#about the comics i mean. you better have cartoon baby fights over the cartoon

[kurain-genealogy]

i said i was gonna post about it and i am. i don't think william afton hates his kids. i don't think william afton is a mad scientist that kidnapped and put children in hallucinogenic gas chambers. whatever the fuck dittophobia said about afton doing all that, plus not stopping/furthering the bullying between michael and cc, is just dumb & wrong. william wanting his kids to fight, even die, is comically evil in the "bad writing" way. him being characterized as someone who experiments on children (including his own with no regard for their lives) in order to achieve immortality or whatever his supposed motivation is, is just really... nothing? as a character there is nothing to make him feel real. in an attempt to flesh out this character, they made him into a cartoon villain with "evil" being his only defining trait. whatever, i could talk for so long about how dumb i think all the dittophobia stuff is but i think most ppl on tumblr are on the same page regarding that.

to me, william afton is best characterized as someone who, at the Very Least, Doesn't Want His Own Children To Die. he can be a shitty father all around, or he can be a genuine loving father who is also a serial killer, as long as he Cares if they Die? most of what makes william afton an interesting villain, and where a lot of people interpret his motivation comes from, is how despite all his best efforts, he cannot prevent the death or downfall of his own family. he is in a tragedy of his own making, a self-imposed hell crafted by his hubris and violence. if you take this away, why should i care what happens to him? william afton was scariest when he was just purple guy and we knew nothing. william afton is most interesting when we have all these relationships and dynamics where we can seriously study and speculate the circumstances behind/around his actions, when he has something to lose (and will lose). william afton is most stale when more things are added to his story without purpose, filling in gaps that were better unfilled or we didn't even know were there – anything after UCN, basically. bro isn't scary anymore because he's either peepaw afton who's brought back despite his story being over, or he's cartoon network's newest over-the-top villian that you can't take seriously.

okay anyway. ANYWAY. william doesn't hate his kids. even if he's a shitty father, i think he still loves his kids. why else would he try and scare his kids away from the robots if he didn't want them to die? why would he design circus baby after his daughter if he didn't care for her, adore her, even? if you believe the theory that he talked to cc through the fredbear plush (idr if that's actually canon), why would he be trying to protect/comfort him?

i don't think he's a perfect, or even a good father, by any means. if you interpret him to be on the better side, that's great and fine. i'd love to hear how other people interpret/characterize afton if you wanna share! continuing on for this post, i'm going to lay out how i personally see william afton.

to me, he is someone who is very concerned and preoccupied with his image and how others view him & his family. even if he's super shitty and awful towards his kids, he at least cares that they all look good as a family unit, that they're well behaved, that he can send family portrait holiday cards to all his business partners and investors.

he strikes me very much as the typical authoritarian parent of the 80s. harsher on his sons because "men don't cry," wants his kids to say "yes, sir," and "no, sir," believes in "tough love," often says "my house, my rules," he has the final say in everything, maybe thinks hitting them from time to time is a normal, necessary punishment. not all entirely malicious, but thinks he's doing what's best, what's right, acting like a parent and father Should act, perhaps how he himself was raised. unfortunately, a very common parental mindset (even outside of serial killers). maybe he was a little scarier sometimes though, a little more unhinged or violently angry. who's to say.

but he's still just a guy who could exist in real life. he still eats dinner with his family every night, hangs his kids' drawings on the fridge, had to turn the car around because they wouldn't stop fighting in the backseat, attended awkward parent-teacher conferences, everything. he was once a new father who happily came home with his first newborn, lost countless nights of sleep over the course of two more, loves them because they're his.

meticulously and senselessly killed children, then came home and tucked his own into bed and kissed them goodnight.

he can be abusive and still love his kids. he can be a murderer and still care for his own kids' lives. maybe the loss of his own kids is what triggered his actions, or maybe it was something else. i'm fine with not knowing because we don't need to know everything, and it's more interesting when we don't.

Something Is Seriously Wrong With This Guy And We Don't Know What or Why. when acquaintances find out he's a suspected murderer, it should be shocking and upsetting. he's such a great man and father, he wouldn't murder those kids! when michael discovers his father's crimes, he should be in denial. sure, he could be scary sometimes, but he wouldn't kill anyone... right? there's a great cognitive dissonance between who he appears to be and who he actually is.

whether william descended into grief-induced madness and obsession, or was just always some kind of freak, or both, i don't think he saw his own family as disposable. even if he didn't truly love them, he at least needed to keep up his own facade as a friendly family man. personally i like to see him as someone who was a shitty father but still loved his kids, because people like that exist, and it makes him a much more interesting, realistic, and nuanced character than if he just didn't care about them At All.

[officialtokyosan]

the way people stan certain characters should be some kind of personality test

[xseaxwitchxkpop]

Bad Body Image Day

Howdy! I've struggling lately with body image issues and figured I'd make a little comfort reaction for Ateez; I know this has been done to death, but I personally never tire of seeing it, especially because so many people have different ideas about how the members would react. Anyway, without further ado! Also there is more of a focus on a plussize!reader in this because I myself am plus size, but that is not to say that my thinner peeps can’t have insecurities!

Disclaimer: I, in no way, personally know any of the ateezers, so take this with a grain of salt -- or don’t, I’m not one to tell you what to do lol

---------------------------------

Hongjoong

I can see him being a little angry, ngl -- no one hurts his baby, not even his baby

he’d ask why you felt that way, if anything triggered it like clothing not fitting right, scrolling through social media too much, looking at yourself in the mirror a little too hard

he’d spend the night with you at your place and cover all the mirrors in your place (yes, even the bathroom) so you wouldn’t have to catch a glimpse of yourself accidentally

make it point to shower you in praise, reminding you that you are more than your body

would also make a point to compliment your body anyways, pointing out everything you hate and saying he loves them because the are a part of you and he has phenomenal taste in his partners, thank you very much

Seonghwa

this man is too perceptive to not notice your depressive mood

might want to take some pictures together with some cute cat filters, but he knows what’s wrong the moment you decline

turns his phone to do not disturb and pulls you into his lap

honestly is sad that you don’t see yourself the way he sees you: gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, and perfect

peppers your face with kisses in an effort to make your fell better but that just ends in you crying

he then just holds you and rubs your back in soothing motions, whispering assurances in your ear

Yunho

does literally everything in his power to cheer you up

pounces on you from behind and folds you over like a blanket

tickles you in your most ticklish spots and following that up with kisses

would definitely force you to watch your favorite comfort shows as you forces you yo sit on his lap or lay against his chest

he may even force you to focus on him and by that I mean he’d ask you to do his makeup and tell you to take your time with it (gives him an excuse to stare at you and love you and tell you all the things he loves about you without you running away or shutting him up)

Yeosang

if you don’t know how to skateboard or use roller skates/roller blades, etc., he’d take you on a walk with him; if you do know how to do any of those things, he’d take out his skateboard and you’d skate next to each other

he’s a very quiet person, so I suspect he’d catch you body checking in the mirror or fidgeting with your clothes more than usual or looking over your shoulder at social media at see you looking at “prettier” people

if you can fit into his hoodies, he’d give you one with the excuse that you “looked cold,” regardless of the weather; if you can’t, he’d give you a plushie that was wearing one of his beanies (sprayed with his cologne) to cuddle with or squeeze if you don’t feel like being touched or he’d grab the blanket from his bed and wrap the both of you in a giant burrito on the bed or couch if you don’t mind being touched

basically he’d give you something of his to remind you that he is here for you, he isn’t going anywhere, and you are the most beautiful person to him (he comes off as more “action” than “words” for his displays of love, but I could be wrong lol)

would probably also offer to perform a roasting session just for you about the other members or any other mutual friends the two of you had

may even draw hehetmon comic strips in cute situations to cheer you up a little

San

cuddle monster activated

this man’s love language, or one of his love languages, is very clearly physical affection, or skinship, so be prepared to not leave the couch or the bed

again, another observant member, so he caught you doing something like Yeosang did

another one to force you to watch your comfort movies or cartoons

the bed or couch or just be an absolute mess of blankets, plushies, and pillows to help you feel safe and loved

he’d have your favorite snacks on deck, but if you don’t feel like eating, that’s okay, too, he’d have your favorite drinks -- you can argue against food, but you’re not arguing against the drinks, he won’t allow you to forgo both, it’s one or the other lol

instead of you leaning on him, he’d lean on you

you would probably be on your side or something, but he would make sure he could use your tummy as a pillow and your thighs as stress balls

he’d be a sneaky bastard and try to sneak kisses on your insecure spots -- his level of success is dependent on how much you’re paying attention to whatever he’s doing and your determination to fight him

however will respect any boundaries you lay out to him, even if it disheartens him to some degree

Mingi

he’s an extremely empathetic person and probably really good at reading people, so he probably knows before you do on a conscious level

cute faces? you got it! ridiculous antics? of course! telling you fantastical stories he makes up on the spot? absolutely!

if he happens to be going to the studio that day, he brings you along so you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts if you’re not working that day

he would show you either the mixtape he’s working on (I know for a FACT that man is currently sitting on a fire mixtape or is at least working on one) and/or give you a sneak peek into what the music might be for the group’s next comeback

I can see him wanting to take a shower with you, nothing sexual

he’d want to bathe you to show you that he genuinely finds you gorgeous and is more than elated that you are his and his only

Wooyoung

he’d another whose love language is skinship, so definitely cuddles from this one as well

kisses on your face every five seconds with “I love you”s thrown in

would offer to cook your favorite dish or one of your comfort dishes

another one with antics up his sleeve

he’d tone down his usual teasing or even stop it completely because he loves you and doesn’t want to accidentally say something that would end up making you feel worse

would try to act all cute to make you smile (laughing would make him feel better because he knows than that you are felling better, even if it’s temporary)

might invite you to join him in brainstorming pranks to play on the other members

Jongho

“want me to break this apple?” // “no, Jongho, I will not be entertained by you breaking an apple for the millionth time.” // “yes, you will.” *breaks the apple*

“part of the fun of breaking the apple is you getting annoyed.”

he does this in good fun because he thinks your annoyance is genuinely funny to him

while he’s not too much into skinship, he’d be more than happy to give you all the hugs and cuddles in the world to make you feel better while he hums or softly sings to you

probably drags you to the convenience store or a restaurant and buys you food, even if you protest with whatever insecurities you’re feeling at that moment

he doesn’t take no for an answer because having a full tummy even if you don’t want said full tummy always feels good

soft, gentle forehead kisses while holding your face

will offer you piggy rides and will not take no for an answer -- he will argue with you and roll his eyes when you say “I’m too heavy” or something like that

[unbakedziti]

A/N Helloooo this is the first time I’ve posted anything like this or written. So if anyone decided they want to read it, that’d be super cool. This kinda just was something I started writing and then decided to posts. Also my apologies for any grammar or spelling errors, and that it’s pretty short.

Summary: Peter Parker is dealing with some trauma after Civil War, and Tony finds him being reckless in trying to fix it.

Word Count: 2.8k words

Warnings: anxiety, trauma, mentions of su*c*de

Scott Lang did not mean to traumatize Peter Parker. In fact, they were in a fight with minimal rules of engagement, so there was no real reason for Peter to resent Scott at all. Peter knowing that Scott was not at fault was never helpful in stopping nightmares or panic attacks when he was mid-swing in Queens. He kept reliving how he was smacked out of the air, easier than vanquishing a fly with a swatter. Even worse, Peter understood why comic books and cartoon characters were said to SPLAT on surfaces, and he wish he didn’t. Peter could feel his flesh meeting concrete and stiffening over and over, every time he started to get confident as he was flying through the air.

He didn’t want to tell Tony, mainly because he was scared that he would think Peter couldn’t handle being Spider-Man anymore, and he simply could not have it. Peter ran through all the possibilities of what Mr. Stark would say had he opened up.

“Maybe an early retirement?” Peter’d imagine him joking. “You should sit on the bench for a while Pete, maybe even see someone.”

Peter had seen someone, after his parents disappeared and then had their death’s announced in the news before he even knew. His therapist’s name was Ryan and he helped, but only at the cost of Peter getting bullied by other kids until he decided to stop going. It wasn’t Uncle Ben’s fault, he let it slip to some other parents that Peter was doing so much better with the help of therapy, and when Flash got a hold of it ——- Peter’s reputation went right down the toilet.

Plus, Tony would feel the need to get him the best and brightest psychologist out there, when really all Peter needed was to get used to swinging again, and he could force himself to do that. He started with lower buildings, but Peter decided he was giving himself too much of an out, he was babying himself. So he ditched the shipyard for skyscrapers. He had stood on top of the tallest building he could find and looked downwards. Peter couldn’t tell if it was fog, or if there was a cloud up as high as he was. He looked around and closed his eyes, figuring that he senses would kick in, or that suit Tony gave him would pick up on it, as they had discussed many nights before. He had it all planned out, with all the fail safes. He just needed to stop his hands from shaking and jump, like he’d done so many times before.

Peter braced himself, shooting down a single string of web to see how far he was really going, if he would be able to pull himself back up on another building. As he was standing there calculating and looking around, he lifted his mask to get a different view.

“What on earth are you doing?” The almost robotic voice came from behind him, and he turned around, he nearly lost his footing. “Kid, kid, calm down.” Tony raised his hands to signal he didn’t mean to scare Peter, but it was way too late for that.

“Hey- hey Mr. Stark, what…what are you doing here?” Peter stumbled through his words as he watched the Iron Man suit unsheathe Tony’s face.

“Well I got a call that Spider-Man looked like he was about to try and join Ripley’s Book of World Records, and I thought you might need a witness.” Tony stepped out of his suit. “Now, I’ll ask again, what are you doing?”

Peter stepped down from the ledge, and he sighed and shrugged.

“You’ve gotta do better than that Pete, the police thought you were trying to do something and I hope you weren’t…” Tony’s voice was desperate, and he was running out of options the more Tony spoke. Peter looked down and saw three cop cars looking up, probably only seeing a red silhouette.

“I was trying to get myself to be Spider-Man again,” Peter cut him off, in a rushed jumble of words. The implication of what Tony and the police thought he might be doing sounded way worse than anything Peter could think of in that moment. Tony would have benched him forever if he was even close to thinking that was the truth.

“What?”

“Ever since Berlin, the airport, when Scott smacked me out of the sky.” Peter breathed. “I can’t get it out of my head Mr. Stark.” Tears started to stream down his face, his voice was breaking.

“FRIDAY, call the car to 7th and 12th, big building can’t miss it,” Tony spoke to his suit.

“Where are we going, I can’t, my Aunt May,” Peter tried to object, wiping the tears roughly off his face, but Tony shook his head.

“Avenger’s Compound, I’ll tell May I’m keeping you overnight with a note for school tomorrow. And FRIDAY, tell Ms. Potts Peter is coming please.”

“You got it, sir.” Peter could hear Friday’s muffled voice.

“How’d…how’d they know to call you?” Peter cleared the rest of the moisture from his face.

“I have a few friends on the force, who let me know if the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is about to do something incredibly stupid.” He stated, plainly.

Peter nodded slightly and just stated the word ‘oh’ before Tony’s phone rung to alert them that the car had arrived.

“Shall we?” Tony pressed his chest, and his suit collapsed into a housing unit that looked large and clunky. “Don’t mind that, it’s just something I’m testing out a housing unit for nanoparticles. There’s still a few kinks I need to work out.”

“Nanoparticles?”

“Yeah, I’ll show you all of it at the compound.”

He ushered Peter into the elevator, where he slid back on his mask, and dropped his head. He wondered what his dad would have said if he were there. They had such limited time together, and so much advice had a time stamp on it. Peter couldn’t apply the “don’t worry unless I tell you to” anymore, because his dad couldn’t. Peter couldn’t help feeling drawn to Tony for advice, even though he hadn’t wanted to ask for it in the first place. He had actively tried avoiding looking at Tony as a father figure, and instead like a mentor. There were a lot of self willed rules that Peter was miserably failing at.

They were silent in the car, Peter sat there and put his head against the seat as Tony instructed him to call May. At first, Peter wanted to beg him to just let him go home, that they could talk tomorrow, but something told him that Tony wasn’t letting him out of his sight.

“Peter? What’s going on? I was about to text and ask if you wanted to do grilled cheese for dinner, I’d just need you to pick up tomato soup!” Her voice was normal, and steady.

“Hey, May, I actually can’t, Mr. Stark invited me up to the compound tonight…” Peter trailed off, hoping that Tony would cover for him, so that May couldn’t detect any kind of sadness from him.

