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quarantineroulette · 11 months ago

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12 Things That Didn't Suck this Year, plus 12 Films I watched and Liked

For me, 2023 was a somewhat easier year than most in recent memory. In the wider scope, everything remains very demoralizing and bereft of even a shred of hope. With whatever motivation I can find, my aim in 2024 is to refine aspects of my personal life I'm currently unhappy about; outside of that, things feel pretty much unsalvageable. May the new year surprise us all and give us a few glimmers here and there, culturally or otherwise. In the meantime here are 12 points that brought me some sort of comfort or release in the past year -- and also a dozen movies as most would agree it's been a great year for those. Maybe just maybe I'll finally take a crack at writing a screenplay in the new year so long as the world doesn't careen completely off its axis:

Traveling: In late 2022 I got it into my head that it would be really cool and fun to plan a trip as if we were touring, going from location to location within a span of 2 weeks. I really wanted to go back to Spain, James has always wanted to go to Morocco, so I routed a trip from Madrid to Tangier and back, with stops in Granada and Seville along the way (and also we went to see Suede, because why not). This was an intense journey that involved multiple buses, trains, shuttles to ferries, and plenty of taxis, and I'm pretty shocked and impressed that we pulled it off without sleeping through any departure times or losing any belongings (apart from a pair of earrings of mine that fell out of my purse and got crushed in Granada). The whole trip was a highlight not only of the year but of our lives in general and I'll absolutely never forget getting lost in the Ancien Medina in Tangier, something which I still dream about on the reg.

I Think You Should Leave: This has been an intellectually rich year in terms of films and television shows. The third season of Tim Robinson's completely unhinged Netflix series isn't part of that particular conversation, yet nothing I've watched this year has brought me more joy. I've easily watched the "Jellybean" sketch alone about 15 times, and could easily watch it twice that many more with no threat of it ever getting old. Absolutely insane, ceaselessly hilarious, and sometimes even emotionally stirring. May Netflix renew this 100 times over.

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying: I'm maybe a minority PJ Harvey fan because I find her later output far more interesting than her early, more iconic records (excepting To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? here). This maybe didn't stir me quite as much as The Hope Six Demolition Project, which I found to be truly radical, but it neither felt like a retread (although surface listens might lead some to write it off as a return to White Chalk-era atmospherics). Outside of the record itself, the video for the title song is outstanding, and all her collaborators (including the directors of the video, animators Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña) were expertly chosen. Personally, Ben Whishaw singing lines from "Love Me Tender" is something beyond even my wildest dreams (Fun fact: I met Ben Whishaw forever ago and gave him a PJ Harvey button I made, so this collaboration in particular is quite the full circle).

Books By Friends: This year I read several recent books: HellSans by Ever Dundas, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez and The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman, all very different novels but all incredible in their own right ( I believe I technically read Ever's book last year but including it here anyway because I loved it that much). HellSans is a dystopian cyber-horror that satisfied my love of experimental writing and body horror alike, Our Share of Night is a touching story about a complicated familial relationship with heavy occult overtones, and The Ghost Theatre is a lush historical fiction that at times reminded me of Patrick Suskind's Perfume in terms of sensory details. All three novels solidified all future output from these writers as must reads for me, regardless of genre designations.

Movies: A short sub-list of 12 movies I watched this year that I liked enough to rank:

12) The Passenger (director: Carter Smith): Kyle Gallner is the #1 scream king to me and I'll watch pretty much whatever he's in as he usual picks interesting roles - plus, he makes me happy to be from Pennsylvania, and I can't say that about many people. Anyway, I've watched like three movies he was in this year alone but The Passenger was the stand out for its Falling Down-esque intro and fucked up reveals.

11) Beau is Afraid (director: Ari Aster): Docking this a few points because I think Ari Aster is pretty overrated, but I can't deny that this was an absolute trip to see in a movie theater. A quietly brilliant performance by Joaquin Phoenix as well.

10) The Royal Hotel (director: Kitty Green): Anything set in Australia instantly piques my interest, even moreso when it's as indebted to Wake in Fright as this film is. It wasn't the strongest year for horror films, and The Royal Hotel would probably be largely categorized as horror-adjacent, but it made me feel absolutely dreadful all the same.

9) Infinity Pool (director: Brandon Cronenberg): The unease I got watching this didn't totally stick, but the weird as shit Mia Goth performance certainly did.

8) Dream Scenario (director: Kristoffer Borgli): Very on the nose but I still laughed like a fiend over the whole "dreamfluencer" bit. Tremendous Nicholas Cage performance to boot.

7) Saltburn (director: Emerald Fennell): Sorry, loved its audacity and the way everybody in it dressed and how everything looked. A bit shallow but sometimes if everything looks great, I can hardly give a shit about any deeper meaning. Also, Barry Keoghan is absolute superstar and I don't use that term lightly.

6) Talk To Me (director: Danny and Michael Philippou): Easily my favorite straight-up horror film (not horror-adjacent) since It Follows, to which it certainly owes a debt. Funny, fucked up, and an amazing debut by Sophie Wilde, who gave the most underrated horror performance of the year imo.

5) Oppenheimer (director: Christopher Nolan): I liked it enough but what I liked even more was an on the surface "men's film" being embraced and subverted by a diverse, sometimes irreverent, audience (just look up Oppenheimer on Know Your Meme or TV Tropes and you'll get what I mean). July 2023 was a glorious period of people celebrating films and for one brief moment everyone seemed to love small, beautiful men just as much as I do.

4) Asteroid City (director: Wes Anderson): I'm generally iffy on Wes Anderson but this was just gorgeous and a truly profound experience that I'm still revisiting regularly and piecing together in my mind. If Jarvis Cocker doesn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song with "Dear Alien," I will punch through a wall and all the way into a different reality.

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese): No movie has angered me this much since Judas and the Black Messiah in terms of a despicable moment in human history, but of course it was extremely gripping and moving, too. Say it's boring all you want but nothing this year has packed as much poignancy as that ending.

2) Anatomy of a Fall (director: Justine Triet): Best ever child acting in a film, best ever dog acting in a film.

May December (director: Todd Haynes): Todd Haynes is so intelligent, I love hearing him discuss his films and he's without a doubt one of the all-time greats for me. Even with my high expectations for everything that he does, May December still blew my mind. The marriage of Lifetime aesthetics with arthouse cinema is insanely deft, the "final showdown" between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman's characters is absolutely chilling, and Charles Melton crying behind that fence will stay with me long, long after this year has ended.

