#apparently volume 1 came out in 2000; these guys have apparently been around for a while
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Is anyone gonna ship these 2 or do I gotta do it myself?
Looks like I gotta do it myself!
& this scene too
There's also Rao holding onto Thief off screen at least twice!
They literally held hands too!
Look, even the toys on Amazon have them together, like c'mon now!
#what is their ship name? it’s old man yaoi I thought y’all loved that!#wish they wouldn’t be making his skin lighter in the figurines & in the game#I’m only on episode 4 but hear me out on this; they should gay kiss!#akira toriyama thank you for this old man pairing that probably isn’t intentional#apparently volume 1 came out in 2000; these guys have apparently been around for a while#my partner & I are enjoying the anime so far & thief’s Santa outfit is cute#I just really like the dynamic between Shiva AKA Rao & Thief; they’re so cool! RaoTie ftw!#sandland#sand land#shiva x thief#shivief#rao x thief#raothief#raoief#Sand Land: The Series#Sand Land The Series#mlm#akira toriyama#mine#op
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Yeah... I'm gonna talk about FAMILY GUY... Long post, incoming!
Actually, I'm seeing some talk about FAMILY GUY, specifically early FAMILY GUY, elsewhere. As of late. Because the TED Peacock series, based on a now 12-year-old movie, is out. And apparently it's pretty good? Reminiscent of the early seasons of FAMILY GUY, which people who actually like the show consider to be the series' best seasons? I couldn't tell you.
Coincidentally, I've re-watched most of Seasons 1-3 now that my Disney+ plan includes Hulu. The seasons produced and aired *before* FAMILY GUY was here to stay. FOX had cancelled the show twice in the early 2000s, and when it came back for the second time, it never left. It's now one of those long-running cartoons, ubiquitous with the word "cartoon" you could say, a new season almost every year.
I'm gonna be a total hipster and say that I was onboard the FAMILY GUY train as early as mid-2003 ish.
I was in fifth grade, and was at the time starting to stay up later than usual to watch a little thing called [adult swim]...
FAMILY GUY had just started airing on [adult swim], almost a year after its then-final episode - 'Family Guy Viewer Mail #1' - had aired on FOX. A classmate of mine had told me about it, and little by little, I was watching FAMILY GUY regularly. Even on school nights, low volume, haha. I didn't want to get in trouble. Life in the early 2000s was different, to any smartphone-era babies reading.
I didn't know anybody else in school at the time, sans a few classmates, who watched the show. It was like we five or so kids were the only ones who knew of its existence in my town (along w/ the original [as] shows, like AQUA TEEN and SEALAB 2021), which is kind of wild to think. I think by mid-2004, I'd seen every episode of the show to date, including the one that FOX was too cold-footed to air (for understandable reasons, especially in the early 2000s. The episode in question is probably tame compared to what the show would later "get away with"). And it was on almost every night, so I only had to wait 24 hours to see a FAMILY GUY episode I may have never seen... So catch-up was pretty easy!
I think part of the appeal for me - at age 10/11 - was definitely "haha this is a naughty show and I probably shouldn't be watching it" (though weirdly, my mother and stepdad let me watch a SOUTH PARK episode or two, I don't remember that show being off-limits) aspect. Another reason is kind of weirder, and I came to this realization rather recently-ish. Around 4th/5th grade, some things bothered young me. Growing up autistic wasn't always easy, and my way of processing the way world can be and how unfair life can be sometimes kinda... Made me act strange, in ways? I definitely had this "old soul" kinda bullshit going on at certain points in my kid life, when I should've been loose and funny and laughing at fart jokes. And I was at times, don't get me wrong. It's not like I was miserable or anything, or bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders, but some days I'd feel... Strange. And I was weirdly anti-some things that the typical kid finds funny or amusing. I don't know if I can fully articulate it now on a tumblr post, but the long story-short is... [adult swim] was one of the things that helped loosen me up a bit.
Going into middle school at age 10-going-on-11 (I started school early?) was not easy, and that accelerated a lot of things, a lot of feelings, a lot of complications in my brain... And my embrace of [adult swim] started to converge with that, and by 7th grade, I was really, really loose. I swore more, I wrote edgy stuff, I upped like most of my original stories I was writing to PG-13/R-level, I was a silly little edgelord sometimes. But at the same time, unleashing a lot of *that* after a few years of this weird pseudo-old soul nonsense, bad habits, and general confusion was a very fun and freeing feeling!
This is why, despite a lot of shit that should've made that time in my life a nightmare, late 2004-early 2005 was a really exciting time in my life. I think just letting the proverbial hair down was a big reason why, alongside all of my hyperfixations that I always turned to when things really sucked. Things such as Pixar movies and BIONICLE and Cartoon Network stuff and various video games, etc. etc. etc. And smack-dab in the middle of all this was my nightly [adult swim] viewings before I had to get up at 6:30am to wait for the bus on cold-ass mornings. FUTURAMA, FAMILY GUY, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, THE BRAK SHOW, on and on... It was the stuff I could turn to.
For Christmas in 2004, I was given a newly-released FAMILY GUY DVD called "The Freakin' Sweet Collection"... I probably wore that poor disc out. Creator Seth MacFarlane's 5 favorite episodes, ones that I still find to be bangers to this day, plus some bonus features. FAMILY GUY was a prime special interest of mine at the time, and eventually I went to a music store that went out of business many years ago and picked up the DVD sets compiling Seasons 1, 2 & 3... And subsequently wore all of those out throughout 2005. They're but gone, now... Though some stores sell a whole box set with like, what, the first 10 seasons of the show for a fair price? I may or may not buy that if the discs aren't updated from the original 2000s versions. Anyways, FAMILY GUY, yeah... I just really, really liked it back then.
Really, I was the perfect age for it at the time. FAMILY GUY has always been contested, regularly seen as one of the nadirs of animated trash. You can definitely make a case for that. As much as I dig early FAMILY GUY, some of its humor really has not aged well, and is indeed offensive in many ways. For me, I feel those pre-2nd cancellation seasons have a charm to them to shines through the more egregious stuff. A charm that noticeably fades away from Season 4-onwards. You see, being from Connecticut, where MacFarlane was born... FAMILY GUY is *very* New England to me. After all, it is set in a fictional Rhode Island town, the state the neighbors me.
The show started airing in 1999, and while I wasn't watching it back then (let alone had even heard of it), I feel a lot of the character interactions, dialogue, and setting really do capture the feeling of being there. In a New England state, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Little nuances and such, the way Peter and Lois joke about things in particular. Such as this scene from Season 2's 'E Peterbus Unum':
youtube
I don't know how to put it in words, but it's very New England to me. My family and I interacted like this quite frequently. Plus, you have Peter's voice being inspired by a security guard that Seth overheard when attending the Rhode Island School of Design, a very New England accent. Lois, too, to some extent. I hear a middle-aged Connecticut mom or aunt in Alex Borstein's delivery, whom she based on a relative of hers. Maybe that's why I initially connected to this show more so than THE SIMPSONS back in the day (and at that time, THE SIMPSONS was on its not-so-beloved seasons), I was too inept to grasp THE SIMPSONS' wit. It hit just right, I think, back then.
Now, upon learning that the show had been cancelled and that it was actually coming back... Within a few months... You bet I was excited? I remember the Sunday the fourth season premiere aired, my family and I gathered around to watch it, and I just remember all of us laughing like hyenas throughout. The episode had so much wackiness and a bunch of cameos as well. We also watched the AMERICAN DAD! episode that dropped right after, but I mostly remember when I first saw 'North by North Quahog'. What a night that was, lol. And you just, went home... Didn't tweet about it. I didn't have any message board accounts at the time, either, so... A couple of classmates to talk to about it, that was it. A lot of my classmates apparently still hadn't seen the show by this time. I mostly remember being ahead of the game when it came to this show, liking it before it was cool, you could say. Once others in my school started referencing it, it was like "I had you beat by almost 2 years." I also remember getting a T-shirt depicting the Griffins beating each other up, as seen in the episode 'Lethal Weapons'. And I remember some of the other kids thinking that was so cool, and one teacher - who probably couldn't stand me, to begin with - calling me to the front of the class to see exactly *what* was on that shirt. Surprisingly, I did *not* get in trouble...
(Not my photo, this is from an eBay listing... But it was THIS exact shirt. Only thing was missing was the horse's ass portrait!)
Later in the year, a DVD called 'Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story' was released, which I instantly put on my birthday list. It was kinda billed as "The FAMILY GUY Movie" when it was coming out, and of course my 13-year-old arse fell for it... And wore that DVD out, too... And then it aired as three separate episodes - albeit with missing footage because this was a DVD release and not a primetime TV airing - the following spring. Still, I have fond memories of getting that DVD and many others. The early DVD era was just so fun back then, what with interactive menus and much more care put into bonus features. And with less distractions back then, I feel you felt more immersed in the movies and content on the discs... Just sitting in your bedroom, you hadn't owned a laptop yet, smartphones didn't exist... Just, entranced in whatever it was you had on. It gets even more bittersweet nowadays, as stores and companies are trying to phase out physical media. How obtuse... But that's another rant for another day...
I would continue to watch FAMILY GUY regularly, and then slid off by around 2008-09ish. The show was beginning to change for the worst, I felt, and I definitely felt that original spark from the early seasons was kind of gone. The simplicity, the New England vibe, the characters feeling a lot more real and not just springboards for whatever dumb stuff they were coming up with. Seth's involvement was apparently minimal by this point in time, as he already had AMERICAN DAD!, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, the first TED movie, and other stuff in the works or bubbling up at the time. By 2011-12ish, I was getting rather actively pissed off at the show, and only checked back in when that "Brian dies" publicity stunt had happened. Otherwise, I've seen very few episodes of the show afterwards, and most of them didn't impress me... Outside of, surprisingly, a few selections from the Disney batch. Quite something! If you time-traveled to 2004 and told me that Disney was going to own this cartoon that I was watching on [adult swim] late at night without my folks knowing, I would've told you to get out of town!
But I hold a special place for those first three seasons, and watching the DVD sets of them back in early 2005, as an unhinged middle schooler. I won't posit that early FAMILY GUY is some kind of underrated gem in the history of television animation. It really is, in most iterations, perhaps the personification of that old Chuck Jones quote about "illustrated radio". Television animation that you don't watch for the animation or visuals, but solely for the writing. It pretty much is that, even if the designs of the Griffins are instantly recognizable and iconic. And it arguably had a bad influence, not the fault of the show or its creators, but of the way things go.
I came to the conclusion that Season 2 is my favorite of the original three. For me it was the most focused, the characters were at their best, banger jokes a minute and clever use of pop cultural references. I can even sense some of Seth's Cartoon Network roots in a lot of it, which is no surprise given that this show evolved out of a project he developed for CN. Season 1 is only seven episodes long and they were figuring things out, Season 3 has highs that equal that of Season 2's best moments, but I feel that parts of it kinda plant the seeds for what the show would eventually become. It noticeably gets denser, a little meaner, characters are more out-of-character, it tries to be even more offensive than before and sometimes really not sticking the landing. And yet, that's mashed up against a legit emotional episode like 'Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows'.
In fact, those last four or so half-hours... Especially with the redone end credits music that re-imagines the theme song as a big band production, there was a weird sort-of... I dunno, finality to it? And that's not counting the S2 leftover that FOX wasn't keen on airing... I mean the original ending of S3, 'Family Guy Viewer Mail #1'... It was if they knew that Season 3 was going to be the end? You had the aforementioned Wallows/Swallows, then 'Stuck Together, Torn Apart', then another "Road To" episode with 'Road To Europe', and then 'Viewer Mail #1'. Like four really well-done character-focused episodes with some heartfelt moments, even... And then as a coda, three fun skits based on wacky ideas... Like, had the show ended there in early 2002 with the recalled Weinstein episode popping up somewhere else in the future... That would've been a fine way to go out, honestly. Even as a preteen back then, I felt just that watching these episodes... So it was a big surprise to me when I found out that Season 4 was a go. And S4 would use that same 2nd rendition of the end credits theme, so that was even more unusual for me.
Yeah, FAMILY GUY... It's a part of my weird-ass life. And there's probably whole holes of other stuff related to this show and other things that I could waffle on about regarding my preteen years, but... I'll just cap it off here, lol.
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Illusion Part 2
Illusion|Part 2/?
Bucky x oc!Lori
Warnings: Angst, betrayal, swearing, torture, (suicide is mentioned once), violence
A/N: So here´s a very late part 2. I´ve decided to put the total number of chapters as a question mark for now seeing as I don´t think I have the potential to post chapters that are 10k. I just don’t have the time or backstrength to revise 10k words in one go. So there will be more and shorter chapters instead. I hope you guys like it! Don’t forget to check out part 1! And share/comment/like if you enjoyed! GIF-cred to owner! Oh, and I'm doing tag lists now! Send me a message if you want to be on it! Chapters 3, 4, and 5 should be up soon at least, I'm currently on a bit of a break, but once I'm back I'll have more time to revise and write!
Summary: Reader is a supersoldier, one of a number, one of nine. Hydra´s backup for the asset. The group was started in 1974 and has been working under the radar, training for the day when the asset no longer exists. Y/N is the only one left. Left in a cryo, she wasn’t discovered until 2023 when a certain captain and his buddy found her.
Words: 6077
Taglist: @selfsun
2024
Four weeks had passed since Lori arrived at the compound from Wakanda. It had been three months, more or less, since she was thawed out from her cryo-sleep. She felt more at home in the compound and she felt more comfortable with the rest of the team. It was now October. Autumn had brought clouds, and rain. The world was silent and didn’t have much need for the Avengers at the time. Lori had been wih the team on two missions so far. Neither was very dangerous. They hadn´t faced any serious enemies, and she had yet to fire her weapon at an enemy.
It had been made clear that she worked well with the team. Bucky and her were synchronized on a different level, and she worked well with Sam as well. The two could joke around and have fun on the missions, without it distracting them. Lori had also begun to talk more with Bucky, but she was still set on calling him James. They would have all meals of the day together, unless Bucky was away on a mission. And if he was Lori would eat on her own. The other agents working with them had big issues with yet another super-soldier. Someone who had worked for Hydra. They didn’t want a redo of what had happened with Shield.
Lori could understand them. She had spent countless evenings reading up on the Avengers, and anything involved with them. She had started as far back as Steve and Buckys time in the army. She adored the man Bucky had been back then. She adored how willing he was to follow his captain, even give his life for him. She could see a shadow of that man still in him. But years of punishment and pain from Hydra had changed him.
Next she had researched Shield. She had found out about Peggy Carter and the Starks. Of course she knew of the Starks. She had been set to step in, should Bucky fail to take their lives. He had been successful, as the whole world knew, and Lori had been kept secret from the world. The day after Christmas the same year she had ben put in the cryostasis chamber and forgotten. Her reasearch had taken her through the 90´s and early 2000´s. She had read files on all the former Avengers during the timeperiod and had asked Sam and Bucky to fill in where the files didn’t have answers.
Lori avoided tabloids and articles surrounding Shield, Hydra and the Avengers. She preferred facts over debates. Her days were spent in the filing rooms where she could find information. Sam and Bucky often tried to drag her out of the room, for runs or an hour in the gym. Sam didn’t always like running with Bucky and Lori, but he appreciated when they altered their pace to adjust for him. That way he didn’t feel like he was always left behind.
Lori had become a very good friend to Sam. He trusted her, and she was hardworking. Something he appreciated. She was also good with him, and Bucky, joking around a lot. They could be harsh with each other, but Lori didn’t seem to bother, or be too concerned about their joking. She had joined in a few times anyways. Lori liked the banter and joking. The relationship she had with the two men was so open and she felt happy around them. Happiness, that was an interesting feeling. It had been long since she felt happy and it had scared her in the beginning, but not anymore.
It had been a slow afternoon as Lori was buried in piles of files and boxes. She wanted as much details as she could comprehend about the past 30 years of the Avengers, Shield, and Hydra. She was trying to find out why Hydra had left her all alone in the bunker. The answers were no where to be found. Up until she was found, she didn’t even seem to exist. Searcheds for her name had turned up nothing. No articles, reports, or anything online or in the files. Never had she felt so alone, so unwanted.
Bucky stuck his head through the door and cleared his throat to make Lori aware of his presence. “Hey, it´s almost 8, you wanna come up and eat with us? It´s movie night,” Bucky explained and walked over to her, looking over her shoulder at the files. He moved some of them finding a picture of himself from the 1940´s. He was in a dark blue coat with a rifle in his hand. He froze as he saw the smiling man in the picture. That was 80 years ago, give or take.
Lori looked up at him and frowned. “Let´s go James,” She said and patted his arm before she walked to the door, and turned the lights off. Bucky followed her once he had put the picture down. “Have you found out anything more?” He asked her as they came out into the light of the corridor, walking towards the elevator. Lori shook her head and sighed. “It´s like I don’t exist at all. My birth certificate is there but nothing from that point. No information, no articles, absolutely nothing. It´s like I just ceased to exist.” She muttred.
“Did you try to look up your mother or friends?” Bucky asked. “I tried at least, she either died or changed her name, same goes with my friends.” She shrugged. It had pained her in the beginning but not so much anymore. She had never forgotten her mother, but during her time in Hydra she had stopped thinking about her in order to keep her thoughts safe and free of want and longing.
Bucky nudged her as they walked. “If you don’t stop spacing out on me, I´ll have to bring Wanda to see whats going on in that head of yours,” he teased her. They took a turn to the right, into the kitchen. Lori laughed and shook her head. “No sorry. I´ll try not to space out anymore today” she promised and smiled at Bucky. He laughed with her and sat down by the kitchen island pulling on a carton with pizza in it. “Care to share Lori?” He asked and slid the pizza-box a bit to his right where Lori sat down.
“Is it regular pizza? Or the superior Kebabpizza?” She asked. Of course she had decided to catch up on some Swedish history from the years she had missed. One of the things she had missed was something called a Kebabpizza. She had gone to the nearest pizzeria and asked for one. She had paid a fine prize for it but she had loved it.
Bucky had been terrified when she told him about it, Sam too. They hadn´t been as terrified as when they saw her gulp one whole Kebabpizza in one go, but rather, impressed. “I´m sorry, Americans have done much. But we didn’t start, whatever the hell, that amazing pizza is. But yes it´s Kebabpizza for the miss. Now come here and eat,” Bucky said and pushed the stool besides him out for her.
Lori sat down besided him and grabbed a slice of the pizza for herself. She grabbed a soda can as well and held it out for Bucky to open, which he did without question. The two had really learnt how to work in harmony. It was easier now that Lori had become more used to them all, and more open to being around them as well. “So Wanda, whats on tonight?” Lori asked and looked over at the one she was the closest too, apart from Bucky and Sam. Wanda shrugged and smiled at her. “I was planning on seeing Skyfall, it’s a Bond-movie. They were a thing when you were younger right?” Wanda asked.
“So old mister Connery is still in business?” She asked and raised an eyebrow at the people in front of her. They all seemed to be very confused. “What? He isn´t dead is he?” She frowned and looked to Sam, her go to for information about celebrities. “I don’t know about that, but you must have missed out on a lot of Bond movies, Connery´s last was in 71. Roger Moore took over from 73,” Sam explained as he looked at her. “Right now, well up until recently, the role was played by Daniel Craig, I think you´ll like it” he continued and smiled.
Bucky patted her arm. “Relax, when I came too there was something called cellphones. I think you can handle a different Bond,” he teased her and chuckled. She shrugged but gave in and nodded. “I´m sure this Daniel guy is good, as long as he´s good looking the plot is less important,” she explained. All the James Bond movies she had seen had more or less the same plot.
“Incoming call from Peter Parker,” The disembodied voice of Friday sounded through the kitchen making all four of them look up in confusion. Peter hadn´t called since one of Lori´s first days and as far as they knew he was away, working in Europe or so. There was no reason for him to call the avengers, so why was he?
Sam picked up the call quickly and announced all of their presence for it. “Okay so I just got back from Europe two days ago, and apparently there was this dude waiting for me here in New York. Like he doesn’t know who I am but he has beef with Spider-Man I suppose, and yeah that’s me. But I can´t shake him off, and I don’t want to lead him towards May, so you know… I kind of need a bit of help,” the young man all but shouted into the phone. Friday thankfully lowered the volume of the call.
