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about-faces · 4 years ago

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The director Joel Schumacher has passed away, and everyone's reactions have boiled down to two topics: 1.) "He was the guy who made the bad Batman films," and 2.) "Hey, he did lots of great films besides the bad Batman films!"

Thing is... I get it. I remember being a teenage comic fan in the 90's. Not just any comics: especially Batman! But ESPECIALLY Bart especially Two-Face. I remember how "Joel Schumacher" was a name that could invoke white-hot rage in myself and everyone in the fandom. He was our modern equivalent of Dr. Fredrick Wertham, the boogyman who had (far as we were concerned) single-handedly destroyed the mainstream credibility of superheroes.

Look at that picture, and try to imagine that this was the face so loathed and mocked by Batman fanboys in the 90′s.

Never mind that Schumacher didn't WRITE the Batman films. The main credit for that goes to Akiva Goldsman, who has gone on to win an Oscar and continues to find A-list success despite ruining other geek properties like Jonah Hex and Dark Tower. Never mind that Schumacher was at the mercy of producers who wanted the movies to be nothing more than merchandise machines and toy commercials. No, Schumacher was the only name associated with the films, and he was cast at the villain.

The fact that he was openly gay played no small part in making him an easy target.

One year after the disastrous release of the infamous Batman & Robin, the beloved fan-favorite cartoon Batman: The Animated Series (then rebranded as The New Batman Adventures on the WB network) produced an episode that featured a pointed jab at Schumacher. The episode was titled "Legends of the Dark Knight," a reworking of a classic 70's Batman tale where a group of kids share their own ideas of what the mysterious Batman is really like.

Halfway through the episode, the kids are overheard by another kid, who shares his own ideas about Batman. The kid, whose name is Joel, has long dirty-blond hair, and works in front of a store which bear the sign "Shoemaker," despite clearly being a department store. He waxes dreamily about the reasons he loves Batman: "All those muscles, the tight rubber armor and that flashy car. I heard it can drive up walls!"

This last line--a reference to a silly bit in Batman Forever--he says as he flamboyantly tosses a pink fur stole around his neck. To drive home the joke, one of the kids dismisses, "Yeah, sure, Joel."

At the time, it seemed like a cathartic joke for us REAL Batman fans. Now, it's clearly just cheap and gross. Instead of any actual criticism about the films, Joel Schumacher was just seen--even if just subconsciously--as the fruit who ruined Batman.

Over time, the hatred for Schumacher lessened. Starting with Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man, on through to Batman Begins, Iron Man, and onward, superhero movies became huge mainstream successes, with greater fidelity to the source material than most adaptations we saw up to the time that Schumacher "killed" the superhero movie. There was no point in hating him anymore, if there ever was (again, Goldsman more deserves that ire, if you're gonna be angry about anyone. Why does he still get work?! WHY IS HE NOW WRITING FOR STAR TREK?!?!).

But even still, especially among Millennial and Gen-X fans, Schumacher is still--at best--considered a low point for fandom. Even though the same generations have come to appreciate and love some of his other films, such as The Lost Boys, Phone Booth, and the chillingly-prescient Falling Down, there's still this need for people to dismiss the Batman films as embarrassments that are best forgotten in favor of Schumacher's better films. And if they're to be remembered at all, it's to trash them all over again in a tone suggesting that the films are objectively, irredeemably bad.

Except they're not. Oh sure, if you go in looking for a grim and gritty capital-M "Mature" take on Batman, of course you'll hate them, just like you probably also hate the Adam West Batman show. Remember, that show also used to be hated by decades of Batman fans because of how it didn't take the comics seriously.

... except it did. The show was VERY faithful to the Batman comics of the 50's, which often out-weirded and out-sillied its TV counterpart. If anything, the show made some of those stories even more entertaining with camp value and jokes that added different levels of enjoyment to the adults watching. Comic fans resented how Batman became a pop culture joke, and increasingly fought against anything that was colorful and campy (which makes me wonder if this might also be related to latent homophobia). Whether or not they admitted/realized it, the Batman fans of the 70's and 80's carried a chip on their shoulder about a show that DARED to make Batman FUN.

And really... how is that any different than Schumacher's two films?

You don't have to agree, but I think Schumacher's films are fun. I think Batman Forever is highly entertaining, that Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey are bringing their hammy A-games as much respected actors like Burgess Meredith and Caesar Romero brought to their roles. Same goes for Arnold and especially Uma in Batman and Robin. They KNOW what movies they're in, and they're all having a blast.

(How many of us remember the exact line Eddie says at this moment? I bet you probably do too, which should tell you something about how memorable this movie is)

Now, BF and particularly B&A are by no means GOOD movies, but you can't tell me that you couldn't have a blast putting the latter on at a party and riffing it with friends. It's not a pretentious, ponderous, self-serious slog like, say, the shit Zack Snyder cranked out (apologies to the one or two cool Snyder fans here, I just find his films interminable). Even besides the many things I could say to defend Schumacher's Batman films (that's a whole other essay), you can't say they were boring. They were entertaining, even if on a level of making fun of the film, and that is NOT as easy as it looks.

Let me put it to you this way: Batman Forever has, objectively, one of the worst takes on Two-Face I've ever seen. He's one-note, he's kind of a rehash of Nicholson's Joker, he gets completely overshadowed by the Riddler, he gets killed by Batman in a way that completely betrays the whole “DON’T KILL HARVEY” arc with Robin, and worst of all, he CHEATS on the coin toss. That alone would be enough for me to condemn this depiction in any other Two-Face story.

And yet, even I--the most passionate, opinionated, and picky Two-Face fan you will EVER know--still have a soft spot for Tommy Lee Jones' take on ol' Harv. He’s just too fun, too flamboyant, too damn extra not to love. If only all bad takes on Two-Face could be this fun!

But that’s the thing: it’s not because the script was good. Oh god no. I've read the script, and if it were put on the page like a comic, I would have hated it just like any other bad Two-Face comic. I have to imagine that, as director, Joel Schumacher deserves the bulk of the credit for pushing the restrained and laconic Tommy Lee Jones into that oversized performance, and making it a delight to watch despite everything it does wrong.

I'm rare for my generation to have learned how to stop worrying and love Schumacher's Batman. But the younger generation, the up-and-coming Gen-Zs getting into Batman, don't share the same grudges we did. There's a genuine, shame-free enjoyment of those films among The Kids, many of whom are LGBTQA+, who love the jokes, the silliness, the camp, the Freeze puns, the swag of Uma Thurman, and the homoerotic subtext between Two-Face and the Riddler. Maybe it's just a reaction to so much GRIM, SERIOUS shit that DC and their fanboys are trying desperately to push even today.

But comics--especially Batman--have a long history of colorful, stupid, fun shit. Schumacher's films carried on in that tradition, and they should be appreciated on their own merits by those of us who aren't limited by narrow ideas of what Batman "should" be, and who still remember how to have fun.

Schumacher's Batman films should no longer be seen as embarrassments. They didn't ruin superheroes. They didn't ruin Batman. They didn't even ruin Two-Face. Nor should they be disregarded in favor of Falling Down, like losers in a respectability competition. They're fun. They're entertaining. And they didn't pretend to be anything else.

And if you still think they're bad... I mean, objectively, you're not wrong! But be mindful of the reasons WHY you think they're bad, because on another subjective level, you may not be right either. And it's certainly not worth holding a geek-grudge over after twenty-five years.

#batman forever #batman ampersand robin #long post #homophobia #slur

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sevendeadlyvices · 3 years ago

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Poker Buddies AU: Max and Memories Notes

Something I compiled for @i-cant-thinkof-anything-new Poker Buddies AU they have going. Now I used the Poker Night wiki to get this and I thought this would be helpful for any Sam and Max or Poker Night at the Inventory Fans in general. That and I have my own Poker Night At The Inventory AU and headcannons that I need to work on too. The first information is generally Max’s poker strategy in Poker Night At The Inventory:

When it comes to reading the opponent's strategies, Max's will prove to be a big problem. Due to his lack of knowledge on the subject, his poker strategy seems non-existent. His choice of whether to call, raise, or fold tends to come out of nowhere. Sometimes, Max will or will not have a good hand, so he will be very hard to read. His strategies are completely random; he might bluff, be cautious, or be aggressive. Sometimes he will just keep on betting or keep on folding.

I would call Max an unpredictable poker player at times. There’s this tell he has that if his left hand quivers, he’s bluffing, but other than that, you’re on your own with him.

Next is his relationships with the characters of both Poker Nights:

Heavy: Max seems to have a good strong friendship with the Heavy, asking him about how his career is going and what kind of weapon he could recommend.

Strong Bad: Mostly casual, having the odd talk with Strong Bad when Max is compelled to tell some sort of story.

Tycho: His relationship with Tycho seems to be, again, a casual friendship. They share many of the same interests, although from time to time Max will be slightly put off by Tycho's odd behavior.

The Player: Max often thinks The Player plays too conservatively, especially when not calling a huge bet of Max's.

Sam: Max very much loves the big guy. Max is Sam's long-time partner, best friend, husband, and sidekick.

Brock Samson: Brock finds Max annoying like Claptrap, but also finds it much easier to ignore him, even when Max is physically attacking him. He also has some level of respect for the lagomorph for everything he and Sam overcame as members of the Freelance Police.

Claptrap: Much like Sam, Claptrap is a fan of Max for their games and comics. He seems closer to Max than Sam due to the fact that Max isn't as annoyed by him as Sam is. Max's love for violence makes the robot think he would fit in very well on Pandora. If Claptrap is knocked out before Sam, he will often sit next to Max for a while. Also, during a Showdown, Max will stand right next to Claptrap, wondering what the next card will be.

Ash Williams: Ash has considerable respect for Max and Sam's career and is otherwise "okay" with the lagomorph. However, Ash also displays a few moments of apprehension and even downright concern when Max' insanity acts up, usually in his theme eliminations.

GLaDOS: Max doesn't seem to mind the murderous AI as much as the other characters and occasionally joins in when she insults or annoys the other characters (primarily Sam).

This is from the wiki, so take this with a grain of salt.

And finally, with spoilers in the cut:

The Memories I would focus on for the Epic Texas Hold Em Matches! Note that it’s not all the conversations from both games, but here’s the ones I found so far that might be interesting to incorporate for the AU. I’ll bold the ones that would seem more angsty for the AU:

Max: I don't know a lot about card games, truth be told. But, I take it you're a little bit of a beginner, yes? Strong Bad: Are you talking to (pronounces it as moy) moi? Max: You betcha. You're as green as the bologna in Sam's mini-fridge. Strong Bad: (angrily) Shut up, Stitch. Max: (cheerily) It's OK. It just means you have to adopt a wanton strategy of wild deception. Strong Bad: Hmm... Not the woist idea I ever hoid. Max: (furrows brow) Get into their heads.

Max: You know what I love? Tycho: What's that? Max: Destroying wave after wave of the undead. Tycho: WORD UP! How do you roll? Max: With my trusty side arm of course. Tycho: I'm more of an auto-shotgun guy. Max: Oooh! Heavy: This is good weapon no? Max: Sam and I had to resign ourselves to pistols when our cleaning bill started going through the roof. Tycho: Yeah, its like ichor? Oxyclean ain't cuttin' it. Max: This pelt is dry clean only.

Tycho: Max, how'd you learn to play cards? Max: Funny you should ask! This one time, Sam and I were busting up a crime syndicate down in Atlantic City. A road job. Tycho: Indeed. Max: Yeah! So we're tailing this low level mafia bum for an hour and he pulls up outside a casino and before he can go in Sam says, "Well little buddy, we better nab this guy quicker than a Pittsburgh driver taking a left on a green in rush hour." I couldn't have agreed more. So I grab a tire iron out of the back seat, right, hop out of the Desoto, and pummel this guy like a piñata. Tycho: Yow! Max: Blindfold and all! Tycho: ...That doesn't really answer my question. Max: You asked me a question?

Tycho: Hey Max, how do you like being a freelance police officer? Max: It's the best. Tycho: I bet it is. Max: Oh, but that's not all I do. I'm also available for babysitting, bat mitzvahs and general shakedowns. You know anybody who needs work? Tycho: See, this why I think we get along. You're a Renaissance man. Max: You need anybody roughed up? Tycho: There's a bird at the pet store that's been giving me a little beak, yeah. Max: Oh ho, putting a wise acre in his place is my specialty!

Heavy: I will make hat from you, little bunny. Max: How 'bout I just sit on your head and shoot people? Heavy: (thinks about this) ...This is good idea.

Heavy: Tiny Heavy, who is your favorite to kill in war? Strong Bad: Hmm, in WAR? Probably those Green Helmets. You know, the guys who don't have any cool weapons or gimmicks, and come in a discount three-pack. Heavy: To kill spy is glorious thing! How about you, Max? You are killing type. Max: My favorite enemy? {gasps} That's like asking me to choose between my children! Heavy: {laughs heartily} You crack me up, little bunny!

Heavy: You look very familiar, bunny. Max: How closely do you follow the Manhattan crime blotter? Wait, you didn't go the Spiro Agnew School of the Arts, did you? Tycho: You attended? Didn't take you for the book learnin' type. Max: No, but Sam and I pinched their gym teacher in a black market jock strap ring in the 80's. I'd be surprised if any student didn't remember a dog choking out a large man with a unibrow.

Strong Bad: I don't trust you one bit, ra-bbit. Max: It's ok, I don't trust myself. Strong Bad: How do we know that you don't have a never ending stack of aces wherever you put your gun? Max: Well, you don't, but you're welcome to look!

Strong Bad: So... Max. You're like one of those (pronounces as poke mons) poke-mons, right? Max: (narrows eyes) My genus and phylum is a mystery to all mankind. Strong Bad: Because I'd love to see some prepubescent pointy-haired kid run in here and stick you inside of a baseball (laughs). (in a high pitched voice, with a smile) That would be hilarious. Max: Are you talking about the red-capped kidnapper who terrorized the fauna on the Upper West Side for months? Strong Bad: Maybe. Max: Because Sam, Flint, and I caught him trying to stuff a chimpanzee into his knapsack, and made him cry for his mommy.

Strong Bad: I wonder if this dump is haunted? Max: (cheerily) Ooh, I hope so. There's something about being able to terrorize a spectral being without it up and dying on you that (furrows eyebrows) I just love. Heavy: (sadly, lowers his head) I do not like ghost. Max: It's OK Mr. Weapons. I've got extensive experience with zombies and vampires. (points toward himself) I can handle a little ghost. Heavy: (with large eyes) You will take care of ghost for me? Max: (cheerily) You betcha. Heavy: (cheerily, nods his head) I like you, tiny rabbit.

(Brock) GLaDOS: Brock Samson is eliminated. Max: GERONIMO! (lands on Brock's head and starts to gnaw on it, to no effect) Die, die, die! Brock: (gets up) I'll be at the bar.

(Claptrap) GLaDOS: Claptrap is eliminated due to lack of funds. Max: Wet willy, wet willy! (sticks a finger in his mouth and inserts it into a hole in Claptrap's side) Claptrap: Hey! That's not my ear, it's my... (both are electrified and fall from chair)

(Ash) GLaDOS: Ashley Williams is eliminated. Ash gets up and reaches for his chainsaw, only to realize it's not there. Max is holding it, standing a foot or so behind him. Max: (grinning maliciously) Looking for something? (looks at Sam normally) Hey, check it out, Sam! I'm a tree surgeon! Sam: (whispering to Ash) He's not really a tree surgeon...! Ash looks worried. Max: (revs up chainsaw) Open wide and say "ah!" (chases Ash away)

#Sam and Max #Sam and Max AU #Poker Buddies AU #Poker Night At The Inventory #Poker Night 2 #Max #tycho brahe #strong bad #Heavy #Ash Williams #Brock Samson #Claptrap #just wanted to share some interesting things that would make your AU better #now I'm obsessed #but Jessica you have your own Poker AU to worry about #but I like this one a lot #I hope this is okay

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hackedmotionsensors · 4 years ago

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Hey I feel like you’ve already answered this but what are some of your favorite iron man or Captain America comics and why? What story lines would you recommend? I’m curious about the more modern stuff. What’s some of your fav comic artists when it comes to marvel?

OKAY SO.

holy shit this got long so UNDER THE READ MORE WE GO

This is always kind of a hard question to answer because I personally have not read everything in regards to either Iron man or Captain America. I’ve read the Tales of Suspense stories a lot because I keep trying to start over from the very beginning. And that’s not always helpful if you just wanna dip your toes or give Iron Man/Cap a go.

So what I CAN tell you is here’s what I did when I was first getting into comics around 2012.

I went to Borders/Barnes and Noble and a I read a bunch of the compilations they had in the store. Someone has already done the work FOR you so its really easy to just pick up a book and read from there.

