such thought way as she and Richie entered his room. On the floor were toy soldiers he and Mike had set up in lines facing each other in preparation for battle, a jigsaw puzzle he had been working on with Stan, and a Mad Libs story he and Bill had been filling in with increasingly dirty words.

“Check it out,” he told her, grabbing a comic with a clown and a pretty lady on the cover from his dresser and flopping onto his belly on his messy bed.

Beverly followed suit, laying on her belly next to him and looking over his shoulder at the comic.

Years later, Beverly would remember the comic book clown, who was called Ben, and his creepy makeup and how it had delighted her child’s mind. Sitting in a much nicer and fancier home than she could have dreamed of at twelve years old, Beverly Hanscom would put her feet up on the coffee looking across to where Richie sat, looking off into the distance, being much quieter than she was used to. As the sounds of Bill and Mike’s argument about who would win in a bike race despite both of them being too old, and, on that particular occasion too drunk, to participate in such a race, she would remember that rainy afternoon and ask Richie about it. She would ask him if he ever thought it was kind of amazing how much they loved those silly horror comics at the time, considering everything they had been going through. “Nah,” Richie would respond in a quiet voice. “We were kids. Kids aren’t as easy to rattle as adults.”

Adult Richie would be right. As the two children read the comic together, flipping the pages eagerly as they became acquainted with Janie, a respectable and pretty woman, and Ben the clown, they giggled and gasped in equal measure. Neither of them brought up the real clown, the one that was stalking their every move and taunting them with things they didn’t like to think about like the soft way Beverly’s dad would sometimes ask “are you still my little girl, Bevvie?” or the way that werewolf had been wearing a jacket with Richie’s name on it and maybe he was the monster and it was him and his bad and secret (dirty) feelings causing all this pain.

Instead, they read the comic and laughed and Beverly asked Richie if she could borrow it so she could read it again. 

“I don’t think so, I wanna show it to Eddie. He goes nuts over these things. Loves 'em more than I do. And he hasn’t seen this one yet.” He paused and rolled off the bed onto the floor. He dug under his bed for a moment and produced two more comics, also with 'Weird Love’ printed on the covers in weird, gooey looking letters. “Here though, you can borrow these. This one,” he tossed her a comic with a woman screaming in terror on the cover. “Is about a woman who’s going crazy, but the guy who loves her has no clue. And this one,” he tossed her a comic with a man standing in front of a group of serious-looking people, “is about a woman who falls for a commie.” He said 'commie’ like a dirty word, soft and reverent. Beverly giggled.

“Thanks, Richie!” she said with a grin.

“Well, you’re gonna have to let me know what you think of them,” he said. “I’ve already read those ones like a billion times.”

“You have no idea how much a billion is you dummy,” Beverly said.

Richie stuck his tongue out at her and she proceeded to whop him in the face with a pillow.

The rest of the afternoon the two of them watched television and argued over whether the girl in the comic, Janie, had been crazy for being in love with that clown or if maybe that circus clown had some odd charm about him after all.

Another thing Beverly would remember, years later as the losers sat together in Ben and Beverly’s house, visiting as they did every few months, would be how very happy they had been. Even with everything going on and their lives in danger, they’d laughed so much that afternoon. 

[writingwitchly]

I’m gonna do it, anyway

Hey could I please ask for a Sirius black x Slytherin female reader fanfic based of the song Rude by Magic! References from the music video too could be added if possible? ~ @arianna-17-11

Pairing: Sirius Black x fem!reader

Word count: 2,2k 

A/N: Phew… My first reader insert since… ever? I think I sticked to the request right enough XD, just skipped the Slytherin specification.  Hope you’ll like it. PS: I need a Sirius in my life RN.

The clock shows 9:23. The night only displays darkness.

You curse.

It’s quite usual for members of the Order to- ‘get lost’, in these times, with nothing to be done to find them.

The vegetables and white plastic planch on the kitchen counter suffer your aggressive stress.

It’s been two days and… and you haven’t heard of him…

A noise reaches you from the outside. Was it a crack? Your shoulders tense.

You’ve heard several of them, this weekend. Or at least, imagined you had. Every time you got to the window, there was nobody in the street below, apart from a couple of cats or a strolling brownish dog.

You don’t dare to check now, fearing that another desillusion might break your heart for good.

What if-

The thought makes you shiver, and the knife almost escapes your grip. You lay it down, next to the halfway chopped onion. It would be stupid to wound yourself without needing an enemy for that.

The beating of your heart climbs up to your ears. If at least he’d told you where he was going… None of the boys knows, either.

If he ever comes back alive from this, you’ll sure as heck won’t let him breathe until he draws a calendar and fills it whenever he plans on disappearing.

“Y/N!”

The voice carries its amusement through the whole flat, and makes your heart jump to your throat.

It takes you a good second realize who just closed the door.

For a good hour, you were thinking that-

For Merlin’s sake.

What kind of boyfriend disappears without leaving any trace, making you suffer the worst anguish for two days, to come back and greet you as if nothing had happened?

That’s right, a boyfriend about to be told off.

You storm out of the kitchen. “Sirius Orion Black!”

If James had been here, he’d ran for cover.

But Sirius is waiting for you, his arms wide open, at the entrance of the apartment. His leather jacket does not bear any trace of battle, except the one it fought against the wind on the drive home. His boots are firmly planted on the floor.

You stop when you are barely centimeters away from his body, and hit his chest with your fist at each word you articulate. “How. Do. You. Dare. To. Fr-”

Without waiting for you to finish the reprimand, he wraps you in a tight embrace.

You burst into tears. “I- I- I was so afraid. Wh- Where- Why did you leave with- without telling me-”

One of his thumbs draws circles on your back, his other hand is lost in your hair. He murmurs some words, but so low you barely hear them. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat calms you down.

When your hiccups have considerably diminished in intensity, Sirius makes you look up at him.

“I’m safe and sound, love. Look, no new scars.”

You count the marks on his face, on the bluish skin that hints a new beard, and are quite reassured to find none you haven’t already mended. “Your arms? Your back?”

“As sane as ever, Y/N. I promise.”

Finally, you allow yourself to sigh in relief, until you remember about your anger.

“How many times,” you blurt, “Have I asked you to- Why are you smiling like an idiot? I’m being very serious!”

His wide grin stretches the blemish on his lips. Even if it has suffered attacks and injuries, his smile hasn’t lost its appeal.

Sirius shakes his head a little, as to dissipate some fog around him. His eyes then root in yours. “You’re just so fucking gorgeous.”

You trail a finger along the rough skin that borders his grin, slumping your shoulders in a sweet defeat. “Why don’t you ever let me be angry at you, uh?” You smile faintly. “I was so worried.”

The man leaves a tender kiss on your forehead, from which a burning sensation invades your cheeks. Then, he inhales deeply. “Were you- Were you cooking?”

He accompanies his questions with a playful grimace.

Vexed, you punch his shoulder. “What does that tone mean, Black?”

He snorts. “Nothing, darling. Just that- It’s very unusual. Do you only cook when I’m not around?”

“I had to release the stress. So yes, I only cook when you’re not around. Talking of which, I should probably put the pasta on.”

And you disappear in the kitchen, a bit bitter.

A furious ripping sound announces the opening of the food box, and Sirius grins again. He loves it, when you get angry. It makes you look cute.

A few minutes later, he joins you, his hair dripping water all over the floor. He abandoned his leather jacket for a crepe t-shirt.

“It’s ready in two minutes,” you claim, stirring a the red sauce. “You can set the table.”

Sirius moves toward the cupboard, but then seems to think about it. His eyes follow the spoon with which you’re tasting the flavoring. He crosses his arms, and leans against the counter.

“I went to talk to your father.”

You choke on the pasta’s sauce, and have to spit it out in the sink to avoid asphyxion. Your eyes seem to double in size as you turn to look at your boyfriend. “You did what?”

With a sideway smirk, he simply states, “That was disgusting, darling.”

You could eat the napkin instead of using it to whip your lips. “You did what now, Sirius?”

The man’s arms fall to his sides, but he doesn’t lose his amused expression. As if he wanted to avoid crossing your stare, he bends down, and grabs the plates to set the table.

“I had to ask him something,” he finally explains, as the porcelain hits the fabric of the table cloth.

“Something to ask him!” You repeat, in a strangled voice. “You know it was a stupid thing to do.” You spin the wooden spoon in little circles, pointing at him, still shocked. “This- I would have preferred a hundred times if you’d faced an Order mission.”

“Oh, come on, darling,” he says nonchalantly, as if you were talking about what kind of spice to add to the condiment. “Your father doesn’t hate me that much.”

Your raised eyebrows are the answer he didn’t even need to confirm that yes, your father does hate him that much.

A pause installs itself, troubled only by the boiling liquids on the stove.

Sirius is the reckless boy who betrayed his family, the crazy guy who joined a pack of weirdos with a very unfavorable reputation outside their group of friends, the mischievous teen who got involved in a war without knowing how to fight properly, the irresponsible man who decided to live an unstable life, and the unforgivable idiot who took his only daughter away from home. Add to this that he’s a Black, son of Death Eaters, and has long hair, and he’s the perfect hate aim for your father.

A bubble explodes in one of the pans, and you turn the fire down.

You finally start to digest the news. “And- We couldn’t have- owled him?”

Sirius shrugs, dropping the cutlery next to the plates.

“It was hard to make him listen to me in person. I s’pose he would have thrown the letter away without even opening it.”

You nod, as if it was a reasonable argument, but don’t really consider it. “And- What was so important as to take you two days of discussion with my father?”

His smirk does not foreshadow anything good. “It didn’t take me two days. The first day I- I had to do something else.”

You were about to ask what, but you don’t want him to get an occasion to flee the topic. “So what did you talk about?”

“You’re like him, you know. Very stubborn.”

Merlin, he irritates you. “Will you just tell me?”

