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xoxoladyaz · 1 year ago

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AU-gust, Day 8: Robots and Androids

WARNING: THIS IS A CROSSOVER WITH FNAF. (Listen, I told you things were about to get weird so please fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a wild ride 🩷)

“This might be the stupidest job we’ve ever had.”

“Are you kidding?” Robin yelled from across their homey two-bedroom. “These outfits are so much better than Scoops!”

“First of all, that’s saying literally nothing, and second of all, you’re not the one wearing safety cone orange!” Stevie yelled back as she examined her reflection in the mirror. Her new work uniform consisted of a long-sleeved bright-orange shirt with the Fazbear Entertainment logo in bright blue on her front breast pocket, paired with fitted black trousers that had bright orange piping running up and down the edge.

(Whomever worked in the staff uniform design department of Fazbear Entertainment definitely had it out for her.)

“Oh shut up, that color looks great on you,” Robin retorted as she strolled into Stevie’s bedroom. She was dressed in the Roxanne Wolf version of her outfit – lilac and lime green which was so, so much cuter in Stevie’s opinion. “Besides, you have those lightning bolt earrings from our Bowie party that match perfectly.”

Stevie sighed and started flipping through her jewelry box. “Ugh, I guess. I still don’t know why we took this gig though.”

“You mean aside from the fact that Argyle got us these jobs in a literal day?”

“Uh, yeah, Robin! We’re working at the robot capital of the world and you hate robots.”

“Okay, first of all the Glamrocks aren’t robots, they’re animatronics,” Robin started numbering off on her fingers. “Secondly, Roxanne Wolf is a lesbian icon to whom I owe my allegiance and I see that eye-roll Stephanie Harrington, don’t give me that sass, and thirdly we’re working in the gift shop, we’ll, like, never see them in person.”

“Famous last words,” Stevie muttered, but Robin was already speeding into the hallway.

“Now stop stalling, dingus, it’s time to hit the Pizzaplex!”

/////

Stevie had to begrudgingly admit that working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex wasn’t the worst job in the entire world. She got to spend all day with Robin (and make faces with her behind the backs of the really crazy parents) while staying warm, dry and ice-cream free. Which, speaking of, they also got free food with every shift which meant lunch and/or dinner breaks with Argyle (who worked in Chica’s Pizzaria and loved it, the maniac) and that was awesome.

(It was really hard to keep track of everyone now that they’d all been relocated from Hawkins and spread across the state of California; if Stevie thought about it too much, she’d get emotional, so she tried not to think about it.

Or about the fact that Eddie hadn’t texted her in a few weeks.)

Stevie even got to pick-up a few overtime shifts in the daycare on her off days which, hey, the faster she makes money, the faster she can get to cosmetology school.

(Did she have problems with the fact she was sharing babysitting duties with a glorified robot? Not really.

Did she understand how the toddlers weren’t scared by Eclipse when he was in his Moon phase? No, not even a little bit, that fucker was creepy.)

That didn’t mean there weren’t drawbacks to her job, of course. She and Robin averaged about twenty upset and entitled parental encounters daily combined, not to mention all of the crying children who were either upset that they weren’t getting exactly what they wanted or were upset that they weren’t getting what they wanted fast enough. Their all-time high of screaming kids was 41 and they drank a fuck ton of wine that night.

But the biggest problem about working at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex? Those goddamn animatronics. And not because Stevie was scared of them, oh no, no, it was because Robin was full of shit. Anytime one of the Glamrocks came within twenty feet of the gift shop she ducked for cover, and if it was Roxy? She was useless for a solid fifteen minutes afterwards every single time.

(“I think this officially qualifies you as a furry,” Stevie said after one particularly close encounter. Roxy had stopped to take pictures in front of the doorway and Robin had catapulted herself through the Montgomery Gator sweatshirt rack and crashed into Roxy’s plushie display and got absolutely buried.

“It really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, Robs, this is how you always act when a pretty girl comes around - ”

“Stevie? Shut. Up.”)

It wouldn’t have been a problem if Robin and Stevie had remained posted at the gift shop, but no, the gods forever frowned upon Stephanie Harrington.

/////

“Harrington!” Her manager Roger barked as he power-walked past her, three weeks into her tenure at the Pizzaplex. “We’re running low on Freddy plushies out front, so I’m going to need you to go and get the next shipment from storage. Here,” he said, tossing her a new keycard that she (barely) managed to catch. “Second floor storage area behind Fazer Blast. There should be a dolly there for you to use. Thanks!” Roger hollered, and then he was off running after a mop-bot that was spreading paint around in the main atrium.

Stevie turned to look at Robin who was already shaking her head. “Nope, no way.”

“Aww c’mon Robin, please? I always go with you when we walk around the Pizzaplex.”

Robin rolled her eyes and was about to reply when the melodic voice of Roxanne Wolf echoed throughout the plaza. “Thank you, I am the best,” the Glamrock crooned, and Robin flushed bright red and threw herself into the gift shop.

Welp. Looks like Stevie was going to have to handle this solo.

/////

Question, why was Stevie handling this solo again? Because she’d passed about twenty janitorial bots on her way to the storage area, all of whom were just scooting around with nothing to do.

Whatever.

There was a dolly back in the (dark and creepy) storage room, so she loaded up a brand new box of Freddy Fazbear plushies and made her way to the main elevator bank.

“Sorry, excuse me, pardon me,” she said on repeat as she walked past scores of rowdy children and their stressed parents. As she rounded the corner, she saw the elevator doors begin to close and she moved faster.

“Please hold!” She yelled, and the elevator doors stopped shutting. “Shit, thank you,” Stevie gasped as she rolled the cart in and wiped her eyes.

“No problem, superstar!”

Fuck.

Stevie whipped around to look at the other occupant of the elevator and – yep, it was the man (err, orange bear) himself, all 6’3” of animatronic rockstar Freddy Fazbear gazed down at her, his signature smile on his perfectly polished face.

Stevie barely noticed the elevator doors slide shut behind them, barely heard the tinny elevator music play as they started their descent.

“You’re - ”

“I’m Freddy Fazbear, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the animatronic intoned.

“Hi, yeah. I’m - ”

“Stephanie Harrington,” he interrupted, his eyes scanning her form with a bluish light. “You work in the gift shop.”

“How did you - ”

“I have access to the Pizzaplex’s employee directory. For security concerns.”

“Oh. Cool.”

She stood and stared at the bear, who stood and stared back at her. And then wiggled his ears.

(It was kind of cute.)

“Well, I - ”

The elevator suddenly screeched to a halt and Stevie barely managed to stop herself from tumbling to the ground – mainly because a pair of oversized orange paws gently caught her.

“We’re sorry,” an automated voice spoke over the elevator intercom, “but it appears that our elevators are experiencing a technical difficulty. Please remain calm and our staff will be with you shortly.”

Stevie groaned, slumping back against those orange paws. “Oh, great.”

“Not to worry, superstar!” Freddy said, and Stevie barely suppressed her flinch at his booming voice. “Our staff is highly qualified and perfectly capable of fixing any and all technical issues that may take place at the Pizzaplex. We will be out of here in no time!”

(Stevie had seen how long it took the staffbots to fix the soda fountain when it exploded; she didn’t share Freddy’s faith in this at all.)

“Good, glad to hear it,” she replied drily. She stood up and waved Freddy’s hands away (or, err, paws. His paws. Paws that followed her to make sure she wouldn’t fall again which wasn’t sweet, for fuck’s sake!)

“Well, Stephanie, how about we play a game?” Freddy asked as she Stevie slumped against the far wall. (No way she was going to stand for this.)

“Sure, Freddy. What game do you wanna play?”

Freddy’s ears wiggled again as he hummed (or made a humming sound; he couldn’t actually hum, could he?) “How about we play the Question Game? I always like to learn more about my friends!”

Aww, he thought they were friends. (Or he was programmed to say that, or think they were friends? Just how intelligent were these things? She should text Dustin later on and ask what he knew about Fazbear Entertainment.)

Still, Freddy continued to smile as he waited for her reply and yeah, okay, that was cute. “Sure, Freddy,” Stevie sighed, but she made sure to smile back at him. “Let’s play the Question Game.”

/////

They were in the elevator for a total of forty-five minutes, which gave Freddy and Stevie plenty of time to play the Question Game. Stevie learned all about Freddy’s favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (play music with his friends, try to beat his old high score in Fazer Blast, dance at DJ Music Man’s shows whenever he had the chance), his best friend (Bonnie, who had been banged up pretty badly and was getting fixed somewhere offsite), his other best friend (Chica, they liked to do Jazzercise together), and his favorite thing to do in his free time (which was read, apparently? She wasn’t sure how the animatronic bear got his hands on copies of “the classics” and honestly wouldn’t have pegged him as a Dostoevsky fan but hey, apparently even orange animatronic bears can have depth?)

In turn, Stevie told him about her favorite things to do at the Pizzaplex (visit Argyle at Chica’s Pizzaria, laugh at Robin when she hid from Roxy), her best friend (Robin, who worked with her in the gift shop), her other best friends (Argyle and Nancy and Eddie and Jonathan and Chrissy), her family (well, Dustin and the Hopper-Byers’ at least), and her favorite thing to do in her free time (watch movies with Robin, which then led into a long conversation about what movies she’d seen and would recommend because while Freddy knows about movies he hasn’t seen a whole lot of them).

He also asked her questions about the world outside the Pizzaplex: where she was born (Hawkins), why she moved from Hawkins (an earthquake, which was the official cover story), what her dream job was (being a hairdresser, at which point Freddy said she should talk to Roxy and start training at her salon which was, again, very cute), and all about the places she’d seen and where she wanted to go next.

(“Probably down to Malibu,” she’d said, lost in thought. “I’d like to see those beaches. What about you, is there somewhere you’d like to go?”

“I – well.” Freddy paused, and for the first time, he appeared troubled. “I cannot leave the Pizzaplex.”

“Oh,” Stevie murmured and wow, that really fucking sucked, didn’t it? Sure, she was talking to a robot bear who was literally built to be children’s entertainment but he wasn’t really feeling like just a robot bear anymore, especially the more they talked and played the Question Game. And this might have been one really, really long con or programming thing but – what if it wasn’t? What if he was fully intelligent and he was really stuck here?

Like El and the lab, she thought, and then she was barely able to stop herself from tearing up.

“But if I could go somewhere else,” Freddy continued, unaware of Stevie’s inner turmoil, “I would also probably choose to go to the beach. I would like to see the sun on the water,” he finished quietly.)

Stevie didn’t know what to say, but thankfully the elevator started up again, so she was spared any sort of deeper introspection.

“See?” Freddy said, no trace of sadness in his voice at all, like it had never been there. “Good as new.”

“Yeah, you were right about that,” Stevie said, pushing herself to her feet. It was a little tricky to do so while the elevator was moving, but Freddy held out his hand and she grabbed hold without a second thought. “Thanks, Freddy.”

“You’re welcome, superstar,” Freddy replied with an ear wiggle. “Can I assist you with transporting your cart to the gift shop?”

Stevie grinned. “You know what, Freddy? That would be great.”

/////

“EVIL,” Robin hissed from behind the sales counter, her white knuckles gripping onto the laminated wood for dear life. “You are evil.”

“Hmm, what was that?” Stevie asked as she watched Freddy unbox (and gently stack) the plushies on the main console table. “I can’t hear you, Robin.”

Robin hissed an unintelligible reply but Stevie ignored her, watching instead as Freddy stepped back and clapped his hands together. “Perfect!” He turned and alighted that bright electronic smile towards Stevie. “Thank you for letting me help, superstar.”

“No, thank you for helping, Freddy. Come back and visit any time, you hear?”

“Absolutely.”

Stevie waited for Freddy to leave, but he didn’t; he just stood there and stared at her, letting the seconds pass them by.

“Uh, Freddy, sir?” An acne-riddled teen with “Benny” on his nametag cleared his throat. “We need you in Superstar Row for some Meet and Greets.”

“Oh, yes,” Freddy replied, like he wasn’t thinking, like he’d forgotten.

(He was still looking at Stevie.)

“It was nice talking with you, Stephanie,” he finally said, and with one final wave he thundered out of the gift shop, Benny at his heels.

Stevie turned to look at Robin, who was looking at her with confusion. “Huh.”

“Huh,” Stevie repeated, and she could practically feel herself blush the longer that Robin looked at her. Robin who, of course, sensed a perfect opportunity for revenge.

Robin who suddenly had a shit-eating grin on her face. “You know, I think that officially qualifies you as a furry, dingus.”

“Oh, fuck off, Robin.”

#steve harrington #stranger things #female steve harrington #robin buckley #platonic stobin #am I suggesting robin x roxanne wolf? yes #same with stevie and freddy fazbear #glamrock freddy #august fanfic challenge #*sings high school musical soundtrack* this could be the start of something new #buckle up #fnaf security breach

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faeriemarie · 2 years ago

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a guide to SOME my drs

contains: harry potter (golden era), marauders, stranger things, dash & lily, x-men, a few fame drs, and a 1900’s historical dr

harry potter

ravenclaw who is best friends with cho

like literally inseparable

we are the hogwarts “it” girls and everyone is obsessed with us

they want to dress like us and talk like us and be as stunningly beautiful and intelligent

so many people have a crush on me

including but not limited to: hermione, ginny, harry, ron, roger davies, neville, luna, and george weasley

marauders

i’m going into my 5th year as a ravenclaw at hogwarts

was never friends with the marauders (save for sirius)

always really good friends since 1st year

and we became practically like siblings

when he ran away, he runs to my house

and my parents welcome him with open arms

give him his own room and make him do chores

it’s like we’ve been siblings forever

then he introduces me to his friends

and remus and james both have crushes on me

and think i’m sirius’ real sister

love triangle ensues

stranger things #1

og female member of the party since 2nd grade

and will is basically my brother

i’ve known him longer than mike has

not so secret crush on thee mike wheeler

i play as a monk in d&d (although i’m not sure that role even existed in the 80’s)

eleven never crushes on mike and only has a friendship with him

when she meets me, she idolizes me and wants to BE me because i’m so cool

i become friends with max first

and stalk for the guys

devising plans with will on how to force lucas and max together

basically just tween fun time (with monsters ofc)

stranger things #2

teenager era starting in season 2

im a loser and friends with jonathan byers

im a major theatre kid and we became friends when he took pictures for our school musical

and ofc im friends with robin because she’s in pit

accidentally get involved with demodogs things when dustin recruits me to go with him and steve

i get to bond with steve and our romance starts

but nothing actually HAPPENS until season 3 over the summer

after he’s gotten over nancy and robin can force us together

stranger things #3

popular!marie x loser!mike

cheerleader who’s new to hawkins

i befriend lucas and he invites me to hellfire club

of course i join!!

i used to play d&d all the time with my cousins in new york

when i walk in, everyone is suspicious of me

but mike is so whipped

eddie doesn’t believe i even know how to play

but i bring out my character sheet and im literally at a higher level than him

… he is mildly impressed

so i’m allowed to join

and i bond with the guys

and mike walks me home every day (even though he’s still dating el)

will i come between them and break them up?

i am the drama fr

dash & lily

i’m lily but i have a different name, face, etc.

mostly the same personality tho

it follows the basic plot

i put the notebook between franny and zooey

we exchange dares

dash gets back together with sofia

my bully is an oc instead of annoying ugly-ass edgar

we meet

i get drunk

we get together

yadayadayada you get it

x-men (prequel series)

i attend xavier’s school where my bestie is jubilee

i have chlorokenesis but i can control my powers the best of anyone

half dating peter maximoff but not really

he flirts with me all the time and i pretend like i hate it

everyone ships us tho

especially kurt and jean

2000’s actress

my resume includes…

cecilia in the virgin suicides

bianca stratford

lana in the princess diaries

louise in gilmore girls

elizabeth in pride & prejudice

rose in doctor who

emily in the devil wears prada

sophie in mamma mia

giselle in enchanted

summer in 500 days of summer

and more

early 2010’s fame dr

famous for a few cult classics like

sam in the perks of being a wallflower

or nicki in the bling ring

but i was also clara in doctor who

and i dated a couple notable celebrities

toby regbo… james mcavoy… thomas brodie-sangster

oh and i’m trending on 2012 tumblr

because i single-handedly revived indie sleaze

and had a flirtationship with alex turner

pretty much the whole am album is about me

dating finn wolfhard fame dr (heavily influenced by the posts of @wheelcr)

angsty and edgy poet and playwright

who graduated high school at 15 and has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics by 19

start dating in 2021

and fans are so obsessed with me

they even jumpstart my poetry career

and some high schools / colleges get the rights to my plays

so cool

ballerina for royal ballet

i started with them when i was very young

getting cast in the nutcracker as a party guest

and i work my way up

i debut with the professional company when i’m 15

with my debut ballet being romeo and juliet

i go on to star in mayerling, onegin, cinderella, anastasia, coppelia, sylvia, swan lake, sleeping beauty, don quixote, giselle, la bayadere, and sylphide all before i turn 25

plus i’m nursing a minor film career in the off season

just small movies like

phantom of the opera 2004 as christine

or atonement as cecilia tallis

i’m just an icon honestly

1910 small town america vibe

the vibe of our town and tuck everlasting

i’m just a small town girl and the brightest student ever seen

i get the highest grades and the town loves me

my parents are highly respected and educated citizens

plus 3 different guys are courting me, including:

a childhood friend who’s loved me for years

college boy studying to be a doctor

and a young reporter and assistant to my dad at our local paper

how ever will i choose?

#shiftblr #desired reality #manifesting #reality shifting #shifting #subliminals #reality shift #manifestation #shifting realities

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frustrated-writer-skyeknight · 4 years ago

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S.q.u.a.d. reacts to the Lion King

Based on this article: I watched The Lion King as a grown-ass man.

"Man, Disney should just stop with the remakes already." Jamie sighed as he took some textbooks from his locker, "I mean, I think the Lion King one was just a CGI version of the original."

Jack frowned, scratching the back of his neck. "There was an original version?"

"What? Dude, of course there is. It's a classic. Everyone's seen it." Jamie snorted, turning towards the approaching brunette trio. "Hey guys, you know about the old Lion King movie, right?"

Dimitri shrugged, "I know there's a new lion movie out." He said. "Looks more like a documentary thing, if you go by the trailer."

"Didn't have cable growing up," Jim replied, "still don't. Plus, Disney is overrated anyway."

Hiccup hummed thoughtfully, "What's lion king?"

Jamie stared at his friends dumbfounded. "Okay, we are so having a movie night now." He said.

Later that Friday evening, Jamie and his friends find themselves in the den of his home, parents out with the younger sister, and three bowls of popcorn with different flavors; cheese, butter, and barbeque. Plus, two boxes of pizza.

"Wow, Jay," Astrid whistled as she settled on a spot next to him, "you sure went all out for this."

Jamie shrugged, "Disney is my childhood." he said.

"I still say they're a gold digging empire," Jim deadpanned, but took a handful of popcorn. "But I never say no to free food."

Dimitri took a slice of pizza as Jack had too, and they 'toasted' to it, "Preach."

"Okay guys," Jamie rolled his eyes as he set Netflix on the television, "at least wait for the movie to start. Since I brought it up earlier, let's start with 'The Lion King.' I've got tissues ready in case you need it."

Jim snorted, rolling his eyes. "It's an Animated kids movie." He said. "Nobody cries over those.

───────────────

🎶On the day we arrive on the planet~🎶

"Well, opening song sounds good." Jack hummed, "wouldn't mind getting it stuck in my head. Unlike that overrated Queen Ella single one."

Dimitri groaned, "Ohmygod, yes." he groused, "People will not shut up about it!"

"Okay boys." Astrid rolled her eyes, "focus."