I started out with Invincible Iron Man (I’m gonna link to Amazon but I suggest not buying from them because Bezos is a demon [comixology is owned by amazon as well but it is a convenient app])

Marvel has its own comics app but if you also read and pay for other comics its not ideal. There are places to “read comic books online” and for older stuff I definitely do this now but for newer comics I’ll try to pay for them especially if its indie. Support indie comics!!!

Anyway. Invincible Iron Man. A polarizing story in terms of Iron Man lore. But its definitely an easy one to get into and read especially if you’re coming in from MCU and are just testing things. You don’t necessarily need to know all of his history but it covers the basics.

Next I’d try Demon in a Bottle It’s the original alcoholism arc. A must read for general Tony’s lore. This isn’t the one where he ends up a hobo on the street where Cap helps him escape from a burning building. But this is where he goes off the rails the first time. Bethany Cabe is his current girlfriend and tries to help him. And he kind of recovers. I’m not sure this is exactly a FAVORITE but it has a lot of the important shit for Tony. His temper is something that doesn’t get talked a lot about I think but he DEFINITELY has one. The art is very..........lol its not BAD per say but its also not like wow what gorgeous art.

Another important Tony lore is Armor Wars So you wanna read the first few times Tony and Steve fight about REAL SHIT. This is it. This is the classic story where he realizes his tech is being used by bad guys and HE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM NO CAP NOT EVEN YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE A GOOD GUY AND I MIGHT HAVE TO GET DIRTY. It has the classic Steve sitting in a dark room waiting for Tony to come back with his date and then throwing his shield at Tony going “I don’t want your trash”

It also has a lot of good Tony being in a morally grey area. *chef’s kiss*

And then basically read all the fun stuff with Kurt Busiek in Vol 3 (This isn’t an amazon link but the marvel database so you know roughly where to start)

VOLUME THREE HAS SUCH HITS LIKE

The Sentient Armor: Tony accidentally kills Whiplash in a lightning storm. The Armor comes to life. The armor falls in love with Tony and WANTS TO BECOME ONE WITH TONY. Tony does not want this. Tony is beat up and kidnapped and taken by the armor to a deserted island. The Armor is like Tony I love you so much GET IN ME NOW. Tony is about to die from a heart attack. The armor RIPS ITS HEART OUT AND SHOVES IT INTO TONY. Bye Tony I love you now we’re one forever. RIP

Tiberius Stone’s 2 arcs (they’re not in consecutive order but they’re both hella gay): Tony’s old boarding school friend shows up again and is a TV mogul and is DEFINITELY NOT Slandering Tony in the press or blowing up his buildings or framing him for MURDER oh my god Tiberius is a pain in the ass and we definitely boned down as teenagers but he would never frame me for MURDER but his TV devices that seep into your brain like the boob tube thing from Batman Forever are pretty suspicious. Oh no Tiberius IS a bad guy and he got me naked (why?) and hooked the both of us up to the TV machine and now we’re trapped in his horny tv dream why am I dressed like Alice in Wonderland??? ALSO HE SLEPT WITH MY GIRLFRIEND!!!!??

(This is why I will FOREVER get upset that Killian in Iron Man 3 isn’t Tiberius Stone. He IS LITERALLY FOLLOWING THE TIBERIUS STONE PLAYBOOK INCLUDING THE PHYSICAL LOOK WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE FEIGE YOU OWE ME MONEY!!!!)

Also at the beginning of Vol 3. Tony gets the absolute holy hell bejesus shit beat out of him. And that lasts for a WHILE and seeps into the Avengers Vol 3 (which you should also read its fun and I like that George Perez actually tries to make people look ethnically diverse but also you can tell Clint from Cap)

There’s also a part in vol 3 where Monica from FRIENDS shows up at a party and that’s a wild thing that happened.

But basically I think you can start just about anywhere with Iron Man and have a good time if you’re a deep Tony fan. He has a lot of great stories and its why he’s my favorite. Even this last run with Slott I still KIND OF LIKE ANYWAY??? bc its Tony. Its not always written to what a lot of long standing Iron Man fans would say is canon but I mean.....he’s got 57 years worth of comics behind him so he’s bound to change here and there. He was once a super villain, died, brought over as a teenager from an alternate timeline, and then merged with another Tony I forget the details but its silly lol

Side universe reading Iron Man Noir, Ultimates (Hickman’s run is very fun but also Ultimates 1 and 2. DO NOT READ ULTIMATUM IT IS GROSS, I HAVE READ IT FOR YOU ALMOST EVERYONE DIES ITS GROSS.

Ultimates is literally half of the basis for the MCU. Don’t read Ultimates Iron Man tho. Not only is it written by a creep its also extremely stupid and doesn’t even really make sense in terms of what happens later in Ultimates. It basically gets RetConned immediately.

Also Ultimates universe has Gregory Stark. Tony’s fun evil twin brother who for some reason is blonde. I can’t really give you a specific story to read with Ultimates because its the most god awful confusing universe to try and find stories from so I literally don’t even remember. I’d check an Ultimates fan blog for that.

AS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA.

I love Steve Rogers. I really do. I think he’s a fun character. B U T. His comics for me can be very boring. He has some great arcs as someone who is supposed to be a representation of what a GOOD AMERICA can aspire to or whatever. But America often times SUCKS A LOT (our current times being very obvious). Cap definitely fights for what he believes and so that’s why he often takes off the garb of Captain America and runs around in a slutty v neck and a cape as Nomad. Or when he comes back from the dead and his BFF is the new Cap (WITHA KNIFE) and wears the sexy Secret Avengers uniform. Very sexy. We stan the Colonel Rogers uniform very much. But his early comics are a lot of “OH MY GOD I KILLED BUCKY ITS ALL MY FAULT BUCKY!!!!! RICK JONES PUT ON BUCKYS CLOTHES THIS ISNT CREEPY I PROMISE”

A GREAT run in Avengers is the Cap’s Kooky Quartet or as I call Cap Joins the Baby Sitters Club. This goes WAYYYYYY back to Avengers 17

It runs for a very good while before Giant-man and Wasp come back because Giant Man can’t shrink back down lmfao idiot. But its a lot of fun and establishes Cap as being a really good leader even tho he’s thrown into the hot seat because he was out on a mission and everyone else was like “We’re taking a vacay bye Cap. Good luck with the kids” *John Mulaney doing Andy Cohen impression* HUH WHAT WHY

I have no idea what to Rec really lol I know @sineala is part of a SteveTony 616 discord and they do readings every month(?) of either very SteveTony based arcs or specifically Steve or Tony arcs. But I think they have a better grasp of Steve stories than I do.

I would say most recently the run with Mark Waid and Chris Samnee as the artist is a VERY good read. The story is pretty nice and dry lol but the art. Holy shit.

I know there are a bunch of artists that really REALLY get Cap but Chris Samnee is probably my number one favorite Cap artist. Even his sort of retro style works with Cap SO WELL. And I like Mark Waid’s writing. Or at least I don’t think I’ve ever been really mad at it like with Dan Slott or Gillen (We will never forgive for what he did to Tony’s backstory and taking Maria from him) lol

Uh...but as far as I could tell the entire run where Bernie is his girlfriend is VERY good. She first shows up in Captain America 247 . Cap is an illustrator on the side (or as his main job) and man what a dope. His art habits are worse than mine like get a desk Steve. But this arc through Bernie goes through a lot of Steve being kind of stuck in the past and not knowing how to embrace the modern or future and Bernie is there being the coolest fucking chick in the world who’s studying to be a lawyer, watches Wrestling, listens to Bruce Springsteen (I think lol I forget), dunks on Cap for being a weirdo old dude. Very put together woman of the 80s. She proposes to Cap and because I think the writers changed he’s like I HAVE TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY BYE.

This isn’t on any of the main timelines but its a good read Captain America Man Out Of Time. Basically Cap coming to grips with the future and realizing the past sucked ew. lol Also he listens to Radiohead which Tony gives him a personal concert for because of course he does.

And then of course there’s this fucking TOME of a story Captain America: The Winter Soldier .

Im gonna sound a little negative but I don’t mean it against anyone’s favorite but I have the most exhausting time trying to read this story. I’ve tried at least three times lol. I think maybe Brubaker’s weird obsession with the Cold War (Remember when he called people who were yelling at Slott for being a creep a ‘Bunch of Commies’) is just so fucking heavy handed that I can’t personally get through it. I would much rather watch the movie.

HOWEVER. There’s good old Bucky coming back from the dead. Natasha. Sam Wilson. Sharon Carter. All big players in this story. So uh lol good luck with this one. If you’re also a Bucky fan this is a must read but as I only peripherally like Bucky I don’t care to read this one.

So I’d check out this arc.

Also a personal fave of mine is

It starts here on Captain America 402 . Its the best story IN THE WORLD. ITS SO ICONIC. NOTHING CAN COMPETE. I LOVE CAPWOLF SO MUCH lol

#I'm really an iron man fan so I don't care what Iron Man I'm reading #but man lol cap is very hit or miss #unless he's a werewolf and then he's SEXYYYYY #pinklasagnaa #long post

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soyouareandrewdobson · 5 years ago

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Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na RACIST! (how Dobson thinks Batman is a supremacist, why I think Batman is not so good and Frank Miller is problematic

Over the last couple of years, Andrew Dobson has mad eit clear that he is not a fan of the character of Batman much (or anymore), calling him a Mary Sue and an embodiment of toxic masculinity as if that term means something nowadays considering how often it is thrown around. And don’t get me wrong, if you don’t like Batman as a character, that is completely fine with me. I myself am not the biggest fan of Batman myself. Or rather should I say, his overexposure in the comics.

Cause honestly, I do not hate the character on concept. I watched reruns of the Adam West Batman show from the 60s and the animated 90s show long before I even saw the Burton versions. Batman Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite animated shows of the 2000s. And I think that there are quite a few good Batman stories, shows and games out there overall. I do however believe that when it comes to Batman in the mainstream comics, things have taken a nose dive for a long time. Writers like Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder and Tom King in particular have over the last 10+ years (at least in my opinion) not just attempted to write stories about Batman as a hero, but also put him into the center of ever escalating events and philosophical wang fests so often, the comics and its characters (Batman and his villains alike) have become quite ridiculous. As a result Batman as a comic series is at times just too edgy, people get sick of certain characters (I like the Joker, but the way how he was handled in some of Snyder’s stories was ridiculous to the point they should have just called him Satan) and Batman comes off as a Gary Stu almost by default, cause the only way a “normal” human could even dare to deal with the over the top situations he faces, is by being even more over the top and smart and awesome by default.

Now that we got my soapboxing regarding why I think Batman is not as good as a comic character anymore out of the way, lets see what Dobson’s take on Batman is and why he thinks he is turning Bat- I mean bad.

He believes that Batman turns into a fascist.

... I would ask if that is a joke, but I know that Dobson does not get humor at all or can tell a good joke if he was possessed by Leslie Nielsen.

Okay, so lets just try to dissect why this is dumb.

First off, while I did not talk about it in detail, I did mention that there are different incarnations and versions of Batman to enjoy. Hey, Dobson himself said that the one he enjoyed the most was the Batman of the animated series in the 90s. Which btw I highly recommend. And so do others. But here is the thing: There is not one “ultimate” version of Batman to stick to. There are different interpretations of the character. And most people are okay with that. Heck, there are more than enough people who both enjoyed the 60s Batman and Burton’s Batman. The important thing is, that all those interpretations need to have a certain key element of Batman still in order to make the character recognizable as who he is to be. Which in my opinion is the willingness to fight for good even in the face of some serial killer level baddies and show also once here and there his smarts as well as a bit of heart (guess what people, Batman can be compassionate too if he needs to be) while at the same time wearing a costume as he does and try to convey the image of being “the night” to put fear in the hearts of those cowardly criminals.

Which is why people in general will call writers out on being bad, when you do not “get” Batman or what people in general associate Batman to be. But Dobson seems to insinuate at least indirectly that people are dumb for not understanding it. That he is supposedly the only one who “gets” Batman right. No Dobson, you are not the only one. The shitton of people who mocked Batman vs Superman of which you were a part of, are proof enough.

Next, I have to admit I find it hilarious that he believes that Frank Miller’s version of Batman is what he believes people consider slowly the mainstream version of the character. No they don’t.

Let me try to explain it with this version a bit, seeing how Dobson does not and in doing so is utterly misinformative. In the late 2000s, comic writer Frank Miller, known for work such as Sin City, 300 and his run of Daredevil in the 80s, was tasked by DC comics to write “All Star Batman and Robin” a miniseries in 12 issues. While the thing has actually pretty good artwork by Jim Lee (an artist Dobson wishes he could be), the story itself is very, very bad. While Miller was in the past quite respected and was the man behind “The Dark Knight Returns” in the early 90s (a comic even I think is pretty decent as a story about Batman as an older man taking the cowl up again) , his work in general even at this point was not that good. Miller had become an openly racist person towards people of muslim background after witnessing 9/11 in New York in person, Batman in his work became a vigilante who gets away with levels of assault, violence and edgy philosophing and beating his meat (metaphorically) that it just became pretty obvious that Miller had turned into a racist grandfather with power fantasies whose ideas oozed into his work. I am not denying the accusations Dobson throws here at Miller. His Batman in All Star is violent, acts like a self righteous psycho, kidnaps an underaged boy and does at one point consider that if he had Green Lantern’s power ring he could make the world “better” than Hal Jordan. Which considering his actions so far in that comic makes any person with self preservation instincts and empathy wonder, what “better” means. Additionally, other characters like Superman, Wonder Woman and the mentioned Green Lantern don’t really fare good either when it comes to having likable personalities, making you wish a villain like Luthor would just get rid of those “heroes” already just to assure us they could not go crazy next tuesday.

So yeah, it is a shitty version of Batman, despised by many to the point All Star Batman is mocked to the nth degree. Miller himself became even more controversial and hatred when he wrote and got Holy Terror released, a beast I do not even want to touch upon at the time righ now. I just say it is bad as shit and one of the worst writen and drawn things I ever saw.

HOWEVER… this version of Batman is not the mainstream one. I repeat: this is not the mainstream one, “accepted” by a majority of people. As the paragrpah previously show.

The character All Star Batman is considered ONLY associable with Millers miniseries of the same name, that did not even properly conclude as it was put on endless hiatus with issue ten. It has never become inspirational for any other portrayal of the character so far and DC comics also does not endorse the character in correlation with its main universe, even if they still sell tradepaperbacks of the series.

This, if you have any reading comprehension, points towards one of the biggest lies in Dobson’s comic: The idea, that THIS Batman is the one that’s been popular for the last 15 years or so, as STATED by Dobson himself in the second panel of his comic.

No. No, this “Batman”, the violent psychopath who uses guns and drives a tank, is not the mainstream and never was so in the last 15 years. Or I should rather say 20. See, this comic was published like in 2015. Meaning he is referring to Batman from between 2000 till 2015.

Lets see what versions of Batman were popular at this point

So we got a Batman who was there for a girl dying cause of something done to her brain, a 60s inspired Batman who still was badass and worked well with other heroes and saved the world a few times, a videogame Batman who would not even have let the Joker die when his poison finally got the better of him (Arkham City), a Batman who travelled backwards through time into the present and then tried to use his fortune to support heroes in other parts of the world to do good (I acknowledge though, the Batman shooting Darkseid thing was crap, even if Darkseid is the god of evil in DC) and we even got (though not shown here) a Batman who even when he drove a freaking tank did not run over peolpe with it (Batman, Nolan trilogy) and would rather accept people hating him than being a hero, by taking on the blame of Harvey Dent being killed to not taint the laters reputation. Oh and did I forget to mention that Nolan’s Batman almost sacrificed himself to prevent Gotham from nuclear destruction?

And before someone says “gotch’ya” by pointing at another rinfamous work by Miller, known as the Dark Knight strikes again… I said popular. That comic from the early 2000s was not popular and again NOT referenced much by mainstream media or mainstream fans as good.

Now I will say, Batman as in the mainstream comics at the same time got unfortunately darker to the degree I hinted on when I made this post. Cause the last 15 years were comic wise the time of Morrison, Scott and others in particular. Who were involved in such “brilliant” moves as the Court of Owls story, the introduction of Professor Pyg, turning Joker into a satanic archetype villain stu, Batman having the brilliant idea to go Big Brother Eye, the No Man’s Land shit, having to deal with more brutal murders than previously etc. Yes, mainstream Batman got more violent. But the violence was less in the character itself as more within the world he was part of. Mainstream Batman comics took on a more violent tone than there was before. But ironically, even if Batman had to face more brutal beatdowns and villains, by comparison he is one of the most “kind” characters compared to the ones he faces or even works with. This is a character who had to teach his own son that murder was not okay, cause the kid was raised by an evil murder cult.