Sam had taken a visible step back at Peters voice and let out a breath. “Hey, relax man. Where are you? We´ll come out, meet you, and lead whoever is hunting you away from May and New York City okay?” He said and crossed his arms over his chest. They could all hear how hard Perers breath was as he swung through the city. “Uhh, yeah sure, I´m swinging back and forth across 5th. North and south, it’s a weird monster,” he explained before the call was cut right then and there. “Okay team, suit up. Jet leaves in five minutes, chop chop.” Sam said and ran off to the weapons room with Bucky and Lori while Wanda ran off to her room to get her famous coat. So much for movie-night, Lori thought.
Bucky and Lori arrived in the weaponry first considering they were faster than Sam. They grabbed their guns from the shelves and made sure they were all loaded and ready to go before they grabbed extra ammo. Lori also grabbed some of Natashas widow bites. They could always come in handy and they were small, hence not ahindrence to her. She grabbed the Captains shield and tossed it to Sam before she looked over at Bucky seeing him strap on his M249.
There was something beautiful and calming about it to Lori. She had seen him get ready before, but it never ceased to amaze her. He made it seem so easy, as if it was just an extension of him, a part of him. She had always worked to be as good as him with weapons. But she wasn’t nearly as good.
1972
She had been locked into her little cell once more, and she didn’t know how long she had been there. She was guessing weeks by now. Before the experiments she had received food twice a day, now she hadn´t received food in forever, and yet she wasn’t hungry. Not much anyways. The room was as cold as it had been before but it wasn’t affecting her anymore. The clothes she had gotten helped keep her temperature up. She had seen some changes in her body, her muscles had grown and were more defined now.
The door to her cell was unlocked and she looked up from her corner. There wasn’t any food with the men and they attempted to pick her up but she kicked and punched her way out of their grips. They held up their guns and she raised her hands. She didn’t want to fight them, but she could walk on her own. They grabbed her by her arms but allowed her to walk. They guided her and they weren´t very gentle with her but she didn’t care as she was taken into an open room with a strange-looking machine in the middle.
A man sat in the chair. He was breathing hard. The men holding her pulled her towards the other side of the room and through another door. There was a table laid out which they strapped her too, tightly. They hadn´t used belts this time, but handcuffs and wires instead. Of to her right side she could see windows, but they looked to have been covered up from the outside. Streams of cold air could still be felt from that side of the room. When Lori turned her head to the right she could see a large number of machines. Machines she would have never been able to name, or explain the use off.
Someone took a hold of her head and tied something over her throat, and then over her forhead, stopping Lori from moving her head side to side. She tried to scream but her mouth was stuffed by something she hadn´t seen and therefor couldn´t identify. She could still make noise, but it was muffled by whatever was in her mouth. They attached something to the wires around her and she could feel something biting into the skin of her right arm. As something dripped down her arm she realized they had cut her arm open with a knife.
She tried to move, but she was so tighlty strapped in that she ould only move her chest up and down. She screamed and tears rolled down her temples. Maybe the man she had seen in the bigger room would hear her. Maybe he would help her if he could hear her. She was silenced by a powerful shock going through her body. She stopped thinking and couldn’t see for a moment. It was over as quick as it had come over her, and she was struggling to catch her breath.
Lori´s body was on fire. The cool air from the windows did nothing to help her. She could feel the wires around her wrists and ankles, they were burning her skin. Even if she couldn’t see, she was certain the wires would leave marks on her skin. Lori cried out again as the next shock went through her. She wasn’t aware of how long it lasted as she passed out from the pain and shock. What had she done to deserve this? Why were they torturing her?
Her cell was where she woke up. The first thing she did was to look for the marks around her wrists and ankles, and sure enough, there they were. Bright red, and bloody from where she had kicked and strained against them. She touched them gently and whimpered. They were painful, but her head was hurting worse. She didn’t have any memory of what had happened. All she could remember was when she was strapped to a table with belts. But that couldn’t have been this day, it had to have been a long time ago. Belts wouldn´t leave her wrists bloody.
2024
The thing, or monster rather, that was chasing Spider-Man was almost too much for the team to handle. Peter had worn it out a bit though with his constant swinging back and forth. The jet landed on one of the roofs and the four avengers got off as Peter also landed on the roof. “Hey guys, so I don’t know what this dudes problem is. But yeah I need help, and I need to lead him away… And…” Peter rambled and pulled at his mask without taking it off.
“Hey kid, relax. Why don’t you sit tight and we´ll get a look on things,” Bucky said and patted Peters shoulder before leaning over the edge to look down at the streets, and then towards the next roof. He glanced back at Lori and smirked. “How do you feel about jumping?” He asked and backed up on the roof before he took off and jumped over to the next roof. It wasn’t terribly far and it was lower than their current roof. Lori chucked to herself and jumped after him. She rolled into the landing and looked up at Bucky. “Now what? The thing is huge…” She mumbled and placed her hands on the guns by her hips.
If she had more time before they left, she would have tried to alter her bullets and incorporate the widow bites into them. That way they could have worked from the inside of the monster, rather than just the outside. She sighed as she thought about it, but screamed as a large hand picked her up. She tried to grab her guns but couldn’t because of where she was held. She managed to get to her knife however, and stick it in one of the monsters fingers. It didn’t do too much until she twisted it.
The monster released her with a roar, and she was falling. Buildings in New York city are high. It would have taken Lori around 8 seconds to reach the ground, thankfully Sam caught her by the arm and helped her onto the nearest building. “You okay Lori?” He shouted as he began to shoot at the monster, which was now going after Bucky. “I´m fine, we have to help Bucky.” She said and reached up to turn her comms on. “Wanda can you get a hold of the monster? Mess with its mind or something?” She asked her fellow female avenger and looked up to her. She had a habit of taking control on missions, something the others had learned during their two previous missions.
None of the others had seemed to mind. Sam was quite hppy that someone else took charge for once. Considering Lori´s background Sam was happy to have her around. He liked not having to make all the decisions himself. “I can try, I mean I don’t know how his brain works, but keep him distracted!” Wanda exclaimed and floated over to the monster. Lori got up and dusted her self off a bit before she pulled her hair into a bun. It wasn’t pretty, or cute. But it got the job done. She checked her guns to make sure they were still working properly. She didn’t want to blow herself up by accident.
Her guns were fine. She took the safety off before she shouted at the monster on the other roof. Her wish was to get its attention to let Wanda get close. The monster turned its head, and Lori began to shoot at it with both guns. It didn’t seem to do a whole lot, but at least she had the monsters attention. It started to come towards her and she frowned. “Shit, shit, fuck, shit, fuck…” She mumbled and began to back away. She kept her eyes on the monster until she hit the edge of the roof. She glanced behind herself. The others and Peter were watching her. Lori took a deep breath before she emptied the magaizines of her guns into the monster who was at the other side of the roof.
“Lori, what the hell are you doing?” Bucky and Peter asked through her coms at once. She smirked to herself and looked at them both. “Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith,” She answered and threw herself off the building. The monster came straight after her as she had figured it would. It looked over the edge into the barrell of Lori´s guns. “Hello there,” she said before she fired, the speed of the bullets knocking the monster back. The others stopped in their tracks before they too went at the monster. Asking about what Lori´s thought-process was, could wait until they were out and fine. The important thing now was to make sure the monster was taken care off.
Bucky and Sam shot at the monster while Peter and Wanda used their powers to keep the monster down. Lori reloaded her guns for the last time and helped Bucky and Sam shoot at the monster. She was in more pain now, and she had realized the monster had done more damage to her than she had previously thought. She was wheezing a bit as she grabbed at her ribs. They were painfully sore and Lori coughed to clear her throat a bit, which hurt her quite badly. “Fuck,” she muttered to herself and leaned on a structure on the roof.
Wanda held the monster down with her powers and Peter swung around throwing webs at the monsters hands and feet to stop it from moving. It took them just a few seconds to complete their goal. Sam came over to Lori and frowned as he noticed her flinch away. “Okay guys, get ready to leave. I´ll get some agents to take care of this. Peter, are you going to May or with us?” He asked and looked to the onesie-wearing man. Peter shook his head. “I´ll wait here for the agents to arrive. If he were to get lost I´m one of the only who can keep him down. Wanda could you stay as well?” He asked and looked over to the robe wearing woman standing a little farther off. Wanda nodded and smiled at them all before she soared off back to the monster.
Sam helped Lori stand up and she leaned into his side. “Fucking hell,” She mumbled and gripped her side. “Let´s get you back to Helen to check out those ribs of yours,” Sam said quickly and all but carried her to the jet for them to leave. Bucky followed them and kept an eye back on the scene they had just left. They got into the jet and Sam gently sat Lori down on one of the seats. Bucky came over to her with a first aid kit but she just shook her head. “The doctor can check up on me, it isn´t very far,” she said and leaned her head back and sighed heavily. Bucky nodded quickly and shrugged. “I´ll just get you a bottle of water and some super pain killers for now then,” he explained and left her alone for a little bit to get the water and pills.
Lori touched her side and gasped a bit as she arched her back in hopes that it would make the pain more bearable. She would be fine in just a few hours, unless the ribs were broken of course. How she hated broken bones. They were annoying, painful and just took so long to heal, even for someone with supersoldier serum. Bucky came back with the water and pills which Lori swallowed quickly. She coughed as the water went down the wrong pipe. She wiped her mouth and breathed heavly. “Thank you, Bucky,” she mumbled and looked down at her hands. Sam, who was steering them towards the compound let out a chuckle.
“She came around, now everyone calls you Bucky,” he teased his best friend. Lori smirked and shook her head as she leaned her head back again and closed her eyes. She missed the look Bucky gave her. It was a mix of happiness, terror and pride. He was happy Lori called him Bucky, but he was terrified seeing as it made him care more about her. At the same time he was proud at how far she had come from when they found her. She was acclimating to them all, and now Bucky as well it seemed. He looked away quickly to Sam who was smirking at him. He groaned quietly and made a face at Sam before placing his left hand on Lori´s forehead. She hummed in approval of the cold metal agaist her forehead.
“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked quietly and looked at her. She huffed and chuckled a bit. “Like a monster picked me up by the ribs and squeezed,” she teased him and glanced over at him. “Go ahead. Yell at me for my little suicide drop move,” she mumbled and took another sip of water. “I´m not gonna yell at you doll, that ain´t my style. Sam will do that when you´re better. But I´m curious. What where you thinking?” He asked and smiled softly. Lori looked at him and shrugged. “I noticed there was a ledge just down the roof, and I knew it was big enough for me to fall on it safetly, plus we needed the distraction. Peter and Wanda had to get a chance to bring him down.” She explained and shrugged once more.
Bucky shook his head with a smile. “Steve was just like that. Always ready to get himself hurt for others…” he mumbled and looked away for a bit. He really missed his best friend, the man he had grown up with and the man who had saved him more than once. He sighed and looked back to Lori. Of course she was special in his eyes. She was like him in many ways, and he just wanted her to be okay and be able to live a life in freedom. “Yeah, but he was always on the good side,” She answered quietly and furrowed her brows. While she didn’t see a monster in Bucky, she couldn’t help but see one in herself.
The jet landed a few minutes after midnight and Bucky helped Lori out of the back of it. He stayed by her side and let her lean on him, before Helen came up and offered to get Lori a stretcher. Being stubborn as she was she refused and let Bucky help her all the way back to the med-bay. Helen got her a bed to sit down on. “Okay, can you just remove your shirt and I´ll have a feel. We´ll see where we go from there,” she explained and stared at Bucky, waiting for him to leave so they could have some privacy. Lori stared at him too and it took him some time to understand he should leave. “There´s pizza left, I´ll leave you some,” he said before he left the med-bay rubbing his neck.
Lori laughed softly but flinched at the pain shooting through her side. “You know what, just get your shirt off and we´ll take some X-rays of your side, I have a sneaky suspicion those ribs are broken,” Helen sighed and went to get her X-ray machine. It was portable and she could see the bones straight away instead of having to print pictures out. Lori did as she was told and gently raised her arm up seeing some good bruising on her side. “Bucky gave me some super strength pain-killers on the jet. I´m not sure wether they´re working or if they just haven´t kicked in yet,” Lori explained as Helen checked her ribs. “Yeah, well they usually work within half an hour, so call me through Friday if they arent working in 15 minutes. I´ll prescribe you a dose. Don’t take more than 2 at once and only every 4 hours, alright?” Helen said and Lori nodded. “Okay Doc, are they broken? Do I need a bandage or something?” She asked as Helen walked away again. Lori pulled on her shirt now and groaned softly clutching her chest.
“They´re broken alright, but we can´t bandage it or anything so while I´m not gonna put you on bed rest, I suggest you take it easy the next few days or maybe two weeks. Your serum is a little different from Barnes and very different from Steves so I don’t really know how long it´ll take.” Helen explained and smiled at Lori before they both heard the low rumble of thunder. Lori was confused but Helen smiled to herself. “Mind if I join you guys for pizza?” she asked and Lori shrugged. “I don’t mind, but I cant speak for the others but I bet they don’t mind either,” She explained and frowned as another roll of thunder passed by. “That doesn’t sound like normal thunder… I better get back to the others,” she said and got off the bed she had been sitting on. Helen nodded and said she would be with them in a few minutes, she just had to report in the pills she had given to Lori.
1972
Time meant less and less to Lori every second that went by. Had you asked her how long she had been with Hydra she would have answered anything from two weeks to her whole life. Truth was she had been captive for five months. It was the middle of December. For Lori it might as well have been November or January, she didn’t know. All she knew was that it was colder. She had been training a lot more recently. They kept her locked in her cell when she wasn’t training or being tortured. Training took up five to eight hours per day. The torture happened less and less now than it had before, but she was still tied up and electrocuted now and then.
She didn’t understand why, but she could rarely remember much after each of those sessions. Or rather, some things seemed less important than before. She had little recollection of her life before Hydra. Over the past few months they had gone through her head and removed what was Lori. She had become a shell. A shell Hydra had filled with an assassin. Lori had undergone gun-training, knife-training and hand-to-hand-combat. With her enhancement her opponents rarely lasted very long and she got a new one every day to let them rest inbetween session. All to give Lori the best fight they could. She had seen the one she had come to know as the winter soldier a few times, but each time she asked to fight him she was laughed at and tossed into her cell.
After a few days she had stopped asking all together, there was no use. Something different had happened this day though. She hadn´t been taken to the room of torture, and not to the training room either. First she had been taken to a dance studio where she had been forced to practice for hours. Her feet were bleeding, her legs aching. But she didn’t show any emotion as the men forced her into a lab. She was pushed onto a chair and a metal arm was placed in front of her alongside some blueprints.
“Disarm it,” One of the men said and left the room locking the door behind him. Lori was alone in the room with just the arm in front of her. She stared at it for a second before she picked up the blueprints and went through them. It wasn’t clear what she was supposed to do but she began to tinker with the arm and soon had a plate of it opened up. The arm itself was filled with wires that looked like nerves. She frowned to herself and took a look at the blueprints again. She tried to locate the nerves that would disable the fingers of the arms. If she could get to those, the hand wouldn’t be able to close into a fist. It was a start if anything. She would have to disarm the arm from the elbow down to get it to be almost completely useless and that would be much harder, she soon realized.
She had just finished when the guards came back for her. With them was the man she had seen a few times prior. He was pushed into another chair and the arm was attached to his left shoulder. He was staring straight ahead and he didn’t notice Lori at all. Lori herself was taken into an adjoining room where her most senior capter stood. “Send in the agents,” he told his men in a perfect British accent. The soldat stood up as three agents came in. Lori could see him trying to flex his metal arm but he couldn´t, because Lori had done what they had asked of her.
The three agents went at the soldat, who didn’t do very well without a left arm. He was overtaken by the agents who eventually tore the metal arm off. The soldiers guards stepped in and executed the agents at the spot. Lori was taken to her cell, no word on wether she had done well or not. She guessed she had done well considering she wasn´t punished. There was no knowing with Hydra. She would never figure them out, she realized as she laid down on the bed in her little cell. They had at least provided her with two blankets, a luxiory.
2024
Thor had arrived with his brother in a heap of thunder. They had landed on the grass just outside the livingroom. Bucky and Sam had to hold Lori close as she got quite scared by the commotion. The two gods had introduced themselves to the newcomer. They had all shook hands, but Lokis lingered on Lori´s. “Aren´t you a trickster?” He asked softly as he tilted his head with a wicked smile. Lori knew more than any of her collegues about who the gods were. Hell they were a part of her swedish culture. Norse mythology was something every kid in Sweden learned about, Lori hadn´t been an exception. In fact, the norse gods and the mythology had been some of her favorite subjects in school. She had been the best in her class as well. At home she had had a number of books on the gods, well-read and re-read a million times.
Seeing the two gods was a bit of a shock to her. Of course she knew they existed, she had read their files, but she hadn´t expected them to be so big. They easily towered over them all, including Bucky, and Bucky wasn´t short. Yet Loki was at least half a head taller than him and Thor was even taller. Loki had his hair slicked back and was dressed up in a sleek black suit while Thor was in sweatpants and a hoodie. The long golden locks from the pictures Lori had seen were gone in favor for a more spkiy hairstyle. She studied them both for a while, in silence. Lori wasn’t normally a talkative person, less so with people she didn’t know. The gods just stared back at her and tilted their heads. Thor was the first one to break the silence.
“What´s your deal?” He asked as he looked Lori up and down, which to some extent felt a bit intimidating and uncomfortable. “What do you mean, what´s my deal?” She asked and crossed her arms as she stood in front of the god. She didn’t like his attitude. An attitude like that would have been punished by Hydra. “Are you a god? Do you have mind-bending abilities? Are you a former soldier?” Thor asked and frowned as he stared her down. Lori raised an eyebrow but shrugged. “I´m close to what Barnes is… A super-soldier, or something of the sorts at least.” She explained and stuck her chin out at the god.
She heard a swoosh go past her ear but she didn’t flinch or move. Thor smirked as he looked at her with a large axe in his hand. “I like this one,” He said with glee and everyone could hear Loki sigh. “Yes brother, you like yet another human, who is surprised…” he said and shook his head as he rolled his eyes. Lori was fuming on the inside, she felt slightly disrespected but she was also proud of herself for not flinching at all. Bucky grabbed her upper arms and pulled her back a bit. “Let´s go to the gym, take it out on me.” He said quietly and pulled her back. Despite what Lori thought, Bucky knew her better than she realized.
#Bucky Barnes#bucky fanfic#bucky barnes x oc#bucky x oc#the winter soldier#winter solider fanfiction#the winter solider fanfiction#Avengers#avengers fanfiction#avengers x oc#winter soldier x oc#seapandorasfics#seapandoraswritings
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What We Lost and What We Have
I decided to also post the fic on Tumblr since I’m desperate for feedback, and I’m really excited for this AU and I want to know if other people are too... because I really want to know if there’s an audience for it... (also on AO3)
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May 18, 2000, the night Sam learned 3 things.
John had cheated on Mary. Kelly Kline was dead. And his younger half brother Jack was born…
Nearly 17 years later their family never really recovered. But after a panicked phone call from Jack’s uncle Castiel, their family will never be the same.
“It’s Jack, there’s something wrong with Jack…”
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Next Chapter
Complete Tumblr Chapter Archive
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Chapter 1: Exes, siblings, and drunken mistakes
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May 18, 2000
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Sam had just turned 16 two weeks earlier.
Up until that point, the worst thing that had happened to him was being dumped at his sophomore winter formal and having his CD player stolen out of his locker by Bela, the opportunistic klepto of a foreign exchange student from Pre-Cal the same night.
They were celebrating Dean moving into his first solo apartment the night they got the call.
Sam had gone upstairs to get a head start on his summer reading list but he could hear the rest of his family laughing and talking over the game through his cracked bedroom door.
He'd barely even heard the phone ring and his mother getting up to answer it, only taking note after he heard the volume on the television being lowered dramatically.
"What'd you say Mary?" his dad asked, the smile still in his voice.
"I said, do you know a Castiel?" Mary repeated.
"Castiel? I don't think so, maybe someone from the shop, Dean?"
Dean must have shaken his head because he never heard a response.
"Well whoever he is he sounds really upset," Mary sounded concerned.
He couldn't make out what his mother asked the man on the phone but then…
"Castiel Kline?"