In response, Sirius grabs you by the hips and pulls you toward him. He drags a chair, and sits you on it.

“Fine,” he says, smiling like a child. “I will tell you.” He kneels on the floor, like he does every  time he needs to tell you something important, so you have to look down at him. “I had an idea on Friday. I mean, I have been thinking about this for a long time, but on Friday it became- really clear.”

You nod, wondering what in the world can make him so serious.

“And it was- Important to tell your father about it. So on Sunday, I knock-”

“On Sunday, because you had to do something on Saturday,” you say, a mocking perplexity influencing your expression. If you weren’t so worried about the outcome of the declaration, you’d probably find the situation comical.

Sirius nods. “I love you because you’re clever, too,” he teases. “I- had to buy something on Saturday. So I knocked, and Godric, you should have seen his face when he opened the door.”

A hint of amusement lights his eyes up, and you can indeed imagine your father opening the door to one of the people he’d most want to forget in his life.

“Did he close it back immediately?”

“Well, yeah.” His embarrassed grin makes you tilt your head back in laughter. “But I knocked again, like- a thousand times, because Moony told me to do s-”

“Wait a second!” You hold your palm up. “Remus was there with you?”

Sirius’s face contracts in a I-shouldn’t-have-said-that mask, a perfect copy of Hagrid’s.

“And- The other boys too?”

Your boyfriend opens his mouth to answer, but no words come out of it.

“I worried like crazy, and their letters said they didn’t know where you were, but never mind it,” you say, creasing your brow, in a tone which clearly communicates to actually mind it. Sirius caresses your arm in apologize. “Go ahead.”

Mental note of calling them all, one by one, after that.

Sheepishly, he continues. “Your father ended up listening, after all, and he was rud- not too thrilled about it. He first told me to- go count the daisies in the prairies, or something like that. He may have thought it was all a joke. But then, he saw my serious face and he just blurted that ‘no, never’. And he told me to disappear forever from his life and from yours.”

You know your father doesn’t like him at all, but you didn’t think it was to this level.

“What the heck, Sirius? What-”

But your boyfriend is unstoppable in his speech, “I said that this was going to be difficult, that we’re madly in love, and we’d go anywhere together.” To your dark look, he corrects himself, “I mean, apart from those last two days, but that was an exception. He said that his answer was no, and would always be the same. So I said that I would do it anyway, and he told me to-”

“Sirius!” You call him back to the present. “You’re not making much sense. I don’t think I can understand unless you tell me what you talked about.”

The man closes his eyes, and nods. “Sorry… Just- just the stress, probably.”

You realize that the topic must be really important. Why would he be avoiding it so much, if not?

An army of little soldiers start marching in your stomach.

“Stress?”

He smiles, “Remember that time when you were having a family dinner and your father invited a- special guest?”

You roll your eyes, “They wanted to set me up with Avery. Too bad I was already in love with you.” You grin too, pushing one of his loose dark curls behind his ear. “But what’s the-”

“I came to your rescue, with the boys. And we brought you to the park.”

Flashes of that night dance before your eyes. The music floated between the trees, Remus shot sparkles into the air, Peter and Kingsley sang an old lullaby, completely out of tune, and Frank and Alice flirted heavily as you cried at them to get a room.

It’s one of the best moments you’ve ever lived. Lily and James’ bubbly laughter, your flower crown, Sirius’ warm lips on yours...

“What did you tell me, that night, darling?”

There is no need to dig too deep in your memories to remember. “I said you’re the man I want to live with for the rest of my life,” you whisper. The soldiers in your stomach light up a million fireworks. “Are you-”

A loud bang cuts you off, followed by loud conversation, cheers, and whistles. You both raise up, and turn toward the door of the kitchen. There’s some worry on your traits.

A second later, Marlene’s face peeps out from behind the wall. “What did she say?”

The sweet smell of the forgotten pasta sauce makes you dizzy. As all of your friends gather before your eyes, your hand looks for your boyfriend’s presence behind you to steady yourself.

When you finally get a grip on his shoulder, you slowly turn around, “Sirius-”

But Sirius silences your question with a soft kiss, while he closes your fist over something small and cold. Something circular.

Then he kneels down again.

Permanent tag list: @miss-nerd0905 @funnymrspotter @obsessionsandothersandmore @daytodayfun @electraheart-isdead @laurenslines @rochelle-the-ravenclaw @wildfire-whizbangs @beaubcxton @reggieblck

Sirius tag list: @glitteryfreakslimeegg @janhvi11

[pea-milk]

Get to know me tag 🌙

I was tagged by the lovely @fourfinefreshfishforyou and @rosymiel . Thank you!

I tag @dafadolly  @early-grape  @simulationcowboy @bratsims @obi-uhie@crescentcrustacean @cupidlet @ridgeport @faaeish @herbalbrew and anyone else who would like to do it. (Also you dont have to do this if ya dont wanna. It’s a lot of questions lmao)

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME? Eliav somethin somethin

2. WHAT IS YOUR NICKNAME? Eli...?? I sometimes go by ben

3. BIRTHDAY? 1st of September

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK SERIES? None

5. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ALIENS OR GHOSTS? Aliens probably

6. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR? Toni Morrison or David Sedaris

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RADIO STATION? NPR or this one french music station once awhile. 

8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ANYTHING? Ah either spicy anything or a nice fruity flavor with vanilla

9. WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE OFTEN TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING GREAT OR WONDERFUL? “Oh Cool” or just literally great/wonderful

10. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT FAVORITE SONG? Railroad Bill - Andrew Bird or Sabor a Mi - Kali Uchis

11. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WORD? Orke / Gide or anythin with hard “ch” 

12. WHAT WAS THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? You Are The Light - Jens Lekman

13. WHAT TV SHOW WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR EVERYBODY TO WATCH? Uh Dark! I recently watched it and it was good!

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE TO WATCH WHEN YOU’RE FEELING DOWN?  The Ritual. Its a good horror movie.

15. DO YOU PLAY VIDEO GAMES? Yes. But not like...hardcore? I dont like online multi player just like casual games. I will however become a hardcore gamer once I get my lil goblin hands on Red Dead Redemption 2. Yeehaw.

16. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR? Idk why but I think it’s bad luck to name your fears out loud. 

17. WHAT IS YOUR BEST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? Mm...Humour? 

18. WHAT IS YOUR WORST QUALITY, IN YOUR OPINION? I lack...empathy ...and have a very hard time relating to people

19. DO YOU LIKE CATS OR DOGS BETTER? I like both.

20. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? Autumn.

21. ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP? No.

22. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU MISS FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD? Being able to just be...loose? Just not have to worry about things.

23. WHO IS YOUR BEST FRIEND? I’d like to say my highschool “bestfriends” but we havent talked in a hot while.

24. WHAT IS YOUR EYE COLOR? Hazel

25. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR? Dirty Blonde

26. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOVE? Hm.

27. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU TRUST? No one lmao

28. WHO IS SOMEONE YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN? Not a specific individual but just...people who’ve left my life? People I dont talk to or see. Just wonderin how life goes for them.

29. ARE YOU CURRENTLY EXCITED ABOUT/FOR SOMETHING? Uh, not in a longterm sense, but just being in the apartment alone and going to work.

30. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST OBSESSION? Small deviances.

31. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW AS A CHILD? Courage the Cowardly Dog, Hey, Arnold or Country Mouse City Mouse.

32. WHO OF THE OPPOSITE GENDER CAN YOU TELL ANYTHING TO, IF ANYONE? Hmm...No one? 

33. ARE YOU SUPERSTITIOUS? Somewhat.

34. DO YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL PHOBIAS? No.

35. DO YOU PREFER TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA OR BEHIND IT? Behind.

36. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOBBY? Gardening.

37. WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? Calypso - David Sedaris

38. WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Ballad of Buster Scruggs. 

39. WHAT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? I used to play violin and clarinet.

40. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL? Wombats.

41. WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 FAVORITE TUMBLR BLOGS THAT YOU FOLLOW? I like just sorta weird aesthetic blogs or overall blogs with no general direction.

42. WHAT SUPERPOWER DO YOU WISH YOU HAD? Shape-shifting or just like bein immortal but the kind where, if for example, my head were to be chopped off from my body, I’d just be a conscious, bastard head.

43. WHEN AND WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST AT PEACE? In my room or a quiet cafe while it rains outside.

44. WHAT MAKES YOU SMILE? Small things. Nothin real specific

45. WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY, IF ANY? I used to do track and lacrosse. I hated both.

46. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK? Lavender Lemonade or a Cappuccino. 

47. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A HAND-WRITTEN LETTER OR NOTE TO SOMEBODY? Yesterday. I write post-cards to a ceramic teacher that I still keep in touch with. He’s a very funny man. 

48. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS? Depends.

49. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE? Sloppiness. Just general disorganization. (Also loud chewing)

50. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A CONCERT? Yes.

51. ARE YOU VEGAN/VEGETARIAN? I dont generally eat heavy meats. Especially red because I vomit if I do. I eat a lot of fish though.

52. WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? An Undertaker. I met one at a friends funeral, she was very interesting.

53. WHAT FICTIONAL WORLD WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN? Hmm. Maybe a rural-ized time locked town? Or a cabin in the middle of a foggy evergreen wood, not really fantasy I suppose.

54. WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU WORRY ABOUT? Health.

55. ARE YOU SCARED OF THE DARK? No.

56. DO YOU LIKE TO SING? If it’s a rock ballad in the middle a long road trip with friends, yes, but mostly I sing when alone.

57. HAVE YOU EVER SKIPPED SCHOOL? Yes. Alot.

58. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE ON THE PLANET? I’ve tiny places, or just moments that I enjoy.

59. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE? A lot of places. Mostly rural.

60. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? Two Dogs. Zelda and Charlie.

61. ARE YOU MORE OF AN EARLY BIRD OR A NIGHT OWL? Night Owl.

62. DO YOU LIKE SUNRISES OR SUNSETS BETTER? Both.

63. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE? No. Im gay.

