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fyrapartnersearch · 5 years ago

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Calling for dedicated roleplayers with a passion for writing

Hello! My name is Aaliyah or Ally for short, and I will cut right to the chase. I am looking for a mature role-player, preferably 21+ but will also accept 18+ (just to be sure that you are of legal age, otherwise it’ll be very uncomfortable).

  As I am 26 years of age with 12 years of experience, I hope to meet someone who shares my passion in creative writing, as well as formulating interesting plots and characters.   In case you are curious about me as a person, I am a full-time student and a young writer who works at the gym on the side, but also enjoys other creative outlets such as drawing. Usually my schedule is fairly full, including the attendance of friends or family. However I always have ample time for a good roleplay. :)   

I am seeking a literate writer who is committed to a long-term partnership, and by that I truly mean it. Please do not respond if you are uncertain of upholding a stable roleplay. Furthermore, I’ve noticed the “ghosting after the first few messages“ trope is a fairly widespread issue in the roleplaying scene / community. I would like to implore you from refraining it. I’ve grown quite irritated by it lately and rather like to avoid it in the near future. That way we don’t waste anyone’s time. Thank you in advance. If you are hitting a hiatus, that’s completely fine! A simple message of putting things on hold is completely sufficient, but I would like to keep in touch in case the story bears great potential. Now I have a wish, or as other say it, a certain craving for something new and fresh. And that something is quite specific, as my interests are a little unorthodox. Not the typical ‘Marvel, DC, My Hero Academia, etc’ type of stick. (Not to throw shade on them! They are great! Just not my cup of tea at the moment)

 I heavily enjoy video-games, tv-shows, comics, films, books, the list goes on. Hopefully I can attract some kindred spirits.   I do roleplay both Canon and Original!

  So if there’s no luck in finding a fitting Canon based story, we can always switch to original world building. First, I like to list all of my heavy cravings and interests. The ones marked in bold are usually the ones I am very willing to do.

  Books:

Harry Potter Next Gen (original character cast)

True Blood

Vampire Hunter D (or Manga / Anime)

Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

Game of Thrones

Videogames:

Dragon Age (from Origins to current instalment)

Castlevania

Devil May Cry

Infamous series

The Darkness

Smite

Star Wars the Old Republic

 Webcomics:

Lore Olympus

Lookism

True Beauty

Comics:

Constantine

Hellboy

Witchblade

The Darkness

X-Men

Films:

Alita Battle Angel

Kingsmen

Vampire Hunter D

TV-Shows live action:

True Blood

The Boys

Vikings

Game of Thrones (Open for discussion. Still haven’t recovered from the season finale however…)

TV-Shows animated:

Hellsing

Castlevania (Netflix adaptation)

Devil May Cry (Anime adaptation)

Demon Slayer (I have only started watching this)

FMA Brotherhood

Jojo’s bizarre adventure

Black lagoon

As for original plots, I am very keen on urban and gothic fantasy, but also mythology as well as horror and crime and action. I have plenty of ideas up my sleeve, some of them quite fleshed out and some of them being concepts in the making. Either way, I would rather have these ideas introduced throughout email or whatever platform we choose to communicate on. Themes for an original story I am most inclined to do are:

Supernatural / Metaphysical (Demons, Angels, Spirits, Monsters, etc.)

Mystery

Crime

Action

Sci-Fi & fantasy (Aliens coming in contact with unsuspecting earthlings during the middle ages / ancient time-periods)

Urban fantasy mixed with high school / college themes (similar to Supernatural with local monsters, creatures, etc)

Now onto the qualities of what my roleplaying partner should have.

What it all entails: What the Partnership should be: I strongly encourage an active roleplayer who is not afraid of sharing 50% of ideas, plotting, length, detail but most important of all, passion. A bird cannot fly with only one wing. Communication: I love making new friends and brainstorming, and communication is the bedrock of it all. It strengthens our compatibility and the story. Should there be anything that might bother you, or if you think you are left out in some type of way (be it a mistake on my part or if we’re both at fault here), simply tell me. It really doesn’t bother me rewriting certain scenes to better fit the narrative. We can always exchange opinions and see what would benefit the story most. The Way of Writing: No one-liners. No text-talk. No half-assed replies. And certainly no ‘quality over quantity’ when you can have both. I don’t expect anyone to write a novel, absolutely not. I don’t either, but if I get the feeling of my partner wavering in their effort and not investing as much as I do, I have to give them the chop, unfortunately. Too often have I encountered partners who showed strong enthusiasm at first, but after a while… they slacked and eventually only put the adequate effort into their side of things whilst completely disregarding my characters. I hope to avoid this in the future. And now to myself and how I write: My writing: Third person perspective usually, although I have made some exceptions in my years of writing. My style is wide-ranging and flexible, which means that frequently, word count will go up 1000+ per reply - though it also depends on the given situation and partner. And yes, I do double, preferably even, most likely in a canon universe. However this again wholly depends on the type of story, partner and cast of characters. I am very open and willing to discuss.

 Rating: So you are writing with some of mature age. I have 12 years of writing under my belt. There will be violence, there will be swearing, gore, intimacy, uncomfortable topics, drama, conflict and other dark themes included when you are writing with me. I have few limits but I will respect the boundaries of my partner. And lastly, I won’t fade to black or skip out on the nitty gritty, unless it doesn’t serve a particular purpose in forwarding the story.

Characters: I write canon as well as OC characters. Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely sufficient. Characters should be written as opulent, flawed, unique, talented, heroic, villainous, spiteful, angry, and everything in-between. In other words, don’t be scared of making them flawed.

Romance: Openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might be more adaptable with this one. If the chemistry of two characters compel me, I’m on board with it! When it comes to sexual scenarios and intimacy (intercourse, foreplay, all that funny business). I encourage eroticism, but always in a tasteful, sensual manner (that goes for romance as well), though it is never the main focus of any of my stories, rather a tool to further the plot. Erotica is welcome but never the focus of any kind of roleplay. Content: Drama, violence, sex, metamorphosis, symbolism, action, romance, pretty much everything is a-okay. I am not explicitly bothered by certain subjects that may be uncomfortable for the general public. Roleplays are fictional stories and we best keep treating them as such. If there are things you are uncomfortable with, name them and I shall respect those boundaries. But don’t be surprised when suddenly one of our characters bites the dust, or gets tortured, etc. It may be difficult to write and read, but it is all part of the story and a tool for furthering the plot. My roleplays imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical altercations among other things. But I also endorse beauty, serenity and placid moments for our characters to grow in. I love it when it comes full circle… everyone- and everything has a beautiful and hideous side. Again, this is mature and I am not here to coddle, I am here for a challenge. Should I hit a hiatus myself, I will inform you as soon as possible. :)  

Platforms I usually roleplay on are email and google-docs. I also have Discord in case for plotting and chatting outside of the RP. Though Google Hangouts has proven itself as a sufficient chat-medium for such things, so I rather stay with that one.   

When you message me, please use the given codenames so I know what you like to specify in.

Blue Rose: Canon  

Red Feather: Original  

  I’d be happy to receive a small description of yourself and what your passions are! :) Message me here: EMAIL: [email protected] I am very excited to hear from you! Sincerely yours -Ally

#indie rp #indie roleplay #independent roleplay #oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #long term #email #tumblr #harry potter rp #spn rp #aou rp #submission

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thinking-through-some-things · 5 years ago

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sure is interesting how many people will talk about propaganda and being a careful consumer and then just. turn around and act like disney is somehow above political and economical problems.

it's astounding how many people say "disney should just own everything! then we wouldn't have to worry about who owns the characters! think of the crossovers!" and honestly don't see a problem with that. even people who understand, to some degree, 1) corporations aren't your friend, and/or 2) monopolies are bad.

so many of us just look at Disney through the rose-colored glasses of childhood nostalgia, and because of that, we can't conceive of disney as being yet another corporation that values profit over art and people. except it is.

we're so blinded by the endless franchises disney pumps out, and the innocence we associate the company with because of the content that it produces/has produced, that time and time again we'll ignore shady business practices, poorly done films/shows, complaints and strikes of disney employees, etc., all because we cannot picture disney as yet another company that prioritizes profit above all else.

but it is.

i don't blame you if you like disney movies — so do i! but disney is not perfect, and it is not infallible.

disney's animation is not inherently better than other companies. on a technical level they may be able to achieve more, but 1) they have significantly more money than any other animation company so this should be expected, and 2) all this has resulted in a homogenous style that doesn't take artistic risks — because it's safer, profit-wise, to stick with a reliable art style that has proven to sell well.

disney movies are not intently better written than other films. sometimes it's just that disney has a solid corner of the market in popular but niche genres. sometimes it's that they can afford to hire better (or just. more) writers, or out-bid other studios for strong scripts.

disney movies are not better movies simply because they are disney. sometimes it's just that you've forgotten their bad films and only remember the ones you like. and sometimes you like bad films because they're disney and you expect them to be good.

it's time we started looking much more critically at disney. it's time we started expecting more from them.

"they can't include gay characters because they have to worry about conservatives/international markets." bullshit. disney can afford to include gay characters. they can afford to have a film that underperforms. they just care more about money than representation.