He did, he snatched the phone out of Peter’s hand and made up some lie about how he’s never seen his work in action and figured that he should. Of course, Aunt May agreed easily, knowing that Peter was safe indefinitely with Tony. He handed the phone back to Peter.

“Are you on your way? Do you need to stop at home for pajamas or anything?”

“No, no it’s okay, it’s fine,” Peter said hurriedly into the phone. “I love you, I’ll text you when I head to bed. Bye.” He hung up after she responded, and put his head back again for a while, only to look up and see they were there.

Upon entering, Mr. Stark’s friend who he’d only ever known as Rhodey was standing there talking to a bunch of holograms in suits.

“I want you to tell Stark that if he has intel on where the rest of the Avengers are, he needs to fess up. My head’s on the chopping block and I won’t let him make a fool of me for much longer,” a salt and pepper haired man said.

“Secretary Ross, I’m starting to think you have a crush on me,” Tony faked a smile, earning a smirk from Rhodey.

“Stark, you haven’t returned any of my calls.”

“And I’m not continuing this one, c’mon kid,” he nodded to Rhodey and Ross and led Peter to a room.

“Clothes, shower, then ask Friday to guide you to the lab so we can talk,” he put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I’m not disappointed, I’m not mad, and we’re gonna just talk.”

Peter nodded and murmured a thank-you-Mr.-Stark as he left the plain and modern looking room. He showered, and noticed that it wiped any smell off of him, figuring the soap must be completely scentless. Then he found basic clothes in the drawers, an assortment of navy blues, blacks, blues, and whites. He opted for a white sweatshirt and a pair of navy blue joggers, and slid back on his worn sneakers.

“FRIDAY?” He asked.

“Right this way, Peter,” it replied, and a small light strip in the floor illuminated. When he finally reached the lab, Tony had on a paid of goggles and looked like he was welding something together. It reminded him of how when he was younger, and Tony Stark revealed that he was Iron Man, there was a huge classroom debate of whether or not Mr. Stark made his own suits or was paying people to. Peter confidently maintained that Tony made them himself, and figured it would not be such an incredible feat if someone was just paying other people to do it.

He recounted the small story to Tony, as a way to announce that he’d arrived. Tony waited and nodded.

“Doing this is what’s gotten me through a lot of times,” he lifted his goggles up. “When I can’t sleep, when the nightmares are too much, whenever I have a panic attack.”

“You- you get panic attacks?”

“After New York, all I could dream about, all I could see, was the beginning of space and- well- the end of me.” He slid a plate with a sandwich and a cup of fruit and salad over to Peter, making a motion for him to start eating with his I’m-not-taking-no-right-now eyes. “I had this, just terrible, anxiety attack. I was out to eat with Rhodey, and some kids wanted me to sign their coloring pages or whatever. The little boy, he asked me how I did it, how I got out of the wormhole.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I thought I was dying, so I jumped into my suit like I was on fire and flew how after, it was JARVIS at that time, told me I just was freaking out,” he explained, stealing a pineapple from Peter’s plate. Peter stayed quiet, and waiting for Tony to keep talking. “So, what does a crime fighting spidering have to do to become Spider-Man again?”

“I- Mr. Stark I just need to get used to swinging, I won’t do that again I swear.” Peter rushed and babbled on as soon as he swallowed his food.

“Pete, Pete, you’re not in trouble.” He raised his hands. “Just tell me what’s been going on.”

So he did. Peter Parker told The Tony Stark that he woke up screaming, how Scott Lang was the face he saw even though that wasn’t fair. How he thought he was seriously hurt, and didn’t know if anyone would have noticed since he kept getting up, or trying to. He described how every time he would hit the peak of a swing, he’d start hyperventilating and looking around to see if something was going to hit it out of the air. Peter listed the ways he was dealing with it, by making himself do it again and again and again until he stopped seeing Scott.

“Okay,” Tony nodded. “It’s normal. I wouldn’t have let anything bad happen Pete, I brought you there.” Peter saw something flash across Tony’s face.

“And- and Mr. Stark, it’s not your fault, I wanted to be there-“

“I recall you saying that you had too much homework?”

“Yes, but once I was there, it was different.” He admitted.

“Different?”

“Yeah I thought that it would just be like, a conversation, I thought I was just back-up.” Peter shrugged, pushing in another helping of salad.

“No, no unfortunately I needed you web-slinging skills,” Tony sighed, taking his goggles off the top of his head. “I’ll tell you what, tonight we’re gonna talk. Then afterwards, we’re gonna get someone who definitely has better advice than me for you to talk to.” Peter started to protest. “No, no you will, and May doesn’t have to know because it’s covered in your- intern- health- insurance? Yeah, your intern health insurance. Don’t ask for anything else I won’t do dental.”

“I went to a therapist after my parents died, can’t I just-“

“Just what?” He waited, and Peter took in a deep inhale.

“Why can’t I get over it? Mr. Stark, I swing off of buildings and I have a secret vigilante life. A radioactive spider bit me when I was trying to see what my dad was working towards, and now I’ve got these abilities that no one else does.” He looked Tony in the eyes. “Why is this any different?”

They sat like that for a while, just still and silent, until Tony finally spoke up.

“Often times, you’ll see that it’s not different, but what’s different is the presence of all these different things,” he said. “So you got bit by a radioactive spider, had already grieved your parents, so it wore on you a little. Then you start navigating your abilities, and it’s scary so that wears down on you too. Then a playboy, millionaire, philanthropist, Iron Man, shows up in your Aunt May’s apartment and says he wants you to fight in something you don’t have any stake in. And now you’re tired, and traumatized because your a teen boy and don’t know how to pace yourself. That sound about right, yes or no?”

Peter looked at him and nodded.

“You are Spider-Man, no matter how it’s cut. But you won’t be for long if you don’t rest. Try to learn that lesson earlier than I did, yeah?” He stood up and clapped Peter’s shoulder again. Peter stood up, not even realizing that he had tears brimming his eyes and hugged Tony.

“I thought you were gonna be mad,” Peter said, his voice breaking. Tony hugged him back tightly, and shook his head before pulling away.

“I just want you to be okay, kid.”

“Thank you- thank you Mr. Stark,” he sniffed.

“Don’t mention it. I’ll have Happy pick you up to go see Dr. Nguyen once a week, just let me know what day works for you.”

“Okay, I will.” Peter nodded. “So what’s the deal with the nanoparticles?” Peter asked, taking a bite out of the ham and cheese sandwich. He kept eating as Tony showed Peter what he was working on, and hinted that there was a new suit in the Spider-Man’s future, if he was patient. Peter was amazed, and was even allowed to tinker with a few of the different projects Tony had going. His body felt tired, but he wanted to keep going, regardless of what they’d just discussed. Tony must have noticed because he set down his tools hastily.

“You finished with your food? Take it up, Ms. Potts is eating her dinner up in the kitchen, I think she wants us to try keto but I really don’t think I could give it up next to dairy.” He said, nonchalantly. “Oh and put your stuff in the dishwasher, if we get ants in here I’ll lose it.”

“So you haven’t tried Ben and Jerry’s Stark Raving Hazelnuts?” Peter asked, after agreeing that he would clean up all of his stuff.

“They did that? God I need to get out of this compound.” Tony shook his head.

“Yeah yeah yeah, that and a Hulk of Burning Fudge,” Peter continued, carrying his plate up the stairs.

Peter had said hello to Pepper, and she asked what he was doing there, if he was finally an Avenger, which both Peter and Tony had replied no. Peter was kind of hoping that he’d say maybe, but then again it had been a long evening.

He went to the bedroom Tony had showed him at first, and texted Aunt May before collapsing on the fresh sheets. Peter didn’t even climb under the covers before he fell asleep. And for the first time in weeks, Peter hadn’t dreamt of Scott. In fact, he hadn’t dreamt of him being Spider-Man at all that night. It was the best rest he’d gotten in weeks.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About "Through The Looking Glass Ruins" from The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who most certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck! I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons!

When Disney announced episode titles/synopsis for the new season (On a day that left my head SPINNING!), there was one episode that I knew deep down that would cause controversy and discourse amongst the fandom. And that episode was "Through the Looking Glass Ruins." Not because it would be bad, far from it. Instead, because the episode was a Gus episode with a Lumity subplot, that meant that discourse would start as fans decide which story they prefer more. A situation that, might I add, would result in no winners.

Do you prefer the Lumity plotline? Well, guess what! You're a racist who chose to talk about an overrated ship rather than a heavily underrated character who just so happens to be a person of color.

Do you prefer Gus' plotline? Well, guess what! You're a homophobe who decided to shine a light on a character who's underrated for a reason instead of praising a ship that just so happens to involve two girls.

Either side you pick is going to result in making people mad. The only way to avoid that is by explaining in heavy detail that you still enjoyed one side despite preferring the other. Even if you loved both, you'll most certainly have to explain to everyone that you mean it and that you're neither racist nor homophobic. And all I have to say is this: F that.

F that S in the A right now.

Because I, or anybody else for that matter, shouldn't have to explain myself when it comes to saying why I prefer one plot line or the other. I shouldn't have to prevent getting ripped apart by some bulls**t, black and white mentality of people who can't accept that others like a show for different reasons than they do.

You wanna know what I think about "Through the Looking Glass Ruins?" Well, continue reading to find out. You'll have to make your way through spoilers, but it's the only way for you to learn why I consider this episode not worth any discourse that I'm already certain is cropping up.

Now, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

The Opening Scene: I'm kind of digging how snappy and to the point these opening scenes are getting. In the span of what has to be less than a minute, we're given all the information we need to know: Gus is insecure about his illusion magic because he accidentally got Willow injured. It's a great way of setting up why Gus wants to prove himself to the Glandus students and a great way of showing how much Willow's friendship means to him. Look at how he's reacting a few days after the incident. He's still mopey and guilty about it, and I feel bad for the little guy.

Gus in General: And while we're already talking about him, let's give this episode a round of applause for giving Gus the spotlight without having him screw over his friends...except for Willow.

"Through the Looking Glass Ruins" really fleshes Gus out much more so than past episodes. As I said, it plays heavily into his own insecurities while proving how he's capable as an illusionist. He's also the best possible outlet to explore more about what illusionist magic can really do. It can't hurt anybody or work well in a fight. Instead, its strengths lie in the act of convincingly tricking others into thinking that something that should be fake is actually real. And Gus got to prove he really is a super witch because of his illusions through a jaw-dropping scene that's as dark as it was enthralling. The fact that he did it all by himself, without the help of an illusion elder who was right there, is honestly even more impressive. A lot of people aren't that interested in Gus as a character, but I feel like, after this episode, he certainly won a few more fans over.

Willow Getting Injured and Missing the Episode: This is a smart move, in my opinion. Willow acts as the voice of reason in the friend group, so if she tagged along with Luz and Gus right away, she would have easily talked Gus out of joining the Glandus kids on a dangerous quest. I love Willow, she's a solid character, but writing her out is really the only way the plot could have progressed.

(I also love that she wasn't mad in the slightest over Gus getting her hurt. She has every right to be, but she also understands that it was an accident, and Gus wouldn't do anything to purposefully hurt her. And that's sweet!)

King’s Prerecorded Message for Gus: That's just adorable. We need more cute friendship moments between these two, DAMN IT!

Gus Being Sick of Luz’s S**t: Of all the characters I expected to get sick of the whole Lumity situation, Gus wasn't really one of them. I'd always thought it'd be Willow, primarily because the rest of the fandom latched onto that idea, but for Gus, I'd figured he'd be more supportive rather than annoyed. That being said, seeing him call Luz out for borrowing his library card to see Amity (Not ask her out. Just to see her) is not only a hilarious moment for Gus but also an adorable moment for Luz. It's something I would never have seen coming, but now that I have it, I want more. GIVE ME MORE!

(Sorry if I'm being a little intense)

Luz Trying to Cheer Up Gus: It's moments like this that prove why Luz is my favorite character.

Willow might have the most common sense out of the group, but it's Luz who still has the biggest heart. She knows her friend is down in the dumps, so Luz pulls out all the stops in cheering him up. Whether it's researching the first-ever human (really surprised he wasn't the tiniest bit excited about that, by the way) and lending him glyphs for his mission to help show up Mattholomule. She may be slow in the romantic relationship department, but episodes like this prove that she excels with a platonic friendship.

Bria: I consider Amar adorably optimistic, and I have no strong feelings for Gavin, one or the other. But with Bria? Holy hell, did the writers do everything they should with her!

At first, it seems like she'll be a generic nice girl for Gus to have a crush on. Only for that writing to be a perfect twist into how she's kind of the worst. You see hints of her true personality in the overly sweet way she threatens to force Amar to eat a bug he gets distracted by. A viewer's initial reaction to that would be to think that while she's sweet, she still means business. But no, it's actually a perfect way to reveal her true intentions while hiding them at the same time. Bria may be rotten to the core, but with how perfectly executed this twist was, I can't help but adore her contribution.

Mattholomule: ...I would sooner expect to have gone insane before believing that this little s**t weasel would make his way onto my good side. Despite that, here we are in episode five of the new season, and I like Mattholomule now.

The reveal that Glandus High forces students to believe that the strong survive and the weak are inferior explains so much for Mattholomule's thirst for power in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed." It doesn't excuse his actions, not by a long shot, but it definitely paints a clearer picture. It also explains his treatment of Gus, as well as Mattholomule's reasoning to help him. Because of Glandus High inserting a "the strong survive" mentality into Mattholomule, he belittles Gus due to thinking that illusion magic makes Gus weak. But after seeing how they're both stooges to Bria's mistreatment, he's quick to apologize and willingly helps Gus out. In the process, the two of them create a believable and cute friendship...a friendship that is absolutely going to be interpreted as something else by the fandom...which is something that I'm more than supportive of--HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! I WENT FROM ONE OF THE BIGGEST GUSTOLOMULE DENIERS TO ONE OF ITS SUPPORTERS IN LESS THAN A DAY! HOW DO THESE WRITERS MANAGE TO TAKE ELEMENTS THAT WERE ONCE ON MY S**T LIST TO THEN MAKING ME MORE THAN OK WITH THEM!

IT'S INSANE!

Mostly impressive.

BUT ALSO INSANE!

Edric and Emira: More so than ever, I am so happy that the writers took their course correction with Edric and Emira. These two work so much better as supporting characters rather than minor antagonists like several fans thought they would be after their treatment of Amity in "Lost in Language." They're quick to pick up on Luz and Amity's mutual affections for one another and do their part to help their friend and baby sister out. It's wholesome to watch, and, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say it: Edric and Emira Blight are much better mischievous twin characters than Fred and George Weasley. As much as I adore Fred and George, there is an issue how they're always referred to as Fred and George, not Fred or George. It's because their personalities are as identical as they are, so separating them is pointless. With Edric and Emira, they have enough individuality that you could enjoy them separately as much as you could seeing them together. Emira is more emotionally supportive in how she listens to Amity vent her frustrations about her feelings, while Edric is more of a doofus who can't take a hint to save his life. It creates a great set of characters who can potentially work well on their own. I hope they get explored more at some point, but for now, I'm happy with the cute moments these two offered already.

Lumity Moments: BUUUUUUUUUUUUT, nothing compares to the cuteness of these two.

I don't care if I'll be called a racist for it because these! Moments! These moments are the highlights of "Through the Looking Glass Ruins" for me! Seeing these two interact in this episode, now that the pining is mutual, was everything I could have ever hoped for, and so much more. Seriously, how can you complain about anything about all of this when you get cute bits like:

Luz getting flustered of seeing Amity with her hair down

Amity risking her job to help Luz

Amity being motivated to find the diary due to the possibility of a date with Luz in the human realm

Luz going through hell and back to get Amity her job back

All of the blushing

And that F**KING KISS AT THE END HOLY SH--Don't you dare think I'm not going to further discuss that. DON'T YOU DARE!

Gus' story was entertaining with how it surprised me in all the right ways, don't get me wrong. But seeing Luz and Amity's relationship develop more and more always fills my heart with glee that, believe it or not, I'm always going to remember it more. I love you, Gus, but I love Lumity more.

Philip Whittabeen: So we finally have a name to the alleged human who was here years ago, and we get properly introduced to him through a really visually appealing animation change. I'm personally curious to see where the writers go with him, but it's too early to say if his inclusion will be worth something. But I will say one thing, though. One thing, and then I'm going to move on.

Here it is:

Philip sounds eerily similar to Emperor Belos to me.

That is all I'm going to say about that.