There was a deathly silence, curiosity got the better of Sam, he closed his book and went down the stairs. John had gone white as a sheet.
"He says you knew his sister…" Mary turned to look at John, eyebrows raised, "and he really needs to speak to you."
John had nearly snatched the phone from Mary in his haste apologizing profusely.
Sam had stayed hidden by the stairs his entire family looking on as John walked quickly to the kitchen.
Dean looked confused, Mary looked shell shocked. Neither moved.
But Sam did he tiptoed quietly to the kitchen door staying just outside it eavesdropping on one side of John's phone conversation."
"What do you mean she…? Calm down, I can't understand what you’re saying, slow down. What happened?"
John was pacing the room, running a hand through his hair panic in his tone and posture bent like everything teetered on the voice on the other end of the line.
"How can you be sure it's… he's… Kid, I didn't even know she was... I met her once... she never told me!"
Sam heard footsteps and jumped, his mom had finally unfrozen and moved towards the kitchen. She was shaking slightly, her mouth set tightly, eyes watering, he stepped guiltily out of her way.
"John… what's going on?"
The screaming started less than a minute later. Dean eventually pulling him away back toward the living room.
And that night Sam had learned 3 things.
John had cheated on Mary.
Kelly Kline was dead.
And his younger half brother had been born…
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April 21, 2007
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Another night he'd never forget.
Dean had said John had gotten in a car accident when he called him at Stanford, a stupid little fender bender.
The other driver had come around to John’s driver side window pissed off ready to give John a piece of his mind only to find him slumped over, pronounced dead by paramedics on the scene five minutes later, an apparent heart attack behind the wheel.
"I know you don't give a shit about him anymore, but at least come to his fucking funeral."
The years had not been kind to the brother's relationship, but even Sam thought that was uncalled for. He wasn't going to leave Dean alone to deal with the aftermath.
He'd been in the middle of preparing for finals but he’d still come.
Dean hadn’t been big on lawyers ever since the bozo divorce lawyer who’d drawn up John and Mary’s papers had cheated them out of 6k.
He'd missed John’s service but not the burial. Listening to some preacher go on about what a great guy his dad was would only have brought up inappropriate angry thoughts. He knew Dean would be angry he didn’t show up, he would have been angrier if he’d laughed.
So he'd sat in his car until everyone started to leave. One or two great aunts and uncles he’d never met, guys who worked at the auto shop, sundry friends and neighbors. Mary had spotted him and came over knocking softly on the window and giving her son a silent hug before leaving.
When he finally got out there were only three people left.
Jack was six-years-old and tow-head then, - like he’d seen Dean in pictures at that age - hiding on the far side of Castiel, watching them nervously as he was led away from the graveside hand in hand with his uncle.
It had been a weekday so the boy had thankfully been with Castiel at the time of John's death.
His brother was standing at the graveside when Sam approached him, hands stuffed in his pockets swaying side to side. Like he was getting ready to fill in the hole himself if the gravediggers didn’t get there soon. Because it was something he could do with his hands and emotions, taking out his grief on the dirt.
It made Sam a little wary to approach him but he barely looked up and over when Sam came up beside him.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
They’d stood there in silence Sam mentally stumbling over a thousand things to say in his head.
"Well, dad’s... dead.”
He imagined Dean was probably silently seething.
“Maybe I should have asked dad to die at a better time so it fit into your busy schedule.”
Emotions neither one was ready to confront kept them from moving.
“Same time next year?”
Dean had said it sarcastically, and looking back Sam wished they’d had a better story but that was how their little tradition began.
Outside of major holidays or birthdays, it was one of the few times they made an active effort to see each other. Sometimes catching up, other times just visiting the site. Rain or shine, just the two of them.
Until today.
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April 21st, 2017
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“It’s almost fucking summer,” Dean muttered, his breath puffing in the early evening air. He rubbed his hands together before handing Sam an even colder beer. Sam huffed and took it, and making no comment about how that would do next to nothing to help, or about how it was a trashy brand he hadn’t seen since pre-law.
“If it makes you feel better the weather channel says it’s the coldest spring in over a decade..” Sam sipped his beer and grimaced, it reminded him why he’d never been much of party-er in college.
But as Dean once put it “our family were salt of the earth people,” and he wore that fact like an aesthetic badge, like hipsters and the wannabe actors in Cali. Sam grinned a little at the thought.
Dean poured out 79 cents worth of beer for John before cracking open another bottle to drink himself.
“Happy ten years dad,” Dean smiled humorlessly. “Still managed not to burn your shop to the ground…”
He’d been waiting when Sam got there standing and looking down in the exact same way he did ten years previously. Rocking back and forth, processing, contemplating. Sam searched Dean’s back for something to say. A navy canvas covered back.
“You got a new jacket…”
“Huh?” Dean sipped his beer like he hadn’t heard him.
“I’ve always seen you wear Dad’s old leather one,” Sam insisted.
It took a ridiculously long time for him to respond, like Dean had settled on an unspoken rule that he had to wait until Sam's breath completely dissipated into the cool morning air before he could reply.
“Yeah well, maybe it’s too cold today, like you said ‘coldest spring of the decade,’ ever think of that Sammy?”
“It’s just a cool front, it’ll be in the seventies by tomorrow Dean,” Sam said flatly.
Dean fell silent again for a long moment.
“It’s been ten years… it got old, I got a new one, do you need me to psychoanalyze your henley now?”
Sam rolled his eyes in defeat letting the subject drop with another swing of dishwater beer.
If Sam remembered one thing about growing up with his brother it was that Dean was a creature of habit. Dean had never been big on school but he’d insisted on using the same backpack all throughout middle and high school, and one look at the parking lot told Sam he still drove dad’s old Impala, he’d repaired both items multiple times. Dean didn’t get rid of things because “it got old.”
“ It’s been ten years… ”
Maybe it was time for a change.
Sam swallowed in the charged silence, “ change... ” he’d been putting off talking to Dean about that.
He’d done something on impulse. He’d been roped into going out for drinks with his fellow junior partners in his firm after winning a case. Sorting out some accounting error that got at least three people fired. He hated those cases, making sure that companies weren’t liable for random bullshit that meant nothing in the long run. They’d had three like that in the same month. So... after a few drinks… he’d gotten sentimental, started thinking about his life choices, thinking about all the things he hadn’t done yet, the things he regretted.
Sam really should have asked Brady to stash his phone before they got to the bar.
But the secret he’d been keeping reared it’s deceivingly unassuming head before he had a chance to open his mouth..
The silence was broken by a distant but harsh sounding cough.
Dean glanced over his shoulder posture immediately stiffening, eyebrows raising, “What the hell…”
Sam at least had the good grace to look guilty.
Castiel looked about the same as Sam remembered him save for a few lines on his face. The same constant vaguely worried look was made more prominent by whatever he was talking to Jack about.
Jack, on the other hand, had changed a lot. He’d maybe been eleven the last time Sam had seen him. Since then his hair had considerably darkened with age from blond to sandy brown and he’d shot up half a foot. There wasn’t much of John visible in Jack’s face and if his resemblance to his uncle was anything to go by the Kline genetics were strong in him.
He looked a little washed out, blowing his nose in a tissue as they approached, a small bouquet of yellow flowers in his free hand, looking up from his conversation with his uncle to give Sam a cautious smile. Sam looked quickly away.
“I was uh… meaning to talk to you about... this…” Sam looked sheepish.
“Oh you were going to talk to me,” Dean scoffed, “Sam what are Jack and and and… saint Castiel doing here!?”
“I invited them?” Sam scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
Dean looked lost for words mouthing silently for a moment, "Okay Sam so explain this to me."
Sam huffed now he distinctly didn't want to answer him, "Dean could you just…"
"No no no please tell me," Dean seemed to puff up with indignation and betrayal, "what exactly possessed you to think that was in any possible way a good idea? because it's beyond me!"
“Six beers that did not taste like piss ,” he didn’t say.
"Is there a problem here?" Castiel and Jack had finally reached the grave. He kept himself a little in front of the teenager, protective. It was painfully familiar, even the look of nervous confusion on Jack's face.
"No, not all," Dean snorted, "I just thought… some things were sacred."
"He's dad's kid too, he has as much right to be here as we do!" Sam raised his voice done with his brother's verbal assault.
Said kid just coughed awkwardly.
Dean didn't even glance his way, "yeah sure, any other day he can have a goddamn picnic here if he wants, but not today… he's never come to-day…"
"I’m right here you know," Jack piped up annoyed.
"Dean, you're acting like a child," Sam was beginning to get pissed off. Dean was embarrassing him in front of people with one of his stupid hissy fits.
"Yeah well, maybe I am," Dean reached down to pick up what was left of the six pack, the remaining bottles rattling ominously.
"You see I thought… I thought maybe this meant something to you, that I still somehow knew you," Dean shrugged, "but you're right Sam, we're not kids anymore…"
And with that Dean left, returning the wary look he got from Castiel with a sarcastic smile.
Sam just sighed not following, instead turning his attention to Castiel and Jack.
Any of the anxious hope Jack’s face had held when they first walked up had gone, replaced with an unreadable expression.
Castiel looked shaken.
"I'm really sorry about him, he's just…" Sam trailed off he didn't have an honest excuse.
"No it's fine," Castiel sighed looking harassed, feathers ruffled so to speak by Dean's tirade.
"Maybe we shouldn't have come," he gave Jack a significant look that rubbed Sam the wrong way. He felt like he had to defend his brother.
"He's not usually like that it's just…" Sam trailed off feeling lost. He didn't even know why he was doing this, he'd invited them on a stupid drunken whim, and he barely spoke to Dean anymore. He was basically defending two strangers from one another. He didn’t feel like explaining his brother’s temper tantrum. He should have stayed in California at least there the people made sense.
“I’m sorry you drove all this way from…” Sam pulled up a blank.
“Indiana, Midway, Indiana,” Cas huffed, crossing his arms and looking colder than it was possible to actually be wearing at least three layers.
“Right,” Sam awkwardly swung his arms at his side, examining the freshly pruned grass for weeds.
He had cases he needed to get back to, they were barely two month’s out from a major merger and the firm had yet to finish writing out the paperwork. He spared a glance toward Jack.
Jack seemed to shrink into himself still half hidden behind his uncle’s coat, coughing quietly into his sleeve.
“You okay?” Sam tried.
“Hotel AC…” the kid muttered not looking him in the eye. “We um… we got in late last night, been hanging around there all day.” His free hand was tucked into his patterned jacket pocket, the one with the flowers tensed into a shaking fist, crinkling the plastic, biting his lip, like he was trying not to cry.
Sam felt bad for him, wanted to say something reassuring, but he knew if he looked over an inch he’d see Castiel, glaring at him like he’d just stabbed the kid.
“I um… I’m supposed to meet Mary at six…” Sam said lamely.
He heard no objections, "good to see you again," he sighed before walking away.
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Dean stared down into his glass, swirling the amber middle shelf spirit; he’d tossed the cheap beer in the fridge before going out in search of something stronger.
He didn’t want to be alone and sober in that house… not tonight.
He took a long swallow from the glass then knocked it back against the bar counter, “fuck you Sam.”
“You got a ride home tonight Dean-o?” a familiar voice prodded sounding amused.
“You offering Gabe,” Dean gave the bar owner a thin smile.
Gabe chuckled topping off his glass, “just asking, I’d hate to have to sick the big guy on you for your keys…”
Dean glanced over his shoulder spotting the glum musclebound bartender. He was scrubbing at a table in harsh rapid spirals, treating sticky beer and peanut bits with all the intensity of someone cleaning up blood from a murder they committed.
“Where’d you find that anyway,” Dean snorted taking another mouthful of whiskey, “haven’t seen him around before.”
“Gadreel is just one of my many, many, siblings,” Gabe leaning back against the bar and shrugging, looking pleased with himself - though that was likely just his resting face -.
Dean squinted, besides brown hair, he didn’t see the resemblance.
“Gadreel?” Dean huffed into his glass, “ I get Gabriel, there’s tons of Gabriel’s, but where do you get a name like Gadreel?”
Gabe pretended to busy himself scrubbing out a lowball glass surreptitiously, “Our Dad was a religious nut, and his name started with G so he decided all his kids should have G names too. Actually, now that I think about it…” he paused to examine his reflection in the glass, “he may have just been an overall nutbag”
Dean opened his mouth to say something snide, then remembering he was named after his grandmother he decided to mind his own damn business and went back to his drink.
“Mom would have killed me if I didn’t get little bro the job,” Gabe paused eyeing Dean like he wanted him to ask why.
Dean let him hang for a long minute draining the rest of his glass and wiping his mouth before asking.
“Yeah, why?”
“Gadreel used to be a security guard for some big designer store downtown,” Gabe poured a drink for himself in the glass he’d just cleaned coming around the counter with the bottle to join Dean, - the bar was emptying out for the evening - .
“He let the wrong person in, the store got robbed, and he copped accessory charges for shit he didn’t do, ended up doing a stint in prison for it, it’s hard to get a job after that.”
Dean snorted, that sounded about right. The world was like that. You thought you knew how things worked one minute and then one friendly gesture later it spit in your face.
And Dean was beginning to think Sam was one of the most worldly people he knew.
“So how's that going for you, working with your brother,” Dean snorted at the concept, imagining Sam working at the shop was like imagining hiring a dog as a bailiff for one of Sam’s courtrooms, a terrible yappy one with a penchant for biting you in the ass.
“It’s fine, he’s a little stiff, ee-mmedially kills the mood if anyone tries to ya’know actually talk to him, but one look from him is all it takes to keep a hot-headed drunk in line so,” Gabe shrugged, “all things considered it’s a good trade-off.”
“Hmm…” Dean gave an unconvinced huff of a laugh.
“You ever work with family Deano?”
You could never completely tell with Gabriel, whether the man was actually trying to be a friend or just trying to get his patrons to buy more drinks. Dean hadn’t been in the mood to talk when he’d arrived but after four whiskeys the sun was burning low on his inhibitions.
“My dad…” Dean threw Gabe a bone tapping his glass in his general direction, “we uh… we worked together at his auto shop from when I was sixteen until a few years ago.”
Gabe poured him another glass, “Last call… I knew you worked at an auto shop, didn’t know it was your dad’s…”
“Yeah… he left it to me when he passed, it’s not like Sam would even know what to do with it even if he actually wanted it.”
The bar owner had the good graces not to comment on his dad’s death.
“Sibling problems Dean?” but apparently not the good sense not to ask about his brother.
“My brother’s a lawyer out in California, kid works in some big corporate firm and yet can’t breathe without letting me know how much more righteous he is, how that works I’ll never fucking know.”
Gabe snorted, “I got an older brother like that, Michael, real piece of work.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose.
“He goes by his middle name, first name is actually Gary,” Gabe quickly explained.
Very biblical name Gary...
“Yeah, well one idiot brother is enough for me,” Dean muttered darkly.
Today had been about six steps to far, Sam had never been as close as Dean was with their dad even before the divorce and after… he barely spoke to John from the time he moved out of the house until John’s eventual death.
Still Dean thought that even if John meant nothing to the man anymore that maybe this… thing they did... that it was their thing, meeting and going to pay respects at John’s grave. That they could just go there and deal with whatever shit they had about what had happened and just not be alone.
But inviting a kid, THAT kid… clearly what Dean thought and what Sam thought was very different.
He had no idea what their yearly meeting meant to Sam, if anything, and that terrified him.
Dean sat not saying another word clutching his glass so hard he was afraid it would shatter. Gabe seemed to lose interest after a while getting up and moving away to chastise his own brother.
“Hey, man go easy on the tables you’re gonna wear thru the varnish…”
Dean quietly got up, peeling a wad of cash out of his billfold and laying it on the counter, he was done talking for tonight. He headed out of the bar weaving slightly to call a cab.
The house was just as dead quiet as when he left it, he flicked on the lights, it didn’t really help anything, just threw the closed doors of his parents and Sam’s empty rooms into sharp contrast as he stumbled up to bed.
It was two in the morning when his cell rang a few hours later, bringing his throbbing head back into the land of the living, he saw Sam’s name and shut it off annoyed going straight back to sleep.
Only minutes later, the landline rang.
Dean kicked off the covers swearing under his breath before stomping downstairs to snatch up the old yellowed relic, ready to unleash a tirade at Sam.
“Do you having any fucking clue what time it is!?”
“Dean?”
It wasn’t Sam but the voice was vaguely familiar, “who’s this?”
“It’s… Cas… Castiel…” the man sounded shaken, “Samuel gave me your number.”
Dean’s still half drunk brain was at a loss, there were strange unidentifiable sounds in the background. He stayed silent in bewilderment.
“I um… I’m at the hospital... It’s Jack,” his voice cracked.
“There’s something wrong with Jack…”
#Supernatural#SPN#fanfiction#Sam Winchester#Dean Winchester#Jack Kline#Castiel#family drama#father death#car accident mention#heart attack#sickfic#kinda#whump#emotional whump#Gabriel#Gadreel
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Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Vol 2 #6-7 Thoughts
Previous thoughts here.
Okay I’ve finally caught up to where I left off with RYV in 2017 so these are my thoughts on the X-Men arc.
I have very mixed feeling about this arc depending upon what POV I look at it from.
As a general story unto itself and an instalment in this series it was pretty great.
However in the context of an AU series with a limited shelf-life as is and in a context when Spider-Man had so often been sharing the spotlight (and the Spider-Marriage hadn’t been seen) making what amounted to a standard paint by numbers X-Men story just from the Parker’s POV was very questionable even if I like the X-Men.
Finally from the POV of a guy who likes the X-Men but isn’t hardcore but is very much in love with 90s X-Men (which this version is based upon) my feelings are very mixed.
And that boils down to what I love about the X-Men and that era of the X-Men vs. how Conway apparently feels about them.
But let’s get general perennial opinions out the way. I’ve grown to begrudgingly accept the conceit of this series as a Spider Family book and a book where we are just going to ignore the child endangerment issues at play. But i’ve spoken about that before in my older coverage of issues #1-5. Similarly in those issues and it still holds true for this arc, Stegman is the goddam man when it comes to the artwork.
Whilst there was one panel in which he tried to draw MJ shocked and upset and it came off just goofy, over all the artwork in this arc was stunning and I genuinely said ‘wow’ out loud when I got to the splash page of Spider-Man and Wolverine.
Keeping on the visuals for a moment, I goddam love the costumes chosen for the characters here. Yes even the reimagined looks for Toad, Crucible and Mist Mistress.
Obviously I don’t talk X-Men here much but I adore the 1990s X-Men costumes from the 1992 cartoon, which originated under Jim Lee. And honestly they genuinely are among the most iconic and visually dynamic looks for the characters so it’s not purely personal preference. This is especially resonant for me with Wolverine. Spider-Man is my favourite (American comic book) character and following him are various Spider-Verse characters like MJ, Norman Osborn, Ben Reilly, Mayday, etc.
But outside of those Spider-Verse characters, Wolverine is my absolute fav Marvel character and it’s always annoyed me that Marvel were like embarrassed to put him in his classic Giant-Sized X-Men uniform once Whedon began writing X-Men.
That is THE iconic Wolverine look and in this story Stegman brought it back baby!
Similarly I appreciated that the Magneto of this story both looked and acted like classic Magneto. Not the aweful black and silver shit he was wearing around this time in the comics and I’ve never been fond of him as a good guy member of the X-Men.
Honestly, whilst I get it was well executed character development, Magneto is inherently more interesting as a morally grey antagonist for the X-Men than among their ranks. So much of the core premise of X-Men is built around the fundamental philosophical conflict between Magneto’s beliefs and Xaviers that you lose a not insignificant chunk of the essence of X-Men when you put them on the same side. Not to mention in a superhero story you want strong characters as antagonists and Magneto is arguably the best X-Men villain, scratch that best comic book villain, ever.
Okay now let’s chat story.
I wasn’t pleased with the deaths in this. Banshee might be few people’s fav but Beast was and in both cases their quick shock deaths were unearned and unworthy. Kind of overly dark to be honest with you given the nature of the RYV book and it gave the impression that Conway isn’t fond of either character.