"the animation is so advanced! it just looks the same because that's what's in style." disney could be producing some really unique and unusual stuff. they can afford experimental styles and plot choices. they just won't try that because they won't risk losing money.

i can't tell you how many times i've seen people say "i don't like that disney does xyz, but i'm still going to see this film because it's disney." i get it. i've been there. but when are we going to stop letting disney dictate our entire media experience?

honestly, disney is killing so many creative industries and genres.

remember how disney decided to scrap their 2d department because it wasn't making as much as 3d animation? and nearly the entire animation industry followed their lead? and now we have an endless supply of subpar 3d animation, because few studios have the resources disney has? most us animation studios just poorly imitate disney's style, which is why the most interesting and innovative animated films today come from outside the us.

why does competition matter? look at animated tv shows vs films. since disney dominates the animated film industry, other studios have struggled to break free of their control. but in television, cartoon network and nickelodeon have maintained just enough of a share of the market to encourage a variety of animated styles — and netflix's growing list of animated shows, including many international options, have resulted in a boom of really good animated shows in the past few years.

i'm not saying these other companies are better than disney, only pointing out that, by forcing disney to share the stage with a serious competitor, these companies are forcing disney to take more chances and be more creative.

and. touching on marvel and star wars. part of the reason disney has been successful with these films is yes, they knew how to cater to the right audience at the start. but now they're just relying on brand/franchise/star power, flashy effects they can afford, predictably successful plot points, and pure nostalgia to get people's attention (and money).

marvel movies don't even have to be good anymore. regardless of what you think of the movies, you're going to go see the next one. because as long as you liked one character, as long as you're invested in one story, you have to see every. other. marvel. film. to have any idea what's happening in the next film with that one character. it's gotten to the point that there's really no point in watching new films if you haven't already watched previous ones because they don't explain basic information if it was mentioned in another marvel movie.

also. because disney's marvel films are the most popular and recognizable superhero films, most viewers expect all superhero films to look and feel like marvel films — especially since there are so many that it feels like that's just. how superhero movies look. so instead of seeing a wide variety of superhero films trying different storytelling tactics, visual effects, narrative justifications, etc., we see, again, poor imitations that lack disney's budget and really different films that get rejected because they don't match our expectations.

the live action remakes really are the epitome of this problem (and before anyone says anything, no, the live action films are not about copyright law. that's not how copyright works).

first of all, disney could be taking daring risks and really challenging these films. they could have, for example, given middle eastern or indian directors, costume/set designers, writers, etc. crew members the chance to take a film that, while loved by many, has been criticized by others for being orientalist, and turn the film into something that reflected and appreciated their culture(s) from a personal perspective; and disney, in turn, could have helped those people move up in a competitive and hard-to-break-into field.

but they didn't do that.

or beauty and the beast. disney could have gone in a completely different direction, telling a brand new story and challenging ideas of social convention and love. or really pushed the aesthetics of the film.

but they didn't.

except for a few minor changes and an overblown "first gay disney character!!!" campaign (that amounted to almost worse than nothing), the live action was practically a carbon copy of the animated one. they played it safe and used the same predictably popular elements, and the few "feminist" jabs they added in were so uncontroversial that no one in 2017 would complain about them except laughably misogynistic people who hated how preachy those moments felt. in other words, even the "politics" they added in were safe.

ironically enough, my favorite disney live action film has been cinderella. i though it was visually interesting and different, and the changes to the script/plot focused on personal freedom and survival and retaining your sense of empathy despite abuse. but it didn't do as well monetarily for disney, it is, categorically, a failure. so we're likely to see disney rely more on close retellings than changed stories.

i don't think all disney films are bad, nor do i think you're a bad person for liking disney/pixar/marvel/star wars films. but if you think disney is the only company that does x well, or that they really should just own y company, or who cares if they do z, then you need to take a step back and re-evaluate.

we need to stop excusing disney. we need to stop thinking the company is cute. as a corporation, their goal is not to coddle you or make the world safer and nicer. their goal is to make money. full stop.

if you want to see a disney movie, fine. go see it. but don't watch it just because it's disney. make them earn your business by. actually. making good movies.

(sorry this is really disorganized and definitely missing points. it should probably be like. five separate essays. oops.)

#disney #capitalism #media #propaganda #spider man

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audiogrizzly · 5 years ago

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Top 5 Games of 2019

It was a little tricky to construct a top 5 for this year, though there have been a couple of surprises. I wasn’t expecting the year to be a bit crap as we are no w on the cusp once more of a new generation. But 2012 wasn’t all that bad of a year (PS4 and Xbox One would release in 2013) and at the moment, everyone is doing alright. PS4 has sold through over 100 million systems, Nintendo are definitely on an “on” generation with Switch, Xbox has been able to get back into peoples good books with things like Game Pass (on both Console and PC, their PC side they seem to really be turning around), there’s even interesting things happening in the mobile space with Apple Arcade.

This won’t be the last year where my top 5 games are full of current gen titles, I am expecting the new systems to drop in around November, last time it was hard to find a top 5 specific to PS4 (as I listed each platform separately back then). It IS however, another list of mostly AAA tier games. If you want to know what smaller more “interesting” games I have been playing, check out my honourable mentions at the end.

Also, follow me on Melee. It’s this new image blogging service from Imgur which you can download now on the IOS App Store (its just on iPhone at the moment) and it has seemingly been built to help people share gaming related clips and images off of places like Twitter and Instagram (and err, here on Tumblr). I posted a couple of daft clips of me failing in Modern Warfare and Destiny 2 and it didn’t take long for them to amass a few likes and comments.

That sounded like a sponsored advert but ain’t nobody paying me for this. Let’s get into my top 5

5. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

I was about to select Gears 5 to be my number 5 until I saw sense and cast my memory back to when I started playing Jedi (all the way back in November. I was impressed by its intense action, impressive visuals and great characters. I especially enjoyed the 4 armed pilot who always complains. I did feel that towards the end I got sick of managing large groups of enemies so I dropped the difficulty to get through it, but I still haven’t achieved 100% of activities on all planets so I can still go back to it one day.

4. Borderlands 3

We all knew this was coming but not even I had any idea that we would have been actually playing it in 2019 way back at the start of the year. For me, I look at the game. I don’t care about weird magicians or their insane sounding legal woes, all I’m interested in is the work of a team who deserved better for their last title, but am still glad returned to what they do best, looting and shooting. I enjoyed rejoining these characters I have followed over the last 10 years, all the referenced to older games, cameos from characters from Tales From the Borderlands and The Pre Sequel and was sad to see some people go. I still have about a year of extra content to go through and I really appreciate the efforts they have made to make the game last longer than just one playthrough through in the Proving Grounds, Circle of Slaughter and Mayhem modes. Though I have always tended to stick to Borderlands games and create builds for each and every vault hunter, so I will be doing that.

3. Mortal Kombat 11

It’s been a while since I last put a fighting game into my end of year round up. And I HAVE fallen off MK11 a little bit, but this entry reminded me of how impressive it is for Nether Realms to pack their fighting games with some many things to do and keep people playing outside of just going into matchmaking and fighting others. The Vault this year is basically another little adventure full of exploration and puzzle solving and the Towers of Time give you plenty of challenge and direction of many months to come. You also have to give the developer credit for never backing down on the brutality of the game, they must have all got their heads together after DC Universe vs. and vowed never again to make watered down versions of Fatalities. It is a game that keeps getting better and better.

2. Call of Duty Modern Warfare

I was debating whether or not to include this years CoD. I always get the same type of enjoyment out of it each year, people complain that it never changes but I’m glad it sticks to a formula. Of course they are not identikit games, there are new maps, new modes, new ways of building your loadout and new touches, like how in this year you can snap to edges to stay in cover while you shoot, there’s the new special equipment system where you can drop ammo or reduce your footstep noise. Having doors you can either peek through or smash open adds another level of strategy, there have been times where I have been able to escape being under fire by closing a door, re-positioning and then wasting whoever just wanders in.

The campaign this year, good to see it back, but whatever, the co-op mode is Spec Ops again, like it was back in MW2 and 3 but on a much larger scale, I have yet to complete one of these btw. But as always, it’s the multiplayer that does it for me and Modern Warfare deserves credit for being what must be the first AAA game to feature cross platform play, not just launch with it. I know that games like Fortnite are popular, but I don’t see that as a AAA title, it doesn’t have the full package, it’s just a mode and it started off small. Call of Duty is expected to be big each year, has a lot riding on it and allowing for cross play is a big step. I especially appreciate being able to play with a keyboard and mouse on PS4 and being able to matchmake only with people playing with controllers on PC, in fact, I have never really given the game much of a shot on PC before as I know people just fall of it, there has often been low player numbers reported on the PC versions of CoD and it looks like it won’t have that problem this time round due to cross play.

Modern Warfare still has to contend with Destiny 2 and Overwatch for my time as my main multiplayer game but it’s still as fun as ever.

1. Control

Put this down as my main “surprise” game of 2019. A game which was not on my watch list, though I was aware of it as you can’t ignore a game from the makers of Max Payne (I did skip Alan Wake and didn’t care much for Quantum break though). Bought it at the last minute before its release, downloaded it and was wowed by the sinister nature of the environment you run around in. This weird fictitious US government agency which looks into paranormal activity which you seem to have become in charge of because you picked up a mysterious weapon from the deceased Director while searching for your brother. What then follows is about 12 hours of wacky powers and odd video clips as you unearth what has been going on in this strange ever morphing building.

I especially loved how the game never holds your hand too much, the map of each floor is vague enough that you also have to rely on in-game signposting to move around, as well as a bit of memory work. There is also great humour involved too in some of the PSA posters on a lot of the walls, the antics of the caretaker and the videos you find of Dr. Darling throughout the game.

I did have a few weird technical issues with the game throughout playing, but still found it to be visually pleasing, there was this weird hitch that used to appear after coming out of the pause screen that always threw me, it would be followed by a few moments of low performance before getting back into the smooth action. But this didn’t stop me from having a great time with Control. Perhaps the game that will be the most prominent in my head when I think of 2019.

So there you have it, control is my best game of 2019. But let’s look at the other new games I played throughout the year in my honourable mentions:

Gears 5

The Outer Worlds

Days Gone

Apex Legends

Far Cry New Dawn

Trover Saves the Universe

Concrete Genie

Devil May Cry 5

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

And also a special mention to these old games that were rereleased/remastered/repackaged etc in 2019:

Borderlands Game of the Year Edition Remastered

Halo Reach

And now, a look at the games I have on my watchlist for 2020:

Cyberpunk 2077

Last of Us Part 2

Ghost of Tsushima

Halo: Infinite

Watch Dogs Legion

Phantasy Star Online 2

Gods & Monsters

Doom Eternal

Overwatch 2

Diablo IV

Minecraft dungeons

Marvel's Avengers

Carrion

Streets of Rage 4

Will they all even come out? Let’s find out, happy new year!

#mortal kombat #modern warfare #control #star wars #melee #borderlands

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servinglemonade · 5 years ago

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My first reaction to Disney +

Hello... It’s been a while since I have posted here. I had exams, then summer vacation and then I finally started college! So now that I’ve settled in I thought it would be fun to give you my thoughts on Disney+! Yes, you read that right! Disney+ is here... in the Netherlands. Exclusively. Disney is having a free trial here which started on September 12th and goes on until launch day on November 12th!