Protomartyr Live at Johnny Brenda's: I really liked Protomartyr's 2023 release Formal Growth in the Desert, but it didn't fully hit until I attended this gig. It's been hard to get excited for gigs in the post-Covid era, but when that happens I'm reminded again of the pleasures of live music and its overall importance. I've seen Protomartyr several times in the past but in my humble opinion they've never been better than right now. Wanted to experience the whole show again as soon as it ended. The projections were really cool, too.

Living with a Cat: My parents got a kitten this year and shortly thereafter a cat mysteriously appeared in our alley. She was very scared and hungry, so we fed her and she found her way inside our home shortly after that. Cats are a lot of work, but she also brings us a lot of happiness and comfort. Sometimes she'll for real wink at me and it's very cute. Her backstory is a total mystery but she was clearly a house cat and we're very delighted to give her a new, happy home.

Swarm: Atlanta is one of my favorite things ever, plus fandoms and horror are two major interests of mine, so it was pretty inevitable that I would love this. The show was brilliant in itself, but Dominique Fishback was particularly phenomenal and delivered the horror monologue to beat going forward. A wild, funny, wicked ride.

Our first gig in Boston: We only played three shows this year but the best by far was our set in Boston at the Dark Springs Boston festival this past May. We played a bunch of our new, as yet unreleased, songs for the first time, met some bands we'd been longtime fans of, and just generally had a great time. Sitting down at the bar afterward, we met some festgoers who were genuinely star-struck, which was both flattering and very, very funny. May that be the first of many such experiences.

The Bear Season 2: Fishes and Forks. Enough said.

Cillian Murphy's Radio Show on 6Music: I listened to previous series of Cillian Murphy's Limited Edition radio show and it was my favorite thing then, but 2023's iteration was somehow better than ever. Played lots of Aldous Harding, my favorite cover song ever (Sonic Youth's cover of "Superstar"), and I'm still shocked that he threw in something from Cindy Lee, whose music I had just discovered like two weeks prior (and from a Protomartyr interview! Everything is connected!).

The Curse: There's an episode of Succession in which Roman Roy utters the phrase, "I cringed so hard I turned into a fossil." That's me with every new episode of The Curse. This would be way higher but it won't actually end 'til 2024 so it could possibly show up on next year's list as well! Also, let's give it up for Benny Safdie, who rules in this and in every other role he's played this year (and also on late night tv appearances).

#year in review #2023 #films #music #whatever

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perlukafarinn · 2 years ago

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i'm taking a course on queer cinema this semester and each week in our discussions, we keep circling around to the same topic of the appeal of "bad representation"

like lesbian vampires, right? clearly based on the damaging stereotype of lesbians being predatory towards straight women but also... lesbian vampires are so cool and sexy and as a queer woman you kind of want to be their prey? or you want to be like them. in any case, you want that bite you're meant to fear.

or queer coded villains, particularly disney villains, whose queerness is what makes them villainous but it's also what makes them fun and interesting. and sure, they get punished at the end but they're a lot more memorable than the cishetero heroes!

and last week, we were talking about buffalo bill, who obviously represents some deeply damaging tropes about trans women (the movie does go out of its way to claim that bill's not really trans and that trans women are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence but that's such a throwaway line and it's not what most of the audience walked away thinking).

bill is murderous and deranged but also, he's the only person ever seen having any fun in that movie. when he puts on his makeup and and utters those iconic words: "would you fuck me? i'd fuck me" you, the queer audience, can't help but admire his confidence. and the sight of him, tucked and full-frontal in that kimono might be meant to cause revulsion but to the right audience, it doesn't. regardless of how he presents in every other scene, right then he just looks kind of cool.

"bad representation" can be damaging but that doesn't mean we throw it out wholesale. especially not when we're talking about the 20th century, when almost all of our representation was "bad". dismiss that, and what are we left with in our history? besides, so much "good representation" is so ungodly boring. oh, the only way you can tell that character is queer is because they offhandedly mention they've got a girlfriend/boyfriend? finally, our deepest wish has been fulfilled: we can pass for straight!

i always go back to the celluloid closet and their discussion of the sissy. how, after numerous people have blasted him as a ridiculous, disgusting caricature, we cut to harvey fierstein, shrugging apologetically and saying, "i like the sissy"

"i'd rather have negative than nothing," he goes on. "that's just my particular view. and also, because i am a sissy."

#i'm drunk and this is probably incoherent but whatever #i've been thinking about this for a while #anyway go watch the celluloid closet #it's on youtube

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rabbitcruiser · 1 month ago

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World Smile Day

Bring smiles to the faces of others through acts of kindness, community work, and of course offering your own lovely smile to brighten anyone’s day.

Sometimes all it takes to make the day better is a smile, whether it’s one someone gives to you, or one you share with another. Little acts of kindness can bring a shining smile to someone who has otherwise had a terrible day, and it can change everything that follows.

Whether it’s just a simple compliment, a cheery hello, or a gift of something small to help brighten their day, World Smile Day encourages you to take action to bring a few more smiles into the world.

Learn about World Smile Day

World Smile Day is the perfect day to make others smile while also ensuring you have a smile on your face as well. There are a lot of events that go on around the globe on World Smile Day, all of which have been designed to make people feel happier and to share great moments with others. We see associations, organizations, people, and schools get involved, with many different activities going on that can make a person smile. This includes sending lovely messages to people and giving food to those who need it.

Interesting information and facts about World Smile Day and smiling itself…

Let’s take a look at some interesting and surprising facts about World Smile Day. For example, did you know that 470 iterations of the smileys were made for Internet emoticons in 1999? That’s a lot of smiley faces, isn’t it?

Not only does the smiley face bring a lot of joy to people, but it’s making a lot of money too! Well, we suppose money makes people smile as well, right? We are sure that the guys in London, England, are smiling when they look at how much money the Smiley Company office is bringing in. After all, it is worth over $55 million per annum!

Did you also know that happiness is biological? When you smile, endorphins are created. These are neurotransmitters that cause feelings of pleasure. And, do you know why the color yellow was used for the smiley face? Well, this one you might be able to guess! Yellow is the symbol of cheerfulness, so what better color for a smiley face?

History of World Smile Day

It was a simple thing, a circle with a few dots and an upturned curve, but put together Harvey Ball created one of the most iconic symbols the world had ever seen, and it would quickly come to infect everything from graffiti to modern day emoji’s.

We are, of course, talking about the smiley face, arguably the first emoji to enter the world. Harvey would later express concern that the sheer commercialization of his little symbol would strip it of its original intent and meaning.

It was out of this concern that he created World Smile Day, a day devoted to the spreading of simple joy and love to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or geographic location.

Harvey sadly passed from this world in 2001, but the foundation he helped create, the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation, has carried forth his message of simple peace and love as the sponsor of World Smile Day every year.