They did so, but it didn't take long for someone else to speak up. "Whoa, now hold up. So, that monkey dude..." Jim frowned, and Jamie felt the need to pause the movie. "I mean, come on, this monkey chief dude comes hobbling around on a walking stick earlier, and you expect that he can hold a damn newborn over a cliff? That's shady, man."

"Just watch." Jamie rolled his eyes, smirking at his friend's offended expression. "Also, I'm gonna have to preemptively warn you to suspend your disbelief for a lot of these movies." He hits play once more.

And they watched.

"He's as mad as a hippo with a hernia."

"That's some mad alliteration skills," Jack mused, "ugh, alliteration. Still confuse that with assonance."

Hiccup stared at his boyfriend, "The fact that you even bring that up casually..."

"Okay, feeling that Scar's the bad dude here." Astrid interrupted, "but I'm liking the accent."

Rafiki is painting Simba on his tree...

"There's that shady baboon butt again, doing grafitti without his goddamn walking stick." Jim snorted, "I don't trust that punk."

Dimitri chuckled, giving his boyfriend a one-arm hug. "Pup, you have trust issues. It's your thing." He cooed, "it's a cartoon monkey, he can't hurt you."

"But he can hurt his fellow cartoon animal peeps." Jim countered. "Shady bastard."

Dimitri rolled his eyes, "and they say you're a cold, insensitive prick." He snorted.

"Wait, a Lion in a Pride mates with all the lioness..." Hiccup frowned, his eyebrows knitting together. "He's literally sleeping with his wife and the rest of his, uh, concubines in a single..."

Jamie groaned, "You're ruining my childhood here."

"So, this is that famous overmemed scene." Jack snorted, "pretty grand, I'll give it that. Tempted to google what the shadowy place is, though."

Jamie shook his head, taking Jack's phone. "No spoilers." He said. "It's coming up soon anyway."

"Forgive me for not leaping in joy. Bad back, you know."

Hiccup nodded faux sagely, "Scar is me at every social gathering." He said.

"No, no! Don't, you gullible lion cub!" Jim shouted at the TV, much to everyone's amusement. "THAT DARK PLACE IS OBVIOUSLY NOT AN ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD, SIMBA. DON'T DO DUMB SHIT. LISTEN TO YOUR PARENTS. GO TO LION CUB SCHOOL!"

Dimitri snickered, gesturing to his soulmark. "He's talking in capslock again." He said.

🎶"I just can't wait to be king~!"🎶

"Okay, I'm so finding a playlist in Spotify now." Jack mused, scrolling at his phone that Jamie returned earlier. "These tunes are gonna be my jam."

Hiccup shrugged, "I still find it funny that the animals are so okay with their predators being their king. No revolution sparked by discontentment at all." He pointed out. "Sounds kinda fishy."

"Okay, anyone else feeling kinda awkward with Simba and Nala's sexual tension?" Jim voiced out, "I mean, they're kids... Or cubs... Whatever. They're young."

Hiccup nodded, "Not to mention, cousins. Being in the same Pride..." He trailed off as Jamie kicks him lightly on the shin.

"Again, ruining childhood for me." Jamie sighed, and Astrid rubs his arm soothingly.

Jim points at the screen accusingly, "Ah! An elephant graveyard!" he gawked. "okay, was wrong on that, but still creepy as hell. Especially now that practically everywhere in the Savannah is an elephant graveyard... Even a rhino graveyard."

Jack shook his head, "Guys, you need to chill."

"Okay, these hyenas reminds me of that old Cartoon Network show, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy." Hiccup mused, "Especially Ed, who's basically Ed. Can't be a coincidence."

Astrid snickered, "He's also you; laughing or making jokes to laugh about in inappropriate situations." she teased. "Got us in trouble a lot in those 'bring your kid to work' events."

"Aaaand Mufasa comes in to save the day," Jack slow clapped, "knew it. But boy, is Simba grounded. You done fucked up, kid."

"I'm surrounded by idiots..."

Jim huffed, leaning back against the couch and Dimitri's arm. "Mood." He deadpanned. "Also, calling out their cruelty to animated zebras."

"I know right?" Dimitri humored him, "where the fuck is PETA when you need them?"

Jamie snorted, smirking at them, "Uh, I don't know... Reality?"

"Doesn't feel like it either." Astrid quipped, "elephants still dying everywhere."

Jack rolled his eyes, "Fucking chill guys."

"Ah, Hiccup, look. How's that for discontentment?" Astrid pointed at the screen, "Scar's not satisfied with being sass king of the jungle. Wants to run for real king, that can't end well."

Hiccup shrugged, "I'll take it." He said, "and it's not a jungle, actually.

"Dude has mad pipes though." Jack pointed out, "I'd definitely attend the opening night of 'Scar: The Musical.'"

Jamie hummed thoughtfully, "Huh, a lion king remake with his perspective instead would be an improvement." He said.

"Simba, it's to die for!"

"Okay Hiccup, take notes." Astrid quipped, "Scar's pun game is topnotch."

Hiccup snorted, tossing a throw pillow her way. "Must've learned from me." He shot back, "I'm a master."

"Still," Astrid said, laughing as she threw the pillow back, "I have the feeling this is the point of the movie I'm gonna start hating Scar."

Jamie cringed as the stampede started, and he paused the movie much to everyone's frustration. "Okay, guys. Again, maybe you need ti—" he trailed off.

"PLAY THE DAMN MOVIE!"

Jamie did so. And he found it strangely satisfying when everyone cried out a despairing 'NOOOOOOOOOO!' along with Simba as Mufasa fell to his death.

"Mufasa is dead?!?!" Jim gawked, "he died?!!? Just like DUMBLEDORE?!?!?! Just like MY FATHER?!" He whimpered, leaning on Dimitri as his boyfriend reached for the box of Kleenex from Jamie. "Feeling unusually upset right now. It's a damn kid's movie. It has no right to be hitting it home, and right to the feels."

Dimitri sighed, patting his back consolingly. "There, there..."

"Fuck you, Scar. Just..." Jim groused, "Fuck. You."

Astrid sighed, taking a sheet from the Kleenex herself. "Gotta say, though," she started, "for a schemer like Scar, he sure does skimp on the quality of his henchmen. Letting Simba go is gonna bite him in the ass someday. Guaranteed."

"Okay," Jamie paused the movie. "intermission. Who needs a bio-break?"

Jim just stood up and went for the bathroom. The rest finished the pizza and Dimitri made sure to leave some for Jim.

"You good, Jim?

"Shut up and play the movie." The brunette groused, "ugh, I can't believe I cried. Damn you Scar."

Jamie laughed as he plays the movie once more. "Told you you'd need tissues."

"Screw you, man."

───────────────

"Mufasa's death was a terrible loss..."

Jim eats his pizza. He continues to curse Scar as he speaks of Mufasa's death. "Don't fall for his crap, come on!" He scowled. "Zazu, he fucking slammed you to a rock!" He sighed, "Why the hell are you letting him become king? This is why you animals are getting extinct."

"It's.... really not." Hiccup protested.

Dimitri massaged his shoulders, "Jim, you can print out a picture of Scar and dart him, okay pup?" He soothed.

"The hyenas look like they can get shit done, though." Jack mused, "well, except for giving Simba the slip."

Jim hummed, "Oh, baboon guy. Almost forgot about this dude." He said. "Cutting him some slack because I feel he's going to drop some Yoda shit on this bitch."

"You get so feisty when you're irritable." Dimitri mused, "and this is why Scroop secretly has a thing for you."

"WHAT!"

"What?"

"Don't worry," Dimitri shrugged, kissing the tip of his nose. "I don't share."

Jim huffed, "Well, I bloody hope not!"

"You gotta put your behind in your past."

"Gotta get a tattoo of this Pumbaa quote." Jack joked, "words to live by 101."

Hiccup audibly whimpered, taking Jack's hand. "Please don't " he said. "Your skin's perfect. It's bad enough that my choice of words already marred it."

"Aw, babe..." Jack hugged him, "you know I love it."

Astrid blew a raspberry. "Get a room."

"Uh, my house, so no." Jamie protested.

Jim blinked, "Wait, I know this is Timon and Pumbaa because I had them on a pencil case when I was eight or something. Then, I got one of space and that was that." He started. "But damn, I didn't know Hakuna Matata was from here. I have heard this song before, I am not entirely ignorant."

"I'm so hungry, I can eat a whole Zebra."

"I'm condemning this casual Zebra slaughter," Hiccup declared. "Let it be known. You can't just eat a whole Zebra, Simba. Come on."

Astrid gagged, "Insects? Really?" She shakes her head. "Simba's diet is fucked. I'm not a nutritionist or a zoologist, but I really, really, don't think insects are enough to get Simba through all those years in the jungle. I mean, it's like asking humans to survive on dog food alone."

"And yet he has grown into a fine-ass lion over the course of about three bars of song." Jack whistled, "Intriguing. Switching to insect-based diet after the movie."

Hiccup shakes his head, "Snowflake, I rather you go vegan."

Rafiki appears and takes Simba's floating fur with the dandelions...

"There's monkey Yoda again," Jim snorted, "jumping down on trees, not a walking stick in sight. He's on to something though, so I'll let it sli—HOLD THE PHONE!" The brunette balked, "Did baboon man REALLY figure out Simba was still alive from smelling dandelions that floated from miles away?"

Dimitri rubbed his back in circles, "Pup, stop being antagonized by the damn monkey already." he snickered, "it's cute, but I'm worrying over your mental health."

"Don't tell me what to do, dimwit." Jim scoffed, "I mean, really, this insane Yoda monkey with inconsistent usage of walking aids might be the movie's last hope. How to feel about this, I don't know."

"AAAAAAH!"

Hiccup hummed, faux sadly. "We're gonna lose Pumbaa. I can feel it." he said. "Life's just not fair, and warthogs just aren't fast."

"Oh, wait, it's Nala!" Jack cheered, "Yaaay!"

The freckled brunette snorted, crossing his arms. "Nala goes from hunting Pumbaa one minute to having a conversation with him after Simba vouches for him?" he shook his head, "So, tell me how there aren't any riots with the predators being friends with some preys, and others not? Unjustifiable exceptions."

"Guys, suspend your disbelief." Jamie sighed, "I think I gave out that warning earlier."

🎶...You needn't look too far; Stealing through the night's uncertainties, love is where they are~🎶

"Whoa, 'Can you feel the love tonight' was from this movie? Okay, it's official, I'm in love with this soundtrack." Jack made an exaggerated bowing down motion towards the screen, "Hands down one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard."

Dimitri narrowed his eyes at the screen, in scrutiny. "They totally boned at this scene, right?" he deadpanned. "I mean, did you see those bed room sex eyes?"

Jim stuffed him with a pillow, "At least the sexual tension between them doesn't feel as awkward now."

"You said you'd always be there! But you're not... it's because of me..."

Hiccup nodded his head, "Sexual tension replaced with crippling self-loathing, just like real life." he sighed, "feel ya, Simba."

"God, I don't know how many therapists mom made me see until I finally got over blaming myself for my sperm donor leaving us." Jim sighed, shaking his head. "and then guidance counseling when we found out he killed himself a few months before Freshemen year started."

Dimitri stared at his boyfriend worriedly, "Pup, do you need a hug?" he embraced him without waiting for a response.

"It ain't your fault, Jim. Shit happens... Especially stampedes if you're in a forest."

Jamie sighed, "Savannah."

"Real talk, though," Astrid mused, "shit happens when you've got scheming uncles who planned to push their brother off the buffalo freeway."

The brunette stared at his girlfriend before picking up his phone, "I'm tweeting that."

Rafiki appears humming incoherently...

"I swear to god, this monkey is on meth." Jim snorted, shaking his head. "Yeap, he just called Simba a baboon. This primate is trippin'."

Dimitri stared at the rest of his friends, as if he was in 'The Office'. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this, am I?"

"Better not bring him to any Zoos soon," Jack advised. "He might try to throw rocks at the monkey containment."

"Okay, I take it back." Jim raised his arms, "This is going to be some pivotal revelatory shit." he started.

"Correction, I know your father."

Jim glared at the screen, pointing an accusing finger. "Okay, still trippin'" He scowled at the meditation monkey, "I hope this really is Mufasa and not some metaphorical mambo-jumbo. If not, I call subterfuge."

Jamie was starting to wonder if this whole movie marathon was a good idea. They were just starting with the first one, and Jim already seems like a lost cause. Maybe there was a reason innocent children were the target audience.

"CALLED IT," Jim growled at the television, "that's a reflection, you punk-ass monkey. Way to let a brother down." He shook his head, frowning as the screen shows cloud Mufasa. "Aaaaand now he's slipped Simba some acid. Just great."

Definitely a bad idea.

"Wow, it worked." Even Hiccup is surprised. "who'da thunk it. Hm, might wanna check for hidden projectors, though. Monkey might've pulled a Mysterio... Well, for a good cause, but still. Jim's got it right with subterfuge."

Dimitri glared at him, "Dude, spoiler alert."

"Oops." Hiccup blushed, "sorry."

Jack blinked at the screen, "What the fuck," he scowled, "He just left Nala behind and returned home? When it was her idea in the first place? Bro, that's your soulmark. Boy, is he in for some pain."

"I think this came out before the discovery of soulmarks." Hiccup patted his hand soothingly. "there, there.... What we should really be questioning is that desert. I'm still wondering how there's even an oasis in this movie."

Jamie face palmed, "Suspend your disbelief, suspend... Oh, forget it." he groaned.

🎶"He eeee's a big pig (Yup, yup). You could be a big pig too. Oy!"🎶

"In a movie filled with amazing songs," Jack snickered, "Timon's luau song's gonna be my personal favorite. Bonus points for presentation."

Astrid sighed, placing a hand on her forehead. "And they fell for it," she tossed her hand in a 'I'm so done' manner. "This is why you hire quality hit man, Scar. You can't half-ass a coup and not expect repercussions."

"Well, if he was Loki-smart," Jamie shrugged, "well, there's no Avengers to beat him up and the heroes don't win."

Jim snorted, "Simplified hero-winning's overdone." he said. "Villain redemption arcs like Zuko's should start catching on."

"So, you have no cable for Disney," Dimitri started, "but you know ATLA?"

Jim shrugged, "A therapist was a fan," he explained, "and she thought it'd help with my father abandonment issues. Confirmed: It did."

"I killed Mufasa..."

Hiccup face palmed, and groaned as if he was in real agony. "Aaaagh, typical villain behavior." he groused, "shut your damn Zebra-holes, and finish the job for once, you idiots never learn."

"Chat shit, get banged, Scar." Dimitri snickered, "Chat shit, get banged."

Jim stuffs a pillow at him once more, "Stop it with the innuendos!" he sighed, as he stared at screen. He raised a brow, "Amidst this all-out melee, meth-monkey is doing some serious damage. How, I do not know."

"Well, guess he's been hiding his pizzaz all along."

Simba and Scar finally battle it out

"NOOOOOOO!"

"YEEEEEEEEES!"

Jack cheered, "SIMBA WINS." he grinned, "And the hyenas have also found a temporary solution to their food shortage. Win-win."

"This was a kid's movie..." Jim narrowed his eyes at the screen, "and they heavily implied Scar getting gang-devoured."

Jamie snorted, and snickered. "You should see the one when the villain got hanged from the treetops."

"WHAT!"

"Remember who you are..."

"Feel like 'The Eye of the Tiger' would be a proper song for this moment," Jack mused, before pausing in thought, "wait, wouldn't that be 'Eye of the Lion', then?"

Hiccup laughed, shaking his head. "And just like that, the land is glorious again. No mention of rehabilitation process with might have included replanting trees, and attracting livestock with lucrative real estate prices." he mused.

"Let's just hope this heralds a decline in the merciless killings of animated Zebras." Jim snorted, "still unsure as to how meth-monkey hasn't managed to drop a cub off the cliff yet."

Jamie shook his head, as he went back to Netflix's home screen, and grinned towards his friends, "Now, as payback for effectively ruining my childhood, here's a little piece of info to mindblow you guys: The Lion King is basically Hamlet but with lions, and a happy ending."

"WHAT!"

"Ohmygod!" Jack balked, "IT IS! IT SO IS!"

Hiccup frowned, shaking his head. "I can't believe I didn't see it," he frowned. "And I fucking love Hamlet. I feel like I've let Shakespeare down."

"Baboon man should've made like Yorick and turned into a skeleton head..." Jim snorted, "Wait, was that why they made Scar hold that skull in a certain way?"

Dimitri rolled his eyes, "And here I thought we moved past the whole Rafiki antagonized drama."

Jamie laughed outloud, clutching his stomach. "Just wait till you see the Romeo and Juliet sequel."

"Can we get a movie with more..." Astrid scrunched up her nose, "... humans please?"

#Rise of the Guardians #How to train your Dragon #Jack Frost #Hiccup Haddock #Astrid Hofferson #Jamie Bennett #Anastasia #Treasure Planet #Dimitri #Jim Hawkins

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dolanrings · 4 years ago

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ELECTRIC LOVE ll g.d.

summary: Elena Cordova always thought she had her life figured out. The plan was this - marry her high school sweetheart, work her dream job as an art teacher, two kids, and live in a beautiful home sized just right for her family. Although the high school sweetheart doesn't work out, maybe her tutor, Grayson Dolan, does.

A/N: hi this is my first fic 🥺 im new 👉🏽👈🏽+ creds to owner for the gif

Elena Cordova always thought she had her life figured out. The plan was this - marry her high school sweetheart, work her dream job as an art teacher, two kids, and live in a beautiful home sized just right for her family. But at the moment, it didn’t seem like the high school sweetheart part of the plan was working out so well.

It was the second to last week of high school and a ceremony for scholarship recipients was being hosted in the auditorium of the school. One of her family’s proudest moments was seeing Elena go onstage and win three scholarships for merits and her art. The night felt almost perfect, the one fault being Adam, her boyfriend, being a no show.

Trying not to let it bother her too much, she ran offstage to her family once the ceremony was over, being met with an abundance of flowers and balloons from her parents alone.

“I am so proud of you!” Gabriela, her mother, told her as she hugged her tight and kissed her temple. She accepted the love openly before moving on to her dad, Eduardo, who shoved more flowers her way, making her laugh.

“Congratulations sweetheart, you are officially smart enough for this family,” he teased, smiling brightly and looking like the epitome of a proud dad.

“Oh, ha, ha, you’re absolutely hilarious!” She rolled her eyes and accepted the bouquet. “And thank you for these, I hope they didn’t cost too much.”

“Can this one even go one night without spending basically hundreds on her kids?” he asked, not-so-subtly pointing to Gabriela. She playfully shoved his shoulder and he laughed, but Elena nodded in agreement anyway.

“Good point.”

Elena found herself being basically tackled as a familiar voice told her, “Congratulations, you’re rich!” When that person let her go, she looked to find that it was her best friend, Madeline, smiling at her like a goon.

“I almost died from that, if I die, I can’t be rich so be gentle with me,” she joked, and Maddy rolled her eyes before going in for a proper hug.

“Shut up, I love you,” Maddy told her before letting her go and looking at her. “No one is out here doing it like you, you’re such a baddie.”

In that moment, she felt a hand at the small of her back, which startled her at first until she looked to see it was none other than Adam. In an instant, the whole vibe changed, and her smile fell to a stony look rather than feeling happy to see him.

“She really is a baddie, huh?” he asked, a hint of teasing in his voice before pressing a kiss to her cheek. “My baddie.”

“It’s ugly when you say it, Adam,” Maddy deadpanned. “I hope you choke.”

“Woah, I just got here, what is with the hostility?”

“Because I hate you.”

“Aw, I love you too, Mads.”

Elena’s brother, Brandon, and her sister, Lyla, approached them then, most likely to check on what’s happening.

“Adam, dude, surprised you actually made it tonight, didn’t think we’d see you,” Brandon says to him.