So let’s dive into Disney+

Interface & Features

The interface is pretty standard. It looks like Netflix, but obviously with a nice Disney touch! The home page looks really great in my opinion. On top, there is a header that showcases one movie per category (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic). You can browse per category as well. When you hover over the brand you get a little animation. Disney has a castle with fireworks, Pixar has the clouds, Marvel has their intro, Star Wars has stars and National Geographic a scenic mountain view. On the search page, you also have several collections like the Princess Collection (all princess movies and series) or Disneynature (all Disneynature movies). Hopefully, they’ll add some more soon. It’s a handy feature in my opinion. You can also create a watchlist.

I find the movie-watching experience great as well. It’s simple and sleek. You can choose from multiple languages for both audio and subtitles. It’s also really nice to have all the movies in HD. Some of them are even in 4K/HDR! These are mostly Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Live-Action movies and 2 animations (Ralph Breaks The Internet and Aladdin!).

There is an awesome feature that I stumbled upon while I was doing my research for this post. You can change the way the subtitles, from the color to the font. Even the opacity of the background and the font size! I did see some people complaining about subtitles. I didn’t mind them, however, the fact that Disney is truly listening to the users and trying to fix all these issues is great! Two thumbs up for ya Disney! The last thing I want to touch on here is the extras for the movies. These extras mostly include deleted scenes and trailers. However, some of them have some really cool behind the scenes stuff. The making of Beauty and The Beast, Staging The Ball from the Cinderella Live-action and the making of Sleeping Beauty just to name a few! Really great that all of those are on Disney+ as well.

Profiles

Just a quick little thing I wanted to touch on before I go to the content. You can choose from a significant number of Disney characters for your profile picture. Ranging from Disney Classics to Marvel & Star Wars to villains and princesses and even Disney Channel!

There are so many to choose from! It’s overwhelming. Here are just a few

Now it’s time for the most fun part: the content. All of the originals are not on the service yet, those will come out when Disney+ officially launches on November 12th.

Disney

What isn’t on this page?! The amount of content is so incredible. And not even everything is on it yet! Here you can find your classic Disney animations from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Ralph Breaks The Internet. All in glorious HD or even 4K sometimes. They also have some true Mickey Mouse classics like Steamboat Willie. All the Live-action movies are included here as well. From the more recent remakes (even Dumbo is on here already! If you haven’t seen it yet, please do) to absolute classics like The Princess Diaries, Mary Poppins and all the Pirates of The Caribbean movies. If you grew up with Disney Channel, all your favorite movies and shows can be found on Disney+ now! Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Camp Rock, The Cheetah Girls, That’s so Raven, Halloweentown, Descendants and so many more (all the seasons and sequels for everything). For the little ones, there’s some Disney Junior content, like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Pixar

All the Pixar animated classics are here. From Toy Story to The Incredibles 2. Hopefully Toy Story will be streaming soon too. If you love the Pixar shorts, you’ll be happy to hear that these are all on Disney+! Like Piper, Bao, Knick Knack, For The Birds and more. There are even shorts with characters from some of your favorite Pixar movies like Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, Cars and Toy Story.

Marvel

I just want to thank Disney and Marvel for basically having all the MCU movies here on Disney+! From Iron Man to Captain Marvel. Most of them in 4K as well. And a surprise… Avengers Endgame will hit the service tomorrow!! I’m already preparing to cry my eyes out again. The only movies that are not on the service yet are The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man Homecoming. I really hope Spidey will be on Disney+ as well. I need Far From Home in 4K. Besides MCU related content, you can also watch multiple Marvel animation shows. Like a lot of Spider-Man shows, Rocket and Groot, X-Men, Fantastic Four and many more. Some of the newer live-action Marvel shows are also on the service, like Agent Carter and Agents of SHIELD.

Star Wars

Now for Star Wars. I started watching the movies back in the summer. Disney+ was not being tested yet. So I was excited that all of the entire Star Wars saga can be found here! From Episode I The Phantom Menace all the way to Episode VIII The Last Jedi. It’s been really great to have 1 place to watch these movies. You can find the spin-off movies Rogue One and Solo here too! You can also watch some animated shows like Star Wars The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and lots of Lego Star Wars shorts.

National Geographic

To be honest, I haven’t anything from Nat Geo yet. However, they do have a very exciting original coming tomorrow! However, they have Brain Games! I used to love that show, so I’ll definitely watch that. They have some amazing documentaries. Drain The Ocean, Titanic 20 years later and Free Solo just to name a few.

Disney+ originals at launch

Here is a list + some thoughts:

Star Wars: The Mandalorian (series) (trailers looked very good, so I’m excited for this) Lady and The Tramp (movie) (again trailers looked amazing, great cast as well! Really excited for this!) High School Musical The Musical The Series (series) (yes, that is the actual title, not sure about this one as a massive HSM fan, however, I will check it out) Encore! (series) (not really interested in this one, might watch it one day) The World According to Jeff Goldblum (series) (this is the nat geo original I was telling you about. Such a great idea, who doesn’t love Jeff?! Will watch this 100%) Noelle (movie) (a Christmas movie?! Yes please, I’m in full Christmas mode already so bring it on) Marvel Hero Project (series) (might watch at some point after I have watched all the other things I want to see first) The Imagineering Story (series) (as a huge Disney Parks fan, I might be most excited about this, so that will be the first thing I will watch tomorrow) Pixar In Real Life (series) (I didn’t even know about this until a week ago, looks like a lot of fun, so I will watch this for sure)

The Disney+ app

The app has been pretty solid. It basically works the same as the web version, it’s just on your phone or tablet. The app also has a download feature. Which means you can download anything on the service and watch it offline. How handy is that! If you have a chrome cast, the app is a must. You can cast all of the movies and shows on your TV, which is great because you won’t have to look on your small screen.

Some issues

This was obviously a test version of the final product so it wasn’t perfect from the get-go. The app struggled in the beginning with the continue watching feature. When you were watching a show, it didn’t let you watch the next episode from your continue watching. However, this has been fixed and now works like you would expect. The other big issue was the chrome cast compatibility. When I had just subscribed for the trial it would start normal, however, after a while, it would freeze and the image would get all distorted. So that was pretty annoying. Lots of people were having this issue and by magic, it was fixed a couple weeks later and now works as expected!

Is it worth it?

Now if you either love Disney, Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars or you love everything, yes it is worth it. Even if you just love Marvel and/or Star Wars, I feel like it’s worth it. You have The Mandalorian coming at launch and so many more in the years to come. Like Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, an Obi-Wan show, and so much more. So maybe if you’re waiting for that, you can get it when those shows will be on Disney+. Plus for the price, it’s a pretty sweet deal. Just €6.99 per month or €69.99 per year (which if you calculate it, can save you €13.89 per year). I love everything so for me it can’t get any better than this. Lots of the movies I watched on Netflix were mostly Disney or Marvel movies, so for me, this service is perfect.

Wow, this was a long one. If you have read it all the way through, thank you so much! I hope it was informative.

So how excited are you for Disney+? Will you be getting it at launch or will you wait? Plus if you are getting it, what will you watch first?

Have a magical day!

Yenai

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lumikinetic · 6 years ago

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*flops down on sofa*

*exhales*

Tumblr gives me a lot of wild shit every now and again. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's disheartening. And then yesterday came along and gave me the one-two punch of:

Captain Marvel being dolled up by the Russos instead of a jacket, S.H.I.E.L.D baseball cap and a Nine Inch Nails shirt, which is how she should be (not gonna talk about this, just want it out there that I'm pissed about it)

One Day At A Time being cancelled

ODAAT I'm gonna kind of touch on because it's not really what I want to talk about, but it did help me finalize the words for what I do, and that's capitalism in entertainment.

The most annoying goddamn trend in filmmaking (and of course in TV and Netflix/Prime originals) is companies caring more about their bottom line and less about making good content, and yeah I know this dead horse isn't just beaten, it's thrown into an active supervolcano but it really pisses me off and it's why I hate the new Star Wars stuff (well OK hate is a bit strong but they're uh Not Good) but I'll get to that. What corpos can't seem to get into their bloated skulls is that one cannot exist without the other. You need to put out good, quality content with value so that fans like it so they give you money so they increase your profits so you can make more content and so on. But somewhere down the line some fuckhead went "what if we just pushed out what we have?" and just kinda expected us to not take notice.

Now before the comments section gets all hot and bothered because I know some people on this site don't have the gift of reading comprehension, I know profits are important, I'm saying when companies shun good filmmaking for more money, they get lazy and all they can think about is profit and not how they make that profit, they don't care at all about using that money to make more good, valuable content.

One Day At A Time

I've never watched One Day At A Time but the fact Netflix just outright cancelled it knowing damn well what it meant to the people the characters are representing is just disgusting. And they have the fucking audacity to blame it on the viewership? I've seen hundreds of artworks, gifs and a video clip here and there of this show. I've seen precisely one (1) meme of 13 Reasons Why and that is literally it. I'm not following the tags for either. Plus, #saveODAAT has, last I checked, 350k tweets on trending or thereabouts?

So obviously the viewership isn't the problem, it's the racism and homophobia of cancelling a Spanish (? - again, never seen it), LGBT+ focused show that a lot of people quite happily and positively connect with when a crap show about suicide and Friends gets to stay on. It's just ugh. Cancelling a show like this then paying something like $100mil to keep Friends. I was going to expand on the shitty capitalism here but tbh that's it, Netflix are making bad decisions and like I say, I'm only going to touch on it because it's not the main part.

Star Wars

Go watch the original trilogy and it's clear George Lucas was trying to create and do. He was trying to make art. The key difference between that and modern SW to me is BB8. Look at C3PO and R2D2 and already you can see they belong. C3PO is a translator droid and I'm not sure what exactly R2's job description is but it's obvious he does some kind of pilot assistance for X-Wing fighters. I never understood people who said R2 never did anything, because they obviously haven't seen Star Wars. You get that this is an R2 unit, right? Like, there's more than one out there and they have a job they were specifically built to do, it's just this one particular R2 unit who had to carry the message? Anyway, I'm derailing. R2 and C3PO have functions and they're clearly not new, they've been used for a long time. Then you look at BB8 and instantly it's like "this is a toy. This so called character was designed to sell toys". And then he was. He's a toy, he's on bags, notebooks, pens, clothes, everywhere. Disney is less concerned about making a Star Wars movie and more about making money off of the Star Wars name.