Luz’s Sentences in Spanish: I want to give a personal shout-out to mi buen amigo @l-egionaire for pointing this out because there are some things to analyze in what Luz says in Spanish in this episode. Knowing what she means, it's clear that they are ideals that Camila instilled into Luz. Ideals that possibly show a lot about Camila's personality on top of revealing where Luz got her hopeful optimism and sense of determination. It's the second sentence that Luz says later on that I really want to delve deep into:

"Nada funcionará a menos que lo haga funcionar."

Translated, that means "Nothing will work unless you make it work." Again, this proves the dedication that Luz has filled into her soul, but to me, it says a lot about Luz's dedication to Amity. She wants to make this relationship work but fully understands that it won't unless she puts in the effort. It's a sweet sentiment that says so much about how Luz feels about Amity that some fans might not be able to pick up on if they don't speak Spanish. Or, in my case, have a good friend who finds the translation for you (thanks again @l-egionaire).

The Galderstones: Pretty interesting concept, I'm not going to lie. It's also interesting that of all the types of witches in the Boiling Isles, it was illusionists who were the ones that guard over the Galderstones. Because illusion magic can't really harm anyone, it makes a weird type of sense that they would be the ones to keep the Galderstones out of the wrong hands. And, even better, it showcases Gus' strength as an illusionist when he was able to take down Bria, who was hopped up on Galderstone power, through that same "harmless" magic. It just goes to show that if you have a big enough brain, you don't need to overpower somebody. You need to outthink them.

Malphus Being a Surprisingly Cool Dude: What can I say? I'm a sucker for expectation subversion.

Luz and Amity Crying: First of all, a HUGE round of applause to VAs Sarah-Nicole Robles and Mae Whitman through their vocal performances in this scene! They really sold how upset and broken apart Luz and Amity were due to their feelings for each other messing things up. More so with Sarah-Nicole.

Second, this might be the closest these two have gotten to a confession so far ("so far" being the keyword). I specifically latch onto Amity's expression after hearing Luz agree that she's always weird around Amity. In one way, it looks like Amity is surprised to see she made Luz cry, but in another, it could be that she realizes that perhaps that Luz has feelings for her as well. Or, at least, that's how I interpreted things. The thing about art is that there's no one interpretation to agree on. And that's what this scene is: Art. It's performed, written, and animated well, that no matter how you look at it, it's a masterpiece.

“I’ll call the hounds”: One line. One line was all it took for me to love the Keeper of the Looking Glass Graveyard.

Amity Dyes her Hair: I always assumed that Amity would let her original hair color grow out as defiance to Odalia. But dying it lavender? Thus crafting her own identity without having her be compared to either Odalia or Alador?

...yeah, that's brilliant. Whoever thought of that, you are a genius and deserve all of the credit that comes from it.

ALL of the credit.

Amity Kisses Luz on the Cheek!: I'll save my "Wha-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo" for an actual kiss, but for now, THIS IS AWESOME!

This moment, much like other Lumity moments, was everything I could have ever expected and so much more:

Amity's instant panic after realizing she seriously just did that

Ed and Em looking fondly at their sister taking such a big step

The look on Luz's face, which may or may not hint that she realizes that the feelings are more than mutual

And the fact that Luz's legs give out soon after Amity leaves

It was adorable as all forms of hell, and it was a perfect way to end such a perfect episode...or, at least, an almost perfect episode. I do have some issues.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Mattholomule Helping Gus too Easily: The Glandus kids were right there, in-ear and eye-shot, yet did nothing as Mattholomule effortlessly helped Gus and the Keeper escape...how?

Gavin falling for Gus’ Illusion: I want to laugh at how stupidly easy that was...but it's too stupidly easy for me to forgive.

And that’s about it. Just two nitpicks that don’t really take away that much enjoyment from the episode

IN CONCLUSION

"Through the Looking Glass Ruins" keeps Season Two's winning streak going by being another solid A. It fleshes out characters, develops cute relationships, and keeps the story going despite being so character-driven. It's easily more than worth the time...but it's not worth any discourse that comes from some fans preferring one plot over the other.

I highly doubt that some people are racist for loving the Lumity plotline or homophobic for loving Gus'. Maybe some people are, but also consider that maybe, just maybe, a person loves a ship because it's their favorite, or a person likes a character cause he's their favorite.

Which.

Is.

Fine.

There's no definitive way to like a series, and demanding that people like it for the same reasons you do is not worth anything. Because, believe it or not, even Dana Terrace doesn't care how people love her show. In the AMA she did, when a fan asked if she's upset about fans obsessing over Amity's crush on Luz, this is her word for word reaction:

"Not at all! No, the main focus of the series will never be on any romantic thread but that doesn't mean those threads aren't important. And I'm thrilled that people connect to our characters!"

THERE YOU HAVE IT! The creator herself fully admits that she doesn't care what fans latch onto. She's just glad to have people who like the show in the first place! So don't create discourse just because some people enjoy a part of an episode more than others. The second you get that through your heads, the sooner we can all move on with our lives.

(Also, that's five episodes in a row that are hits. And, man, is that stinker going to hit harder because of it.)

[raeloganthesonic06fangirl]

what's your opinion on negaduck's character as a whole? like what drastic changes there were to him between the OG show and in the comics? like how he has more psychotic and blood-thirsty in the comics? (is what I'm assuming)

I've answered a similar question before about my opinions of the character, with it being mostly pertaining to me having liked the original and liking the direction we're going with Jim Starling 😗

Mostly, the main issue I have with the comic portrayal is that he shreds Mr. Banana Brain completely unprompted, aside from QuackerJack asking him to spill the beans about Darkwing Duck's secret identity (that itself is also a little forced, because at no real point in the cartoon has QuackerJack really expressed interest in finding out Darkwing's double life there, and has had plenty of opportunity before to take Darkwing's mask off himself. Heck, he could have gone down to the Tea and Doilies Society in "Days of Blunder" and just seen Darkwing unmasked there, he knew that Darkwing was working there temporarily, so he had plenty of chances if he really wanted to)

Sure, Negaduck is definitely a bully, but he usually has to be provoked into harrasing his underlings otherwise he'll just dip out and leave once the caper is done, like he tried to in "Life, the Negaverse and Everything" before Megavolt, QuackerJack, Liquidator and Bushroot decided to follow after him. He's go no problem with intimidating them and making them scared, but I should probably note that he was at least generous enough to equally divide up control of the city to them in "Just Us Justice Ducks" in exchange for keeping all the loot they had pilfered (an action the Fearsome was not going to agree with without a fight, but still, it was certainly an interesting thing for him to willingly offer them the city in exchange for the cash)

So it's very strange that QuackerJack was the only one to follow after him to ask questions about why Negaduck had taken an uncharacteristic amount of his take when we've seen him at least be willing to pay them fairly in the past.

Absolutely no reason for QuackerJack to be the only one to tag along, when the group works together as one unit. Absolutely no reason for Negaduck to have grabbed Mr. Banana Brain to tear apart and throw back in QuackerJack's face

Except for

Because the plot of the comics doesn't set off unless this event has occurred.

QuackerJack would not have kidnapped his friends after they had to split ways after he basically broke after Mr. Banana Brain was destroyed, and after Negaduck directly attacks Darkwing's home, prompting Darkwing to go off the grid to hide his family from danger, leaving crime to run amuck on St. Canard, prompting the Crimebots to be deployed by Taurus Bulba to wipe out any manner of crime (including something as simple as music piracy), and gather up everyone to work at QuackWerks and ONLY QuackWerks, creating a "Villian Rehabilitation Program" in the process that completely fails to work for QuackerJack because it wasn't really there to help reintegrate the villains back into society as fruitful citizens, but to just keep them so beat down and exhausted from overworking at the company that they had no energy to do anything at all... which is why QuackerJack snapped again and went on that rampage.

All of this, ALL of this hinges on Negaduck destroying Mr. Banana Brain. None of the main plot of the comics could have probably happened like it did if there hadn't been some fail safe put in place that would have prevented QuackerJack from even agreeing to work at a desk job.

They had to break the characters to make this major event possible.

I don't even think Negaduck even knows what Mr. Banana Brain is for and why that's important to QuackerJack, he's probably seen the doll at least twice.

They made Negaduck be a monster just for the sake of being cruel for no reason. Considering that Mr. Banana Brain has been described before as a "sawdust filled doll" (although the comics show him with fiberfil), which is a particular retro style, one can assume there's a very kind of fabric texture as well, that means a lot of effort goes into shredding that by hand, right in QuackerJack's face, while subsequently yelling at QuackerJack about how he's not important enough to know who Darkwing is.

It's mean-spirited, and out of character for Negaduck's style of tormenting and bullying.

He's way more direct in telling them how much he thinks they're idiots, and doesn't necessarily paint himself as a paragon of nastiness, just that he's thinks they're a bunch of losers and has better things to do than waste his time with them. He doesn't really explain why he thinks he's better than them.

Heck, Negaduck is virtually the same as Darkwing in terms of ego and "Time and Punishment" shows that if Darkwing didn't have any inhibitions and morals, he'd be just as capable of taking control of St. Canard in a manner similar to how Negaduck controls Nega-St. Canard.

That said, I especially want to note how in the past, QuackerJack has specifically tried hard to get on Negaduck's good side as both a good little lackey, and even attempting to form some kind of friendship (such as loudly expressing disappointment when Negaduck doesn't show interest in "wanting to hang out after a caper")

QuackerJack has consistently tried to be social with Negaduck, despite the fact that this is usually met with threats and at one point, Negaduck just knocks him to the ground and steps on him like a doormat while trying to get out of his line of sight.

Neither of these guys are "UwU Harmless Widdle Babies", but I really doubt that QuackerJack would have been disarmed enough to let Mr. Banana Brain be yanked out of his hands, and I doubt that Negaduck will would have straight up shredded the doll when it was probably more in character for him to just use MBB as leverage to keep QuackerJack's attention while verbally tearing him down, then perhaps chuck the doll back at him or just off the beaten path to have QuackerJack scrambling over the doll while he makes a getaway with the loot.

Heck, I would have even accepted the scenario of throwing Mr. Banana Brain towards the streets as a diversion to leave, only for there to have been like a street sweeper or something to have accidentally ran over the doll and chewed MBB up good, or a dog mistakes it for a chew toy or MBB lands in the bay and gets swallowed by a shark (and sometime later spat back up), effectively causing QuackerJack to be traumatized and THEN we have the comic plot, that would have been more in line with established canon and style.

I'm going to keep going on and on until the end of time about what happened to Mr. Banana Brain because Mr. Banana Brain is treated as his own entity separate from QuackerJack, and we're going to have to acknowledge his emotional importance to QuackerJack, and Mr. Banana Brain is what my family would call a "Woobie", which is a term we collectively use to describe a security item, usually a blanket but for someone like me, it refers to a well worn and well loved plush toy. A more popular term would be "Comfort Item".

You don't mess with someone's woobie just to be a jerk, no matter who's writing you in a comics. That's just as bad as taking candy from a baby. 👀

... Gosh, I think the sun's coming up, I should think about going to sleep now. 😅

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Review: The First Adventure! or Baby Donald Says Eat the Rich

Welcome back. I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in the hopes of getting one thing i’ve been waiting for.. sadly that thing didn’t come, we’ll get to that, but this was still a fun episode so let’s hop right in. Spoilers in a second but my tag is spoiler tagged soooo.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We open in the 1960′s. Austin Powers just went into Cryo Freeze to prepare for Dr. Evil’s eventual return, The Marvel Universe was in full swing, a teenager in baltimore was battling racisim via a dance show, and Black Heron had just been caught by Agent 22, aka Beakly when she was young and just as gorgeous then as she is now. Heron once again engaged in her usual cartoonish supervillian, and now SHUSH has her.  Meanwhile in a nearbye room a young accountant by the name of Bradford Buzzard is outlining his plan for Director Von Drake: The way he sees it every time a villian costs chaos Shush “Wastes” billions causing MORE chaos to stop it without controlling things. He proposes taking over the world, weeding out the chaos and ruling from the shadows. Naturally, Ludvig isn’t on board with any of this and points out they aren’t super villains. It’s here this episode fully defines something about Bradford’s character. Back in “Let’s Get Dangerous!” when Huey called him a villain, he said he’s not one... at least from his point of view. It’s here, in his youth we get a clear understanding why he dosen’t think so: So far most people we’ve seen in the world of Ducktales take the chaos and insanity of the world in stride: Either just numb to it like most of the citizens, Rolling with it like Daisy and Violet, or diving straight into it like.. pretty much the majority of the cast, either for the love of adventure and treasure like the McDuck/Duck family, or for their own ludcrious ends like Glomgold, Mark Beaks or Magica. To them the world’s fine the way it is and there’s to explore, take or whatever.  To Bradford.. this is madness... he feels all these people are just a bunch of overgrown children, and in some cases actual children, are just making the world worse and worse until one day their going to break it. One day skill, intuition, wit, and knowledge just wont’ be enough. Someday Scrooge, SHUSH or whoever’s standing in the way of evil will fail and the world will fall. This simply can’t go on, and SOMEONE has to control this, someone has to take this world, shake the chaos out of it and MAKE it sane. Make it work the way it’s SUPPOSED to. And to Bradford that’s him. Someone has to, no one else will, so he will. To him SHUSH doing this is just the logical thing: They want peace right? Their fighting for good right? Then what’s better than making the world a utopia? Ending these conflicts and remaking it.  The thing is.. that’s not what Heroes do. As we’ve seen in various stories where the superheroes, the Good Guys take over they do improve things.. but at the cost of free will. At the cost of free thought. At the cost of their morals. They become what they were fighting all those years and have to bloody their hands and keep them bloody just to make THEIR world right. And that’s not Utopia, that’s a dictatorship. The example I always come to, even though there were ones before and after this including Marvel’s incredible Squadron Supreme maxi-series, is Justice League the animated series’ two parter, like most of their episodes really but that’s not the point, a Better World, about an alternate reality where Superman kills Lex Luthor after Luthor kills the flash and hte League take over the world. The thing is.. the world isn’t BETTER. It’s just crime free. You can sweep the chaos and the crime under the rug.. but your not making a better world, your just making YOUR version of it. No one person is a god even if they have a power of one and no one person can or SHOULD be able to decide what’s best for everyone. It’s up to each of us to MAKE the world better, to fight for a better world. That’s what Ludvig knows full well and what Bradford just can’t see. You can’t control the world, you just have to accept the things you can’t change like it being chaotic and change the things you can like injustice. 

Bradford however, who was hired as a favor to his grandmother, can’t though Von Drake lets him off with a warning.. and a laugh about an accountant being able to be a super villian. Bradford however realizes ther’es some truth to that.. he needs someone to teach him out to operate outside the law, and if SHUSH won’t take the world and remake it.. maybe it’s time someone else did.  So in the prison cells of SHUSH, which are conveniently empty outsdide of Heron, Bradford outlines his plan to her. To create a massive orgnization to steal the world and give it the order it needs. To combine their skills: Heron’s for grandeur and crime, and Bradfords for strategy and focus, to take the world. The Orginzation for World Larceny, or OWL, fitting bradford’s hatred for theatrics. Heron objects, adding an F for fiendish, and Bradford relucntantly agrees to get her on board, lets her loose and fakes like he just saw her escape. FOWL is born. And the world would never be the same. Cue credits and cue the rest of the review under the cut. 

After the opening we cut to 1994-5.. sometime around then as it’s hard to get an exact year, and that’s how the crew likes it. Point is it’s the 90′s, and Scrooge is.. busy running his company. We’ll get into the weeds of that in a bit, but this is a different Scrooge, one who while no less capable, has no thirst for adventure or drive. He’s not nearly as miserable as the Scrooge we saw back in Woo-Ooo but he’s still a much less complete man. Anyways alongside him for his planning is Duckworth, whose very much alive at this time, and who tells his boss his sister Hortense left something in his office for him.  To no one suprise, that thing is the twins, at the tender age of i’m guessing 10. Since your probably curious, Della is still voiced by Paget Brewster, just using a slightly different voice like the Triplets and Webby’s voice actors do. It’s just a bit more jarring here since unlike those characters, we’ve seen adult della and thus are used to this voice coming out of a grown woman. It’s not bad and I got used to it eventually but it was jarring at first especially since once again Donald has a completely diffrent voice ACTRESS doing his voice.  This time around it’s cristina valenzuela, of Miraculous Ladybug fame, who I know more for her song work and twitter than her actual work ,but am delighted to see her here and she does a terrific job. I genuneily did not realize it was her, and while not exactly like the late great russi taylor, it is just similar enough to work. 