64. DO YOU PREFER EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES? Earbuds.

65. HAVE YOU EVER HAD BRACES? Yes.

66. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC? No specific genre.

67. WHO IS YOUR HERO? ...No one

68. DO YOU READ COMIC BOOKS? Not recently.

69. WHAT MAKES YOU THE MOST ANGRY? Selfishness.

70. DO YOU PREFER TO READ ON AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE OR WITH A REAL BOOK? Physical copies are nice. I like the smell.

71. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? I’m not in school but uh Math. Art.

72. DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS? 1

73. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? Vanilla Extract.

74. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 179cm

75. CAN YOU COOK? Yes. I bake for a living. I make a mean puff pastry.

76. WHAT ARE THREE FOUR THINGS THAT YOU LOVE? Smelling spices, like cinnamon, red peppers, hard rain, when my dog snores.

77. WHAT ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU HATE? Sweat, being yelled at, alcohol

78. DO YOU HAVE MORE FEMALE FRIENDS OR MORE MALE FRIENDS? More male identifying friends.

79. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? Bi. More lenient towards male identifying individuals.

80. WHERE DO YOU CURRENTLY LIVE? The US.

81. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TEXTED? My Manager.

82. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Thursday.

83. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE YOUTUBER? None really. Just the weird video once awhile. Like “will it blend.”

84. DO YOU LIKE TO TAKE SELFIES? Yes and no.

85. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE APP? ????

86. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARENT(S) LIKE? I get along with my mother when I can. Father could be dead for all I care.

87. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOREIGN ACCENT? Any accent.

88. WHAT IS A PLACE THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO, BUT YOU WANT TO VISIT? Too many places

89. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? I like 8 I suppose

90. CAN YOU JUGGLE? No.

91. ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? I was raised under a Jewish household, but as I’ve gotten older and more bitter, I’ve grown out of faith. However, I still identify as Jewish.

92. DO YOU FIND OUTER SPACE OR THE DEEP OCEAN TO BE MORE INTERESTING? Yes and Yes.

93. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE A DAREDEVIL? Sometimes. Depends.

94. ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO ANYTHING? Peanuts.

95. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE? Yes.

96. CAN YOU WIGGLE YOUR EARS? No.

97. HOW OFTEN DO YOU ADMIT THAT YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING? If I act wrongly to someone I apologize right away.

98. DO YOU PREFER THE FOREST OR THE BEACH? Both.

99. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ADVICE THAT ANYONE HAS EVER GIVEN YOU? None.

100. ARE YOU A GOOD LIAR? Yes.

101. WHAT IS YOUR HOGWARTS HOUSE? Ravenclaw?

102. DO YOU TALK TO YOURSELF? Once awhile.

103. ARE YOU AN INTROVERT OR AN EXTROVERT? Introvert.

104. DO YOU KEEP A JOURNAL/DIARY? Not anymore.

105. DO YOU BELIEVE IN SECOND CHANCES? Yes and No. If its absolutely awful, then I’m quick to cut ties.

106. IF YOU FOUND A WALLET FULL OF MONEY ON THE GROUND, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? If there’s cash, take it. Return everything else. Sorry. 

107. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF CHANGE? Yes. As long as they keep accountability for there actions. 

108. ARE YOU TICKLISH? In certain areas, but hardly.

109. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A PLANE? Yes.

110. DO YOU HAVE ANY PIERCINGS? I did, but they closed up.

111. WHAT FICTIONAL CHARACTER DO YOU WISH WAS REAL? None really.

112. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? No.

113. WHAT IS THE BEST DECISION THAT YOU’VE MADE IN YOUR LIFE SO FAR? Seeing a psychologist.

114. DO YOU BELIEVE IN KARMA? Somewhat.

115. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES OR CONTACTS? Yes.

116. DO YOU WANT CHILDREN? Probably.

117. WHO IS THE SMARTEST PERSON YOU KNOW? The best friends I havent talked to in a while.

118. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MEMORY? There’s a lot.

119. HAVE YOU EVER PULLED AN ALL-NIGHTER? Yes.

120. WHAT COLOR ARE MOST OF YOU CLOTHES? Black. Earth tones. Problem Patterns.

121. DO YOU LIKE ADVENTURES? Sometimes

122. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON TV? Yes.

123. HOW OLD ARE YOU? 19

124. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? None.

125. DO YOU PREFER SWEET OR SAVORY FOODS? Both

[oosteven-universe]

Jughead’s Time Police #1

Jughead’s Time Police #1 Archie Comics 2019 Written by Sina Grace Illustrated by Derek Charm Coloured by Matt Herms Lettered by Mack Morelli     When Jughead messes up his Riverdale Annual Bake-Off pie recipe so terribly, he is disqualified and banned from all future Bake-Offs! Jug goes to unthinkable lengths to fix his error: time travel! Even Riverdale’s most erudite teenager can’t manage the delicate dance of going back in time, and poor Juggie lands himself in an epic battle to keep the time stream intact!     Everybody has their own take on these characters and that is clearly evident in the opening with the dialogue between Archie, Veronica and Jughead. While it doesn’t carry the sass that has always been between Veronica and Jughead it has a more updated I am too polite so my boyfriend will say it instead. That is definitely an interesting take and one I wasn’t expecting but ya know what even though it’s a take on the two of them I really where Sina is going with that. I love Sina’s writing I think he’s pretty amazing and to see the slight subtle and interesting differences he has in mind here.     I have always been an Archie fan and to see that they are so popular among today’s hottest writers is fabulous! That this is a fun take on a quirky idea with Jughead who we get to see shine in a way that we normally don’t. Jughead is the ultimate blank slate all we know is he has a bottomless stomach and he’s always broke, though the television programme says he’s got chops to be an investigative journalist. So to see what we are seeing Sina do with Jughead is utterly fantastic to me and brings out yet another dimension to him that we see only when he gets that proverbial bee in his bonnet.     Derek and Matt make an extraordinary team on the interiors here. I man the hair that we see at times on Archie and Kevin so that it’s basically colour on colour is utterly amazing to see. The way that we see them portrayed as teenagers is extremely well done. I feel like they are teenagers not adults in their 20’s playing teenagers if that makes sense. I really like the smirks and facial expressions we see throughout the book as they give us some excellent feelings and emotions. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a great eye for storytelling. I love that Derek and Matt know these kids inside and out. The colour work Matt does is always amazing and it seems to keep getting better and better.     There really is something about the way that this whole book is structured that makes me incredibly happy. Sure mess with Jughead’s food and well there is going to be hell to pay and it’s up to his friends namely Archie to help him move past it. But can he. I do like that Kevin makes and appearance, mostly as Jug’s friend and eating buddy as well as enlisting the help of Dilton and by extension Hotdog. I love the treatment that Hotdog gets here too, it really does evoke the feelings of the original cartoon for me and that’s priceless. ​     The characterisation throughout is incredibly good. I love how they all have those key elements about them that we identify with and that make them identifiable to us. The tweaks that we see in them all keep them who they are but seem to explore different aspects of already existing nuggets that Sina has mined beautifully. This is what I love about the Archie franchise this is quirky fun and extremely well written not to mention how well illustrated it is.  ​

[crashdevlin]

Bottle- 15: Sausage With Peppers

Bottle Masterlist

Author’s Note: Originally posted to ao3 (This is an edited and improved version), I work in info from the comics (Like Hawkeye was married to Mockingbird and Red Skull had a disappointing daughter) and I took a few liberties with what the scepter could do (but not really because the Mind Stone was used to create the Twins so what I did is not that far-fetched). This is a lot more angst than I realized when I wrote it, but it’s compelling angst.

Summary: Cassandra Campbell is a Stark Industries lab tech with dubious genetics and a history with the new Director of SHIELD. She’s been working in New York since right before the Chitauri invasion. What does she have to do with Loki, and what will happen when he returns? Starts post TDW and continues to the end of AoU.

Pairing(s): Phil Coulson x OFC (Past), Loki x OFC (Non-con), Clint Barton x OFC, Steve Rogers x OFC

Word Count: 3539

Story Warnings: So many, worst (to me) are bolded. Younger woman/older man relationship,non-con, mutilation, torture, mind control, PTSD, depression, alcoholism, forced abortions, bad things (non-con) in a church, insomnia, memory manipulation, eventual consensual oral sex (female and male receiving),

Chapter Warnings: none

Cassie pulled the van into the parking lot of the Walmart and started at the building for a minute. "How is your first Avengers mission treating you, Joanna?" Loki's voice came from the passenger seat.

"You're not really there," she whispered, closing her eyes. She couldn't look at him, even a projection of him. After what she saw in Africa, she couldn't deal with that.

"True, but I am truly speaking to you. So easy to find when you open up your mind to me."

"I didn't do that. The witch did."

"Witch? I'll have to thank her, you've been practically begging to see me for hours."

Cassie shook her head. "No. This is not... I didn't call to you."

Loki laughed, a cruel sound that gripped her spine. "Joanna... it's perfectly understandable to miss me. With me, there is no doubt, just complete domination. You don't have to worry about who knows you're laying with whom. You don't have to worry about Stark's metal contraptions killing you. You just have to worry about me. And I was gentle last time."

"In Austria? Disguised as the priest who kept me from killing myself?"

"I wanted to see the fire in you! That place dulled you."

"That was the point! I didn't want to think, I didn't want to shine, I didn't want to blaze. I just wanted to be left alone to be. Just be. Exist without anyone paying any attention to me and somehow you and Clint both found me."

"You were suffocating in Austria. You were suffocating as Cassandra. You are still barely pulling air into your lungs. You long for the freedom Joanna thrives upon."

She looked to her right, finally allowing herself to look at him. His eyes looked green in this light. "Look, I'm not going to lie... it'd be useless to try that on you. I had fun with you. You let out a part of me that had been dying to breathe since SHIELD took me, and yes, consensual sex with a God is nothing to shake a stick at, but... I don't miss you. I don't want you. I don't even want to be around you. You killed my daughter."