Into The Spider-Verse VS YA Movies

YA movies tend to suck because they were adapted from books and we all know how that pans out but the reason I'm using YA books specifically is because my mind jumped to The Hunger Games. I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happens in those movies. They're so dull and dead and forgettable and the characters are borderline unlikeable but you know which one I do like? Catching Fire, for one reason and one reason only: Jena Malone as Joanna Mason. Save for Haymitch, she's the only character I liked because those two are the only characters with any kind of charisma or life to them. They made an at most halfway decent attempt overall at recreating some otherwise really great books and they made a big show out of it, hiring some pretty well known names. And I'm not disparaging their performances, it was just what I call, ever since Suicide Squad came out, the Harley Quinn effect, in which good actors get given a good character and perform them really well and, through no fault of their own, fuck it up because the character was written poorly and no matter how well they act, if the script doesn't change, the performance will always be shit. The same for Divergent. And Percy Jackson. And Fault In Our Stars.

Then outside all of that you have Perks Of Being A Wallflower which is just a great, heartwarming movie because the characters feel like people and the brightness isn't turned way the fuck down in post and you actually want to be invested, and they're not afraid to have a colour palette beyond a splash of pink here and blue there and red there. Plus, Ant-Man as an English teacher. THEN you go watch Spider-Verse and oh hey. I can actually see the movie now. And I mean see it. They do not slack off when it comes to visuals. Even by animation's standards, everyone is so expressive and alive and... animated. Sorry, I couldn't get a better word but they are! When you look at Miles in comparison to Katniss in terms of writing and performance, the difference is just startling. The only times I can think of where Katniss shows any kind of emotion in the first movie is when she slams the knife in the table and Rue's funeral and I had to think about that. Without thinking for Miles, already I've got "who's Morales?", the scene where Uncle Aaron teaches him the shoulder touch, the scene where Miles spray paints in the subway, that scene in the alley, the moment in Olivia's office when he just freezes after she says she can't wait to watch Peter in immense pain Like That and made all the wlws melt in their seats. You get the idea. So what's the point for this section? Well, as simply as I can put it, Hunger Games was made with money, for money. Spiderverse was made with love, for love. Spiderverse cared about people who read comic books and paid more than enough tribute to the art forms people think of as lesser for no goddamn reason other than elitism and proved for the thousandth time that it is something that can be used in filmmaking. They were trying to make art. Hunger Games and most other YA novel movie adaptations saw a preestablished fan base they could exploit for money. They were trying to make money.

Rambo

This was a weird one, yeah. Don't worry I was confused too when it popped into my head. I saw the original Rambo a while back and what I liked about it (and Apocalypse Now) is it wasn't a war film where the USA charge in and hooray everything's all right, this movie grabs your shirt and says "hey. Vietnam did something to these guys and they're not OK. Probably they'll never be OK". Then I watched the Rambo reboot that came out in like 2011 or something and I remember thinking "OK so now he's just this dude? Who lives in Thailand... And what, that's it?" There was no scene to show his psychological state today. Nothing to acknowledge his PTSD. They just thought "hey! Let's make Rambo but this time, just give him guns and and yelling and spray some blood!" The reason I kind of ended this train of thought quickly is because I realised that, let's be real, the main body of Rambo's audience just want to see Sly Stallone kill some fools. But yeah, the fact that they just ignored John's mental state in place of mega violence is such a glaringly obvious move to just appeal to violent teenage boys.

The Auteur

My favourite director is Wes Anderson and my favourite movie is The Grand Budapest Hotel (though Panos Cosmatos seems to be eyeing these titles with Beyond The Black Rainbow and Mandy, I haven't watched them yet). Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, auteurs always stand out even though their movies are all the same, and I think the reason they're so successful is because that specific style is so much better than most other mainstream cinema. I'm not saying that those other movies are bad, I love them and will watch them again and again but I'm saying Wes Anderson could make a short movie and it would be better than most Marvel movies put together (don't talk to me about Captain Marvel, I haven't seen it yet. Gonna see it this Sunday). No matter what you think of these directors, you can instantly tell the difference between these movies that they care about and the passion and hard work they put in and Disney pumping out their 400th reboot.

It Keeps Working

You guys wanna know the thought that keeps me up at night? Someday they're going to make a Fortnite movie. You guys wanna know why it keeps me up at night? Because it's going to be popular. Yeah, obviously not at the box office, because it'll be a videogame movie and those are worse than book movies, but it will be popular for no apparent reason. And what pisses me off is that Fortnite's popularity is only because of the battle royale mode, which has now essentially become synonymous with dying franchises and it just adds another layer to the lack of creative effort and the movie will just be Hunger Games with guns. Exactly the same as what I said at the start of this rant, there's a really noticeable shift from making content to jumping on whatever bandwagon is passing by because you know it'll make you money. Yeah, you have to spend money to make money but that doesn't mean you get complacent in what you spend your money on or if you spend money at all because when you cut corners, consumers can see that shit.

Anyway I'm done complaining thanks for having the willpower to pay attention to my dumb opinions.

#discourse #odaat #one day at a time #capitalism #star wars #into the spiderverse #rambo #long post #hunger games #hunger games: catching fire #ya fiction #young adult fiction #netflix #eat the rich #corpo #captain marvel #marvel #disney

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skammovistarplus · 6 years ago

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Culture and Translation - S01E09

SKAM+ Clip 4 will get its own post because it’s a fairly long clip and also really dense in terms of content. For now, let’s all marvel as Eva’s life goes fantastically off the rails.

CLIP 1: “Now I have really shit the bed,” Eva says. But that bed will be further soiled soon.

Yo soy Lara y le parto la cara, pero mucho más. Se ha quedado corta (“If I was Lara I’d smash her face harder. I mean, that wasn’t enough”): “Partir la cara” literally means to “break Eva’s face in half,” like you would with a cinder block if you were a martial artist. “Quedarse corta” means that, in the speaker’s opinion, Lara didn’t go far enough and further violence would’ve been socially appropriate in order to make things even between Lara and Eva.

La sueltita (“the trollop”): “Sueltita” literally means “loose,” but the suffix “-ita” makes it a diminutive. So the speaker is calling Eva “loosey,” if that were something you’d say in English.

Ahora sí que la he cagado bien (“now I have really shit the bed”): The literal translation would be something like, “Now I have really shat it out but good.” Don’t mind me, I just enjoy every instance of poop-related language.

El mierda seca que lo ha soltado todo (“the shitstain who ran their mouth”): “Mierdaseca” is literally dry turd, lol. So the literal translation is, “The dry turd who let it all out.”

CLIP 2: Shitting the bed, pt. II

It’s really hard to make out what the boys are saying in this scene. Lucas does say that they (presumably his parents) “están hasta los cojones.” As I’ve mentioned before, “cojones” is the rudest way you could talk about somebody’s balls. It is a lot ruder than saying “balls” in English, but there’s no real good equivalent in American English.

¿Te crees que soy gilipollas? (“Do you think I’m a moron?”): “Gilipollas” is a dual purpose swear word in Spanish. It can either mean “asshole” or someone so dumb that it’s a wonder they can walk and breathe at the same time. It is not ableist language, it has never been a scientific term for people with intellectual disabilities.

¡Yo no he dicho una puta mierda! (“I haven’t said shit!”): More specifically, Lucas says he hasn’t said “fucking shit.” 😂

Es que me parece flipante (“I’m tweaking out”): Again, Eva uses “flipante,” which is the adjective form of “flipar” (to trip, in a drug sense). Since Eva is having all these (completely wrong) epiphanies right now, I thought I’d do her one better and phrased it as “tweaking out.”

¡Es que me la suda! (“I don’t give a shit!”): Okay, so when Spaniards really, really don’t care about something, we say that whatever it is we don’t care about “me suda la polla” or “me suda el coño.” This literally means that thing you don’t care about is… sweat dripping down your dick, or your pussy, depending. So. Yeah. That’s how little Lucas now cares about Eva’s opinion of him. Sweat off his dick. For the record, yes, this is a fairly rude thing to say, but as you might’ve gathered from these posts, and just from watching Skam España… We use this idiom on the daily. It’s shocking coming from Lucas, but only because he uses it as a Precision F-Strike, not because it’s any stronger than the way the characters usually speak.

CLIP 3: Squad no longer

¿Esto no sera verdad? (“This can’t be true?”): So, right away, Viri has a belligerent tone, and also asks Eva this question. The literal translation is, “This isn’t going to be true?” As in, “this had better not be true, sis.” So Viri puts Eva on the spot with her opening line.

I think the Skam España crew should’ve waited a little longer before shooting this scene, lol. Unless Viri was tagged on one of the pics, there is no fucking way she’d have seen the hate ig unless she was present when it was created. It’s only been three minutes since the pictures were posted.

Ya son ganas de meter mierda (“You really have to be a shit stirrer to pull this”): A more literal translation would be, “You gotta be eager to shit stir.” I reworked it so the meaning came across more clearly.

So I guess a good question is, is what the girls did and said in this clip true to Spanish teens? I think that’s a very complicated question, but worth asking. Obviously, it depends on the person. Viri has her own character arc that we’ll deal with through subsequent posts. When it comes to Amira and Cris, though, my take is this. Spaniards will go hard for a friend. Amira and Cris have needed to be held back from telling Inés what’s what, if not outright fighting her. But, if you go so hard for a friend, you expect reciprocity. You don’t expect to have the rug pulled from under your feet, which is the way Amira and Cris feel. If Eva had told them about her history with Inés beforehand, there’s a chance they’d have told Inés to get over it and fuck off. Eva just didn’t give them the chance to process the info and then make the choice to defend her.

CLIP 4: We’ve reached peak Youth’s Daughter

It took me a while to decide whether I wanted to use “copying” or “cheating,” and it was a total waste of time, because I clearly should’ve gone for “cheating” and not “copying.”

How many remakes have used Youth’s Daughter at this point? It’s even on the soundtrack of the movie Lisa Teige starred in, Battle. Hopefully the remakes avoid song fatigue in the future, although some artists, such as Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan or Mona Haydar, seem almost compulsory.