But that sentiment shines through far more poignantly with Jubilee and Cyclops. Whilst Cyclops gets screwed over slightly less badly than he did in the X-Men movies, the same problems occur. He gets undermined in favour of Wolverine and so Logan and Jean can be shipped together. Which is only a different flavour of frustrating if you LIKE the Cyclops/Jean relationship as I do, than when Jean got screwed over so Scott and Emma could hook up. I still despise that.*
But at least this was kind of believable, at least to me. No X-Men expert so maybe their break up was OOC, but the idea that Cyclops and Jean broke up because Jean didn’t have faith in controlling her Godlike powers whilst Cyclops did is an interesting piece of relationship drama. And at least the characters in RYV didn’t get fucked as hard as they did in the 2000s.
Still you can kind of tell Conway isn’t a big fan of Cyclops (understandable he has his haters, I hate 2000s-2010s Cyclops) but you can equally tell he really doesn’t like Jubilee.
Again, not an X-Men expert here but I’m pretty sure Jubilee being a traitor to the X-Men and being disillusioned by Xavier’s methods is immensely OOC for her character.
Now that isn’t that big of a deal because this is an AU at the end of the day. But if you like Jubilee or just know her character then it will probably annoy you. Unfortunately for one reason or another Jubilee in my observations seems to get a lot of hate that Kitty Pryde and X-23 don’t and I do not understand why.
In the cases of both characters I could tell instantly that Conway was setting one of them up to be the traitor and honestly if you are doing an AU book, Cyclops is kind of the more interesting choice although I grant you maybe not in the context of 2010s Cyclops who already murdered Xavier in AvX and has been a douchebag for a long time. But in the context of this story and 1990s X-Men which this story is trading off of, it’s the more interesting choice. I will give it to Conway though for at least bothering to give us 2 suspects. These days most writers wouldn’t even bother with that and just think they were being subtle when they have Jubilee say shit like “Maybe your human friend wouldn’t like you if she knew you were a mutant!”
On some final notes about the X-Men themselves I feel like there was maybe something more interesting you could’ve done with Jean and Wolverine’s child than what we got with Shine. In her personality and powers she could be any one of the army of Summers/Grey children or any given generic mutant. There is no Wolverine in her to be seen.
That’s not me inherently hating her. She’s just more of a missed opportunity. She was adorable unto herself and even moreso in her relationship with Annie and I hope that gets revisited in consequent issues.
My final little note regarding the X-Men themselves was that I didn’t care for Magneto being mind controlled at the end or his over all plan.
Okay, it’s more like I felt his plan was underdeveloped. Because it’s not that it didn’t make sense because it was literally the same plan from X2: X-Men United. But Conway basically expected you to have just known that because of the visuals and results of the plan. And for comic book and comic book movie fans like me, sure I know the shorthand but it’s not good storytelling. Similarly Emma Frost shows up at the end, barely talks but just kind of takes over as the main villain when Magneto had been the guy built up in the story and...he, he’s Magneto dude. That’s like having Puppet Master show up towards the end of a story where Doom’s been the main villain and take over.
Also doesn’t his helmet shield him from psychic control? I mean again it’s an AU and I feel like that wasn’t established until way later about Magneto but still.
I also wanna talk about how this arc more than anything else just blows up the continuity between RYV volume 1 and volume 2.
In RYV vol 1 #1 it was a big deal that the X-Men got wiped out by Regent and the implication was that the universe diverged in the early-mid 1990s.
In this arc though it’s made crystal clear that obviously the X-Men are fine and that in this universe (the dumpster fire clusterfuck that was) Civil War 2006 was avoided.
Which is again an example of Conway subtly saying screw you to stuff he doesn’t like but I don’t mind that because yeah screw Civil War it was hot trash. But it does make RYV volume 1 way more confusing in terms of continuity, especially since literally no other post-Secret Wars ongoing series (including X-Men ’92) seemed to radically alter their universe after the event like RYV did.
Honestly I think the only way to have it make sense is to just say RYV volume 2 is an alternate version of the RYV volume 1 characters and that prior to volume 2 a guy called the Regent showed up, stole some people’s powers then Spider-Man and his family stopped him. He didn’t kill anyone, he didn’t take over the world, he wasn’t trying to kill God Emperor Doom or whatever and the world didn’t know who Spider-Man was by the end of it.
This actually jives way better with what Houser would later establish in her run on RYV that Annie isn’t a daughter Peter and MJ had INSTEAD of Mayday, but in fact the daughter they would’ve had if OMD hadn’t fucked everything up. I guess in the RYV universe though Spider-Man never joined the Avengers and fashion was stuck in the 1990s even in the 2000s.
I’m not complaining I’m just trying to get all this stuff straight.
Okay let’s move onto the Parker family.
I loved the payoff to issue #2 with MJ planning a party and it turning out to be for Peter’s birthday. That was the best scene in the whole story. Normal life drama with supporting characters we know and love. This is the heart of Spider-Man! And it came with adorable scenes like Annie confronting the horror of gluten free desserts and acknowledgments of Aunt May and Aunt Anna’s deaths.
The heart of the story was the stuff related to whether Peter and MJ should make Annie stay at the Xavier school or not and the scenes exploring this were really good.
Spider-Man deal with relatively relatable everyday issues and failing that stuff that s clearly allegorical to said issues. In this case Annie’s powers are allegorical to a kid with a disability, special learning issues, or someone with a particular aptitude for learning that would make a normal school more challenging.
Special props goes to Peter relating to how he struggled in school and not wanting that for Annie. In MJ’s case though she wants to keep her daughter close. This makes sense retroactively when you consider she’s already lost one child and if you pretend RYV vol 1 happened then she spent years keeping Annie close out of fear that she died.
Putting those aside though it could be a commentary upon MJ’s own childhood growing up where she was constantly being uprooted and saw her family and her sister’s family fall apart. For MJ it’s likely very important that the family unit stay close together.
Conway’s writing shines because he organically (albeit not as subtly as he could) has them switch positions creating yet more potential conflict and makes sure Annie has her own view on the matter. She likes the school, she likes Shine but she doesn’t want things to change and justifies this in a childish way by making out a popular kid in her school is a bigger deal than she actually is.
My major point of condemnation though is that I feel way more could’ve been done with the premise (e.g. having MJ and Jean connect over super powered kids) than actually was because so much of the plot is dominated by villains invading the Xavier school for the umpteenth time.
Actually goes into two other problems with the arc. This is an incredibly generic X-Men storyline because obviously it’s from a Spider-Man perspective. Like if an X-Men story tried to present a window into the world of Spider-Man it’d be a typical thing about him making rent, working for Jameson and missing a date or whatever. It’s like default setting X-Men and whilst I like that because I miss those days before X-Men became a clusterfuck, it’s not the most compelling main plot in the world.
And honestly it wraps up too quickly and easily, MJ just decks Emma Frost and the story is done. Annie and Peter don’t get involved enough which is weird because isn’t this a team book? I mean as the story highlights it makes Mj look cool but I don’t like doing that at the expense of the other characters.
Now in fairness that might’ve been set up for the next arc, which I know is about MJ becoming Venom. The last page or two of the arc implies this because it features an overtly villainous Liz Allan.
At first I raised my eyebrow at this. Around that same time Liz had been presented as evil in the 616 books and I thought this might’ve been lame out of nowhere synergy.
But in thinking about it, if this really is a Liz Allan who is recently went through the stuff she dealt with in DeMatteis’ Harry Osborn arc from the 1990s (as is the implication) then Liz would be a darker person, would be more hard hearted to protect her son and she wasn’t the nicest person to the Parkers at that time.
Although issue #4 had MJ refer to Normie as creepy implying the Osborns and Parkers generally aren’t all that close in this universe.
Regardless Liz with the Venom symbiote targeting MJ and having the there be an explicit thematic connection between them via their shared motherhood was a darkly delicious moment.
As many mixed feelings as I have for this arc over all I give it a solid B.
*Hence I personally also loved Emma Frost just being a plain villain and getting decked by MJ because I goddam hate Emma Frost I really do.
#Spider-Man#Peter Parker#Spiderling#Anna May Parker#Spinnert#Mary Jane Watson Parker#RYV Thoughts#Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows#renew your vows#Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows#X-Men#Gerry Conway#Wolverine#ryan stegman#Jean Grey#Jubilee#Magneto#Scott Summers#Professor Xavier#Liz Allan
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Before Conan the Barbarian, There Was Bran
By Adrián Maldonado
I write about medieval barbarians in my legit academic work, and use this blog to explore how they occasionally escape from our powerpoint slides into the public consciousness.
I recently realized that for all my degrees, I didn’t know a thing about one of history’s most famous barbarians. It was high time I looked up Conan.
Stock image of Dark Age Europe
In my 80s childhood, Conan the Barbarian was a kind of folk character – a stock image of a beefy white guy in a furry loincloth with a giant sword. (I would probably be picturing Conan the Librarian, to be honest.) But I already had He-Man in my life, a knock-off Conan cartoon made to sell toys, though I could not have known that because the cartoon was so unspeakably awesome it would brook no questioning. Indeed, I only discovered the Schwarzenegger Conan films later on, when I was old enough to realize he had made other weird, non-science fiction films back in the Reagan era. I knew vaguely that the character was based on a book, or was it a comic book? This was before the internet, and before I could ever give a shit about a character with no good action figures.
Flash forward twenty years or so, when I am a grizzled Xennial hunched over his computer, writing about depictions of the Picts in pop culture. Immersed in terrible filmic depictions of ancient Scottish warriors (always warriors), it struck me that I had never thought about Conan the Barbarian. What kind of barbarian was he meant to be? Did his story take place in some kind of historical epoch? Were there Picts in it that I could add to my list?
Imagine my shock when I did find a Pict down this rabbit hole (or souterrain?), and he looked like this:
Whatever else I was working on, stopped.
***
Robert E. Howard is best known today as the creator of Conan the Barbarian. But little did I know that he was one of the first pop culture appropriators of the Picts. Indeed, he was writing about the Picts long before he even conceived of Conan. The Picts were his muse. I feel like this is important, and I may need more than one blog post to say why. But first, an introduction.
I had seen some hilarious renderings of Picts over the years, but they always fell into the usual stereotype of tattooed maniacs hurling themselves onto Roman spears.
Tattooed maniacs hurling themselves onto Roman spears (source)
This 1960s paperback collection of stories by Howard entitled Bran Mak Morn, apparently the last king of the Picts, depicted this king Pict as a Neanderthal surrounded by howling ape-men. To me, this seemed like the purest distillation of the idea of the barbarians beyond the wall as sub-human, a trope developed in Roman imperial propaganda and continually reproduced today by the Hadrian’s Wall heritage ecosystem.
The paperback was one of a series of reprints of Howard’s genre-defining pulp fantasy of the 1920s and 1930s, brought back to life in the wake of the Tolkien wave of the 60s. Closer inspection revealed that Frank Frazetta’s 1969 cover image bore little resemblance to the description of Bran himself in Howard’s tales, even if his Pictish ‘race’ was certainly of a simian variety. More on this presently. What I wanted to know first was how a Texas kid learned about the Picts in the early 20th century, and came out with this.
***
Robert E Howard had a tough childhood in his native Texas. Coming from a broken home, he moved around a lot and read books to keep himself company. In 1919, at the age of 13, his father dragged him to New Orleans while he took classes, so he squirrelled himself away in a library on Canal Street. It was there that he first read about the Picts in a book about British history. The image of a little, dark race from the north that hassled the Romans but could never be conquered fascinated him. Perhaps due to the ray of light this book gave him at a sensitive point in his childhood, the Picts remained ingrained in his mind for the rest of his short life, which he would later take in 1936, at the age of 30.
Like many other nerdy kids, he wrote stories to pass the time. In his archive were found several early writings which reveal the impact the Picts had on him. There is a school paper from 1920-23 about the Picts. The first story he ever submitted for publication was about the Picts, ‘The Lost Race’, but it was rejected by the editor of Weird Tales in 1924. He sold his first story later that year, beginning his professional writing career. A revised version of ‘The Lost Race’ was finally published in Weird Tales in 1927, introducing the world to Bran Mak Morn, a Pictish king who fought the Romans. He would go on to make several more appearances in Howard’s swords-and-sorcery tales, and the Picts eventually became one of the myriad ‘races’ in Howard’s Hyborian Age, a proto-prehistoric shared universe inhabited by Conan the Barbarian.
Bran Mak Morn by Gary Gianni (source)
Howard’s Picts are a peculiar bunch. From his first essay on them, he describes them as the remnants of the stone age inhabitants of Britain, comparing their appearance to Native Americans. In this view, they were the ‘Mediterraneans’ (as opposed to Celts or Nordics) who first brought the knowledge of farming to Britain in the Neolithic. They were eventually swept aside by the fair-skinned ‘Celtic’ race of metalworkers, at which point they were forced to mingle and interbreed with the indigenous cavemen, a barely human simian-like race. This meant that by the arrival of the Romans, the Picts had become stunted, swarthy, long-armed ape-men. All except Bran Mak Morn, their king, who had kept his bloodline pure. All pretty disgusting racial logic now, but hey, so the argument goes, it was the 20s.
Except that here it was, unfiltered and raw, in a book released during the height of the civil rights struggle in the United States. I bought this ancient artefact off of Amazon for pennies, and holding it in 2017, it felt like I’d acquired an illicit antiquity. Plenty of writers have tripped over themselves to call out and defend Tolkien and Howard regarding the racial (if not always racist) component to their mythical prehistories, so I won’t go down that route just now. But that cover image haunted me.
***
In 2005, Bran Mak Morn received a brand-new edition, the Weird Tales stories now bundled with unpublished manuscripts, fragments of Howard’s correspondence, and critical essays by Rusty Burke and Patrice Louinet. Armed with an annotated timeline of Howard’s Pictish writings, which spanned his career, and supplemented with google-fu, I was able to clarify the genesis of Bran Mak Morn.
Former Canal Street public library, New Orleans, 1911 (source)
It is possible to trace the public library Howard visited when he was 13, when he first encountered a British history book and his vision of the dark, prehistoric Picts. The Canal Street public library in question must be the one that formerly stood at 2940 Canal Street at the corner of South Gayoso, opened in 1911. A photograph survives on the New Orleans library website, and Google Maps reveals it is now a Yoga studio.
Origin myths of the Picts (source)
Rusty Burke has also plausibly identified the very book that Howard seems to have read: The Romance of Early British Life (1909) by George Francis Scott Elliot. This is apparently one of the flashy, pulpy ‘Library of Romance’ published by London-based Seeley and Co, described as ‘profusely illustrated’ ‘gift books’, which included among their number volumes such as The Romance of Modern Mining and The Romance of the World’s Fisheries. The author Scott Elliot was a botanist and antiquarian, president of Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society during an apparent low point in its history.
The fairly ridiculous book in question seems to have been written for Edwardian teenage boys, and does indeed bear the DNA of Howard’s later writing on the Picts: “In very ancient times Britain had been twice conquered, first by the small, dark Picts of the Mediterranean, and later (about 2000 or 1000 B.C.) by the tall, brown-haired, Gaelic-speaking Celts (237).” The chapter on the introduction of farming to Britain is called ‘The coming of the Picts’, in which Scott Elliot explains that they have been called by several names before – Homo Mediterraneus, Basques, Iberians, Silurians, the Firbolg, the Dolmen-builders – but he calls them Picts to save on ink (80-1). He claims they are still readily identifiable in the present day, as the short, brunette people who are mostly found in towns and cities, unlike the fairer Teutons or Kelts who prefer the countryside (92-3).
Howard’s vision of the Picts was thus formulated by the equivalent of our contemporary public archaeology, an accessible potted prehistory of Britain by one of Scotland’s leading antiquaries. Why this particular image, of a dark, forgotten people without a history, resonated so deeply with him, is a subject to ponder. But he was clearly not alone in his fascination. While racial views of the past soon died out in archaeological writing, they would go on to have a tenacious grip on the fantasy world. And which of these two genres do you think has a greater influence on people’s image of the medieval past?
***
Why does any of this matter? It is a demonstration of the role of ‘the Picts’, in various guises, as the untermenschen of what you might call western folk history. The fact that a young boy in inter-war Louisiana could head to the nearest library, read about them in a cheap history book, and then build a world-beating fictional universe that is still beloved today based on this is remarkable. As I’ve spent some time documenting on these pages, that image of the Picts is still in a way with us. A recent article in the Glasgow Herald has the reporter coming to the shocking insight that the Picts were not ‘hairy savages’ after speaking briefly to a couple of scholars. I wonder if that means we are doing our job well, or terribly.
It also opens up questions about the central role of race at the origins of both archaeology and the fantasy genre, a sticky subject that will have to be the subject of future blog posts [Editor's note: now read the follow-up to this post]. In the meantime, go check out similar topics being covered over on The Public Medievalist.
And hey, why not donate to your local public library while you’re at it?
***
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Header image via Jeff Black
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Chicane - “Don’t Give Up” CMJ New Music Monthly, Volume 84: August 2000 2000 Balearic Trance / Balearic House
Honestly, the incoming graf I'm about to quote serves perfectly for this post. It's short, it's biographical, and it stresses and contextualizes the importance of a song like "Don't Give Up" within Chicane's own career.
From the "About" section of his website:
Often seen as one of, if not the seminal Trance originator [okay, that's pouring it on a little thick there, bud. Trance was pretty well-established before you came along.]. With the track Offshore he refined cool in the dance genre, the name Chicane became synonymous with Ibiza and sunsets, and quality music, an aural security blanket. Saltwater followed on and became a UK top five hit. Worldwide success was sealed with a collaboration between Chicane and Bryan Adams, Don't Give Up from the hit album Behind the Sun. The track has reached the number one spot on the UK Singles Chart, indeed it was number one globally. Now recognised as a dancefloor classic, it was one of the first dance collaboration tracks to reach such heights. In addition to his work as Chicane the artist, he has worked with and produced music with Cher, Sir Tom Jones, William Orbit, Natasha Bedingfield and composed for TV and film.
I don't think anyone has ever pieced this together before, but if you rearrange the letters in Chicane's real name, which is Nicholas Bracegirdle (don't be mean, now), you can get "Chicane Grills Boars." Isn't that interesting? What could it mean? Hmmm... 🤔🤔🤔
Anyway, the sound and spirit of Ibiza is something that's been coursing through Chicane's veins for decades now. It's a place he's been to countless times, but it was where he and his family would go on holiday (don't I sound British?) every summer when he was a kid. The memories of both the island's warmth and its ecstatically chill atmosphere appear to have greatly rubbed off on him, and with that bit of nostalgia forever implanted in his brain, he's managed to channel that blissful feeling through much of his own productions.
From a 2000 interview in DJ Times Magazine:
A lot of my tracks try to capture the essence and atmosphere of summer...When I'm writing music, I will think of a place in memory and have a visual reference in my mind. Ibiza is about escapism, a little bit of magic. Everyone goes there for summer holidays. The clubs are beautiful. Balearic/Ibiza anthems are very euphoric.
What I've always loved about the UK music landscape is that dance songs — house, techno, trance, breaks, big beat — were always heavily embraced on a mainstream level. Sure, you've got your Radioheads and your Coldplays and your Oasises and your Spice Girlses and all of that pop and rock stuff, but there were also songs like the absolutely strange "Born Slippy" by Underworld and the stone-cold summer-chilled "Don't Give Up" by Chicane that were just about every bit as commercially viable as any other UK-made single. The playing field between genres was just so much more level and the official charts were way more diverse than they were in America at the time.
Since his 1996 debut with "Offshore," Chicane's singles managed to consistently roam around the UK's Top 40 charts. His first huge break though would come in 1999 with "Saltwater, " featuring Maíre Brennan of Clannad, which would peak at #6. His follow-up, 2000's "Don't Give Up," featuring Bryan Adams, would then come in at #1. A crowning achievement for both men (it was Adams' first UK #1 in nearly a decade), to say the least.
But how did this combination happen? A budding, nationally recognized dance music star joining forces with a veteran pop-rocker who has a natural penchant for wetting lady boomers' panties? Can someone say "oil and water?" Surely, this was some big time record exec's doing, attempting to mix new with not so new, right? Nope. Actually, Chicane and Adams' team-up was quite organic. Adams, who had moved from his native Canada to the UK, heard a Chicane track on a compilation and liked the song so much that he called Chicane and asked him to do a remix of one of his own songs, "Cloud Number Nine." Chicane agreed and Adams then chose his mix as the single's official radio edit, which enabled it to peak at #6 on the UK charts.