"And gave you a son." He smiled softly and shook his head at her. "Do you know how I know you do want me around, free to see you as I please? You haven't told Thor what I did to Odin."

As the projection disappeared, Cassie looked at the instrument panel on the dash. Confusion washed over her. She'd found it amusing that the Allfather had been tricked by Loki and that Heimdall, who sees pretty much everything, hadn't seen it. She knew that she'd been too desperate to leave Playground when she woke up, but why hadn't she said anything since she'd been back? She hadn't forgotten: she just hadn't mentioned it. "Just means I'm nuts, not that I want you to drop in unannounced," she muttered, getting out of the van and walking toward the store.

"Talking to yourself already, Campbell? That's a sign of poor fortitude," a familiar voice said as she crossed the double doors.

She turned to the vending area and blanched at the sight of Nick Fury, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt and wearing dark sunglasses, drinking a Coke. "Director Fury."

"You aren't SHIELD and I ain't in charge anymore," he said, stepping toward her.

"I-I know, sir. I, uh, just thought... After the way I spoke to you last time... respect is due."

"You didn't say anything that wasn't true, Cassie. I am old and I have bad depth perception."

She couldn't help the smile that crossed her face at the use of her chosen name. "But you have so many years of spycraft under your belt."

"And you can carry Thor around as dead weight. Girl, you woulda kicked my ass."

Cassie smiled wider. "So, what are you doing here?"

"I figured Barton would bring you to the farmstead. Safe place, off the grid. I showed up right as you were pulling onto the main road, followed you. I came in here to get a drink while you argued with yourself in the van." Cassie looked down. "I know the Maximoff girl got you, made you see things. Loki?"

Tears came to her eyes as she just nodded, dumbly. Fury put his hand on her shoulder and waited for her to look at him. When she did, he smiled. "You're the only one who got hit by that chick and wasn't completely down for the count. Your teammates, who include the strongest woman I've ever met and a Viking God, had to extracted by you."

"Guess I have better fortitude than you think."

"Definitely better than you think. You know... Maria Hill sends me reports."

"About me?"

Fury nodded. "Among other things. She said you're putting a lot of effort in. You spend most of your free time training. Says you're ‘almost obsessional’ about being an asset."

"Just don't wanna get anyone killed because I can't handle myself in a combat situation. Fat lot of good I did against Ultron. Got shot in the back by one of Tony's legionnaires before I could touch him. Feel kinda useless."

"Useless?"

"What do I add? I mean, the Avengers already have a revved-up super soldier and an acrobatic weapons expert. I'm like a shitty knock-off version of both of them. I don't have anything..."

"You know, doubt is a perfectly normal, healthy thing, that you need to get the hell over, right now. This is not the time for it. Even if you were a shitty knock-off, you could put down some robots. You are more in control of yourself than some of the strongest-willed motherfuckers I have ever met, so pull your head up and move past whatever that witch made you see."

Cassie chuckled and turned, grabbing a hand basket as she headed further into store. "Wow."

"What?" Fury asked, keeping pace with her.

"No, it's just... I finally understand why you were in charge for so long."

"Why's that?"

"There is something oddly inspiring about a one-eyed man yelling at you to get your shit together." She stopped in front of the sausages and stared at them. "Guess I couldn't expect more than Johnsonville at a Wal-mart. Beer brats, I guess. And beer." She dropped three packs of sausages into the basket and walked toward the beer aisle. "So, how's Phil doing?"

"Don't think Barton would be very happy about you asking after your ex, do you?"

"You're kidding me." Cassie turned to him. "Hill knows about me and Clint?"

"Did you forget that you're working with spies? That you're sleeping with one? You remember what that entails."

"Oh, come on, Nick. It was totally different with Phil. We weren't trying to keep any secrets. It was the most honest relationship Phil had ever been in. He didn't have to hide anything from me. I mean, he did... some." She shook her head and grabbed a box of Guinness. "Clint and I just want something that's ours, you know? We don't want everyone talking and speculating and... being jealous."

"Jealous? You're talking about Steve?"

"I'm talking about Steve," she confirmed. "And Natalia and Phil. Also, there's a deep-seated fear that Mockingbird is still in love with him and she's gonna destroy me over this."

"Mockingbird? Natalia? You haven't just been studying your Ops manual, have you?"

"I started in on those SHIELD files while I was still in Austria. Everything I could learn would better my chances of evasion. Once I got back, it was more 'learn everything I can so that I can survive longer'." She started toward the bakery and stood in front of the racks. "Commercial American bakery's nuzing like Hohenheims bakery. Oh, vell." She grabbed several bags of rolls and headed for the registers.

"Are you coming back to the farm, Nick?"

"Yeah. I'll be right behind you. When you get inside, have the lovely Mrs. Barton send Stark to the barn."

"Yes, sir."

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

As Cassie walked across the grass toward the house, she smiled at Steve and Tony, who were chopping wood in the front. "Glad you're working up an appetite. I'm making lunch."

"Austrian diner food, right? Barton might've mentioned." Tony brought his ax down on one of the logs.

Cassie nodded and jogged inside, dropping the plastic bags on the counter. Clint was beside her almost immediately, he was freshly showered, smelled like a forest. "Hey, you made it back!"

"Today, even. Wanna help me cook?"

"Uncle Clint."

"Yeah, Li?" The little girl waited, a bit impatiently, for Clint to stop looking at Cassie. As soon as his eyes fell on the girl, she started to sign. Cassie watched it in her peripheral vision as she pulled a knife from a knife block and ran soap and water over it. "Yep... I think so... " Clint signed as he spoke his responses to her slightly fumbled sign language. The girl seemed frustrated with a word and resorted to signing each letter.

"Wait, who's Mary?" Cassie asked, slicing through the white onion she picked.

Clint turned to her with an eyebrow raised. "You know Sign?"

"Just the alphabet. There was an accident on 107, so traffic slowed enough for me to pull it up on my phone."

"And you learned ASL alpha in the few minutes you were stuck in traffic?"

"Like it's hard?"

"And now you're quoting Legally Blond at me?"

Cassie grabbed a red pepper and a green one from the fridge. "Never seen it."

He chuckled and turned to the girl. "Lila, we'll continue this conversation later, when there's no one around to eavesdrop."

"I weren't dropping no eaves, Mr. Barton, sir. I was just making lunch," she said, in her best Samwise Gamgee impression. Lila nodded and ran out of the room as Cassie started slicing the peppers. "It's a little early in the relationship for your family to be pushing us down the aisle, don't'cha think?" she asked, quietly.

"Eh, she wants a cousin. Thought you didn't Sign?"

"I caught the double Rs in 'marry', and she pointed at us. Not hard to follow."

"She likes you." Clint grabbed a slice of bell pepper from the cutting board and bit it in half. "And she knows I do, too. She just wants me to be happy, that's all."

"Uh-huh. Hey, Laura," Cassie called out. The brunette woman waddled in, hand secured over her belly. "Nick Fury is in your barn. He requests an audience with Mr. Stark, but Tony isn't one to just do what someone asks. Can you figure out a way to get Tony into the barn, please?"

"Yeah, I think I can do that," she said with a smile.

"Grab the sausages out of the bag for me and grab a pan, cast-iron if you have it, and a broiler pan."

"Broiler pan?"

"Every oven comes with one, Clint. Usually it's a two piece thing, slots in the top to catch drippings in the bottom."

"Oh, that thing. Gotcha," Clint said, digging into a low cabinet by the fridge to pull out a large roasting pan. He put it on the stove before pulling out a cast-iron skillet and handing it to her.

"Nice. Okay. Oil?"

"In the glass squeezy thing, there," Count said, pointing to the counter.

"So articulate, Hawk."

"What can I say?” He shrugged. “Obviously not much."

"Then, why do you talk so much?" Cassie said, clicking the burner on under the skillet.

"Hoping to say something to turn you red again. It's a good look."

"Ja, mein Vater seemed to think so."

"Ich finde dich süß when you mix up your languages. [I think you’re cute when you mix up your languages]” Cassie felt her cheeks heat up. "There's her color," he whispered, leaning into her.

Her eyes flicked towards the living room. "Back off, Hawk. This isn't the time," she said, pouring oil into the skillet. Clint leaned away again, but she could feel his eyes on her. "Put the sausages on the broiler pan. Single layer, like you know what you're doing," she said, grabbing the peppers and onions putting them into the skillet.

Cassie had the oven open, flipping the sausages over when Tony stomped into the house, Steve and Nick following behind. "Are you going to be eating with us, Nick? We've got plenty."

"I've heard good things about your cookin', Miss Campbell. It was one of the things Coulson felt comfortable braggin' on you about."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she said, smiling as she closed the oven door.

"So... what's the thinking, Fury?" Banner asked as Lila ran into the dining room to hand Natasha a watercolor picture.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing," Nick said, walking around to the sink to pour himself a glass of water.

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked, leaning against the wall.

"Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans, though."

"He still going after launch codes?" Tony asked, throwing darts at a board on the wall.

"Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway," Nick answered.

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare."

"Yeah, well, I contacted our friends at the NEXUS about that," Nick said, starting to cut the rolls Cassie bought for the sandwiches.

"NEXUS?" Steve and Cassie asked.

"It's the world internet hub in Oslo. Every byte of data flows through there, fastest access on Earth," Banner responded.

"So, what'd they say?" Clint asked, examining the fletching of one the darts.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed."

"By whom?" Tony asked, as Clint threw his darts at the board. Tony looked at him, exasperated as Clint just shrugged, before pulling all three darts from the bulls-eye.

"Parties unknown."

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked.

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I might need to visit Oslo, find our 'unknown'," Tony said.

"Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that," Natasha grumbled as Nick finished cutting the bread.