“Yeah, you kinda missed the whole thing,” Lyla adds, nodding in agreement.

“I had work, I’m sorry guys,” he told them with a shrug, and Elena looked at him again, confused.

“I thought you took off for me tonight…”

“I meant to. I did, I just...I get busy, El, I must’ve forgot.”

Elena hums in acknowledgement before looking at her siblings and Maddy and grabbing Adam’s hand. “I need a minute with Adam,” she told them before dragging him along outside the building.

“What were you really doing?” she questions once they’re alone. She crosses her arms and looks at him expectantly.

“I told you, I was working!”

“Even after I asked you this morning if you were coming and you said yes?”

“I was busy this morning, I don’t even remember you asking me. I might’ve just glanced and said yes without actually thinking about it, baby, I’m sorry.”

“Adam! You fucking knew how important this was to me! For once I asked you to put me first and what do you do? You just fucking go to work and forget about me! I get put on the backburner like usual!”

“Elena, I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I want you to give me what I give you! When you have your stupid fucking games or anything else that you feel like is important, I always show up for you! But when it’s for me, it always just seems to slip your mind or something else always has to come up! Why is that, Adam, why?”

“I’m trying, Elena! But I have a life and things that matter more to me than a stupid scholarship ceremony!”

Elena huffed a breath, a little taken aback at him saying it was stupid. He seemed to know how that came out, because he sighed and started to say something.

“Stupid?”

“I didn’t mean-”

“No, I think you did.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the way I wanna spend my fucking night, Elena! Seeing that everyone’s futures are kind of being handed to them, including my own fucking girlfriend, when I can’t even get a single fucking break in life!”

“You want a break in life, Adam?”

“You know what? Yeah, I do. And I would like a break from your constant nagging about me not fitting in that dumb ass dream of yours. It’s a fucking dream for a reason, El.”

“Well, here’s your break, sweetheart. We’re done,” she scoffs, starting to walk away from him.

“Yeah, right. Get back here.” He tried to reach for her, but she doesn’t let him even touch her before turning to look at him.

“Yeah right? Adam, I am seriously done with this! I cannot and I will not continue to put time and energy into this relationship when you can’t even show up to a ‘stupid ceremony’ for a few hours when it comes to me! You think a future is being handed to people here? No, people worked hard, and want more for themselves, unlike you. You could be so successful, Adam, even maybe more than you think I am, but you don’t want to do anything! So I am not going to give you my all when you don’t want anything but to sit around and be a victim to everything, even me.”

And on that note, she walked away from him for real, not even giving him a chance to respond.

When she met with her family after so they could head home, she was quieter than usual. Her family talked around her about things like what they wanted for dinner or joking about what some people were wearing to the ceremony. Once they were home, Gabriela pulled Elena aside to ask her what was wrong, knowing that her silence was very odd. Elena just started crying in lieu of an actual response at first, and her mom hugged her tightly to comfort her.

“I just broke up with Adam,” she told her, pulling away just a little to talk, “and he didn’t even really care. But I love him, and I wish he cared and appreciated me so much more.” She went back to hugging her mom and Gabriela pet her hair as Eddy watched from a short distance.

He hasn’t seen her like this for so long, not since she was a child, so seeing her this upset was very out of the ordinary. He tried to usher everyone inside, but Brandon and Lyla just wanted to comfort her too, joining in on the hug. Eddy just joined them as well, deciding she needed this more than a moment to cry.

“This was supposed to be a happy night with good memories,” she says, sniffling, “I can’t believe that asshole ruined it.”

“Hey, mija, calm down, it’s alright. Plus, you’re gonna give yourself wrinkles with all this upset.”

“Dad!”

“Okay, okay, but can we at least go inside to talk?” Eddy asks, and this time everyone agrees and heads inside to their living room. There, Elena explains everything that happened with Adam outside with her parents sitting beside her and her siblings listening attentively.

“El, my love,” her dad started telling her, “I know you thought you had a perfect life all planned out, but you know what? Life sometimes just doesn’t work out. And that has to be okay when it doesn’t. You’re brilliant, you have such good things in life, and you will one day find someone who is ready to give you what you want and more.”

“I wanted that with Adam, dad.”

“Fuck Adam,” Brandon scoffed, and Gabriela gave him a look.

“Brandon,” she said, her voice letting everyone know it was his one and final warning.

“No, he’s right though,” Lyla spoke up, “literally fuck Adam. Right now, the focus isn’t boys and dating anyway, you need to worry about yourself first and live for you first.”

“Easy to say when the first person you guys found was the one for you, mom, and dad,” she countered, frustration evident in her tone.

“Hey, at least you got me in your same boat,” Brandon reassures. Lyla scoffed, making him look at her with a furrowed brow. “What?”

“No offense, Brandon, you know I love you, but you also need to-”

“Mmh mmh,” he started, “this is just not about me, let’s keep the focus on Elena.”

“You know what, maybe you’re right Lyla,” Elena decided. “I’m gonna be going into my first year of college and pursue the one thing I love more than anything. That really should be my focus. A nice, fresh start.”

“That’s the spirit,” Gabriela said, clapping and standing up, starting to make her way to the kitchen. “Let’s celebrate with dinner! And a movie, someone pick something!”

Lyla got up and followed her mom to the kitchen to grab utensils to set up the dinner table while Brandon and Eddy both started to fight for the remote.

In the time following this, her fresh start really did begin, starting with spending a good month of her summer in Puerto Rico with her family and Maddy following graduation. There, they visited beaches, went to nightclubs, and visited a lot of her family. Following that, they got back home to New Jersey, and Elena went right back out to Maddy’s beach house, spending lots of time taking pictures and visiting the boardwalk.

As fun as her summer was, she shifted gears when the time came down to it, and it was truly a rough start when making the transition from high school to college. She had a lot on her mind and lots of stuff to juggle, plus she still found herself thinking of Adam and their downfall. Breaking up with him was something she definitely needed to do, but it didn’t make it any easier to just forget about him. On top of that, she had a job in the library that she really needed, and found useful since she was able to do some coursework on shift if it was slow enough. It was a rough start, indeed, but once she really got the hang of it and made some friends, she was able to finish off strong and make for a decent freshman year.

Her first semester of sophomore year is the one that she was in for a treat with. It was Monday morning and she was a couple minutes early to her 10:50 Calculus class in order to get a good seat. The professor promptly started at 10:50, even though a few people were still piling in. One guy came in later than the rest by about eight minutes. As if that wasn’t enough for him to have Elena’s attention, he had lengthy hair that fell just past his ears and he was wearing grey sweats paired with a plain blue tee. Elena had to shake it off though, reminding herself that her focus was her career and not boys.

The professor ended class a little early, which Elena appreciated since she had a shift at noon and this class was cutting close to that. In her rush to leave, she didn’t notice that she was going to run into someone, and that someone knocked the book out of her hands.

“Oh fuck, I’m really sorry about that,” he said, picking up the book and handing it to Elena. He held onto it just a second too long while looking at her, distracted by the fact that she was actually very pretty.

“It’s fine,” she rushed out, brushing hair behind her ear and taking the book back. “Thanks for picking it up.”

He didn’t even get to say anything in response before she was rushing out of the classroom and making her way to the library. On her way there, she texted Maddy and Brandon in their group chat.

elena: omg i just bumped into the hottest guy in the whole entire world ???

elena: adam who??

brandon: omfg el not this, please

maddy: be honest - scale of one to ten, how hot???

elena: eleven !!!

maddy: sis. get him.

brandon: no !!! no, do not get ANYTHING you don’t need this rn

elena: but brandon he’s literally an ELEVEN if not a twelve

brandon: i am so over this gc ! when are we ever gonna talk about intellectual things??

elena: never bc you also come to us to talk about cute boys soooo

brandon: excuse you i would never

elena: ANYWAY he is the loml

maddy: YES !! FUCK ADAM FR SIS MOVE ON GET THE ELEVEN-TWELVE GUY !!!

Elena just laughed and put her phone away to clock in for what she already knows will be a very uneventful shift. It’s the first day back and she didn’t even have much to do class wise, since Calc was her first and only class for today. She decided to just sit and look over her syllabus all the way through while watching out for anyone who might come in and check out textbooks and other stuff for first class homework.

While Elena was working, Plain Blue was still in the classroom, trying to remember what he was trying to do before the collision. His brain was caught in that moment, though, wondering where she was off to so quickly.

The sound of their professor shuffling papers suddenly pulled him from his thoughts and reminded him he needed the syllabus.

“Hi,” he greeted, and the professor looked up at him.

“Ah, yes. You’re the late one.”

“Actually, I’m Grayson, but late one works too. I actually need a copy of the syllabus, being that I was late.”

“And what was more important than being on time for my class?” the professor asked. He wasn’t actually upset, but Grayson didn’t catch onto that, since he was a bit stressed by the situation.

“I was in a different class, I kinda messed up my schedule and this one conflicted with a gen ed I need too, so I was trying to fix it before school started, but the freakin’ registrar—”

The professor stopped him with a simple raise of his hand before pulling out a syllabus and handing it to Grayson. He sighed and took it, relieved that this professor wasn’t some kind of asshole.

“It was a joke, kid, I get it. Life happens. Sorry about your rough start today.”

“Thank you,” Grayson said, glancing at the time. “Fuck, I’m sorry sir, I have another class that I’m now running late to.” Before the professor could even say anything else, he was rushing out of the room, shooting a text to his twin brother, Ethan, about his horrible day.

grayson: bro im having the worst ducking day in my entire ducking life

grayson: FUCKING* FUCK

ethan: u need to relax

grayson: i was late to my second class and now i am late to my third why did i make my schedule back to back

He hit send on that text and entered the library, taking a quick glance at the front desk and seeing the girl he bumped into earlier. He then typed out another message to his brother while making his way towards her.

grayson: now i am about to be more late :)

About halfway through her shift, a familiar face approached the front desk and smiled at her before he started talking.

“Hey, I saw you in math class this morning,” he informed, leaning against the counter. She sat up and eyed him curiously.

“Yeah, and you’re the klutz who knocked the book out of my hands.”

“I said sorry, no?” Elena shrugged and he just continued talking. “That very same book is why I’m here actually. I was wondering if I could cop pictures of your textbook for the homeworks.”

“Oh, so I don’t even know you by name or anything, and I’m just supposed to let you take pictures of my book because you...asked nicely?”

“I-I’m Grayson, if that helps with the name part,” he told her, standing up straight and holding his hand out for her to shake. Her eyes flickered between his hand and his face for a bit before she decided to just shake his hand anyway.

“Elena,” she said simply. “Let’s say I do let you take pictures of my textbook, Grayson. What do I get out of it?” she asked him, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

“A very good friend,” he says with a smile, also resting his chin in the palm of his hand. In her mind, it was so very endearing and she wanted to smile very badly, but externally she made sure to remain unimpressed.

“Are you good at math?” she asked, and he nodded once.

“I’d say so.”

“In exchange for the textbook pictures, how about you help me figure all this stuff out so I can pass.”

Grayson smiles more and pulls out his phone, unlocking it before holding it out for her to take. “How about you give me your number and we can try to work something out?’

Internally, she was really shook up by the fact that this really hot guy wanted her number. Externally, she remained calm and took his phone, putting her number in it.

#grayson dolan #dolan twins #grayson dolan fan fic #grayson dolan au #college au #hehe im scared #e.l.1

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cirrius-akiyo · 5 years ago

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UNPACK THE BAGGAGE

-Parallel to Hold On (Let's Go Home) [Buck's POV]-

Buck has been feeling a bit under the weather for quite some time now. It has started with small throbbing headaches, which he quickly dismiss as fatigue or stress. Then come the sudden spells of dizziness that had caused dark spots to dance behind his eyes. To which he blames his lack of sleep.

He has not bother to tell his husband nor to consult Chimney or Hen because of the gap between the episodes of dizziness or getting light-headed were quite big. It's not like he has a constant throbbing pain to the point he's unable to function, so he doesn't really dwell on that matter.

Then one night came the nose bleeds after he had finished putting Chris to bed. Eddie was still on a shift after switching with Gary in order for one of them to be able to attend the parents-teachers meeting and Eddie had insisted to go this time. Remembering that one time Bobby got it too after the radioactive exposure scare, Buck shoves down his panic and worries into the imaginary bin. At least this time he is sure that he was not exposed to any killer rays.

After cleaning himself, he prepares to go to bed and slipped under the cover. His hand wanders towards the cold empty space beside him. Being by himself in the silence of the night, it is easy for his mind to shift to the last scene of the previous night.

They both had gone to bed angry. In all honesty, Buck doesn't really remember why they were fighting but he knows it was about something trivial. Something mundane on house chores, but he was tired and he snapped at Eddie.

The next morning he has said his apologies and Eddie had kissed him goodbye before leaving for work.

"I'm in my bed

And you're not here

And there's no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands

Forget what I said

It's not what I meant

And I can't take it back

I can't unpack the baggage you left"

///

It is the night of the parents-teachers meeting and Eddie has left a while ago after finishing his 12 hours shift, leaving Buck to complete the rest of his 24 hours. Chris doesn't need to attend the meeting so he's at Abuela's, most likely in food coma now.

Once in a while, the unwelcome ache come back niggling at the base of his skull but Buck doesn't let them bothers him. He has learnt to live with them for a while. He really doesn't want any unwanted attention on him and be the man that has too many baggages, the firehouse doesn't need to divert their attention to a firefighter who simply has recurring headaches.

What is he really looking forward to right now is to go back home and cuddle with his husband, preferably while hearing the praises the teachers must have showers their son with.

Thinking about his family somehow able to chase the pain away to the point it is unnoticeable.

He simply smiles to the thought of his little family and his smile just get wider when Hen throws him a knowing look.

Their relationship is not without hiccup, but they've got through it all together. They both believe in healthy communication and no-sad-no-bad-secret-rule. Little did he know his belief is about to be tested.

"What am I now?

What am I now?

What if I'm someone I don't want around?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'"

///

"I kissed Ana."

Not the three words Eddie usually says to him before bed.

At Eddie's thundering confession, Buck can feel his heart break, but he also literally can hear his mind cracked. Like his whole body is about to pop out of his skin.

Buck tries to find the logical reasoning for this confession and alcohol is usually to be blamed.

Eddie then has refuted on the possibility of getting drunk during a parent-teacher meeting and Buck doesn't know what to do about that. Did Eddie kissed Ana because Buck snapped at him the night before? Did he fucked up so bad? Did he do anything that has pushed Eddie away? His brain immediately went into overdrive and so he froze eventhough he can hear the strings of apologies that fell out if Eddie's mouth.

Then come the tears.

"What if I'm down?

What if I'm out?

What if I'm someone you won't talk about?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'"

///

That night Eddie had held him while whispering strings of apologies into his ears, swaddles him with comforting words. But despite the lightness of Eddie's words towards him, Buck feels like the weight of the world is crushing him down. He feels like the exhaustion and the fatigues of the past few weeks are squeezing him dry. He's frustrated and tired and the tears doesn't seem stop any time soon. After baring his soul out, he finally succumbs to sleep, seeking momentarily solitude from bitter reality.

His sleep was not a peaceful one. Once in a while he'll wake up to either nightmare or sudden panic washed over him. He had thought of leaving to sleep in Chris' bedroom, but Eddie has keep him tight in his embrace. Dull ache keep pulsating in his head and so he nuzzles himself deeper into Eddie's hold. His husband's smell always able to keep him grounded and for a moment he believes in his wishful thinking that everything will work out later.

"You said you cared

And you missed me, too

And I'm well aware I write too many songs about you

And the coffee's out

At the Beachwood Café

And it kills me 'cause I know we've run out of things we can say"

///

Buck woke up that morning to warm kisses peppered on his neck and jaw. He still feel sluggish and not well rested but to see Eddie's warm brown eyes full of guilt and sadness just tug his heart in the wrong way. It is easier for him to remain angry at his husband but with their history, he knows anger doesn't do any good to either of them. So he reciprocate when Eddie's lips touch his, welcoming the warm feeling while trying to shove the thought that this lips had been on another woman last night.

Initially he was hopeful for a busy day that will give enough distraction to him, but now he is thankful for the minor calls that came in as his head is literally pounding him to the ground.

They had start their morning routine as per usual but Buck had noticed how Eddie has been working hard to give him more attention and care. Not that Buck is complaining but with Eddie plastered to his side, it is getting harder to hide the needling pain of the headaches from his husband.

They were doing the inventory when a sharp pain blossom in his head that caused him to falter in his step. Worry immediately etched on Eddie's face as his husband massage the stiff muscle between his neck and shoulder.

"Are you okay, Evan?" Eddie asked.

Buck really hates to cause unnecessary worry to Eddie and so he grit his teeth trying to ignore the pain. "I will be." Buck replied with the most steady voice he could muster.

But Buck did not get better. Every passing moment is an agony but he wills himself to keep going, effectively trying to avoid to be in close vicinity with Chim or Hen.

But then he found himself halfway into the toilet bowl vomiting the little food that he just ate with Eddie a constant present on his side providing silent support.

He feels awful. The pain. The nausea. The heartbreak. The frustration. The exhaustion.

Is he being exhausting right now?

Will Eddie ran away to kiss Ana again now that his mouth full of stomach acid. He's not actually kissable right now.

Buck chases the dark thoughts away while trying to stand up with Eddie's help. Buck's mind is really jumbled up at the moment so sue him if he thinks Eddie is going to leave him alone in his misery.

"Maybe it's migraine." Buck suggested to Eddie who is still actively acting as his support pillar. With all the symptoms he's experiencing, the possibility fits, but then as fast as he heard Eddie humming in agreement, he feels like the single string holding him splintered and sudden blackness consumed him.

"What am I now?

What am I now?

What if I'm someone I don't want around?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'

What if I'm down?

What if I'm out?

What if I'm someone you won't talk about?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'"

///

All Buck is able to feel right now is fatigue. Extreme fatigue. He can hear white noises all around him but he can't really help himself to care. He feels the fog of unconsciousness slowly dragging him under but as soon as he let the darkness embraces him, stabbing pain prevented him from giving into total sleep.

He feels like he's trapped in between worlds and he hates the idea and the feeling of it. Buck wanted to stay in the world that have Eddie and Chris in it but right now he's encapsulated in a world clustered with pain and agony. Colours keep bursting behind his closed eyelids as waves of nausea hitting him.

He can't help but to let his mind runs the image of Ana substituting Buck in their house. Ana kissing Eddie goodbye. Ana making pancakes with chocolate chips for Chris. Ana on Buck's side of the bed. Ana celebrating Christmas and Halloween with the 118. Ana attending the parent-teacher meeting with Eddie. Ana putting Chris to bed. Maybe later on Ana will give Eddie another child. Maybe a girl so they'll have a pair. Buck had thought of adopting another baby with Eddie but they haven't really discuss it seriously, and now Buck is about to lose his chance.

Pictures of Eddie and Chris with Ana and their faceless child slowly taking over the house, replacing any trace of Buck in it.

Where will Buck be? Who will Buck be?

"And I get the feelin' that you'll never need me again"

///

After feeling like eternity, the line of consciousness finally tugging him awake. Buck can feel a presence beside him, but he's in so much pain that tears are slipping free from the corner of his eyes.

He can feel the warm hands holding his left but he can't make out the owner but the feeling is like coming home.

But later the pain become unbearable to the point that he regrets of being awake.

The hands that are holding him suddenly gone and so as his consciousness. Buck knows no more as he slipped back into a nightmare addled sleep.

"What am I now?

What am I now?

What if you're someone I just want around?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'"

///

Clarity comes to him in stages. At one point he can hear a voice saying his name and Buck simply hums in response. That is his name, right?

Later he can hear Eddie's voice calling him, and he smiles to the thought that his husband is still beside him. At least he's not a lost cause.