CLIP 5: Puns are a translator’s nightmare

After squinting at Eva’s exam for a good while, I feel pretty confident about saying that the high school is named after Margarita Manso. Margarita Manso was a painter and general eschewer of rules. It’s worth noting that she was close friends with Federico García Lorca, who was killed by fascists during the Spanish civil war. García Lorca stood accused of being a socialist, a freemason and a homosexual, and was executed. His body has never been found. However, Margarita Manso also married a fascist, Alfonso Ponce de León, who was himself executed by the faction supporting the government. Here’s a pic of Margarita:

No, that’s not the actual name of the high school where they shoot the show. As mentioned elsewhere, Spanish fans can be very intense and it’s in the cast’s best interests to avoid a Nissen situation.

Lucas was not done with that exam, lol. And Eva wasn’t even close to finished, yikes.

Nora sings Lo Malo to Eva. Lo Malo was written by Brisa Fenoy and performed by Aitana (again!) and Ana Guerra. Since the lyrics are a key element of the scene, they’re included in the subs. I just want to explain some of the puns in the lyrics.

Tira porque te toca a ti perder (“Roll because it’s your turn to lose”): “Tira,” in this context, would mean “get out of my face,” but also, “roll the dice.” So, roll the dice because now it’s your turn to lose, but also, get out of my face, I’m over your shit. I hope “roll” helped convey both meanings.

Tiro porque me toca a mí otra vez (“I roll because it’s my turn again”): Another pun about rolling dice. I’m rolling the dice, because I got a second roll of the dice, but also, I’m leaving because I got rid of you, and this time it’s about me.

Pero si me toca, toca, tócame (“But if it’s my turn, touch-a, touch me”): “Toca” can also have several meanings. In this case, it can either mean that it’s my turn (“me toca”) or begging to be touched/stroked/caressed (“tócame”).

As for whether Lo Malo fits the role Baby played in the original… First off, I have to say that William, in that scene, is styled to look like Baby-era Justin Bieber, what with the hood pulled up. Julie Andem is making a connection between the music Noora is embarrassed to listen to, and the boy Noora is ashamed to find hot. There’s nothing embarrassing about liking Aitana and Ana Guerra as artists, per se, other than they got their start at a talent show and dueted on this song because they were contractually obligated to do so. That said, the lyrics fit Nora and Alejandro thematically and, on top of that, the song was really. Seriously. Incredibly. Overplayed in Spain in the summer of 2018, much like Baby was in its time.

Lo llevo muy jodido (“I have a fucking F in it”): I fought with this line so hard, and even as the episode was rendering, I knew I would regret my choice. Alejandro is also making a pun. He says he’s been consistently getting bad grades in English, but he also means that all his efforts to hook up with Nora have failed. There isn’t really a good translation for his line, but if we ever fix our subs, I’d go with, “I’m fucked, if I keep this up.” Or something akin to that!

CLIP 6: Queen Lara

“Hey, dude, give me a sip.” Why did I sub this line? Because it was oddly clear, and it just… seemed like I should… 😬

Tú sabrás el rollo que te llevas con tu novio (“Whatever deal you have with your boyfriend, that’s up to you”): This is one of those lines that took me a while to settle on a translation for. I’m happy with the line, but I’ll expand on what Lara means. She means to say that Eva’s relationship with Jorge is not Lara’s business. When it comes to the part that affects Lara, she doesn’t blame Eva, and fully blames Cristian. Whatever led Eva to kiss Cristian, and whether that’s something Jorge is cool with or isn’t, Lara thinks it’s not her place to judge or speak about.

I think it’s kinda funny that the fandom is chill with Lara reading Cristian’s texts and not regretting doing so, despite the show making it clear that’s not kosher, but thinks Viri is an asshole for posting the Cristian/rando pic (which the show also looked down on when it was the hate ig doing it, to be clear).

CLIP 7: Kicking Eva when she’s down

You don’t know how much I want to know where those stairs are.

Y habíamos quedado (“And you were supposed to come to the party”): Eva says she and Jorge “habían quedado,” which as I explained last post, means they had arranged to meet. In this case, they had arranged that both Eva and Jorge would party at Nora’s. So, not the exact translation, but the best option, given how vague the original sentence is.

Si Quieres Volver by El Imperio del Perro is the song which closes the clip and plays over the credits. I translated the lyrics that are used on the show:

You should understand That I’m in deep shit Any decision Smells bad where I stand

And now I’ll carry The shame on my back And I’ll be yet another person Who’ll apologize wordlessly

Tell me if you want to get back together (5x)

It’s so simple To ruin everything And watch as it burns

Something forces me to go on and Enjoy when it leaves I felt the need To jump in the well There was something else, I couldn’t see it

Tell me if you want to get back together (10x)

Social media:

Some people watch Skam and the remakes without keeping up with the social media aspect of the show. In general, I feel like you can watch Skam without the social media, and not miss anything of importance. But if you watch Skam España season 1 without the social media, you’ll miss a couple important details.

First, while the show was airing, the hate account felt inescapable. It updated very often and at random times, so that the real-time viewer first felt shocked, then tired, then massively over it. Someone who comes into the show late, needs to know that we would sometimes get excited because there was an update, but oh. It was yet more abuse.

Second, a viewer who watches the season without the social media, misses the actual chain of events, which is as follows:

Viri shares the following pic with Inés privately at some point during the week:

Clip 7 drops at 20:40.

Inés uploads the pic to her insta stories at 20:43.

By 20:45, the instagram profile @eva_la_z0rra or @eva_the s1ut, has taken the picture from Inés’ ig stories and cropped it, so that Eva and Cristian are the focus of the pic.

As a sidenote, Inés captions the pic like so: “wow, alex and alba came out cute… 🙊” Álex and Alba are Lucas’ and Eva’s actors’ real names.

#culture and translation #skam españa #skam spain #skames #skamesp

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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Continuity

I’m still reading Star Wars comics from the original Marvel run of 1977-1986. Last night, I made it to the Return of the Jedi adaptation, so now I’ve read all the issues set between that movie and Empire Strikes Back. As I expected, these comics (#45-80) feel a lot more like authentic Star Wars stories than the pre-ESB issues (#7-38). The biggest plot hole that I noticed was that Luke still has his lightsaber throughout this period, despite losing it on Bepsin.

It occurred to me later that this wasn’t necessarily a mistake. There’s a deleted scene from ROTJ which shows Luke assembling his new lightsaber right before the mission to save Han Solo from Jabba the Hut. This strongly implies that Luke didn’t have a lightsaber of his own between Episodes V and VI. This was further supported by the ROTJ radio drama, produced in 1996, which incorporates the deleted scene into the story. There, Luke expresses frustration with how difficult it is to build a lightsaber, and then he finally realizes that he should have been using the Force to assemble the pieces. I haven’t read the novelization of the movie, but maybe it was touched on there as well.

Later sources indicated that building your own lightsaber is the final ritual for completing your Jedi training. This is shown in the 2002 Clone Wars cartoon, where Barriss Offee assembles her own saber on Ilum, under the supervision of Luminara Unduli. I’m pretty sure this scene was inspired by Darth Vader’s line in ROTJ, when he observed that Luke’s training is complete after checking out his badass green lightsaber. The implication is that building your own lightsaber is difficult enough that Luke would have to be a Jedi Knight just to pull it off.

But in the early 80′s, none of that lore existed, and it would be a simple matter for writers to assume that Luke had no trouble at all getting a spare. What I find strange is that no one bothered to explain where this spare lightsaber came from. It’s like the writers just assumed he never lost the first one, but that’s crazy.

Really, the artists on the original Star Wars comics never seemed to be able to keep track of the lightsabers to begin with. In the early comics, they paid no heed to the color schemes or hilt designs at all. Not that I would expect late 70′s artists to really worry about props from a movie that had just come out, but they kept coloring all the lightsaber blades at random, and drawing the hilts way too short and thick. Luke and Vader looked like they were holding soda cans. The art started to get more true to the movies when Tom Palmer got involved, but one thing I started to notice was how the artists would draw Luke and Vader’s lightsabers on their belts, even when they were holding them, ignited, in their hands. It was like the artists recognized the lightsaber hilts as part of the characters’ costumes, but they didn’t understand what they were. I can’t really blame them for this, since the big column of light was what really drew everyone’s attention in the theaters, and it wasn’t like they could look up hilt schematics on Wookieepedia like you can now.

Anyway, it struck me as kind of interesting how something minor like that can start off as an oversight, and then be easily corrected, or magnified into a major plot hole. It’d be pretty simple to explain Luke’s between-movie lightsaber.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had a spare tucked away somewhere, and Luke had been keeping it in storage just in case something like this happened.

Yoda had a spare, and Luke took it with him when he went to Bespin, and put it inside R2-D2′s lightsaber compartment for safe keeping.

Luke found a new lightsaber on a mission.

Luke built a new lightsaber to replace his old one, then lost that guy, requiring him to build the green one in ROTJ.

Luke found/constructed a replacement weapon, but it’s actually a knockoff “laser sword” and it doesn’t work as well as a genuine Jedi design, but it got the job done until he could do the job right.

I find it curious that no one ever bothered to tell any of those stories, though. The Expanded Universe era of Star Wars multimedia seemed determined to sew up as many continuity problems as possible. Some writer in the 2000′s did a story to establish that Jedi would swap lightsabers as a gesture of mutual respect, just to explain why Mace Windu’s action figure has a different lightsaber design than the one he has in the movies. I’m not too worried about this stuff, and I don’t think Jo Duffy or David Michelinie were too worried about this stuff when they wrote Luke carving up Stormtroopers in Star Wars #45-80, but between 1994 and 2008, there were people working for Lucasfilm who were paid to worry about this stuff. I’m genuinely surprised that no one ever got around to penning Star Wars: Luke’s Spare Lightsaber: The Lobot Chronicles: Dark Tidings.

It’s the little things like this that get lost in the shuffle, I’ve found. When you read a Star Wars novel or comic book, the major characters are always very consistently portrayed, and the story always sticks very closely to the groundwork laid down in whatever movies were around at the time. Star Wars #45-80 excelled at this. Every issue was either about the good guys searching for Han Solo, or dealing with a crisis big enough to pull them away from the search for Han Solo. I was disappointed that they didn’t spend much time at all having Luke work on his Jedi training, or trying to make sense of Darth Vader being his father, but I think Marvel knew the next movie would address that, so they knew not to wade too deep into that stream.