And even with the mainstream comics such as Detective Comics and Batman main series becoming darker… they are not pro-fascist or go into that direction. I read a lot of DC in general, not just Batman, and Batman is not going sieg heiling or beating up people because of the color of their skin or because they are poor. When Lex Luthor was president, Batman was one of the main heroes opposing him. Mainstream Batman is beating you up for being a murderer and highly violent criminal with a gimmick, independent of your political agenda. And the writers are also not pro fascist, including even post 2015 Frank Miller.

Yeah. Frank Miller, whose work I am not fond of and who I think is a racist asshole who had things coming for Holy Terror, is not really writing (or at least publishing) racist Batman anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the guy is bad and I believe if he had a chance to get his opinion out unfiltered, we would be in for a shitstorm. But I actually read up on his Dark Knight 3: The Master Race thing because I was worried how racist that is and how DC would recover from that dud. Turned out… it was not as bad as you would expect with a title like this. The “Master Race” referred in that story to a group of racist kryptonians who thought they should take over earth because their powers made them superior. While Batman was not the most positive character in it, he was fighting against them with many other heroes. This Batman was actually a vast improvement personality wise from Batman in Dark Knight strikes again and All Star. So yeah, Batman written by racist grandfather was still a hero. Granted, I think a lot of that was also thanks to the fact that DC had partnered up Miller with someone who kept things tighter around him, but still. Fascist Batman is not a thing the comics and the majority of fans want.

Ironically, if you want to see how a publisher taints the image of a hero people look up to by making him more racist… well, Dobson’s “praised” and woke Marvel did once something called Secret Empire. Which had Captain America turn into the Fuehrer and taking over America. And the Nazis for a lack of a better word, were “competent” enough in the story that the heroes really only won in parts thanks to a shitton of asspulls. So… yeah.

I mean, the event still ended with the good guys winning and the bad guys defeated, but still.

youtube

#batman #adobsonsartwork #andrew dobson #frank miller #dc comics #this sucks #grimdark #batman and robin #syac #idiocy #fascism

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timetravellingshinigami · 5 years ago

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I don't know why Ragnarok fans want Taika Waititi to have anything to do with Loki in Thor 4. It's blatantly clear he doesn't know or care about the character at all in Ragnarok-

That one above bothers me 'cause what if in Loki's place it's a female character?

Also, someone asked him of he would direct a Loki movie and his answer is a direct "No"

"► "Not to really want to humiliate Loki all the way through the film, but because he was definitely overpowering in the other films in terms of his presence and his story... it was nice to just switch it around."

“space orphan”

“someone who tries so hard to embody this idea of the tortured artist, this tortured, gothy orphan”

Taika also adds that Loki should return home to his family. A family in which his father taught Loki his whole life that the race he was born in were monsters. A father who’s lies and secrets led to Loki committing suicide in the first movie.

“…this little emo goth hanging out by himself. He was like the kid in Harry Potter [Malfoy].”

"has been trying to kill Thor his entire life"

Loki loved Thor more than anyone. Loki was a quite child living in Thor’s shadow as seen in Thor 1. The only time he wanted to get rid of Thor was when the thread holding his sanity snapped after he realised what he really was and that everything he knew till was all lies.

For the People who say that Taika is the only person who knows Loki:

"Here’s the thing about me guys. I did not really do my research. I read one issue of Thor as my research. Not even a graphic novel, one of the thin, thin ones. And by the end I was like we are not doing that, lets not look at those anymore. Cool art, I love the art but i can’t stand the way everyone talks”

“ We just basically destroyed everything that went before. The play scene in our film was a message to the audience “ Whatever you’ve held on to, whatever you fell in love with in the previous movies, allow us to respectfully disrespect that stuff. It was really like that was our last good-bye to those films.”

“I wasnt really that keen on what Asgard looks like. Seems like quite a privilege place to live. Its completely made of Gold, its just full of nerds and scholars. Doesn’t seem like a party town, doesnt seem like my kind of party town. Seems like a lot of people wandering around in robes holding books and talking about lofty ideas. which is fine but i don’t want to live in an entire world like that. I’d like to atleast think there were some Asgardian Nightclubs but ive never seen any in any of the movies. It’s too gilded, it’s too sparkly”

Taika never even read a Thor comic led alone a Loki comic. How in the world is he suppose to know how Loki is in character when he doesn’t even know Thor. If that’s not enough he also insulted the work of previous directors and actors and hailed his own as the best. That isn’t professional. Thats selfish and arrogant.

If it was any other actor directing Thor 4 I wouldn't mind much but Taika? NO

For those who want Taika to change Thor's characterisation in Endgame. Guess what it was Chris Hemsworth and Taika who suggested chubby Thor being made fun of in Endgame. The Russos ruined a lot but they weren't the once to change Thor-

► Taika Waititi: "Well, I wanted this little thing, and maybe if we ever do a Thor 4 we can have it, but I wanted to do some flashbacks where Thor was a kid, a fat little kid. There was like an 80s version of Asgard where everyone had massive shoulder pads, and everyone had mullets. Our idea was Thor and Valkyrie meet and he's like, 'Hey I know you,' and she’s like, 'Ha, I remember you,' and then it cuts back to this thing and he's just this pudgy little kid walking around with a mullet and being picked on by other kids. And Loki's like this little emo goth hanging out by himself. He was like the kid in Harry Potter, [Malfoy]."

Sources for all of this:

IN DEFENSE OF LOKI (MASTERPOST)

https://nikkoliferous.tumblr.com/post/185806989955/taika-waititi-sucks-ask-me-how-majority-of-quotes

Avengers: Endgame—Is Thor’s New Look More Than Just a Joke?

We can only hope that Taika reads the comics and does some research before he decides to start anything for Thor 4. Maybe this time he can get the characteristics right.

I made this post because there are so many asking for sources and for those who say they didn't read the interviews and podcasts but still think what anti Ragnarok folks are saying is lies.

#taika waititi #chris hemsworth #thor 4 #loki #thor ragnarok #avengers endgame #the russo brothers #marvel #mcu #disney #anti russos #anti ragnarok

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flowerfan2 · 5 years ago

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Affinity - Ch. 20 (10.20)

Friends, this show is killing me. For your angsting pleasure, below please find chapter 20 of my coda series. As I was writing this a line from a Robert Frost poem lodged itself in my brain, so I had Steve think of it too. (”As dawn goes down to day / Nothing gold can stay.”) I feel like it may be the epitaph for Season 10 (probably should have saved it for the title of another fic... come to think of it, I still can...)

Affinity - McDanno, A03

Chapter 20

Steve walks past the fountains and sparkling infinity pool, weaving his way through the strategically placed lounge chairs until he gets to the beach. The Four Seasons Resort on Maui is an unusually ritzy location for Danny to choose for a spring break trip, but he got some kind of amazing deal and has been looking forward to spending this time with his kids for weeks.

Steve had been touched when Danny insisted that he come along too. At the same time, he was wary of impinging on Danny’s limited family time, and a little hesitant to take off the same week as Danny when they were trying to keep their relationship quiet. They had finally agreed that Steve would join them for the weekend, and so here he is, in his swim trunks and slippahs, gazing across the sand in search of his partner.

He hasn’t been looking for long when he hears a squeal, followed immediately by an armful of young boy.

“Uncle Steve!” Charlie exclaims. “You’re here! Come swim with me!”

Steve promises that he will, then slings the boy upside down over his shoulder and proceeds down the beach, much to Charlie’s amusement.

He finally sees Danny and Grace, sharing a large beach blanket. Grace spots him and smiles, standing up and coming over to give him a big hug as he slides Charlie back to the ground.

“You look great,” Steve says, and Grace gives him a sassy smile. She’s so grown up, he thinks, but keeps it to himself – he remembers how he hated when people said that to him, as if it was some remarkable observation. But she has, and it makes his heart ache just a little. It’s been a long time since Grace was the one to run up to him and grab him by the hand, demanding that he get in the water and play with her.

Grace seems to see something in his expression that gives her pause, and she grabs Charlie by the arm and tugs him towards the water. “Come on, kiddo,” she says, “get your body board, I’ll go in with you. Steve can’t go swimming yet, he hasn’t put any sunscreen on.”

Charlie looks at Steve wide-eyed, as if he’s committed a felony, and Steve nods. “I need a few minutes to get ready,” he says solemnly. He winks a thank-you to Grace as the kids race off together towards the surf.

Children out of the way, Steve finally sinks down on the beach blanket next to Danny. It’s some kind of thin colorful fabric, like the parachute pants from the 80’s, and it feels nice on his bare feet.

Danny is stretched out on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms, showing off his deltoids and triceps. Steve could look at him all day, broad shoulders narrowing into a trim waist, a sliver of whiter skin showing just above the waistline of his black swim trunks.

Danny’s eyes are closed, but there’s a small smile dancing around his mouth. A moment after Steve settles next to him Danny opens his eyes and his smile broadens, stretching his face.

“Hey there,” Danny says, reaching out to pet at Steve’s arm. “’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Steve sits cross-legged, setting his backpack down and letting out a long breath. “It was an easy trip over. Quick flight.”

“Good.” Danny shifts to his side, propping his head up on an elbow. Steve can feel Danny studying him as he looks out over the water.

“Steve, you okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve replies automatically. He’s not, not really, and he knows it. He’s pretty sure Danny knows it too, even though he’s barely been here a minute.

It’s not as if he doesn’t want to confide in Danny. It’s just the opposite. It’s all threatening to spill out, and he doesn’t know how to control it. Steve can’t stop thinking about the call he got last night, right when he was deep in painful memories of his father, hiding out in the garage and playing that tape. The unexpected call from the lawyer was a stinging confirmation of how much he still doesn’t know about his parents, and will probably never know.

After he hung up on the lawyer, Steve had braced himself on the work bench and narrowly avoided hyperventilating, focusing on his breathing and the feel of the wood under his fingers until he calmed down. Then he packed up the tool box and went back into his house, accepting a beer from Adam and ribbing Hirsch and generally pretending that nothing had happened.

He thinks he did a pretty good job of it. He’s had a lot of practice. But he can never hide this kind of thing from Danny, at least not for long.

Danny reaches up to grab at the collar of Steve’s t-shirt, tugging him closer. “Lay down,” he says. “Relax.” Danny’s brow is creased with concern. Yup, he’s not buying it.

Steve stretches out on his side, mirroring Danny’s position, and runs a hand over Danny’s head. His hair is sticky with salt, and Danny makes a face. “Cut it out.”

“You’re cute when you’re sunburned,” Steve says, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I’m not sunburned,” Danny replies, gazing down over his bare chest and arms. “Too much fur.”

“It’s a protective coating,” Steve says, touching the soft hair on Danny’s chest. “Lucky you. Your face, on the other hand-”

“My face is fine,” Danny says, grinning. “Your face, though – different story. I can’t stand your face. Hate it.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve says, moving closer. “You sure?”

“Definitely.” Danny leans in and kisses Steve lightly, just a touch of his lips to Steve’s. “Awful. The worst. Don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

They kiss for a few minutes, cognizant of the fact that while the beach isn’t particularly crowded at a luxury resort like this, it isn’t private, either. But it’s enough physical contact to ground Steve, to soothe him. When they break apart, he feels like he can breathe again.

They spend the afternoon alternating between swimming with the kids and lazing around on the beach, and it’s perfect. Steve gets to ogle Danny’s broad chest and strong arms as he carries Charlie on his shoulders through the waves, Grace declining to participate in the chicken fight but chiming in with rules they make up on the spot for their lopsided challenge. He pulls his phone out of his backpack only to snap photos of Danny and Grace strolling along the water’s edge, or Charlie making sandcastles. He does not think about work, or mortality, or Doris. Much.

They order food from the beach side café, poke bowls for Grace and Steve and chicken wings and fries for Danny and Charlie, and eat it on their beach blanket, rinsing their hands clean in the ocean when they’re done. Steve and Danny drink beer and tease Grace about how she’s still too young to drink (she is, although as she’s at college now she just rolls her eyes at them when they refuse her a beer).

Charlie begs for ice cream and so Steve goes back up to the café to get them each a double scoop of gelato.

The sun is just starting to set, a breeze making Steve’s skin ripple with goosebumps, when Grace stands up and gathers her things. “Sorry we have to go,” she says. “Charlie and I have plans.”

“It’s Avengers movie night,” Charlie explains. “Danno won’t watch them anymore, he says he’s mad about Endgame.”

Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny, and Danny just shakes his head. “We’ve been over this. The time travel plot makes no sense, it wouldn’t work that way, and getting Cap back together with Peggy is completely out of character-”

“I don’t like that they killed Iron Man,” Charlie says. “But it’s still my favorite movie ever.”

Charlie and Grace give them both hugs, and Danny tells Grace not to let Charlie stay up too late, which just earns him eye rolls from both siblings, and then the kids say goodnight and traipse off towards the hotel.

“I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one that has to listen to your Marvel rants,” Steve says, laying down on the blanket, hands behind his head.

“It was a stupid ending. They sidelined Bucky and went full no homo in pairing Cap up with Peggy. And Charlie’s right, there was no need to kill a main character just for dramatic effect. It was a stupid way to end the arc. An insult to the fans.”

“It’s just a story,” Steve says.

“Stories have meaning,” Danny replies. “Representation matters.” Danny gives Steve what is likely meant to be a meaningful look, and Steve laughs.

“You’re a Stucky fan, aren’t you?” Steve asks, and he watches as Danny’s face goes slightly red.

“Obviously.”

“I miss Jerry,” Steve says. It’s not a non sequitur, and Danny gets it. Jerry was their enthusiastic guide to all thinks comic book related, and they had spent many an evening watching movies and arguing about their favorite characters. Danny can fly his freak flag high with the rest of them given enough beer.

“Me too.”

Having Jerry leave the team had hurt almost as much as losing Chin and Kono. A long forgotten line pops into his head, a remnant from something he had to read in junior high English class. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Steve sighs and closes his eyes, beating back the sudden urge to cry. His emotions are all over the place lately. He’s got to get a hold of himself.

They lie in silence for a little while, listening to the echo of live music now coming from the pool area. It’s a traditional Hawaiian band, with a female singer singing a romantic song about a lei of stars.

Danny’s hand slides over to Steve, and Steve pulls his arm out from under his head and takes Danny’s hand, their arms warm as they press together. The sun has almost set, and the sky is streaked with pink and orange light.

“This was a great day,” Steve says quietly. “Thanks for inviting me.”

Danny makes a soft noise in his throat. “Of course. I wish you had come for the whole week.”

Steve wishes with all his heart that he could have been with Danny and the kids for the whole week, but he still believes he did what was best. He doesn’t like how Danny sounds a little hurt, though. That’s not at all what he had intended.

“I’m sorry, Danny. I just… I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Steve can feel Danny turning to look at him, but he can’t look back, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the sky. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Can you try?”

Steve shakes his head. Danny’s kids are ‘ohana, they are part of his family. But he’s still just their uncle, not their dad. Danny will always have a connection with them, a legal bond with them, but it’s different for Steve. He doesn’t have any right to them. He can’t keep them with him any more than he can keep Danny.

Danny, who is looking at him with such concern that it makes him want to cry all over again. Or run away, go back to Oahu and sit in the dark by himself, waiting to see what new heartache Doris is about to put him through. He has no idea what’s in the package the lawyer is bringing him, but he is sure it isn’t anything good. Nothing about Doris ever is, in the end, no matter how hard Steve tries.

“I love you,” Danny whispers, turning to wrap his arms around Steve. “I love you. I’m right here.”

Steve lets Danny pull him in, curling up against him as the sky goes dark and the stars come out. He’ll tell him soon, about the phone call and the package from Doris, and Danny will scowl and curse and stomp around, upset on his behalf and upset at feeling helpless to do anything about it. But for now, Steve just wants to focus on being close to Danny for a little while more. Right now it’s just the two of them, no one else. He wishes it could always be this way.

“I love you too,” Steve says under his breath, knowing Danny can hear it. He tightens his arms around Danny, inhales the warm scent of his skin, and tries to let Danny’s love fill his empty spaces.

#mcdanno #H50 #Hawaii Five-O #H50 fic #10.20 #Steve McGarrett #Danny Williams

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templarhalo · 5 years ago

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Templarhalo reviews Birds of Prey. (It’s pretty fantabulous)

HERE BE SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Ok without this movie, I would have not been a Cassandra Cain fan. I would have not four, yes four ongoing fics with her as the main character. I would not be emotionally and financially invested in the DC cinematic universe or the comics side of things.