So we get to see what the Twins were like when they were the Triplets age: Della is about the same, but with more of Dewey’s impulsiveness, and Donald, much like he’d be a few years and some dead parents later, is a bitter, grungey musician whose constantly on his guitar and railing against the man.. which is Scrooge in this case which is fair. Hortense left a note.. which bothered me as I genuinely expected her to show up and was majorly disappointed she did not. We are in year 4 of this series, season 3 and STILL no appearance of Hortense or mention how she died, as she and Quackmore are still alive by the end of this. Given she’s easily my faviorite part of Life and Times, this bothered me, and the only reason i’m not more upset.. is the clever way they wrote around actually using her. The letter she leaves for Scrooge explaining things is the same one Della herself used in the comic strip, and using a bit of the postcard she left in the cartoons, when leaving Huey, Dewey and Louie with Donald, down to the Twins having left a firecracker in their fathers seat, thus leaving him in the hosptial. As disappointed as I am my favorite Ginger is completely absent once again, this is a brilliant reference, and I have to give them credit for it, so it’s a fair enough trade off.  As for his “Angel Nephew and Niece”, Della wants to dive into adventure while Donald struggles to write a song, singing throughout the episode. It varies in tolerablity, though mostly due to the writing, Cristina is doing fine. Della however is disappointed to find her legendary uncle views his past exploits as merley a means to an end to get his fortune and now he has it he can just focus on building it in the boardroom. This is an intresting take.. and one I could easily have seen happening to the Don Rosa version seen in Life and Times. The Scrooge there himself saw building his wealth as the most important thing until his encounter with Teddy Rosevelt, who taught him experince was what mattered and the having isn’t as fun as the getting. It works for me: This is a scrooge who never got that lesson so once he got to be richest duck in the world, having achieved his life’s goal nothing was left. He’s not miserable like the Scrooge we saw at the start of the series, having lost his love for adventure after loosing his niece/daughter, and having lost his fight. This one has retired.. but because he likely just sees no point in going on. He’s the richest duck in the world, has a vast empire.. no amount of treasure is really going to add to that like it used to, and as he points out in a second Shush has tons of agents at this point to clean up what’s left of FOWL. He’s the man who has everything, so why keep going. It’s weird to see a scrooge without the hunger to keep going, but it makes sense when his belly is full. Without someone to get him to see there’s always another rainbow, he just stopped chasing them. Also a fun nod to the comics I almost forgot to mention is when hearing about the “Gift”, i.e. the twins, Scrooge dreads it’s another surprise party, a nod to life and times where Hortense threw Scrooge one that went.. badly and lead to their entire relationship collapsing. Though Donald did get back at Scrooge for screaming at his parents and Auntie Matilda

However his busy day is disrupted with a call from Beakly. They’ve found the last known cordinates of Captain Yellowbeak, but FOWL is on them and Scrooge is the only one Beakly trusts for this since they have a leak. Beakly is also director of SHUSH at this point, with Von Drake having retired or died or both at this point. Scrooge reluctantly accepts, while Della is excited at the prospect of a real adventure and Donald ends up sharing her enthusasim as it’d make a good song. Scrooge, naturally, has no intention of bringing them with him to their disapointment and leads Donald to sing another “Suck it the man song” which totally isn’t about Scrooge.... spoilers: It entirely is, he’s just a little dumbass grunge baby and I love him.  We then get a cute sequence of Della popping up in Scrooge’s Luggage and Trunk to try and convince him to let them tag along, before we cut to the Limo, driven by Duckworth at this point, which solves that mystery. Scrooge is firm in having his butler take them back and have them work with him and Duckworth’s fine with that.. but wants overtime, which is fair. Scrooge, being Scrooge, grumbles about not being made of money, proven wrong by gold spilling out of him. Though I do like the update of Scrooge’s classic cheapness when it comes to pay: INstead of barely paying his employees like a monster, he’s simply reluctant to pay extra if he dosen’t have to, and would rather drag two 10 year olds with him on a dangerous adventure than pay overtime, which tracks. It’s also clear if he had to he WOULD actually pay it, either due to legal reasons or his moral standards, he just isn’t happy about it. So he agrees, though he wants Donald to leave the guitar behind which.. given the most Donald’s been able to come up with is “Suck it THE MAN” and “This guy’s a greedy asshole”.. he’s extremely correct and when Donald tries to pull a “YOU CAN’T CENSOR ME MANNNN”, Scrooge just chucks it out of the car.  At the airfield while Della is excited like an rabid chipmunk, and genuinely thinks she can fly a plane because she’s played Outrunner 2.. which I have only vaguely heard of before now. And is apparently just a pc game where you run a lot so I genuinely do not get where Della gets piloting from that.. but she IS Dewey’s mother. So with that in mind the family take off and Scrooge explains what their after: The Papyrus of Binding. It’s a dangerously powerful magical artifact from Ancient Egypt that will make whatever’s written on it happen. The dangerous part is that it’s incredibly literal: As Bradford puts later in the episode, ask for unlimited power, it might zap you dead with a million volts, ask for infinite wealth, prepare to be crushed underneath it. It’s a nice twist on a Monkey’s Paw or Jackass Genie situation. Instead of either the source of the wish granting magic just being inherently evil, or some dickhead screwing with the hero.. it’s just an object that has no ability to interpret nuance, just like your phone with the goddamn autocorrect. It can’t judge intent or tone or meaning, it just gives exactly what it’s asked. It’s a thoroughly interesting concept. 

Something I really like about this episode is the fact it answers some little questions. While none were Hortense related, and I am still grumpy about that even with this coming out a good 17 hours after I watched it due to getting caught up with other stuff, it does have little touches that explain small parts of the lore: Who drove Scrooge? As just mentioned, Duckworth. Who flew scrooge? Paid pilots. Did he have a plane before the sunchaser? Yup. It fills in some small gaps in the world. Stuff we weren’t dying to know but’s stil lintresting. Said pilots in this case however are Heron and Bradford. This episode also fills in Heron’s character, as while we’ve already seen bits and pieces this season she LOVES being a classic, take over the world james bond type villian, like she stepped out of a duck version of kim possible.. and i’m just now realizing there probably IS a duck kim possible somewhere in this world as while far after disney afternoon, it fits too neatly to not be wedged in there with your tailspins and goof troops. I wouldn’t be suprised if there were brid versions of every human based disney afternoon and one saturday morning show. My.. my head’s swimming from this. I could be, and probably am wrong but the sheer idea of this... it’s amazing.  Back to Heron, she just LOVES being evil and destructive, letting the world know she exists and operating on a grand scale. Now we’ve seen more of her while she’s Beakly’s nemisis.. she’s really an evil scrooge.. yes another one. Like Scrooge, at least how he normally is,  she simply gets how the world of Ducktales operates and can take advantage of that to the best of her ablility. Just like adventuering, cartoonish supervilliany is about risk and reward.. sometimes you faceplamnt hard, that’s the risk, but the rewards and rush is worth it. She’s as addicted to grandoise villiany as Scrooge is to adventure by this point. And like Scrooge, and unlike her partner Bradford, she sees the world as it is: Chaotic and one big sandbox to play in. She contrasts Scrooge by the fact that while Scrooge is willing to bust down doors, he still has morals, as well as the wisdom to not go overboard Heron often lacks. It also makes her a good contrast ot the equally skilled Beakly: While Beakly is taciturn, controlled in all things especially her emotions, Heron is bombastic, gloating and borderline insane, and while deadly in a fight, dosen’t exercise any control in her plans, preferring it big and loud despite her partner usually being right about reiging it in.  So Heron evacuates dramatically, taking a grumpy Bradford with them, and sending the plane into a tailspin. 

I can’t wait for Next Year’s Tailspin episode. I swear to god. I’m hoping for Shere Kahn but this episode has taught me to be okay with disapointment, if a grumpus. Della however shows her natural talent and despite having no real experince with planes, lands it gracefully. While that’s going on, Bradford berates Heron for her plan, pointing out that they COULD have simply landed the plane, then captured the McDuck family and executed them quitely, versus leaving a chance they’ll survive which they do. They AREN’T supervillains.. or at least he thinks he isn’t. Heron does show off her competence though, pointing out that this way they can simply stay low, and FOLLOW the Ducks to the treasure. Bradford is impressed for a second.. till Heron’s evil shows as she plans to use the Papyrus. Bradford loudly objects to this, listing the possible risks shown before. If not used CAREFULLY, it could kill them, and she balks and wants him to just embrace being the Villian already. It’s what I love about their dynamic set up here: While they are equals, Bradford is a better strategist, able to think and plan way in advance, and prefers subterfuge, and if present day is any indicatoin probably used Heron’s flash to distract from the real mission or goal often or to do something on the down low while she kept SHUSH busy. His last two plans, while again requiring some pizzaz, relied on misdrection: having the ducks take care of an immidate threat like their used to.. while he gets exactly what he wants while their busy and whatever they get out of it is either nothing (Impossibin) or something he couldn’t use just yet and thus if he didn’t get it, no loss, but if he did it just moves up the timetable. Not only that but he’s outlasted all three other big bads, lying in the shadows till it was too risky to leave scrooge and play and even THEN, only coming out into the open when forced out. IT’s why he’s Scrooge’s most dangerous opponent: He knows how Scrooge’s other enmities operates as well as Scrooge himself. And since he knows everything he can maneuver Scrooge exactly where he needs him to do exactly what he wants. It’s unknown how the family will beat him, but he’s easily the biggest challenge they’ve had. 

But back to the show and the past, Scrooge bonds with his niece and nephew, retelling stories of his past as they get closer, with Donald ending up high at one point and thus seeing the ship stranded on a mountain. As he recounts a fight with El Capitan, the villian from the ducktales 87 pilot, he counts the story as as a loss: He didn’t get anything from it, no treasure no new contracts. But Della shows him the point he’s been missing; He got a story. Sure he lost.. but he got experince, a tale to tell and a legend grown.Just because you don’t get everything dosen’t mean it wasn’t worth the experince and you can’t hold it in your heart. And this episode shows why this scrooge needed his family: Without Teddy to mentor him, he simply never got that adventure wasn’t about gains or what you get.. it’s about the thrill of it, the enjoyment of discovery and the memories you make.. it’s about the Journey not the destination. 

As Scrooge starts to warm up to that, he finds a gap, with Della volunteering Donald to jump but Scrooge just having the kids hop on his back and pogo caneing across. The family find the Papyrus, and find out why the ship is all the way up here: Captain Yellowbeak, who’s a character from one of barks stories and the one who had the scroll last, wished to escape.. but that just stranded them. He asked for water.. and it drowned his crew.. and finally with the document hteir reading he asked for release... and thus is now a skelington. The kid are happy to have reached the goal.. while Scrooge is back on his Zack Morris phone trying to reschedule things and schedule a SHUSH evac, to the kids annoyance. However Scrooge raining on their parade gets interupted by Heron and Bradford, as Heron can’t resist popping out dramatically and Bradford is UTTERLY furious since she blew his cover, and Scrooge recognizes him from his christmas party, a nice callback. Scroog being scrooge figures out he’s the mole and Bradford runs , furious at Heron. Their conflict is an intresting one: Both have a point but both will not back down. Bradford is right this showboating nonsense has only hindered Heron’s plans.. and Heron is right that Bradford needs to accept he’s the bad guy. Even if he has well meaning motives, he’s the villian, he works with them, he leads them.. he is one.  He just can’t accept he’s wrong or dosen’t have the answers... huh.. I wonder who that reminds you of. And that’s 100% intentional as Frank has outright compared Huey and Bradford and like last season it’s neat to have the main vilian contrast our chosen Duck for the season. 

Heron outfoxes the kids and gets the papyrus and being just an enitrely black hearted bitch, plans to kill them just to spite scrooge.. writing that “his sidekicks will perish on this mission.”.... but Scrooge’s character development, and her choice of words, means nothing happens. As Scrooge outlines, “Their not my sidekicks their my FAMILY, and this isn’t a mission, it’s an ADVENTURE”. Scrooge has finally accepted his life for what it really is.. and the thrill of the chase over what lies at the end. There’s always anothe rainbow.. and he’s finally become the man who will chase every last one. 

OF course this is interupted, and Heron escapes with the papyrus, when a skeletal pirate attacks.. why is Yellow Beak alive, why’d the scroll do this?

But we get a neat fight as Scrooge fights the skeleton while he sends the kids after Heron. Scrooge gets a cool looking swordfight, while Bradford gets the papyrus, and Yellowbeak even terrifies me what with his bestial roll and fucking centepede crawling out of him.. jesus those things freak me out.  Meanwhile the kids battle Heron, who throws della overboard... and thus for the first time, Donald taps into his beserker rage, snikty snoink, and easily incapaciates the more experinced and fully grown adul, though Della since we’eve been following her kids for the past three seasons, is fine, if suprised by her brother being the goddamn wolverine. 

While heron is out for a second, Scrooge heads after Bradford, and vows to tell Beakly and chase him all across the world. However Bradford gets an utterly awesome moment.. he admits scrooge may be right and probably would.. but since he has the papayrus and is careful in everything he writes his request carefully and perfectly “As far as the ducks are concerned, I was never here.” Grante dit COULD have left scrooge out.. but since he didn’t sday duck family or specificy, and likely knew it’d do that, it instead just means the three bilogical ducks. Bradford dissappears, turning invisble and leaving the papyrus for scrooge, who foils heron by simply writing that this scroll will be lost until one day found by his heirs.

So Heron takes a fall and looses an arm, again.. or for the first time.. the family is triumphant and despite loosing his goal, Scrooge is convinced he and the kids will find it again. See above. Scrooge then pulls out his phone and tells Duckworth to rework his schedule.. but it’s so he can find someone to run his comapny so he can spend more time with the kids. As for why Hortense would allow this before her still mysterious passing.. i’m guessing A) she notices her brother is happier and more alive than he’s been for a while and B) they just blew up their dad’s ass with a firecracker, and she won’t be able to use it for a while, so she’s double mad, so if it means she gets a moment’s peace and is with someone she trusts.. why not?

So we end on Scrooge packing up, preparing for further adventures.. i’d love a spinoff of this one day. I mean Disney plus needs it, and since Frank is probably going over to Darkwing.. maybe matt could take a crack at this. Just saying. You have the cast ready, a giant world to explore, and 15 years worth adventures. Run that baby damn you! But yeah the inevitble happens and Bradford further proves his magificent bastardry.. by appling for the position of running the company as head of Scrooge’s board, and setting up said board. So now FOWL has unlimited resources, he has a direct eye on what he now realizes is his greatest threat, and the complete trust and faith of both Scrooge and Beakly. It also puts Beakly’s breakdown in context: We now see WHY she went as far as she did: While the revelation was bad for Scrooge, finding out one of his most trusted allies was a traitor the whole time and knew everything about him, for Beakly.. it had to be worse. Finding out one of your best employees, one of the FEW people you ever trusted, and someone you DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED TO SCROOGE, was not only the man who set up your greatest enemies, but had compromised your organization for most of your career. IT’s no wonder she broke down so hard.. while I already gave several reason adding “This level of betrayal and self doubt to the list” only makes it that much harder on her. But for now a partnership is started.. one that very well may end scrooge. 

Final Thoughts: A pretty good episode overall. It’s well paced, to the point I probably forgot a LOT, has some good jokes, and fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore, while giving us a nice insight into bradford and heron. Even without hortense this was a pretty good episode. 

Upcoming Reviews: LIfe and Times; Master of the Mississippi Ride of the Three Cabbleros: The Three Cablleros (House of Mouse) Tomtrospective: Lava Lake Beach

[asundered]

@heathcliffd asked: how would you kill me if you could?