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Chicane then wrote "Don't Give Up," and while looking for someone to provide vocals for the song, Adams obliged. The track ended up being completed at the end of 1999. Chicane then passed it along to Pete Tong, who, during his new year's eve show on BBC radio, immediately deemed it as his first essential track of the new millennium. A few months later, the single was officially released and it then went to #1 in the UK, along with a bunch of other countries, as well as #3 on the US dance charts. The song was the first certified global dance hit of the 2000s.
Upon its release though, neither Chicane nor Adams revealed who the song's vocalist was. And unless you had a super keen ear and could hear through all of that vocal processing, you weren't going to figure it out. The secret was apparently held onto for a while for a couple of reasons. One is that it was Chicane's track. A track listed as "Chicane feat. Bryan Adams" would've naturally stolen a lot of the spotlight from Chicane. UK music publications of all stripes would've printed headlines to the effect of, "Bryan Adams is suddenly an electronica guy now? *Tim Allen grunt of surprise and confusion*".
The other reason why they didn't immediately reveal who the singer was on "Don't Give Up" was that "Chicane feat. Bryan Adams" sort of naturally sounds like a gimmick when you read it; like a transparent "pop-rock meets dance music" cash grab attempt; both artists taking advantage of each other's fame to attract each other's fan bases and selling double or more because of it. And, ultimately, the single did sell incredibly well, but it wasn't initially off of Bryan Adams' own name recognition. It was because Chicane crafted a fantastic song.
Okay, so on to the song itself. "Don't Give Up," as it turns out, was a tremendous piece of foreshadowing. It was one of the first songs to achieve that definitively warm, yet also chill and euphoric Ibiza vibe that ended up dominating the summer club charts for much of the following decade. Of course, that's a format of dance tune that's absolutely been beaten to death by now, but one has to be cognizant of the fact that a song that sounded like "Don't Give Up" was pretty unique in the year 2000. All in all, the song's greatness is belied by the fact that you can slot it seamlessly into just about any 2010s summer dance mix. But who knew it would also be a blueprint for such monotony?
"Don't Give Up" isn't all that flashy or showy and Chicane doesn't really do anything that should blow you away in any kind of technical sense, but it's a song that does a great job of marrying simple trance melodies with a house backbeat while supplying a super catchy vocal, resulting in something that goes down exceedingly smooth. It's really just a dope, signature Balearic, feelgood vibe. It has the sound of summer and it's one of the first songs to have that sound. The plucking synths that formulate the trance melody share lead duties with Bryan Adams' processed vocals, which end up reducing (or perhaps enhancing) his voice down to an atmospherically lingering, paradoxical yelling whisper. And despite all of that modulation to his voice, Adams' trademark rasp still manages to come through a little bit. But while those plucks and Adams’ voice dominate the track in the foreground, there's another element that gives the song some subtle depth and lends to its house quality: a short, quiet, and filtered, lo-fi disco-funk guitar loop with an equally lo-fi hand clap appended to its end. Without that piece snaking around at the track's bottom, "Don't Give Up" doesn't have an adequate breakdown/bridge that links its soft, initial build to its pumping chorus. And that guitar and clap plays an integral part in the chorus, too.
A Balearic trance and house tune that achieved the rare feat of going all the way to #1 in the UK at the beginning of the new millennium; an earworm that predates that ubiquitous, chilled out Ibiza dance sound that ruled the clubs and dance charts in the 2010s by around a decade; Chicane’s greatest commercial triumph.
#balearic trance#balearic house#trance#trance music#house#house music#dance#dance music#balearic music#electronic#electronic music#music#2000s#2000s music#2000's#2000's music#2000s trance#2000's trance#2000s house#2000's house#2000s house music#2000's house music#2000s dance#2000's dance#2000s dance music#2000's dance music#2000s electronic#2000's electronic#2000s electronic music#2000's electronic music
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Synthetic Marijuana, Black Mamba: A new deadly form of marijuana is slowly wreaking havoc in Nigeria's cities
The artificial variant of marijuana, also called "Black Mamba", has been reported to cause mental episodes, hallucinations, convulsions, kidney failure and a ‘zombie-like’ state of intoxication that can lead to death.
There’s a new drug on the streets of Lagos.
Most users prefer to smoke it, usually mixed with high-grade marijuana and rolled up in papers like tobacco and weed.
Although it can come in almost any color, the backroom chemists who make it often use dried herbs or lawn clippings to make sure it looks closely like the real stuff, so it often appears something between a deep shade of green and damp brown.
In the real sense, it looks a lot like marijuana, but it’s the farthest thing from marijuana that you’ve ever heard of.
It is widely reported that, beneath the surface of daily activity, Nigeria is on the cusp of a major drug problem.
The aggressive emergence of a culture of casual drug use has been supported by the presence of players at every major level of the drug chain.
On one hand, production is high as ever, even as makers of amphetamine have been discovered in Lagos and Rivers.
Nigeria’s status as a transit country is also not in question; since the early years of military rule, large amounts of cocaine have been funneled through the country under various guises.
And now, while the consumption of drugs like marijuana and opioids like Codeine and Tramadol has reached an alarming rate, a new, unfriendly substance is causing convulsions, kidney failure and a ‘zombie-like’ state of intoxication that can lead to death.
Synthetic marijuana, like the name suggests, is a collection of man-made chemicals that mimic the effect of marijuana and are sprayed on dried herbs or similar substances, wrapped in brightly colored packs and sold as an alternative to marijuana that is both ‘legal’ and more potent.
In the United States and the UK, it is sold under three major brand names; "Spice", "K2" and "Black Mamba", for as low as $1 per bag. This is key because it puts it in the ballpark of the most susceptible; the homeless, poor and young students.
In many ways, this affordability is a major reason why the use of the drug is spreading rapidly in areas like Lagos, Port-Harcourt, and Abuja.
But aside that, many other factors, like easy access, are contributing their quota.
Synthetic marijuana is relatively new in Nigeria, so the sale and use are not as ‘elaborate’ as it is on the other side.
It is mostly sold in head-shops here, small outfits that sell accessories used for the consumption of cannabis and tobacco, as well as items that form part of that culture, like weed-branded shirts and Bob Marley bandannas.
Outfits like this are scattered around Lagos and Victoria Islands.
There are also reports that it is sold by dealers of more expensive strains of marijuana and designer drugs in the highbrow areas of Lagos.
Synthetic marijuana is sold in small quantities for a little as 2,000 naira and as much as 10,000 naira, depending on the size of the bag and where it is bought. The substance itself is sealed tight in small, shiny bags about the size of a sugar or tea bag with the brand name written across it.
On the streets where this drug is slowly claiming victims, the tags vary; ‘Colorado’, ‘Black Mamba’, ‘Lamba’ (when mixed with Loud, a highly potent strain of marijuana), ‘Happy Boy’ or ‘Scooby Snax’.
The names are admittedly more colorful than you’d expect; what the packs contain is anything but.
Most of the clamor against synthetic weed has been made by people who have either experimented with the drug, or have seen its effects on frequent, and even first-time users. And as more people come in contact with the drug, the numbers are rising and the voices are getting louder.
On social media website, Twitter, a user @sofireginald recounted her experience with the drug in a series of tweets.
Some of her friends had ‘tried’ the drug and, despite diluting it with large amounts of tobacco, what they got was nowhere near the pleasurable high they were hoping for; according to her tweets, one of them had gone completely deaf for three days, another went so mental that she was held in medical care for three weeks… and counting.
Apparently alarmed by these experiences, she advised users to stay away from "Colorado or comorado or whatever name you people have coined for it"
One of her tweets read, “I’ve seen people cry, convulse, take off their clothes and do other weird shit. You can actually go insane. It’s not remotely healthy.”
Segun (not real name) agrees that synthetic marijuana is very dangerous; he also thinks that it is difficult to explain the true extent of its danger to people who have never tried it or seen it at work.
Segun is an avid marijuana user; he has smoked at least a blunt a day, consistently, for over three years.
One day, while driving home after work, a friend showed him a half-rolled blunt that he had gotten from another friend earlier that day; just two hits had “fucked him up”, but for some reason, he felt he was overreacting.
This friend offered the mystery blunt to Segun and another colleague who was on the ride; ever the adventurous smokers, but unwilling to take too much of a risk, they took three light ‘drags’ each. What came immediately after was an intense, harsh high, and a comedown made in hell.
“I don’t know how to describe it. At first, I was feeling these strange sensations at the back of my head and my shoulders.”, Segun recounts. “My right leg, it felt almost detached. It felt like if it stayed still for long, it would feel like it was not there any more”
“I could only think about one particular thing at a time. My thought process was limited to handling the steering and using the brake. I had no idea where I was driving to, or where I was.”
“I couldn’t just remember. It was as if something crazy would happen if I tried to think of anything else. All I could do was drive and say guy (when my friends talked to me)", he said. “I had to increase the volume of the music to avoid falling into this place that the drug was taking me to”
“When I got home, I ate and bragged a lot about the high, then I blacked out. I don’t remember these things happening. I can only tell you because I was told”, Segun adds.
He is one of the lucky people. There have been reports of people having worse highs while on synthetic weed, sometimes inflicting self harm. In one case, a user jumped off a ledge, broke his leg and carried on, completely oblivious to what had happened and the broken leg he was trying to stand on.
For all the novelty of these accounts, you will be mistaken to assume that they are isolated events.
In recent weeks, various people have reported seeing the distinctive colorful packs of ‘Spice’ in different places, from the Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, to Vantage, a hotel, and lounge, in Lekki.
In the 1990s, John W. Huffman, a chemist from South Carolina in the United States, began researching artificial ways to replicate cannabinoids, the active chemicals that cause the behavioral and psychoactive changes that we interpret as being ‘high’.
Marijuana was a banned Schedule 1 substance in the United States at the time, and Huffman needed to replicate these chemicals for his research on the health effects of marijuana while avoiding the implications of experimenting with a banned substance.
He found some success years after; one of the compounds he developed replicated the desired effects and was shown to help reduce skin cancer and brain tumors in lab mice.
Huffman published his findings in the mid-2000s, complete with instructions on how to re-create the chemical compound he had developed that he said could be followed by a “halfway decent undergraduate chemistry major in three steps” using materials that can be purchased by just about anyone.
Needless to say, there were more than enough capable chemistry graduates at the time. In the years that followed, manufacturers created it in large quantities and began to sell it in head shops, packaged as air fresheners, aromatic leaves or potpourri.
Most experts agree that Spice was first sold as a recreational drug in the UK in 2004.
Huffman’s original compound was the product of years of rigorous research and had been fine-tuned to achieve as little harm as possible, but even at that, it was extremely dangerous.
In time, cities around the US became aware of the health and social risks that it posed. Between 2014 and 2015, New York and other states banned the substance out-rightly.
The manufacturers responded in the most unexpected way.
The original anti-spice laws only recognized the class of compounds close to Huffman’s original template; so the manufacturers set about using it to create their own chemical compounds that could replicate marijuana and evade the laws.
As new laws are created in Europe and the United States to tackle the production of spice, the manufacturers have become more experimental, pushing the boundaries and creating new chemicals that they do not totally understand.
It is why, regardless of the ‘ingredients’ listed on the packaging, no-one ever really knows what is in a spice blunt. Not even the manufacturers themselves.
What they have managed to create is a concoction of random chemicals that can take a user to the fringes of insanity and, as in a case where 33 New Yorkers were rushed to the hospital in July 2016, turn them into living, breathing ‘zombies’.
It then begs the question: What makes a person want to be so high that they use a drug that rids them of control of the mind and body?
Few regular users of synthetic marijuana hardly ever find the words to recount their experience in useful detail; but among those who have ‘tried’ the drug, a number have lived to tell the tale.
They describe the feeling of being high on synthetic weed as something entirely different from regular, natural marijuana.
While regular cannabis gives a feeling of light euphoria, drowsiness, increased sensory awareness (and paranoia among new users), this synthetic high is something between extreme paranoia and a deep, aggressively overwhelming trance.
Users begin to act erratically almost immediately after smoking. Even where two individuals use the same batch, their reactions can be completely different.
Some users are so bemused that they break into spontaneous, intense laughter, others become severely anxious and paranoid that they literally withdraw into themselves and become hostile at any attempt to make contact or have a conversation.
Either way, they enter a world of their own, one where the norms and behavior of sobriety are inaccessible, to put it lightly.
In many ways, it is the case with all forms of recreational drug use and it's eventual, usually unavoidable abuse. Most drug users do so for the euphoria, mental liberty and the feeling of detachment that can come with being high.
In this sense, it is a journey between two extremes; release, euphoria, and weightlessness on one hand and the reality of daily life and its momentary worries on the other.
Users of synthetic marijuana are simply more willing, usually by reason of circumstance or sheer misdirected curiosity, to explore the former extreme to its farthest ends; what they find is usually a chaotic inverse that one can hardly emerge from without any harm.
The compounds that make up synthetic marijuana were never meant to be inside the human body. When they are, the damage they cause is immense.
“Some of the short term effects on the mind include but aren’t limited to; unresponsiveness, loss of consciousness, confusion, altered time sense, extreme anxiety, panic attacks, severe paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, psychosis and potential suicide”, says Victor Ugo, a medical doctor who is the founder of Mentally Aware Initiative, a mental health advocacy program based in Lagos, Nigeria.
In cities like New York and London where spice is already a major problem, there are entire groups of the homeless, poor, delinquent and wanderers who use the drug in groups during smoking sessions in not-so-secluded places.
Locals call them “zombies”.
The name comes from the ‘zombie-like’ state they enter after using the drug, where they seem to lose all capacity to understand, process information and make decisions.
In extreme cases, ‘zombies’ can black out and become almost motionless, falling over whatever is in sight when the high takes effect.
It can take days or weeks for a user to feel completely rid of the feeling. When they regain consciousness, there is usually no memory of these events.
With some medical help and abstinence, recovery can happen at a much quicker pace but, even in the case of a first time user, the drug usually causes permanent damage to brain cells and long-term behavioral changes.
It is not that easy to escape the effects of synthetic marijuana on the body’s anatomy.
According to Ugo, “from medical analyses, it has been found that the active ingredients are dangerous and toxic”.
“The drug has severe short and long term effects of the human body, with no limit to which vital organ it affects.”, he adds.
Short term use can cause “nausea and vomiting, heavy sweating, uncontrolled/spastic body movements, acute kidney injury, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure and reduced blood supply to the heart”.
Long-term users face health risks that are far worse and can be, in extreme cases, terminal. “Unlike the non-synthetic Marijuana which isn’t known to be addictive, synthetic Marijuana can be addictive”, Ugo says.
“It can lead to withdrawal symptoms which include craving, nightmares, heavy sweating, nausea, tremors, headaches, extreme tiredness, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, problems thinking clearly and neglect of other interests or duties.”
“After repeated use of the drug, users can experience forgetfulness and confusion. We’ve at times heard of and read about users/addicts experiencing paralysis”, he continues.
Beyond these health concerns, there is also the social implication of dealing with such an addictive drug that is mostly used by the youth and individuals on the fringes of society.
Factors like these have pushed governments in countries most hit by synthetic marijuana to educate the population, enact legislation and provide intensive rehabilitation in a bid to defeat what is fast becoming an epidemic.
The reverse is the case in Nigeria. Despite reports of overdoses, insanity and organ failure caused by synthetic marijuana in recent months, Nigeria’s drug agencies are yet to even show any signs that they are even aware of the drug’s existence.
For now, the full extent of their focus is on often-celebrated cannabis busts that end with press releases and high-definition pictures.
(Efforts to reach the Lagos State Command of the Nigerian Police Force were not responded to)
As they tackle a rapidly emerging epidemic, countries in the West have considered and explored many routes to get synthetic marijuana off their streets.
In the UK, stringent laws have been enacted to discourage the production, sale, and use of synthetic marijuana.
The United States’ approach to solving this problem has involved similar stringent laws, but also a trend where states have legalized medical and recreational marijuana at various levels. While some believe this approach is as liberal as it gets, there are others who feel it is not liberal enough.
In the alternative, certain individuals and pro-Spice groups have called for a more liberal approach to synthetic marijuana around the world.
They claim that the original compound that Huffman developed was the product of years of scientific research, and much safer than what is sold today.
What they advocate is that the government sponsors research into synthetic marijuana with a view to developing compounds that are safer to consume.
Regardless of the many differing opinions, one thing is certain, that more people need to be educated on the perils of using and selling synthetic marijuana.
Unlike regular marijuana, synthetic marijuana is hardly stored in bulk or sold in dark dens under the bridge, so law enforcement agents must drop their usual model of random raids for an approach that relies more on community policing and coordinated investigations.
Anti-Spice laws must also be created, with heavy sanctions for those who violate its provisions.
In all fairness, the spread of synthetic marijuana has come faster than was first feared, but the dangers that it poses demand that efforts against it move even quicker.
Today, it’s just a drug that has put a number of people in the hospital, but there's nothing to stop it from becoming a full blown epidemic.
source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/05/synthetic-marijuana-black-mamba-new.html
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The Sequel - 901
Dave Disaster
André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)
original epic tale
all chapters of The Sequel
Why is he on a first breakfast date? It’s not even like it’s the first time going to breakfast. It’s the actual first date. No dinner dates and coffee dates and lunch dates and this is just the first time they’re having breakfast. It’s a first first date. No wonder he can’t keep a relationship going, André concluded with bitterness after Mario told him to be quiet and leave him alone. He was apparently out with a girl he met and liked, and didn’t need his teammate blowing up his phone. His teammate was at a bookstore, bored. Lukas was hearing some Christmas stories in the kids’ section with a bunch of other little people. Christina was with André in the cafe. She had a latte, a lemon bar, and a magazine. What she didn’t have was any overwhelming urge to entertain him instead of read the magazine.
“Want to go to the cinema later? See a film?” he suggested when he noticed her turning a page.
“Not really.”
She looks pretty today, for a Sunday. There is something that happens when she wears a turtleneck and puts her hair up. It makes her cheekbones look good. I don’t get it. I like her eyes today too. Is that a hint, actually? Did she wear makeup today to get me to ask her to do something better than see a movie?
“What about going out for dinner?”
“If you want.”
“You look nice today,” the player smiled before leaning over to smooch his girl’s cheek. She ducked away, grimacing.
“I’m trying to read,” she complained. He sighed and picked up his phone again. Why not buy the magazine and read it at home, when she’s alone? Instead of when she’s sitting here with me. I’m booooored, he whined to himself.
It was his idea to go to the bookstore. Lukas woke up ridiculously early, so that meant Christina had to get up ridiculously early. She made him breakfast, and played games with him, and watched cartoons, and it had snowed overnight so they even went outside to play in it before more games and cartoons, and by the time Daddy got up, everyone else was stir crazy and wanting out of the house. Daddy’s go-to when he was left alone with Lukas was children’s story time at the bookshop. He checked the weekly schedule, was delighted to find a Sunday event, and announced that he would save the day and get them out and about. All he really wanted to do was go back to bed, or relax on the sofa for a few hours.
He wasn’t supposed to play much on Saturday, at the home of his former club Leverkusen. Maximilian Phillip did his ACL early in the first half, and André was the only logical replacement available. Auba wasn’t even in the squad, due to injury. Dortmund went down a goal thanks to some all too common laughable defending. Then Leverkusen went down a man before halftime. The red card was for a terrible challenge on Gonzalo Castro, who also had to come out of the game thanks to an ankle injury. Shinji came on, and André was hopeful that his inclusion would link himself and Yarmolenko up more with the rest of the midfield, since they were two wholly separate entities up to that point. Then Dortmund still couldn’t score. They had a lot of the ball, but just kept giving it away, or dribbling into nothing, or crossing blind with no hope of actually finding someone. With time running out, Shinji managed to finally exploit the tired legs of the 10-man side. He found a little space out wide on the left, André saw it too and ran there on the overlap, Shinji passed to him, he got his head up to check the situation in the box, and cut the ball back to Yarmolenko, who managed to get it in the net. The game finished 1-1. Bosz wasn’t fired. André was happy to have made the assist, and indeed looked the most useful of the black and yellow lot at times during the match, but two more points lost and another terrible team performance hurt mentally, and playing almost the full match hurt physically.