Whether you’re simply expressing a bit of silliness or doing a small act of kindness to help someone smile, World Smile Day is your opportunity to help brighten the world and make the world a better place through the simple power of the smile.

How to celebrate World Smile Day

It all starts with keeping your eyes and heart open to the people around you, and recognizing when someone nearby could use a momentary lift to their day.

Everyone can make a difference on World Smile Day, just by being caring and compassionate and helping those around them have the best day they can have. Those who are truly ambitious can check out the World Smile Day website and look into becoming a World Smile Day ambassador.

World Smile Day Ambassador’s go the extra mile in setting up events at local businesses, schools, parks, even online to help spread the simple joy of a smile to the world.

There are a number of different things that you can do on World Smile Day to make a difference. There are a lot of great suggestions online. This includes delivering smile certificates to people, sending smile cards, giving meals to the homeless, hospital events, visiting nursing homes, balloon releases with World Smile Day messages, and much more! You can do things that make your loved ones smile, as well as the wider community too. It does not always need to be something big and grand either. There are plenty of small things that we can all do to make people feel happier.

It is also important to remember that you should be smiling on World Smile Day! We often tend to forget about ourselves because we are so busy thinking about other people. What makes you happy? What is going to make you smile? A lot of people smile when they are helping others, so it is one big circle of happiness! Of course, there are plenty of other things that could make you smile as well. You may simply want to have an hour to yourself so you can watch your favorite film or television program, for example.

Whatever you do decide to do on World Smile Day, there is one important ingredient: a smile!

World Smile Day FAQs

Are smiles contagious?

Many studies show that smiling is probably contagious in that the brain releases happy hormones, which makes the recipient of a smile want to smile back.

Is smiling good for you?

Emphatically yes! Smiling releases good hormones, helps with work productivity, promotes healthy relationships, relieves stress and may even help people live longer.

Do smiles cause wrinkles?

Wrinkles shouldn’t be blamed on smiling as they can be caused just as much by frowning, due to diminishing elasticity in the skin.

When do babies smile?

Newborns may smile in their sleep, but babies are typically between 6-8 weeks when they first begin with social smiles.

Who invented the smiley face emoticon?

Harvey Ross Ball was hired to create the iconic yellow smiley face in 1963. It took him 10 minutes and he was paid $45 for his work.

Source

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livingbutterfly · 2 months ago

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doeroneforall · 1 year ago

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The Smiley Face Revolution, Harvey Ross Ball's Journey to the Worldwide Smiley Phenomenon

In the realm of design, there are few creations as universally recognized and beloved as the iconic smiley face logo. The story behind this simple yet powerful symbol is a testament to the impact of creativity, emotion, and the power of a single idea.

This is the journey of how Harvey Ross Ball's $45 design became a worldwide phenomenon. It all began in 1963 when Harvey Ross Ball, a freelance artist, was approached by State Mutual Life Assurance Company to create a visual representation of goodwill and camaraderie among its employees.

Tasked with designing something that would lift spirits and foster a positive workplace environment, Ball took a mere 10 minutes to sketch a cheerful face with a beaming smile and two dots for eyes. The result was a yellow circle with a radiant grin – the prototype of what we now know as the smiley face. The design was uncomplicated, unassuming, and carried an inherent warmth that resonated with people on a fundamental level.

For his work, Ball was paid a modest $45, a fee that belied the global phenomenon his creation would become. The initial intention of the smiley face was to spread goodwill within the company, but the magic of the design was too potent to remain contained. The logo's infectious positivity quickly spread beyond the company's walls, capturing hearts and sparking a movement of joy.

In an era marked by social and cultural upheaval, the smiley face became a universal symbol of hope, unity, and the power of a simple gesture to brighten someone's day. The smiley face's journey from a $45 sketch to a worldwide phenomenon is a reminder that greatness often arises from the simplest of ideas. Its appeal transcended language and cultural barriers, embodying a shared human desire for happiness and connection. It became a visual language that needed no translation – a smile that could be understood by all.

Over the years, the smiley face logo has evolved and adapted to various contexts, becoming a canvas for creativity and expression. It found its way onto everything from greeting cards to clothing, from digital emojis to art installations. Its versatility allowed it to seamlessly integrate into various aspects of popular culture, maintaining its relevance and impact.

Harvey Ross Ball's creation not only became a cultural touchstone but also contributed to shaping the commercial landscape. The smiley face became a marketing tool, representing brands that wanted to align themselves with positivity and friendliness. It demonstrated the ability of a simple design to resonate with consumers on a personal level, fostering brand loyalty and recognition.

Today, the smiley face logo continues to shine its light across the globe. It stands as a testament to the enduring power of a well-crafted design, the emotional resonance of a genuine smile, and the capacity of a single idea to transcend its origins and become a universal symbol of happiness. In a world that can often feel divided and complex, the smiley face logo reminds us of our shared humanity. It's a reminder that sometimes, the simplest gestures can have the most profound impact.

From its humble beginnings as a $45 sketch, Harvey Ross Ball's creation has etched itself into the collective consciousness, serving as a timeless reminder that a smile is a language we all understand – a language that unites, uplifts, and brings joy to every corner of the world.

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nevernottraveling · 1 year ago

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Harvey Ross Ball, a graphic designer from

Worcester, Massachusetts, is credited with inventing

the iconic smiley face in 1963. At the time, Ball was

approached by a local insurance company, State

Mutual Life Assurance Company, to design an image

that would uplift the spirits of their employees. The

company wanted a symbol that would promote a

positive work environment and improve employee

morale.

In a mere 10 minutes, Ball sketched the now-famous

smiley face, consisting of a bright yellow circle with

two black dots for eyes and a gentle, curved line

representing a smile. The simplicity and universal

appeal of the design made it an instant hit.

For his creative contribution, Harvey Ross Ball was

compensated with a modest payment of $45. Little

did he know that his creation would go on to become

one of the most recognizable symbols worldwide.

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 3 years ago

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My idea for how to bring Doctor Doom (And the Fantastic Four I guess) into the MCU

Look, I’m as tired of the MCU as the next man, but if it means bringing my favorite Comic Book character of all time onto the Silver Screen then so be it. Also, before you ask, I want Dr. Doom to be played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

So, anyway, in this scenario, College friends Reed Richards and Ben Grimm are contracted by the government (possibly SHIELD) to work on a new Space Station used to monitor for Extra-Terrestrial threats. The project is headed by Dr. Storm and his children, Susan and Johnny. In this, Reed is a little brainiac who could run circles around Tony Stark, Ben Grimm is a down to earth astronaut who keeps Reed’s head on his shoulders, Johnny is a hot head and Superhero fanatic (his favorite is Captain America... he just speaks to Johnny) and Susan is the very tired straight-man of the family who drinks her coffee with rum mixed in.