‘who says i couldn’t?’  i’m smiling, and oddly enough i think i mean it this time, because i am starting to think that there’s more to you than i originally gave you credit for. you’re learning me, i’m sure of it. making the effort, and it’s reminding me, joe, that i don’t ask for much. i pop a chip into my mouth with a mischievous raise of brows, my fingers rubbing together in a circle as i dust the residual salt onto your counter, settling with elbows braced against it to lean toward you, head tilting as my fingers lace together and i drop my chin onto them with a thoughtful hum. ‘how would i kill you, joe quinn-goldberg.’ i’ve been asking myself a similar question, but not about you, in particular. wondering if i am capable of the deed itself, if i’d go that far. 

i am going insane, joe, that much i can admit. i fucking hate being stuck in that house with this nick, this lazy, self-obsessed nick, who seems to think that i can’t smell the vanilla body spray on his shirt when he drags himself home from the bar and still has the nerve to fall into bed behind me, thick fingers palming at me over the covers. i find myself staring at the back of his head most days, imagining what it might look like split down the middle. when i think of the insides of my husband’s skull, it’s usually filled with little polaroids ; the positions i imagine him in with his bendy, cool girl replacement, the lewds hidden on his laptop that he’s been stupid enough to password protect with his mistress’s birthday. her fucking birthday, joe. ( and guess what, dear readers? she was born in 2thousandfucking1. )

of course, i know that the reality of that image would not be anything as cartoon-comic as a scattering of technicolor porno shots and spiraling red ribbons for effect. i’ve watched videos, carefully of course, at the library where you’re working, now -- where we share glances as you stock the shelves, and i cross my eyes when a local idiot who offers me his unsolicited advice turns his back while you’re looking at me. i don’t care that you laugh, necessarily, i care what it means that you do. i care that you’re paying attention. 

‘mmm. let’s see. don’t think i’d strangle you. you’d definitely be able to fight me off.’ you’re not asking me this because it gets you off. i can tell the difference, whether you want me to, or not. you don’t want to think about yourself dead, and you don’t want to think about me killing you, don’t even want to consider that i’d want to. no, this is for me. i wonder if you know how flattering a love letter this is, joe. i’m grateful that you’re willing to play the game when i haven’t even told you the rules. no clues for you, either, no handholding. just pure willingness, pure interest. you want to be interesting for me, you want to be good enough. with that, i can make you what i need, joe. all you have to do is keep giving me what i want. ‘i’ve got it. i’d poison you, joe. cliche, i know. a woman’s choice. but, there are advantages to accepting cliches, now and then.’  like teacher fucks student, boy fucks girl, girl has baby.

like the sad, caged housewife next door, and the thoughtful, friendly neighbor. i love writing this story with you, joe. there’s just one question left:

‘but come on, that’s no fun. you have to ask something with fairer odds. people better matched. like -- how would you kill nick? if you could.’ 

[current-mcr-news]

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material. 

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father. 

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated. 

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff. 

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel,  he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it. 

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work  that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine.  Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too. 

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized.  Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening. 

[moonlightreal]

Deep dive: Diaspro! The comics

Lucky for me, Diaspro only appears in a few of the comics.  And she’s the same mixed character we’re used to from the show.  Let’s see what she gets up to!

In issue 15 Sky’s parents bring Diaspro along to a big party held to celebrate the rebuilding of Red Fountain.  

Sky says he’s told his parents and told Disa that he’s into Bloom.  Sky’s mother replies, “Marrying Diaspro would bring great prosperity to your kingdom!  Her parents are very rich and important… and you can’t think of yourself only.”  That would explain why Diaspro gets to hang around so much, if her parents have lots of money.  Maybe the treasury of Eraklyon is getting a little slim!

Sky is polite but clearly tells Diaspro he doesn’t like her that way.  Bloom, as usual, immediately gets pissy that Sky is dancing with Diaspro

Diaspro runs into a boy named Doradil, who she knows, and sends him to try to kiss Bloom, saying something about a bet that Bloom won’t kiss anyone she hasn’t known for at least two hours.  Just after setting up that bit of sexual harassment Disa’s mother grabs her and tells her to go dance with Sky to grab the throne of Eraklyon.  Diaspro: “I’m not interested in the kingdom, I just want to marry the man I love!”

And things are looking good!  Sky and Bloom get in a fight so Sky goes back to dance with Diaspro!  Comics-Bloom handles this situation just as badly as cartoon-Bloom!  Wanting to snub Sky, Bloom lets Doradil talk her into going outside to see a captive dragon.  Diaspro follows with her camera ready to photograph the smooch!  Instead Bloom delivers a punch in the nose and Diaspro has to go take care of Bloom’s downfall herself.  Which she does in her usual way, just saying “Sky is mine! He can’t marry a girl like you!”  Bloom says noble or commoner don’t matter, and that if Diaspro really loves Sky she’d let him make his own choice.  The two girls transform for a fairy catfight!

Of course the fight damages the dragon’s cage and it gets out and grabs Diaspro.  Bloom hangs onto its tail as it flies off.  It drops Diaspro in its nest.  She’s about to be eaten by baby dragons!  But other magical creatures attack, Bloom rescues Diaspro and they flee to hide in a little cave.

Where they talk.  Diaspro says she wouldn’t have rescued Bloom.  Bloom says, “If Sky promised to marry you then you can’t be that bad!” and “you lost your head because you’re in love.” and points out that it’s not just up to her what happens.  Bloom means it’s up to Sky who he chooses to be with but Diaspro still says she has some say in it!  

There’s some more action and the two girls end up hanging over hot lava with sky coming to the rescue! ...but before he can choose who to grab first the rest of the gang arrives and both girls are rescued.  As the issue ends Diaspro is saying she’s sure Sky would have saved her first, but Bloom isn’t sure.

Issue 31 is called The Return of Diaspro and starts with gossip at Alfea! Marzia and Francine gloat about the dismayed look on bloom’s face when she hears that Diaspro is returning to Magix.  Bloom cries and says she’s sure she’s going to lose Sky.  The other Winx have asked around and Musa reports, “Diaspro has decided to study and become a good queen when it is her turn to reign!” and she’s come to Magix to use the Alfea library

This issue’s Diaspro is super snooty, demanding every luxury at her father’s villa in Magix which she’s using.  Her usual home apparently is “my father’s palace.”

Diaspro comes to the White Horse cafe where Bloom works while the Winx and the boys are there.  She declares that she’s dedicating herself entirely to her kingdom and is only there to study.  Bloom welcomes her and invites her to sit with the group.  Peace and harmony!

...except the Trix are hanging around.  They cast a curse of sickness on Diaspro’s house.  It’s a pretty hardcore curse too, “Mind and body will wither away” stuff!  Season 2 Trix did not mess around.  Poor Disa gets fevers and a headache… and the Alfea rumor mill decides she’s wasting away of love for Sky!  And the rumor mill seems to be right: Diaspro gets better when Sky visits her.

Poor Sky begins to wonder if he really did make Diaspro sick by breaking her heart, even a logic talk from Brandon doesn’t convince him otherwise.  Sky keeps visiting Diaspro to help her feel better and it seems like he isn’t telling Bloom just how much he does so.  Sky even says maybe they should get married after all if it’s the only way Diaspro will get better!  He gets called off to a mission before they can really talk about it, but he does say that.

Bloom goes to hash things out with Diaspro and she reassures Bloom.  I’m not faking to try to get Sky, I really am sick and I feel better when he visits.

On the mission, Sky’s ship has crashed and he’s missing!

Diaspro insists on going with Bloom to look for Sky, saying he helped her and how she will help him The moment she passes through the gate outside her house, she leaves the area the Trix cursed and instantly feels better!  Bloom realizes there was a curse, and the two girls go work together to rescue Sky.

But once everybody’s safe Diaspro thinks, “But it was nice having Sky all to myself for a while!  Maybe accepting things and letting Bloom have him was not such a good idea...”

This is an interesting Diaspro episode because she is again the victim rather than the villain.  The Trix cast a spell on her to make her sick but better when Sky was around… what conclusions would she come to?  She never guessed it was a spell because nobody in this magic world ever guesses it was a spell, but this is also a world where the power of love is a real thing. ��Did she think Sky’s care and attention was healing her?  Was she afraid she’d die if he left?  Even Sky seemed to think that was a realistic possibility.  

In issue 45 Diaspro again just shows up with Sky and snubs Bloom. Classic Disa.

In issue 77 there’s a war going on on Eraklyon and Diaspro is a fighter helping Sky and the good guys.  Sadly we don’t get to see much of her soldier career since by issue 79 the fighting is over and the boys are back at Red Fountain.  And so is Diaspro, who again turns up at the White Horse cafe during a party.  She snubs Bloom for being a princess who works as a waitress and then Bloom and Sky fight because Sky and Disa have been off doing war while Bloom was safely in Magix, and the usual fight because Bloom doesn’t trust Sky.  This is an interesting version of Diaspro, one who has been through some stuff with Sky so they have that in common now and Sky has seen her fighting against the rebels trying to take over Eraklyon.

It occurs to me that in these comics Bloom is more willing to forgive Diaspro for everything she’d done than she is to forgive Sky for spending time with Diaspro.

(did i miss any issues?  I’m paranoid I missed some but I’m not gonna look through all 200!)

[lonelyghosts-stuff]

Avengers Infinity War-First Time Watching Reaction Play-by-Play (Pt. 2)

Part 1

I wonder how many people Gamora has killed? What made her finally snap to not serve Thanos anymore?

How DID Gamora find it? Like, who told her?

How did Thanos capture nebula?

Poor nebula. She’s literally been through hell and back.

Ohhhh she snuck on board...

Thanos you suck so much. You favor one daughter over another.

Oh. Where was said map to the soul stone?

Gosh I feel so damn bad for nebula. She was raised as his daughter too but he tortured her and tore her apart. Nebula never had the chance to be her equal. She deserves so much.

Taught groot as an elective? What about all speak?

Buckle up rocket. It’s gonna get emotional.

Thor is literally all alone. He needs a time to sit alone and cry and break a whole building.

Rocket and Thor friends? Please

1500 years old? Jane, honey, you escaped.

Gotta give it up to Hemsworth’s acting chops here. Especially talking to nobody in reality. Just a bunch of cgi

Ew ew ew eye socket

Should have washed that yikes

Snuck it out by hiding it up your? Huh? You watch too many movies rocket.

Huge title card. Thank you. I wouldn’t have known where we were despite them saying their location many times.

How is that video game battery not dead?

Perceptive rabbit

I LOVE that they used a dwarf to play a giant character!!! This is brilliant! (And that dwarves are giant for some reason lol.)

Soooo again Thanos killed everyone EXCEPT Eitri despite his “morality” supposedly being balance

Poor hands

Poor nebula

Smart nebula

Maybe should have waited to be fixed fully first

Ah crap. SOMEONE PICK UP THE SPACE PHONE

MANTIS

Love how Stark asks for peters help in steering and not Stephen lmao

Nice parking job

Peter, stop popping pop culture refs

Lmao ITS ABOUT TO BE THE ICONIC SCENE

YES PLEASE

Blanket of Death. Capey has a new nickname.

Where’s Gamora

Who’s Gamora

Why is Gamora

What master do you serve?

Jesus?

I mean, yea I do. So does Pratt lmaoo.

LMAO PARKER’S FACE WHEN QUILL SAID THOR WASNT HANDSOME

Storm breaker time baby

“In theory it could summon the bifrost” who theorized this? How do you only theorize and not know?

Oh my gosh mantis is just bouncing around

Mr. Clean lmao

Kick names, take ass

Hey now, these guys saved the galaxy and universe from Ego so lmao

Oh no I know the scene coming up

Poor quill lmao

“I’m half human. So the 50% of me that’s stupid, that’s 100% of you.” “Your math is, blowing my mind.” What’s funny is that Quill’s math was actually completely accurate lol

Stephen having a stroke or a seizure? You good homie?

Soooo if Strange looked to the future and so possible outcomes, what does that mean for the TVA? According to them, there’s ONE sacred timeline, so all other branches are erased (which again messes up what smart hulk eventually says in end game. See kids, this is why you don’t mess with time travel in stories. There’s no way to go back in time without creating a time loop). Ehhhhh I’ll let it slide. Just ignore it... sigh... I can’t help it if I’ve studied paradoxes

Hmmmm not good odds I’ve gotta say...

Watch like, outside of the millions of realities that strange saw, there were like a million or billion more he missed where they won with no casualties lol

Hey Red Skull. Long time no see. How did he get here anyways and why?

Yea you’re prepared all right...

Gotta say, Lord Elrond has seen better days

I’m not ready to say good bye to this Gamora. Gamora and Loki and Nat go down as my favorite characters, gotta say. I know that Tony does and it’s sad, but his feels more satisfying because his sacrifice directly results in them winning. Loki is murdered. Gamora is murdered. Nat died just for a stepping stone for the avengers. She has no idea whether or not they will actually win in the end.

I’m hopeful they may bring Nat back like in the comics, red room clone style.

We got back vision, Loki (kinda), variant Gamora, a new captain America, why not Nat? Yea we have a prequel, but gosh I love her so much.

“You must lose that which you love.” Couldn’t that apply to like an object or something? Could I not throw my Nintendo switch over the cliff? Or my dog? (I would hate that just as much as a person, don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious about the rules)

Yea boohoo sad for Thanos... loses his favorite daughter. I don’t care about him. He deserves suffering.

Poor Gamora doesn’t think he’s willing to do it.. GIRL RUN!!!

Thanos deserves all the suffering.

He does love you Gamora... but that love... it’s selfish. It’s blind... Thanos seems to be a chaotic vigilante who is narrowminded, tunnel vision on his goal with no regards of the cost. But he is evil. If there is ever an alternate route to an end that doesn’t result in the loss of innocent lives, and you know that but you willingly choose the once that costs innocent lives, that is an evil decision. Maybe Thanos isn’t evil, but he’s not good. Far from it. He’s obsessed with this idyllic Utopia but he rushes to one method of getting there. Yes, people suffer. It sucks... it’s unfair... it’s horrible. But it is never the right of someone else to dictate whether or not said person would be better off dead. Who lives, who dies. If Thanos truly was neutral and not selfish, he would have thrown his own life into the mix of the potential 50/50 snap. Thanos is not good. He’s not misunderstood. He’s a murderer. A genocidal cult leader. I have no tears for him. Only for those who suffered more at his hands.

Rant over, time to try not to cry about Gamora...

Her face of realization

Gamora run please

Thanos, I hate you. (Great character her, but not a good person)

Poor Gamora

Oh my gosh the emotion here is great but I’ve heard this sound used as a meme on TikTok too many times aghhhh

Gamora!

What a way to die

I’m crying again. I miss her already...

Who the hell designed this place and put the stone here???? Who did this?

Cry Thanos. Suffer. My only comfort here is that you are sad. You deserve suffering. You really do...

The TVA is laughing here and I’m not okay..

Poor Peter Quill... he’s also lost a lot like Thor, but has had the “luck” of not knowing his family too close.

Wakanda babyyyy

No, you don’t want Starbucks, you want Dutch bros

Lmao I love rhodey. Poor Bruce.

BUCKY BUCKY BUCKY

HUG

NO CMON HAVE A LONG HUG

MALE FRIENDSHIPS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

Yea Shuri show em up.

Okay quick pause, I love love LOVE how Shuri is smarter. It’s a powerful moment for females BUT it’s not done in a way that’s condescending to males! It’s not saying women power because men bad, she’s just good! (And she has had access to technology they never could have but I digress). More of this please Hollywood. Don’t let being a female be the power. I don’t want strong female characters, I want strong characters who happen to be female. Ones who hold their own, have faults like anyone else, struggle, have weaknesses and strengths, but are strong without putting down others. Just a comment, just because a woman character may not be as strong as a man character, that is not saying she’s weak. If you’re the second strongest human in the world, you are NOT weak. You’re just not as strong as the strongest human ever, but that’s nothing against you. LET WOMEN STAND ON THEIR OWN MERITS WITHOUT SEX AFFECTING THEM!

Anyways

I love Shuri

I wish they had more time. She definitely could have done it. But stupid Thanos

Ughhhghhg

I know what many scenes are upcoming... with quill and peter and vision and everyone else

Let👏🏻Bucky👏🏻Have👏🏻Peace👏🏻

Thank you Nat!!! I love that Nat is so protective and selfless.

GET THIS MAN A SHIELD

Bucky needs love please. He’s my stand in, manipulated, greasy, long haired, dark and mysterious, stabby boy. (Also I need Bucky and Loki to meet. But let Loki finish his show (and come out of it alive because if he doesn’t I will sue) and be the antihero hero we need. Please. If he doesn’t get reintroduced into the mcu as a hero I will sue.

Thor, sweetie, are you a masochist?

Back to wakanda

Oh no, bad CGI, floating head Bruce banner. I’ll let it slide... sigh....

Can’t like, you just rain bombs on them forever?

JIBARI TRIBE YEA BOYYYYY

Sorry Proxima Midnight, you look like a frog and your name sounds like a middle schooler’s OC.

How nice. Diplomatic meeting.

“Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood.” Reeeeeeally wish you didn’t say that, T’Challa...

Yay big CGI battle commence! It’s like a really expensive animated cartoon at this point

WAKANDA FOREVER!