The stuff that gets changed the most is the minor characters. I read one issue where they basically established that Wedge Antilles never made it off the base on Hoth in ESB. He and “Nice Shot” Jansen had to take cover in the AT-AT Luke blew up, and then they lived in what was left of the base while they waited for the imperials to clear out. He was stranded there for months, and it was a pretty cool story, but I’m betting that later Star Wars writers decided to ignore this, because they wanted to use Wedge in other stories during that period.

General Tagge’s another interesting example. He was the guy on the Death Star in Episode IV, the one who warned that the Death Star was vulnerable while the Rebels had the stolen plans. Tagge’s kind of a walking continuity error to begin with, because everyone kept getting him mixed up with Admiral Motti, the guy who sassed Vader and got choked out for his lack of faith. In the Archie Goodwin run on Star Wars, Tagge was killed in the movie when the Death Star exploded, but his brothers and sister turned up as recurring villains with a grudge against the Rebels and Vader alike. Flash forward to 2015, when Disney took over Lucasfilm, and in the new continuity, Tagge survived the Death Star’s destruction because he happened to leave right before it went to Yavin IV to get blown up. This was done mainly to set him up as a rival to Darth Vader in the 2015 Darth Vader comic. I guess they figured there was no reason to invent new characters when they could just salvage some of the officers from the movie. Tagge feels more authentic than his siblings because we actually saw him on film. He’s a “real” Star Wars guy, while rest of his family are just cartoons. I think that’s the attitude anyway. Back in 1978, they were probably eager to create new characters because they had tons of world-building to do. So the 2010′s Marvel comics don’t square with the 1970′s Marvel comics at all, especially where the Tagges are concerned, but Darth Vader’s dealings with them feel pretty consistent.

The reason I bring up all of this is because I used to think that the continuity in Star Wars was never terribly complicated. When production of The Force Awakens got started, Lucasfilm announced that they were rebooting the whole Star Wars canon, declaring all the Expanded Universe content as “Legends”, which no longer counted as official continuity. The only hard canon sources from now on were the movies, the Clone Wars TV series, and anything published after that announcement. Naturally, all the post-Return-of-the-Jedi stories would be off the board, which only made sense to me, seeing as Force Awakens would contradict it. But I figured the other stories could still be made to fit together somehow, since none of them had anything to do with Rey or Kylo Ren or the First Order, or whatever.

But really, it’s been like that all along. The novels and comics would introduce some idea, and others would build on it, and then George Lucas would override it with his next project. Then the writers would have to pick up the pieces. The 2008-2013 Clone Wars TV series trampled on a lot of continuity from the 2002-2005 Clone Wars books and comics, primarily because George Lucas worked on the TV series, and he was the final word on this stuff. That announcement in 2014 pissed off a lot of Expanded Universe fans (so much that they bought a bunch of billboards to complain about it), but it was kind of inevitable. They’ll probably have to wipe the slate clean again around 2040 or so, because there’ll be enough new movies that the comics and novels won’t align with them.

I sort of half-joke about my own fanfiction getting this kind of treatment. My goal is to write stories that could fit into the established continuity, but I can only work with the continuity I know. With Dragon Ball, that was easy, until Dragon Ball Super got underway, and Akira Toriyama started writing new stuff. It was pretty easy to write my own female Super Saiyan, until DBS introduced a couple of their own, and now I have to wonder if they’ll say or do something that might contradict my own take. Likewise, this Broly movie might establish some new lore that I need to take into consideration. I can write new material to work around those things, but the stuff I’ve already written is pretty much locked in. My private joke is that in any of these new animations, a character will just stare at the screen and coldly announce that “Mike’s fanfic never happened.”

But that’s pretty much what Lucasfilm has been doing to the novel and comics writers for over forty years. “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” would have been the official sequel to Star Wars if Empire Strikes Back hadn’t been funded. Instead, Dengar and Bossk looked at the screen and said “Alan Dean Foster’s novel never happened.” Return of the Jedi killed every Luke/Leia shipper’s hopes and dreams. “Oh, those fanfics never happened, my young friend,” Ben Kenobi said from beyond the grave. Attack of the Clones wreaked all sorts of havoc on Boba Fett’s backstory. The Force Awakens wrecked the Skywalker-Solo family tree. “Han and Leia only had one kid, and I’m gonna kick his ass!” Rey shouted asskickingly. And on it goes. I read that one writer resigned after they retconned all the stuff she had set up about Boba Fett’s home planet, but that’s the way the game is played, unfortunately.

Me, I’m just writing my stuff for fun, when it comes down to it. I like to think all the continuity can be fit together, but the reality is that there’s too many redundant pieces, so they can’t all be part of the same picture. You can either have Tagge or his brothers, but not both. You can decide to keep Ben Solo or Jan and Jeice Solo from the EU novels, but not both. Or you can do an AU, I guess. They’re all AU’s when you get down to it.

I suppose that, no matter what, I prefer my own assumption that Luke just didn’t have a lightsaber between Empire and Jedi. I’ve read too many stories about how there’s more to a Jedi than his lightsaber, and how the best Jedi never use them at all, so it makes sense to me that Luke had to make due without one, and use the loss to force him to refocus on his training. While the others searched for Han, he was doing cool Jedi homework that he should have been doing on Dagobah, and he purposely waited until he was finished before building a new lightsaber. That just makes too much sense to me, even if some other version is presented. But the other stories are still fun to read. They don’t have to be canon to be enjoyable.

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imakemywings · 6 years ago

Text

Mistakes We Learned Growing Up (Ch. 4)

Summary: A childhood rocked by World War II left Francis and Arthur each reeling in their own way. Years later, they are still struggling to move forward and form a future in post-war Europe. But as they fight to put childhood demons aside, new problems continue to arise, and they are no closer to knowing what their futures hold. (Sequel to What About the Children?; can be independently read)

Chapter summary: Arthur flees the scene and Francis contemplates his state of being. Trigger/content warnings for expressions of internalized homophobia by Arthur towards the end.

Chapter title: Retreat

AO3 | FF.net

The relief that Arthur felt once he was on a Dover-bound boat somehow didn’t run as deep as he had anticipated. He’d left in such a rush that he hadn’t had time to send word to his family, so he was forced to find his own way to the house once he’d landed.

When he arrived, it was late evening; he could hear the faint roar of London traffic, beneath a sky painted inky blue and too shrouded in smog to show any stars.

“Hello?” he called into the house. No answer. There was a black and white cat asleep on the sitting room window sill, but no people appeared present. “Anyone home?”

Silence.

Eventually, he heard the click-click of the dog’s nails on the wood floors as he ambled stiffly out. Giving the dog a pat for the astronomical effort—and to congratulate him for being able to tell that someone had come in, being as he was mostly blind and deaf these days, Arthur carried his bag in.

“Well, hello to you anyway,” he said, carrying his bag up to his room. “Hey!” When he walked in, he was sure someone had changed something—someone had been in his room. Immediately irked, he began to examine all his possessions, but he couldn’t find a thing out of place. So why did he have the feeling something had been altered? Brushing it off with annoyance as the addling of his mind from too much travel, he went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Later that night, when the street was lit only by the glow of street lamps and such that emanated from the houses, the front door opened and he heard a gusty sigh. Someone rattled the hat rack, and Mairead shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her lower back, eyes squeezed shut. Arthur once again marveled that her hairband didn’t snap right off the mass of red waves wrested into a bun through—surely—black magic. It took her a moment to see him, reading an old newspaper at the table, but when she did, she stopped dead, some mild shock on her freckled face.

“Gwydion. What in God’s name are you doing here?” Arthur made a wide gesture with one hand over the paper, clean kitchen table, and his cup of tea.

“Reading the paper, obviously.”

“In the house, dum-dum. Last I looked you’d gone tearing off to Paris without so much as a by your leave.” She pulled a pot of soup out of the fridge, took a look in it, and put it on the stove to warm up.

“I’m back,” Arthur said, folding the paper. “It was…time to come home.”

“Fuck, why?” she asked, pouring herself a measure of whisky. “If I could run off to Paris and stay with a friend, you’d never see me again.”

“What, mum’s that bad?” Arthur snorted.

“Not mum, work.” Mairead took a drink and rubbed her eyes.

“Where is she, anyway?” Arthur asked. “I’ve been here for hours and I haven’t seen anyone.”

“Dearest mummy is up north visiting Angus and bride, so you’ll have to wait a few days for your welcome home hugs and kisses. You’re not getting them from me.” Mairead fished a wooden spoon out of a cramped drawer to stir the soup.

“If you kiss me, I’ll burn your copy of Finnegan’s Wake.”

“Touch my books and I’ll beat you senseless,” Mairead replied at once, jabbing the spoon threateningly at him. Only because she was his sister did Arthur know there was a lot more bark than bite behind that tone—but he also didn’t doubt that she would enact a bloody revenge on him if he actually did damage anything of hers. “Don’t think because you’re supposedly ‘a man’ now I can’t still kick your arse from here to kingdom come.”

“I’d like to see you try!” Arthur remembered a heartbeat later he shouldn’t ever goad his older siblings unless he was prepared for them to take the challenge, no matter how asinine. Mairead lunged in his direction and he leaped out of his chair like a rabbit, but rather than making a real go for him, she just laughed and he scowled.

“Luckily for you, you’ll have to annoy me an awful lot for me to bother with that,” she sighed, pouring herself a cup of tea and leaving the soup to heat on the stove. She took a seat at the table as Arthur recomposed himself. She sighed again, curling her fingers stiffly around the mug. The room was quiet for a few minutes. “Things’ll be better in Dublin,” she murmured, unprompted. “I can’t wait to get out of here. Seamus and I are going to make a real go of it, Arthur. It’ll be good. We’ve been apart too long.”

“Yeah?” Arthur shifted in his seat, reaching out for his own lukewarm cup of black tea. “So er…when’s he sending for you? Got a date, then?”