Which baffles me because this movie is perfect in almost every aspect,... Except how they treated Cassandra Cain. Which is a fucking shame because her actress is perfect, her chemistry and relationship with Harley is perfect, and the idea of Cass growing up as this pickpocket foster kid, taken in by Harley is unconventional, but I fucking love it.

Here’s a brief summary. After breaking up with the Joker Harley Quinn has to make her own way as the strong, badass, indepent woman we all know she is, while dealing with the fact that without Mistah J’s fell reputation as his significant other to shield her, a lot of people want her raped, tortured, killed and left for the crows… Not necessarily in that order.

To get these people off her back and save her own skin, from one of them, the infamous Black Mask. Harley agrees to recover the Bertinelli Diamond, a diamond encoded with the info for a source of 30 million dollars, Black Mask needs to fiance his take over of Gotham. Which was pickpocketed from one of his associates by our Lady and savior Cass.

The problem is, Cass kind of ate it( (I shit you not) and Black Mask’s guys would rather cut it out of her than wait for the poor kid to take a dump Not to mention Detective tReene Montoya (played by her Gotham Actress, which would have been a nice bit of world building if Gotham was actually in the movie continuity) building a case against Black Mask, with the aid of Black Canary Plus Huntress is indirectly gunning for him and Harley in her own quest for revenge. All these plot points converge into a very satisfying climax and fight scene with a somewhat emotionally satisfying ending.

From a technical standpoint this film is a spectacle. Gotham in the day is colorful but rundown, with markets, suave evil bad guy clubs, dilapidated Chinese restaurants and abandoned amusement parks. The fight scenes are AMAZING with a wonderful tension and energy that makes them incredibly visualising satisfying. Everything flows, the ladies move with an enthralling grace that makes them breaking bones, crushing legs,and tearing through people visceral and heartstopping. (And arousing. Like goddamn Jurnee Smollett-Bell could kill me with her legs and I’d thank her)

The problem, is none of this applies to Cass, and this is the films major flaw besides how short it is. (One hour and forty five minutes). If you had problems with how Harley was handled in Suicide Squad, the movie fixes it. Black Canary gets a short but satisfying emotional arc that feels natural. She goes from a cynical, lethargic woman, content to be Black Masks “Little Bird”; A singer at his club, driver and symbol of his power/dominance over other women until her own conscience kicks in at Harley and Cass’ predicament. Huntress also has a short but satisfying arc in which she gets her vengeance on the people who murdered her family and clearly finds a new one to fill the hole in her life, in the form of the Birds. Reene and her portrayal is a love letter to the 80s cop/hard boiled detectives, a pure, simultaneously complicated/uncomplicated woman seeking to do good for Gotham.

But Cass… Doesn’t feel like Cass and is criminally underutilized except as a walking mcguffin by dint of eating the Mcguffin. She’s introduced to us a snarky tween, stuck in a cycle of shitty foster homes and a pickpocket to get by. And that’s it. T

here are moments where you think she'll get a cool fight scene. Moments where you think she’ll have an emotional heart to heart with Harley, moments where you think…she’ll do something besides run from the bad guys and get saved by the Birds of Prey/Her four moms.

In the end she drives into the sunset with Harley and Bruce the Hyena, but it doesn’t feel earned, satisfying as the scene is. There is nothing implying or hinting she’s the daughter of two of the deadliest assassins in the DC universe, nothing about her running away from David Cain, nothing on her learning disabilities/selective mutism and NOTHING, setting her up to be adopted by Batman and become Batgirl

And this is a fucking shame, because Ella Jay Basco has a real chemistry with Margert and the rest of the cast. She’s adorable, funny, snarky and wonderful as Cass. She brings energy and spunk and I would cut off my left hand, to see her act as Cassandra Cain, not this generic punk kid with the name.

And I feel like this is a HUGE problem because the movie sets up this Mother/daughter relationship, with Cass being Harley’s motivation to be a better person. She goes from willing to hand her over to Black Mask to taking the kid under her wing. Cass is the glue that bands the Birds of Prey together. These lovely, dangerous, women coming together to keep a little girl safe, doesn’t feel as emotionally satisfying as it should because Cass isn’t Cass.

While I will praise the movie for Harley’s arc of seeking her own emancipation and agency outside her abusive relationships and life of crime, I feel like Harley’s arc should have been a question of redemption. Cassandra’s motivation to become Batgirl was her refusal to kill again. (Hey WB remember how in Batman Begins Bruce refused to kill a man because “I will not be an executioner.”)

Here Cass is fine with killing. She chucks a bomb at some goons chasing her and she kills Black Mask with a grenade in the end.

Yeah… Cass “I refuse to kill because my dad made me kill an innocent man at eight years old and killing is wrong” kills people.

*head meet desk*

Sucide Squad, set up Harley and the squad, for an unconventional redemption arc, spite motivated it may be, yet Harley despite her line to Cass “You make me want to be a less terrible person” isn’t seeking to make amends for what she did as the Joker’s henchman. (Like being an accomplice to Jason Todd’s murder).

.Cass pickpots and steals to survive, because she’s a kid with no family passed from foster home to foster home, Harley steals because she can, steal a truck to blow up a chemical plant because she can. Kills because she can. (granted she does use an M79 grenade launcher with bean bag shells for one scene but besides that.)

I like the idea of Harley taking Cass under her wing, its an unconventional but fresh idea, but it doesn’t feel entirely satisfying, and Cass not being Cass, not having an arc beyond “Go along with Harley as her apprentice” really undermines the excellent themes and message the movie is trying to convey.

Now maybe in the Suicide Squad reboot with James Gunn or a future DC film , Cass is going to leave Harley because that life of crime and killing doesn’t suit her and she realizes she’s trying to be something she’s not and I’m just being overly critical, but I still feel like “Harley and Cass seeking redemption and moving past their abusers together” should have been where this movie left off, and it baffles me that it doesn’t from a narrative perspective.

Anway the overall themes and message of Birds of Prey are represented in Evan Mcregor’s Black Mask, a walking talking example of repressive toxic masculinity and misogyny. A flamboyant, all but stated to be a repressed Bi, crime lord seeking to take control of Gotham, Black Mask moves with confidence in his loud suits, and charming quirkiness, He’s cruel, sadistic and repulsive His mannerisms ooz terror,and insanity. He moves like a love child between Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the Joker, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and Joffery Baratheon from Game of Thrones. He’s a control freak, trying to be a badass.

One minute he’s the Godfather, the next he’s a brat. He views Harley as nothing without the Joker, telling her that she needs him to protect her. He enjoys asserting his dominance over Harley during her brief capture by having his men beat her while he eats popcorn. He objectifies Black Canary for her singing voice and beauty..

Black Mask asserts his power and authority over the underworld by his control over women. In one frightening scene, he believes one of the women at his club is laughing at him for his failure to capture Cass, so he orders her to stand on a table, then for her boyfriend to rip open her dress with a knife because he finds it ugly.

In summary he represents the patriarchy. He represents sexist, abusive men. He’s a representation of social norms and ideals that are repressive and disgusting, and rob women of their agency, and self-worth. He represents the use of violence, not for noble reasons, but as a means to control women and lash out at those that defy him and supposedly wronged him .

Furthering this line of thought are the costumes. Black Canary’s costumes represent the amount of control, Black Mask has in her life. When we first see her, Dinah is wearing a long black netted evening gown that accents her legs as she sings “It’s a Man’s Man’s World”. Later she wears a blue tank top and gold, tightfitting pants clearly meant to draw our gaze to her ass and thighs. When she’s Black Mask’s driver, she’s wearing a Bra/crop top that bares her midriff under a short blue blaze, but when she decides she’s going to defy him, she wears a yellow tank top and jeans with a gold belt.

Harley’s costumes are as eclectic as she is, with her DIY caution tape shawl, stamped tops and cut up shorts. Huntress’s outfits are all black leather and punkish athletic wear, utilitarian and elegant in their simplicity while Reene wears a “I shave my balls for this” t-shirt reflecting her uncouth, blunt demeanor, as well as button down dress shirts and slacks for the climactic asskicking montage .

Cass is a kid,who clearly doesn’t have the funds for super nice clothes. She;s running around in ratty shorts and a worn out hoody with a red windbreaker, with an orange bandanna askew on her head. At the end, when she rides off with Harley, she copying Harley’s style.

Speaking of costumes, one thing I appreciate is that instead of the male gaze and sexualisation, we get what I like to call “passive fan service” What I mean is that instead of tracking shots on Harley’s ass or boob shoots, like in Suicide Squad the camera just lets these women’s beauty do the talking.

Huntress is wearing a sports bra and tactical pants for the climax, but the camera doesn’t linger on her boobs. A primary example of this is a lot of Padme’s scenes in Episodes II and III of Star Wars. Lucas knows Natalie Portman is a gorgeous woman and he doesn’t need to remind us by deliberate camera shots. He lets Natalie herself and Trisha Biggar’s excellent costumes do it for us.

Also one thing I really… really liked was how in the big penultimate fight, Harley actually passes Dinah a hair tie so she can get her hair out of the way. So for like a minute, she’s beating the ever loving fuck out of goons with her legs as she ties up her hair. A very nice case of reality ensures.

In conclusion Birds of Prey is another notch in the belt for the DC cinematic universe, a solid, fun film with an excellent cast with clear chemistry, hampered by character derailment that undermines its sorely needed themes and message it's trying to convey. The plot is fast paced, but doesn't feel rushed even though it’s only a little over an hour long. It’s uncompromisingly bold, bloody and hilarious. The lack of a proper post credits scene is somewhat annoying and I'm very disappointed how Cass was handled , but this is by no means a terrible film.

Overall I give it a 8.9 out of 10. Highly recommend you go see it. Drag your friends, smuggle in as much candy and drinks as you can. Buy it when it comes out on DVD. If you’re a Cass fan, reread the Puckett run or pick up her new graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl to wash out the bittersweet taste this will give you. Speaking of Kelley Puckett, he was actually listed in the “Special thanks to…” in the credits, which i’m sure many will appreciate.

These following posts and thoughts on the film I recommend.

https://dcwomenofcolor.tumblr.com/post/190693985900/how-would-you-fix-bop-cass

https://wits-writing.tumblr.com/post/190718974642/birds-of-prey-movie-review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YeFJjoQoec

#birds of prey #cassandra cain #templarhalo rambles #Templarhalo reviews books

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Black Condor #5

Five issues and five pure cheesecake covers.

Crud-for-brains? I'd wager my life savings that Brian Augustyn was an early Adventures of Pete and Pete fan.

The guys on the cover are just four young dude-bros stealing from drug dealers. They burn the drugs and take the money to give toward good causes. And probably also to buy cool shit for themselves. They're only human! Probably. I haven't read far enough along to know what they're really doing with the cash. Black Condor will find out after he beats the shit out of three of them. Sorry. I've been gone for awhile. You wouldn't have noticed since my long absence fell between writing the previous paragraph and this current one. And unless you ran off to take a desperate shit right at the same moment, the time between these two paragraphs was negligible, minuscule (I decided to use both words because I'm so proud of my ability to spell my native language (I considered misspelling "native" and "language" but decided that was a boring old joke which has carried more water than Capri-sun (that's a new joke and it's not very good because it doesn't make sense. But at least it's new))). But I was caught up in playing a stupid computer video game about dungeon delving dice trapped in a horrific game show. Spoiler: the dice never get to fuck. But I'm back now because this is blog is the only thing that keeps me sane anymore. You might think that because this blog was my link to sanity, I'd be more earnest. You might think I'd want to be grim and serious and discuss political, social, and environmental matters with the gravity and seriousness they deserve. But that's all the stuff that's doing my head in. So I'd rather pretend that I'm angry at comic books. Here's a secret for the few of you reading this who made it to this specific paragraph out of all of my paragraphs: I wish I were friends with Scott Lobdell. I bet he's kind of an asshole but he's the kind who, if he was getting his ass kicked at a bar for being smarmy and pretentious and smug (smug because he's a rich writer whom a lot of thirteen year old boys (and men with thirteen year old boy minds) think wrote some of the seminal X-men stories), he'd completely understand if you didn't step in to defend him. He feels like the kind of guy who knows what he really deserves (a righteous ass beating) and wouldn't think the world unfair should he ever receive it. Then he'd probably buy drinks for the people who beat his ass, and I'd look him in the eye and shrug, and he'd laugh, and we'd continue to not mention that time we jerked each other off when we were fucking wasted on single malt scotch and peyote. Black Condor and Ned decide they need to find the girl with humongous afro before she hurts people who don't deserve it the way the color changing white supremacist Nazi rapists did.

What does he mean by "completely autistic"? In 1992, I'm guessing that meant nonverbal with loads of stimming and maybe the ability to play any piano concerto immediately after hearing it once.

Karin was experimented on by Black Condor's grandfather's Society but she failed to gain the ability to fly. She did, however, gain mental abilities as powerful as his own. He's concerned that, being autistic, she'll hurt people with her mind rage. Please. She almost certainly just wants to be left alone by everybody in society expecting her to think and act in a specific way that she can't think and act, nor would she want to if she had the ability. Just leave autistic people alone, normals! They don't need help. Just because your autistic kid isn't giving you the kind of unconditional love you were looking for when you decided to have a kid that you would eventually love only conditionally based on how they loved you doesn't mean the kid needs to change. That's on you and your needs. Maybe just find a way for the kid to express themselves (or not! Who knows sometimes?!) and let them do and act as they please. Unless what they want to do is fuck the dog. I'm not saying autistic people fuck dogs but I am saying we're all individuals, you know? Use your common sense! And if your kid is fucking the dog, autistic or not, don't let them near the dog! The Merry Men on the cover (oh hey! There were Merry Men in the Sky Pirate issue! Brian Augustyn either loves old tales of daring adventure or LSD) have been robbing drug dealers to help fund a homeless camp run by a priest named Gamble. The priest isn't involved in the theft; he chastises them about their plans to get money illegally. But they assure him the money isn't tainted and he decides to believe them when they dump thousands of dollars on his desk. Doing the right thing is hard when doing the wrong thing will solve all of your money issues. If you're a weak minded jerk, that is! I totally would never sell out for thousands of dollars so hopefully nobody embarrasses themselves by offering me loads of money to write positive comic book reviews for their publications. Father Gamble refuses the money because he just can't be sure it was honestly come by. I would be less suspicious of the money and more suspicious of the white college kids trying to donate thousands of dollars to a homeless camp. What's really going on in this camp?! Why are these young men so interested in keeping it funded so it doesn't get shut down? Four probably rich white boys risking their lives to help the downtrodden? Sorry but this is the most aggressively fantastic comic book I've ever read. And I'm not using the informal definition of "fantastic."

"Which member of this organization could possibly be giving all of this information to these white boys and why am I exposing my plan to kill them before plugging the leak?!"

Maybe that's racist suggesting that the white guy in the gang is giving the information to other white guys. But this comic book has already asked me to believe too many fanciful plot points so I'm glad Augustyn decided the white guy was absolutely the inside man. The white guys name is Herbie and his boss, Mr. Soto, already knows he's the leak. I'm glad Mr. Soto is as smart as I am. Or as racist. Probably smart though! They follow him as he's trying to meet up with the college Merry Men to warn them that they're in danger. Luckily for Herbie, Black Condor happens upon the scene as he's searching for Karin. And even though Black Condor doesn't give a shit about this guy and his problems, he figures even a reluctant hero wouldn't just stand by and watch some jerk get what's coming to them. After Black Condor saves Herbie, he has to take him to the hospital because he was pistol whipped. Meanwhile, the rich white kids aren't warned that they're about to die so they drive off into the trap to steal more money that Father Gamble won't be accepting for his charity.

What a dumb asshole! Even the most ignorant of ignorant jerks knows there were only three musketeers! Unless he's so familiar with the book that he's including d'Artagnan along with Porthos, Mythos, and Harpos.

I never read The Three Musketeers because I was born in the late 20th century and exciting stories to thrill young boys wasn't a popular genre anymore because we had Batman and Green Lantern. Although I did once play the text adventure version of the book. When I did that, I poked fun at the idea that the author of it was writing the game so that people would remember Alexandre Dumas and yet it's the only reason I know anything about him! Although now I know a little bit more about him because I Googled his name to make sure I was spelling it correctly and now I know what a fancy lad he was!

Now I want to listen to an audio version of his book where every few sentences, the person reading it just says, "Oooooooh, my!"