Poor Bucky. Forgot this dude doesn’t know much about the modern world.

Ahhhh Kamikazi aliens

I just wanna say that I love that Wakanda still has the artistic culture in their clothing and tradition all the while having badass, super advanced technology.

Why can’t they just rain bombs down the whole fight lol. Rhodey has those super nice bombs, like, do that they he whole time? Please? Why do you not have a barrier around the entire king.

No M’Baku, it’s not the end of wakanda. But half of all life, yea

WAKANDA FOREVER YEAAAAAAA

They should honesty all have nano tech suits like black panther lol. Or iron man suits. Fine maybe the most powerful one with the best quality material for the king, but besides that, yknow.

Wow Steve is hot with a beard.

So much happening at once. Thor, Wakanda, Vormir, Knowhere, am I missing anything?

Okay, but what IS the full force of a star? Like in Newton’s or something? Juls? Is it heat?

What’s this metal? How does it fare with vibranium?

Get off your wooden butt, groot.

“He needs the axe” are you Thor, the god of axes?

Soooo, I thought Thor didn’t NEED the hammer, it just helped him concentrate his powers or act as a conduit. Is that retconned already?

Cmon groot, put down your game. Soooo, is Groot worthy? He technically lifted it. Or is it a technicality because it wasn’t fully finished yet?

Cmon bucky, use that fancy arm of yours.

Wow they’re getting destroyed.

They need wanda to help.

BADASS ENTRANCE BABYYYY

How did Thor know to come to wakanda?

Floaty head Bruce

“BRING ME THANOS!”

Ahhhhhahahaha yeaaaaaa

Cry Thanos. Do it. I hate you.

Much more of a purple grape nutsack.

Oh gosh... I know what Peter Quill is going to do. I still don’t hate him.

“With all six stone I would simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist.” Orrrr, now hear me out, I know I sound like a broken record now but... MAYBE DOUBLE THE RESOURCES INSTEAD?? That’s not mercy. That’s not up to you to decide whether or not someone’s better off dead.

Smoosh

Yea quill has experience with the power stone

AIM FOR THE HEAD

Cmon it’s basic zombie tactics

I love peter quill lmao

Go capey!!!

Magic with a kick!

Poor Peter

CAPEY NOOOOOO

Wow he’s OP

Ouch quill just got majorly clotheslined

NEBULA

“Where’s Gamora?” 😭😭😭 SHE CARES AGHHHH

Restrain him! Work it mantis!!!

Why even remove the gauntlet, just slit his throat... kill him....

Quill no... stop being cocky...

Oh no

Quill please don’t

JUST SLIT THANOS’ THROAT

Quill please....

Poor quill. Just lost the person who really really loved him

Okay, I still love star lord. Idc what others think. He reacted realistically. If you hate peter quill for how he reacted, you better also hate Tony Stark for how he reacted to bucky when he learned bucky killed his parents despite knowing for a fact that bucky was brainwashed. Yes it was annoying... yes they were so close, but quill is so human here. I don’t hate him. He gets too much hate for acting like any normal person would have. Distraught, grief filled, he lost his love. Someone who helped him open up and finally move on from his mother’s death and fathers villainy.

Spider man saving mantis gives me life

How did that power stone blast not kill them?

Clearly Thanos has played Majora’s Mask. At least he has good taste.

So close vision.... but I know... I know what happens.

YES BUCKY AND ROCKET GUN CIRCLE.

Lmao give rocket Bucky’s old arm.

“I am Groot.” “I am Steve Rogers.” Comedy gold

Cmon Thor, go after the big one first.

Cmon wanda, save them. We need some scarlet witch magic up here to stop these

Okay that was so cool. AND THEN SHE USED THE BLADES

Oh no but now Shuri is alone

So close yet so far.... Dangit... vision was almost good

Ouch. Bonk to the head

YEA BLACK WIDOW

BADASS TIME

AND OKOYE!!

LETS GOOOOOOO

BADASS WOMEN

Ouch poor vision

Cmon Thor back up vision

Please

Hulk is in his feels

Cmon hulk grow up

Ooooh smart move banner

Aaaaand he’s gone

Giant blade look oit

Corvus, screw off.

YEA STEVE

WHERE IS THOR WHEN YOU NEED HIM

CMON NAT

Oh dang. Nice one wanda. But also, sheesh. Helluva way to go. But no big.

Yea vision. Stabby time.

Now vision and Steve, kiss.

Spider man saving everyone’s lives.

YEA STRANGE

Where was this in New York???

MULTIPLYING

WHY DIDNT YOU DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE????

Oh no

Well then... ouch. Soooo where’s the real stone???

Hey look Tony, you have a fan.

Okay I’m just pissed odd they didn’t just kill Thanos when they had him subdued. Like, worry about the glove AFTER he’s not longer a threat

Oof

Tony is taking a beating

HE WAS STABBED

WHAT

I don’t want your respect Thanos. That’s an insult.

They will remember him. They will remember him Thanos. When he kills you.

DOCTOR STRANGE WHAT?

You really doing this??? I guess he knows what needs to unfold for them to win... dang. I wouldn’t trust him tho.

Peter Quill in berserker mode

Where’d he go?

Name dropping the second movie

Strange knows everything about to go down. Who dies, who lives, what Thanos is about to do... he’s accepting his soon dusted demise because Stark needs to live...

AIM FOR THE HEAD UGHHHHH

Stop teleporting. That’s Loki’s gimmick.

KILL THIS RAISIN LOOKING NUTSACK UGH

Homie way too OP

Poor wanda and Vis...

HER LIP TREMBLE

PHENOMENAL ACTING

SAY I LOVE YOU

I JUST FEEL YOU

AGGHHHH IM CRYING AGAIN

Poor wanda. To have to kill her love... this.. this is a sacrifice Thanos... not your murder....

Wow Steve is holding back Thanos with pure brute

WANDA IS SO STRONG

HOLDING BACK THANOS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY BREAKING THE MIND STONE

I LOVE YOU

AGHHHHHHHHH

And I know what happens next...

Poor wanda

Piss off thanos you understand nothing

You lost more than she could know? Bull crap. You are causing everyone to lose...

Cruel reality. Wanda has to see him die twice. RIP Vision

RIP half of all life...

AIM FOR THE DAMN HEAD

IF THOR KILLED HIM THEY COULD HAVE USED THE GAUNTLET TO BRING EVERYONE BACK TO LIFE. USED THE TIME STONE TO REVIVE THEM ALL.

How did that not kill Thanos tho. It may not have been a head shot but still.

Lil Gamora

What is this place?

Is this the soul realm?

Thanos, I hope you suffer forever. You deserve all the pain...

Rest In Peace: Vision, Loki, Bucky, T’Challa, Groot, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Mantis, Drax, Peter Quill, Dr. Strange, Peter Parker (I don’t feel so good), and everyone else...

Thank you Nebula.

Thanos, you do NOT deserve to retire peacefully—wipe that smile off of your face

Oop, Rest In Peace Maria Hill and Nick Fury too... Motherfu— (so close Sammy boy...)

Yea Thanos you didn’t really think that through. Much more than half will died since other people rely on other peoples lives

Good thing he hit that button last minute huh? I wonder how captain marvel would fare in the TVA? are her powers considered magic? I mean, she clearly doesn’t know everything since she only just learned about Thanos (which is funny because she was supposedly traversing the universe to protect people)

Welp... onto movie two!

[nickcifonie]

In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”.  Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in   “Pepper Attack”  before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the  Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Chuckie Sullivan

(Not my gif)(requested by anonymous)

- You met Chuckie because you lived next door to him and his mother. Every now and again you would have a conversation with the old woman where she would occasionally mention him but you never actually met the boy; that is until his mothers mail got mixed in with yours.

- You knocked on her door to fix the mistake but were caught off guard when you were met with the tall young man instead of his mother. It was almost comical when you looked up from the envelope and were just met with a chest instead of a kind face.

“Oh, uh hi…? I live next door and your mail got mixed in with,” you notice that he’s wearing boxers and pause a little. “…with uh, with mine. So…here.”

- You want to slap yourself with how awkward you’re acting but you were not prepared to find out that Ms. Sullivan’s son is at least half a foot taller than you and has the face of a model. You were also not expecting to meet him for the first time while he’s still wearing his boxers and sleeping shirt.

- He chuckles a little and takes the mail from you while scratching the back of his neck. He’s about to try and make conversation with you before he realizes he’s only partially presentable and should probably put on pants before he tries to woo you. (It’s enough that he lives with his mom, right? He doesn’t want you to think he’s unsound.)

“Right! Well thank you, nice meeting you, see you around.” He rambles while he shuts the door with a unreasonably charming smile.

- Chuckie knows he’s handsome and he’s used to girls falling into his lap but those are girls who don’t know him and don’t know that he lives with his mom (which he’s quite embarrassed about). He’s not sure how to make himself seem worth your time now that he can’t lie and say that he’s something far more impressive than he thinks he is. 

- He has to find an entirely new way to impress the girl who lives next door and he’ll admit that he hasn’t the slightest idea where to start. The instant he sees you he tries to “act cool”, leaning against the nearest surface and greeting you with a smirk plastered across his ridiculously handsome face. 

- He has quite the embarrassing/awkward conversation with Skylar in an attempt to get some real advice. She tries her hardest not to laugh when he rambles out his questions and the things he likes about you. In the end she just tells him to be himself and get to know you before he tries to get in your pants.

- He decides to trust her and does just that. The next time he sees you he invites you to take a walk with him while the two of you get to know each other better. The both of you are sort of surprised that the other is giving you the time of day.

- When you get back to your houses and are about say goodbye his mother pokes her head out and invites you to dinner. Later that day you get to hear a bunch of embarrassing stories about Chuckie while he sits in utter embarrassment and tries to shut his mother up when you’re turned the other way. She nearly breaks out the baby pictures but he manages to stop her.

- He offers to walk you home when you’re finished eating and talking (even though you’re just a few yards away from your house). You accept and he joins you outside for the quick journey to your front door. When you get there he starts to apologize for his mother but you stop him and say you had a fun time, kiss him on the cheek and say goodnight before you go inside your house. He stands there for a minute in disbelief before he smiles and fist pumps, racing back to his house. He can’t even be mad at his mom because he’s so happy that you don’t think he’s a total loser.

- In the beginning you don’t really label what you have you just hang out, do borderline romantic things, and stumble over awkward goodbyes. After some time you start to kiss and fool around a little but it doesn’t really feel like a “real relationship” and neither of you are brave enough to ask what you actually are. Plus he’s good in bed so you don’t mind all that much.

- It’ll feel like you’re friends with benefits for a while before he starts to get all boyfriendy with you. Cuddling, hugging, cheek kisses, hand holding, etc; he just won’t be able to help it after a while. After about a month of you acting like a couple he’ll finally ask if you’re together like~

“We are dating right?”

“I would hope so.”

“Alright cool, good, great, wonderful,-” “Chuckie?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

- You kiss a lot after that. You can’t stop him. He’s a mad man after one thing and one thing only: the smooch.

- You move in together (well he moves into your house) maybe a little too early on in the relationship but you lived next door to each other so the move wasn’t a big hassle. Plus he makes some good money when he works hard so it makes paying the bills a lot easier for you.

- Hes kind of just happy to move out of his moms house even though he’s a little scared of commitment. But he thinks that maybe with you he doesn’t have to be scared.

- Cute nervous chuckles when he isn’t sure what to say or is a little flustered, especially when you’re getting to know each other.

- His friends try to embarrass him and tell you he’s whipped every chance they get especially when you first meet them.

- Hes not the greatest at comforting you. He’s a rough and tough kind of guy that’s not use to showing emotions or being around people that do so chances are when you rant to or tell him about something he’ll just pause and say “well that sucks”.

- Sneaks little glances at you when he thinks you aren’t looking.

- Watching morning cartoons with him. 

- Sleepy hugs and snuggles in the kitchen while you’re making food after a long day.

- He’s pretty much in his boxers whenever he can be so be prepared to have to remind him to put on some real clothes every now and again. 

- Lays his head on your stomach as you thread your fingers through his hair; he loves it especially after work.

- He falls asleep on you a lot when hes not working. He’ll just collapse on the couch beside you, laying his head on your thigh or stomach thinking ‘wow this is so…comfy” and before you know it he’s passed out and borderline snoring.

- He rests his hand on your boob a lot. It’s not even a conscious decision, his hand just always ends up on your chest whenever he has his arm around you. In his mind he’s just thinking “warm…soft…resting place.”.

- Late night dates since he works long shifts.

- Pizza dates.

- Visiting him on his breaks.

- Making fun of his accent, you're the only one he lets insult him without much retaliation. He thinks you’re a cute little bastard. 

“You’re lucky your smiles so cute or I woulda knocked ya teeth out for that one.” you give him the nicest smile you can and he just shakes his head, pulling you into his side. 

- But you do make constant jabs at each other. The two of you go back and forth with clever little comebacks/burns that force you to break the serious act you were putting on. He usually lets you win you’re little insult battles. 

- Hes naturally sort of a flirt but he tries his absolute best to stop because he doesn't want to lose you.

-Sharing a few beers after the two of you get home.

- He does pretty rough work so you tend to give him massages when he gets home. You make him sit in front of you on the couch or lay on the bed while you straddle him. He’ll try to insist that he’s fine the first time you try to do it because he wants to seem tough but the moment you start to massage him he literally moans. He’ll never pass up the opportunity again and he likes to return the favor although his massages usually take a more sexual turn.

- He’s a little insecure even though he tries his best to hide it from the world. He thinks he’s sort of a loser compared to you (and Will) and is worried that he’ll end up going nowhere in life. He’s also worried that you’ll see him for what “he really is” and decide that you don’t want to put up with him anymore. 

- When you fight he rarely yells but he does make you angry; avoiding the subject, lying or just not admitting that he was wrong. You’ll most likely try to make him sleep on the couch, whereupon he’ll just go to his moms or Wills and mope around for a while while he pretends that he doesn’t care.

- He tries to apologize and explain himself when he can’t stand not seeing you anymore but he rarely ever helps his case cause he says shit like~

“I lie to women all the time and it don’t mean nothin it’s just the way I do business you know, it’s just the way.”

- But sometimes you miss him just as much and just forgive him so you can have him back in your life. You do give him a firm punch on the arm and tell him that if you catch him lying or whatever again that you’ll wreck his car.

- Holding hands as you walk together on the streets. 

- Has definitely gotten into at least one drunken (or sober) fight at a bar when someone tried to hit on you or managed to smack you on the ass. You were probably banned or kicked out afterwards.  

- You have to hold him back when someone catcalls you. 

- He’s jealous and possessive. You’re the one thing he really has for himself, that he’s proud of and really cares about so when someone (in his head) threatens to take you away

- Likes to keep his hand in your back pocket.

- He tries his best to be at least a little romantic with you. 

*laughs*

“What?”

“Chuckie these are weeds not flowers.”

“You’re shitting me!” 

- So out of his element when you drag him to boutiques or perfume shops. It’s honestly kinda cute, he’s like a lost puppy surrounded by all that pink, bows and lace. 

- You’re a godsend to him if you know how to cook. He would quite literally survive on cereal and fastfood if you didn’t know how. If you don’t know how than you can try to learn together, can’t promise it will go very well but it’s cute to see each other struggle.

- Helping him clean dirt and grease from his face after he gets home from work. 

- He honestly just loves when you touch his face, like your hands are just? so soft?? So nice??

-You think he’s phased when you ask him to buy you pads? He’s a grown ass man doing grown ass things and he’s gonna do what he has to do to make your life easier.

- He wants you to have the best out of life no matter what. Sometimes he’ll try to sabotage your relationship if he thinks he’s holding you back but you always assure him that if you’re going somewhere, you’re going somewhere together.

- You get close with his friends. You sort of have to, they’re a big part of his life.

- Hes not the greatest with compliments so you usually get the creative “you look hot” or something similar.

- He tries to be a little gentlemanly but that mainly consists of him giving you his jacket or opening his car door for you.

- He picks you up and throws you over his shoulder while he gives your butt a smack.

- He avoids marriage talk. Not because he doesn’t want to marry you (he certainly does) but just because it makes him uncomfortable. He’s not used to having an actual girlfriend who really cares about him.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I thought about every episode of The Owl House Season 1 (Part 1/2)

Salutations random people on the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Hey, do you miss Gravity Falls?

...

Yeah, I know, dumb question. Which is why I have good news! Not only is there a new series that is just as good as Gravity Falls, but in some ways, it's even better. That new series would be none other than Disney Channel's latest hit: The Owl House.