Also on the station, working on another project, is an arrogant yet charming scientist named Victor Von Doom. Victor is there working on inter-dimensional warping technology for reasons he refuses to disclose.

Also on the station is a scientist named Harvey Elder who is #TotallyNotAVillain.

Against all odds, Reed, Ben, Johnny, and Susan all manage to befriend the aloof Victor. Victor opens up to them, revealing his emotional baggage at being made an orphan because of the Baron of Latveria, and Victor even reveals his skills as a magician, which he started to learn after seeing his mother dragged to hell by a demon (it’s Mephisto). They become such close friends that Johnny starts to jokingly refer to them as the Fantastic Five.

Also, there’s a slightly homoerotic rivalry going between Reed and Victor. That’s very important.

Anyway, things go to shit when a cosmic anomaly hits the station (which may or may not be the Phoenix Force, I haven’t decided). Things go wrong when Dr. Harvey Elder sabotages the station, causing Victor’s interdimensional portal to literally blow up in his face and cause Susan, Reed, Ben, and Johnny to be exposed to the full brunt of the anomaly.

Yeah, turns out Harvey was a crazy doomsday cultist who weants to be a superbeing and end the world. Oops.

Anyway, the four are left with superpowers and Victor is left brutally deformed by the explosion.

While the four are being studied and Reed is trying to find a cure, Victor and Harvey break out seperately. Harvey to use his new mutations to create an army of monsters to conquer the world. For Victor, it’s because his machine actually somewhat worked, and he glimpsed Mephisto’s realm. Now slightly mad from the incident and more determined, Victor now knows what he must do.

Things come to a head when Harvey and his new mutant army and the Four decided to use their powers for good and stop him. It’s pretty a pretty even match for a while, the four have raw power and Harvey has numbers, but Victor manages to tip the scales when he comes in clutch with his new suit of armor, sporting his new iconic Dr. Doom look.

Together, they manage to defeat Harvey, but things aren’t over.

Victor reveals his ultimate plans to his friends. That he plans to save the world by conquering it. That he will bring humanity to heel with his firm but gentle hand. He asks the Four to join him, to fight by his side in saving the world. To fight together as the Fantastic Five. He even claims he could cure them if they wanted it.

Obviously the four refuse, and Victor is sad, but he is steadfast in his chosen course. He leaves through a portal with the parting words “Though fate has placed us as enemies, I will always count you as my friends. I will fight you, but I will miss you. And... that year we spent on the station together was the happiest of my life.”

Victor leaves and the the team are hailed as the heroic Fantastic Four, and all of them can’t help but notice the space left by Victor.

The aftercredits scene features Victor leading a popular uprising in Latveria and killing the Baron who murdered Victor’s father. Victor greet his adoring people, introducing himself to the world as the benevolent King, Dr. Doom.

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estrelinha-s · 5 months ago

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★. . xg circle icons 𖹭

☆. . like or reblog if you like, save or use! hey, don't republish without credits!!

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III. Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe.

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers.

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point.

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing. This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome.

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast.

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list.

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend.

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome.

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows.

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again.

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up.

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4.

So with our major players out of the way, let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands. Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off. Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain.

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more. The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself this is the design he had in the comics

It didn��t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have. This show is just great at costume design.

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback.

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious.

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working. Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant. Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time.

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up. F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly.

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly. At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in.

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do.

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense.

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room.

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda.

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian.

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go.

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it.

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior.

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances.

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included.

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her. It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag.

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you.

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him. Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t. It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to. So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight.

However at home Virgil points out it was Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.

#static shock #static #virgil hawkins #richie foley #robert hawkins #sharon hawkins #hotstreak #milestone comics #dc comics #dc animated universe #dcau #dwayne mcduffie #robert l washington IIII #kids wb #hbo max #2000s #animation #black lives matter #black history month

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introvertguide · 4 years ago

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Pulp Fiction (1994); AFI #94

The most recent movie for review was the Quentin Tarantino crime thriller comedy (probably more things) Pulp Fiction (1994). It is a very complicated story that is told out of chronological order and focuses on scenes of meaningful character interaction. This confusion meant it lost out to movies with a more straight forward time line at the Oscars, since the move was nominated for seven awards but only took home one. The single win for best screenplay was well deserved and I still believe it is one of the most creatively written films of all time. I want to go over the plot to show what I mean, but let me do my standard due diligence:

SPOILER WARNING!!! I AM ABOUT TO GIVE THE BASIC DETAILS OF ONE OF THE MOST COMPLEX STORY LINES IN MOVIE HISTORY!!! IT WILL NOT LIKELY SPOIL MUCH OF ANYTHING, BUT I AM STICKING THIS WARNING ON JUST IN CASE SOMEBODY FINDS SOMETHING!!!

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The film begins with what is pretty much a prologue but what turns out to be about the middle of the film chronologically. A couple is at a diner and they are talking about robbing banks. They only refer to each other as Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). They discuss the best kind of places to rob and they decide that a diner would be a good change of pace. Impulsively, they pull out guns and hold up the diner and...title card with awesome spaghetti western music!

Two hitmen are talking about Europe as they go to do a job. Vincent Vega (Jon Travolta) talks about his adventures with Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) as they pull up at an Los Angeles apartment complex. The two discuss their boss Marsellus Wallace and how touchy he is about his wife. The boss has apparently sent them to get something from a bunch of guys. Jules and Vincent call on an apartment with 3 college age men and intimidate them into giving over a briefcase with something glowing inside. The case is what they came for, so the hitmen take it and kill two of the men at the apartment...

Flash to a new scene in which Vincent is going to get some drugs from his dealer (Eric Stoltz). Vincent is a heroine user despite cocaine being the popular drug. It turns out Vincent was asked by his boss to take out his wife...the one he is very protective of. He just needs to hang out with her so she is not bored and not get into trouble. To accomplish this, he shoots up some heroine and goes to meet the wife named Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman). They seem to get along and he drives her to a restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slims. The place is fantastic, all the waiters are dressed up like American movie icons and the booths are repurposed cars from the 50s (if this place actually existed, you can be sure I would search it out and go there at least once). The two bond over dinner and then volunteer for a twist dance contest.

Mia and Vincent go back to her house and Vincent goes to the restroom to talk himself out of trying to score with Mia. She is pretty cool, but not worth dying for. While he is away, Mia finds some heroine in the pocket of Vincent’s jacket and thinks it is cocaine. She snorts it and immediately starts to overdose. Vincent panics and decides to drive her to the dealer’s house. The dealer has a nurse kit that comes with a giant needle full of adrenaline which Vincent stabs her with. She wakes up and Vincent takes her back home and is glad that he will live another day...