When the numbness slowly fades, he can feel familiar calloused hand stroking his jaw and he leans his face into the warm palm silently pleading: please bring him home.

"What if I'm down?

What if I'm out?

What if I'm someone you won't talk about?

I'm fallin' again

I'm fallin'"

(Falling - Harry Styles)

Eddie’s POV is here: https://cirrius-akiyo.tumblr.com/post/621917028804165632/hold-on-lets-go-home-i-kissed-ana-eddie

#cirrius akiyo's bunkdump #911 fics #911 fic #911 fanfic #buck x eddie #eddie x buck #evan buckley #edmundo diaz #buck!whump #buddie fanfiction #buddie #buddie fic #rambler not writer #songfic #sickfic

28 notes · View notes

kob131 · 4 years ago

Text

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4DPZGlNP8I

I was watching MangaKamen’s video deconstructing Cvit’s Persona 5: Style Over Substance video and I...I just couldn’t watch it. Basically, Kamen’s own videos on RWBY and Cvit’s Persona 5 video are way too similar (in that both make logical fallacies just to avoid their assumptions.) So, despite covering this briefly, I’ll do it in full here.

And if MangaKamen himself sees this: You can’t keep responding to people, criticizing them for stuff that you do yourself. I literally couldn’t listen to your video on Cvit because of the hypocrisy. Stick to your own standards: people respect you more for it.

P.S. Don’t create a circlejerk in the reblogs and replies. I do not have the patience for it today.

Before I begin, I should point out a small bit of hypocrisy. In his “Cvit Doesn’t Understand Video”, he complains about an influx of videos all about going into unnecessary details about how X things suck, calling it the ‘Joseph Anderson effect.’ I bring this up because one of the videos he brings up is The Cosmonaut Variety Hour’s video on Kingdom Hearts (which is, being generous, 22 minutes.) MangaKamen’s video is, again generously, 38 minutes. And I do mean generaously because I automatically rounded up Cosmonaut’s and rounded down Kamen’s videos. I don’t think he should be complaining about that.

While you could argue he was also complaining about the title as well: A. Kamen’s first RWBY video was literally titled “Whats Wrong With RWBY?!” with a title saying “Here’s why RWBY Sucks” in big bold letters. B. His video makes fun of people who are there to disagree with his title and nothing else and C. I watched Cosmonaut’s video on Kingdom Hearts: He’s actually more positive towards Kingdom hearts 3 than Kamen is to RWBY.

This is a small microcosism of he issue with his hypocrisy: it ends up affecting the quality of other videos too.

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His first section is on ‘contrivances’ or ‘things that happen in a story that don’t make sense’. Before he even gives a true example, we run into yet another problem with Kamen. In his explanation, Kamen mocks the scene were Jaune gets hit on by the mothers of the kids he’s helping with an image of Miles Luna saying ‘Remember, NOT a self-insert!’.

Issue? The episode wasn’t written by Miles Luna, it was written by Eddy Rivas. How do I know?

The episode says so. This is especially egregious because he chews Cvit out for just typing in “Persona 5 sucks” into google and saying a certain source popped up...and yet typing in “Miles Luna Jaune Arc Self Insert” would actually bring up something that outright shows Miles is self conscious about Jaune to the point of avoiding his scenes (https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/7x3w4s/crwby_ama_w_miles_luna_kerry_shawcross_and_paula/du5dnc6/?context=3). So while Cvit may have been looking for evidence instead of thinking critically: he at least took the effort of doing a search result whereas Kamen probably made an on the spot decision with no sources whatsoever. Combine this with the fact this is not the first time he’s taken potshots at Miles and you have an effectively WORSE version of what he says Cvit did.

“But this is just a joke!” Yeah, and Sham-Amon was a joke about M. Night Shamalyan by Doug Walker. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an insult and was correct (Shamalyan was actually a reason why the Airbender movie even RESEMBLED the cartoon.) That doesn’t make this okay, especially since I know a similar ‘joke’ towards someone he’s a fan of would get you a video made on you.

Now onto one of his examples: He says it makes no sense for Robyn to be allowed to run for Atlas’ council because ‘she is stealing supplies from the government.’ Issue is: judging by the footage he’s using, he’s talking about Volume 7 Episode 5 “Sparks” where Robyn created a blockade and stopped a supply truck Qrow, Clover, Penny and Ruby were on. She never actually makes a move to steal the supplies in the episode though. While you could argue it wwas implied because she had people behind them hiding behind camoflague-

In his Cvit video, he criticized the guy for saying that we don’t know how long Futaba’s friend was abused by her parents when Cvit makes the argument that the friend was abused for over a decade, never entertaining other possibilities. You know, what he does. (P.S. Sparks is the same episode with the Jaune-Mothers ‘joke’.)

He uses this faulty and hypocritical point to jump off into how it would be a bad look for her to steal from the government even if it was for a good cause and that most government prevent people from running because of this. See, not only is this still based on a point even Kamen would argue is not enough- The context in the scene (that Mantle hates Atlas government and Robyn’s platform is based off that discontent...Huh) would show that even if she was stealing, it would HELP her image. As for the ‘governments prevent people convicted of theft for running for office’- She hasn’t stolen anything yet STILL. Also, in his Cvit video, he complains about a point where Cvit’s source edited out preceding text to make the phrasing of a certain textbox look extremely awkward. So again, hypocrisy.

Then we have...another shitty joke. A really bad one too. It’s the scene with Weiss and Winter talking the training room with the audio taken out and speech bubbles that say ‘Why are we just staring at each other?’ ‘I dunno...just to look cool?’. Not only is this blatantly not what is happening (you can tell their heads are bobbing from talking), I literally cannot take this ‘joke’ any other way than a malicious potshot at the show. It doesn’t function any other way. I’m trying to be calm and concise but this stuff really harms any benefit of doubt I can give.

His next point is-Oh god damnit, the fucking Penny frame up AGAIN. You know what is more frustrating than a shitty point? A shitty point repeated ad nauseum. Before Kamen even made this video, I had already argued every single perspective of this. There’s literally nothing new he can give?

Security? We never see how Tyrian got in and considering his immense agility and stealth: he could snuck in or hid in the warehouse.

Fanaus night vision? Not all Fanaus have night vision and most of the crowd was seen trying to rush out of the warehouse (during a scene Kamen shows no less). He also says the show alludes to Atlas being a racially biased system...even though Jacques Schnee says he pays all his workers equally (AKA he treats all his workers like shit.)

Scrolls? Again, most of the people are shown trying to run away and no one who remains is said to have brought their scrolls.

Break in the argument for a smug laugh even though all he’s done is repeat other people’s failed arguments. (Issue with either being bitch basic with your arguments or copying others? I’ll have fought the issue long before you make it.)

Ends with saying “When the lights come back on, there’s no blood on Penny’s blades!” (Cognitive bias against Atlas. Like say, calling a character a self insert over a scene that wasn’t written by the person.)

He goes onto say that this is just the latest example of contrived writing but because his points are all faulty, it doesn’t come across as contrived: it comes across as normal but Kamen is too focused on making everything look as bad as possible.

“But what about Robyn’s Semblance?!”

I dunno, why do people say that the Covington Catholic kids are still racist when we have proof otherwise? Cognitive bias is a thing. Robyn wouldn’t try testing this (even assuming she COULD since it would be logical Penny just ran off after this in fear) because it al ready confirms her own biases.

His whole temper tantrum here is all based on around pure logic...something he himself has argued against in media. This thing goes on and on and it just test my paitence and gives me more and more reason to assume Kamen isn’t just missing info, he’s indulging in willful ignorance.

Then we have him bitching about Yang and Blake telling Robyn what is going on and how it’s contrived that they would think that Robyn was on their side since she hasn’t done anything good. Issue? This is all based on KAMEN’S perspective. A perspective that, at best, is heavily biased against Robyn.

Thing is, Robyn’s thefts (which began AFTER he said they did) were to help repair the break in Mantle’s wall protecting them from the Grimm, something Team RWBY agrees with. Of course they’d assume Robyn is a good guy since she’s acting in the interests of the people, something they do as well. Robyn’s only bad when you completely ignore how James brushes over the current struggles of the people is elected to protect and serve in order for his bigger picture, a method they don’t agree with. Something the show is showing isn’t a good idea as people see him as uncaring and unfeeling to their struggles.

“But Ironwood has been helping them!”

Cool. That has nothing to do with him alienating his own allies through his paranoia, causing Yang and Blake try and make peace with Robyn themselves. There’s also the fact that the team should be opposing this. After all, it’s the same thing Ozpin did to them and they chewed him out over it. And unlike with the lying to Ironwood, there would be no hints that this hypocrisy would be intended by the showrunners. So Kamen is literally advocating for bad writing here.

This was added in post edit by the way so the man literally shoved in a point that does nothing but push the theory he is biased without ever considering what is necessary in the show. Even though he demands it from others. It’s really inconsistent. Dare I say...the standards are contrived?

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

Next is the ‘design work’ part. He’s says this is gonna be positive for a moment and it does lack his usual malice. Doesn’t mean it’s good.

He criticizes the designs of the main cast besides Ruby. He says that Blake’s design now emphasizes the color white despite supposedly being black before. Issue is that her alternate Vol.2 and Vol.4 designs also emphasized the color white and her original design has equal part black and white. Weiss’s is supposedly that her dark blue dominates her design and is too busy to be elegant. Issue is that it’s only on the jacket and it’s mostly the same color as her previous design (even having more white.) As for being elegant: I could definitely argue it goes for a military-esque elegance. And Yang is...too brown? Uh...her original outfit was dominated by being brown.

He praises Ruby’s for still having it’s red coloring but...it’s too red. Her original design was actually closer to being goth than Blake’s and was mostly black with bright red frills and her signature cloak. And her hair has drastically changed, like he complained about with Blake. He really shouldn’t be giving Ruby a pass here.

I have nothing to say about his point ‘they’re all too busy.’ I feel like any side I take will be too heavily influenced by my own feelings at this point.

He complains about the logic behind the long fabrics being easy to grab onto and says that because they justified the new outfits with ‘it’s cold’ they should listen here. Issue- Not only are these two different trains of logic but by his own arguments, he should be arguing for all of them to wear white and wear bulky armor since that’s logical as well, following his logic. He doesn’t set what the limit should be.

Honestly this whole part is just kind of fluff. A lot of nothing was said and kind of feels like it was put in just to make the argument ‘Well I said something nice about RWBY!’

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Next up is ‘consistency’. ... Oh god.

“Aura was rewritten!’ He never cites what happened here but I know this dance so well I could get paid for it. Aura has always been a thing you needed to activate, back in Volume 1 where Jaune was cut by a branch and Pyrrha said ‘why don’t you use your aura?’. The supposed inconsistency comes from WOR: Aura saying it was passive even though certain definitions and uses of passive work under these examples. He also says that people cant use their Semblances when they run out of Aura but they still do, citing that old example of Yang’s Aura flickering in her character short. Flickering, not breaking. Meaning she still has Aura.

He also adds in that point about the WOR Atlas saying that the cold of Solitas killed the Grimm. While they are depicted as freezing here, it should be noted that the Grimm have been known to evolve and adapt. Meaning they could have easily evolved to withstand the cold. Again, editing out context which he says is bad.

“Hey, Miles. Kerry. You ever gonna acknowledge what you showed in the World of Remnant again these days?”

Dunno, are you ever gonna acknowledge what you say in your own videos? Glass houses Kamen.

I also find it funny that he calls out the ‘it’s just a cartoon!’ thing out of nowhere on a tangent even as he previously blocked me over this. Apparently contrivance is okay if it can be used as a shield. And if he has a problem with this, look over your videos not even just the RWBY ones You have said harsher- deal with it.

He goes onto criticize the argument of not all Fanaus have night vision because of specific moments...with Blake and Sun, only two Fanaus. In fact, the first example has him say that Blake and Sun used their night vision to escape a White Fang meeting. ... White Fang. Fanaus. He’s trying to argue that this is a case of Blake and Sun having night vision to contrast when she apparently ‘doesn’t’ but never notices that his own argument kind of confirms what the show said.

Then we have his other example of Blake against Illa were she couldn’t see Illa. A chameleon Fanaus. With camoflague. Where lighting up the room would alter how the colors look to see her more easily. ....

This whole point was about how the show doesn’t give strict rules to the Fanaus night vision, even though other shows with more fundamental powers (as in, the thing their premise is based on) bend these rules (like MHA with so many Quirks not being related to their physiology or Jojo bending every single Stand rule) for their plot. This isn’t directly bad as he says it is and he never emphasizes why anyone should care other than the strawman of ‘STRICT RULES!’ even as his own favorites don’t follow that.

He also says there’s no repercussions for the Penny cover up since he says it was to cause a riot to attract the Grimm but the Grimm disappear and people are being arrested for their rioting in the next episode. ... The Grimm don’t invade until Episode 9. He’s talking about Episode 7. The arrest was for breaking curfew that Ironwood imposed afterwards to due the discontent from Jacques winning. Then we have the fact that Penny’s frame up leads to Robyn actually stealing supplies, which leads to Yang and Blake telling her about Amity, which leads to Ironwood’s paranoia taking over. So you know...kind of some of the biggest repercussions in the show.

I also remember he said it was to frame Penny in his contriavances section...which makes no sense if it was meant to cause a riot directly afterward. In trying to callout inconsistencies that don’t exist, he became inconsistent himself.

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Next part is “Don’t Show, Never Show”. .... How professional.

He begins by bitching at other people for misrepresenting his arguments about the Fanaus and how their oppression isn’t well shown. ... After he’s personally attacked the creators over a subject one of them is innocent and self conscious of and will mock that person for mocking his critics. Classy.

“Jacques is Orange Man bad stand-in-”

A. He never mentions anything about securing Atlas’ borders and in fact wants to OPEN them.

B. He’s never talked about making Atlas great or appealing to any sort of false patriotism.

C. He opposes the military whereas Trump supports them.

D. He has no slogans for his campaign, especially none like Trump’s/

E. He isn’t colluding with foreign powers aside from a generic bad guy orgnazation with no connections to the countries Trump is accused of.

F. Jacques being a slimy business man was made before Trump came into the presidency.

And G. Robyn Hill only connections to Hilarily Clinton is a gender and half a name (a name that is actually rather common in real life). In fact, considering her position is all about distrust in the government and appealing to the common man- She’s a closer stand in for TRUMP than Hilarlily.

Again, argument’s been made a thousand times, beaten it a thousand times.

His overall point is that Jacques is said to be a terrible parent but not shown, using the line from “This Life is Mine” ( Amazing how you conquered me, Chained me in servility) before going on to say that he ‘let her go to a different school’ (he was forced to), ‘Do whatever she wants so long as it doesn’t affect his business and reputation’ (contradicted by cutting her off, trying to limit her actions because of her ignoring his calls even though that does not affect his business or reputation), ‘spending his money at Beacon until she ignores his calls’ (finical abuse 101) and ‘she embarrassed him at a party by assaulting one of the guests.’

... The woman was outright mocking the people she knew, the ‘assault’ was an accidental summon, Jacques was trying to prevent her from just getting away from him, Jacques pressured her into singing for him despite her discomfort and never once tries to talk to his daughter like a person or calm her down, instead trying to silence her. All of THIS without getting his physical intimidation of grabbing her and slapping her, which is what Kamen strawmans the response being. Also ignoring what he did AFTER the slap, effectively trapping her in her room and spreading the idea she was unstable to save his image.

No amount of money matters here, ignoring once again that he tried withholding it once she acted outside what he wanted. That is the ‘chains of servility’ and I know you wouldn’t argue this outside RWBY. You’d be calling this ignorant beyond acception, Kamen.

“The worst examples of Jacques’ abuse happen outside the-”

Jacques’ worst abuse was being trapped in her own room for calling out the callousness of people smack talking a tragedy she went through. This is effectively mocking a war in front of a veteran then locking them in the basement while telling everyone they’re coocoo. That is in the show, stop trying to blame other materials THAT DO NOT EXIST just to appeal to a common compliant (about supplemental materials in RWBY).

“Well Winter abuses Weiss!”

So let me get this straight. A small smack on the back of the head before asking about her personal life to show she cares about Weiss (another example of cutting context) is at all comparable to abuse of parental power, controlling Weiss like a puppet and locking her up? What was your definition of contrivance and consistency again?

“Can I go off on a tangent?”

No. You have not earned that right. You have far exceeded any patience I should have given you. The fact I am STILL HERE is too much and I should just throw the rest of the video in that garbage dumb your delusion of the writing is. But I will STILL give you chance.

P.S. You use HBomberguy as an example? Even though one of the videos you chewed out in your Persona video (’Steven Universe is Garbage and Here’s Why’) is BASED OFF his work? So what? His hours long shit talking is okay? And no, this is not

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His next segment is titled ... “Okay What Is This Shit I’m Actually Cratching My Head I’m So Dumbfounded And Confused AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

... You misspelled “Scratching”.

He says the Grimm Attack after Robyn’s failed election was handled off screen. That never existed and the Grimm attacked THREE EPISODE LATER and is handled on screen.

He says that Jacques being arrested makes no sense because Watts can control technology and should have used it disable the security cameras in the Schnee Manor. As he outright says, Willow hid those cameras and Watts HACKS technology and cannot hack what he DOES NOT KNOW EXISTS. It’s outright said BY THE SHOW and SHOWN that he cannot just magically control technology.

He also questions how Willow got those cameras in there, ignoring that Jacques DOES NOT HAVE OMNISCENCE. Why she did when she SAID it was to make sure he didn’t abuse her kids. When doesn’t fucking matter. It’s all pendantic bullcrap. You can apply this to any situation in media and I know Kamen would bitch about the show’s pacing if they did this because it would be boring as fuck.

He says that there was no foreshadowing that Willow set these cameras up which I would like to give...if not for the rest of his video which illustrates to me he would have made this point with or without foreshadowing.

“How come Robyn isn’t being arrested because she stole supplies?!”

A. Because you keep inferring she stole supplies BEFORE the election, I’ll have to assume it’s the same here and say SHE DIDN’T.

B. If you aren’t and have changed to saying AFTER the election: The show SHOWS YOU that they’ve been trying to arrest her. She’s been EVADING them.

C. If it’s at Jacques’ house: Remember what you said about image? Wanna guess how damaged Ol Jimmy’s image will be if he arrests his biggest critic while under suspicion of rigging the election against her AND being questioned for supposed abuse of power?

D. Gee, not like the heating system in an artic climate shut down, Jacques just got exposed for helping a KNOWN CRIMINAL TOO, The Grimm actually invade, they have to save all the people, things collapse between RWBY and Ironwood and a fuckton of other things of higher priority than one woman stealing supplies to fix something IRONWOOD HIMSELF SHOULD BE FIXING.

“Hur dur, Salem generic’

Says the Jojo and Yugioh fan. Say, how did your precious VRAINS turn out again hm?

“HEY, WHY NO RUBY TELL IRONWOOD AND TAKE RESPONBILITY?!”

Maybe because there’s a bunch of soulless abominations currently running amok in a city full of innocents so she should take responsibility as an official Huntress and do her damn job while the comparatively combat inept Oscar handle the non combat situation. Or did you want contrivance to work in your favor even though you’ve been proven to be a biased liar who will betray everything he stands in order to make a shit point about a flawed show he couldn’t criticize with a fucking guide on it?

“Why not have Ruby stand behind and say ‘I’ll catch up with you later’?-”

Because you’ll cut context and make her look irresponsible. Your suggestions mean NOTHING when you have proven that you have no honesty on the subject and will flip flop to suit yourself.

Also I love how you mock Mediaocrity4 for ‘treating his opposition as idiots’ as your fucking video STARTED and is littered with you doing JUST THAT. Fuck, I bet you’ll do JUST THAT with this post.

“Oh look at this character who has been shown as overly emotional, rash and prone to not thinking when mad act in line with her character how dumb!”