“Are you going to finish your lemon thing?” he asked Christina after granting her two minutes of peace in which to read her motorsport magazine.
“Yes.”
“Can I have a bite?”
“Yes.”
“Does it have to be a Chris-size bite or can it be a-“
“Babe-“ The rider inhaled sharply in preparation for telling him, again, to shut up, but an announcement over the store’s PA system caught the attention of them both. The parents of Lukas were being summoned to the children’s books department. Her heart skipped a beat. Her partner knew why.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” he remarked right away. “I’ll go see what’s up.”
“I’m coming.” Christina reached for her phone and he waved her off.
“He probably just needs to go to the bathroom. Stay. Your coffee is almost full.”
“If he needed to talk to an adult and give his name, it’s because something is wrong,” she snapped. “He doesn’t talk to strange adults.” She lifted her bag off the back of her chair and started walking away.
“Then you go and I’ll stay with your coffee and your lemon...thing...” the BVB man trailed off, watching her go. I guarantee he’s fine. It’s not like he punched another kid. Worst case, he wet his pants because he needed to go and was afraid to ask someone to take him. He picked up Christina’s fork and used the side to cut a piece of lemon bar.
The actual problem was that Dave was missing. Lukas’ stuffed chestnut pony had gone AWOL. He couldn’t remember where he put him down, or if he let anyone else hold him. Christina checked where he’d been sitting for the story, and around the little tables and chairs where the kids evidently got to color afterward. There was no sign of the pony. She summoned André, who wanted to make the store employees demand to check the bags of every parent in the department, as if one of them intended to steal Dave. Lukas was hysterical.
“Are you sure you brought him in with you?” his mom asked while trying to calm him down. She’d already gone over it in her head a hundred times. It didn’t seem possible that she wouldn’t remember exactly what her little boy had with him when they walked into the store, and the fact that she couldn’t be sure really upset her too.
“Yes! He listened to the snowman story with me!”
“Okay. Okay, well, I’m sure he’s here somewhere, Munchkin,” the worried adult stressed. She tried to wipe at his tears. His face was as red as his tiny hoodie, and his soft blonde hair was standing up all crazy from his stressed out head rubbing. “He couldn’t have just walked out on his own.”
“Yes he can! He goes everywhere!” Lukas argued, sobbing. Christina meant the stuffed animal didn’t leave the store under his own power, and her son was pretty sure he could have. It wasn’t always easy to tell if he understood that his pony wasn’t real and just pretended.
“He wouldn’t have gone without you though,” she told him. That works both ways, doesn’t it? That’s like, “oh he couldn’t leave without you because he’s a stuffed animal and literally can’t” but it’s also “you’re his best friend and he wouldn’t ditch you”. Where is Schü? Why isn’t he doing the Super Dad thing and just finding the pony? “We’ll find him.” Every parent in this place is judging me right now, Christina thought, glancing around the kids’ section. It was full of low bookshelves and decorated like a forest. In that moment, it was decorated like a forest at the North Pole. There was a section right in the middle with lots of pillows and small beanbags with the wooden chair for the story reader, and the life-size artificial snowman. There were plastic tables and tiny chairs in another area, with crayons and rolls of cheap paper. André and Christina both checked the rack of plush toys for a very secondhand looking pony that didn’t belong. “Do you want some water?”
“No. I want pony!”
“Come here. Let me pick you up.” She adjusted the way her arm was around the unhappy tot and lifted him up on her hip. Standing upright felt good after squatting for so long to hug him and try to calm him down. “Do you want to go find Daddy? I don’t know where he went either but I bet he’s easier to find,” the equal parts sympathetic and frustrated equestrian suggested. She then mumbled under her breath, since Lukas wasn’t actually listening to her anyway, “Tall fluffy guy with too much beard and a £2000 navy wool overcoat...how hard could it be...” They departed their post at the then open picket fence style gate that was meant to keep kids contained in there during the story reading. They’d been waiting there to make sure no one leaving the children’s section was trying to do so with another child’s Dave. Christina thought it absolutely ridiculous that an animal sort of named after Cesar Azpilicueta could possibly go missing or cause a problem. After Dirk, she- a Chelsea fan- was confident that Cesar Azpilicueta was the most reliable and trustworthy man in her life, despite his partner’s propensity for gossiping about her in ways that somehow always ended up rather detrimental to the rider, or at the very least, inconvenient, and despite his occasionally off color remarks pointed at her.
Where is he, she groaned inside when André was not to be found at either the registers or the customer service kiosk. He was supposed to be enlisting the help of the staff, who absolved themselves of involvement as soon as responsibility for the hysterical child was assumed by his parents. Said child was still hysterical and his mom hated walking between bookshelves in the otherwise quiet parts of the store- for adult readers- disturbing people while hunting for her husband. She wondered what he could possibly be doing since Lukas definitely didn’t wander into the Psychology books and leave his pony there, as well as how Lukas could possibly still be crying. She thought he ought to have run out of batteries by then.
“Chris!” a familiar and very welcome voice called to her at moderate volume on her way to check the restrooms. Mother and Child spun around and saw exactly what they were looking for- a tall fluffy guy and a small not-so-fluffy-anymore pony. The big Schü presented Dave to the little Schü, beaming.
“Look who IIIIII found,” he said in a singsong way to get his attention. His miniature turned a little from his mom’s chest and relaxed his teary, squinty eyes enough to recognize his favorite friend.
“Dave!” he exclaimed, reaching out with both hands for the chestnut.
“Where did you find him?” Christina inquired, exasperated but very, very relieved. Lukas hugged the pony tight and the tightness of the invisible rope strangling her heart for the previous 20 minutes went away. Not only had she feared the pony was lost and they’d be dealing with nonstop tears for days, the stuffed animal obsessive girl inside feared the heartbreak. She hated seeing her little boy truly hurt, and she knew exactly what it was like to lose a plush pony. Her parents had to get hers overnighted from hotels in other time zones, or drive hours to get him from whichever hotel bed she’d forgotten him under. He was just like her favorite actual pony, and grown up Christina still had him. He lived with his twin on a shelf in the study. The twin was literally the exact same stuffed animal, but he looked a little different because of the different life he led as Aidan’s plush version of real life Spike. Aidan gave him a haircut once, for example, so his mane was shorter than Christina’s Spike’s. She had a black pony that was with her for much of her adult life, as a comforting friend in bed at least. He never had a name, and he too was still around. There was a nonspecific rotation of animals brought to bed when she moved in with André, and some still ended up there from time to time. Lukas the baby zebra- her gift from her husband- had become the only permanent resident though. Dave went to bed with Lukas the baby human every night, and Christina was so glad that wouldn’t have to change. She kissed them both.
“I checked every kid in the store. A girl in a hat with animal ears said she “found” him but couldn’t remember where. The mom apologized and said she didn’t even notice her kid was carrying around a stuffed animal. A likely story,” André scoffed. He was feeling very full of himself. Then he winced at Lukas. “Don’t wipe your nose on him, Mausi.” Mom handed over child and pony so she could get some tissues from her bag, and he suggested they go back to the cafe to replace her latte and get something for Lukas- mostly to try to get him cleaned up and fully calmed down after the ordeal. Plying Prinzessin with sweet, frothy milk and cinnamon espresso might make her forget to start lecturing him about being responsible for his things, he added to himself. It’s no fun to have to search the whole store for the pony but he’s two and a half. I don’t know how responsible he’s capable of being at this point. I think we should just be happy we’re able to leave him with a group of kids and he’s well behaved and secure enough not to need one of us in his line of sight. He had his first sleepover without Mama, Papa, Nanny Espen, or Grandma this week too. He’s always had one of us to tuck him in.
“We should just go home. He’s going to need a nap, I have stuff to do at the barn, I want to watch the grand prix from Paris Masters-“
“I thought you weren’t working today?” the player asked back, dejected. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to work on Sunday when he had off. It was that he knew she didn’t plan to, and something changed her mind. He didn’t want it to have been the missing Dave ordeal, because that was sort of his fault. It was his idea to go to storytime, and his idea to idea to leave Lukas in there with just store employee supervision instead of staying with him the way he usually did. “Why did you put makeup on and do your hair nice if you’re going to the barn?”
“I don’t know. I’m not riding,” Christina shrugged. “I need to finish the training plans for the week, and it’s supposed to snow more this afternoon. I don’t want to be on the roads with the idiots who can’t handle flurries on top of slush.” She was already pulling on her wool varsity jacket, and had one eye in her open tote between her ankle boots to look for Lukas’ knitted hat in there.
“Does that mean you don’t want to go out for dinner later? Should we tell Espen not to come over after all?” André scratched at his beard and watched her get the hat and a tiny down vest from her big bag of mom tricks. I thought we had the big bag today because we were going to spend the whole day out, take him home for his dinner, and then go back out to do something without him. That’s why I called the nanny. I thought she wanted to do stuff today, he repeated. I hope it’s not me. I hope it’s that she had to get up at 5 and now she’s a bit cranky.
“I don’t really care. We have leftover ratatouille lasagna. Or we can go out. Whichever.”
“I still want to go out. Somewhere by home.”
“Okay. So don’t change anything with Espen. Can you turn him around so I can put this on?” Mom held up the black vest, and sounded entirely indifferent about the dinner arrangements. That was a good thing. Lukas was dressed for the elements and advised to hold on tight to his pony for the walk to the Range Rover. He was carried to keep him out of the wet and salt and thus keep his car seat as clean and dry as possible. He fell asleep cuddled with Dave on the way home and barely woke up to have his layers removed for a proper nap in bed. Christina tucked him and the pony in together and hoped the trauma would be forgotten when they woke up. She changed her nice skinny black jeans out for less nice barn jeans, and her stacked heel boots for fleece lined flat ones. André was reheating the ratatouille lasagna when she said goodbye. He wanted to know when the grand prix was, and said he might brave the forecasted snow flurries to go watch it with her in the barn if Espen was there on time to watch Lukas.
Stall Schürrle- decorated for the season with deep burgundy Christmas stockings and small evergreen wreaths- was eerily quiet at midday. The horses were all out in the 2” of snow in their warm turnout blankets. Tom was off, as usual, and Isandro and Kyle went out for lunch after cleaning stalls, filling buckets, throwing hay, preparing grain for later, and sweeping and blowing the aisles. Mr. Fluffy, the cat, was the only one around to greet Christina. He preferred the barn empty- devoid of dogs and humans and traffic- and seldom hung out in “public”. His food was put out on top of the feed bins each morning while the guys fed the horses, so that the dogs couldn’t eat it, and he usually snuck into the feed room undetected. By the time the horses all had their grain, his bowl was empty. The cat ate his dinner the same way- in secret, while the noisy horses stomped their feet, banged their buckets around, and neighed for their grain. Isandro sometimes left treats for him atop the brush cabinets in the grooming stalls, where only a cat could find them. Mr. Fluffy slept in the garage a lot, sunned himself on the “back porch”, and occasionally took in training from the table in the gazebo. He hunted mice and small birds. But he wasn’t so hardened a barn cat that he wasn’t interested in head scratches. He rubbed against his adopted mom’s leg when she was done stomping the snow from her boots inside the door from the informal courtyard and wash racks behind the grooming stalls, and she bent down to pet him.
“Cold outside, eh?” she asked. Mr. Fluffy didn’t respond. He followed her across the aisle to her office though, but declined an invitation to accompany her inside. It was pretty warm in there. Christina turned the thermostat down when she left for the day, so it wasn’t exactly toasty, but it was comfortable enough for just her thin cashmere turtleneck, and she didn’t plan to be there long enough to bother with adding a few degrees on the digital display. Desk, or couch, she asked herself. Desk, I guess. I need to spread out. She put her cheap grocery tote down on her leather chair and pulled from it her laptop, a plastic container of mixed nuts and dried fruit, and a pair of heavy socks. The next order of business was going upstairs to make an Americano, contemplate eating a piece of fruit from the bowl of snacks for humans and equines, and get a glass of water. Then she got set up at her desk with her socks on and her boots off, with the spreadsheet version of her weekly calendar and her trusty notebook of workout and training notes, condition reports, and vet and farrier appointment details. It was a little too quiet without the radio on throughout the whole place, so she put a suggested playlist on iTunes on shuffle just in the office, and then stared at the monthly calendar under all of the other stuff.
December 3rd. Seven days ‘til the horses leave for London. I need to get Dopey The Dinosaur into canter-around-in-a-tiny-ring mode. I need to do something to get Dirk to realize he’s showing again. I need to keep Nick loose and working. So... The Olympic champion flipped one page back and forth in the notebook, reading and rereading her notes on what she’d done recently with the three horses. Then she started putting plans into the spreadsheet. Calvin was going to jump small courses in the indoor every other day, and she wanted him to work for 20 minutes on the lunge line with side reins on the others. Dirk was going to have an extensive flatwork school on Monday, focus on jumping combinations inside on Tuesday, hack next door on Wednesday, jump inside again on Thursday, flat on Friday and Saturday, and do a quiet hack inside on Sunday. Nick would gallop out on Monday ahead of his chiropractor’s visit on Tuesday. Wednesday would be a short hack, Thursday he could work on the combinations like Dirk, Friday was for serious flatwork, Saturday would be a day off, and he’d do light flatwork on the nice soft footing inside on Sunday.
Christina read it back to herself multiple times, and then went to work on planning the rest of her horses’ work around those things to take advantage of which jumps would be set up which way, and where, where in the schedule she would have time to teach the kids and how what she’d do with them would fit with what she was doing with the rings and fences, and which of her horses she needed them to school for her. There were some immovable objects penciled into the boxes on the desk calendar and bolded on the spreadsheet, like her Christmas market date with André and Lukas on Monday afternoon, Chelsea vs. Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night, and Stefanie’s job interview on Wednesday morning and her reminder that her boyfriend was available to watch her have a lesson on Friday evening if Christina was available to give her one, Real Madrid vs. Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday night, and Christina’s lunch date with Mario on Thursday. There was a home match at Signal Iduna Park on Saturday afternoon too. It was hard to fit everything in and be able to put a check mark next to each horse’s name for each day, to ensure he was accommodated either with a ride, a workout on the line, or a planned day off. The single sheet of paper with the very tiny font was then emailed to Tom, Isandro, Kyle, and Stefanie, and printed out to be taped on the white board outside. It would tell whoever prepared the horses each day what he needed to be “dressed” for, and it would tell Isandro what jumps he needed to make available in which ring.
That attention to detail was a prized part of her method- her process- that helped her earn all the trophies on the shelves upstairs and enjoy the moments in the photos on the walls all around her. That was what Juan willed her to get back to, and she was trying to do it. She didn’t sit down at the desk at the end of a long day and try to figure out what to do with the horses the next day in the 5 minutes she allotted for sketching out the schedule for the guys, as she’d taken to doing recently. Everything was planned out again. So far it didn’t seem to make any difference in how the horses worked, but it made the business of the barn function more smoothly, and it made her feel better about what she was doing. Things would always get in the way of the schedule. A lost shoe, a bad day, the arrival of an unexpected bad habit that needed fixing, weather- it could all force changes on her carefully planned agenda, and that would be fine. It wasn’t inflexible. But having that structure was some kind of mental reassurance to Christina. Completing the planning stage alone gave her a sense of accomplishment. She readied a piece of masking tape to affix the schedule to the board, and realized when she sat back at her desk that she hadn’t even eaten any of her snack. It was 3 o’clock on the nose.
I’m gonna text boyfriend to tell him it’s GP time, and then I’m gonna take my trail mix and my water to the lounge to watch on the TV, she decided. It was impossible to really pay attention to anything at the house when Lukas was awake and André was around. They were constant distractions. André behaved better at the barn. He could hang out with her there but see more clearly when he was annoying, getting in the way, or being a distraction. Christina put her barn sneakers on and took her laptop with the other stuff, and stopped on the way to give Kimi a number of kisses and a piece of dried apricot on the crossties, where he was having his ear fur trimmed. Isandro was taking care of the touchup job with the most nimble and quiet of the clippers. The sound still upset Julian in the adjacent grooming stall. Kyle kept talking to him while he combed out his mane, trying to help him relax. Christina gave him a banana chip and a walnut. It took less time for André to come over from the house than it did for her to get the Internet stream from Paris to work, and to work on the TV on the wall. He had to fix it for her. She was trying to connect to the wrong Chromecast device.
“Is this the million-dollar thing you did before?” the footballer questioned once settled sideways on the couch. His girl sat in the roomy, boxy leather armchair directly across from the screen.
“Yeah but it’s not a million bucks anymore. It’s like €300,000 now, which is still enough to draw all the best people.”
“I figured. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother to watch,” he winked. He didn’t really care about the jumping, but he liked to be supportive and sometimes it was helpful to listen to Christina talk about a big class. It helped him learn what was new in the sport, who was on form, what horses were getting good, etc.
“Without having seen how any of these horses have jumped so far this week, I’m going to say Double D wins this with Cornet. The original one. The good one,” she clarified. “He posted a picture of his daughter sitting on him a little while ago. She’s so cute. I’m glad she and Caroline are there with him. He’s been on the road three straight weeks.”
“Are you happy for him when he wins? When you’re not there against him?” André wondered aloud. His wife’s relationship with her teammate was difficult to understand for him, because it was unique. He didn’t know Daniel the way he knew her other guy friends, and he didn’t see that much of the interaction.
“I don’t know. Sometimes, I guess. I would be happy for him if he wins this. It’s a big class. I don’t know or care how he did in Madrid last weekend. Man, there are 10 crappy nobodies before he first good rider. Also, I can’t believe Chloe Reiss is doing this. Chloe Reiss is the reason I want to make money irrelevant in show jumping.”
“Who?”
“Remember when I did the World Cup qualifier in Washington and you came to watch and punched Simon in the face?”
“Yes.”
“The last time I saw Chloe was a couple of years before that, at Washington. She’s from there, actually. We were there with a couple of kids qualified for the Junior Hunters and the eq finals. She was in her first year up from the ponies, with a really popular trainer from that area. She was doing the Children’s Jumpers, which is 3’6 and pretty easy. It’s like entry level jumpers for kids who don’t bother doing Pony Jumpers. They do the last class of the Children’s as part of the evening schedule some night, before the Puissance or the Gambler’s Choice, Thursday or Friday, and I remember sitting in the stands watching her with this chestnut and white paint, like Optimus,” Christina explained in her usual animated raconteur style. “The mare was cray cray. I’m pretty sure her name was Queen Of Hearts and it was totally fitting. Chloe couldn’t even get her around. The riding was embarrassing. Everyone was cringing and feeling vicarious awkwardness for the trainer. It was obvious that she was overfaced and out of her depth. Now, for reference, keep in mind that that same year, people like Jessy Springsteen and Lillie Keenman- people you know- were doing the equitation, the Junior Jumpers, the Junior Hunters, etc. They weren’t doing open jumpers or the World Cup or something. Even Reed was still just doing the Juniors at that point. Katie Dinen even did the Juniors the year after that. Now Chloe is competing against them- Against me! In the big stuff. She’s training with Markus now.”
“Ehning?”
“Beerbaum. She’s only where she is because her parents are rich and bought her ridiculous horses. She just did back to back to back shows with him- Oldenburg, Munich, Stuttgart, 3, 4, 5-stars. She only finished in the top 20 once. Top 20. Once. I wish Americans like Stefanie could come over here and train with Markus, the way she does with me. Instead of just kids with more money than talent.”
“So why don’t you do something about it? Encourage your teammates to train for- Okay, yeah, I see why that wouldn’t work,” André laughed before finishing his thought. He liked to hear his girl get really into a subject. It was fun to hear her passion come out that way, and to see her heart in it too. Her heart was always in the right place on that subject. He was going to suggest she get her fellow top riders to train younger equestrians for free the way she did with Stefanie, but knew it was ridiculous. Christina was in a place of privilege too, just like the kids that irritated her so much. Being rich and being talented were never mutually exclusive. She could afford, time-wise and economically, to train Stefanie in return for a little help schooling her horses. Her teammates couldn’t do that even if they wanted to. They showed every week. They worked for breeders and other trainers. They rode and trained for a living.
“I’m sure Markus is making bank off that girl.”
“He probably sold her a horse bred by his brother, right?”