We jump to a flashback of a young boy who is has lost his father in Vietnam. An officer is visiting that has a gift. Apparently, there is a family watch that belonged to the boys great grandfather and had been passed down through the generations. His father had it when he was captured and gave it to the officer before the father died in the POW camp. The officer escaped and found the boy to give him the watch...

A boxer named Butch (Bruce Willis) wakes up from a dream. He is the boy all grown up. He is about to throw a fight for Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), the same boss that everyone is afraid of. Butch does not throw the fight and accidently kills the other boxer. It turns out that he bet on himself and now he needs to get out of town before Marsellus Wallace catches him. He goes to a hotel where his rather dumb girlfriend is waiting for him. They go to bed and then are about to leave the next morning when it turns out that she forgot his watch. Butch freaks out and goes back to their old apartment to get the watch (note the very long take following Bruce Willis as he takes a back way to get to the apartment). Vincent is there waiting for him, but Vincent is in the bathroom and Butch is able to get a gun and kill Vincent as he is coming out of the bathroom. Things seem good so Butch drives off...

As Butch drives home, he sees Marsellus crossing the street in front of him so Butch hits the gas and runs down the boss but also hits an oncoming car. Both men are injured but Marsellus gains his senses and chases Butch into a shop where both are captured by a weird redneck with a shotgun. Butch and Marsellus are tied up in the basement of the shop and a man named Zed shows up. The shop owner has a gimp in a box (all leathered up and everything) and other fetish things downstairs. After a quick game to pick who goes first, they take Marcellus into another room to rape him. Butch manages to escape and is running away...but he decides can’t leave somebody to be assaulted like that. He grabs a weapon from the shop and kills the shop owner and frees Marsellus from Zed. Marsellus is not happy and says he will go “medieval” on Zed and allows Butch to leave town. Butch collects his girlfriend and leaves immediately...

Flash back in time (we know this because Vincent is alive) to right after Vincent and Jules shoot the guys with the case. Another guy in the other room jumps out and unloads six rounds at the two and misses every shot. The hitman kill that man, but Jules is shaken and decides to give up the business. They take a fourth gut with them in the car to go back to see Marsellus. On the drive over, Vincent accidently shoots the passenger while going over a pothole. The inside of the car is absolutely covered in blood and brains, so the two have to find a safe house. They go to the home of Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino) who will help them but says they have to get out in a couple of hours before his wife gets home. They call Marsellus, who sends over a cleaner named Wolf (Harvey Keitel). They are able to get everything cleaned up in time and leave with the car and the body. Jules and Vincent have to change out of their bloody clothes and decide to take a cab out to a diner for some food before seeing Wallace.

The two are at a familiar looking diner discussing whether their survival was a miracle and whether Jules should quit. Vincent goes off to the bathroom and, while he is gone, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from the beginning declare it a robbery and it is evident that we have circled in time back around to the beginning. The couple hold up the diner, but, when they get to Jules, he takes Pumpkin hostage and devises a plan for everybody to leave. Jules allows the couple to leave alive with all the wallets, then the two hitmen follow quickly behind them before any police can show up.

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I put a spoiler warning at the top, but there is so much to this film that there is no way you could spoil everything. I find new things to enjoy about this movie each time that I watch it and the watch count has to be at least two dozen times at this point. This film is so rich with allusion and homage to movies of the past that you might never see everything. Tarantino is truly a lover of old films and he worked every reference he could into this film. This is truly like candy for a cinephile.

I have, however, had a love hate relationship with this movie: I love this movie and I hate it when people tell me it is too violent. There was a lot of negative response to the films toxic masculinity, romancing crime culture, incredible amount of swearing, drug use, extreme gun violence, and very adult themes. There is a very famous interview between Quentin Tarantino and Jan Wahl in which she accuses him of using excessive violence and he tells her it is because it is a lot of fun to watch. His stylistically gory violence stems from exploitation films of the past and there is an established audience that enjoys it. He makes his movies for himself and this group of people.

Kind of like the comedy of Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin, you have to wade through a sea of swearing to find the comedic banter. The things that Jules and Vincent say to each other are some of the funniest stuff I have ever heard, but you really have to pay attention. Their attempts to express their feelings while maintaining their hard exterior persona is ridiculous. This is probably why many people enjoy the scenes with Vincent and Mia: there is a lot more courtesy which reduces the tirade of cursing.

The violence is very very over the top, but it is no where near the level of gore that Tarantino has become known for over the years. I must admit that he likes his torture scenes and this film is no exception. I would like to note how clever the torture scene with Butch and Marsellus is because they are both tied up and facing camera so only the audience can see the mischief that is being prepared behind them.

The soundtrack for the film is well worth mentioning as it also pays homage to 50s, 60s, and 70s exploitations films. There is a lot of silence in the film with sudden bursts of fast paced music that help with transitions. Most famous is the intro music after diner prologue, a surf rock classic by Dick Dale and The Del Tones called Misirlou. It is pure speed guitar riff along the lines of Wipeout and transitions the scene perfectly. Take a listen for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIU0RMV_II8

Maybe the biggest thing about this film and Tarantino in general is the inspiration of the slick gangster dialogue. There had been a push for more melodramatic dialogue or the complete absence of much talking. Tarantino added in this slick, fast moving comedic dialogue that is said over extreme violence and adult situations. Marsellus Wallace talks about having some crack heads torture a man to death immediately after being raped in a basement. The hitmen talk about appropriate manners while cleaning out brains from the back of a car. Jules talks about the meaning of the bible during a robbery. Everything seems out of place in the real world but perfectly acceptable in Tarantino’s world. This is probably why I have no problem with the violence in the film.

So should this film be on the AFI top 100? Absolutely. It is an homage to film history while simultaneously introducing a sub genre that mixes current dialogue and exploitation touches to grindhouse action. It is fascinating and fun. Would I recommend this movie? If you are old enough. I can’t emphasize enough how fun I find this film, but I cannot deny that it is filled with adult situations like drug usage followed by driving, secret dungeon rape, and cold blooded murder with no consequences. If you can differentiate between Tarantino’s world and the real world, then this is great. If you can’t, then maybe try something else with slick dialogue like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

#miserlou #pulp fiction #samuel l jackson #Quentin Tarantino #john travolta #violence #action #90s movies #academy award winner #dialogue #cinematography #introvert #introverts

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felicitykings · 4 years ago

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What are your favourite moments in Gotham?