"I do. I have you. Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up.  Here we all are, back on Earth, with nothing but our wit, and our will to save the world. Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission and whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this, laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard," Nick said, sitting down with his water as Cassie pulled the sausages out.

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Natasha teased.

"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve started, faux threateningly. Natasha just smirked.

"So, what does he want?" Nick asked.

Steve looked around as Clint came to sit at the table. "To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies."

"Person bodies," Tony responded. "The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

Banner walked forward and examined Lila's picture. Natasha looked between the scientists. "When you two programed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed."

"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Nick asked as he took a drink of his water.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

Cassie placed a platter full of sausage and pepper sandwiches on the table and sat next to Natasha. "So, what? Ultron is going to have Helen Cho make him a... a better body?" Everyone looked around at each other, nervously. "Guess we should eat." She reached forward and grabbed a sandwich, but she suddenly didn't feel very hungry.

Clint stood, grabbing a bottle of Guinness and handing it to her. "Anyone else? Might not have another chance."

"Don't talk like that," Natasha said, but she put her hand out for a beer.

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

Steve walked into the living room as he finished suiting up. "I'll take Natasha and Clint."

"All right. Strictly recon. I'll hit the NEXUS. I'll join you as soon as I can," Tony said, tapping at his wrist.

"If Ultron is really building a body..." Steve started.

"He'll be more powerful than any of us. Maybe all of us. An android designed by a robot."

"You know, I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me," Steve mused.

"I'll drop Banner off at the Tower. Do you mind if I borrow Ms. Hill?" Fury asked.

"She's all yours, apparently. What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. Something dramatic, I hope," Nick said, walking out of the house.

"What about me?" Cassie asked, walking up to Steve and Tony.

"Cass..." Steve started.

"No. Don't even think about leaving me behind. I may be pretty new to this whole 'superhero' thing and I didn't help much against Ultron in New York, but I've got more will, more fortitude than any of you. I pulled myself out of that fugue state..." *Or was the vision simply over* She shook away Loki's voice in her head and kept going. "...and I didn't sulk around about what I saw in that vision. I pulled myself together and then I carried your star-spangled ass off that ship. And then, I went back for Thor and carried his ass out. An action, by the way, that outed me as a superhero to the international news media."

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Which is great, because Hydra is still looking for their lost legacy and Loki is still looking for his queen, so it's awesome to broadcast my whereabouts. And even with all that, with my worst fears playing in my head on repeat since that witch touched me, I still want to help, because that's what I signed up for. As soon as I decided 'Avenger' would look good on my resume, I signed up to put away my shit and focus on everyone else's. So, tell me, boss, where do you need me?"

Steve looked around, then cleared his throat. "Stark?"

"Ever been to Norway, blondie?" Stark asked.

"No, sir," she answered, standing straight.

"It's good. You'll love it. Might need some muscle, anyway. Can't wear the suit everywhere. Go grab yours," Tony ordered.

Cassie nodded and rushed for the room where she'd changed before heading to the store. Clint followed, closing the door behind him as she pulled her super suit off the floor. "Not the way I pictured the first time you grabbed your clothes off of my floor," he joked.

She turned to him and smiled, slightly. "Be careful. Please. Be careful."

"It's a milk run, babe." Clint stepped forward and pushed her hair out of her face.

"No. My trip to the NEXUS is a milk run. Tony's only taking me because I threw a fit. Ultron might be in Seoul. I mean, he's everywhere. So, he's probably gonna be there... with the Maximoffs. Clint... Wanda, she's..."

"I know, Cassie."

"You don't. I saw-"

"Loki. I know. And you liked it, right? That's why you're all messed up." Cassie blinked back tears. "You remember when we first met? Took you for a drink to celebrate and mourn? I know what you're missing."

"It's not missing the mindlessness, Clint. I mean, that's part of it, but... Joanna, I wanted to... to be with him. I had sex with him. I enjoyed it, being with him."

"That's your greatest fear? That you might've enjoyed sleeping with a demigod?" Clint chuckled. "He's a thousand years old and strong enough to give it to you good. I might've even liked screwing him," he joked.

"Clint... why are you so understanding?" she whispered.

"I've had a long life. Done a lot of bad, had a lot of bad done to me. I focus on intentions, mostly. And your intentions are good, even when you're Joanna. Your intentions as Cassie are... good, right?"

"You're amazing."

"Nah. I've just gotten good at hiding the un-mazing parts of me." Clint brushed his lips against hers. "I'll be safe if you will."

"I promise," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him into a deeper kiss. Her super suit rubbed against his cheek as their tongues pushed against each other.

"Where's my lab tech?!" Tony called up the stairs.

Cassie pulled away, balling her clothes up in her hands. "Hold your water, Stark, I'm comin'." She opened the door and bounded down the stairs, three at a time.

"You had plenty of time for that while the rest of us were showering. You chose to shop," Tony said.

"Shut up," she groaned. *Everybody knows.*

"Come on," Tony said, walking out of the house.

KITCHEN SINK TAGS @heyitscam99 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mrs-meghan-winchester @henrymorganme @lonely-skys @allykat2108

[therevolutionwillnot]

She Can Fly (a ranty ode to my grandma)

Grandma used to tell me when I was little, I’d take a sheet and run around the house singing, I Believe I Can Fly. I can see the movie version of myself, hair in braids, shoes off, grandma saying “Hohoooo-bapreeee.” Run to one corner “I believe I can touch the skyyy” Run to another corner “Think about it every night and dayyyy” Flying across the rooms, wings flapping “Spread my wings and fly awaaay” I run through that open door, arms flailing drastically the beat beating through my chest as it repeats until the crescendo, “I believe I can flllyyyyyy!” Fast forward and rewind a few hours backwards, Dadu is yelling at grandma. Somewhere in my head his Hindi is slapping the walls and he is the large frame of a giant who squishes my grandma into the mouse form she feels majority of the time around him. I think he slapped her at one point, but all of that is lost or fuzzy in where we don’t like to remember. This woman. This woman who raised my uncle, aunt and dad. This woman… Would say to me “Mimi do you remember the garden. You would said my garten- these are my toe-mayy-toes.” There would be a laugh in her voice, as if she could see the sun shining on my little authoritative face claiming “This is my land” in tiny toddle voice. She liked the Animal Planet Channel, America’s Funniest Home Videos (animals over humans definitely) and soap operas. All the face slapping, facial expressions, dramatic music, my grandma’s reaction. “Oh myyyyyyy.” It was the animals and videos that were the best in my book. Some baby, child thing or animal would do something irreversibly stupid, clumsy and all at the same time adorable. She would laugh. “Oh hohohohohoo oh my.” Her laughter made me laugh, I loved to watch her sit in her plastic cheap looking dollar store chair and smile. And laugh. I think those were our moments. I didn’t realize this, but she raised me. For a long time she was there and I can’t remember most of it. I don’t know those times that my cheeks must’ve ruined the tectonic equilibrium as her face would peer into mine, searching for the many ways to make those cheeks burst even more with smiles. The times we must’ve had each other best. I will not know those. We were learning about human biology, I read the passage, I got all the information-We essentially come from monkeys...or monkey-like things, my brain said. I know things, I’m twelve. What in me decided to have this conversation with my dad? What sparked this ignorance to state boldly, “Dad we come from monkeys.” Immediate downfall, the bible was talked at and thrusted into my hands. “Are you telling me your grandma comes from monkeys?” I can’t answer with a straight face, because it’s all over. The world is ending. Quietly I say, “Yes. We all do.” More fireballs thrown until our words are pure flames. My grandma is praying in the corner, I’m crying. And realized I didn’t want this. I didn’t to see her like this-don’t care about him, he’ll always be this way, but grandma. I made a day in hell for you and I’m sorry. I told her I didn’t care if he lived, one day. We were on the phone. But he was getting sick. He’s always getting sicker. She said he’s in a bad way. I propose the idea that maybe he is, and maybe we should be ready for that...and in a small voice I tell her I don’t care. She was immediately offended that I would ever say anything like that, he was your son. I know that hurt you. I never should have said that out loud to you. She reminds me of the Glass Menagerie-that fucking story always pisses me off (but you are so fragile). She would think so little of herself (you didn’t like new clothes, in fact I have some of them). I tell this story to kids I work with all the time- it’s my favorite to tell and of course I change it up a little more every time. He was outside making chicken, red, so deliciously red but it was always smokey and filled with mosquitoes. You were inside making potatoes. Sometimes you sat on the floor and chopped on this big wooden heavy chopping board with this knife that looked like a mini machete perfect for your everyday brown toddler. I asked if I could help around, you stirring, he’s flipping and drinking. You both say no. So apparently my tiny self managed to drag a sack of potatoes to the bathroom. Plop them in one by one...to which one of you noticed. The door creaks open slowly, assuming it’s just a little girl taking a large deuce (it runs in our family seriously tho), but to her surprise...her granddaughter is smushing potatoes into the toilet. I can imagine what you sounded like “Oriiiiiiii bapreee!!!!” And apparently my father walked in- this guy who loves Beevus and Butthead with the comedic level of a 15 year old boy in the 90s...yeah he laughed his ass off. Secretly struggling with the idea of how to unclog the toilet. You guys loved to tell that story and I always loved hearing it. It was during a time you were happy with him...but we both know how temporary that was. We would go on walks, I’m in middle school...I’m a teenager and you disclose to me how scared you are of him. I’ve heard him yell at you or flex in frustration. We have both seen in this in men, too many times. It’s as if Dadu just couldn’t rest and had to reincarnate himself in your son. 12 pack of beer, everytime we hung out sometimes a 20 pack. Budlight or Budweiser mostly. Every. Night. You told me he did ether one night and died. Granted he was younger...but you’d been carrying his booze problem since. It was you. Alone. With him. And when I called sometimes our secret code language of his angry presence was enough that I would get on the phone with him, make him laugh, something. Just to ease your space. But you called me one day...it had gone too far. He had alcohol poisoning and my brother was there. He had to call 911. He was crying and alone with you and him and...I wasn’t there. To help, to take over, to handle the crisis. I was so young to hear about his abuse to you. I asked my mom what if we moved you...I knew she never would. But I really wanted you gone from him. I wanted to take care of you. I wanted to know you were safe and happy. I hurt you when I didn’t call or visit. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I do, I was too lazy, I was living my life, I was like my mother. She did that to you too. I learned this from her, I take full responsibility for not seeing you, I did not see you when you were here last. I didn’t tell you the truth. Me and Al aren’t together and whe I have a kid I will most likely not be in a marriage but I’ll be happy. Because I can stop this curse of misery and pain. If I am here for anything I am here for that. You gave me love-you showed me what love looks like and that is all I can give back. We all deserve love, hurt, broken, in pieces, in full glasses of water. I’m sorry if I didn’t give it back to you. But please always know that I love you. You met Al. You said his name funny. But it was cute. I knew he wasn’t the one but I never brought a guy to meet you and you deserved to meet someone. He was my first long term relationship. I didn’t love him, but liked him a lot. I think you could tell. I think you liked watching me with a guy. You kept asking when I’d get married and start having kids. You really wanted grandkids, that’s when the very elongated “Graaanddmmaa” would creep a smile around my mouth. It was just cute that you started doing that when I was getting older. You died on the night I was out dancing on a date. It was a really nice date and I don’t know if you said this to me, but I believe you did, you told me, “You love.” And that feeling I’d always dreamed of, dancing with someone where the energy and connection are caught together to hold up the mast to swing in the storm of sound waves. There it was. That feeling. The next morning Felicia texted me. I was on the toilet. I had a great night and a great morning. I knew her text was bad. It was in my gut but I hoped...and then I read it. And I cried so hard muffling the choking sounds shoving my hands over my mouth trying to keep everything from falling apart. You were just gone...I know that’s cliche. But that was it. No will. No letter. No words left for me or anyone. You didn’t exist, you weren’t coming back. And I didn’t say anything to you, I didn’t say any of these things to you because I let him take you and our family didn’t have words for you. They held nothing in your name, no funeral or church event. I didn’t fight for you because I thought I was too small. I should’ve fought for you because no one else did. I was strong enough for you, I was strong enough to fight them off to let them know that you mattered, that you gave me strength and inspiration in this world to fight for my existence. I never told you that I wrote a paper about you for my English class in high school. A very influential teacher, this old white dude read my words about you. Just you and your superhuman ability to survive this world and still have room to smile and laugh. The hug you gave me more which was always more than three times when we would say goodbye. I loved saying goodbye to you. He left me a message, that I was a very talented writer and should follow this road, this path… I never told you, that you gave me that moment, I was proud to exist to feel purposeful in this world. I wrote about the smell of turmeric, onion, curry, garlic in your salwar, the Amla you combed through your hair and always braided. The way you said, “Ow.” and made such a painful yet comical face. The way cilantro chili pepper eggs in roti were simple and yet savory as ever like your dahl, your fried fish, anything you cooked. Your heart that gave away so much love and you only got so much in return. You gave me love and I am so thankful for all that you have been in my life, my Grandma. These are my words for you.