Gee, like say...., A shut in otaku making constant video game and anime references in, let’s say, a JRPG filled with these references?

Huh, guess you agree more with Cvit than you say.

“Dur, fistcuffs mean Jojo!”

Oh wait, Fist of the North Star did it first. And it’s a stable in most fighting anime. But hey, who cares in Kamen shanks Jojo in the back if it means lashing out against RWBY amirite?

“It’s like the context of the fights-”

Where the Ace Ops against RWBY are highly emotional, having felt betrayed by people they though as comrades and acting individually instead as duos or even as a team while all being people with shown emotional issues failing to defeat a far calmer and more developed team that have been working with them and are aware of their flaws?

Or that Clover tried to blindly follow Ironwood’s orders just as Qrow did in the past with Ozpin as the two characters heavily mirror each other, Qrow tried to fight Tyrian at first even as Clover attacked him and never actually helped Tyrian (in facting ATTACKING HIM at one point) after Clover tried arresting him in front of Robyn, someone known to do rash things when it comes to Ironwood?

I’m so glad you decided to FOR ONCE IN THIS ENTIRE, NEARLY FOURTY MINUTE VIDEO actually pay attention to the show and not the memes of the people who agree with you.

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“Conclusion”

‘Like I said in the Steven Universe Movie, I don’t let the fanabse dictate my opinion on something-’

Which is why there wasn’t a single original viewpoint, perspective, criticism, wording or even ‘jokes’, all shit ripped straight from the mouths of others. It’s all shit I’ve seen before by other people. If I absorbed even more of this bullshit, I’d probably be able to see exact wordings in here too, I am THAT certain you didn’t think about this for yourself.

If you did, you would have noticed that you were repeating the exact same mistakes you constantly criticize in others. You would have seen that you were making assumptions based on your preconceived notion of ‘RWBY bad’ and not what the show itself was doing. You would have seen the vidnictive smugness you decried MatPat over. You would have seen the immense hypocrisy you called out before. You would have stuck to what you called your principles.

You have the failures of your biggest targets in this very video. The bias and brain rot of Quinton Reviews, the hack job of MatPat, the manipulativeness of Verlsify, the sheer level of bullshit of Cvit. You burned every single standard you set for others here, you did every wrong thing you screamed about, you failed in the same ways as those you profited from criticizing. Again, because I said all this THE LAST TIME and yet you got WORSE.

You mock and belittle the creators even as you give them every reason to treat you like shit because even the worst they’ve done looks justified compared to what you pulled. ‘Oh they said that people being mean is so bad!’ says the man preying on his weakness. ‘Oh he’s shit talking his critics!’ says the open liar. ‘Oh the writing was done by platypuses!’ says the man who wants to be taken seriously. ‘Oh it’s just a joke!’ Says the man who bitched out MatPat over jokes.

And I guarantee you’ll cry foul at me if you ever find this, decrying me as just a salty RWBY fanboy. And this time, I’m not accepting any excuses. You HAD your chances.

4chan trolls are more respectable than you. They have principles and stick to them. Fanboys are more respectable than you. They don’t claim to be anything else. And yes, your targets are more respectable than you. Their channels aren’t based on hypocrisy THIS deeply rooted.

I regret ever watching you because you were clearly speaking out of your ass.

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

Post-Edit:

So i edited a couple of my less explained points to get my issue across. Just saying this here so that no one accuses me of editing the source for malicious purposes.

As for why I didn’t rewrite the last two sections to remove my anger: that stays to prove a point. I had tried to stay neutral or at least calm throughout the video. But my frustrations just kept on building as you became increasingly smug and condescending, even though you called out such shit against others. I can’t even respect your arguments as arguments because considering the erratic nature of this video as well as how out of place some of them are (”Orange Man Bad”): it sounds like you just took every single compliant ever said about Volume 7 and threw it in.

You end all your videos saying ‘Examine Your Fandom’. Did you ever do that yourself?

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theyearoftheking · 5 years ago

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Book Twenty-Three: It

"Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

I’m just going to come right out and say it.

Orgy.

Pre-teen child orgy.

Weird-ass, icky, questionable judgement that I’m going to chalk up to years of drug and alcohol abuse... orgy.

Of all the strange and bizarre things Steve has written over the years, the child orgy scene in It might be the strangest one. I’ve read articles back and forth, and I know there was controversy surrounding whether or not to include it in the movie (glad cooler heads prevailed there!), but ick!!! Maybe it’s because my daughter is Beverly’s age, but ick!!!

I don’t think it belonged in the book. There were hundreds of other way the kids could have cemented their friendship, and shown adult status without sex. I mean, they already had a blood oath: what more do you need??

I know. This is such a small scene in the book, but it troubles me as a woman, a feminist, and most importantly, a mother. And as a writer, I’m also troubled that parts of it are written like a bad porn: “Something that will bring us together forever. Something that will show...that I love you all... Who’s first?”

Gag. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I loved reading It. The past and present chapters of the book flowed so fluidly, the character development was excellent, and Pennywise is terrifying. But this one part just keeps me from ever wanting to read it again. And then it had me questioning my own enjoyment of the book. Should I come down hard on this one for Steve’s tone-deaf attitude towards children having sex? Should I just ignore it and move along? Is it callus for me to enjoy the book, and still be bothered by the child orgy scene?

I think I finally settled on the last option.

Okay. We tackled the elephant in the room, now let’s move along to my half-assed review of the rest of the book.

I thought I had read It in the past, but when the book was delivered, I was shocked to see how thick it was. I was expecting a much shorter read. That was clue number one I had never read it. Clue number two was not really remembering the past and present story lines. So I’m going to assume I’m at that fragile, old age where I no longer remember every book I’ve ever read.

I have seen both of the recent movies, and thought they stayed fairly true to the book, and I liked their casting. I even imagined several movie characters as I was reading along. It was a solid book, and I flew through it in a little over a week. Not bad for normal reading standards, but a little long for Coronavirus reading standards.

Cue the Cardi... Coronavirus!

youtube

Sorry. I really love this video, and find myself yelling, “Coronavirus! Shit is real!” far too often.

So, for those of you who have been living under a rock your entire lives, It is the story of Pennywise, a murderous clown who preys on innocent children in Derry, Maine every twenty-seven years or so. Yes, he’s a clown, but he can also take the form of a spider, a werewolf, or whatever you’re most terrified of. “Glamour, he said, was the Gaelic name for the creature which was haunting Derry; other races and other cultures at other times had different words for it, but they all meant the same thing... The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind, and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of.”

So, It kills little Georgie Denbrough, and his older brother Bill lives with the guilt of Georgie’s death. Bill had been at home with the flu, but had made Georgie a paper boat he could play with outside, and race through the flooding streets. Bill feels if he had been there, Georgie might still be alive, and his parents might be far less vacant and depressed. That’s some serious guilt.

Bill and his gang of friends: Stan Uris, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon, and Ben Hanscom all band together and form The Losers Club after admitting they’ve seen It in some form or another. In addition to taking out a few psychotic child bullies in a rock fight, they also mortally wound It. They have a group orgy, and a blood oath to celebrate their victory.

The kids grow up, and all go their seperate ways until twenty-seven years later when Mike calls them all to let them know It is killing again. Stanley Uris kills himself in the bathtub, but the rest of the Losers Club all travel back to Derry to see what’s up. Richie is a California-based DJ, Eddie runs a car service and married a woman just like his crazy mother, Beverly is a famous clothing designer, Ben is a world-famous architect, Bill is an acclaimed writer, and Mike is the librarian at the Derry Public Library.

All of them have vague memories of their time in Derry, and barely remember one another. But once they get back in town, the memories and bad habits start flooding back. Eddie is back to sucking on his aspirator every few minutes (despite his asthma being psychosomatic), Richie can no longer wear contacts and is back to his dorky glasses, and Bill is back to stuttering, something he hasn’t done since childhood. Good times.

While the Loser’s Club is assembling and eating Chinese food together, Pennywise takes it upon himself to release psycho childhood bully Henry Bowers from Juniper Hill, the mental institution he’s been in for years. Sidenote... one of the meanest counselors at Juniper Hill is Koontz. Coincidence? I’m going with no...

Mike informs everyone It is back in action again, killing people, and they all made a promise to come back to Derry if It ever went on another murderous rampage. So, they head back into the sewers again to take It out once and for all. They succeed, Eddie dies, Beverly’s abusive asshole husband dies, Audra, Bill’s wife, is catatonic from the shock of the whole thing, and the entire town of Derry literally and metaphorically collapses in on itself. But on the bright side, It is dead, and there wasn’t another orgy. Huzzah!

The book is chock full of Steve tropes (chambray work shirts! multiple mentions of Shawshank prison! Happy Crappy everywhere!); and also a few mentions of past and future books. Loser’s Club member Ben Hanscom is a chunky kid, and he’s made fun of for his weight. At one point, he recants a traumatic locker room scene where kids are “fat-paddling” him. Yes, it’s as cringy as it sounds. The gym teacher finally breaks it up, and Ben describes, “...what he did was grab one of my tits in each hand and squeeze. Then he took his hands away and rubbed them on his pants like he’d touched something dirty.” This was basically the male version of Carrie: locker room torture and dirty pillows. I laughed way too hard at that. But unlike Carrie White, Ben grows up to be handsome, famous, and he gets the girl without starting anyone on fire.

Later on in the novel, Beverly is dealing with her abusive, crazy husband, Tom Rogan. After she beats the crap out of him and flees for Derry, he tries to track her down. First, he stops by her best friend’s house, and almost beats her to death before she tells him Beverly left for Derry. Tom Rogan is so evil and terrifying, I couldn’t help but wonder if his character planted a seed in Steve’s mind for Rose Madder. I saw a lot of similarities.

There were also a few Dark Tower references. The Turtle is mentioned throughout the book, and The Turtle is also known as Maturin, one of the Guardians of the Beam in the Dark Tower universe. #allthingsservethebeam

Later on, Bill is on his way to take on It and, “He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate...”

Could it be Blaine? Blaine is a pain!

There was also one Wisconsin reference, Beverly takes a flight out of Milwaukee. After several books with no Wisconsin references, it was nice seeing Steve give us the love we deserve.

Orgy aside, I really loved It (things you never think you’ll say out loud, or type for that matter). If nothing else, you have to give Steve credit for making creepy clowns a thing. At one point in the book, Steve writes, “The fears of children could often be summoned up in a single face... and if bait were needed, why, what child did not love a clown?”

Um, no children today, thanks to your sick ass!

Next up is Eyes of the Dragon, which I have never read before, and is slow going. But at least it’s short.

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 16

Total Dark Tower References: 16

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

Stay healthy and keep social distancing, my friends!

Until next time, Long Days and Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

#it #clowns #pennywise #stephen king #dean koontz #constant readers #cardi b #the eyes of the dragon #dark tower #maturin #the beam

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hellyeahheroes · 5 years ago

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Post-OMD/Slott’s unused Spidey characters: Alpha a.k.a Andrew Maguire

So there was an ask about Alpha and it was about what happened to him, and yeah, it was just as @filipfatalattractionrblog, otherwise known as the admin, said, Slott got tired of him and dumped him on someone else where they got written into obscurity. And that is like a thing Slott or the writers of Post Brand New Day did constantly. He did it with Cindy Moon, he did it with a bunch of Spider-verse characters, he did it with Yuri Watanabe, he did it with Mr. Negative, Screwball, he did it with the entirety of Parker Industries and Horizon Labs. He even did it with Superior Spider-man. The moment Brand New Day started, Spider-man was tossed around a bunch of writers where they all started trying to race to create the next MJ love interest replacement. So there are even more characters that Slott didn’t create that are very under utilized. Not to mention characters created prior to One More Day/Brand New Day didn’t have much fucking screen time during this and thus did not receive any development. So characters like Liz Allen, Phillip Chang, Betty Brant, Flash Thompson(although he got to be Agent Venom), Randy Robertson, Glory Grant, Mary Jane Watson until fans complained, and even Aunt May which made the whole One More Day deal redundant.

Old school Spider-man constantly hung out with his clique. Post One More Day Spider-man didn’t seem to have many friends outside of his Spider-man persona. And the partnerships that he did make didn’t last.

So, this is where I will go back and detail those lost characters starting with Andy because he is the most egregious. Then I speculate if they can come back, what role should they have.

I fucking hate Andrew Maguire. And apparently, I am supposed to hate him according to Slott, but I believe that is a cop out. He wanted this character to work. Regardless, Andrew Maguire serves as the Peter Parker without any of the selflessness and virtue. “So...Eddie Brock?” No, not as cool as Eddie or as well written.

And subtlety is not a thing for Slott. If you noticed, the character is named after the two Spider-man actors at the time, Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield. People say it is a tribute, I personally think he was mocking them. My opinion, but you already know that.As you can see that the origin is pretty much a This Loser Is You trope which is weird because it’s insulting for fans of Spider-man, a character that is renown for being a superhero with everyman problems, to have a character who exists to say Peter is exceptional and you are not.

Andy goes on a Field Trip to Horizon Labs and meets Peter Parker who is about to unleash his newest discovery, Parker Particles. Which by the way, feels like an accomplishment for Peter, but Slott just had to twist the knife on that and have Reed casually say that he discovered it first and decided to leave Pandora’s Box be. Fuck Reed Richards. Anyways, as expected, Parker’s experiment went to shit and Andy decides to to perform his one solo act.

And Alpha is born.

Okay well, first, Horizon had to settle with Maguire’s parents to avoid lawsuits and Any became the mascot for Horizon labs and then Alpha is born. So they do a check on his powers to see what the kid’s got.

He has the strength to lift a ton which is weaker than any Spider-man, he is bulletproof, has enhanced speed,has energy projection. So if you are following those useless ass stat charts on Marvel wiki, his chart would be...

Intelligence: 2 Normal

Strength: 4 One Ton is his max

Speed: 3 It just says enhanced speed so I am going to assume he can’t break the sound barrier

Durability 5 Bulletproof

Energy Projection: 5 Long Range single energy type blasts

Fighting Ability 2 Normal

What we have here is a powerhouse. Oh and he has a caveat. He can only use one power at a time at the moment. And he is only growing more powerful because Mr. Fantastic points out, Andy is embedded with Parker Particles which are tied to the expansion of the universe. His powers are only going to grow. So Mr. Fantastic decides to place Andy Maguire under Peter Parker’s care. Thus making Alpha Spider-man’s sidekick.

Alpha because no one else in the world has self-control without an Uncle Ben dying decides to market himself as the next best superhero. He gets marketing deal with Horizon to market their inventions, and he also becomes a pop sensation and media darling. Gets the girl that he was pawning after, Chrissy Chen, who I do like btw. I mean he is living the life, amigo.

His new girlfriend even makes him a fan page.

And this is where there is some credence to the idea that Andy was meant to be hated because the comment section tears him apart with meta commentary. He is called a poochie which is a synonym for Scrappy, a term tor fan hated characters. Which, again, what is the point of a character that we, the fans, are meant to hate? It is counter intuitive and a waste of time. I mean people like Golden Booster, Slott. I just don’t get why bother with this? Of course, Andy’s set up in his origin follows the same beats as Slott’s other creation, Cindy Moon, who he wanted to be liked and cried racism when fans hated her as well.

This is endemic to Slott’s run as a whole. He doesn’t get Spider-man. He wanted to create Iron Man instead of making Spider-man stories. And when he introduces new characters, he doesn’t properly want to build them. Like Kamala Khan had 3 issues of character development before she became a superhero. Her origin was fleshed out. Miles had 5 issues and 14 issues to have a proper origin. Andy literally has just 1 issue that can’t even be considered an origin. It is not his origin story. It is just another problem for Peter to solve and that was the problem with Cindy Moon. She wasn’t a character but a replacement to Felicia Hardy who Slott went and tarnished to begin with.

So Alpha gets annoyed with those comments and decides to prove the haters wrong. Peter has been keeping track of Alpha the entire time so he intercepts him before he does anything wrong. Spider-man takes him under his wing and makes him his side-kick.

First, no. Spider-man has turned down sidekicks from Black Cat without super powers, Ollie Osnick, Sally Avril, and a few others. Miles’ isn’t his sidekick, student, or anything. Miles is his own hero who Peter feels responsible for and he sort of hangs out with.Spider-man doesn’t do sidekicks nor would he take them on if offered. He barely does team-ups and only out of propriety and necessity. So him donning Andy as such is out of character and kind against theme.

Second, the dialogue here does not match Peter’s tone.He is too sarcastic and cavalier about things. Peter is one of the most restrained heroes in Marvel in terms of his power usage. He knows what Andy is capable of. He wouldn’t be so casual. He would be on him like white on rice. He knows the seriousness of Andy’s situation. If he teaching Andy, he would refrain from fighting unless he has to. Peter was a teacher. He should know how teenagers are because he has dealt with them. It is like....okay.

Anyways, Andy being the ambitious little scamp decides to take over and do his own thing.

Okay, this is when I kind of knew that Slott would be an okay Fantastic Four writer.And he doesn’t waste any time reminding people that he is the most powerful hero of all time.

Ben is beside himself because the little shit used his catchphrase in public, Johnny is ribbing on Spidey because he created a monster, Sue is trying to keep the peace, and Reed is annoyed because of Parker’s terrible decision of telling a teenager that he is the most powerful being in the universe.

Reed tries again, and reminds Peter that Alpha is his responsibility. He has to essentially babysit Alpha for free. Meanwhile Alpha is letting his newfound success go to his head. He decides to two-time the girl that he was pining for...or he only liked because he felt that she was the best that he can get. You see, Andy is the guy who thinks as people as material to gain. He doesn’t mind using them, but once he outgrows them, he dumps them.

It is like Slott just wants to create the biggest asshole in Spider-man. And I guess that’s okay, but again, to what end? Is Andi going to be a bad guy? No. Is he going to be a reoccurring character? No. So why bother creating him if other writers won’t bother and fans hate him?

After this, Miles Warren aka the Jackal captures Andy easily and Peter has to find the little fuck because he is ,”Peter Parker’s responsibility.” Yeah, I am tired of that too.The Jackal wants to clone Alpha and repopulate the world with his own Alpha Males. No I am not kidding, that is what he calls them. Anyways, Peter tries to stop him but not before Miles Warren congratulates him of “out mad sciencing” him and creating Alpha.

....I am already bored with this comic so I will speed it up. Jackal unleashes the clones, clones don’t have the Alpha powers because the power is not tied to Alpha’s genetics, Alpha breaks free of the harnesses and kills all of the clones, and saves himself sort of. Well not before saying even more alarming shit.

This is it. This is where he will learn, right? This is where Alpha makes a turn and become the little scamp that we hope for.

Well...can’t say that I am surprised.

Peter gets fed up and conspires to take his power away from Alpha because the kid just can’t be trusted with them anymore. He is far too dangerous and honestly, Peter was right, but he was wrong the rest of the time.

Here is the thing: Alpha should have never been given these powers and allowed to keep them in any capacity.Peter should have suggested of taking them away from the very beginning and so should’ve Reed Richards and every hero who tested Andy. And I get it, it’s a little hypocritical of a blog about teenaged superheroes to say this, but there is a difference between the teens we usually cover and characters like Alpha. Alpha is in it for the glory and fame. He never has a redeeming moment. He is never humbled and is too self-centered to be humbled.Making him the strongest teen ever without proper guidance and knowing his parents were trying to mooch off of him and didn’t give a shit how much it effected his son, and only cared because of a profit margin should have been a dead giveaway. Someone should have spoken to his therapists or teachers and figured what kind of kid Andy was. It shouldn’t have taken issues of Spider-man testing it out because it was a bad idea from the start.

Alpha continues to use his power irresponsibly until the Avengers demand that Spider-man call him in to deal with Terminus. Alpha does so as he travels from Japan to Manhattan to deal a huge blow.