“Soon,” she said, with a frown. “I’ve told him if he doesn’t write before May, I’m coming anyway. What was all the point in being married if we’re never see each other?” She huffed. “I thought when he came here…well, I suppose it was asking a lot, to leave his home.”

“Isn’t that what he’s doing to you?”

“It’s different,” she said. “Seamus loves Ireland. I won’t look in the rear-view mirror when I leave London.” She got up and went to take the soup off the stove. “Do you want some?”

“Just a bit,” Arthur said. “I had something earlier.”

“I hope you didn’t bloody touch that ham,” she said sharply. “That’s for my casserole for the church festival this weekend.”

“I didn’t,” Arthur lied. “Your stupid casserole is safe.”

“Mairead! Have you seen the price of butter today? This is robbery!” Daffyd came into view, ruffling his dark curls. “Oi. Gwyn. You’re home.”

“It does seem that way.”

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Daffyd.” He cast a pointed look at Mairead, who just took down a third bowl.

“Tommy’s coming over, that alright?” Daffyd said. Mairead peered into the pot.

“Yeah, alright. Go get the bread, will you? Put it on the table.” Arthur closed his eyes and sank into the house, into his family, into England. Here, where everything made sense, and the only fear he had was of his life being dull and unfulfilling—which, really, was easy to ignore, with enough tasks to do and rum to drink. He wrapped the familiarity around him like a blanket, tugged all his belongings into his safety ship, and closed his eyes to all the rest.

***

Francis and Emma made baguettes on Tuesday morning, and croissants in the afternoon, and sourdough loaves in the evening.

“Do you want to go out for a drink?” Francis asked her as they were closing up shop.

“It’s been a while,” she agreed. “Sure. Lars can heat up leftovers for dinner. Did I tell you about the cat that sneaked into our house yesterday?”

“No,” Francis said. “Go ahead, I want to hear it.” And so Emma talked, and Francis encouraged her, and they locked up the bakery and wandered down the streets towards St. Germain-de-Pres.

“Do you want to go to that one bar with the dog out front?” Emma asked. “There’s supposed to be live jazz tonight!” She smiled at him, and he managed a little one in return, nodding in agreement.

“That sounds perfect,” he said.

The music was lovely, but too lively for Francis’ mood, and after a couple drinks, he nudged Emma and leaned over to ask the question close to her ear. “Do you want to go outside?”

She agreed, and they relocate to a corner of the available seating outside, sitting close together against the early spring chill. Emma lit a cigarette, and Francis remembered he’d forgotten to buy more on the way to work that morning.

“So what’s on your mind?” she asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Of course,” she chuckled, blowing out some smoke. “God, these are awful. You’ve been troubled as long as I’ve known you, Francis. So what is it?” He sighed gustily, considered asking for one of her cigarettes, and finished the rest of his cognac.

“It’s everything,” he said.

“Gee Francis, that’s a lot of problems,” Emma said with a comical frown. “I don’t think I can help with everything.” Francis shook his head and drummed his fingers on the table.

“I’m just…not happy.” This time, Emma allowed him his silence before he continued. “I feel so distant from everything else around me, like I live in a bubble, and no one else can get in, and I can’t get out. I feel…not so much like I’m screaming, but like I’m watching myself drown, and instead of running for help, I’m just standing there, watching it happen.”

“Jeez, Francis.” Emma’s eyes widened. “Have you…talked to anyone about this? Maybe a doctor can help.”

“Help with what?” Francis asked, his mouth twisted in something wry. “I don’t have a broken bone, or a sore throat. I just can’t, for the life of me, seem to find anything that makes me happy for more than an afternoon.”

“That’s…” Emma frowned, her brow furrowing. “That’s…not good?”

“I know.” Francis leaned back in his seat, putting an elbow over the back of it. “I just can’t think of what to do anymore, Emma. I kept telling myself if I stayed positive it would get better. In Paris, it would be better. With a job I like, it would be better. With my own home, it would be better. I have all those things now, and still…” He sighed with a wind to stir the dust in Verdun. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What if you went h—” He was already shaking his head. “Okay. Well…I think you had the right idea, trying to stay positive,” she said.

“Sometimes I feel like takes all the energy I have just to get out of bed and get dressed,” he said.

“Francis, I…I don’t know what to say,” she confessed.

“I don’t know that you need to say anything,” Francis replied with a slight shrug, looking away. “Just…I wanted to…tell someone, I guess.”

“I can listen,” Emma offered. “That much I can do. Is there…do you need help with anything?”

Francis shrugged again. “No…” he trailed off, distracted by some thought or flight of fancy.

“Are you still living alone?” she asked. “Do you want a cigarette?”

“No, thank you.” He let out a gusty sigh, and looked out to the street. “I am, but…” Emma bit her lip, to not try to fill the silence with more words. “There was someone. For a little while.”

“Oh?”

“Yes…an old friend,” he said. “But…I don’t think she was happy either, and we argued quite a bit, and…she went home last week. France isn’t for her, I guess. My life isn’t.” He reached out for his glass, only to grab it and remember it was empty. “I changed my mind, I will have a cigarette,” he murmured.

“Oh, Francis, I’m sorry,” Emma said, as she dug the cigarette pack out of her purse and pulled one out for him. “Why don’t you…why don’t you go after her! Maybe she’s made a mistake!” She lit his cigarette and he took a long draw.

“I don’t know,” he mused, studying the figures passing by the bar. “What if this is one of those decisions she has to make on her own? I tried to make her stay before and it just made things worse.”

“Mm. Maybe she needs space then,” Emma mused. “Women are like that sometimes, you know. We do need our own space.” Francis nodded.

“I’ll just have to hope then.” He exhaled loudly, and tilted his head back to look up at the starry sky. “Did you say if Lars had been able to get in on that shipping deal?” he asked.

“Oh! Yes, I don’t know how he managed, but he has…”

***

“Expect you’ll be asking Mr. Solomons for that job back now,” Mr. Kirkland grunted as he cranked a bolt. “Daffyd does good work for him, so he ought at least consider taking you back.”

Arthur sighed quietly, leaning back against the workbench. Yes, he supposed he ought to be going to ask for his job back. He’d been back almost twenty-four hours now, which meant it was his father’s opinion that he was already late in getting it done. The truth was, Arthur would have sooner clocked into a shift in purgatory than gone back there. It wasn’t that the brewery was bad work—it was most like…what was it like?

It was like he was accepting the future his father saw for him. In taking back his punch-card and his apron from Mr. Solomons, he was acknowledging that his father had been right, that there was nothing more meaningful or more interesting in his future—no school, no adventure, no grand romances. And deep in in his core, Arthur knew he rebelled so hard against that acceptance because he feared it was inevitable—that his father was right, and it was just a matter of time before Arthur was worn down enough to see it too.

“Arthur? Pay attention son,” came the vaguely irritated voice. “Pass me the flat-tip.” Arthur, startled from his thoughts, grabbed the screwdriver without thinking and forked it over.

“Well I was thinking,” he began with a kind of hesitance he employed towards no one besides Mr. Kirkland, “that I might talk to the paper.” He knew that he couldn’t tell his father he had no plans to resume work at the brewery without presenting an acceptable alternative plan.

“The paper?” The mistrust was immediately audible in Mr. Kirkland’s voice. “And what are you going to do there?” He could hear the guns cocking.

“Write, dad.” What else did his father imagine he’d do there?

“Christ, Arthur. I thought going to France was about getting all these airy-fairy thoughts out of your head.” The first burst of gunfire sprayed over Arthur’s trench. Mr. Kirkland emerged from under the hood of the car, hands stained with oil, and cast a stone-faced look of disapproval at his youngest. “We talked about this before you left. Turning your nose up at good work isn’t going to get you anywhere!” The crack of artillery blasted through the garage and Arthur flattened himself into the mud to avoid the shrapnel. Then it was time to return fire.

“I’m not turning my nose up!” Arthur snapped, stiffening defensively. His eyes flicked to his father’s meaty fist, closed around the screwdriver, and he thought of his own slender frame, and wondered why he wasn’t more like his father, and if life would be easier if he was. “I’m just…” His gun was jammed, and the damn Jerries were going to—

“Too good for working at the brewery, is that it? Too good for your brother’s job?”

“I just want to do something more with my life than the same stupid, mindless job day in and day out!” Arthur shouted. His father’s jaw was so tight he thought the muscles might snap, the bone shatter. A direct hit, no survivors.

“Right, because you’re meant for something more,” his father scoffed, trembling in his anger. “Like the right king of fucking Britain, Arthur’s got some kind of destiny the rest of us can only dream of. You better wake up, son. You keep on like this, you’ll be king of a street corner.” He spat on the garage floor. “You’re lucky your mother has a soft spot for you. If it were up to me, you’d be packing your bags tonight. You want to waste your life away and sit around with your thumb up your arse, you can do that on your own.” He slammed the door to the house so hard the wall rattled, and Arthur cursed himself. His nose was filled with the smell of smoke and the acrid tang of gunpowder.

Certainly, his father made him want to put his fist through a wall, but he shouldn’t have said what he did—he didn’t even mean to, it had just slipped out. Of course he was grateful for the work his father had put in to support all of them, but couldn’t he see that that life just wasn’t for Arthur?

A cold fear washed over him and he wondered if he had been wrong—if perhaps, he was not so different from his father. What if Mr. Kirkland too, had once wanted more from life? Once dreamed of a greater future? What if he had felt this as well, and been driven to his current mindset by the trials of life?

No, Arthur thought savagely. There had never been anything in his father that dreamed.

Filled with an equal measure of frustration with himself and his father, Arthur left the garage. Unwilling to hang around the house with his father in a temper, he went for a walk to the library. It was a fair distance away—he had to take a bus—but sitting among the books always made him feel better.

As he browsed along the shelves, his eyes passed over a title on the Arthurian legends, and he pause. He took it from the shelf, and flipped errantly through the pages.

Was it true? Did he have his head in the clouds? Had all his dreaming and reading of epic tales convinced him that there was more to life than there was? No mystical lady lying in wait in a lake was going to bestow a sword upon him, and no fair maiden was ever going to give him a token (not, he thought with biting chagrin, that he would really want her to). No magic, no heavenly clash between good and evil, no threads of fate.