[haikyuutrash11]

GET TO KNOW ME!

1:                                        My name?  Jess, but most online people call me Jet              

2:                                        Do I have any nicknames? I have loads of nicknames and I pretty much answer to slurred words too lmao             

3:                                        Zodiac sign? Taurus    

4:                                        Video game I play to chill, not to win? Overwatch                 

5:                                        Book/series I reread? Junjou romantica and a few others                

6:                                        Aliens or ghosts? I like both... but I guess aliens                 

7:                                        Writer I trust enough to read whatever they write? @yakulev-trash               

8:                                        Favourite radio station? don't have one... oh wait... maybe kerrang                

9:                                        Favourite flavour of anything? toffee               

10:                                        The word that I use all the time to describe something great? sick                

11:                                        Favourite song? worst question to ever be asked... fuck knows fam               

12:                                        The question you ask new friends to get to know them better? got any kinks? lmao               

13:                                        Favourite word? yaaaars               

14:                                        The last person who hurt me, did I forgive them? my ex and no I do not               

15:                                        Last song I listened to? post Malone better now              

16:                                        TV show I always recommend? the big bang theory or anything Michael McIntyre                 

17:                                        Pirates or ninjas? ninjas                 

18:                                        Movie I watch when I'm feeling down? I don't really watch a lot of films to be honest               

19:                                        Song that I always start my shuffle with/wake-up song/always-on-a-loop song? at the moment BTS- idol ft minaj                

20:                                        Favourite video games? overwatch, rayman, bloodbourne                 

21:                                        What am I most afraid of? losing my son               

22:                                        A good quality of mine? non judgemental                

23:                                        A bad quality of mine? quick to assume                

24:                                        Cats or dogs? dogs               

25:                                        Actor/actress you trust enough to watch whatever they're in? Jason stathem                 

26:                                        Favourite season? winter                 

27:                                        Am I in a relationship? no im happily single                

28:                                        Something I miss? lay ins                 

29:                                        My best friend? Jody and wife                

30:                                        Eye colour? blue               

31:                                        Hair colour? at the moment its half purple half red               

32:                                        Someone I love? Yaku! my omega :D               

33:                                        Someone I trust? my mum                

34:                                        Someone I always think about? my son                

35:                                        Am I excited about anything? Haikyuu season 4               

36:                                        My current obsession? Reinhardt x Lucio smut               

37:                                        Favourite TV shows as a child? Sailor moon and digimon                

38:                                        Do I have someone of the opposite sex that I can tell everything to? yeah, my gay American friend Jacob                

39:                                        Am I superstitious? nahhhh                

40:                                        What do I think about most? getting all my shit sorted                

41:                                        Do I have any strange phobias? ……. nunu from teletubies and wind turbines                 

42:                                        Do I prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? behind it                

43:                                        Favourite hobbies? writing, gaming, painting, drawing                

44:                                        Last book I read? deviations submissions                 

45:                                        Last film I watched? 47 ronin               

46:                                        Do I play any instruments? I used to play the violin and guitar. but don't anymore, although I do want to learn piano                

47:                                        Favourite animal? leopard                

48:                                        Top 5 blog on Tumblr that I follow? bun that               

49:                                        Superpower I wish I could have? telekinesis                 

50:                                        How do I destress? vape                

51:                                        Do I like confrontation? mate I love that shit                 

52:                                        When do I feel most at peace? when im cuddling my son                 

53:                                        What makes me smile? a few things... okay a lot of things but too many things to name                 

54:                                        Do I sleep with the lights on or off? off, what made man sleeps with them on?!?!               

55:                                        Play any sports? pfffffft               

56:                                        What is my song of the week? why is there so many song questions                

57:                                        Favourite drink? milk                

58:                                        When did I last send a handwritten letter to somebody? ………… hand...…. written...…. letter?               

59:                                        Afraid of heights? nope               

60:                                        Pet peeve? chewing gum loudly               

61:                                        What was the last concert I went to see? reading festival and I only went to see metallica lol                

62:                                        Am I vegetarian/vegan/pescatarian? no                

63:                                        What occupation did I want to do when I was younger? red arrow pilot               

64:                                        Have I ever had a friend turn enemy? yeah                 

65:                                        What fictional universe would I like to be a part of? Haikyuu… and I would be such a slut lol                

66:                                        Something I worry about? all the legal stuff im going through right now               

67:                                        Scared of the dark? embrace the dark                 

68:                                        Who are my best friends? what... like you want me to name them all?????                

69:                                        What do I admire most about others? honesty. if a person is honest with me all the way through then I will really appreciate them                

70:                                        Can I sing? don't think so                

71:                                        Something I wish I could do? dance and play the piano                 

72:                                        If I won the lottery, what would I do? treat my mum and dad to what ever they wanted and the fly over to Hawaii and be with my omega and then move to Japan               

73:                                        Have I ever skipped school? no kids don't skip school!               

74:                                        Favourite place on the planet? Tokyo                 

75:                                        Where do I want to live? Tokyo                 

76:                                        Do I have any pets? nope              

77:                                        What is my current desktop picture? Kuroo and Tsukki in suits sat on a sofa                

78:                                        Early bird or night owl? night owl                

79:                                        Sunsets or sunrise? sunsets               

80:                                        Can I drive? legally no               

81:                                        Story behind my last kiss? goodbye lmao               

82:                                        Earphones or headphones? headphones              

83:                                        Have I ever had braces? yes for 2 years then I didn't wear my retainer and they moved back lmao               

84:                                        Story behind one of my scars? I have a scar at the top of my finger where I caught it in the part of the door where it locks and I was on skates and slipped and chopped my finger off. I went running to my mum and she put the tip back on and rushed me to hospital lmao               

85:                                        Favourite genre of music? metal               

86:                                        Who is my hero? my mum                

87:                                        Favourite comic book character? do overwatch comics count? if so then Genji                

88:                                        What makes me really angry? having to repeat myself                

89:                                        Kindle or real book?  real book              

90:                                        Favourite sporty activity? *throws up*                

91:                                        What is one thing that isn’t tight in schools that should be? sorting out bullies                

92:                                        What was my favourite subject at school?                