So good news is that Alpha got stronger. Bad news is that Alpha took out all of the airplane controllers in the vicinity so all planes are about to crash all over the New York area. So think 9/11 except on 30 buildings or so. The Avengers go into scramble mode and try to immediately rescue the civilians which by the way was the first rule Spider-man told Alpha. Guess who isn’t trying to save any civilians?

So Alpha utterly failed this day. He made a bad situation worse and it shouldn’t have taken this to finally bench Alpha. The moment he disobeyed Peter, was the moment he should have been stripped of his power. I am being serious. But whatever, Alpha gets stripped by Spider-man.

So Alpha got powered down and is normal again.

But wait, there is more. Otto took over Peter’s body and preceded to give Andy his power back, but only a little of it this time. Andy moves to Pittsburgh, his parents divorced, and becomes the new hero of the Burgh. But he accidentally kills someone using his Alpha power, his power has been shown to be cancerous and he unknowingly gave his mom cancer and he doesn’t know it, the person he supposedly killed comes back and becomes this huge cancerous alpha powered villain named Zeta, Alpha stopped Zeta, and then another criminal blackmailed him to stop Andy from fighting crime or he will kill his whole family. And that was it for Alpha.

Can this character be redeemed?

Yes.

Honestly, Alpha was saved in his mini in my opinion. I know, I didn’t post any pictures because that mini looked like shit. Again, however, the story wasn’t bad and did redeem him a little. He should have been in Miles Morales spot when it came to Marvel’s PS4. He was more suited for it and most of Marvel’s PS4 was Slott’s Spider-man run anyways. It had Yuri, Screwball, Mr. Negative, a sympathetic Doc Ock, and shit. All of these are hallmarks of Slott’s writing.

What would I do to introduce him back to the Marvel fold?

First, Alpha isn’t Godly anymore. He is like a low rent Nova. That stat chart that you saw in the beginning is where he is at now. So as long as he stays at that level, we are good. Second, his new predicament of being blackmailed by a criminal creates an interesting scenario. I would think a criminal would love having a bad guy under his thumb. So I suspect this bad guy, Boss Jimmy Cohen might think of expanding with his brand new super pet.Let’s say Alpha becomes his own enforcer and forces him to. Alpha’s mom dies of the cancer that he accidentally gave him and becomes Zeta 2.0.

So Andy after dealing with a ton of despair decides to come back and help Boss Cohen expand his empire in New York. He starts in Brooklyn, and you know where I am going with this. Andy meets Miles, Spider-man II. I am against having Miles inherent Peter’s characters, but Andy is basically an unused character. He might as well go somewhere so why not with Miles Morales who is getting an expanding list of rogues anyways. A reluctant fallen hero would be an interesting addition.

As for Chrissy Chen, I don’t like wasting characters at all, especially one that is just off the edge of Spider-man mythos. Chrissy still goes to Midtown High. And so does Lana Baumgartner. Instead of creating another character, just have her be Lana’s confidant just like Miles has with Ganke.

And that is all folks. Now I will be doing a bit more on the forgotten characters of Post OMD Spider-man. A lot of them aren’t teens, so I will cover them on my other blog. I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading.

@ubernegro

#alpha #andrew maguire #spider-man #peter parker #dan slott #marvel #Marvel Comics #long post

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prezaki · 6 years ago

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A Thousand Second Chances - The life story of Eddie Brock

from Venom (2018) Issue # 2

I just spent a week speed-reading through every single comic appearance Eddie Brock has made in the 30 years since his creation and I fell in love with his character hard and fast. In order to process all that I’ve learned myself, I feel like I need to write down his life story with thoughts and important moments. Figured I might as well make this public since it might help out other new fans who don’t have the time and madness to dig through 30 years of comic history. Any older fans reading, feel free to correct me if I’m getting my Marvel lore wrong, I am VERY new to this and hopelessly overwhelmed.

This fully ignores ‘Venom: Dark Origin’ because it frankly just contradicts every other mention of backstory. It also thus ignores Mary Brock, the sister who was invented to justify the Nova crossover issues and who doesn’t appear outside of these two things, because she frankly doesn’t fit the rest of the lore either.

Content warning for suicide applies everywhere here, it’s a topic that comes up time and time again in Eddie’s life.

This got... long.

Eddie is born as the son of Carl and Jamie Brock. Unfortunately, Jamie passed away during Eddie’s birth, leaving his father emotionally cold towards him. The family is wealthy so Eddie is always well-provided for, but he never receives any affection. In order to win praise, Eddie studies hard (top grades) and gets into sports (beginning his lifelong passion towards muscle training), but nothing is successful. His dad did apparently make some worrisome statements though. (from: Lethal Protector, except for the panel which is from the Maximum Carnage arc)

At some point in his childhood Eddie gets into a car accident that cost Carl a lot of his fortune. Nothing is specified about this as of yet, but it looks like the current arc might go into detail. (from: Venom 2018)

Eddie gets into college and when the Watergate scandal happens, he is inspired to change his career to journalism. This places his birth year around 1950, I suppose? (from: Lethal Protector)

After college, Eddie gets a job at the Daily Globe, where he works as a successful investigative journalist.

At some point here, he meets Anne Weying and they begin a relationship. She describes him as ‘smart, witty and boyish’ (though he’d never show it in front of his father). He used to love taking her to fairs and amusement parks. The two get married. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

During his work for the daily globe he encounters a creature named Krooba. This is some weird bonus story and I only mention it because this panel is honestly hilarious. (from: Marvel Flashback series)

Then the Sin-Eater murders shake New York and Eddie interviews a source who claims to be the culprit - but just as Eddie reveals their identity, Spider-Man catches the real Sin-Eater. Eddie is disgraced as a journalist because he fell for a compulsive confessor. He loses his job with the Globe due to this incident. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

This also fully destroys his relationship with his father whom he now doesn’t have contact to anymore. Anne says he lost his boy-ish charm here and started seeming a little mad. Their marriage falls apart. (from: Lethal Protector)

To make a living, Eddie now has to write made-up stories for gossip magazines. He describes these as ‘venomous’ and that descriptor is the reason for his later pseudonym ‘Venom’. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

He starts body-building excessively during this time in hopes to relieve the tension. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Through all this he blames Spider-Man for his downfall - this is not logical, but hey, blaming others makes things easier. Eddie is a person with an astounding one-track-mind and a tendency for splitting.

Eddie can’t handle the misery of his current life and grows strongly suicidal. However, he is also a practicing catholic and struggles with the fact that suicide is considered a sin. Thus he goes to the Our Lady of Saints church to pray for forgiveness before ending his life. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

In front of the church he hesitates and is encouraged to go inside by Deadpool, who is totally oblivious to Eddie’s actual intentions. Yes, really. (from: Deadpool: Back in Black)

In the church, Eddie encounters the symbiote that Spider-Man brought back to earth as his suit and which he then subsequently rejected after finding out it is a living creature. Both Eddie and the symbiote hate Spider-Man, so they take this as basis to bond together.

Important here is that it is literally canon that Spider-Man inadvertendly taught the symbiote how to love (from: Web of Spider-Man) and that the symbiote wants to try and make their relationship with Eddie more mutual than the one with Spider-Man (from: First Kill). So take THAT as you want.

In the first day of being together with the symbiote, Eddie takes down some criminals who murdered his neighbour and establishes his vigilante killing style through it. (from: First Kill)

Eddie makes first attempts to kill Spider-Man (whose civilian identity he knows thanks to the symbiote’s memories) by pushing him in front of a train and trying to throw him off a roof. (from: Web of Spider-Man)

There’s some weird special story set in this timeframe about how he gets the advice of some veteran he interviewed on the job once to do this. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Then he attacks Spidey directly and they fight in the church.... and well, Eddie dons a priest costume for a while, just... because aesthetic. He does have a flair for the dramatic.

This is probably the appropriate time to mention that from here on Eddie is always naked. Every time you see Eddie Brock wearing clothes, it is the symbiote assuming the shape of clothes. Eddie wears underwear at best and even that is often not present.

Eddie loses this battle with Spidey and is sent to The Vault, a super high security prison. Escaping from there, he kills a guard who happens to be an influential person’s son and well, it bites him in the ass later. Important here is also that Eddie absolutely always laments it when he ‘has’ to kill innocents. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

In trying to get to Peter after this, Eddie visits Aunt May a few times pretending to be Peter’s friend. It is hilarious. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

The next attempt at besting Spider-Man is ended by Spidey pretending to accept the symbiote back, which the symbiote is actually excited about, much to Eddie’s dismay. However, the bond with Eddie is too strong for the symbiote to simply sever it and both symbiote and Eddie pass out from the strain of trying. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

This is a good time to mention that in the 2003 Spectacular Spider-Man run it is revealed that actually Eddie had terminal cancer All Along and knew he’d die without the symbiote, so part of him wanting to kill Spider-Man is a wish to eliminate host body competition and thus survive. I personally absolutely think this is an asspull that undermines a lot of the first 20 years of characterization, but eh.

Eddie goes back to The Vault and has not one but two run-ins with the Avengers when attempting to break out. Neither attempt is successful and in the end he uses the symbiote’s abilities to fake his own death in order to successfully escape.

A huge battle over who gets to kill Spider-Man happens and Styx touches Venom... the symbiote takes the brunt of this attack to protect Eddie - and thus they seemingly die for him. And this is like written in 1990. Eddie literally cries about it. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Now a normal human, Eddie is sent to the normal human prison Ryker’s Island where he is cellmates with the serial killer Cletus Kasady. Eddie works out a lot in the cell and it drives Cletus crazy - he brings that up again more than once. Big mad about the muscle gains. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Though Eddie also just plain beats Cletus up during this time because Eddie hates people who kill innocents. This might have contributed to Cletus hating his muscles. (from: Carnage 2016)

The symbiote isn’t dead and returns for Eddie! They break out! Also the symbiote literally gives birth during this process, no biggie. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Venom and Spider-Man fight again. Venom actually gets Spidey unconscious in this battle but instead of killing him then, he... kidnaps Spidey to an abandoned island to have another fight. Eddie just gotta be that extra. During this fight Spidey fakes his death and escapes. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie decides to live happily ever after with the symbiote and just stay on the island. They’re very happy together. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Sometime here, Darkhawk gets stranded on the island, fights Venom, gets spared by Venom. Life’s like that. (from: Darkhawk)

Then he meets Wolverine inside of Wolverine’s nightmare because sometimes Marvel is ???? like that ??? (from: Marvel Presents)

Eddie’d probably have happily stayed on this island forever, had the child the symbiote gave birth to not bonded to Cletus Kasady, creating Carnage. Spider-Man realizes that Eddie, knowing symbiotes, is probably a big help in fighting a symbiote-bonded killer so he reveals himself to Eddie again and gets him off the island to fight Carnage. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Once Carnage is defeated, Eddie just gets sent back to The Vault.

There is some weird episode here where Matt Murdock is his attorney and he tries to get free by pleading insanity and pretending the symbiote died. That fails of course. (from: Trial of Venom)

Then an even weirder episode happens where Venom encounters a bunch of villains and then just ends back up in jail anyway.

Which he then breaks out of and hears Spider-Man’s parents are still alive. This really gets to Eddie because in his mindset (which the symbiote only enhances - they influence each other mutually for the worse at this point) Spidey is a corrupting force and thus he needs to protect... his parents from him.... so he kidnaps the Parkers..... (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Spidey had ENOUGH of Venom at this point and tries to think of new ways to get him to stop already. Thus he contacts Anne and gets Anne to talk to Eddie. Eddie still very much loves Anne. It still takes Spidey saving Anne from falling debris and Anne’s subsequent explanation that Spidey IS saving innocents to make Eddie back off. But hey, he backs off!

And moves back to his birth city, San Francisco. Here a lot of things start happening very rapidly. Eddie encounters an underground city of social outcasts. A family member of the guard he murdered put together The Jury to kill him in retaliation. Life Foundation wants his symbiote. Spider-Man is there. Lethal Protector is a ride and I truly recommend it.

Life Foundation extracts symbiotes from Eddie’s symbiote to try and weaponize them, Spidey and Venom battle them together.

In the end, Eddie also saves the underground city from Life Foundation and moves in there as their protector, much to the joy of local resident Elizabeth who wanted him down there all along.

Then Eddie temporarily goes back to New York because Carnage is back. After getting badly beat up, Eddie comes to Spidey for help and... just goes to sleep on his couch. He changes into pajamas and all.

To stop Carnage, Spidey, Venom and the Black Cat form an alliance but Spidey remains strongly opposed to Venom’s muuuch more pragmatic view on life and death. He isn’t called lethal protector for nothing. Much moral debate is had. Maximum Carnage is a fun arc.

Then Eddie goes back home to his underground city and demonstrates his one-track mind in his solo series Funeral Pyre, where he tries very hard to help an undercover journalist trapped in a gang and still fails, creating Pyre in the process....

During some Daredevil issues, Eddie tries to steal a serum to erase Venom’s weaknesses but in the end doesn’t get it.

During some Silver Sable issues he... exists and helps her gang, I guess.

Then he appears in some Darkhawk issues where they rematch.

Back to solo-series; in The Madness, Eddie gets infected with a sentient virus, making it three people in his body. The virus is pretty crazy and assaults and frightens Eddie’s almost-girlfriend Beck, who is overall already convinced that the symbiote makes Eddie more mad. She states she can’t date him due to this and the two remain simply friends. Eddie gets rid of the virus in the end and returns it to where it came from.

The Enemy Within comes next and it’s just... goblins in San Fransico. Eddie teams up with Morbius against those goblins. Many goblins.

Then Venom fights Hulk because why not. (from: Venom vs Hulk)

Soon after, Venom appears in a few Iron Man issues because he believes Tony Stark’s business practices to be corrupt and tries to kill him for it.

In The Mace, conflict arises in the underground city and causes Mace and Venom to fight one another. Namely, people from the underground city attack others, who attack in retaliation - once Eddie learns that some of his people started this mess, he kills the offending underground city residents (and keeps it secret from Beck who asked him to spare them).

Venom then teams up with Nightwatch for a short appearance in the Nightwatch series.

During Nights of Vengeance both Elizabeth and Beck get kidnapped, inviting other characters to speculate on Eddie’s love life. Eddie states he won’t date either woman as he is too dangerous to date anyone. There’s also aliens who take over minds in this comic. That’s the actual main plot of these issues.

Now it’s time for Eddie’s next return to New York! Carlton Drake and his Life Foundation are working on something called The Arachnis Project (which is also the name of this arc) to create spider humans - hearing of this, Eddie travels to New York to get revenge against Life Foundation for the events of Lethal Protector.

The Jury has started working for Life Foundation in the meantime, though the events of these comics cause that connection to sever. However, they’re still in the same facility, so they do run into Venom there. Jury and Venom try to kill each other while Spider-Man desperately tries to stop any death on either end from happening.

Also Life Foundation gets defeated, obviously. Eddie returns to San Francisco.

Only to come back to NY shortly after due to news about the prison Carnage is held in.

Here, Eddie runs into Peter’s clone, the Scarlet Spider. In battle with him, Eddie gets separated from his symbiote and both of them get taken into custody to be studied, setting up the events of the Separation Anxiety mini-series.

Separation Anxiety marks the first time the reader ever gets to hear the symbiote’s thoughts and the majority of these thoughts are “Eddie” as the symbiote is desperate to return to him.

During this period of extended separation from the symbiote and with nobody to talk to, Eddie begins to reflect on his actions as Venom and starts second-guessing all the murders they committed. For the first time, Eddie is plagued by feelings of guilt.

Eddie gets broken out of this facility by the surviving symbiote-host-combos created by Life Foundation who seek Eddie’s help on how to communicate with their symbiotes. All of them are struggling to not get overtaken, making Eddie’s mutual relationship with the symbiote seem extraordinary.

Meanwhile the symbiote also breaks out and rushes to find Eddie, bond with him again and, in their worlds, ‘become whole, become Venom’. The symbiote does find Eddie in time to save him from Scream, one of their symbiote ‘daughters’.

But after being reuinited, Eddie tells the symbiote that he needs some time to think on his own to really figure out what of their actions was his choice and what was the symbiote’s. (the cap is from Planet of the Symbiotes which picks this back up.)

Before this storyline goes to its conclusion, Carnage briefly returns and travels over the internet, an ability which the Venom symbiote learns as well in the fight against Carnage. He returns back from San Fran to New York again for this. During this arc Eddie also makes a big mistake and almost kills an innocent man named Clive because he mistook him for being a malicious junkie. (from: Carnage Unleashed)

Then in Planet of the Symbiotes we then return to the break-up story. Eddie’s doubts about his own choices continue on strongly and get reinforced by Spider-Man to a point where Eddie rejects the symbiote. The symbiote, in emotional pain after this temporary break-up begins wailing. This wailing can be heard so far in the galaxy that it actually alerts the other symbiotes to the existence of earth, causing them to begin an invasion.

During this invasion, Eddie’s symbiote returns to him and reveals that for their species, they are considered abnormal because they seek to have a relationship with a host rather than dominate them.

The solution to the invasion is to let out an even more powerful mental scream to overwhelm the symbiotes with despair - Eddie and his symbiote fully bond again to achieve this and thus save earth. This is the arc that the movie presumably took Venom betraying his species for Eddie from.

Then during Sinner Takes All, we meet Anne again! There is a new Sin Eater around and she is being targeted - obviously, Eddie can’t let that happen and sets out to protect her. To heal her injuries, he lets the symbiote bond with her but doing so unleashes violent urges in Anne. She temporarily turns into She-Venom and murders a group of men who were attacking her. Once returning to her senses, Anne is horrified and gets away from Eddie - only to be taken hostage by an assassin who came to take revenge on Eddie for Clive, the person he almost killed during Carnage Unleashed. In the end, Clive himself calls off the manhunt on him, claiming vengeance wouldn’t make him feel any better.

Here continuity gets a little confusing because the next comic, Along Came A Spider, takes place soon after Planet of the Symbiotes and makes reference to Eddie not having talked to Anne since. This is why most continuities place Sinner Takes All before Planet of the Symbiotes, but that doesn’t quite make sense either due to the progression of Eddie’s and the symbiote’s relationship. Ah well, it is a mystery.

Anne is now under police protective custody, but the police also want her help to capture Venom. When Eddie calls, the symbiote travels over the phone-line and partially merges with Anne, which ends up also merging Eddie’s and Anne’s minds. Eddie immediately sets out to find her and retrieve her from the police.

On the way out, Venom gets into a fight with Spider-Man, which gives the police time to arrive and arrest Anne. When Anne calls Eddie from custody, she begs him not to come and bust her out, which he agrees to... but sends the symbiote through the phonelines instead, turning Anne into She-Venom once more.

Once the symbiote is back to Eddie (after some more fighting), Anne announces she wants nothing to do with him anymore because she never wants to get close to the symbiote again. She tells Eddie that only if he resists the symbiote and stops his vengeance quest, she’ll talk to him again.

Then Anne gets tangled up again anyway, as Rune frames Venom for murder and Venom has to save her once more. (from: Rune vs Venom)

Next there is a serial killer on the loose in New York! The police strongly suspect Venom to be the culprit, but it turns out to be Xenophage, eating everyone who has a symbiote inside them. (from: The Hunted)

While running from the police, Eddie temporarily assumes the identity of a skater and joins a group of skater kids under the name Rad Eddie. (from: The Hunted)

Eddie defeats the Xenophage. (still from: The Hunted)

Then comes The Hunger, one of the gayest comics from the 90s for sure. It starts out with Eddie and the symbiote holding hands at the movies. But Eddie once again has reason to suspect that the symbiote is making him more violent.