The Musketeers (maybe I was wrong to assume they were more like the Merry Men?!) manage to get away with only one of them shot in the ankle (the others weren't shot at all, if that wasn't clear). They decide the best way to save their own lives is to lead the gun men on a chase through New York back to Father Gamble's homeless camp. They already know he doesn't want any trouble so why are they taking this gunfight back there?! What is Father Gamble's hold over these young men?! Luckily for everybody in the homeless camp, Black Condor is there still searching for Karin. He'll save everybody's lives reluctantly! Unluckily for everybody, Karin is also there and the gunfire and chaos freaks her out so much that she has a mind-storm! That's the thing she had before that killed four of her attempted Nazi rapists. And that's where the comic book ends! Lucky for older me, younger me bought the next issue so I wouldn't be stuck with this cliff hanger! Lucky for younger me, older me doesn't have a time machine so that fucker has gotten away with some pretty abhorrent behavior which I couldn't correct by going back in time and punching him in the nose. Unlucky for him, he's going to be a virgin for a long, long time! Ha ha! Take that! Ow. Older me just hurt older me's feelings. Black Condor #5 Rating: B. A solid rating that I probably wouldn't have given this comic book back when I was twenty-one. I don't think I understood just what this comic book was doing and wound up only remembering it as a comic book about a reluctant hero. I didn't realize how much of it was Black Condor trying to live his now much more complicated life while also continuously doing the right thing. Even when he just wants to hole up in the woods and say "Fuck it!" to everybody and everything, he still shows the heart of a hero when he's needed by people nearby. And he's fucking sexy hot too.

#Black Condor #Rags Morales #Brian Augustyn #DC Comics #DC

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jocelynships · 6 years ago

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how I got into Marvel and how at first it was just a silly little obsession and how it turned into something that ended up meaning so much to me.

So, I apologize for this sounding so sappy and for how long (it’s really long and I apologize greatly) and emotional this gets, but here:

Warning: Talk of past mental abuse and thoughts of self-harm/suicide

So here’s the funny thing, when I was between the ages of 10-13 I wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with Marvel. Everyone was talking about it and I will admit I was a bratty kid and if something was popular I had to Hate It™️. I’ve grown from that mindset and I’m SO glad I did. But anyways, not the point of the story.

When I was a little kid I watched the first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire and Fantastic 4. I watched a lot of Spider-Man cartoons too. I can’t remember if I ever watched X-Men or not, but I remember seeing them in a few Spider-Man episodes. My dad liked Marvel and he’d play the movies (this was all pre MCU I should mention) and I think I’d watch bits and pieces of them while I played with whatever toys I had in my parent’s bedroom or living room (when I was a kid if my dad was home I HAD to be around him). So I had a VAGUE understanding of superheroes and who they were. I’m certain I could have named a few of them when I was younger, I just didn’t necessarily care.

So Avengers came out when I was finishing up 8th grade, and all my classmates were talking about it, but it annoyed me greatly. My best friend, Rebecca, had seen it already, and was freaking out about it with some of our other old friends. I made a comment like “is it really good or are you guys just trying to be cool like everyone else?”

And Rebecca goes, “Jocelyn, you really need to see it. I think you’d actually like it.”

“Superheroes are so overrated!”

“At least watch the trailer!”

So Rebecca pulled up the trailer on her iPod Touch (god I feel old just saying that), sat me down at one of the benches by the basketball court our tiny private school had, and I watched the trailer. I was kinda interested, but not totally sold. I decided the guys were hot, and if I would go if asked.

Then when I got home from school, I was looking for something to watch like most kids were. Nothing was on, but Disney XD was playing some Marvel cartoons and out of simple curiosity and not really liking anything else that was being played, I turned it on. And holy shit I ended up getting hooked.

So a few days later after watching these cartoons I suggest seeing Avengers to my dad. He gets this look on his face like, “who the hell are you and what did you do to my daughter because she hates superheroes?” He asks me if I’m a Marvel fan now and I mentioned the cartoons, so he went and rented the movies leading up to the Avengers, and I wasn’t actually expecting to like anything, I just wanted to see it because I thought the guys were hot.

So I ended up really enjoying the movies, and my dad and I started seeing the other MCU films that came out. I told myself I was only interested in the Avengers and Spider-Man really (the Amazing Spider-Man came out the same year as the Avengers and my dad took me to see it). I told myself didn’t really care about any of the other hero teams.

BUT THEN I GET INTRODUCED TO THIS REALLY COOL FACEBOOK MARVEL GAME! They sadly don’t have it anymore which in my opinion is BULLSHIT, but it was called Avengers Alliance and they had a shit ton of characters in it. My goal was to get them all but I never did bc it got shut down (listen I would kill to have it brought back okay THEY HAD A BUNCH OF X-MEN CHARACTERS) But basically I saw all these characters I had no idea existed and me being me, my mind went “I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM”! I really don’t know everything about them and I’m still discovering characters but that’s okay!! The Marvel universe is HUGE and I love learning new stuff about it!! But anyways back to my original point!! I remembered I really liked the Fantastic 4 when I was younger so I started watching the original two movies again (I haven’t seen the 2015 remake nor do I plan to ever). Then I saw we had the first two X-Men films, okay lets watch those. Oh, who’s Daredevil and the other Defenders? They seem cool!! Ghost Rider? Hell yeah, a skeleton on fire how cool is that?! Agents of SHIELD? I loved Phil Coulson, I had to watch it! Hey, the Guardians of the Galaxy are really cool too! I know nothing about Doctor Strange but he was in some Spider-Man cartoons and he seemed awesome! Blade, a vampire that doesn’t sparkle? SIGN ME UP!

Basically from the time I was 14-17, I was just basically running down an aisle at a grocery store picking out characters I thought looked cool. I also learned a lot about the characters from some mobile games I downloaded bc hey, I like games.

But at the same time as I was going through everything, I started developing some extreme anxiety and depression problems. I didn’t exactly realize it WAS anxiety and depression, I just thought I was extremely sensitive and did a bunch of shit wrong, so I assumed I was just a screw up whenever my mother yelled at me for getting a B in class or blamed me for her being late to work when I was ready to go and she was just getting in the shower. It wasn’t until my senior year did I realize something was wrong with the way she was treating me and the way I was feeling. But again, I brushed it off as nothing.

I went through my senior year feeling anxious and depressed a lot. But I was a SENIOR! I was almost done with high school! I had a great group of friends and we’d hang out on the weekends and go off campus for lunch to the Taco Bell down the road! Things couldn’t be bad!

But tensions were rising high at home. I was sort of oblivious to a lot of it and to be honest, I’m a little upset with myself for not noticing it sooner. My parents were fighting a lot, and halfway through my senior year of high school, my sister and niece had to move in with us because her ex husband was an alcoholic and was getting abusive. (She ended up going back for about another year, but left permanently the second time she moved in with us) And needless to say things were really rough since there was now five people in a two bedroom apartment and my sister and my niece stayed in my room with me. Which was difficult since my niece was 4/5 at the time and had quite the temper, and I was also her favorite person, yet I was occupied with school work.

My anxiety and depression got worse, and it got to the point where I was having meltdowns in class and would have to leave school early or just stay home. After a month or two and a HUGE fight between pretty much everyone (except me, they only stopped when I had a massive panic attack), my sister moved back.

And things were slightly okay again. During that break I got reintroduced to X-Men through a couple different things: my best friend, @rosyinlove, X-Men Apocalypse was coming out, and my brother gave me his old Xbox 360 and the game Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I’ve seen the first two movies at this point and I was already kinda curious about them, but wasn’t until that year did I realize “hey these guys are kinda cool!” So I played as them in Ultimate Alliance just because they were the most fun to play. And while he sadly wasn’t a playable character, Nightcrawler was a character and you had to rescue him in a quest (or kill him and save Jean instead, I had a dilemma over the very idea of killing him and this was BEFORE I started shipping with him!) and he fascinated me. IDK if it was my brain just liking him as a character or going “WHOO BOY HE’S HOT”, but my interest in him was growing and I was kinda sad he wasn’t a playable character!

And with Apocalypse coming out the day after I graduated high school, I decided I had to see it, so I impulsively bought the other movies and well... the rest is history. I started watching the cartoons and while I didn’t get my hands on any comics, I read bits and pieces online.

And for some reason, the X-Men just spoke out to me in a way I can’t explain. I loved all the other heroes I came across, but there was something about the team of mutants that really pulled me in. Maybe because I related to the fact of being outcast? But in any case, I was drawn to them and I latched onto them and just didn’t let go. Even when 70s and 80s pop culture was the main thing on my mind in 2017, I still had the X-Men in the back of my mind and I thought “oh hey, this song reminds me of the X-Men”, “Kurt would like this song”, or “omg this movie would be a cute AU for me and Kurt!”

But anyways, the summer of 2016 was kind of rough. My mother was getting onto me for every single little thing and even yelled at me in front of my friends once for asking her to bring some some soda after she OFFERED to get us some. My friends pulled me aside and said, “hey, that’s not normal”. And I was in a really bad place. I loved my mother, but I felt awful being around her. I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around her. If I said the wrong thing I’d be punished. I was afraid of her.

So I noticed whenever I got anxious or depressed I would turn to the X-Men movies and cartoons and I’d feel a little better. Then I started writing dumb little stories and made silly doodles of me hanging out with them. It was something that was fun and made me calm down when I was getting anxious.

Then August of 2016 came around.

I came home from spending the night at a friend’s house, and I was feeling really tired so when my dad asked for me to sit down and talk to him about something, I tried brushing him off because I just wanted to shower and go to sleep.

But he said, “it’s really serious” and whenever someone says that my anxiety shoots through the roof and I think of the worst case scenario, such as someone was dying or was dead. So I sat down with him and I’m expecting him to tell me someone was dead, but he just goes:

“Your mother and I are splitting up.”

Basically my world came crashing down at that point.

My mother started getting more and more irritable and began yelling and screaming at me over the smallest things. And she was convinced I was going to stay with her and she talked to me about all her plans she had for us, but I was going to move out with my dad. But I didn’t want to tell her because I was terrified of how she was going to respond (she lashed out when things didn’t go her way), and I said, “I still haven’t made up my mind on who I’m going with”. That still caused her to lash out.

So she screamed at me and told me things like “I was leaving her to die” or “I was a horrible daughter for abandoning her”. And from that she just lashed out over everything. Not to mention my sister and my niece moved back in that September.

So my mother was constantly fighting with my dad, berating me, and my sister and my niece never gave me any alone time despite being in my first semester of college. I had very little time to work on homework and would stay at school for longer than I needed to be there just to work on homework without my sister and my niece bothering me. And I also got stuck watching my niece quite a bit because my sister was running off with a guy she had just met. And I get that she was going through a really rough divorce as well and really liked this dude, but it happened every night. I needed an escape from it all.

So I started binge watching Marvel movies and cartoons every chance I got. Mainly X-Men. I fantasized often about Kurt bamfing himself and the X-Men into my apartment, sternly telling my family I was going with them and they couldn’t stop them. I wrote and drew more and more of my silly self insert stuff because it was a way to forget about all the bullshit that was going on at home.

Eventually things just got worse as the time for my dad and I to move out got closer, and my mother would start up fights with my dad just about every night. And she did this when I was in the next room and could hear everything. She also got physical with him and while my dad could have easily defended himself and fight back, he didn’t because she was trying to get him fucking arrested.

So I was having difficulties dealing with their constant fighting and my mother trying to pull me into the middle of the drama. My dad told her to keep me out of it since none of it had to do with me. Needless to say she kept pulling me into the middle of things and tried to get me to side with her and would scream her head off if I didn’t want to talk about it. I got called selfish for having anxiety and depression, and she threatened to hit me on multiple occasions. She never did, but holy shit I got so scared every time she held her hand up like she was going to smack me across the face. I showed up to class crying quite often and when my classmates asked what was wrong I’d brush it off and tell them it was nothing.

And as time went on I had falling outs with everyone on my mother’s side of the family and both of my siblings (I have made up with them separately, but things are tense between them still because they don’t like each other’s spouses and it stresses me out because they shit talk each other to me and I have to act like I’m on their side), and my dad and I were struggling and I felt like a huge burden on him. Needless to say it got to the point where I felt like I was doing something wrong, that everyone would be better off without me, and I wanted to end it all.

I actually did go to grab a knife once when no one was home bc I was having urges to hurt myself, but the instant I grabbed the knife a little voice in my mind just went into panic mode and screamed, “Captain America wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself!”

And then that voice kept listing off as many heroes as it could, and when I started thinking about the X-Men not wanting me to hurt myself, I just dropped the knife into the sink and had a breakdown.

And still to this day when I do get those thoughts I always think about how a certain fuzzy elf wouldn’t want me to hurt or kill myself. I haven’t cut (I have participated in other self destructive behaviors in the past I don’t wish to discuss, but I’m fighting it), and honestly it’s because I don’t want to worry the X-Men.

They may not be real, and I’m not sure they would really care about me if they were, but still the idea of having a group of people who also come from fucked up families and are outcast from society acting like a family to each other really helps me get through all of this.

I just keep telling myself that if all these superheroes could go through hell and back, then so could I. Sure, I’m not fighting villains hellbent on taking over the world or struggling with having superpowers I can’t control, but still it’s inspiring to see them continue on despite their hardships. If they can do it, then why can’t I?

And the X-Men have really helped me through that. Like I said, they aren’t real, but they are extremely relatable characters. Especially Kurt. I’ve been outcast before and while I do have my group of close friends, I still feel like I don’t belong. He’s been outcast and shunned by society for his appearance. While both of Kurt’s parents are awful and my mother didn’t try to kill me (to be honest I was afraid she was going to snap and kill my dad a couple times), we both have kinda fucked up familes. But despite all of this we still try to see the good in others and do good for people. And I want to help him through his hardships and have him know he can always come to me for comfort.

When I started the Night Roses and the Jocelyn and the X-Men stuff, a lot of it was coping. I wanted to be rescued by Kurt and the X-Men, and I wanted to help them overcome their issues. A lot of the Night Roses relationship is being each other’s support system. The idea of not only having Kurt comfort me, but me comforting him helps me so much. It gives me something to live for. When I was going to therapy, I told my therapist about it and she said it was a great coping mechanism and a way for me to practice self love and acceptance.

And while he’s just a comic book character, I sincerely hope I can find someone just like Kurt in real life one day. He means so much to me, and I hope whoever I get with in the future will understand that.

I apologize for this being so long, but really, Marvel means the absolute would to me, and it’s really hard to explain to people why and I often get written off as an obsessive nerd who has no grasp on reality. But I know how I feel and I know the people who matter understand how important Marvel is to me. Honestly, I don’t know where I’d be without Marvel. I probably wouldn’t be here. I’m still struggling with a lot of issues, but I know I can get through it thanks to the X-Men and the other superheroes of Marvel. ❤️

#long post #personal stuff #i really apologize for this being so long #if you read all of this thank you #i may or may not be crying right now #this was difficult to type out #and i still left out a bunch of stuff #but anyways here you can have this #this is okay to reblog idk why someone would want to but it’s okay to interact with

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traincat · 7 years ago

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I think I Kno the answer but I like the way you explain things so; would you ever write superfamily?

This is the sort of stone cold ‘no’ where it’s literally one of the only things I say I will not write on signup sheets. You’d have to pay me to write it. Substantially. If there’s one Marvel fandom-specific trope I hate above all others, it’s this one. I ‘flames on the side of my face’ gif loathe it. And because you played to my ego here, anonymous, I’ll explain why it bothers me so much. (Joking aside, I do genuinely appreciate that people want to hear my thoughts on things! Thank you! I’m sorry for how seethingly bitter I’m about to be, but anon, I suspect you knew what you’d be getting when you asked this!)

Frothing hatred, a discussion about the integrity of the character of Peter Parker, and The Importance of May Parker – all beneath your friendly neighborhood cut.

Superfamily in this instance refers to a specific fic trope in Marvel fandom where a pair of superheroes, traditionally Captain America and Iron Man (the superhusbands, hence the superfamily) although I’ve seen other pairings especially as of late, are written as the fathers of Peter “Spider-Man” Parker – usually adopted, sometimes biological, but ultimately legally.

In general I don’t really enjoy this kind of fic where two characters who aren’t related (by blood or otherwise) are re-envisioned as relatives. It’s not that I think it’s inherently a bad concept, but what I would hypothetically want out of it – an exploration of how these characters change as a result of being related in this version – is almost never what it actually is, which is that Characters A and B are the author’s OTP, and the author wants to give them a child, and Character C, who is off over there minding their own business probably with their own supporting cast, is right there.

(While trying to come up with comparative combinations on a tangent I ultimately dropped, I did think “Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff are the parents of Daisy Johnson, costarring Nick Fury as the mysterious uncle” and apparently there are versions of this I would read. Make superspyfamily the next big thing.)