The Owl House, slowly but surely, became my new obsession since Eda reacted to decapitation with an unconcerned, "I hate when that happens." I wrote fan-fiction, made fan-art, and even began to separately review new episodes. Unfortunately, I got in a little late in the reviewing game and only managed to analyze the last four episodes of season one. And like an idiot, I promised that I'll review the rest when they came out on Disney+. Seeing that all of the first season has finally come on a legal streaming service (which means WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!), it's time I finally saw through to that promise. However, I'm not going to over-analyze each episode because that would be insane. So instead, we're going to lightning round these suckers. Because it's my Tumblr, and I get to decide what I review and how the hell I review it...hooah.

Which means this is your last chance to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen The Owl House yet. Seriously, it's a great show, and you can catch up right now on Disney+. A week-long trial is more than enough time to watch the series, so DO IT! With that out of the way, let's get started with:

“A Lying Witch and a Warden”: This episode gets a lot of flack for having poor pacing and being too preachy with its message. And to that, I say...you're not wrong. Yeah, I wish I could be that person who can defend this episode against criticism like that, but these are understandable problems that just left this icky feeling in my tum-tum when watching. But that's only when looking at it as a regular old episode when in reality, people need to see it as a first episode. The first episode in any show needs to get viewers interested enough to continue watching by answering these five essential questions: What's the plot of the show? What's the tone? Who are the main characters? What's the world they live in? And what are the rules of the same world? "A Lying Witch and a Warden" does a great job of answering all of these questions. And if you stuck around until the season finale, then that means it did a great job of keeping you interested in sticking around as well. So seeing how it got its job done, albeit, with mixed results, I give this episode a B-.

“Witches Before Wizards”: Don't mind me. Just reveling in the fact that Luz escaped to a fantasy world to avoid Reality Check Camp, only to get a reality check anyway. Because that's what this episode is in a nutshell. Through the "quest" that Luz goes on, she learns two important lessons: One, don't trust strangers who offer you something nice and shiny (bonus points for Eda warning Luz to avoid men with sandals and then have Ategast wear sandals). And two, there is no such thing as having a predetermined destiny. I love the idea that Luz coming to the Isles was just a twist of fate, and everything that happens afterward is pure dumb luck. And that moment when Eda gave a speech about making your own path instead of waiting to become something special? That was the moment when I went from thinking this was going to be a fun show to thinking it's going to be a great show. So consider this episode a solid A in my book.

“I Was a Teenage Abomination”: How is it possible for an episode to get better and worse with time? Because here's the thing: This episode does a great job of showing how perfect Amity's development is. After one single season, it already feels jarring, seeing the way she acts in certain scenes. However, in that same respect, it's the same reason why this episode got worse. I didn't mind that Willow practically got away with cheating and vandalizing the school with her magic because she and Luz were basically trying to show up a two-dimensional bully. But knowing what we know in the future, it does seem unfair that Amity gets punished for their bad behavior and Willow got little consequences for it. Sure, Luz got banned and had to work at gaining Amity's trust, but what about Willow? Although, despite this complaint, I don't really hate this episode. It builds a believable connection between Luz and her friends, and the B-plot King and Eda show off their budding friendship. So while this episode is a C-, it's a somewhat enjoyable C-.

“The Intruder”: Is it weird for anyone else that King gets most of the blame in this episode? Yes, he took the potion, but Luz was the one who kept pushing him. This is why it never sat right with me seeing how everyone, including himself, blames King for this episode's incident. That being said, "The Intruder" is fantastic. Eda, as the Owl Beast, is legitimately threatening, and the way the episode treats Eda's curse like a chronic illness is actually kind of sweet. It teaches kids how this is something that just happens to people, and they're not any weaker because of it, as long as they take the right steps. Which is cool, and it's why this is another solid A episode for me. Sure King getting the blame bothers me, but it pales in comparison to everything else “The Intruder” does right.

“Covention”: If you want my personal opinion (obviously, seeing how you're reading this), "Covention" is the perfect episode to show a friend to get them into watching the The Owl House. Everything there is to love about the show is seen in just these twenty-two minutes. Eda being a chaotic good, Luz being a sweet and understanding character, some incredible/natural world-building, an actually decent B-plot, an epic fight scene, great comedy, and, my personal favorite, the building of Luz and Amity's relationship. In fact, this episode has the most quintessential moment between these two, that Dana Terrace herself took charge of making the animatic for it. A scene that is so perfect that you can do an analysis of these few minutes alone...which is what I did. Click here to read it! "Covention" gets an A+ in my book and might possibly be the best episode of the season. Maybe even the series!

“Hooty’s Moving Hassle”: There's not really a lot I can say about this episode. I don't hate it, but I'm not exactly in love with it. The interactions between Luz and her friends are adorable, and there are a few good jokes that kept me laughing. But the story is kind of bland, and I just find Eda's sudden obsession with Hexes Hold'em kind of odd. Especially since a card game is what nearly defeated the "undefeatable" Owl Lady. If it wasn't for the nice reveal of Willow's and Amity's friendship (which comes into play in a far better episode), I'd say that you could skip this one on future rewatches. Because this is a C grade episode that just doesn't grab me as well as others.

“Lost in Language”: Ah, yes. The episode that made dozens of fans jump aboard the Lumity ship...unless you're like me, and you've been shipping these two since the show's theme song (And I don't know why, either. It's just the second I saw Amity my first thought was, "Oh, honey. You're gonna fall in love with the main character, aren't you?" AND I WAS F**KING RIGHT!). But jokes about shipping aside, "Lost in Language" is a fantastic episode. It has a great lesson about how people are more complex than their first impressions (Or to not judge a book by its cover, if you wanna stay on theme). Edric and Emira seem like a chaotic duo who cause mischief all for good fun. But Luz, as well as the audience, learns that Ed and Em are kinda the worst (they get better in future episodes, but still). Then there's Amity, who hasn't had the best first impressions in the last few episodes. We got glimpses of a good person here and there, but for the most part, that's all they were. Glimpses. Then there's this episode, which gives us more than a small look, but some actual insight into who Amity really is. Better yet, who she wants to be. It's something that I appreciate about The Owl House in that it wastes no time in developing Amity's character. So much so that I can forgive this episode for shoehorning a "Two idiots and a baby" plotline that does nothing but add maybe two minutes of padding. So yeah, it's an A+ for sure.

“Once Upon a Swap”: "Ugh! It's the body swap episode! How cliche and-" SHUT UP! Shut your mouth, and listen: Something being cliche does not always make it bad. Only when the cliche fails to tell an entertaining story does it have the right to work as a complaint. "Once Upon a Swap" may have a cliche premise, but it's still an enjoyable story (or stories) with great laughs and even some ok lessons. I can understand if you hate the episode because its premise is something you've seen a dozen times to the point where your sick of it. My most hated story idea is the "Character A saves Character B, and Character B becomes a life slave." If you have seen this story once, you've seen it a thousand times, and it's the same case with a "body swap" episode. But guess what: The Owl House is a kids' show. Kids'. Show. You can complain all you want about predictability, but kids are the type of viewers who will be new to this experience, despite if it's one that is done to death. Which is why this is solid B of an episode if you ask me.

“Something Ventured, Someone Framed”: Can people please stop shipping Gus with Mattholomule? Because that slimy, greasy, weaselly little son of A BASTARD BITCH WEASEL DOES NOT DESERVE LOVE IN WAY POSSIBLE!

...

But enough about how Mattholomule is the worst character ever, because "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" is a B+ in my opinion. Sure it shows the worst side of Gus and lets Satan's little herpe win in the end, but there is still quality to be had. We get insight into who Gus is as a character, on top of Eda swallowing her pride and cleaning the school so Luz can get into Hexide. Also, Eda's permanent record was the first time this show brought me to tears due to laughing so hard. So while I have to take points off for the inclusion of Mattholomule (I don't make the rules. I just live by them), this is still an episode I wouldn't mind revisiting.

“Escape of the Palisman”: I subscribe to this theory that Luz will one day have Eda's staff as her own. And episodes like this that strengthen the bond between Luz and Owlbert help confirm that theory. Luz's dedication to trying to make things right could just be part of her kind nature, but I like to believe that this is Dana and the crew trying to set up this possible outcome. As for what I think about the episode itself...it's ok. Again, Luz's dedication is nice to see, and King's adventure with Owl Beast Eda is somehow insanely adorable, but there's not really much to say other than that. So it's another B episode for me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that’s the end of part one! Part two has probably already been posted by the time you finish this, so you can go ahead and find that if you’re interested.

[mittensmorgul]

Unpopular opinion: Portraying Sam and Dean as worthless, incompetent hunters who learned nothing from their father's training or a lifetime of hunting bc it was all God is disrespecful as hell. Sam and Dean are--well, were, I guess--heroes who stood up to monsters, angels and demons as ordinary people. Tonight destroyed all of that.

I mean, I’d agree with you, if I thought that was actually what the show had done. Sam and Dean currently BELIEVE that, and are making choices based on that assumption, but is it actually true?

I can’t believe it is. I think they’ve made an incorrect assumption, and are going to “pay a price” for having made a bad choice based on that belief...

Because we’ve been shown that’s how Chuck arranges things. That’s how he “tells his stories.”

When in the previous episode, Chuck’s final words to Sam were the statement that Sam had “lost hope,” and the pronouncement that Sam and Dean weren’t the heroes of the story; and when Dean stood up to him and said he and Sam would never “perform” the story Chuck wanted to see them act out (like “all the other Sams and Deans” eventually did in all his other universes), it was like they’d thrown down a gauntlet for him. Dean PUNCHED CHUCK IN THE FACE. That was the gauntlet-slap.

To me, this episode felt like Chuck’s petty (and rather crackpot) attempt to manipulate them into believing that this is what they truly are without his Divine Cosmic Help, and honestly, THAT is what I am calling bullshit on. The show is practically BEGGING us to see that.

I mean, if Dean had had ONE cavity, I could buy it was just bad luck. If Baby had ONE bad spark plug, I could buy it was just a normal sort of problem that normal people face. But the sheer number of failures they experienced went so far beyond “normal” as to be cartoonish. No normal person has EVER had a day like that. But the fact that Sam and Dean were so willing to BELIEVE it, even after Dean had been convinced at the beginning of the episode that they were CURSED... he let Sam (and Garth, and Bess) talk him OUT of that conviction.

Dean: No. No, no, no. This is -- this is more than just a no good very bad day, okay? Chuck must have boned us before He left, you know. Or maybe some of that crap you brought back from Rowena's went sideways. Because this. This is not normal.

But by the end of the episode, Dean was beginning to believe that this was very much their “new normal.” To the point where he’s willing to drive to Alaska and pay whatever price to get back their “lost luck.” And honestly, THAT WAS THE POINT. It’s shaken DEAN’S WILL, his BELIEF IN HIMSELF. Which is pretty much the ONLY weapon he had against Chuck in the first place.

Honestly, to me, the thing that convinced me that they were actively being hindered (i.e. that Chuck was actively working to PREVENT them from succeeding at anything on their own) was the fact that not even their reputation as The Winchesters was worth anything to the monster fighty dude. Not even the vast over-preparedness they went into that warehouse with was enough to give them ANY sort of advantage.

They weren’t “normal,” they were DOOMED TO FAIL, because Chuck was proving a point. A point they willingly bought into, despite the overwhelming evidence that they were being specifically held back from succeeding, at anything.

They’re still struggling to understand exactly how Chuck is capable of interfering with their lives. And while I appreciate Dean admitting that their choices have been their own, and not everything about their lives was down to Chuck, the fact that he let himself be talked out of the conviction that Chuck “boned” them before leaving (lol as if Chuck would leave NOW, when things just began to get interesting for him again, just when he’s untethered himself from Sam and can finally “see” the Winchesters again) means he’s still subject to Chuck’s terrible plot...

So I agree with you. If that had been the point of the episode, it would’ve been a bunch of bullshit. If the episode hadn’t included all the references to all the “we are literally actually cursed” episodes, and all the “we are directly being manipulated by cosmic forces” episodes... I mean...

literally actually cursed:

3.03 Bad Day At Black Rock: The rabbits foot gave them ACTUAL GOOD LUCK. Their good luck was so entirely OTT that Dean joked he was Batman. They easily identified it as ridiculous levels of good luck. Until they lost the foot (because EVERYONE loses the foot, it’s part of the CURSE). Their luck didn’t go back to normal, it went cosmically, horribly BAD. So bad, Bobby told them, “you’re dead within a week.” Because that was how the curse worked. Their entire lives haven’t been “lucky.” And Dean would normally be the first person to admit that. His first instinct in this episode was to wonder if he’d been subjected to a similar curse because of how comically bad his luck had turned.

5.08 Changing Channels: the first clue was all the “Seriously? SERIOUSLY?” stuff at the beginning. I was half expecting Sam to get slapped in the face and called a “brilliant coward.” But we even got a NUTCRACKER! callback, only this time it was Dean that took the shot to the crotch... Not just the comic gags of the episode, though, but the Bigger Plot of how and why they were being put through all those tv shows, being forced to LEARN A LESSON, of Gabriel messing with them and pushing them into PLAYING THEIR ROLES, and ACCEPTING THEIR DESTINY.  Please tell me that’s not EXACTLY the lesson Chuck would want them to learn after 15.09.

3.11 Mystery Spot: or that one where NOTHING Sam did, no matter how many chances he was given to replay that day, could’ve saved Dean. Sam was nerfed. Effectively rendered powerless against the story, and in the “dark half” of the episode was driven on a misguided revenge quest against the Trickster. Sam couldn’t even begin to see the bigger picture, and believed that just because he’d broken free of the “time loop” that he was actually engaging with reality, that Dean was actually perma-dead, and had isolated himself from all his friends and gone off the rails in his single-minded trek to hunt down the monster that had done this to him... all the while he was focused on the wrong thing and was still trapped in the “make-believe scenario” Gabriel had established for him. Because, golly, that sounds like the exact spot they’re in RIGHT NOW, having been convinced that their run of bad luck is the direct result of Chuck NOT interfering in their lives, casting them as the “heroes” of his story. And I don’t believe that’s what has happened, at all. I believe Chuck is more focused on them, directly, than he ever has been before.

Heck, I wrote this post before the episode aired, and I stand by it 100%:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190429024710/episodes-i-expect-1510-to-remind-me-of-based-on

Because Sam and Dean haven’t had “hero status” stripped from them. Chuck is WAY too petty to just “give up the story” and render his main characters inept all of a sudden. Sam and Dean are still “his guys.” They’re still the main characters of an obsessive writer who’s directly fighting against their will. This is like... the inverse of 4.18, where Chuck “wrote himself into the story.” This is his reaction to his characters declared intent to “write themselves OUT of his story,” to DEFY his story. This is Chuck’s idea of petty revenge for using their free will against him.

In that context, the context of the larger arc of s15, this is like... textbook illustration of how Chuck has been grinding down their will, pushing them to make Terrible Choices against their own better judgment, because that’s where he wanted the story to go. I think we need to keep that in mind, that the story ITSELF is the big bad, and Chuck’s just had all his powers restored to him. Assuming he wouldn’t immediately put those powers to their full use at his first available opportunity is just... daffy.

Dabb has been writing Looney Tunes since 8.08. I’ve been writing Looney Tunes meta since at least as far back as s11:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144577425855/chuck-amuck

I will point to the WB cartoon that I believe Dabb has been framing Chuck’s character around all along: Duck Amuck (I’ve embedded other versions on tumblr before, but they always get taken down because copyright... so have a link to where you can watch it... I swear it’s worth the time: https://dai.ly/x5yczh1

And this is what Chuck is trying to convince Sam and Dean is their current situation:

when what they need to recognize, and what Chuck DESPERATELY needs them to keep them from realizing, as long as he can continue pushing them to “we had no other choice” scenarios and distract them from just rejecting his story entirely, is this:

[s-oulpunk]

Sorry Seems to Be The Hardest Word - Reddie

Summary: “Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

--

Or, in which Richie finally takes a joke too far, and Eddie has to be there to pick up the pieces from his own explosive reaction.

Richie is, without a doubt, an asshole.  Now that’s not to say the losers don’t love him, because they do.  Perhaps a bit too much.  They let him get away with far more shit than anyone should allow.

But they all have their breaking points.

They have all told him to fuck off at some point.  They have all stormed off in a puff of rage.  But, no matter who it is he’s managed to piss off, it’s all sorted out in a matter of hours.

Unless it’s Eddie, of course.