93:                                        Siblings? yes 3... 2 sisters and 1 brother               

94:                                        What was the last thing I bought? bread                

95:                                        How tall am I? 5″8

96:                                        Can I cook? yes I can                

97:                                        Can I bake? indeed                 

98:                                        3 things I love? anime, Tsukki, and petals               

99:                                        3 things I hate? slow updates, not getting haikyuu season 4 and my ex lmao                

100:                                        Do I have more girl friends or boy friends? boy friends                

101:                                        Who do I get on with better, girls or boys? usually boys               

102:                                        Where was I born? Hastings UK                

103:                                        Sexual orientation? pansexual               

104:                                        Where do I currently live? Hastings                

105:                                        Last person I texted? my mum                

106:                                        Last time I cried? I couple of weeks ago                 

107:                                        Guilty pleasure? im not guilty about any of my pleasures ;)                

108:                                        Favourite Youtuber? the anime man                

109:                                        A photo of myself. nope                

110:                                        Do I like selfies? if im the one taking it                

111:                                        Favourite game app? summoners war               

112:                                        My relationship with my parents? really good with mum and a bit rocky with dad                

113:                                        Favourite accents? Australian                 

114:                                        A place I have not been but wish to visit? Hawaii to visit my omega                 

115:                                        Favourite number?  7             

116:                                        Can I juggle? not a chance                 

117:                                        Am I religious? science                 

118:                                        Do I like space? yes               

119:                                        Do I like the deep ocean? nooooooo                

120:                                        Am I much of a daredevil? yeah, stupidly sometimes ahahaha               

121:                                        Am I allergic to anything? peanuts               

122:                                        Can I curl my tongue?  yeah I can ;)              

123:                                        Can I wiggle my ears?  yeeeeeee              

124:                                        Do I like clowns? I don't hate clowns?               

125:                                        The Beatles or Elvis? the beatles                

126:                                        My current project? wildest dreams                

127:                                        Am I a bad loser? sometimes               

128:                                        Do I admit when I wrong? yes I do                 

129:                                        Forest or beach? forest                

130:                                        Favourite piece of advice? “each day is a gift and not a given right” 

131:                                        Am I a good liar? I am really!!! shit at lying. I twitch and stutter, its not pretty.                

132:                                        Hogwarts house / Divergent faction / Hunger Games district? Hogwarts house- Slytherin                

133:                                        Do I talk to myself? sometimes                 

134:                                        Am I very social? I can be                 

135:                                        Do I like gossip? its like asking if I like to breath                

136:                                        Do I keep a journal/diary? nahhhhh               

137:                                        Have I ever hopelessly failed a test? I failed a few tests                 

138:                                        Do I believe in second chances? yeah                

139:                                        If I found a wallet full of cash on the ground, what would I do? find the ID and return it                

140:                                        Do I believe people are capable of change? no                

141:                                        Have I ever been underweight? nahhhhhh               

142:                                        Am I ticklish? yes, very...its embarrassing                 

143:                                        Have I ever been in a submarine? I have but it wasn't going under water lol                

144:                                        Have I ever been on a plane? indeed I have                

145:                                        In a film about my life, who would I cast as myself, friends and family? rebel Wilson to be me, Melissa McCarthy to be my mum lol                

146:                                        Have I ever been overweight? yeah still am a thic bit ahaha               

147:                   ��                    Do I have any piercings? yes I have 10                

148:                                        Which fictional character do I wish was real? Tsukki or Kuroo maybe even Yamaguchi for best friend material or Tanaka for banta                 

149:                                        Do I have any tattoos? yes I have 4                

150:                                        What is the best decision I have made in life so far? to break up with my ex lmao                

151:                                        Do I believe in Karma? 100%              

152:                                        Do I wear glasses or contacts? no I have perfect vision                 

153:                                        What was my first car? n/a                

154:                                        Do I want children? if I didn't then I would be pretty fucked now ahaha                

155:                                        Who is the most intelligent person I know? I did have a friend called Aaron and he was very very very very smart                 

156:                                        My most embarrassing memory? I don't get embarrassed                

157:                                        What makes me nostalgic? the smell of clay                

158:                                        Have I ever pulled an all-nighter? yes many times                 

159:                                        Which do I value more in others, brains or beauty? brains                

160:                                        What colour mostly dominates my wardrobe? black lmao!!                

161:                                        Have I ever had a paranormal experience? yeah loads lol                 

162:                                        What do I hate most about myself? my weight                 

163:                                        What do I love most about myself? ugh.... my humour lol                 

164:                                        Do I like adventure? hell yeah!               

165:                                        Do I believe in fate? yes I do               

166:                                        Favourite animal? …. wasn't this already asked? well in case you forgot! leopard                 

167:                                        Have I ever been on radio? nope                

168:                                        Have I ever been on TV? yes I have hehehehe               

169:                                        How old am I? 25                

170:                                        One of my favourite quotes? because we don't have wings we look for ways to fly                 

171:                                        Do I hold grudges? a few                

172:                                        Do I trust easily?  no I really don't               

173:                                        Have I learnt from my mistakes? yeah, its important to always learn from your mistakes               

174:                                        Best gift I’ve ever received? a child               

175:                                        Do I dream? I dream big fam                 

176:                                        Have I ever had a night terror? yeah and its fucking horrible and wouldn't wish it upon anyone!!               

177:                                        Do I remember my dreams, and what is one that comes to mind? I do remember most of my dreams. one that comes to mind was a very very smutty one between a haikyuu pairing but I wont say it because ill be adding it to wildest dreams hehehehehe               

178:                                        An experience that has made me stronger? a break up from a long term relationship has made me grow as a person                 

179:                                        If I were immortal, what would I do? try and become what ive always wanted to                 

180:                                        Do I like shopping? I love shopping but only if I know what im going for or if I have money to spend                

181:                                        If I could get away with a crime, what would I choose to do? murder                

182:                                        What does “family” mean to me? it means home                 

183:                                        What is my spirit animal? a leopard or a bunny lol                 

184:                                        How do I want to be remembered? I want to be remembered for having a sense of humour and for being very accepting                

185:                                        If I could master one skill, what would I choose? dancing                

186:                                        What is my greatest failure? not passing some gcse’s

187:                                        What is my greatest achievement? becoming a mum               

188:                                        Love or money? love                

189:                                        Love or career? career               

190:                                        If I could time travel, where and when would I want to go? to the future about 5 years                

191:                                        What makes me the happiest? when my son is laughing and when I talk to the people I love                 

192:                                        What is “home” to me? home is where the heart is                

193:                                        What motivates me? ive had to be my own motivator most of my life                 

194:                                        If I could choose my last words, what would they be? just lost the game               

195:                                        Would I ever want to encounter aliens? yeah but the seem to only kid nap dumb arses                 

196:                                        A movie that scared me as a child? robo cop lmao                 

197:                                        Something I hated as a child that I like now? toad in the hole               

198:                                        Zombies or vampires? vampires                

199:                                        Live in the city or suburbs? city                 

200:                                        Dragons or wizards? dragons                

201:                                        A nightmare that has stayed with me? dunno               

202:                                        How do I define love? it cant be defined by another person, each person has to figure out there own type of love and for what reason and if it matters to them then no one else can judge                

203:                                        Do I judge a book by its cover? hell no I don't! I love people for who they are as a person not there appearance                

204:                                        Have I ever had my heart broken? yes of course                 

205:                                        Do I like my handwriting? nahhhh my hand writing is horrible                 

206:                                        Sweet or savoury? savoury                

207:                                        Worst job I’ve had? caravan park... cleaning them ><               

208:                                        Do I collect anything? anime stuff!!! :D               

209:                                        Item of clothing or jewellery you’ll never see me without? shoes lmao!               

210:                                        What is on my bucket list? to move to Japan, to learn Japanese, to become an author, to learn an instrument.... the list goes on                 

211:                                        How do I handle anger? not very well ahahahaha               

212:                                        Was I named after anyone? no I wasn't                 

213:                                        Do I use sarcasm a lot? pfffft me? would I ever? of course not! *looks to the corner*                

214:                                        What TV character am I most like? ermmmmmmmmmmmm I would say a mix between Rosa from Brooklyn nine nine and Michael McIntyre                

215:                                        What is the weirdest talent I have? erm… I can twitch my nose and move my ears at the same time without touching them               

216:                                        Favourite fictional character? Tsukki 

[fancoloredglasses]

7 Little Superheroes (a good ol’ fashioned...kidnapping mystery?)

(Thanks to IMDb)

I’m sure most of you have heard/seen a variant of the “Ten Little Indians” trope in which someone invites a group to a secluded area with no chance of escape, then composes a cryptic poem about the means in which every one of them will die, one by one. In fact, Rooster Teeth did one of these in which they killed off most of their executives.

Anyway, the writes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends thought this would be a great story to adapt. Just three problems...

1. The “Spider Friends” were just three. No worries, we’ll just bring in 7 guest heroes!

2. The show is only half an hour long (minus commercials and credits, so more like 20 minutes) No problem, we’ll cut the cast to 7 total.

3. That damn issue with violence on kids’ TV, plus do we really wanna kill off heroes like Captain America? Ummmm...right...they’ll just be...captured?

The villain of the episode is the Chameleon. I’d never heard of him before or since viewing the episode, but a quick Wikipedia search says he is the half-brother to Kraven the Hunter and a master of disguise (given his name, that makes sense). His voice seemed familiar, so a quick IMDb search revealed the actor also voiced...

(Thanks to The Lord of the Rings Animated Wiki)

Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, from the Rankin-Bass Animation production of The Hobbit (a much better version than Peter Jackson’s production as it was more cohesive while being less than 20% as long, but I digress...)

If you would like to watch the episode, Watch Cartoons Online has your hookup.

The episode begins with the Chameleon spouting the first lines of the poem...

7 Little Superheroes vanish one by one...7 Little Superheroes, soon there will be none!

We switch to Spider-Man swinging through New York, when he encounters a letter addressed to him along his patrol route (is he that predictable? Why hasn’t anyone set a booby trap on one of his regular perches?) inviting him to Wolf Island Mansion for some sort of gathering (not in the least suspicious...especially since Iceman and Firestar have similar invites...seriously, booby traps!)

Peter informs Aunt May that the three of them are going to a house party. Aunt May decides to invite their dog Ms. Lion along as well. Peter objects, but do you really think he could say no to Aunt May?