There’s a lot of other things I don’t like about the trope: the diminishing and infantilization of Peter Parker, a ~30yo man in the comics with his own complicated web of connections and relationships – including, if we wanted to go here, a surrogate father figure in Joe “Robbie” Robertson. The twisting of Peter’s personality in order to make his a Good Earnest Kid, his Grand Canyon-wide independent streak and his anti-authoritarian nature stripped away in favor of making him beholden to two characters who are, you know, not his parents. Two characters who aren’t even, striking a stint in the ice where Steve Rogers is concerned, that much older than him in 616. The fact that, over the years, Iron Man and Spider-Man have clashed several times, often aggressively on Peter’s side of things.

(This post isn’t meant to be a criticism of Tony Stark – even if I was interested in taking that angle when discussing this trope, which I’m not, I frankly haven’t read enough Iron Man comics to offer a valid criticism – but rather a statement that Peter Parker is an aggressive character by nature, and that sometimes two characters with the best of intentions can have damaging interactions with each other. That’s the beauty of having a canon with 80 million different characters – every possible dynamic exists. And that’s why there’s several canon instances of Peter attacking Tony in my Spider-Man refs folder. Listen, I like when he punches people, okay.) The invention of a totally fake dynamic that has become so widespread and latched on on a fanon level to the point where it was shoehorned into the latest Spider-Man movie adaptation to the detriment of Spider-Man’s actual supporting cast. The fact that when I read Spider-Man fic, I want to be reading about Spider-Man, not someone’s Peter Parker shaped OC. And maybe most importantly: the erasure of May Parker. Without May Parker, there is no Spider-Man, not as we know him.

I’ve spoken before about the importance and gravity of Ben Parker’s death and how without knowing the exact circumstances, I find it difficult to know what form Peter’s actions will take. (The differences in his crime fighting methodology 616 vs Marvel Noir, for instance.) But while Ben Parker’s death made Spider-Man, the vigilante, I think it’s May Parker who makes him a hero, every day.

And, my line on her to Peter is that he got his powers from the spider but he got his strength from May. Because that backbone is what made him who and what he is today. The choices that he makes now come of her having raised him a certain way. – J Michael Straczynski (x)

Look, I think there’s a simplicity to Superfamily that contributes to its overwhelming, infuriating, kudzu-like popularity: Spider-Man is one of the biggest superhero properties on the planet. He’s often, however incorrectly I would personally suggest this is, depicted as a kid. He is, as we all know, an orphan – he has no parents, and he lives with his aunt and uncle, and then – robber, bang, power, responsibility – only with his aunt. And I think sometimes when people hear “orphan” and “aunt” they kind of feel a distance – a disconnect. Or maybe it’s an age thing – the idea that May’s somehow too old to be his parent, so she’s discounted. Maybe it’s just because she’s not a superhero, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that early Marvel is populated with non-traditional family models – the Fantastic Four, for example, are not a team but a family – when these stories were created by Jewish people living in a heavily Jewish area in the shadow of WWII. In the face of decimation, you come together however you can. Orphaned Peter Parker and his aunt, his father’s brother’s wife, alone together. But May Parker’s a lot more than just that.

In Amazing Spider-Man #33, Peter finds himself hopelessly trapped under rubble while Aunt May’s life hangs in the balance – if he cannot free himself, it’s not only his life but hers that’s forfeit, and through his love from her he finds the strength to literally move mountains. (Speaking of removing May from the picture in favor of Iron Man, I’ll never forgive Spider-Man: Homecoming for recreating this scene so that Peter derives his strength from him and not from, you know, the woman who raised him and who he loves more than his own life, in favor of the inherently more marketable Iron Man brand.)

A lot of times in Superfamily fic, they just kill May off. Okay, fine, whatever. I might hate it (I hate it a lot) but like, alright! Fine! If you gotta go here! May’s often been in delicate health, especially in older comics, and if an author needs to take her out of the picture, her literally being dead is basically the only in character reason she wouldn’t be there for Peter if he needs her. I might personally have a grudge against about it, but hey, as we’ve established, I have a grudge against the whole trope. Lately though, and I suspect because of the advent of Homecoming’s Hot Somewhat Younger May – I’d like to suggest that 616 May is not as old as one might think looking at her first appearances and that, as the sliding timescale moves along, we have to address the fact that people both live longer and look younger today than was expected in the 1960s –, I’ve been seeing a different trend. (Yes, I’ve been known to hateread, I’ll admit it. How else would I know how much I hate it! Also it keeps ending up in the JohnnyPeter tag and I make poor choices re: deriving enjoyment from my anger over fanfic of all things.) Lately, more and more, I’ve been seeing fics where Tony adopts Peter from May – as in, she signs the forms giving up her child, because obviously he loves him so much more. Fics where May is just the cover story so Peter Stark can escape media attention – so great, now she’s an employee. And at least one tweet about how great it would be to see a fic where Peter comes out to May and she throws him out in a homophobic fit but wait! The Avengers can rescue him! So now she’s demonized for the Drama. Gag me. (Not that I think it should matter at all for the sake of this argument, but we have May’s actual word in Amazing Spider-Man v2 #38 on what would happen if Peter came out as gay to her, and that it’s she’d love and support him no matter what.) And listen, like, part of me is like let it go! The majority of this content is written by younger fans just figuring out what they want to write, dipping their toes into the swampy waters that is Marvel canon! But the problem is, this perpetuates. It gets popular, and people form their opinions based on headcanons and not on canon and it becomes a vicious cycle, and suddenly Peter’s the Kid Avenger like, ACTUALLY, and May’s role in the story has been demoted to Roommate With a Car at best. Just there until better, cooler parental figures show up at the doorstep with adoption papers.

Because, listen, May Parker is Peter’s mother.

One thing I find fascinating about Peter Parker in 616 is how he relies on and draws strength from other people’s goodness, and none more so than May. It’s her well of inner strength and kindness that enable him to be kind of superhero that he is.

Without May Parker, Peter Parker would be a totally different character – and I don’t want a different character. I like this one. (For a canon story about how Peter would be different without May, check out Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #8.)

Like I said above, the great thing about having 80 million characters is that those characters get to be different things, and as superheroes they get to protect different things. Iron Man is a futurist. The Fantastic Four are about discovery. The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them. Spider-Man isn’t here to save the world. Spider-Man is here to protect ordinary people – people like May Parker.

In conclusion: fuck Superfamily as a widespread trend.

Anyway I had to see an actual article about the MCU refer to two characters as Spider-Man’s “Avenger dads” and another suggest that Dr. Strange and Spider-Man are the father-son combo we never knew we always needed (it’s not, and we don’t), so I guess I’m going to go live in a cave and throw rocks at innocent hikers who stumble upon my Spider-Man Opinions cave now.

#this is for you anon!#and not for stroking the fires of the my hatred!#not for that at all!#traincat talks comics #traincat talks homecoming #tangentially #peter parker #may parker #long post/

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wtnv-panels · 6 years ago

Text

Good Morning Night Vale, episode 3: “Good Morning Station Management”

Symphony: The arctic is lit by the midnight sun. The surface of the moon is lit by the face of the Earth.

Meg: Our little town is lit too, by lights just above that we cannot explain.

Hal: [Cecil voice] Good morning, Night Vale.

Meg: Hello all, welcome to Good Morning Night Vale. My name is Meg Bashwiner and I play the voice of Deb on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and I’m here co-hosting or tri-hosting this show wiith – Hal Lublin and Symphony Sanders.

Symphony: Hey, I’m Symphony Sanders and I play Tamika Flynn.

Hal: I’m Hal Lublin and I play Steve Carlsberg.

Meg: We are here discussing episode 3 of Welcome to Night Vale, “Station Management”, on this podcast we dissect and discuss episodes of Welcome to Night Vale, and this episode is “Station Management”.

Hal: Here is the description. “It’s contract renewal time with Station Management and the negotiations get tricky, plus a new city litter initiative, books stop working, and a creeping fear comes to town.”

Meg: So so many things. So yeah, it was such a fun episode to go back to, I forgot how deeply strange and weird this one is and how unsettling it ends. Spoilers for the end: it has a very unsettling end.

Symphony: Yeah espec- I wrote I think just the end: “leaves on a scary note.” Cause you’re not sure what happens and Cecil sounds pretty panicked in this one.

Meg: Yeah this was definitely one of the ones where I went to, like went to the next episode right away, be like do we get a follow-up on this, do we like, I pulled out my script book, I was like what happens next, but spoilers, business as usual.

Hal: I had a weird revelation listening to this episode, and it made me think of, of panels that we’ve done at different Comic Cons. And stuff that Jeffrey and Joseph have said, because people, the fans of this show have created such a strong visual canon for what they think the characters look like. And I know Joseph and Jeffrey have hit upon over and over again that that’s up to your interpretation, we never really descri- like, not that the show is devoid of visual description, but that they don’t pinpoint characters necessarily in exactly what they look like, there’s no third eye or flame tattoos, or any of the things that have become normal. And yet, listening to this…

Symphony: They’re tentacles!

Hal: They were tentacles, right right.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: Sorry, my version is flames. Um…

Symphony: Oh sorry, your head canon.

Hal: But uh it just struck me how visually descriptive this felt. And I dunno if that’s me putting it on, because the music really helps to guide my visual sense when I’m listening to it. But I did feel like there were more descriptions of how things looked, and details than I would have expected just based on the talks that we’ve had about it in the past. Does that make sense?

Symphony: Yeah totally. Like when they are describing what the Station Management potentially looks like through the door, and what the office looks like and how it’s like basically impossible, like almost Tardis style, bigger than it’s supposed to be. And then…

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: When they’re coming to get Cecil I guess, [chuckles] like when he’s hiding under the desk, you know he hears the clicking sound and all that stuff and like, you know you can, he talks about how you can make out certain things throughout that. But also if you look at Telly the Barber, he’s super described in this episode, like what he looks like so I thought that was pretty cool.

Meg: Yeah there was a, they’re really good at describing the monster, and describing what the monster looks like in this episode. And yeah what you just said Symphony, where they talk about what Telly looks like, and Telly’s got a lot of defining characteristic, he has like a [pudgy or paunchy?] belly and…

Symphony: Yeah. [chuckles]

Meg: (Like you have an age). So yeah, Station Management is very very frightening, and it’s definitely a frightening episode. We get in the world of Night Vale, we kill our first intern, we think.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: Intern Chad is eulogized in this episode, and there’s also Jerry, who’s eulogized in this episode, although Chad makes it.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: We know, Chad comes back later…

Symphony: Oh.

Meg: Chad has the episodes about him and…

Symphony: It’s the same Chad?

Meg: It’s the same Chad, he gets out, we just think he’s dead.

Symphony: [laughs] I love that Cecil’s willing to just give up on them like he’s not really sure that they’re even dead, but he’s just like, to their families.

Meg: Yeah and then 80 episodes later, we get more information about Chad. And Chad makes waves.

Symphony: Is this the first time that an intern is eulogized?

Meg: I believe this is our first, (--) intern death count.

Symphony: Ooh. I feel like we should make a list or something.

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: You know, of all the interns that have gone to the hereafter. I think that’d be fun.

Meg: Yeah. Or those that we think have gone to the hereafter and don’t, there’s definitely some resurgence, there’s a couple interns that die and then return (to us), so…

Symphony: Yeah and there’s some people that get all like, with the orange juice thing, like they’re not dead necessarily like they just…

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: …go invisible or something?

Hal: Yeah. I love how you’re sort of dropped into the middle of this, of what’s going to become a running joke. And I think that’s, what works so well about it is the idea that this has happened some time ago, but he’s now just getting around to telling the parents, because it’s so commonplace.

Symphony: Right.

Hal: At the station that these interns are gone, that it’s like oh yeah also to your parents, too bad. He was a good kid.

Meg: Yeah, which is the best way to tell someone that their child has died.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: It’s just on the radio program (be like) also… [laughter]

Symphony: Also this person has passed away.

Hal: Another thing that struck me in this episode is another thing that I remember sorta early on when Night Vale kinda blew up and people were looking for a way to describe it quickly, is they would describe it as being like Lovecraftian. And I wonder if this episode is the genesis of that, because they talk about the tentacles coming out, the way he describes Station Management seems kinda Cthulhu-esque…

Symphony: Right.

Hal: And I can imagine that something people held on to and made that the, ‘cause I know that Jeffrey and Joseph sorta don’t subscribe to that, you know they’re like, well it’s not supposed to be Lovecraftian. But this might have been the place where people sorta hooked into that first.

Symphony: Yeah, I think that could have been the origin of that, but you know, I dunno how that got onto Cecil, you know what I mean, or is it just like, almost like a living embodiment of, like maybe he’s part of (-), I don’t know. Or just tentacles look cool.

Hal: Mm hm.

Meg: Tentacles are scary. Yeah octopus are a scary animal, because they’re everywhere and they’re super smart.

Symphony: They are, and they can get out of like tiny holes, have you seen that video..?

Meg: I have seen that video where that…

Symphony: Ooooh, so grody!

Meg: Yeah, good for them though.

Hal: When I was a kid, I had an irrational fear of octopi as a child, like in any depth of water, I thought this is the time, I know how it’s gonna happen, it’ll wrap its legs or or tentacles around me, I’ll be dragged to the bottom of the sea and it won’t even be bites, I’ll be wholly consumed in one gulp. And then I saw Popeye, the Robert Altman Popeye, with that giant sea creature, which somehow in my memory is the world’s biggest octopus. And that was like, that’s what they all look like, it’s coming for me! Guaranteed, let’s not go to the swim club.

Meg: And then there’s Ursula the sea witch.

Symphony: True.

Meg: Which I was a little afraid of Ursula tho a child, but as an adult woman I identify with her. [laughter] So…

Symphony: But she would have to eat you through her mouth, ‘cause she was like a half octopus, she was bottom half octopus, top part woman.

Meg: Yeah. She was like a mer-octopus. Yeah, there’s a little bit confused identity there and that’s fine.

Symphony: Right.

Meg: That’s fine. But yeah, she had like a person top half.

Symphony: Right, yeah.

Meg: [overlapping speech]

Symphony: But I think anatomically if you look at an octopus, like don’t they eat with the bottom bit?

Hal: Yeah. It’s the (-) pit, but it swims.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: That’s what it is.

Meg: Yeah. They’re also delicious and I feel bad, it’s one of the animals that I feel really bad about eating.

Symphony: ‘Cause they’re so smart.

Meg: They’re so smart like, yeah I’m not gonna eat a dolphin or a dog but I’m, you know I occasionally eat a pig. Not a whole pig but a portion of a pig.

Symphony: Do you think it’s because it’s ugly?

Meg: No, I think pigs are beautiful, I just think that they’re so…

Symphony: No octopus, octopus.

Meg: No I think octopus are pretty too. I, I dunno there’s also just, to me it’s like they’re tastier than I am morally attached to them.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: I wanna see that Venn diagram so badly, I need that drawn out for me, please. [laughter]

Meg: Back to the show, we have the whole Carlo’s haircut thing that happens, and it’s first description of Carlos we get in the pilot is that Carlos has perfect hair, and then in this episode we have Telly cutting the perfect hair. And it’s just so crashing for Cecil, and we’re not entirely sure why yet, why this is this horrible thing when it’s just a haircut but it’s like, we’re cool with the interns dying, but the haircut, that’s the problem.

Symphony: And he’s so mad about it, that’s how he goes into the whole like, Telly description, it’s almost like he’s calling on his listeners to go after Telly. Right? Kind of.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yes. Again, this is like the continuation of, the early seeds planted of Cecil being an unreliable narrator. Because he’s, almost all his reaction and what he personally believes as opposed to the fact, it’s like he had perfect hair, he got it cut, here’s the monster that did it, let’s go get him, he’s terrible.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah. I definitely have those feelings about previous eyebrow waxers of mine, but that’s for another time and another please.

Hal: Wait no, it’s for right now, what how because, I have a question about this. I have a lot of, I get the hair in the middle like my eyebrows are trying to shake hands all the time.

Symphony: Yeah.

Hal: But I shouldn’t wax it, ‘cause it sounds terrible. Couldn’t, did somebody ever wax your entire eyebrow off by mistake? I’m curious.

Meg: No, never the whole eyebrow, but I definitely had varying degrees of, either looing like Teen Wolf or looking like the most Jersey I possibly could be, having been born in New Jersey.

Symphony: (--).

Meg: Yeah, 1998 Drew Barrymore, like…

Symphony: Yees! I was actually looking at old pictures of myself ‘cause it was new headshot day recently. And I was like, god my eyebrows were so thin! But it was like, the look was to have thin very sharp eyebrows and now it’s a little bit more, you know, you gotta fleek it, you gotta fleek the eyebrow.

Meg: Yeah. You gotta fleek it and sometimes you go to get your eyebrows done, as this is the beauty podcast where we talk about getting your eyebrows done. And you pay them depending on where you go and anywhere from 8 to 25 dollars and they do nothing, they take like a little bit off and you’re like I look exactly the same. Or you go and they take way too much. Or you find the perfect person and they do a great job and then you move, or they move.