When Venom winds up actually eating someone’s brain instead of just using this threat as a catchphrase, Eddie is horrified. Seeing that Eddie will refuse any further brain-eating, the symbiote leaves Eddie. Eddie gets captured by Dr. Paine and experimented on.

Eddie finds out that the symbiote needs a chemical that is in brains but can also be supplied in other ways. Before he and the symbiote can fully bond again, Dr. Paine kidnaps the symbiote to also experiment on.

Of course, Eddie saves the symbiote and also finds out that chocolate nourishes his symbiote just as well, so he buys them heartshaped chocolate. (all from: The Hunger)

Then Venom gets pulled into some other dimension along with Wolverine, Scream and the skater kids from before. (from: Tooth and Claw!)

Next, Eddie gets finally captured by the police after all and put on trial. Matt Murdock takes over his defense again. When the prosecution calls Carnage for a witness, Carnage breaks loose and Venom, Daredevil and Spidey have to subdue him. In the end, no verdict ever comes as Eddie is secretly recruited by the Overreach Committee. (from: Venom on Trial)

Eddie is pretty delighted with his new James Bond gig. In License to Kill, we get to see him on a mission in great detail. Important here is that the Committee planted a bomb in Eddie’s chest as an emergency insurance to keep him in check.

Venom’s next mission is to protect a formerly corrupt government leader at a speech in a church. For this, Eddie goes undercover as a nun but instead of using the symbiote’s full shapeshifting abilities, he just takes his normal looks, puts on a nun costume and calls himself Sister Edwina. Iconic. (from: Sign of the Boss)

The next mission is... a pretty big misunderstanding. Eddie’s superiors use convoluted language to tell Eddie to scare Jonah J Jameson a little but Eddie thinks he is meant to kill him. In the subsequent clash with Spidey, Eddie hits his head hard and forgets Spiderman’s civilian identity and also the exact reasons for hating him. (from: The Venom Agenda)

The committee now decides that Eddie is way too much of a loose cannon for their taste and they want to get rid of him. While everyone takes too long to decide who should press the killing button, Eddie escapes the committee, but in the subsequent fighting the symbiote is seemingly killed. (from: The Finale)

Eddie without the symbiote is absolutely miserable and once more pretty suicidal. This is the beginning of an era, however, which makes the symbiote out to largely abuse Eddie. So when the symbiote returns, Eddie initially tries to get away from them to avoid more pain, only to be forcibly united with them again anyway. Venom then goes to visit Carnage and... eats his symbiote. Yeah. (from: Peter Parker: Spider-Man)

Venom then joins and subsequently turns on the Sinister Six. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie finds himself missing Anne and wants to start over with her again. When he visits Anne, she is a paranoid wreck. As Spidey, now in a black Venom-esque costume again, swings by her window, she falls into panic. Eddie misinterprets that Spidey is what scares Anne and goes to fight him, but while he does that, Anne commits suicide. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

As Eddie grieves at Anne’s grave, Senator Ward shows up and steals his symbiote. Eddie gets arrested and sent to prison. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Now we’re entering territory of Venom (2003), the worst Venom comic. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but the majority of it is about another symbiote anyway. At some point during this Eddie gets his symbiote back and fights the other symbiote.

Proving further that 2003 is the worst Venom year, we go on with a comic where the symbiote eats the adrenaline off people (not even what they ate before) and also with the reveal that Eddie has cancer and his cancer made his adrenaline amounts more appealing to the symbiote. To save Eddie’s life, Peter makes him rebond to the symbiote against either of their will. (from: Spectacular Spider-Man)

Then Carnage has another child which he wants to kill while Venom has other plans for it. (from: Venom/Carnage)

The symbiote gets stolen again during Spider-Man/Red Sonja, but it’s overall not that consequential.

What IS consequential is that Eddie is now back to having moral qualms with the symbiote... so he... decides to auction the symbiote off to super-villains and give the money gained to charity. Without the symbiote, his cancer will advance and he’ll die. (from: Marvel Knights: Spider-Man)

Finding out that the person he sold the suit to kills innocents indiscriminately, Eddie attempts suicide once more. He is taken to the hospital and narrowly survives cutting his wrists open. After that, he is kept in the hospital due to his cancer. (from: Marvel Knights: Spider-Man)

In the hospital, Eddie has reoccuring visions of the symbiote urging him to kill. When he finds out May Parker is in the same hospital, the symbiote tells him to kill her. Eddie does comply with killing a nurse, but stops himself before killing May. He tries to commit suicide once more, only to be saved by Spider-Man. (from: Sensational Spider-Man)

Eddie starts working Martin Li’s homeless shelter, where May Parker also works. A touch by Martin Li, who is actually Mr Negative, heals Eddie’s cancer completely. This also turns Eddie into Anti-Venom - the literal opposite of Venom, a hero who’s touch cures and is harmful to the Venom symbiote. Though Eddie tries to kill his old symbiote, now bonded to Gargan, the symbiote refuses to kill Eddie when Gargan wants it to. Love is a word that is used again. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie now starts over as a hero as Anti-Venom, healing people and busting drug cartels. (from: Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live)

Eddie is the first one to find out Martin Li is Mr Negative and tries to fight him. He is also the one to reveal Mr Negative’s civilian identity to Spider-Man, temporarily teaming up with him and Wraith to take the crime lord down. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

At some point here, Eddie offers miracle healings with the Our Lady of Saints church as his headquarters.

When everyone in New York starts developing Spider powers, Eddie heals people from them. In the end, his Anti-Venom powers are all used up in order to large-scale cure the crisis. (from: Spider Island)

Meanwhile the symbiote is bonded to Flash Thompson and the two work as government agents.

Having had enough of symbiotes alltogether, Eddie sets out to kill symbiotes and hosts that are still around. (from: Venom 2011)

Against his will, Eddie is forced to fuse with the Toxin symbiote. (from: Venom 2011)

The FBI recruits Eddie to help them against Carnage. This is the comic that I like to summarize as ‘Let’s Go Lesbians Let’s Go’. In it, Eddie, two latinx lesbians, two black women and some other dude stop Carnage and an elder God. It’s a really good run.

For the first time, a comic makes Eddie accept culpability for his actions as Venom!! Also during this story, he loses the Toxin symbiote. (from: Carnage 2016)

When Flash Thompson and the Venom symbiote are separated, Eddie helps contain the symbiote (which had been going around with a criminal named Lee Price) and then breaks into containment to re-unite with it. Here is where he starts calling the symbiote ‘love’ and ‘darling’ all the time. Sadly there is no real explanation for his change-of-mind on the symbiote. (from: Venom 2016)

The symbiote and Eddie now actively negotiate trust and such in their relationship, it’s very good. When Eddie finds a dinosaur in the sewers, he brings it back to Alchemax which created it. In exchange for bringing the rest of the dinosaurs back, Alchemax chairwoman Liz Allan agrees to study the symbiote to see what is wrong with it, since it appears sick.

During this dinosaur quest Eddie meets and bonds with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

Meanwhile at Alchemax, medicine for the symbiote is created. It turns out that remnants of Anti-Venom in Eddie’s body are making the symbiote sick. (from: Venom 2016)

Theeeeeen Eddie gets pulled into a parallel universe to battle an alien species called Poisons which kills hosts and permanently bonds with symbiotes. (from: Venomverse)

Back on earth, Flash comes to collect the symbiote, which struggles to choose between Flash and Eddie. In the resulting struggle, Flash turns into Anti-Venom instead. Venom, Anti-Venom and Spider-Man team up against Lee Price, who broke out of jail. (from: Venom Inc.)

Then the Poisons return and Eddie has to join the X-Men on a space journey to fight them. (from: Venomized)

At some point in between here, Eddie gets a job at The Facts Channel under the name ‘Mr. Sym’. Later Jonah J Jameson calls him out on how dumb that alias is.

The symbiote is about to spawn again and the FBI wants to interfere with it. Through trickery by Alchemax, Eddie and the symbiote manage to keep their baby. (from: Venom 2016)

The symbiote’s first host returns to earth and wants the symbiote back, who refuses and wants to stay with Eddie. By threatening their child, the first host manages to take the symbiote away anyway. Eddie bonds with the child symbiote, Sleeper, to go get his symbiote back. In the end, Sleeper lobotomizes the first host and uses his body to travel the universe. (from: First Host)

Due to causing way too much trouble, Eddie is now refused entrance to Alechemax. (from: First Host)

Jonah J. Jameson calls Eddie to protect Mary-Jane while Spider-Man faces a crisis with another arch nemesis. To defeat this nemesis, Eddie even lends the symbiote to Spidey. Flash dies in this big fight and Eddie afterwards attends his funeral. (from: Amazing Spider-Man #800)

The symbiote once more acts overtly violent and the resulting struggle in life results in Eddie losing his job at the Facts Channel. (from: Venom 2018)

Eddie Brock kills a god. (from: Venom 2018)

I don’t want to sum that run up any better than that, it is heartbreaking and should simply be read and personally experienced.

If you need issue numbers, this guide is your friend.

#eddie brock #venom #symbrock #is sort of in this #venom comics

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saxafimedianetwork · 6 years ago

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We unearth little-known tidbits of information about the King of Pop Michael Jackson’s life, on what would have been his 60th birthday

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1. He was born in Gary, Indiana. He remains the city’s most famous resident, with Gary never recovering from the loss of its factory industry in the 1960s. That said, it’s also home to Jesse Powell, Kym Mazelle and Sista Monica Parker.

2. His parents had musical ambitions of their own. Mother Katherine Jackson played the clarinet and piano, and aspired to be a country and western singer. Father Joe was a guitarist and made extra cash performing in local R’n’B bands.

3. His first public performance was in 1963. When he was 5 he sang Shirley Bassey’s Climb Ev’ry Mountain at a public event organized by Garnett Elementary School’s Kindergarten.

4. His father was the first to notice the talent in his children. He would invite music executives to the family home, where The Jacksons would audition in the living room.

5. James Brown was his major inspiration. The late Godfather of Soul inspired Jackson to hit the stage. Speaking at his public funeral in 2007, Jackson recalled how, “Ever since I was a small child, no more than like 6 years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work.”

6. He made his recording debut at 9 years old. It was on Big Boy by The Jackson 5, which was released by a small label in January 1968. It didn’t sell in large numbers, but it was enough to notify the major labels that these kids had talent.

7. His love for books began as a young teen. His early favorites were Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. He reportedly amassed a library of more than 10,000 books.

8. His relationship with his sister La Toya was based on their love of practical jokes. His favorite was tormenting her with fake spiders and tarantulas. He would place a suspect creature on the phone in La Toya’s bedroom and would then call her and wait for her scream.

9. He began touring as an 8-year-old. As part of the first run of shows in America’s Midwest, The Jackson 5 supported soul legends Etta James, Gladys Knight and Sam & Dave.

10. He was never particularly fond of his voice during early recordings with The Jackson 5. Despite the acclaim, he would often lament the high pitch of his voice in later interviews, describing it as similar to that of Minnie Mouse.

11. It could have been The Jackson 6. Nearly 18 months before he was born, his mother gave birth to a set of twins, Marlon and Brandon. As a result of a severely premature pregnancy, Marlon survived but Brandon passed away 24 hours later.

12. Berry Gordy initially wasn’t a fan of Michael and his brothers. The star-maker and head of Motown Records dismissed the idea of signing them to his label, preferring to focus on Stevie Wonder. But he was eventually convinced to give them a shot and he signed them up in 1969.

13. You may not know her name, but Suzanne de Passe had a big role in his artistic development. She was assigned as a mentor and stylist to The Jackson 5 after they joined Motown. That relationship extended to Michael’s solo career, and she was the first one to see him rehearse the iconic dance The Moonwalk in 1983.

14. The Jackson 5’s global hit I Want You Back in 1969, was originally written for Gladys Knight and The Pips and Diana Ross. What’s unusual about the song is that the lovelorn lyrics are sung by Michael, who was barely in his teens at the time.

15. ABC is the first of Jackson’s songs that 50 Cent recalls hearing. Speaking to NME in 2015, the rapper said the track was responsible for him becoming a fan. “I’ve always loved MJ, so I guess it was probably a good place to start music: right here, with the ABCs.”

16. He broke barriers from a young age. When he was a 12-year-old with The Jackson 5, the group became the first black male group to release four back-to-back chart-toppers with 1969’s I Want You Back and 1970’s ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There.

17. There was solo life before Off the Wall. For many, Michael arrived with 1979’s Off the Wall, but he released his debut solo album, Got to Be There, in 1972. It was a solid collection of soul and pop, with covers of Leon Ware’s I Wanna Be Where You Are and Bill Withers’s Ain’t no Sunshine.

18. He won his first and only Golden Globe in 1972. For Ben, a song he wrote for the 1972 horror film of the same name.

19. He always had his ear to the clubs. Jackson was a frequent visitor to the legendary New York City club Studio 54, where he was exposed to beat-boxing, which was an early harbinger to the upcoming hip-hop movement. He went on to incorporate the vocal technique into many of his future songs.

20. His first venture into film was The Wiz. He starred as a scarecrow in the title role of The Wiz, an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The film was horrible, but it was here he struck up a life-changing partnership with Quincy Jones, who went on to produce his biggest albums.

21. Quincy Jones nicknamed him “Smelly”. This was during their time on The Wiz. “I used to call Michael ‘Smelly’, because he wouldn’t say ‘funky’. He’d say ‘smelly jelly’.”

22. He broke his nose in 1979 during dance practice. He then consulted Hollywood favorite Dr Steven Hoefflin who reportedly performed Jackson’s first rhinoplasty.

23. He only worked with the best. In addition to enlisting Jones to produce the 1979 blockbuster album Off the Wall, the songwriters who helped him on the record included none other than Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

24. Unlike many of his peers, Jackson hated singing from a sheet. While recording Off the Wall, he spent the evenings learning lyrics and harmonies, and would arrive at the studio the next day singing them off by heart.

25. Prince visited him during the Off the Wall sessions. Speaking to The National, Quincy Jones recalled how Prince arrived “into the studio like a deer in the headlight – clothes and shirt off – but he was always competing with Michael”.

26. He was the only musical mind behind one of his biggest hits. Off the Wall was full of songwriting collaborations, but Jackson was solely responsible for one of its biggest tracks, Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough. He decided to write the song after constantly humming the melody at home.

27. The change on 1979 single Rock with You. It was originally called I Want to Eat You Up, but that was deemed too risque for Jackson’s heartthrob image.

28. Off the Wall was almost a hit for Karen Carpenter. The hit title track from Off the Wall was originally written for the late Karen Carpenter’s debut solo album. She declined to use it and Jackson made it a top 10 hit instead.

29. The tears in She’s Out of My Life are real. Jackson would break down in tears at the end of each studio take. “We recorded about – I don’t know – 8 to 11 takes, and every one at the end, he just cried,” producer Quincy Jones said. “I said, ‘Hey – that’s supposed to be, leave it on there.’”

30. Jackson surrounded himself with talent in both the studio and the boardroom. With Off the Wall he secured the game-changing royalty rate of 37 cents wholesale per sale. It went on to sell more than 20 million copies.

31. Thriller was a blockbuster fueled by frustration. Despite big sales and critical acclaim, he was irked that Off The Wall didn’t win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. “It was totally unfair that it didn’t get Record of the Year and it can never happen again,” he told manager John Branca. Thriller went on to win a record-breaking eight Grammys in 1984.

32. Billie Jean doesn’t exist. Despite being the subject of one of his biggest hits, the woman – who in the 1983 song admits she is carrying Jackson’s unborn son – is pure fiction. “The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years,” Jackson wrote in his memoir Moonwalker.

33. Billie Jean was the first video by an African-American artist to air on MTV. The video revealed Jackson’s new look of a leather suit, pink shirt, red bow tie and his signature single white glove. It was a style copied by kids throughout the United States. It caused one school, New Jersey’s Bound Brook High, to ban students from coming to class wearing white gloves.

34. Jackson introduced his famous Moonwalk in 1983. It was during a live performance of Billie Jean for the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever concert special. He was taught the move by veteran dancer Jeffrey Daniel, who went on to be hired as Jackson’s co-choreographer.

35. Jackson was a music investor from 1983. He bought the rights to select music from funk pioneers Sly and the Family Stone, and the iconic Dion DiMucci songs The Wanderer and Run Around Sue, before landing the rights to the 4,000 song catalogue of ATV Music Publishing, which included the lion’s share of The Beatles’ songs.

36. Jackson’s Beat It was a fiery single … literally. When Eddie Van Halen recorded his blistering solo, the sound of his guitar caused one of the studio speakers to catch fire.

37. The gritty music video for Beat It was a landmark production. The lavish production cost US$100,000 (Dh367,250) at the time. It was set in Los Angeles’ Skid Row and featured up to 80 real-life gang members from the notorious street gangs the Crips and the Bloods.

38. Toto were heavily involved in the making of Thriller. Keyboardist Steve Porcaro co-wrote Human Nature, and Steve Lukather contributed rhythm guitar on Beat It.

39. Thriller was almost Star Light. The lyric “thriller” in the track of the same name was originally “star light”. The decision to change it was down to marketing appeal.

40. PYT (Pretty Young Thing) was never performed live by Jackson. Despite being a well-received single from the Thriller album, the star never featured the song in any of his live sets.

41. Thriller was included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The music video for the title track was also placed in the National Film Preservation Board’s National Film Registry of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films”.

42. It was with his seventh album, 1987’s Bad that Jackson really came into his own as a songwriter. He wrote nine of the 11 tracks and co-produced the album with Quincy Jones.

43. The title track for the Bad album was supposed to be a duet with Prince. But the latter walked away from it due to the opening line “Your butt is mine”. “Now, who is going to sing that to whom? Cause [he] sure ain’t singing that to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to [him],” Prince said in a TV interview with American comedian Chris Rock.

44. The smooth 1987 ballad I Just Can’t Stop Loving You is a duet with singer Siedah Garrett. She was the third choice after Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston rejected the offer.

45. The Way You Make Me Feel was his mother’s request. Jackson wrote this track after his mum asked him to write something with a “shuffling kind of rhythm”.

46. Man in the Mirror is one of the few music videos he is hardly in. Other than appearing at the end standing in a crowd, the video is a montage of major events and historical figures.

47. His Superbowl XXVII half-time show in 1993 was game-changing. His pyrotechnics-laced four-song set was watched more than the game itself. It has set the standard for half-time shows ever since.

48. Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous was hot property. Five days before its release, three armed men broke into a music warehouse in Los Angeles and stole 30,000 copies.

49. The explosive video for Black or White was directed by Hollywood stalwart John Landis. It starred an 11-year-old Macaulay Culkin fresh from his starring role in Home Alone.

50. The music video to Scream was, at the time, in 1995, the most expensive ever produced. It had a US$7m budget. The menacing and arty video starred Jackson and his sister Janet.

51. Even when he wasn’t trying, Michael Jackson broke records. His album Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, released in 1997, remains the bestselling remix album of all time, with more than six million copies sold, after virtually no promotion.

52. Jackson consistently mixed music with charity work. He was behind a series of Michael and Friends concerts in Germany and Korea, which featured performers such as tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, as well as rockers Slash and The Scorpions. The money raised went to the non-profit organization War Child.

53. Jackson’s final studio album Invincible was the bestselling album of 2001, despite moderate reviews. It features the song Unbreakable, which had, until then, the unreleased vocals by slain rapper The Notorious BIG.

54. After years of scandals and court cases, Jackson re-emerged on the music stage by announcing his final live tour This Is It. The first 10 shows alone, to be held at London’s O2 Arena in the summer of 2009, would have netted him £50m (Dh236.49m). The residency was extended to 50 shows, but the tour was cancelled following his death on June 25, 2009.

55. This Is It was his first posthumous release. With the This Is It tour abandoned after Jackson’s death, the tour’s title track became the first of many posthumous releases. The song was originally written in the 1980s by Paul Anka.