When the heroes reach Wolf Island, Iceman’s ice slide accidentally covers the lake that Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner (hero #4) was swimming in. Iceman apologizes, but Namor insults them and flies off (yes, the undersea prince can fly. Don’t ask me, I just report this stuff!) Upon entering the mansion, the group encounters the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange (hero #5), Captain America (#6), and Shanna the Jungle Queen (who? I mean #7) [NOTE: the comic version is Shanna the She-Devil, but the writers understandably changed her name for the episode...I mean, no sense pissing off the parents! I still have never heard of her...]

The Chameleon makes his presence (and intentions) known. This pisses off Namor (what doesn’t?) and he decides to leave, only to run into a force field (bet that pissed him off too) which covers the mansion, trapping everyone on the grounds! Then we get our first clue as to who’s on the chopping block...

7 Little Superheroes in quite a fix...One will meet fire, then there will be six!

The group deduces that their “host” is the Chameleon, and that he very well could be disguising himself as any of them! (I thought he just disguised himself. Can he mimic powers too?)

Namor (no doubt is the most pissed off way possible) decides it’s best to work alone as he can’t trust appearances. (know what Namor is an anagram for? Mor...an? hmmm, doesn’t quite work, but you get my point) He finds a swimming pool and decides he is needs a dip (I swear, the jokes write themselves!) When he jumps in, he discovers the pool is in fact filled with alcohol (the cleaning kind, not the fun kind. You’d think he’d be able to smell the difference between water and alcohol...), which dries his skin and weakens him. Namor attempts to fly over the pool to the exit, but the Chameleon ignites the alcohol. The heat further weakens Namor and he falls into the fiery pool!

Meanwhile, Spider-Man is searching on the roof of the mansion, but falls into a trap panel (on the outside of the building? The Chameleon must have a hell of an issue with squirrels and raccoons getting in...), allowing the Chameleon to assume the web-head’s identity.

Let’s check in with Iceman and Captain America out on the grounds, shall we?

6 Little Superheroes trying to stay alive...One will step into quicksand, and then there will be five!

Seems a bit specific, don’t ya think? I mean, all you have to do is stay off the ground, right? Iceman falls prey to a snare trap that suspends him about 10 feet off the ground. Cap rushes to his aid, only to catch a tripwire of his own, sending flying barbs his way. They’re easily blocked by his shield, but there are a lot of ‘em...

“Spider-Man” arrives on the scene, suggesting Cap dive into a nearby pond until the barbs stop flying. (three guesses what the “pond” actually is...) Captain Gullible dives in, and is pulled down by the quicksand. Iceman freezes the rope to free himself (why didn’t he do that before?) and is about to freeze the pond to save Cap, but “Spider-Man” offers to use his webbing to pull him out instead, only the webbing doesn’t stick to Cap and he sinks below the surface as “Spider-Man” swings away, chuckling menacingly as Ms. Lion snarls at him.

Firestar and Doctor Strange arrive, and Firestar deduces that it must have been the Chameleon. The three follow Ms. Lion back to the mansion where we see Spider-Man finally freeing himself from the trap panel by climbing down the flue (seriously, how does the Chameleon not have a problem with woodland animals invading his home?) just in time for Iceman to hit him hard with a blast of frozen mistaken identity. The group quickly realizes their error when Ms. Lion shows concern for Spidey.

Let’s check in on Shanna the She-Devil Jungle Queen. She has climbed a nearby spire to get a view of the surroundings. I’m sure the view is impressive, but instead of getting your breath taken away by it, shouldn’t you be watching the Chameleon setting off the explosions in the very spire you’re standing on? (he does get around, doesn’t he?) Shanna falls into a pit (what? no poem?), but not before she sends a telepathic distress call (wait, she can do that? I honestly don’t know, as I’ve never heard of her) to Doctor Strange. The Spider Friends and Strange rush to her aid.

Unfortunately, by the time they arrive, the Chameleon has changed into Shanna. (This is beyond being a quick-change artist. This is shape-shifting!) “Shanna” then jumps down and hangs off of a nearly ledge (you’d think someone with Shanna’s agility could get herself out of that predicament) as the group approaches. “Shanna” falls just in time for Spider-Man to swing in to catch her.

The group might have been fooled if not for Ms. Lion not liking her (who knew cartoon dogs were such excellent judges of character?), so the now-revealed Chameleon takes his revenge by opening a trap door under her. Fortunately, Spider-Man grabs her before she falls.

The group chases “Shanna” into a maze of caves (pretty sure you can guess what happens here). The Chameleon hides as Firestar flies by, then transforms into her.

5 Little Superheroes want to know the score? One will run into herself, and then there will be four!

First off, shouldn’t that be “4 Little Superheroes”, since he already took out Shanna? Second, it’s now pretty apparent (well, a 50/50 chance) to the group who the next victim will be (unless the Chameleon plans on targeting Ms. Lion)

Fortunately, the group guesses correctly (or have they forgotten about Shanna?) and run after Firestar, who was scouting ahead, (have these people not learned to not let ANYONE out of their sight when there’s a shape-shifter around?!) but not fast enough as Firestar encounters “Firestar”, who blasts her with freezing air, incapacitating her as she falls down a trap door!

Meanwhile, Shanna manages to free herself from the rubble (guess the count was right after all) and goes looking for the group (pretty sure we all know what’s about to happen...)

“Firestar” starts a recording as he joins the group, making everyone think he’s the real deal

4 Little Superheroes, scared as can be...A demon will devour one, and then there will be three!

Right on cue, a robotic “demon” shows up to attack the group. Shanna chooses this moment to find the group, distracting them long enough for the demon to blast the group, sending everyone except Doctor Strange flying, then he eats Strange! Spidey deduces “Firestar” is not who he says he is, so the Chameleon runs off.

3 Little Superheroes, racing to pursue...But one will fall right off the bridge, and then there will be two!

In the middle of the Chameleon’s poem, he starts a tremor as Shanna falls (heh) behind. Spider-Man tries to web her, but she falls into the chasm below before the web reaches her! (not sure why he couldn’t try again...)

So with just the wall crawler and Iceman left, things seem grim. In desperation, the pair heads outside so Iceman can try to break through the force field again.

2 Little Superheroes out in the sun...the Iceman will be melted, and now there is but one!

Once again, the Chameleon strikes before he finishes speaking, this time with a heat ray that nullifies his ice powers, then a tractor beam to draw him back into the mansion!

Gonna hit the pause button and go back XX years to when I first saw the episode up to this point. I honestly was shocked that the show would kill off Captain America and Doctor Strange (i had no clue who Shanna was and, to be honest, Namor was being a complete ass so deserved what he got), but in both Iceman’s and Firestar’s cases, their fates were a bit more benign as Firestar was being incapacitated by icy jets of air (so essentially tortured instead of killed, then?) and Iceman was captured rather than given a death scene. I guessed this was because they had “star power” immunity and would eventually be rescued (I mean, they wouldn’t kill the title characters, right?) Yes, now I know how things worked better, but my younger self...

Pause over, let’s resume. It seems that Iceman and Firestar are imprisoned next to each other, so the Chameleon tricks them into using their powers on one another.

Meanwhile, webhead has re-entered the mansion. One rotating wall later, he falls into a web (ironic)

1 Little Superhero eaten to the bone...Leaving myself, the super super villain, all by myself alone!

A giant robotic spider comes across the web, hoping for a bit of cannibalism (of a sort, I guess...) Spidey discovers the “web” is made of electrical cables, so tears the end from one and jabs it into the spider, shorting it out with a jolt of deus ex supershit. Escaping the room, he finds a room where all six “victims” are alive. (Cap, Strange, and Shanna are imprisoned, while Namor, Iceman, and Firestar are incapacitated by their weaknesses) That’s when the Chameleon announces he has rigged the island with enough explosives to level it, and will do so in a minute (OK, the show is at 20:30...let’s see if the bomb can be defused by 21:30)

While we’re on the subject of suspension of disbelief, how the hell did the Chameleon get Namor out of the fire, Cap out of the quicksand, and Shanna out of the abyss...not to mention moving Iceman and Firestar from their cells to this chamber...when he has been sticking close to the heroes or in his control room the entire episode? Strange was obviously transported there by the robotic demon, but how did the Chameleon keep him from casting spells?

First, Spidey redirects the heat lamp drying out Namor onto the block of ice imprisoning Firestar (wouldn’t she have suffocated by now?), with the melt flowing around Namor, reviving him, and Iceman, dousing his flaming cage. (29 seconds left...) Namor then destroys the generator near the cage (guess it was electrified...? That explains why Cap wouldn’t just use his strength to bend the bars. 9 seconds to go , by the way...)

The Chameleon takes off in his helicopter (21:38 Everyone’s dead, including the Chameleon) and deactivates the force field. Doctor Strange magics everyone to the roof and Spidey shoots a web onto the chopper, pulling himself up and inside.

Meanwhile, the timer is obviously running slow as it’s reading T-18 seconds one minute and 47 seconds after the one minute timer started. We switch back to the chopper where Spidey has finished tying up the Chameleon with webbing. (obviously the Chameleon got beat up off-camera where no parents could object) Spidey then grabs a megaphone and calls to the others

7 Little Superheroes, get together gang...Swing on my spider-line cuz there’s gonna be a bang! (No shit! It should have happened a minute ago!)

The heroes fly off, abandoning poor Ms. Lion! (11 seconds on the timer when it should have gone off a minute and sixteen seconds ago. The Chameleon really needs to not skimp on his timers next time) Firestar realizes they forgot the dog. Spidey takes aim and shoots a line, snaring Ms. Lion and pulling her to safely as the explosives go off a minute and thirty-five seconds late!

The web-slinger give Ms. Lion the props she deserves for giving the heroes an unexpected edge as we fade out.

I really wonder what this tale would look like today with (limited) violence being allowed in televised animated programming. While Marvel obviously wouldn’t kill anyone, they could put the heroes in dire peril enough to take them out of action without seeming as contrived.