Not that Richie knows that.  While Eddie always fights back, always has something to say about each and every one of Richie’s one-liners, he’s never been pushed past his limit.  Perhaps, in Richie’s mind, he is limitless.  So he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, and, of course, that has to end with disaster.  But Richie’s never been good at seeing that far ahead, he wears glasses for a reason.

But there’s a first time for everything.

The day starts simple enough.  They’re in the clubhouse, crowded close together in the hammock.  The material hangs so low it nearly touches the floor and Ben’s warned them more than a few times that it can’t support both their weight for much longer, but neither of them can find it in them to care much.

Richie’s holding a comic book, his fingers gently curled around the edges, careful not to bend it, and Eddie’s trying very hard to look at the pictures and not the way Richie’s mouth moves as he whispers the dialogue under his breath.  But Eddie can’t help it.  One moment he’s looking at tiny cartoon Captain America, next his eyes are gliding across the page until they’ve crossed the barrier from comic book fights to Richie.  Two entirely different worlds.  Both fantasy, of course.  Because in no real world scenario would Richie look at him the way he wants him to.  But that doesn’t stop him from dreaming.  Perhaps a tad too obviously.

“Enjoying the view, Eds?”

Eddie blinks slowly, his brain taking longer than his eyes to realize, oh shit, Richie’s staring right back.

So he says the one thing he can think of in a crisis such as now, “Fuck off.”

Richie cackles, “It would be easier if your mom helped.”

“That is so not funny.”

“It never gets old.”

“It was old when we were thirteen and it’s old now.  We’re almost adults, get some new fucking material.”

Richie closes the comic, to show just how seriously he takes this, and gently taps his lips with the corner.

“I’m wounded, Eds,” he says. “But I suppose I could do with new material.”

“Yeah, try to think of something actually funny this time, dipshit,” Eddie snarks.

Then Richie grins wide as a shark and says just about the worst thing Eddie can possibly think of.

“I know what was wrong with my material.  You were just jealous all these years, weren’t ya?”

“What?” Eddie squeaks out.

Richie nods, looking far too serious despite the never fading grin that’s plastered on his face. “Mhm.  You should be the one helping me out.”

“No.  That’s worse.”

“It’s what the people want!”

“People? What people?  There are no people.”

“I’m the people.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Unfortunately, his opposition to the idea only seems to spur Richie on.

“Awe, c’mon, Eds.  Are you saying you don’t want a piece of this?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Eddie spits, though he can’t seem to look Richie in the eye for the exact opposite reason.

“Baby,” Richie drawls, “don’t be that way.”

“Fuck off!”

Richie does no such thing.  Instead, to Eddie’s horror, Richie rolls over until he’s directly on top of him, held up only by the arms on either side of Eddie’s head.  Eddie feels his entire body go cold in the same moment each inch of skin bursts into flames.  His lungs have frozen over, he can barely get a breath in, but at the same time he fears he might burn a hole right through the hammock.  Ben would kill him, of course, but that would almost be preferred to this torture.

“Awe, you’re all red,” Richie coos.  He reaches over to pinch Eddie’s cheek and for once Eddie doesn’t have the brain capacity to stop him. “Does Eddie Spaghetti have a crush?”

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

“I thought you didn’t want a piece of this?”

“Richie,” Eddie chokes out.  He can hardly hear himself over his own thundering heart. “Richie, stop.”

“I mean, I know I’m hot stuff, Eds, but this is a surprise.”

“Richie, seriously.”

“But you need to know I can’t actually stay away from your mom.”

“Richie.”

“But I guess you could be like my secret lover.”

“Please stop.”

“We have to be careful.  An affair would break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Richie, stop.”

Richie drops down until they’re nearly nose to nose. “What?  Are you not enjoying - holy shit, are you crying?”

Eddie realizes with a sort of delayed horror that, holy shit, he is crying.  Or at least, he’s about to.  His eyes burn with unshed tears and he hurriedly shoves at Richie’s chest before any of them can fall.

“Fuck off, Richie, get off me!”

Richie scrambles away from him.  He topples out of the hammock and lands with a thud on the floor, where he watches Eddie with eyes as wide as saucers.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Eddie finds himself shrieking.  He scampers away from the hammock himself, desperate to put as much distance as possible between them. “Don’t you have any idea when to fucking stop?  Or is the fucking joke more fucking important?  And, for the record, no one was fucking laughing!  No one’s ever fucking laughing!” At this point, his mouth is moving of its own accord.  As if someone’s severed the connection between it and his brain. “Actually the funniest part is the idea that I would actually like someone like you!” He can see it in Richie’s eyes, the moment he goes too far, but he can’t get himself to stop. “You’re fucking pathetic!  I feel bad for whoever falls in love with you, if anyone at all!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up alone!  I wouldn’t be surprised if you push every fucking person on earth away because you have the worst sense of humor of all time and can’t take a fucking hint!”

A thick silence falls over them as Eddie’s monologue comes to a halt.  The only sound that can be heard is the heaving of Eddie’s chest, having prioritized insulting Richie over breathing throughout most of his speech, and chest-rattling sobs from the floor.  Because Richie’s crying.  Not almost crying, but crying.  Sobbing, in fact.  Big fat crocodile tears roll down his cheeks, fogging up his glasses and soaking his shirt.

Eddie’s feels a pang of distant regret somewhere in the back of his mind and he nearly considers apologizing.  But his brain still doesn’t feel quite connected to his mouth.  So he doesn’t say anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” Richie whispers.

And then he’s gone.

Eddie scrubs at his own tears as he watches the empty doorway, hoping against hope that maybe he’ll come back.  But he doesn’t, and Eddie’s left feeling no better than he did before.

“Eddie,” says a soft voice.

Eddie just about jumps out of his skin.  But it’s just Bill.  Which, holy shit, when did he get here?  In fact, the entire losers club is there.  Because, oh yeah, they had all come down together.

Eddie winces.  How could he forget that?

“I didn’t mean to say any of that,” he says. His brain finally feels like it’s reconnected with his mouth, but he still feels distant and fuzzy.

“I know,” Bill says. “Buh-Buh-But maybe you should tell him that.”

Eddie shakes his head. “He was an asshole.”

In an instant, Bill is at his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and squeezing in a one-armed hug.

“He’s an asshole a luh-lot,” Bill says.  He pulls him into a more private corner, away from the watchful eyes of the rest of the losers.  Away from Stan, who looks like he’s just about ready to burn Eddie at the stake. “But you know he doesn’t really mean any of it.”

“Bill, you don’t understand, he was so mean.”

“So were yuh-yuh-you,” Bill says, smiling softly.

“Yeah,” murmurs Eddie. “I guess so.”

“You know he loves you.  Just talk to him, you’ll feel better.”

“But he - I think he knows, Bill.”

Bill cocks his head curiously. “Knows?  About th-th-the whole you’re in love with him thing?”

Eddie narrows his eyes. “Say it a little louder, why don’t you?  Yes, about that.”

He glances towards the rest of the losers in a panic, but they don’t appear to have heard.  They’re caught up in their own whispers, and Stan’s already disappeared.

“Well I’m puh-puh-pretty sure you made sure he duh-doesn’t think that anymore.”

Eddie groans. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

Bill smiles sadly. “You should talk to huh-him.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

In a flash, he’s out of the clubhouse and on his bike, ignoring the rest of the losers’ attempts to talk to him.  He peddles to Richie’s house as quickly as he can, practically throwing his bike to the ground once he’s reaching his destination.

He knocks furiously against the door.

Once.

Twice.

By the third time, he’s just about ready to kick the door down himself.  But then, to his relief, someone opens it.  His relief is short lived, however, when that person turns out to be Stan.  Stan who still looks like he’s ready to carve out Eddie’s heart.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Stan says shortly.

“No, wait, I’m just here to apologize,” Eddie says, rushing to get the words out before Stan can shut the door on him.

Stan observes him the same one might observe a piece of dirt on their shoe, or perhaps a slug.  But he opens the door anyway.

Eddie bolts inside as soon as there’s room, shouldering his way past Stan and thundering up the stairs.  He can feel Stan burning holes in the back of his head, but he doesn’t follow him up, which Eddie can’t help but be thankful for.

He knocks softly on Richie’s bedroom door. “Rich?  Can I come in?”

For a few excruciating moments it seems he’s not going to answer.  Then, a barely audible, “Come in.”

The sight is enough to break Eddie’s heart a million times over.  Richie’s sitting, curled up, in the farthest corner of his bed.  He’s completely swaddled in blankets, and if the situation were less dire Eddie thinks he might have laughed.

But, as it is, Eddie’s starting to worry he may never laugh again.

“Rich,” he says.  Then, because he could barely hear himself, he clears his throat and repeats, louder, “Rich.  I’m - I’m really sorry.  I didn’t - I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s fine.”

Eddie gapes at him. “It is not.  It - Look, I was just upset, alright?  I was embarrassed and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have done that.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I get it.  It’s whatever.”

Eddie knows he should be grateful for Richie’s forgiveness, but he just looks so sad.  All Eddie wants is to hug him.  Nothing fancy, nothing special.  Just a hug.

But he can’t.  He can’t even bring himself to go near him.  He lingers awkwardly by the door, hand still gripping the handle as if he’s planning to rip it open and escape any moment.

The space between them seems infinite.  Like he could walk for a million lifetimes and still never reach him.  It’s so foreign to Eddie.  He’s so used to Richie being there.  They’ve always been RichieAndEddie.  Now it’s starting to feel like they’re Richie.  Eddie.  There’s not even an “and” anymore.  Just an infinite amount of space.

“It’s not - It’s not whatever.”

“Do you want me to be mad at you?” Richie snaps, and Eddie does his best not to flinch. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “I just want you to know I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Richie murmurs, which is possibly the worst thing he could say. “It’s mostly true.”

Eddie doesn’t respond simply because his brain is short circuiting.  How could any of it be true?  How could Richie think that?  It just doesn’t compute.

Richie, however, must mistake his silence for an agreement, because he continues, “I probably will end up alone.  Just me and all my cats.”

Eddie’s throat feels like sandpaper.  Richie has to know how untrue that is.  He has to know that anyone would be lucky to have him.  And Eddie would gladly tell him so.  Except the only thing he says is, “There’s nothing wrong with having cats.”

Richie snorts. “Then you can babysit them for me.”

Richie’s laugh, while cold and empty of any sort of life, gives Eddie the courage to step forward.  He sinks into the opposite end of the bed, watching Richie warily.  The space between them still feels unfairly big, but less so now that Eddie can’t flee at any given moment.

“Rich, I’m serious.”

“About the cats?”

“No!  Forget about the cats!” Eddie huffs. “About what I said before.  I’m serious.  I didn’t mean it.”

Richie squirms. “It’s fine.  Can we just not talk about it anymore?”

“No!”

With an over exaggerated groan, Richie tugs one of the blankets over his head. “Why?  There’s nothing else to say.”

“Because you still don’t believe me-”

“I believe you.  There.  Now we’re done.”

“Stop that!” snaps Eddie. “We’re not done!”

“Eddie-”

“Why do you think that?  What makes you so sure that you’re never gonna find someone?  Rich, someday you’re gonna find some - some perfect girl and settle down and have the worlds loudest babies.” The thought makes Eddie’s insides burn, but he pushes forward anyway. “She’s gonna love you for your loud mouth and your stupid glasses and the weird gap between your teeth.  She’s gonna love your ugly style, she’ll wear your ugly ass hawaiian shirts all around the house.  And you’ll burn everything you cook but she’ll love you anyway.  Hell, maybe she’ll try to teach you how to cook.  It won’t go well, obviously, because you’re a menace, but you’ll still be happy.  You’ll order take-out instead and watch whatever’s on TV and you’ll make her laugh with all your terrible impressions.  Richie, it’s gonna be really good.  You’re gonna be happy.”

“I’m not gonna marry a pretty girl,” Richie says, voice muffled by the blankets.

“Richie-”

I’m not gonna marry any girl.”

“Dude, shut up, you’re a total catch-”

“Do you remember when you tried to teach me how to cook?”

Eddie has to stop and recollect his thoughts because, yeah, of course he does.  Richie couldn’t have possibly made the connection between Richie’s fake wife and Eddie’s own fantasies, could he?

“Yeah,” he says, choking back a wheeze.

“You didn’t know how to cook anything either,” Richie says. “We burned everything.  Took us forever to clean up but we still had fun.  We were laughing the whole time.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie nods. “Rich, where is this going?”

“We ordered take-out and watched TV until we fell asleep.”

“So?”

“Just like what you said, Eds.”

Eddie’s stomach drops to the bottom of his feet. “That’s not - That’s not what I meant.”

One eye peeks out from the mass of blankets. “Sorry.”

“It’s - It’s okay,” Eddie says, though he feels anything but okay. “Why are you sorry?  You shouldn’t be sorry.”

“I thought-” Richie stops himself, tugging the blankets down to reveal his face.  He wears a pinched expression, eyebrows furrowed and glasses askew.  If everything weren’t so awful, Eddie might have taken a moment to internally coo over how cute he was. “I thought you were saying something else.”

“What did you think I was saying?” Richie looks like he’s about to dive right back under his nest of blankets, and in a desperate attempt to get him to stay, Eddie hurriedly backtracks, “It’s okay.  You don’t have to tell me.  I’m just - I was just wondering.”

For a second, Eddie thinks maybe Richie is going to tell him.  He looks like he’s considering it.  But then he just shrugs and sinks further into his blankets.  He doesn’t hide again, but he’s only about a hair away from it.  Only his eyes are visible.

“Rich,” Eddie says, voice slow and calculating.  As if talking to a frightened child. “Can you come out and talk to me?” There’s a moment of hesitation, where it looks like Richie might be considering it.  Then he shakes his head. “Okay.  That’s okay.  I - I love you, Rich.  I really didn’t mean any of it.  And I don’t know how you found out, but it - it just scared me.  I know everything is a joke to you, Rich, but - but this isn’t.  Not to me.  It’s how I feel and it just hurt for you to make fun of it.  I know it’s not an excuse for what I said but-”

“What?”

“The - The - What you said.  Back at the clubhouse.”

“I was just messing around,” Richie says weakly. “I didn’t know anything.”

“Oh.”

“Are you-”

“Yes,” Eddie spits the word out before he can think better of it, ignoring how the word burns his lips.  Then, because his friendship is probably fucked anyway, “So everything you’re scared of can’t possibly be true because - because I want that.  I want to cook dinners with you and laugh when we burn them.  I want to steal your stupid Hawaiian shirts and laugh at your even stupider jokes.  Nothing’s wrong with you, Rich.  You’re perfect.  And I - I’m sorry I didn’t act like it.”  No response. “I can go.”

He’s halfway across the room when Richie’s voice stops him. “No.  Don’t go.”

He turns just in time to see Richie struggle to open the pile of blankets.  Eddie doesn’t remember crossing the room, but the next thing he knows he’s burrowed under the blankets, tucked safely into Richie’s side.

“I didn’t know that,” Richie murmurs. “I wasn’t making fun of you.  I was just - It was the only way I could tell you.”

“Tell me?”

“That I - That I love you.”

The heat from earlier rushes back to Eddie, and he’s silently thankful for the darkness the blankets provide.  He doesn’t think he could stand Richie’s teasing about how red his cheeks are at the moment.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “In case you couldn’t tell.”

Richie chokes out a laugh, but it only lasts a moment.  His face has returned to that unfamiliar stony look before Eddie’s even had time to register the laugh.  It makes his stomach sink to the bottom of his feet.  He hates that look.

“I’m sorry,” Richie murmurs. “About earlier.  I shouldn’t have said any of that.  I took it too far.”

“I’m sorry too-”

“I know.”

“Just let me say it, asshole!” Eddie snaps, but he’s smiling. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.  None of it was true, but that doesn’t make it okay.  I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It’s okay,” Richie grins. “But maybe you should prove it.”

Eddie can barely hear himself over his own heartbeat when he asks, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Eddie doesn’t give himself time to answer.  He closes the gap between them as soon as the words have left Richie’s mouth.

Richie’s lips are soft.  A bit chapped, but soft.  And they press firmly against Eddie’s own, like he’s worried Eddie will disappear.  Eddie can’t say he’s not worried about the same thing.  He’s woken up from far too many pleasant dreams just like this only to realize he’s, yet again, alone in his bed.

But this is not a dream.  This is real and there’s not a doubt in Eddie’s mind that this is the best moment of his life.  It’s all downhill from here.  But he doesn’t mind.  Not when he has Richie to help him through it.