Symphony: Or they move. Something happens.

Meg: So Hal, don’t get your eyebrows waxed ‘cause it’s just, you’re setting yourself up for a new part in your life where you can be disappointed, by yourself and by others.

Hal: Oh another one? Not interested, yeah I’ll pass, hard pass on that.

Symphony: Well do it yourself or have your wife do it.

Hal: I don’t want… Jennifer! Do you wanna wax my eyebrows? She’s not answering, I don’t think she’s interested.

Symphony: [chuckles]

Meg: If it’s just the center and you’re a dude, you’re already shaving part of your face, you can just fft, just right down the center with that razorblade, you don’t have to worry about it.

Hal: Yeah!

Meg: You’re not-

Hal: I do and then, but I also think, what if I create like a, what if they get too far apart and I always look surprised?

Meg: But it’s a good thing to always look surprised, you always look like you’re feeling something.

Symphony: Which is different from normal if…

Meg: You’ll have resting surprise face.

Hal: Mmmm, I don’t wanna fool people, I feel nothing.

Symphony: So let’s talk about the contract negotiation, huh? Normally in the general contract negotiation, you go back and forth right, you talk to people. But they don’t get to see them. So he slides an envelope under the door, and oh no the envelope gets slid to him and he has to yell his response through the door. What do you think about that? In terms of uh, business.

Hal: I’m against it. [chuckles] Although it does feel like, that feels to me like the frustration of dealing with office politics.

Symphony: Yeah.

Hal: Blown up, which I think the best sort of fantastic writing has some basis in reality so you have kind of a handle to hold onto, that brings you into it. And that idea that you’re not being heard by the people above you, and they just sorta spit out whatever they feel. And you have to be careful about what you shout, because you don’t wanna make them angry. You know, I think there are a lot of people in their jobs who constantly feel threatened, as if today’s the today I’m going to be found out, today is day I’m gonna be fired. And so you’re walking on eggshells and I think this sorta encapsulates that feeling of general negotiation.

Symphony: Right.

Meg: Yeah. I will say it’s not a good business practice, although I’m open to new ways of doing this. I mean we’ve been negotiating contracts and (--) for years that we’ve been normally doing it so, out of the box thinking right, try something new. Yeah, this is interesting look at the office culture and how it is like, how we are blowing it up to, to poke holes in what it is and showing it as the big monster. Another thing that they talk about, (--) next are talking about the Night Vale Daily Journal, and how it is an unbiased, it is an unbiased publication. Yeah it’s so, interesting where we are right now with our relationship to the media and Night Vale’s relationship to the media and this was, this aired six years ago, this episode almost six years ago, and that was the relationship to the media then, which is even more magnified now, where it’s this focus on being unbiased and unbought. And there’s actually more of that stuff in the next episode, it’s kind of an interesting look on how the Night Vale media has the similar threat to the media in our world.

Hal: I keep being hit with this sense of dread as I listen to the show. Which I’m enjoying, I’m enjoying going back through, but I keep thinking to myself, I wish this was less relevant. I wish I was listening to it as a time capsule rather than, uh, something that actually was not only expressing frustration with how things were then, but it seems just more magnified now and that part of it is a little painful.

Meg: And they should have told us if they did, they should have (let it) so they could have turned out some voters in Pennsylvania, if they had.

Symphony: Mm, mm hm.

Meg: Yeah, send Hillary to Michigan and really just… [chuckles]

Symphony: Yeah definitely I was thinking about that, how people are biased against our media because of perceived partisanship. And uh, having that be such a big deal in Night Vale is pretty poignant, now going back through it but like, did they realize at that time that it was going to be that way?

Meg: I’m gonna say yes 100 per cent.

Symphony: Right!

Hal: [laughs]

Meg: No.

Symphony: If you’re a seer, you should really just like put it out there.

Hal: (Mockeagan?).

Symphony: (Milchefun?) Can’t wait ‘til we get to that episode. [laughs] And like now that’s a good thing that people say, do you think (-) got that from Night Vale?

Meg: I’m gonna say yes 100 per cent. No.

Symphony: And then uh, Larry Leroy, but I dunno why every time I hear his name I think Larry LeRoy. I dunno why.

Hal: There’s no other way, no other way.

Meg: So you wanna make it a little fancier, that’s a good impulse.

Symphony: I’m a fancy gal, that’s why.

Meg: I loved the traffic report in this episode, it’s hilarious.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: It’s, yeah they’re breaking down the trope of a news report and giving it just a hilarious traffic report where it’s just someone watching traffic and reporting back on that.

Symphony: And imagine like what Cecil’s, what the studio must look like if he’s like oh no, that guy you know. It’s like can you actually see it or he’s getting a play-by-play, what’s happening?

Hal: Right, is it the store front radio station from Northern Exposure. Or I always imagine the studio is more of a vault, and maybe this is only when I go uh, when we do live shows and I go on stage I’m supposed to be in his studio, I get a very specific idea in my head of what it looks like. And it’s never anywhere outside, it’s definitely deep within the building. Like no windows…

Meg: Yeah, I don’t have windows in my head canon about this, OK so my head canon for the Night Vale radio is just where they were, like the Frasier recording studio but like bizarro Frasier. So it’s like…

Symphony: So the producer is like outside, like Roz.

Meg: Yeah. It’s like the Frasier studio but everything is weird. [laughter]

Hal: In my mind, similar to when we were discussing the bathroom, what I thought that looks like, I always think it looks like a studio that was top of the line renovated in 1958. And it’s been 50 or 60 years, and it’s not falling apart, but it definitely needed to be updated at least 30-40 years ago.

Meg: It’s got those mid-modern vibes, but not in a good way.

Symphony: Yeah. And I always in my head think that there’s always flashing lights, just like flickering lights everywhere. Everyone’s (-) to epileptic fits, you know? [laughter]

Meg: They can never get those halogen bulbs in just right.

Symphony: So Cecil is recovering from Lyme disease?

Meg: That’s, that was yeah, there’s a fun fan theory that we’ll talk about with that, when we get to the fan theory section. But yeah offhanded Cecil is just like oh that’s also, when the creeping dread comes in, it could just be recovering from Lyme disease. Which is good, I’m glad that Cecil was diagnosed and got treatment for Lyme disease, ‘cause it’s a very bad, very serious disease.

Symphony: I know I was thinking about that I’m like can you be um, like you can lose faculties of your legs and stuff?

Meg: Yeah. Lots of not good things can happen to your body from Lyme disease. Your joints and there’s, yeah it’s a really bad one and it’s really often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed.

Symphony: And it’s ticks right, ticks?

Meg: Yeah, ticks are carriers of it. Very um, the ticks feed on, they’re called deer ticks, but uh I think it’s really the ticks are feeding on the mice, and the mice spread the disease.

Symphony: I know no one can see my face right now, but it’s in a [chuckles] upturned scowl.

Hal: Disgusted snarl.

Symphony: [laughs] That’s a much better description.

Hal: Yeah, I remember the Lyme disease being referenced on the Thrilling Adventure Hour crossover episode. And like going, wait, really? For some reason in my head then, that was where it was introduced. But it was established that was canon, like I found that I think in rehearsal, that it had already been established I was like, boy this is, this is levels of deep that I have not visited, ‘cause I couldn’t, it’s like a throwaway!

Symphony: Right! And even now going back to it, and I was like oh yeah, I forgot about that. Because it isn’t referenced and when it is it’s just like, oh yeah. You know, there’s just so many things it’s like oh yeah, this is just the way it is. I have Lyme disease.

Meg: There’s also a really good Big Rico’s ad read that happens during this.

Symphony: Yes!

Meg: We get the slogan, “no one does a slice like Big Rico”.

Symphony: That is also like the only pizza in town, because literally all the other ones had been burned down.

Hal: Oh my god.

Symphony: You know, and it’s like, it’s mandated for you to eat at Big Rico’s. But I kinda wanna eat there still.

Meg: Yeah I mean it’s pizza.

Symphony: I love pizza.

Hal: I do too, but I have a feeling their pizza is like Roundtable. And if you like Roundtable, there’s nothing wrong with that except that the pizza is terrible and you could do better. I want you to do better. I’m like for you, this is not about what I think, I want better for you, in life. You deserve it.

Symphony: Wait, what’s a roundtable?

Hal: Exactly.

Symphony: Uh.

Hal: It’s like Domino’s but not as good, is that painting the picture for you?

Symphony: Another disgusted scowl. [laughs]

Hal: There it is, yeah.

Symphony: I mean I feel a little biased as I am a Chicagoan, that you know pizza is where my heart is, and my heart is directly in my stomach.

Hal: It’s a knife and fork food for you, because it’s deep dish, right?

Symphony: Actually, yeah I do like deep dish, but like only occasionally, you can’t eat it all the time otherwise, especially not me ‘cause I’m like, have lactose intolerance so…

Hal: Ooh!

Symphony: That cheese, woo boy!

Meg: You’re also a little sensitive to tomato sauce sometimes, too you get the reflux.

Symphony: I get the heartburns.

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: I get the acid reflux. But yeah, I personally like a nice crispy thin-crust pizza with, I’m more of a topping person, not a crust girl.

Meg: I love crust. I just had good Jersey pizza from a place called Esposito’s in Cedar Grow, New Jersey, shoutout. And it’s…

Symphony: Sponsor us.

Meg: They just, oh oh, seriously scatter my ashes there…

Hal: Officially sponsors.

Meg: The place is excellent. And we asked for broccoli and they forgot to put the broccoli on, we just got a plain and it was delicious, I think toppings are great but you can really measure a pizzeria on their plain.

Symphony: And it’s like your toppings to sauce to (cheese) to crust ratio. You know, that really is gonna make the difference.

Meg: Yeah, their crust is perfect, it’s like Michealangelo just did the Italian gesture of kiss noise thing like…

Symphony: You’re like [smack, smack]…

Meg: Whenever I’m doing rapid fire Q and A’s at panels I always ask Joseph and Jeffrey whoever I’m doing the lightning round with, Big Rico’s or Moonlite All-Nite?

Symphony: And what’s usually the answer?

[ad break]

Meg: Hey, it’s Meg. You might know me from the podcast that you’re listening to, or the other podcast that you like to listen, Welcome to Night Vale. I am also the tour manager and tour director for Night Vale Presents, and have spent the past year sending over 1,000 emails and looking at many spreadsheets and shouting into the void. Now it is time for you to shout back from the void at me and tell me that you are going to get tickets to the brand new 2018-2019 Welcome to Night Vale live world tour. That’s right, we’re going into the world. You know the world, you live there. We’re going to over 40 cities in North America, in Europe, in the UK. You probably are near one of them, and if you’re not, I’m so sorry and I am the person to yell at, please don’t tweet at Joseph Jeffrey and Cecil. But speaking of Cecil and Symphony and Disparition and yet to be named guest stars, we are going to be coming to you to bring you this brand new show which deals with – secrets in the world of Night Vale. I have a secret: seeing you at live shows is my favorite thing. Tickets and information at welcometonightvale.com.

[ad break ends]

Meg: What do you pick for Big Rico’s or Moonlite All-Nite?

Symphony: I think I, oh that’s tough. I think I’m gonna go with Big Rico’s.

Meg: OK.

Symphony: Even tho I do like diner food.

Meg: Halligator?

Hal: I love pizza so much. And now it’s the last thing we talked about, so like a dog I’m like that, but…

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: I can’t, I grew up going to diners, my favorite restaurant growing up was the Country Club diner on Cottman Avenue, shoutout, another sponsor of the show, bakery and restaurant, in northeast Philadelphia. And so I just love diners. If there’s a diner somewhere, I will draw Jennifer in there, like we should go to the diner, it’s the best restaurant on Earth!

Symphony: Are you Guy Fieri?

Hal: How dare you.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: How dare you, never in a million years. Meg, what about you?

Meg: I’m gonna go with Moonlite All-Nite for similar reasons to you, Hal, it’s that I’ve got that northeast diner nostalgia. I always said I wanted to have my wedding at the Six Brothers diner in (-) New Jersey. [laughter] I didn’t have my wedding there, but I should have…

Symphony: Classic.

Meg: …now going back and thinking about it. But yeah.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: Well you can have your…

Meg: ..second wedding there? Oh. [laughs]

Symphony: Yeah. I was gonna say rededication but that’s not the right word. You’re not a building.

Hal: Renew your vows.

Meg: Renewing your vows.

Symphony: Yes renew, yes it’s…

Meg: And we really should be including more diner foods in our vows next time we (go around to it), so I’ll talk to Joseph about that.

Symphony: You’re the bacon to my eggs. You know.

Meg: Absolutely. You’re my veggie omelet, I’m your Greek salad.

Hal: We will stick together like raisins in rice pudding.

Meg: So we’re going to hear some fan comments, questions and theories about this episode. But first, let’s talk about the weather.

Symphony: So today’s weather was “Bill and Annie” by Chuck Brod+sky, and it was saad!

Meg: It was a sad one. What I loved is that at the end of this episode right before the weather, Cecil’s like hiding under a desk, he’s broadcasting from the end of his life, we don’t know what’s gonna happen there’s like, ominous music playing and then all of a sudden we are in this twangy folk song.

Symphony: Yeah but it’s, one of the story ones where you’re like oh it’s about people and relationships and love and loss and it’s pretty beautiful, as many of our songs on the weather are.

Hal: Yeah, it’s a really nice piece of music. For some reason I didn’t attach it to what was going on, it just felt like a break from the intensity, which I was OK with.

Symphony: Mm hm.

Hal: That in general is my relationship with the weather in Night Vale is I don’t always attach it to what’s going on, it just feels like this is a break in the action, and then when we come back, our conclusion.

Symphony: I agree.

Meg: Yeah I have that vibe too. This situation though was like, what a night-day shift like, what a bounce..

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: ..from like the ominous tones to ba-na-now-now, that’s not how it sounds, Chuck I’m sorry [laughter] that’s not how it sounds, I was not trying to do a bad banjo sound. But it’s just a different tone, musically.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: Oh and when we come back from this weather, Cecil is still hiding under his desk and that’s when we get another great description of the Station Management. But yeah it does kind of, the weather did take us out of that tense sort of situation and gives you like a respite from that adrenaline-fueled fear.

Meg: And we come back and it’s not resolved.

Symphony: Oh no.

Hal: Yeah!

Meg: It was, there was none of that nice like..

Symphony: Oh no.

Meg: …(-) cleans up while the weather happens that occasionally, that happens in a lot of episodes, it’s just like everything gets all cleaned up underneath the weather, we come back and we figure out what happened, but this one it was like oh no no, we’re still in it, we are exactly where we left off. With our narrator in peril.

Hal: I liked that it felt, it was refreshing. It was refreshing just based on, I mean the first two episodes but also like that’s always my memory is we come back, it gets resolved and obviously for the live shows it’s different, it kinda has to, you don’t wanna leave the audience on a cliffhanger and then say alright, have a safe drive. But for that reason, it felt like oh this is, I’m more on the edge of my seat and it does a great job of me as a listener being drawn in for the next episode, and and wondering what the resolution will be, what’s gonna happen. And at this point we’re only three episodes in, so it would have been easy to assume..

Symphony: Right.

Hal: Is Cecil not gonna be the narrator anymore, will we have another person next week so, it’s interesting to imagine what it would be like to be listening to this, when it was first released with no other material, you know at this point. You don’t have a ton of people to discuss fan theory with ‘cause it’s not the biggest podcast in the world. So I love that idea that we’re left with a bunch of questions, not only about this character but what it means for the overall show.

Symphony: And especially, when yeah it is so early in the thing and, when they’ve already killed off two interns so easily, so what is it like, we’re not technically super attached to the host, but thank goodness he was OK. Sorry, spoilers, spoilers.

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: Six years later.

Meg: Do we wanna take a look at some of what the fans are saying..

Symphony: Yes!

Hal: So much, so much.

Meg: We asked our lovely fans to write to us or call our Google voice number with information, comments, questions, theories about the first ten episodes of the show, and we got such a great response and I’ve had just the best time today going through that Gmail inbox looking at all the fun things that you sent me. And to let everyone know, I read every email and listened to every voicemail, so you have been heard. If you’re not spoken about right now, just know that a woman sat in her office and looked at your thing. And that woman was me.

Hal: It’s worth pointing that at this point we’re recording this, I mean it’ll be listened to later but we’re recording this in the beginning of May, and nobody has any idea what they were submitting questions, comments, and theories for. These are blind submissions that you looked through, which it blows my mind.

Meg: Yeah. It was so great…

Hal: I’m very excited.