56. The secrecy of Xscape. Michael Jackson’s second posthumous album, released on May 13, 2014, was such a big deal that journalists were invited to secret listening sessions around the world days before its release. The session for this region was held at Dubai’s now-closed Qbara restaurant.

57. The life and times of Michael Jackson were discussed in detail at the inaugural Dubai Music Week in 2013. It featured a sold-out special panel session on Jackson’s career featuring producer Quincy Jones and other collaborators, the late Rod Temperton (via live video feed) and singer Siedah Garrett.

58. Abu Dhabi and China were discussed as possible sites for the world’s first Jackson family-themed hotel called Jermajesty. Speaking exclusively to The National in 2013, Jermaine Jackson said he was looking at Yas Island as a possible site for the hotel, which would be filled with Jackson family memorabilia. Nothing has been built as yet.

Read also: Jermaine says Michael Jackson was on the verge of converting to Islam

59. To celebrate Michael Jackson’s 60th birthday today (August 29), a large street party was held in New York City last Saturday to celebrate his life. It was organized by the director, and his collaborator, Spike Lee.

60. It is only fitting that the Apollo Theater in New York is hosting its legendary Amateur Night today. It was on the same stage that, in 1967, The Jackson 5 launched their career.

60 Things You May Not Have Known About Michael Jackson

#Birthday #Jacksons #Janet Jackson #Jermaine Jackson #King of Pop #Michael Jackson #Music

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zillanewt · 7 years ago

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Merc With A Trashmouth

Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three // Chapter Four

summary: Despite growing up in Derry together, the two boys went down two very different paths. Richie is the world’s most notorious mercenary and assassin, while Eddie is none other than New York’s sweetheart - the literal poster boy for bringing justice to baddies without unaliving them. This is the self-indulgent spideypool!reddie au that literally nobody asked for.

pairing: reddie

words: 1.2K

warnings: gratuitous cussing (bc this is deadpool!richie ofc), non-graphic violence (again, deadpool au), mentions of child abuse (it’s only one or two lines)

A/N: wow so idk if ive ever told yall, but im such a huge marvel fanboy and this is a fucking pleasure to write. ok so Richie’s backstory on how he became a mercenary is very vague for a reason, because nobody is actually sure of Deadpool’s backstory in canon, soooo. There’s also quite a bit of fourth wall breaking because Deadpool. I feel like this kinda sucks and is a little underdeveloped, so please let me know what you think! Please message me if you would like to be added to the taglist!

Kids who left Derry were fucking strange. But that wasn’t saying much when those who stayed were either absorbed into the evil cogwork of the town’s sinister behaviors or abducted by a demonic sewer clown.

Though, none of these things truly mattered to Richie Tozier.

He supposes he would’ve been strange even if his parents hadn’t even birth to him in that shithole town. Besides, he’s 95% sure all that Pennywise shit happened in another universe, so it’s not like anybody would know what the fuck he’s talking about if he brought it up.

Still, you had to be a special kind of fucked up to be sitting masked in a Toronto bar while a man offers you money to kill another man.

“There are important business transactions happening here, so you won’t get my tragic backstory quite yet, sweetheart.”

The man sitting across from Richie looks confused, yet unsurprised that the mercenary is speaking to thin air. There are always whisperings about how crazy the man is, so nobody expects him to be any less than completely psychotic. If you walked away from a conversation with him without a bullet in any of your limbs, it could be considered a complete success.

“We have an offer for you,” the man said in a low voice, sliding a manila folder across the table. “High-pay target. We suspect him to be Spider-Man. He has been interfering with our drug rings in New York.”

The second Richie opened the file, his heart was hit with a pang of worry, then a wave of rage. In small black typed letters was “Eddie Kaspbrak,” then stamped over in a bright bold red were the words “TERMINATE.” There’s going to be hell to pay for whoever thought this would be a funny April Fools joke to pull on him.

“No,” he growled, tossing the file back onto the table. “He’s from Derry. This guy couldn’t even complete a lap in gym class. What in the fuck makes you think he could possibly Spider-Man?!”

The man instantly shrinks back from Richie’s yelling, slightly in fear for his life.

“People change, Tozier,” the man reasons, then chooses to go for the low blow. “You did, didn’t you?”

Every patron in the bar eavesdropping knew the comment was a mistake and so did the man, as regret instantly washed over him and his face paled. He took those few quiet seconds to silently say goodbye to his limbs.

“Get out,” he mumbled very quietly, almost like a hurt teenager.

“What?”

“Get out!!” he yelled at full volume now, not holding anything back. Sure, he killed people for a living, but damn...he still had feelings.

The man quickly gathered his belongings, sweeping Eddie’s file into his arms. His breathing stopped when Richie placed a crushing grip on his arm.

“Leave Kaspbrak’s file with me,” Richie demanded, determining the amount of pressure it would take to break this guy’s arm.

“I can’t do that Mr. Tozier! My boss will kill me,” the man said panicked but gave in when Richie began applying said pressure. “Ow! Ow! Ok! Ok! Take it! Just please don’t hurt me!”

As soon as he handled the file over, Richie let go, but he wasn’t quite satisfied yet. Before the frightened man could run away, he whipped out his gun.

“One more thing, Mrrr…” Richie said very calmly, a complete contradiction to his behavior only seconds ago.

“Reynolds,” the man whimpered, not taking his eyes off the gun in Richie’s hands.

“Mr. Reynolds,” Richie began, putting the barrel of the gun against the man’s forehead, in between the eyebrows. “You tell whoever the fuck you’re working for that nobody touches Eddie Kaspbrak or every single one in your filthy operation will become very familiar with my good friends here.” He gestures to his guns and the twin katanas strapped to his back.

“We Gucci?”

The man whimpers and nods, fleeing from the bar as soon as Richie puts his gun away.

“God,” Richie giggles, “they are so fun to scare.”

Sitting in this dirty bar, he realizes now he has Eddie’s information, but he’s not sure what to do with it. They haven’t talked in a good 10 years, and he’s not even sure Eddie would even care about him anymore.

It’s not like anybody really does.

But, some crazy part of him is screaming at him to find his childhood best friend and love.

“Uhhh no,” Richie says to no one in particular. “Eddie probably has a perfect life and family, and we kill people for a living.”

Would Eddie hate him if he knew who he grew up to be? Would he be disgusted? Would he find out what’s under this mask and be horrified?

It’s times like these he wishes he still had Stan to be his voice of reason. But then again, if that were reality, Richie wouldn’t be “the Merc with a Mouth.” He’d just be regular old “Trashmouth,” like he was when they were kids.

Constantly, he lays awake at night due to the pain and wonders whether his life would’ve been different if he didn’t move from Derry when he was 15. There was nothing Richie wanted to do more than stay with Eddie, but his father was relocated Canada. Though, that sounds like a relatively safe place to be, right?

It should’ve been, but his parents just would never stop fighting. It wasn’t that bad back in Derry, but the move put too much stress on them and they all snapped in their own ways. Mrs. Tozier yelled at her husband and son whenever she got drunk (which was quite often). Richie’s dad decided to take his anger out on his “idiot son” and would throw Maggie’s empty bottles at him.

Richie?

Well, Richie was a teenager. There was nothing else to do, but fall in with the wrong people and turn to violence. The violence provided money, which was his ultimate independence from the disaster of the Tozier household.

Truthfully, he doesn’t remember much else, due to his state of mental health. All he knows is that he now owns a full arsenal and always has weapons strapped to him, like a fucking lunatic.

And to think, just ten years ago he and the Losers were spitting loogies at the quarry and telling ghosts stories about “Pennywise the Dancing Clown.” Richie was at least glad he didn’t exist in the universe where that stupid clown actually tortured and tormented them. He didn’t need any more problems.

Carefully, he opened the file and looked at the picture of Eddie. This is him at 25, and he’s just as amazing as he was when they were kids. His skin is sun-kissed like it always was when they were younger. He still has all those freckles on his face. There’s a woman with him in the picture, probably his wife or girlfriend, kissing him on the cheek as he laughs.

Richie should be more bitter Eddie has all this - the beauty and a happy life - while Richie has literally nothing, but he just simply can’t be. He remembers how much Eddie struggled when they were kids, as his mother continually manipulated him and the Bowers gang constantly beat on him, but he was always kind to other people. If anybody deserves to be happy, it’s Eddie Kaspbrak.

And if Eddie really is Spider-Man, then Richie would truthfully be impressed and slightly aroused because he’s seen how tight that spandex is.

Maybe, it’s time to pay his old friend a visit….just to make sure no goons try to whack him off.

#wow this really sucks i could do better #im sorry yall #reddie #merc with a trashmouth #my fics

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briangroth27 · 7 years ago

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IT (2017) Review

IT is fantastic! I don’t remember much of the original miniseries except that Tim Curry was very good as Pennywise, but this felt like a whole other animal. I haven’t read the book, but the movie definitely made me want to. The tone was perfect, with just enough humor to get you through the ever-increasing tension created by Pennywise, Henry Bowers, and the general sense of dread from the town’s adults. There’s a palpable sense that even though the adults lived through similar events, they’re not going to be any help to the kids. One of my favorite subgenres is kids encountering the supernatural, and IT absolutely delivered!

Every single one of the kids did a spectacular job! They all felt like real, relatable kids and they’ve got incredible talent. These actors also formed an incredible sense of chemistry; like the young casts of Super 8 and Stranger Things, they felt like actual friends and I imagine shooting this was a lot of fun for them. The thing that perhaps let them down a bit was the runtime; at two hours and fifteen minutes, it’s understandable things had to be succinct, shortchanging a couple of the Losers. Stan (Wyatt Oleff) in particular didn’t get much to do, but even he had some great moments of characterization, such as when all the kids unceremoniously drop their bikes and run off, while he takes a moment to calmly use his kickstand. Since his bar mitzvah is the big moment in his life here, I think they could’ve explored what his idea of becoming a man was and how that played into dealing with Pennywise, particularly as this is a coming of age tale. Mike (Chosen Hansen) didn’t feel like he got much screentime in comparison to some of the others either, but I liked the connections to societal issues his story included; he experiences the racism in Derry the other kids don’t, pulling him a step further into the horror of the town than the other kids. I really liked Mike’s grandfather’s (Steven Williams) speech about Mike needing to decide whether he wanted to be the man killing sheep or the sheep being killed, because if he didn’t the world would decide for him. That felt especially relevant to today while playing into his arc of learning to stand up for himself (and he gets a particularly surprising climax to that arc!). Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) handled the exposition well (as did Hansen) and brought a plucky charm to his role as the new kid in town. He was easy to root for and sympathize with, and had several perfect adolescent moments like sneaking a peek at Bev’s room during a break from a rather disturbing clean-up session. Eddie’s (Jack Dylan Grazer) hypochondria provided him with a solid Achilles Heel, a great place for comedy to spring from, and a strong foundation for him to eventually stand up to his mom (Mollie Jane Atkinson). Grazer played all of those to their fullest extent! My friend pointed out that his mom’s obsessive overprotectiveness may’ve been brought on because she does know something evil is in Derry, she just doesn’t know what, and is protecting him the best way she can. That’s an interesting variation to the Derry adults’ forgetfulness/apathy about the evil in their town.

I was a little disappointed Richie (Finn Wolfhard) didn’t get a solo scare sequence outside the house on Neibolt Street like everyone else did, though if cutting it got us as much time with Ben, Mike, and Stan as we got, I’ll take it. Still, he had perhaps the most clearly-defined and strongest characterization of the kids; Wolfhard refused to let Richie be just another kid in the group. Going in, I thought he’d feel like his character on Stranger Things (probably because this is also 80s-set horror with kids encountering a monster), but Richie was totally different from Mike and Wolfhard sold it completely. Sofia Lillis was very good at achieving balance between Bev’s friendly, almost cheery outlook with her new friends and the jaded, knowing sensibility that had been forced on her by everyone else. The whole town seemed to see Beverly as a sex object or a slut, including creepy adults (like Mike, she’s deeper into the hell that is Derry than the others). Beverly knowing exactly how to work the adults to her advantage spoke not only to the fact that this is nothing new to her and she’s had to learn coping and survival skills, but to the tragedy that this was the case. Every scene with her father (Alvin Marsh) was incredibly uncomfortable given what he was, and I was rooting for her to escape the situation. Bill (Jaeden Leiberher) and Ben’s crushes on Bev worked well, though I think they could’ve played up the difference in their early meet-cutes a bit more: she’s nice to Ben and talks to him, while Bill sees her walking in near-slow-motion in dreamy sunlight. They also could’ve contrasted Stan exploring what it means to be a man (and Mike discovering what it means to be an African-American man) with her attempts to define what being a woman means outside of what everyone tells her she should be. The love triangle between Bev, Ben, and Bill was sweet, with neither of them expecting anything from her, and thankfully didn’t explode into jealousy the way I thought it would. Bill had the most personal connection to Pennywise via Georgie’s (Jackson Robert Scott) murder, and they mined it for all it was worth. I totally bought Leiberher as the kind of kid who could rally the others to go on an adventure to save the day. Bill’s stutter felt totally natural and never felt like Leiberher was playing a caricature of someone with a speech impediment. His relationship with Georgie was sweet and they felt like real brothers, so Bill’s pain over losing him felt real. Watching him literally fight through his sorrow and guilt over giving the boat to Georgie (and encouraging him to sneak out of the house) was great! Scott was perfect as Georgie too, showing just as much range in his limited scenes as the other kids got to: from scared of the basement and telling himself “I’m brave,” to carefree (and sneaky) kid playtime, to sad Bill wasn’t with him after his death, and finally horror as a manifestation of Pennywise, he was fully on par with the other young actors.

When I watched Georgie meet Tim Curry’s Pennywise as a kid, I remember being sadder about him losing his boat than encountering a killer clown in the sewer (I guess as a kid, losing a beloved toy was the more likely and pressing fear!). That was not the case here. Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise was playful enough with Georgie, but otherwise he was unsettling and a few jump scares got me. I liked how there were moments where his whole body would quiver and waver except his head, giving the impression that he was tightly coiled and ready to spring into an attack at any moment. He had an otherworldly sensibility about him—appropriate given what the deadlights are—and an overall creepy demeanor that was perfect. He didn’t echo Tim Curry’s Pennywise voice and that was a smart choice; Skarsgard was creepy in his own way. I really liked how he was able to pervert the entire town, popping in and out of murals to watch the kids, running a bizarre kid’s television show no one seemed to find strange, and possibly fueling (or feeding off of, which would be worse) the hate, apathy, and ugliness under Derry’s wholesome surface. Aside from school bullies and adults who varied from uninterested in protecting the kids to downright creepy predators, the real-world villainy mainly manifested in Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton). I imagine Henry is a bully to prove to himself that he’s not the only “paper man” who’ll crumble when confronted with fear. Even with that tenuous understanding, though, Henry is a total psychopath who was scarier than Pennywise (possibly because Pennywise needs to eat kids to survive, while Henry is just angry and violent for no reason). He was such a strong villain that they could’ve removed the supernatural altogether and it still would’ve worked as a solid coming of age movie. As it was, the supernatural was a perfect bonus to the story being told!

The move from the 50s setting to the 80s worked very well, with It’s manifestations (aside from Pennywise) reflecting the kids’ personal fears instead of classic movie monsters. I love Dracula and those monsters, but using the tragedies of Derry’s history and the personal struggles the kids are living through as Pennywise’s alternate forms works better. The one thing that stood out to me as perhaps not fitting with the ’89 setting was naming Bill’s bike Silver; would a kid in the late 80s have been a fan of the Lone Ranger? There was a failed movie in 1981 with Christopher Lloyd, but I don’t know if westerns or that character in particular were very popular by then. Maybe Bill’s dad (Geoffrey Pounsett) introduced him to the Lone Ranger and was a fan in his youth (I was born in the mid-80s and was aware of the Lone Ranger thanks to my parents). Perhaps this Silver is a reference to King’s Silver Bullet wheelchair in Cycle of the Werewolf and the Silver Bullet film instead (maybe Bill sees a connection between Marty’s paralysis and his stutter?). In any case, that was a very small thing and otherwise contemporary mentions like the AIDS epidemic (which played into Eddie’s hypochondria perfectly) made the time period feel real, while the presence of 80s movie posters, movies like Batman playing at the theater, and video games like Street Fighter made it feel like the 80s without being nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. The New Kids on the Block elements that appear in the film also served to build Ben’s character rather than just appearing as cheap jokes or because it was the late 80s.

Derry itself felt like a very real, relatable town that you might want to live in if you didn’t know what was beneath the surface. The house on Neibolt Street was a perfect haunted house that stuck out like a festering sore on the town, while also feeling like it was a natural part of this world. Cutting from animals walking though slaughterhouse stalls to kids heading through the school halls was a great, ominous bit of editing at the beginning. The pacing was excellent; while it felt like a long movie, it did so because it felt so full rather than because of dull scenes. When the kids first confronted Pennywise in 29 Neibolt street, I thought it could be the climax, but the movie keeps going to a very satisfying conclusion after that! It was smart to split the book into one movie for the kids and another for their adult counterparts; even if this weren't a huge success and sure to get the second half, it'd feel like a complete story. Whoever they cast as the adult versions of the Losers Club are going to have some impressive shoes to fill! I definitely hope they get the kids back for flashbacks in Chapter 2.

The film has a great feeling of dread (punctuated by some truly funny lines), excellent villains in Pennywise and Henry Bowers, and a young cast of fantastic actors. 2017’s IT (perfectly released 27 years after the story’s last adaptation in 1990!) is neck and neck with Kubrick’s The Shining as the best of the Stephen King adaptations. Definitely see this and get your Halloween season started off right!

Full spoilers….

-I’m glad the sex scene in the sewer was left out. Obviously that’d be really screwed up to film/show/see, but I don’t think it would’ve fit even beyond the fact of the creepy content. Not only did these kids not need that to bond them, but I don’t think it would’ve fit with any of their characters as they were drawn here. Even boastful loudmouth Richie seems like the kind of guy who’d be intimidated by the prospect of sex if it actually presented itself. That’s to say nothing of the fact that Bev would’ve been forced into exactly the role the town wants her to take (and wants to punish her for taking), and that would’ve been a tragedy. The kids just hugging after their ordeal worked perfectly.

-I was so glad that there were no consequences to Bev killing her creepy father, even to her reputation (at least from what we saw) once word inevitably would get out about why she did it. It’s possible she was leaving town partially because of what people would say, but I’m choosing to believe she was just jumping at the chance for a fresh, happier start.

-I think the leeches I’ve heard of in the book for Patrick Hockstetter’s (Owen Teague) death would’ve been cooler than the burnt people he encountered in the sewer. That’s probably the one Pennywise manifestation that sounds better in the book than what was onscreen.

-Eddie changing the “Loser” signature on his cast to say “Lover” was a funny bit of characterization I wish we’d seen more of from him. Who is this kid—or who does he want to be—to proclaim himself that? Haha

-Eddie mistakenly calling placebos “gazebos” was perhaps the most unexpected laugh I’ve had in a theater in a long time.

-Given how little Stan got to do in this movie and what I’ve read about adult Stan’s part in the present-day portion of the book, I really hope his fate is changed in the sequel. If not, it’ll feel like he was just there to die.

-Finn Wolfhard gets maybe the best line in the movie with “…and now I’ve gotta kill this fucking clown!”

-There were a few Easter Eggs in the movie, including a picture of Tim Curry’s Pennywise!

-IT has perhaps some of my favorite stories from Twitter. One guy said someone in his screening released a single red balloon into the theater once the movie was over! Another theatergoer walked into his screening and there was a clown cosplayer sitting alone in the room, holding a single balloon. I’d have been severely unnerved. Hahaha I think it’d be great if theaters did things like this in an official capacity; it’d be a fun return to the promotional stunts of the 50s and 60s.

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