Honestly, there are too many to count! This show provided so many good and/or iconic moments. Although some of the first ones that came to mind were (in no particular order):

literally any batcat scene to be honest but in particular: them getting to know one another in 1x09/1x10 (with the food fight as a pure highlight), the whole “i miss you” exchange in 2x03 (it sets up their relationship in a really nice way in terms of them caring for one another but bruce always wanting to stand and fight for others where selina, more often than not and completely understandably, is more about personal survival, “i felt tied to her...” in 2x10 is also an amazing scene demonstrating the underlying reasons why their relationship exists, why it works, and the draw they have to one another (and it highlights the bond they share despite everything else), there’s some great stuff in 2x15 but more on that later, the rooftop scene in 3x05, “does this mean you are my girlfriend? / “shut up.” in 3x11, the cheek kiss in 3x11, rooftop scene in 4x01, every scene where bruce sees selina at a party/event and his world stops (2x03, 3x05, 4x01), everything about 4x15/4x16, selina coming to see bruce on his birthday in 4x18, selina calming bruce down when he’s under the influence of the fear toxin in 4x21, the end sequence of 4x21 and the start of 4x22, all of their stuff in 5x03, 5x09, 5x11, selina knowing bruce is there in 5x12 without seeing him because SOULMATES, and their final rooftop scene in 5x12 because despite the sadness, i think it does a good job of showing the deep bond they have even after ten years and also sets up the idea that this will continue and they will work their way back to each other again (”i’ll never leave gotham again.”).

tiny little bruce running into alfred’s arms after his parents’ deaths in 1x01

jerome’s interrogation scene in 1x16 - cameron absolutely nailed this scene and it was a fantastic reveal.

“I’m the king of gotham!”

jerome’s speech to gotham in 2x02

the batfam fighting to save bruce in 2x11

bruce vs sonny in 2x15 - this does such an amazing job of showing bruce’s development into the man he will eventually become. this resilience and strength is unbelievable and with alfred’s voiceover to motivate bruce, it’s such a wonderful and powerful moment in the show. plus, you have selina’s fretting about bruce as he is repeatedly hurt - from completely looking away in terror to screaming “stop!” as much at bruce as at sonny because she knows that bruce WANTS to be hurt but she can’t bear to see it. that being said, this moment is absolutely BRUCE’S and the music and the look on his face as he gets back up no matter what is so incredible and earned.

“I may not be the man you’d choose as second in a street fight but anything I can do to help Bruce, I will.” - Lucius Fox, MVP

Firefly vs Mr Freeze (2x22)

“My name is Fish Mooney. Bitch.” - Fish is so unbelievably iconic

“I hope you know, Oswald, I would do anything for you.” listen this and oswald holding ed after he’s been strangled and ed wakes up and they’re THAT CLOSE had me screaming the first time I watched it.

lee punching ed, though i don’t quite remember what episode this was in

alfred protecting his kiddos in 3x11, and them coming back to help him when he’s knocked down by talon.

3x14 - that’s it, the whole episode

harvey snapping jim out of the tetch virus’ hold on him - BROMANCE

alfred trying to get through to bruce over the course of 3x21/3x22 and their conversation about true norths in 3x22 while alfred is in hospital

selina using the whip for the first time in 3x22

BRUCE DOING BATMAN SHIT AT THE END OF THE EPISODE!!! that rooftop shot is INCREDIBLE

jim vs scarecrow 4x02 - i wish we’d seen more of jonathan in general tbh, he would have been an excellent parallel to bruce with the whole “become what you fear” thing

lucius making bruce bulletproof armour for “rock climbing” because he’s an absolute legend

BILLIONAIRE BRAT BRUCE WAYNE AT THE AUCTION - DAVID’S COMEDY TIMING WAS BRILLIANT AND WE DIDN’T DESERVE IT - 4x03. this was a wonderful moment for bruce and shows the development of his “ bruce wayne mask”

the sirens team up

“you want a war? YOU’VE GOT ONE” - oswald cobblepot

Selina vs Ivy - 4x14 (”I’m no hero.” plus the whip? YES PLEASE)

Any time anybody is under Ivy’s hypnosis because it is absolute comedy gold

i honestly just want to put 4x15-4x22 in general because it’s my fave block of episodes in the show’s entire run but shoutouts to jeremiah’s descent into madness, the reveal in 4x20 and the entire twin arc in general, harvey refusing to be hypnotised again and just screaming and chasing after mad hatter and scarecrow in 4x17, “but i trust you ed” and that whole ed/oswald pier scene in 4x15, bruce choosing to stay in gotham after the bridges have blown and making gotham his resposibility and his and alfred’s goodbye, and jim and bruce’s final scene with the light which is paralleled with their first ever scene because i’m a sucker for full circle moments - also BRUCE IS THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL

oswald telling ed that he couldn’t just let him die

5x07! 5x07! 5x07! BRUCE VS JEREMIAH

ed saving oswald in 5x08 and oswald saying “we really are meant for each other”

the batcat kiss at the wedding in 5x09 and alfred and lucius’ reaction to it (which me and my brother now joke is a result of them both having been equally tired of thomas and martha’s shit in pennyworth and are now just like ‘oh no, not again’ XD)

HARVEY BULLOCK in general

selina and alfred vs bane

ed coming back to help save the city because, and only because, oswald stayed

selina and bruce blowing up wayne enterprises in 5x11

batcat vs bane

barbara naming her child after herself like the icon she is, but also giving her the middle name lee and letting her have her father’s surname so that when she grows up she knows who she can rely on (so pure)

WHENEVER YOU NEED ME

bruce and alfred’s goodbye in 5x11

barbara being determined to have a taller tower than bruce lmao - 5x12

selina stealing the diamond

Lucius “i didn’t even hesitate” Fox building bruce’s suit and tech and generally just being the MVP that he is - 5x12

oswald and ed being 100% ready to fight batman but saying “tomorrow” after seeing him jump rooftops

the FINAL SCENE - jim with the batsignal, calling batman “a friend” and that final shot of batman on the rooftop because BOY WAS THAT EARNED (though i still think david was robbed even though it is his face under the cowl) and solidifying bruce’s position as the light in the darkness of gotham!!

and this probably isn’t even all of them but thank you so much for asking. what are your favourite moments?

#sorry this took so long #I knew I needed to type this on my laptop because it was going to be so long haha #answered #smart-as-paint

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cozykhaos · 4 years ago

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A New Sun Part 14

I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long! I had to wait for inspiration to strike and it did! And to apologize there is some sexy bits!

Sebastian

It was too early in the morning to be awake, I had been up most of the night working on my latest project I was hired for. At ass o’clock in the morning I heard a knock at the door, which I promptly ignored. It didn’t stop my door from creaking open and my mom asking me for help. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head.

“Please Sebby,” she sat down on the edge of my bed. “I just need help with loading and unloading, I’ll have help once we get to the beach.”

I sighed. The Luau my least favorite holiday.