“I’m not sure. The horse on the order of go was Codarco, who I’m assuming is by Darco. Darco has been dead a long time. A bunch of people still have semen. Not Ludger though, I don’t think. Darco was a Belgian warmblood. You know Olivier and Nicola? The twins? Their dad rode Darco in the Olympics, like before they were born. He sired McLain Ward’s Sapphire.”
“Stop knowing everything.”
“I’ll try.” The expat replaced the lid on her nuts and fruit and leaned forward to put the container on the coffee table. She’d managed to talk through a couple of rounds already while grazing. They were boring and full of knockdowns. All the good riders were in the second half of the order because it was dictated by the results of the qualifying class. Daniel would jump 23rd, and Christian 32nd. Kent was 34th. In and around that area were all the other top guys and girls she wanted to see. She stretched, and yawned, and looked around her burgundy and white themed viewing lounge, maybe for something to entertain her while she waited for the interesting rounds. André noticed.
“Come sit over here,” he suggested. “I’m more comfortable than the chair. And I have a blanket,” he grinned, reaching for the folded Hermès throw on the back of the leather loveseat. His featured rider relocated. They had to spoon because it was the only way to fit on the couch, but they did it more on their backs than their sides, to be able to see the TV.
“Was it snowing again?” she asked after checking the skylights, which were covered by snow anyway.
“Not yet but it’s coming. I think maybe Casa Iberica for dinner, yeah? It’s nice and close, and we haven’t been there recently.” The BVB Bee bent his knees and squeezed them around his wife. There wasn’t enough room for him to straighten them anyway.
“K. Hey have you seen Eric Lamaze’s current #1 horse yet? She’s a Hanoverian mare?”
“I don’t know. Have I?”
“She’s out of a mare by a stallion called Drosselklang. I like the absurdity of that name. Drosselklang.” It sounds more like a sound effect than a name, Christina thought while a very large palm settled atop her head, in front of her ponytail. It just sat there, still and heavy and familiar. The arm attached to it was resting against her right ear. “It’s actually Drosselklang II. So someone thought one Drosselklang wasn’t enough.”
“You’re starting to do that deliriously tired rambling thing, Prinzessin.”
“I know. If I fall asleep, wake me up for...Daniel, obviously, but also...Eric, or Simon if they go first.”
“Got it.”
“So does Drosselklang mean bird sound or throttle sound? I get those two mixed up.”
“That’s because they’re the same word.”
“So which is it?”
“I’m not sure. Don’t you know the person who bred and named the horse? You can ask.”
“I don’t know who bred him. He was owned by the state stud for a long time. Then they sold him to the Czech Republic. He died a couple of years ago at like 30, which is pretty impressive. The lady writing the breeding book asked me if I’m eventually going to sell Dirk to the Verband. They always get the important horses. They have Casall right now, and Mylord Cathargo, and Cornet Obolensky, Corrado, Cassini, Quidam de Revel. I think she knew the answer, but I guess it’s slightly controversial.”
“Why?” the bigger German athlete snorted. André was intensely skeptical and disapproving of any notion that something Christina would do with Dirk could be considered a controversy. He really hated the commonality of horse people passing judgement, commenting on, and being generally critical of what each other do or don’t do with their own animals.
“It could be considered selfish, I guess,” the smaller German half on top of him shrugged. She was far less bothered. “He could cover a lot more mares as part of their program, and bring a lot of notoriety and money for them. It would be good for the breed, in other words. I get that. I understand. I can see why I should do it. But I’ve never even entertained the idea. He’s my best friend and I’m never giving him up.”
“That’s what I say to myself about you every time you stage a revolt.”
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7O3X 1 | Saiyuki Reload Blast 1 | Konbini Kareshi 1 | Knight’s & Magic 1 | Chronos Ruler 1 | 18if 1 | Boku no Hero Academia 27 | Vatican Kiseki Chousakan 1 | Katsugeki 2 | Hina Logi 2 - 3
Still need votes for this.
7O3X 1
As you can kinda tell from these notes, I love random trivia, so this was a hype show ever since I found out about it. Then again, I never thought a quiz anime would exist in the first place prior to the announcement of this.
Okay, question 1 – why exactly did some Japanese staff member saddle this show with a name that doesn’t match the Japanese title at all? So long as you know O is a correct answer, you’re fine…
I love how they’ve styled the credits to be like a Q and A. That really works in the show’s favour.
Headband girl’s name is Mari Fukami, right? How does she pose her legs like that?!
For some reason, I like Shiki’s name in the Western order more…
Interesting how Kuroda stands out more than Shiki, knowing anime tropes.
I’m not entirely up to snuff on Japan’s nuclear stuff, but the Descartes saying is fairly well known and I got it. The thing about quiz shows is that you have to want to play along, which I’m not getting just yet, but this is just the setup stage so I’ll keep going. Sahara…The Metamorphosis (I love transformation fiction, so to get a question about Metamorphosis so early on basically means you’ve won me over, LOL)…I think the deeper this goes, the more cliché it may seem, but I like it. Especially because I remember helping out at the library a lot (plus free pizza as a result…haha).
The books Shiki passes by include “The World of Literature You Don’t Know” and a parody of that Arukeyo Otome thing by Masaaki Yuasa that was released recently (which is based on a novel). Specifically, the name of the 7O3X version of the book is “The Morning is Short, Walk On Girl” (to use the sentence pattern of the original).
Ah, now Shiki’s a kiddo that gets me! I’ve never been too sociable to people and before I got too deep with the internet, it was just me and books, and as a result I specialised in everything English (bar writing, which I was average at). However, by the time I was 13, I lost my skills in English to essays. My love of anime made its resurgence around then so I suspect if I were still a book nerd, I wouldn’t be where I am today…
Okay, I think someone on the ‘net warned me about the panty shot. It’s a good thing Shiki is clearly uncomfortable with it…yeah. Moving on.
That club with the skirts really is disturbing, but I couldn’t help laughing like the brunette in front of Shiki.
Gakuto really made a great first impression. It wowed me. Unfortunately, the quiz show he referenced doesn’t exist, according to Google-sensei…”High School Quiz Show” apparently does, though.
I think there are specialised makers of those buzzers, Shiki. Or you could order them online or something, your call.
Please stop with the panty shot references…but sticking “April” in English really doesn’t make this question work out for me. So, to answer in Japanese, it would be shigatsu.
There are 50 stars on the American flag, right?…Yep. It wasn’t a trick question – buzzing in too fast can be a liability, so make sure you listen to the entire question before you answer!
I’d actually guess Gakuto is going to ask for “the nation with the most people”…Darnit! Oh well, I knew that one before the other guy buzzed in. Interesting how there’s Vatican Miracle Examiner this season though.
I suck at anticipating questions, but I’m good at answering like Shiki. “Et tu, Brute?” is said by Julius Caesar.
The guy to Mari’s left just seems to be fooling around. I’d know that sort of guy anywhere…*frowning face*
I don’t know about this “I fell in love” one…By the way, the text is here. That reveals the author is Dazai and Das Gemeine actually starts with “Back then, each day was the end of my life.” “I fell in love” comes after that.
Kaijou High School? Is this foreshadowing for a later opponent? Like, say, Mikuriya Chisato?
Stop it with the panty shot reference! Argh!
Wait, there’s a silhouette there in one of the circles. The long hair and colour of the circle indicates it’s most likely a girl, but probably one the staff want to keep secret…Interesting.
I’m kind of ambivalent, as this was one of 4 major hype shows for me. The number of panty shot references means they may refer to the event again in subsequent episodes, and fanservice has killed shows for me in the past. However, I’m slowly getting the hang of this quiz bowl stuff, even if I can’t always get in before the answer, and I know the emphasis is on quizzes, so I’ll give it another ep.
Saiyuki Reload Blast 1
Apparently, you don’t need to know much to get into Saiyuki so *shrugs* I’m gonna try it.
I think a more literal version of this ep title is “Sudden Storm”. “Squall” implies power as much as immediacy…
This reeks of DN Angel (late 90s/early 2000s) style, and I like it! Plus I’ve heard of the dragon/Jeep from other people who’ve talked about the series (notably there was an article on CR that convinced me to watch this and it mentioned the dragon), so…that was actually no biggie. Camera blood spatter is a bit questionable, though…
I have weird tastes in humour, as you might know from Kado. Therefore, when the woman appeared at the window, I laughed myself silly…
Shangri-la is China, so it’s natural that west China is different to east China. Kind of like how western America and eastern America are different…
I dunno why Gojyo is a water sprite, but that “diarrhoea sprite” thing is funny.
Gahh! That blonde (Sanzo) is too hot for me! No wonder people put characters on dakimakura, this guy looks right at home on one.
Well, I dunno what I just got myself into, but that was some good stuff! Next ep, please! (Plus, Granrodeo and Luck Life, the same duo of artists on Bungou Stray Dogs. That’s gotta be a good sign, right?)
Oh great, I left the ep running and it turns out there’s an after credits segment. Tsukigakirei’s after credits extras didn’t quite work for me, but since I laughed so much at the main show, this shouldn’t hurt, right?
G-Guh! The dragon can write calligraphy?! With its feet?! At least the joke works in Japanese and English…
That baldness joke works for me, considering I know Sanzo’s a priest…welp, if you get a lil’ background knowledge, it seems like you can conquer almost anything Saiyuki, and who knows what places it’ll take me in the future, eh?
Konbini Kareshi 1
I’m here for the VA talent, if nothing else. Nishiyama’s (Atsushi of Boueibu) getting a lot of side roles lately, which is great!
That running sequence took a good minute and a half, which is the same length as the OP. I almost noped out of there because that kind of thing is only compelling for about 10 seconds for me.
There’s something that’s a hybrid of Sagrada Reset, Denpa Kyoushi and Tsukigakirei here…which means it’ll probably get a low to medium rating, if anything. I can normally peg what sort of rating a show will get by its first episode,because shows tend to be consistent about what they do.
Interesting to note they don’t use shigatsu here.
The picture book is “The Mermaid Prince” (<- update: “The Merfolk Prince” is a better translation, so my bad). It was pretty obvious by the swimming sequence in the OP that at least one of these guys is a swimmer, or at least a PE nut (as some of the other things on his table suggest).<br>
I’ve never seen a younger brother be a morning person and the one to wake up a sibling. It’s always an imouto or a mother…
Wasn’t this straight romance, and not Hitorijime My Hero romance? Towa really has that bromance thing going on for him, the way Suna and Takeo (Ore Monogatari) do.
CS I think is a reference to BS Japan, one of the TV stations that shows Boueibu. Update: It’s actually highly likely to be CS-TBS, which shows the show. By the by, Nishiyama is Miki.
The red keion announcement vaguely pisses me off simply because I know that’s the light music club. I’ve seen small snippets of K-On, and while it wasn’t enough to warrant marking episodes off, catchy songs aren’t enough to keep me coming back.
This first meeting seems a little hamfisted for some reason I can’t put my finger on. However, it’s great Miki’s getting a lot of lines right here, although it’s still a side role…
The background scenery is beautiful in this show…
Here we go again…(basically, I have a very low opinion of this show, just as I suspected I would have).
I’ve got the volume on to evaluate Nishiyama, but the high-pitched teasing voice Towa just used is not natural at all. It would’ve worked better in his normal voice.
I get why the girls are fangirling over books, but I didn’t get who Michael Ende was until “The Neverending Story” came up, haha.
Glasses girl (Mami, right?) is reading something called “Glasses Man”, haha.
There’s a lot of voiceover here, as if the anime staff don’t quite care about their show enough to animate lip flaps.
As soon as she stepped on his foot and he didn’t give chase, that’s when I realised I didn’t quite care about these people. The pacing in this show, during critical moments, is just too awkward, that’s why…
Well, that was subpar. It has an opportunity to get better next ep, but I don’t care to stick around enough. However, there’s an interesting thing in the ED – there’s credits for scripting “Merfolk Prince”, meaning that may show up in a later ep. This ED sounds Coldplay-turned-Japanese, which is cool.
Knight’s & Magic 1
If you didn’t notice already, I’ve become so complacent with the premieres, this is my biggest season so far. If I finish watching every first ep I intend to watch as of the count I did for this commentary, I’d have 17 documented (7 more than on my hype list) because I have time, plus I’m relying on ANN to find me the good stuff this time.
What’s with that apostrophe in the title? As someone who likes their grammar to be correct, I just don’t like it.
I get the appeal of programming as an IT nerd, but it’s an acquired taste, plus it doesn’t have much payoff when you get frustrated at problems within your own code because it’s all a bunch of words and punctuation anyway.
Oh, it’s that effect where you-letterboxing! That’s what I was thinking of! (Reminds me of Erased.) Also, the ambient light is nice here, but the angled letterboxing is just plain weird.
CGI…bugs? That’s a pretty bad choice for monsters, IMHO.
ANN people have commented Erni’s past went too fast and I agree. Also, it’s just cliché after cliché with this show, ain’t it? Including the need to kabedon a girl.
Why does red eyed girl look like Atsushi of Bungou Stray Dogs? Plus, the wear on the mechas is nice.
Not every man – or every woman or other kind of person – dreams of robots, y’know?
“Trandorkis.” That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard in a while, and not just because it has “dork” in it, mind you.
Well, the look is shiny, bright and appealing and I can see this having a niche appeal to those who like giant robots. However, the backstory was too fast and Erni is way too OP for this world, so I’m dropping it.
Chronos Ruler 1
I’m familiar with only the first one or two chapters of the source material, so I was surprised this got adapted to anime…considering it’s a Taiwanese creator on a Jump manga though, it was kinda inevitable these days with all the Chinese coproductions.
That was a pretty interesting intro, even if it seemed like I’d watched the PV instead.
The battle there was good but a lil’ rotoscopy…hmph.
The colour scheme’s a lil’ dark…it’s a bit worrying, because Chronos Ruler normally has some pretty bright colours. I don’t want this to come off as a completely edgelord work like Big Order. I don’t seem to recall this dog though…
I’m pretty sure I don’t remember the forced humour spot, either, though it’s not as bad as, say, Bungou, where the director is known for his distinctive style of humour. Then again, my memory on this stuff is kinda vague.
This thing is starting to show cracks in its façade. Some of the movements are stiff and the CGI, while integreated well, doesn’t quite work with the 2D (although that’s shown up since the battle with the Horologue). “Cabalet” really adds to the cracks.
Every time Kiri speaks, I think of Kunikida (Bungou), so Victo is Dazai.
Adding the music to the show really adds another crack. There is absolutely no singing going on in this one singing scene.
Cue bad time puns. Puns are one of my specialties, y’know, so I don’t mind ‘em. Why else would I run LOL Yeah Shinichi, eh?
Victo, you remind me so much of +Anima’s Senri…and that’s just beautiful. Not many shows remind me of that. To anyone reading this, if you can get your hands on the old Tokyopop releases, +Anima is a gorgeous series, so go read it!
If Victo’s cards can fire at Mach 10, then he can’t beat Koro-sensei, LOL. (Ouch.)
Kids, don’t wear your hats inside. That’s an etiquette thing you should never forget, okay?
That was…strangely a much better premiere than I expected a Chinese part-production to be like! It’s better than the bunch of premieres I’ve tackled already and since good premieres are scarce, I’m taking it!
Update: Here’s another sign that doesn’t bode well for this show – it’s got the same director as Chaos Dragon (Masato Matsune), which I dropped after 2 eps. Chaos Dragon is known to be the epitome of road apples around the internet…
18if 1
18if was initially the only thing guaranteed to be out of Amazon’s greedy hands, so it’s great to see something so visually exciting ifnally be here for me. I know it’s based on a mobile game, which tend to be bad, but…c’mon, I’m struggling to find a good lineup here with what’s basically the death of Kaito x Ansa (it debuted on the 12th, but still hasn’t come CR’s way). Katsugeki’s good though, so at least that’s a lock for the commentary…
Quick –is this thing meant to be fully English? Or is this just Funimation being annoying?
Oh no, what a horrible first impression! Someone who speaks from their *erhem* and a chicken, aka cock…*muffles laughter* How dirty of me to even suggest it, but…well, it’s what we’re working with here.
The more I watch, the more confused I get.
Couldn’t Haruto have run towards the door? Or is this one of those non-lucid dreams?
This 16 frame simultaneous animation doesn’t quite work for me, but it’s an interesting hallmark of this anime.
Katsumi’s a Looney Toons Cat, sort of kind of…
The production values are mostly quite good, but unfortunately Haruto looks eyesearingly bad and I still can’t quite grasp the narrative thread of this show…
I just realised I completely didn’t care about Haruto getting his arm chopped off, not only because this is a dream world where anything can happen, but because heck, that arm drop wasn’t dramatic in the least.
“Anything can happen in this world”, eh? Including headphones being sliced off with a head, it seems.
Wait, so Yuko’s from his school? Haruto, please don’t encourage Yuko to skip school, as cool as that is.
Okay, I can see this becoming a harem crossed with The Royal Tutor…which would pretty much make this the Monogatari series. Unfortunately, because I still can’t quite detect what’s happened narrative-wise and the production values aren’t as great as they seem at first glance, I’m dropping this.
Boku no Hero Academia 27
Finally, we get out of that pool of mediocrity to get to the good stuff. Let’s go!
This new amazarashi OP is…great! Absolutely great match for this show…but as a musical choice for me, it’s kinda dull.
This old man is great humour-wise, but man, he’s basically Speed of Sound Sonic as an old geezer, LOL. The vibes between “little bro” and “big bro” are just too much.
Gran Torino really is a great old guy, basically Yoda, LOL (I had to make the comparison because even though I’ve never seen Star Wars, Horikoshi’s a fan). He can see weakness just from watching Deku on TV, which is what every great mentor should be able to do, right?
What makes movement flexible? Belief in one’s own strength and no fear for repercussions (not quite in the way Deku’s doing right now, but rather going all out all the time without having a subconscious fear drag you down). Also of course exercise and youth works in your favour.
Deku likes katsudon, LOL. No wonder he’s basically Yuri Katsuki’s little bro as well as Saitama’s, hahaha.
Best Jeanist is basically Aoyama gone pro (I’ll say ouch for Bakugou in advance).
Oh! Uwabami! I know she came from Oumagadoki Zoo, so it’s nice to see her animated!
Gahaha, Gran Torino is such a Mr Miyagi (even though I’ve never seen the original Karate Kid).
“Omazan”, LOL! This ep just keeps getting better and better!
Gahaha, I just made a comparison of Yuri Katsuki to Deku, and suddenly here come the food metaphors. This show became superhero!YOI with better comedy, and that’s just even more fantabulous than before.
This fairy tale AU, I dig it. Unfortunately, Mercy (@mercysorrows) spoilt prince!Shouto for me, but yes, this AU is just as great as the ep itself. Kaminari looks great in this, although I’m disappointed I couldn’t see Tokoyami. What a great twist at the end though, for it to be 1-A’s festival album…is that foreshadowing for a later arc, perhaps? (The All Might fire is both a fitting and a sad analogy, because All Might’s force is literally Deku’s sword and shield and All Might’s presence is what makes Deku a hero, yet it suggests Toshinori’s time as a buff man is limited…*feels all sad inside*)
Vatican Kiseki Chousakan 1
This one actually seems like it has some promise, and because I was a Detective Conan fan a few years back I’m a sucker for any new seasonal mystery series. By the way, let’s just call this “The Vatican Anime” and leave it at that, okay?
“This story is a work of fiction…” – The Vatican’s real, though, right? By the way, “succor” is, according to Google-sensei, “assistance and support in times of hardship and distress.”
The shaky camera doesn’t quite do it for me…There was similar stuff for Chronos Ruler, only that time they overdid their spinning.
I thought the door was an elevator, that’s how deceiving that doorbell was. Sheesh though, Hiraga looks like the dude from 91 Days when he’s tired (which is not a compliment!).
The Game of Angels and Demons seems to be reversi or something, Google doesn’t give me anything good on it.
*points at undressed Hiraga* Unnecessary, but wowee. Me likey.
“I’m the one who came up with the game.” – Oh, that explains why I had no proper hits on it…*sighs*
Biometrics? I thought we were in the 91 Days era, or at least another period in the past. Turns out we’re in the present (or somewhere very close to it).
Comparison to Youkai Apato here – both shows take care to state the obvious, but well…they’ve all got a good dose of (at least somewhat good looking) bishies, so I can live with that.