Meg: ..to get such a response for this show that doesn’t exist yet. So uh, well it exists, just not to you but it does now, we’re in a time loop.

Symphony: (Dill-oo, dill-oo, dill-oo)!

Meg: I dunno what to tell future Meg, I guess keep flossing, it’ll only get better from here. [laughter] So we have from Elizabeth, Elizabeth writes: “In episode 3, while the creeping fear is passing thru town, Cecil mentions his reaction to it could be part of his battle of Lyme disease. I personally excuse the ‘boringness’ of the first few episodes by headcanoning that he is just exhausted from his health problems.”

Symphony: Ah!

Meg: And I will say that Elizabeth wrote us a lovely email where Elizabeth talked about how they love the show and how it’s great and every episode has a different meaning for them and lots of wonderful things, so but Elizabeth did say that the first couple of episodes where we were finding our feet were growing to the par that Elizabeth would come to expect from us. So uh, I guess describing it as boring, Elizabeth’s not saying bad things but, Elizabeth said other nice things anyway. so..

Symphony: Constructive.

Meg: Constructive, so yeah I think that’s funny that we can just, us finding our feet with making the show could just be written off as Cecil’s battle with Lyme disease, that’s funny.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: Well it’s a testament to how much Elizabeth loves the show, that they were able to go back and say, we’ll I’m gonna retcon all of this, it’s clearly the Lyme disease. But also here’s an interesting thing that I learned years ago I was working on a TV pilot and I, writing it and I went back and watched like what are the greatest pilots of all time. And by and large, the pilot episodes of your favorite shows are nowhere near where they wind up. It’s very few..

Symphony: Right.

Hal: Like Cheers was there right out of the gate, Mary Tyler Moore was pretty close, but a lot of, like I’m a huge Friends fan. The first episode of Friends it was great in 1995, but when you watch it now knowing how great it is in season 3 4 and 5, you go, this is not that good.

Symphony: Yeah I think anytime you’re developing characters and introducing a whole new world to someone, I mean there’s gonna be stuff number one you as the audience don’t know, right? So you have to be patient to understand what’s happening in the world, like you’re not gonna understand everything, it’s not like… It’s like when you’re born, you don’t know everything, right? You’ll only find it out soon thereafter.

Hal: Right.

Meg: Exactly. Yeah this is episode 3 and, these first 10 episodes that we’ve asked audience members to react to is, this is the first time that Joseph and Jeffrey ever wrote a podcast, this is the first time that Cecil ever recorded a podcast, this is the third time Cecil ever sat behind a microphone with a Night Vale script and created this world, so attempt number 3 looks a lot different than attempt number 126.

Symphony: Right.

Meg: So I think that it’s really great that we were at such a strong point in the beginning, when we were really starting from nothing uh, to be where it is at the beginning of the show, and to get to where it is today.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: So it was a little boring at first when compared to, you know the sparks of Strex Corp and the sparks of all sorts of crazy things that happened in Night Vale, but it can be a little bit boring in comparison to all of those things that have been developed and exploited.

Symphony: But I dunno, I’m one of those people that is really in it for the journey though, you know like I don’t need it to be wham bam… out of the gate, I kinda wanna be like oh, who is this person, what’s happening, whatever. And especially with Night Vale being soo weird, like it’s gotta be really tough to be like, oh yes now you understand all the inner workings of, you know this and you should love this guy.

Meg: Cool, so we have Fiona has written in and said, Fiona’s theory is interns don’t die, they find their way out of Night Vale.

Symphony: Mmmm!

Meg: That’s an interesting take and offers hope for all of those interns out there.

Symphony: But as you mentioned, Chad does come back so he didn’t, he’s not…

Meg: Chad comes back with a story.

Symphony: [laughs] That is a pretty interesting theory tho, that they just like escaped Night Vale. Or somehow were thrust out, maybe through some sort of, you know, door to a different dimension or something, who knows.

Meg: We have from (Gwen) and I hope I’m saying your name right, from episodes 1-10, (Gwen) says: “My favorite episode is probably number 3, Station Management. I love scary monsters and this episode nailed how bone-chillingly scary Station Management is, how it can decimate anyone’s life and how it is not a force to be reckoned with. We may not know anything about its appearance other than terrifying, but honestly I think Station Management is cool and scary as heck. Hearing its footfalls and roars was so thrillingly honest, I think Night Vale’s medium is really what made it feel as intimately as it did.” So…

Hal: I have to agree with that 100 percent, I listened to this with headphones on, and it really but again it’s enough description plus the music, and then the moments where there is no music. There aren’t a ton of sound effects in this. You really only have Cecil and, and the stuff that Disparition is doing. So the way those work together it really I mean, again there was a time when the audio medium was the way we told stories and the way we ingested stories, and it’s such a great medium in that it requires you to use your imagination, you will fill in the blanks. And the way they set up the terror in this does that beautifully, I think it’s a very well made point, like (Gwen).

Meg: And then we have one more from Sarah. Sarah writes: “Leann Hart has been one of my favorite characters since she was introduced. I really relate to her, her love of journalism, her innovative ideas, her willingness to blatantly deny things that she has done, and her hatchet abilities. Even though all of those characteristics weren’t fleshed out in these first episodes, the groundwork was laid for a fantastic woman.” And then also from Sarah we have a theory. Sarah’s theory is “Cecil 100 percent had something to do with Telly’s fate, whether through some sort of mental powers of his own, either conscious or unconscious, or through some other entity that he has a vested interest in Cecil’s happiness. Telly definitely barbed, barbered the wrong stunning coif.”

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: So from Sarah, yeah I like, we didn’t really talk about Leann Hart, this is the first episode where Leann Hart is introduced and I really liked how Sarah describes her and how Sarah connected to Leann. And yeah, we were talking about earlier in the episode how Cecil has some beef with Telly and is maybe putting some stuff out there in the universe for Telly. [chuckles]

Symphony: [chuckles] Yeah, I definitely agree with that theory that like, Cecil had something to do with whether it was him directly or him just like, calling on his listeners to, you know, go get Telly like to roll up on him, hey boys let’s roll up on this fool cutting people’s hair. But I always love the characters that like necessarily don’t have a voice, but you always hear about them, like the fire chief Ramona Encarnación and Leann Hart and, she’s not the one that’s the rock?

Meg: No, no.

Symphony: No that’s uh…

Meg: The river rock.

Symphony: I’m gonna remember that later. But yeah, I always love those characters ‘cause they’re so interesting and they give a depth to the world of Night Vale, and it makes it even more strange ‘cause you’re like, why do they have a take on this issue or they were at this thing? So I dunno, it just fleshes out the universe.

Meg: So those are our fan questions, comments and fan theories. More information in our credits about how you can talk to us about your fan theories, comments, and questions about future episodes of Welcome to Night Vale on Good Morning, Night Vale. So this brings us to the end, y’all, of episode number, 3, “Good Morning Station Management”. I wanna thank everyone for listening, I wanna thank Hal and Symphony for being beautiful beautiful creatures. Next week, we are going to be doing episode 4, “Good Morning PTA Meeting”, where we will speak with our guest Jeffrey Cranor, who is the co-writer of Welcome to Night Vale and your real Dad. So we have an exciting episode coming up next week with Jeffrey.

Symphony: He is our Daddy. He is Daddy!

Meg: He is our Daddy.

Hal: Papa!

Meg: [laughter] But until then, good morning Night Vale, good morning.

Meg: Good Morning is a Night Vale Presents production. It is hosted by Symphony Sanders, Hal Lublin and Meg Bashwiner. It is edited by Grant Stewart, it is mixed by Vincent Cacchione, it is produced by Meg Bashwiner. Theme music by Disparition. Special thanks to our fans who submitted their thoughts, questions, and deeply held beliefs to us. Leave us a voicemail at 929-277-2050, or email us at [email protected], to share your theories and ask questions, or to tell us which host you would prefer to receive an organ donation form.

For more information on this show, go to goodmorningnightvale.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter @NightValeChat. Special thanks to (Christy Gressman), Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink, and Adam Cecil.

Today’s adverb: daintily. The horse daintily stomped its rider to dead, because while he was a murderous horse, he was also a prize-winning dressage horse and did everything with the grace of a ballerina on a butterfly’s wing.

#good morning night vale #night vale presents #meg bashwiner #symphony sanders #hal lublin #station management

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movieiwatchedtonight · 7 years ago

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Monthly Movie Recap: May 2017

Monthly Movie Recap: May 2017 It was one of those months that it was nearly over before I realized that I hadn't seen any movies yet! I did see Guardians of the Galaxy on opening night with Amy, but then I didn't see another movie till my group of friends and I saw Everything, Everything for my birthday. Then with my parents the next night I saw Baywatch. So only three this month but between both my brother and I's birthdays,finals, graduation, and starting my new job that's not too bad. Guardians was by far my favorite, then Baywatch, and least was Everything, Everything. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2:

Now I remembered little to none of the first movie, I think I only saw it full out once but I didn’t really need to to understand what was going on here. Side story; but the only time I’ve seen the first movie was in Disneyland back in 2014 before it was officially released in this really cool 4D theater. Also let’s keep in mind that I’m a casual comic book movie fan so I’m not really basing my opinions on anything other than my enjoyment.

I was able to see it twice. I went to a preview screening that my local theater does (and brought my best friend Amy as well) on the Thursday before it came out and then again on Sunday in a old small town theater in Jacksonville. (Completely unrelated but one theater showed the Thor trailer and one did not)

The first time I really was just paying attention to the story and just enjoying it (which I did) and the second time I actually took notes. Here’s some of the general notes about the movie that I wrote down from my second viewing:

- There’s a new intro where it shows movie characters rather than flipping through comic book pages. Not sure which one I like better, though I don’t mind the new one

- I love the opening scene. Am I biased because I’m from Missouri and I love the 80s? Maybe

- Also James Gunn is from Missouri; St.Louis more specifically so I love it. Fun fact Sean Gunn went to SLUH for high school

- An odd thing to love but I love all the colors, especially at the end (more on this later)

- Is Awesome Mixtape Vol.2 actually awesome? Yes. I personally prefers over Vol. 1

- Hey the dad from Sky High is here too

- Baby Groot needs a car seat

- Some lines were predictable but that’s every movie. One I really didn’t care for was when Ego tells Peter he’s just like everyone else and Peter says “what’s so wrong with that?”

- Also thought that sometimes jokes weren’t needed, a moment can just be a moment

- “Spacesuits for emergencies, or for fun”

- Ego’s planet was so pretty ( why does it remind me of the emerald city?) but was there really a need for a museum type show about why and how he formed the planet

- Kicking and messing with Baby Groot? Not okay

- Baby Groot dancing to basically the whole song Mr.Blue Sky while everyone else is fighting a giant space monster? Very okay (and so adorable!)

- Okay but like we kind of knew Ego was the bad guy the whole time, right?

- “You’re like Mary Poppins!” “Is he cool?” “Yeah he’s cool” “I’m Mary Poppins!!”

- Didn’t mind that they used The Chain twice because I love that song but we could have fit Fox on The Run in there somewhere

- I agree, Baby Groot is too adorable to kill

- I don’t know what Cheers is either Gamora, but if I did I’m sure it would have been a cool reference

- “I thought Yondu was your father.” Turns out he was

- Why do I love Sean Gunn’s character so much? I’m not even really sure I know who he is or what his purpose was besides getting the ship ready but I loved him. Especially when he asks Nebula what she’s going to do with her cut of the money (units?) and she tells him about wanting to kill her sister and buy a bunch of weapons and he’s just like “I meant like a pretty necklace, or a hat, something the girls would aw at”

- “They killed all my friends"😭

- Yondu’s arrow is so cool, Hawkeye should get himself one of those.

- Baby Groot getting crushed by rocks (?) and has no idea what else to do so he just starts crying, that broke my heart

- Cute little space family

- Screw Ego for putting the tumor in Meredith’s brain. I hate him

- Ok but Peter building Pac-Man was so cool

- “I’m going to make some weird shit!”

- I wish I knew what was so important about the batteries that the gold girl kept trying to kill them for stealing them

- The gold people’s little remote controls spaceships had arcade sounds and I loved it

- So many credit scenes that were about the movie (the Peter and Groot scene was my favorite)

- Also when Rocket, Baby Groot, Yondu and Kraglin were jumping through all the worlds (the part where Stan Lee has him cameo) I thought it would have been cool to like flash Asgard, just an idea

- I’m a sucker for friends choosing to become a family

- So did Peter lose his immortality and God qualities when they killed Ego? Or not?

- The scene where Ego and Peter are playing catch is emotionally manipulative

- I’m also a sucker for power group shots and there’s a good amount of them, enough to make me happy

- Baby Groot trying to get the fin but he keeps coming back with different things was so cute. Brings back a desk; “we told you it was this big!”

- My favorite arrow scene was when it hit the lights out and then killed all those people and all you could see was the trail of red glow

Now back to what I said earlier about colors. I have a personal theory, that at least for me, bright colors matter. I mean I often find myself re watching movies like The Avengers or Captain America: Civil War (which isn’t overly colorful but is bright) but not movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or like Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice because they’re just dark. Like literally have a dark color palette. I don’t know if that makes any sense but this movie was full of colors and it was beautiful.

This may be a movie series where I prefer the second one over the first. They’re both good but I really like Vol. 2. I love the music in it so much, defiantly more than the first movie.This is definitely worth seeing in theaters and not waiting till it comes out later. Also wish I would have seen it in 3D because there’s a couple scenes that I bet look amazing in 3D! Especially the funeral scene, I bet that’s awesome in 3D! With all the colors and pretty lights.

Watch again: YES I will for sure see it again in theaters, hopefully 3D, and this will be a movie I preorder the DVD

Watch the sequel?: it’s a marvel movie, so of course, I’ll watch Vol. 3 as well as anything else remotely related to this movie

Baywatch: I thought this movie was alright. I definitely laughed and thought some parts were funny and I wouldn't go out of my way to not recommend it to someone. It's not going to be a summer favorite or anything but who doesn't love Zac Effron? I think my favorite part was definitely the High School Musical reference and just the whole name thing was funny to me and my parents. I didn't not enjoy this movie, it had me laughing a decent amount but I know it's not going to be like a classic comedy for me or anything like that. It’s a typical good summer comedy. I'll probably watch it again and most likely will get it on DVD but I don't think I'll go see it in theaters again.

Watch again: Yeah, I would watch this movie again but I don’t think I ever seek after it or get a craving to watch it again.

Watch the sequel?: Yeah, again I think I would. I enjoyed the first one enough to watch the second one, should one be made. Everything, Everything: I was not a fan of this movie. I mean it's one of those movies you go into knowing it's going to be far fetched and ridiculous but I just couldn't get on board with this movie. I went with about six friends to see it, Amy and I sat next to each other and just ripped the movie apart. I mean we made fun of everything, she described us as the old guys from the muppets (Statler and Waldorf). The movie wasn't as bad as we made it out to be, but I still didn't really like it. I knew it would be out there but like it was so out there. Now I never read the book, I do own it, and it's in my personal library, but I haven't had the chance to read it yet so I can't say how accurate it was to the book. I did like something's about it, I like the little twist where Maddy discovers that she was never really sick, and I liked the actor who played Olly (Nick Robinson) I thought he was pretty good. I also really loved the scene where he taped all the pictures of the ocean on her window and said something along the lines of “Every ocean deserves to be seen by you” that was really cute and I do really love that moment from the movie. I did also like how the movie made me think differently, like how we as people put so must trust into the people we love because we love them, we just believe everything they say is the truth because so far they haven’t proven us otherwise. That’s kind of scary, like to think that we just trust the people we love so easily, and we really could have no idea what's actually true and what isn’t. So in summary, I didn’t love the movie, but I liked how it got me thinking deeper.

Watch again?: Not on my own, no. The only way I see myself watching this movie again is if I’m with a group of people who want to.

Overall: May was a bus month and I didn’t see as many movies as I would have liked to, but with it now being summer vacation, I should be able to catch up for what I missed in May in June. I love that I got to see Guardians on opening night, that was really cool and a great way to start the summer movie season.

Next Month: June is a jam packed month for movies. So excited for Wonder Woman!! Also I feel like I might be alone in this, but I’m actually really excited for Baby Driver as well! As for kids movies, I’m actually going to Disney World the week Cars 3 is released so I plan on seeing it down in Orlando and Despicable Me is one of Amy’s favorite movies so we’ll go see the third on for sure. I will 100% be skipping out on 47 Meters Down, no thank you. Book of Henry has my interest because I’m slightly confused by it. Basically June is the hot spot for summer movies and with my theater having 5$ Tuesdays and 5$ student Thursdays, I hope to see as many as I can

#2017 #monthly movie recap #may 2017

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