“I know you were up late last night but Maru and Demetrius are working in the lab, I could really use an extra set of hands.”

The sentence caused me to grinned my teeth together. OF COURSE THEY COULDN’T HELP. Why should they have to help while they worked? I just stayed up all night working my ass off but no one cared about that.

“Sebby?”

Bash.

My eyes popped open, of course she would be the one to get me motivated. I grumbled and sat up.

“Thank you Seb,” my mom smiled and gave me a quick hug before leaving. I dressed in gray shorts, purple tank top and my work boots then headed out. Mom handed me my to go mug, already filled with coffee. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

We loaded the truck in record time and drove down to the beach. The planning committee was already there. Mayor Lewis, Haley, Evelyn, Marnie, Gus the towns over achievers. A wildfire of curls caught my attention, her once alabaster skin had lost the angry sunburn and had now tanned into a golden honey, a constellation of freckles were sprinkled over her arms and face. I hadn’t seen her since last week when we went on our scavenger hunt. Once she had the items in hand she had thanked me and all but ran away. Since then neither myself, Abigail or Sam had seen her.

I turned away from Kit and started to unload the truck of the buffet tables and stage for the cauldron of soup.

“We can just put them right here, the others will figure out where they need to go,” mom said, starting the line up.

I grunted a response as I lifted a table. I glanced back over at Kit, she was listening intently to Lewis and nodding.

Mom and I unloaded the tables in record time, I was ready to go home and take a shower then find my way back to bed. I slammed the bed of the truck closed just as mom said. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to talk to Lewis.” I rolled my eyes as she turned her back and leaned against the closed door. My fingers tapped against the side of my leg. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted -

My thoughts were cut off, I could feel her eyes on me. I looked up and even though she was across the beach I could see the look of concern on her face. The corners of her mouth pulled into a frown, her eye brows knitted together. The look vanished when I raised my hand in a small greeting. She beamed, her smile reaching her green eyes.

Fuck. What did I do to deserve that smile?

I looked at the ground.

Then turned.

And left.

I didn’t deserve her smile. Or the gaze of her bright green eyes, the color of the new summer advances. I didn’t deserve to gaze upon her face, where all I wanted to do was to trace the new constellations of stars that were sprinkled across her soft skin.

Love is hard, fucking is easy.

I dragged my hand down my face and scrolled through the meaningless names on my phone. There had to be someone in here to distract me from Kit. I flicked through the names, most of the girls I had met at a club in Zuzu called Fantasia. It was a BDSM club that I had started to frequent a couple years ago.

Like I said.

Fucking was easy.

No string attached.

No emotions.

Was that something that I could accomplish with Kit? Could I kiss her and feel nothing? I looked at the name on my phone, it was the girl from the electronic store in Zuzu. What was her name again?

Morgan.

That was it.

I remember the way she had fished my phone out of my pocket, typing her number in before sliding it back into my jeans. Hesitating I scrolled up to Kit’s name. There was a picture of the two of us as her icon picture. Her red curls flared around her, unable to be tamed that day. Clover green eyes clear and that smile reached upwards and filled them. Then… then there was me. I didn’t deserve her.

I scrolled back to Morgan’s name and sent a text.

Kit’s P.O.V.

Abbie and I watched, wine coolers in hand as Sam and Vincent built a sandcastle. The day was warm with a vibrant blue and cloudless sky. The luau was one of the few celebrations that I was apart of growing up and the nostalgia was comforting. I looked back at mayor Lewis who was speaking to the Governor, for a moment I expected to see my grandfather standing next to them.

“I don’t understand, where is Seb?” Abbie said checking her phone again.

“You know he hates these things,” Sam spoke over his shoulder. “He will probably skip the luau and show up for the bonfire tonight.”

“Bonfire?” I asked.

“Yeah, we have it every year,” Abbie finished tapping out a message then looked turned to me. “Did you not come before?”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Really?” Abbie paused, her eyebrows knitted together. “For some reason I remember you being there.”

“That’s just how strong our love is,” I bumped our hips together.

“You know it boo,” Abbie slung her arm over my shoulder.

“You guys are cute together,” Sam said.

“Can I have everyone join me around the cauldron please!” Lewis shouted from the middle of the beach. “Well folks, it’s time once again for the potluck ceremony. I trust that you all put high-quality ?ingredients in the post this year. We don’t want the governor to regret his visit to the valley! Well… Governor? Would you do us the honor of tasting the soup?”

“Of course! I’ve been looking forward to this all year!” The Governor clapped his hands together and rubbed them together. Abbie, Sam and I exchanged looks, Sam opened his mouth with what had to be a sarcastic comment when the Governor jumped in surprised.

“Oh my!” He belted out. “That’s the best soup I’ve ever tasted!” He didn’t hesitate to grab and bowl and fill it and slurped it down.

Lewis filled his own bowl and took a hesitant taste. “You’re right! It is delicious! Wonderful job everyone! Now, who else wants a taste?”

They were right, the soup was amazing. It was sweet from the tomatoes I brought, spicy from the jalapenos. The macaroni had absorbed the flavor of the bone broth. Even in the afternoon warmth the soup was delicious and comforting.

That comfort lasted all day and into the evening. The sun melted behind the mountains casting the golden glow of honey onto the water. The girls and I passed a bottle of blueberry wine between us, a bottle that never touched a corporate shelf. It was sweet and cooled the sting of summer that had kissed my nose and shoulders.

“What games do we have planned for tonight?” Leah asked.

“Thought we would spice things up tonight with Kiss or Strip,” Haley wiggled her eyebrows.

Abbie perked up. “Speaking of, has anyone talked to Sebastian?”

I choked on a sip of wine, coughing I passed the bottle to Emily.

“Thinking of kissing Sebastian under the stars are we?” Leah teased.

“Someone is, but it isn’t me,” Abbie dug her elbow into my ribs. I slapped her arm away and turned towards the beach where Sam, Shane and Alex were tossing a football between them. Harvey and Alex stood back with there own glasses of wine.

Robin hadn’t seemed worried, she hadn’t even mentioned his absence when I briefly spoke to her earlier.

Maru pipped up from her spot next to Penny (who hadn’t touched the bottle of wine). “He left yesterday,” she shrugged. “Didn’t really say anything just that he’d be back sometime today.”

Abbie frowned, I reached for the bottle of wine and drank deeply.

“Come on, lets get this night started,” Haley bounced to her feet, with a twirl she sashayed down the boardwalk.

“That girl has more grace in her tiny toe than I do in my whole body,” Leah said.

“I really hate it,” Abbie sighed.

“Same,” Emily frowned looking after her sister.

I stood, my knees popping and I groaned.

“That’s more like it!” Maru clapped, her own knees popping when she stood.