Okay, wait…they show Mexico on the map, but Google just keeps getting me hits for New Mexico (slightly off from the shown section of America) when I look for “aliens America 1945”, and Roswell was 1947 so uh…this really is a work of fiction, after all.
The most widespread religion where I am is Christianity, so it was optional for me to take RE back in the day. I’m not too familiar with Catholics (although there should be some if I bother to look for them), but…this smacks so much of my old RE classes yet doesn’t give me the same nostalgia as the recent Saiyuki did. Maybe it’s the cracks of subparness and the stating the obvious that are doing this.
This Jacob guy looks brainwashed. More than the other procession of priests we’ve just been introduced to, at least.
Bad CGI…then again, I keep these gripes because even Chronos Ruler does better than this and because Kado is its precedent.
“…follow the way like a little child would.”
So the show finally shows some promise! Why did it only start pulling out its big guns now? Probably lazy writing…
I know the AB negative blood is rare, but couldn’t there be someone else with that blood type around the Church? It’s not impossible, y’know?
Can someone verify the correctness of the Italian in this email?
I think we met Johannes already, so…it seems like this show has a propensity to introduce the viewer to a person twice over. That works when things are like Detective Conan (one story spread over 3 eps) but doesn’t work for 1 ep.
I get a sense of feeling of blasphemy from you guys (Hiraga and Nicolas) too, although I’ve pointed out my reasoning.
It’s a good thing it seems like the staff went out to the Vatican to get something that looks realistic, eh?
Wait, is Lauren a man?! Oh my…Also, from my version of the video (from Hidive/Sentai) I get the feeling the next ep preview got blended into the ED. Or was that just time constraints?
Wait, there’s a Horror Bunko? If I knew a Horror Bunko existed, why haven’t they started adapting stuff from it until now? I think people have been complaining about the lack of good horror works in anime…(Oh, I could probably answer my own question there – horror isn’t that popular in Japan itself. It’s popular in the West though…)
All in all, it’s not quite as Scooby-Doo as some people have pegged it to be, but not inspiring enough to continue.
Katsugeki 2
I’m pretty scarce on choice, so I’m doing what was previously never ever done before – I’m picking up one of my worst rankers (Hina Logi) to have a second look at. Mind you, we’ve had an overall stinker of a season so far.
(insert “Come at me, bro!” joke for Tonbokiri)
Huh, interesting – I’ve used female pronouns for the saniwa due to the female VA, but now that I properly listen to them, they do seem more like a dude. Does that mean that Touken Ranbu is specifically trying to go for a larger audience than just fangirls? Of course, for the fangirls, there’s Hanamaru, but Katsugeki’s way better.
Okay, Mutsu. 6 bullets is overkill, calm your gun-totin’ farm. Mutsu’s much like the typical anime protag and while he’s an alright sword, I never have been able to understand the appeal behind him. Maybe he’s for the people who like muscular bishies…? Tonbokiri and Yamabushi probably do that better than him…
LOL, these two. However, just comparing their stats, Kane-san edges over Mutsu a bit for everything aside from range…and that’s only because most swords have a short range.
When you talk about Tonbokiri, you often hear the legend, so it’s no surprise to hear it here. I’m just not good with sorting these swords chronologically though, so…Tonbikiri comes from the age of Nobunaga no Shinobi, huh? Interesting.
Daifuku.
The reason Mutsu carries a gun is because Ryoma Sakamoto was around during the dying days of the age of swords.
It’s kinda hard to hear what Mutsu’s saying from the way he talks, but the hot pot is specifically a nabe.
Noting that Tonbokiri’s ben out about 50 times, this saniwa really is a rookie and this era is probably the second or third map. Yagen isn’t too rare though, so he’s probably the biggest veteran here in regards to this saniwa. However, Mutsu’s number means that this saniwa’s starter wasn’t him…who was it, then?
Mutsu’s statement about daifuku is a pun on the fact “daifuku” means “great luck” as well as being a name for this mochi-like item.
Mutsu, weren’t you going to eat…?
What even is a Historical Restraining Force? Is that the group the saniwa is part of?…My bad, they just explained it.
One of the things that make Touken Ranbu so great is the propensity of it to go from battle action to serious drama or poignant melancholy at the drop of a hat.
This ED…was an odd choice, but has a nice singer. I realised the shots of people I don’t recognise show the swords when they were…y’know, swords. I still love the style of the next ep preview though (it’s even got the same BGM as the game!) and as expected, the citadel at the end of the ED is gorgeous.
Hina Logi 2
Good anime are scarce this season and magical girl shows that can be put through the commentary are scarcer, so…here we are.
“Rice Balls Over Flowers” is hana yori dango. Plus, hina means chick and since chicks are cute, I guess that’s where the aesthetic of the show comes from.
Someone likes the Osomatsu-san ED aesthetic, it seems.
How can you walk and not notice those breasts??? That’s exactly why I didn’t want to pick up this show again.
A qipao is a type of Chinese dress, the sort that normally has a slit up the leg and a skirt that doesn’t quite go to the knees.
Interesting, they’ve incorporated the panda hair accessories into the Trance.
For some reason, the production values here are quite nice, meaning either luck and Logic sells well in Japan or Bushiroad put a lot of their funding behind this…it’s probably a case of both.
She wants to stay with Nina, but unless she was either bored or maltreated at her home castle (which I don’t think was the case) I don’t really get Lion’s motivations…
Well, it actually was a rice ball (onigiri)! Geez, these puns…
Nina needing a logical answer is of course appropriate for a show based off Luck and Logic, LOL.
I seem to remember this Veronica lady from the original, which is funny, because I don’t remember Nina and Luck and Logic was very forgettable…
*tries to sneak away* Gratuitous boob shot? On a high schooler? Yeah, nah.
“small little town” – Small and little are the same thing though…
Trying to entice the lolicons with this ED is not good, y’know.
There really seems to be something hinted about Kagura-sensei, y’know?
I’ve termed this season “the race to the bottom”, but it was interesting to actually pull out a low ranker and give it a second chance. While I’m still not into Hina Logi as a whole and I gave it a 30 first time around, it’s probably better than that stinker Konbini Kareshi.
Hina Logi 3
*shakes head* Only in anime would someone ride a rocket like this. Only in anime.
I can’t see what Lion’s pointing to…
I am screaming profanities at my screen and shaking my head. Only in anime would a plotline like this happen. Only in anime!
I kinda understand Lion’s plight, since my dad used to go to my school to help out every now and again or have parent teacher interviews. Of course, that was when I was much younger, so…yeah. I think the staff are trying to get more younger girls involved in this by bringing in a “sexy dad”, but my tastes don’t skew that way.
Oh, now I understand Lion, but I still don’t get Mahiro, Yayoi, Karin or Karen.
Doesn’t spasibo mean “thank you” in Russian?…Yep. So Liones (country) is based on Russia, then.
Oh gosh, it’s one of those “There are two trains” questions…they bore me to death so much (and I can never solve them!) that as much as I like solving anime board questions, I’ll pass on this one.
The subber at CR decided to put their sub out of the way at the expense of being able to read the question. However, not being able to read the sub of the dialogue is a major problem! So I have absolutely no idea what the teacher was saying during the time she had that math problem up! (Also, that Foreigner question would depend on if you defeated the monster on impact or took extra time to properly defeat it.)
When there’s that screen with the four visuals on it, there’s a girl with a horned hoodie. I recognise her from the original series, but I don’t remember her name.
Here’s something on ezhiki, although there also appears to be a cookie variant.
Little kids always want their own independence, to the point where running away is one of those things most kids do, but then they come back. I don’t think I ever ran away from home, though. I was always too busy with studies and piano to run away…
I know these eyecatch-style screens are meant to be funny, but still…I never laugh at them…isn’t that sad for a show that wants to be a funny slice of life/fantasy…thing?
Last time I saw a bear in anime, it was Armed Girls Machiavellism…
Why would you ever need a bear repelling machine???
Who’s Belle?…Oh yeah, Belle is the squirrel.
Dasvidanya = goodbye. I’ve learnt more Russian because of anime than I ever would have without it (I read the entirety of Crime and Punishment thanks to that gorgeous Fyodor in Bungou Stray Dogs, y’know).
#simulcast commentary#katsugeki touken ranbu#chronos ruler#boku no hero academia#hina logi: from luck & logic#knight's & magic#18if#vatican kiseki chousakan#saiyuki reload blast#konbini kareshi#chesarka watches boku no hero academia#7o3x: fastest finger first#Chesarka watches Saiyuki RB#Chesarka watches Katsugeki
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Down Goes Brown Grab Bag: Trash Talking, Boring Senators and Cookie Phil
Welcome to Sean McIndoe's weekly grab bag, where he writes on a variety of NHL topics. You can follow him on Twitter. Check out the Biscuits podcast with Sean and Dave Lozo as they discuss the events of the week.
Three stars of comedy
The third star: Team Italy scores a goal at the World Championships—Um, guys? I don't think you're hockeying correctly.
The second star: Jared Boll is laughing with you, not at you—The Predators ended up getting the last laugh in game three, but Boll's reaction to seeing his team take the lead after he drew an instigator penalty was…interesting.
The first star: David Poile would like you to stop playing X-Man—Be sure to stick around for the update.
Outrage of the week
The issue: Ryan Johansen called out Ryan Kesler after game two, accusing the Ducks' agitator of dirty play, saying that "it sucks when you have to pull a stick out of your groin after every shift," and adding that Kesler's "family and friends watching him play, I don't know how you cheer for a guy like that." The outrage: He's not wrong. But he's not supposed to say it. Is it justified: This is the kind of thing that we typically see a few times every postseason. Things happen on the ice, tensions run high, and eventually the unthinkable happens: Somebody actually says something interesting.
At that point, everyone falls into one of two camps. The first is the old school, where you're shocked and offended that anyone would say anything ever. This is the side that believes that if you have a problem, you deal with it on the ice. A small handful of guys, like Jonathan Toews and Jaromir Jagr, have been given a hall pass to occasionally express an opinion, but everyone else is expected to stay down and stay quiet.
The other side thinks that guys like Johansen speaking their minds is great. Athletes in every other sports do it, and when they do it inevitably it sparks more interest among fans. Surely the hockey world, with its notoriously boring personalities and cliched sound bites, could use a little more post-game bad blood.
The problem with Johansen's mini-rant is that it landed pretty much right in the middle of the two sides. He said something beyond "get pucks in deep", so the old-timers are mad at him. But as far as trash talk attempts go, this one didn't really land. The bit about family and friends was a nice touch, but other than that, the whole thing sounded a lot more like a guy whining about not getting the calls than anything else.
The fact that Johansen said so little and still drew the ire of the traditionalists is pretty much all you need to know as to why we so rarely hear players say anything at all. If we're going to have this argument every few weeks, here's hoping the next guy to speak up actually goes full pipe bomb and makes it worth our while.
Obscure former player of the week
With the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft just a few weeks away, it's fitting that we're being treated to a Western Conference final that features two relatively new teams in the Predators and Ducks. So today, let's bestow obscure player honors on a player that links those two teams and their expansion histories: Russian goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov.
Shtalenkov became an international name in 1992, when he was the starting goalie on the gold-medal winning Unified Team at the Olympics. He was picked by the (then) Mighty Ducks a year later in the fifth round of their first ever entry draft, a few spots ahead of future all-star Miroslav Satan. Already 27 years old when he was drafted, he made his NHL debut that season, playing ten games for the Ducks. He'd see part-time duty with the team for the next four years, playing a career-high 40 games in 1997-98. He went back to the Olympics in 1998, winning silver as Russia's starter.
That same year, the NHL welcomed its 27th team when the Predators were born. Nashville took five goalies in that year's expansion draft, including Mike Richter (yes, really), and future starter Tomas Vokoun. They also took Shtalenkov, making him the first ever link between the Predators and Ducks.
Sadly, Shtalenkov wouldn't get to work on his Hockey Tonking, as he never played a game in Nashville. He was part of a five-player deal with the Oilers, where he'd share starting duties with Bob Essensa before another trade to Phoenix. He'd last 15 games as a Coyote before another trade, this time to Florida for Sean Burke. At the end of the 1999-2000 season, he headed back to Russia to finish his pro career.
Shtalenkov later went into coaching. A few years ago, he was briefly part of a weird news story in which he was apparently reported missing by his wife, but later turned out to be fine.
Debating the issues
This week's debate: The Ottawa Senators are two wins away from the Stanley Cup final. But are they a boring team?
In favor: Good lord, yes. Game one on Saturday was nearly unwatchable. Game two was only marginally better. Off the ice they make for a great story, but when it's time to play the games this team can be tear-your-eyes out dull.
Opposed: Well, hold on. You're just cherry-picking a few bad games. They sure weren't boring when they went out and blew the doors off the Penguins in the first period on Wednesday. And what about that 6-5 OT thriller against the Rangers? The Senators aren't boring all the time.
In favor: Sure, but "not boring all the time" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. So sure, congratulations on having played one entertaining period in the first three games of the series. You're still boring.
Opposed: But there's more to an entertaining game than goals. Just about all of Ottawa's games during this run have been close, with seven of them going to overtime. Not to go all hockey hipster on you, but I'll take a tight 2-1 game over a sloppy 7-3 one any time. And besides, even if they are dull, who cares? They're winning. Like Bobby Ryan said earlier this week, "ratings be damned".
In favor: And he's right, from Ottawa's perspective. Nobody is blaming them for playing a system that works. This league has spent 20 years watching this style take over the game and never does anything about it, so good for the Senators if they can exploit that. They're even starting to embrace the whole "boring" thing, which is sort of cool. But none of that means that the rest of us want to watch.
Opposed: That's fair. But still, any team that has Erik Karlsson can't be all…
Senators fan: EXCUSE ME BUT I COULDN'T HELP BUT OVERHEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT MY TEAM SO I AM HERE TO YELL ABOUT THAT.
In favor: Whoa.
Opposed: Hey man, can you turn the volume down a little bit?
Senators fan: NO SIR I CANNOT AS OTTAWA FANS ARE VERY SCREECHY RIGHT NOW.
In favor: Yeah, we've all noticed. But do you really have to interrupt us in the middle of…
Senators fan: YOU HAVE SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT THE SENATORS AND I AM HERE TO THROW A TEMPER TANTRUM ABOUT IT.
Opposed: I'm not sure we even said anything all that bad.
In favor: Yeah, we all acknowledge they're a good team on a great Cinderella run. It's just that they're kind of boring sometimes, and most fans seem to prefer…
Senators fan: LEAVE MY WONDERFUL PERFECT TEAM ALONE OR I WILL HAVE TO FIGHT YOU.
Opposed: Dude, chill out. Your team is in the conference final. People are going to talk about them. You guys are going to need to be able to handle some occasional criticism.
In favor: Yeah, seriously. You Senator fans have generally been pretty cool over the years, but during this playoff run you've all gone super-sensitive about every little thing and it's getting kind of weird.
Opposed: Maybe just take a few deep breaths and see if that…
Senators fan: THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS HAVEN'T WON A STANLEY CUP SINCE 1967.
Opposed: Yes but… wait, what does that have to do with anything?
Senators fan: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT NO SENATORS FAN CAN GO MORE THAN FIVE SENTENCES WITHOUT MENTIONING IT OR WE DIE.
In favor: I always wondered what was up with that.
Senators fan: IF YOU DIDN'T VOTE ERIK KARLSSON FOR THE HART TROPHY YOU HATE PUPPIES.
Opposed: That's not true.
Senators fan: WE ARE CANADA'S TEAM NOW AND EVERYONE MUST LIKE US. THE PRIME MINISTER MADE A LAW.
In favor: That isn't how things work.
Senators fan: CHRIS NEIL FOR CONN SMYTHE. BOB COLE IS MEAN AND BAD. ALFIE DIDN'T MEAN TO SHOOT THAT PUCK AT NIEDERMAYER.
Opposed: Yeah, sure, we get it, but it's… wait, that was five sentences without bringing up the Leafs for no reason.
Senators fan: I… WAIT… I LOST COUNT AND … [explodes into fine mist, spraying stale Beaver Tail shrapnel everywhere]
Opposed: You have to admit, that last part was kind of exciting.
In favor: It really was.
The final verdict: This entire section is all Toronto's fault somehow.
Classic YouTube clip breakdown
Hey, speaking of the Maple Leafs…
One of the running themes of the Senators/Penguins series has been the budding rivalry between Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf, who mixed it up several times on Wednesday night. This is, of course, not the first time their paths have crossed. The two were the building blocks for Brian Burke's stint as GM in Toronto, and came to symbolize all the good and bad of that particular era. Eventually, both were traded away. But for several years, they were easily the two best known Toronto Maple Leafs in the world.
So today, let's travel back five years to watch as the two stars share a light-hearted bonding moment between teammates.
It's January 2012, and the NHL is in Ottawa for all-star weekend. Phaneuf and Kessel have both made the team, so they're in town to do a little pre-game promotion work. Standard stuff. I'm sure it will be fun.
Phaneuf is doing a sit-down, and our clip begins when he somehow hears Kessel approaching behind him. You're expecting me to make some sort of lazy "Phil Kessel is so fat you can hear him walking" joke, but I'm above that. There will be no weak and tired Kessel conditioning punchlines here.
"Oh, he's eating a cookie!" Um, OK, maybe Phaneuf didn't get the no-conditioning-jokes memo.
Phaneuf invites Kessel to join him for the interview, dropping a "You just interrupted it" in the process. Did that seem a little angry to you? It did to me. That Phaneuf is such a card, when he decides to playfully tease a teammate he really commits to the character.
"We better get you on the bike if you're going to keep eating these cookies, that's your fourth one today." See… playful? I think this is playful. Please tell me this is playful.
Kessel tries to claim that it's only his first cookie, at which point Phaneuf goes full-on dad mode while busting him with a detailed list of times and locations. I was fully expecting him to explain that he's not mad, just disappointed.
Anyway, now that Kessel's been thoroughly cookie-shamed by his friend(?), I'm sure we'll get to the friendly banter.
See, here we go. Kessel relates a funny story about being asked who'll choose the music for the all-star locker room. "I told them you." See, that's nice! "And I said you're the worst DJ in the league." Oh.
"Hey, you can go get your ipod," Phaneuf replies. "I know you're extremely cheap, but…"
OK, I'm going to just jump in right here. Do…. do Phaneuf and Kessel hate each other? I mean, do they legitimately want to fight right now? I think they might.
Just for context, Phaneuf being the Maple Leafs' locker room DJ was kind of a thing in Toronto for a while after Burke somehow used it as a way to praise his leadership skills. So this is Kessel coming in and just firing directly at the thermal exhaust port. These guys are not messing around.
By the way, can we give Kessel some credit for holding his own here? He's never been viewed as an especially intimidating guy, but he's pulling off a pretty decent "I'm going to stand right over you and keep eating my cookie and what are you going to do about it?" move here.
That face where you realize your fun sit-down is about to turn into a fist fight.
A flustered Phaneuf tries to resume the interview, but Kessel is still hovering semi-menacingly in the background. The interviewer asks if he'll be in the hardest shot competition, at which point Kessel comes storming back for more, asking if "You mean that muff of a shot?" I don't even know what that means, but it sounds bad.
At this point, Phaneuf calmly gets up, grabs Kessel in a headlock, drags him down the hallway and throws him down that escalator.
Wait, I'm being told I imagined that. What Phaneuf actually does is offer up a plaintive "Phil is all over me today. I don't know why… he's angry today". Which is probably the safe play. Would you want to mess with this guy?
I feel like we have to score that bout for Kessel. Phaneuf got the early takedown and landed some shots, but ran out of gas at the end and left himself open. I'm going split decision for Phil, but I'm willing to hear other viewpoints.
By the way, you may be wondering how we got this clip of the Maple Leafs' two most important players coming to within a few seconds of roundhouse kicking each other in the temple. Did some fan film it with their phone and upload it to social media? Is it security cam footage that the hotel didn't dispose of properly? Oh, no, it was uploaded by the official Maple Leafs YouTube account. And then they gave it this title:
The 2011-12 Maple Leafs missed the playoffs for the seventh straight season, in case you were wondering. No idea how that happened, with all that dressing room chemistry.
Epilogue: They eventually made up.
Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] .
Down Goes Brown Grab Bag: Trash Talking, Boring Senators and Cookie Phil published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv
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