Haley had confiscated the football from the guys and had taken a seat around the fire, the guys were sitting, Shane and Alex pouting that their game was interrupted.

“Since we have a new face I’ll explain the rules, granted the are stupid simple,” Haley flicked her golden hair over her shoulder. “You spin the bottle, you either choose to kiss the person it lands on, or strip. Easy, right Farmer?”

“Stupid simple,” I muttered.

She took out a square of plywood and grabbed an empty wine bottle, starting to pass it to Alex she reached over his head and handed it Harvey. There was a noticeable frown on Harvey’s face, even in the firelight, but he spun any ways.

I grabbed for a wine cooler and drank.

The bottle landed on Penny, Maru demeanor visibly sunk. Harvey shrugged and moved to kiss Penny, giving her a small peck.

Next to Abbie Sam cringed.

Elliot was next, landing on Abbie.

“By the way, if you want more privacy, feel free to walk to the other side of the beach,” Haley pointed.

“That doesn’t seem nes-” Abbie was cut off by Elliot’s lips pressing against her, his fingers curling through her purple hair. Elliot pulled away, his thumb brushing across Abbie’s bottom lip. Her mouth dropping.

“Want me to get your jaw for you?” I asked, pretending to pick it out of the sand. She slapped my hand away and stared at Elliot.

“At least close your mouth,” Sam shut her mouth.

The game continued, with Sam taking off his shoes when the bottle landed on Abbie. I followed suite when the bottle landed on Shane, next to me Emily squeezed my hand in thanks. Then when she spun and it landed on Shane, she practically lept across the circle and kissed him. There was an audible gasp from Shane before he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her back. Haley cleared her throat loudly.

Twice.

Three times.

Before Emily finally stopped kissing Shane, then kissed his cheek with a loud smooch. Emily plopped back down in the sand next to me, a giant smile on her face, the blush on Shane’s cheeks could of replaced the glow of the fire.

Alex spun next, the bottle pointing towards me. My heart rate quickened in fear, in case he did choose to kiss me. I could already feel Haley’s wrath and a shutter ran down my spine. For both of our safety and because Alex was fiercely loyal, he stripped off his shirt, revealing his toned abs, he was the first to show actual skin.

“Good boy,” Haley purred, running her fingers through his hair.

The game continued, I ended up kissing Sam on my next turn, a simple peck that tasted like Joja Cola.

I thankfully did not puke on him.

It was back to Elliott, who on this spin landed on me.

“My my, it looks like the bottle favors that side of the fire.” It was true, on his last turn he landed on Sam, whom Elliott had kissed, loudly and dramatically on the mouth.

Ellis moved towards me, Abbie shifted away from me, I turned to look at her when Elliot’s hand touched my cheek. I turned back to him, his lips grazed over mine, lightly pressing against mine in a chaste kiss. He returned to seat and I looked back at Abbie, still blinking at strobe light speeds.

“Right?” She mouthed at me.

“Seb!” Sam shouted as a shadowy figure sat next to him. “I knew you’d show your face eventually!”

Fuck.

“Sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to be here,” sitting criss crossed, Sebastian propped his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on his palm.

“Well thank you for gracing us with your negative energy,” Haley sneered, Sebastian flicked her off.

“Since you are late you’ll have to wait until we go around the circle again,” Haley said. Sebastian didn’t respond. I suddenly couldn’t remember how to breath and every second seemed to drag by.

Had he seen the kiss between Elliot and I? Why did it even matter? Why did I care? It wasn’t like he was interested in me. Unless Abbie spilled the beans and told him how I felt. She wouldn’t do that, would she?

What was I even doing here?

The Farm.

You’re a failure.

You’re letting your grandfather down.

Again.

AGAIN.

He doesn’t like you.

“Kit?” Sebastian was leaning in front of me, the fire light blocked by his frame. My eyes darted back and forth, no one seemed to notice my panic attack or the fact I was now clutching the front of my shirt. “Kit, you okay?” He asked softly, I shook my head no. He held out his hand to me, I took it and he helped me up.

“Kit?” Haley asked.

“We will be right back, give her a minute,” Sebastian said pulling me along after him.

“Want me to come?” Abbie asked. I just shook my head, wither she saw me or not I don’t know, I just trailed after Sebastian, anchoring myself to the warmth of his hand in mine.

We crossed a small bridge, past some tide pools and to the rock face. I pushed my back against the cool rock surface and closed my eyes.

“Deep breaths, you’re okay,” Sebastian spoke quietly, he ran his thumb over the back of my hand, rubbing slow circles into my knuckles. “Hey Kit?”

I looked up into his dark eyes.

“Can I talk to you?” He asked.

I shook my head again.

“No?” His eyebrows knitted together.

“Now…. Is …. not… the best… time,” I said between gasp of breaths.

“I’m just bad at this,” Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. “And if I don’t do it now, then I might not be brave enough to do it again.”

My eyes flicked downward.

Rejection

Sebastian caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced me to look up at him.

“Bash -”

My words were taken from me as his lips crashed against mine. He pulled me close, one arm snaking around my waist, the other planted against the rock wall behind me. I suddenly couldn’t figure out how to think, or what to do with my hands. Sebastian backed away and the ole’ hamster started running on its wheel again. I grabbed at the front of his hoodie and pulled him back towards me.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since we were kids-”

“Kids? Really?” He smirked.

“Teenagers, whatever. We are not done!” I snapped and pushed my lips against his. He placed both hands on the rock face behind us, trapping me. My hands slid down his toned chest, until I found his belt loops, hooking my fingers around them and pulled him against me. Feeling his hardness I let out a moan.

“Fuck, lets get out of here,” Sebastian groaned against my lips. He began to trail kisses down to my neck, sucking on the skin at the base of my ear, I let out a gasp.

It took me a moment to put a thought together to answer him. “What about the others?”

“I mean I’m really not into orgies,” he nipped at my ear lobe.

Fuck.

His knee found its way in between my legs.

“My shoes are still over there,” I wiggled my bare toes in the sand.

“Say the word and I can get Sam to grab them,” Sebastian whispered into my ear, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I couldn’t think properly with him so close. “Kit, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want too,” Sebastian moved to where he was looking down into my eyes. “Understand? We can go back to the fire right now. We can pretend this never happened, or talk about it later.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, staring up into his eyes. “What are you thinking about?”

“Wither I want you to cum on my face or dick first,” Sebastian shrugged.

First?

“Lets get out of here.” I grabbed his hand.

“Follow me."

#A New Sun #Stardew Valley #stardew valley sebastian #sebastian stardew valley #Stardew Valley Fanfiction #sebastian fanfiction #sebastian x oc #farmer x sebastian

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