Gwydion, Mairead had called him as a child. Of the trees. Because he had loved to climb trees and play in the garden. Additionally, because she had been reading a book on such legends, that claimed King Arthur had gone first by the name Gwydion before his Christian baptism. Maybe sharing a name with such a grand character had done him no favors. Maybe he had allowed himself to think that he too, was owed a great destiny, a place in the history books.

But then, what was he to do? Accept his mundane life and take up his brewery apron once again? Find a milquetoast girl he could stand to be around for more than few hours at a time, and get married? And what then? Have a child? Grow old and only in his most private moments, remember that he had ever wanted anything else?

I’d rather die, he thought, shelving the book. A life that inspired such revulsion in him was no life at all. Learning to eek out moments of happiness in a life of drudgery wasn’t living—it was desperation. For once, he checked out nothing, and went straight back home.

On the afternoon that Mrs. Kirkland returned from Scotland, Arthur found her in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, with Edith Piaf playing on the radio. A sharp stick twisted into Arthur’s chest, but he grimaced and mastered himself to ignore it.

“Your father is ready to have you keelhauled,” his mother informed him as he approached. She looked up with such disappointment on her face that Arthur hung his head. “And I understand where he’s coming from. What’s gotten into you, Arthur?” Mrs. Kirkland had only ever called him by his name. “That was a terrible thing to say to your father. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s time for you to move on.”

“Mum…” Arthur looked around the kitchen floor. “I didn’t mean to say it, I really didn’t. But—he doesn’t understand!”

“I don’t understand either, Arthur,” she replied. “What is it that’s so bad about taking the job back? Isn’t that why you came home?” Arthur almost gaped at her, shocked to think his mother knew him so little as to think he would come home for a stupid job making beer.

“Mum, I just…” He sighed leaned against the counter with a deep frown. “I just think I would go crazy if I clocked into work tomorrow and knew I was looking my whole life in the face.”

“Daffyd doesn’t mind the job,” she said.

“Daffyd is a different person than I am,” he said.

“Your father thinks you’re being stuck-up,” she informed him.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to see you without a job,” she said. “You need to support yourself, Arthur. And someday, your family.”

“What if I don’t have a family?” he asked suddenly, looking up at her. Mrs. Kirkland gave him a sympathetic look that he didn’t understand until she spoke.

“You will someday. You’ll find a girl who appreciates your gifts, and is willing to overlook how you always misplace things, and burn the eggs,” she said with a smile, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “That’s what marriage is about—accepting each other’s flaws.” Arthur slumped, an obscure feeling of disappointment twinging in his gut, and then straightened up, and looked away.

“I just don’t know if that life is for me, mum.”

“Well…what else is it you think you would do?” He could hear the struggle in her voice to understand something beyond the prescribed path of life.

“I don’t know. Write a book,” he said, flushing slightly and fixing his gaze elsewhere. What a dumb child he sounded like! He could hear the pity in the way his mother scraped another strip of skin off a potato.

“It’s nice to have dreams, Arthur,” she said. “And you were always a dreamer. Filled with big stories, and colorful characters.” She smiled, and for the first time, Arthur looked at his mother and realized she was old. She had turned fifty-eight last fall, and the spaces around her eyes were spiderwebbed with wrinkles. There were a few brown spots on her hands, and streaks of gray in her hair. “You have such a beautiful imagination. But it used to get in the way of your schoolwork when you were very young, do you remember? Do you remember the spelling bee?”

Arthur groaned. Yes—the spelling bee he’d taken part in when he was seven, entered because all his teachers seemed to think he was a sure-fire win. He read far above his classmates’ levels, and devoured everything they gave him—even books from their own personal libraries. He wrote as formally as a child twice his age, and enjoyed his work. But when he had gotten on stage, and been given the word, he had been so intently thinking about a story in his mind that he’d been eliminated for taking too long to respond. He hadn’t even realized they had given him the word until he was being ushered off-stage.

“Well…I don’t want that to happen to you here,” Mrs. Kirkland said, her tone growing gentler, her expression turning to a concerned frown. “Your imagination is lovely, Arthur. But sometimes you need to focus more on real life.”

“I know, mum,” Arthur said softly, still looking away. “I promise I am thinking about my future. If I wasn’t thinking about it at all, I would just take the damn job.”

“Don’t curse,” she said.

“Sorry, mummy. But I just don’t think it’s a bad thing to try to strive for more,” he insisted.

“Maybe not, but you insulted your father awfully, and I want you to apologize,” she said, her tone growing sterner. Arthur suppressed a groan.

“Mum, he’s been hounding me about my job since I decided to go to France and—”

“Your father is trying to look out for you.” The first hint of sharpness entered her tone. “He doesn’t want to see you in the poorhouse either, Arthur. We both want to see you with a nice home and a good job and a loving family.” Arthur sighed.

“If I promise to get a job, will you both relax? I really don’t want to be homeless either.”

“Well, good. Now cut up these potatoes,” she said. With yet another sigh, Arthur rolled up his sleeves and reached for a knife.

***

Mairead was harassing the mailman. It was a weekly affair, no matter how many times Mrs. Kirkland told her to give the poor man some space.

“Blimey, she’s going to drive the man off his route,” Arthur said, leaning back in his chair to look out the window to the mailbox.

“If she doesn’t drive him off a cliff first,” Daffyd said.

“Pity the sod,” Arthur said, settling back down and reaching for another piece of bacon.

“Arthur, don’t be rude,” Mrs. Kirkland said, getting to her feet. She went to the door to holler at her only daughter. “Mairead! Leave the man to his work and come back to the table!”

She returned reluctantly, and scowled at her two brothers, smirking nastily.

“Pity! The poor lass returns empty-handed!” Arthur exclaimed. “Whatever shall she do?”

“Sit at the window at midnight, calling on the fairies for news,” Daffyd replied. “Seamus, oh, Seamus!” He pitched his voice to a falsetto, which quickly became real after a momentary scuffle under the table.

“Don’t kick your brother!” Mrs. Kirkland ordered. “Honestly, you lot act like you’re still ten years old!”

“At least I’m not out torturing the poor mailman,” Arthur said.

“Hush, Arthur!”

“Yes, hush Arthur, the adults are talking,” Mairead sneered.

“Mairead!”

Mr. Kirkland abruptly got to his feet, folded the paper, and exited the scene. Mrs. Kirkland gave Arthur a pointed look. Arthur averted his eyes to his plate, dragging his bacon through the split yolk of his fried egg.

Apologies were the worst. Not only did they involve admitting you might have been wrong, but they were so awkward, and what if you were rejected? Then you had just debased yourself for nothing. Francis has it easy, Arthur thought sourly. Can’t argue with a dead parent. He felt his own wretchedness sharply immediately afterwards, with the memory of Francis’ confession not yet six months gone in his head, of how he had tortured himself with information about the concentration camps after learning his father had died there. It was this sense of his own imperiled morality that drove him to swallow the rest of his eggs, dump his plate in the sink with a clatter, and shuffle off to find his father with the paper in the living room, where the din from the table was more distant.

“Hey, dad.” He was greeted by the flap of a newspaper page being turned. “I, er…” Couldn’t the man even look at him while he was trying to do this? “Look, I didn’t mean to—imply anything about you n’ mum the other day. There’s nothing wrong with what you and Daffyd do. It’s just…not for me.” The paper crinkled, but maintained an iron curtain between them. “Don’t you see, dad?” he pleaded. “I just…I want—I need to test myself. I need…I need to try.” God knew his success was no certainty. But Arthur didn’t see as how he could live with himself without even trying to achieve something he deemed worthwhile in his own right, for fear he would fail.

And more and more, he felt the teeth of a trap digging into his leg, and no matter how frantically he thrashed, he could not free himself. He was tearing up his flesh and spilling his blood trying to free himself, and he knew if he stayed too long, he would chew off his own foot to get away. It was just a matter of time. But how could dad, with all his stoic, impassive acceptance of all that life threw at him, understand that? The man had lost a leg and Arthur had never seen him do more than briefly grimace when it Arthur supposed it pained him, or grunt a regret that he couldn’t do this or that so quickly anymore, if asked to perform a task.

The iron curtain was unwavering, and Arthur fought the sudden urge to swat it out of his father’s hands.

“Dad. Dad. I’m trying to…apologize.”

“Well don’t bother,” his father replied. “It’s not my life you’re in charge of. You’ve got to live with your own decisions.” Arthur scrutinized the paper, trying to determine if his father was picking a fight. Mr. Kirkland lowered the paper. “I think you’re making a stupid decision,” he informed Arthur bluntly. “But you’re far too old for me or mum to stop you. Just don’t expect anyone else to come pull you out of the gutter if it goes sideways.”

“I’m not expecting anything,” he said.

“Good. Then do what you want.” The paper went back up, and Arthur glared up at the ceiling before taking his leave.

When he went to bed that night, he was considering the conversation again. What he’d said had certainly been true when he left for Paris. He supposed a lot of it still was.

The Arthurian legends were still swirling around in his mind, and as he lay awake in the dark room, his thoughts turned to Guinevere. King Arthur had had many grand adventures, but he had never really had Guinevere—her heart had belonged to Lancelot from the start. Did that ever make the king lonely? Surely he must have seen—must have known, on some level—that Guinevere was not in love with him. He had the love of his knights, of course, but was it the same? Did he feel that he was lacking something, living a married life with someone who would never love him as a husband?

It was impossible to think of Arthur and Guinevere and marriage without his thoughts dragging Francis in from the sidelines. He had tried to hard not to think of Francis since he had left Paris, but that night a hole was blown straight through his defenses, and his chest ached with a physical pain. Francis’ name bubbled up to his lips and he whispered it aloud to the blackened room.

Was Francis thinking of him? When Arthur left, had his chest hurt the way Arthur’s did now? Did he ever think of Arthur returning? Or worse—had he moved on already? No, no—Arthur refused to believe it. There was no way Francis could have moved past their tryst that quickly. Surely he must also be nursing wounds from their final skirmishes, trying to marshal his men for reconstruction efforts. He had to be.

His throat felt tight, but he forced it back. He had left Francis behind, and all thoughts of him—that all belonged a world away in Paris, to a life he had chosen to walk away from. Not even a life—an impossible dream. A fantasy. Just like his books. If mum and dad only knew the extent of Arthur’s childish daydreaming!

It was all their fault anyway, he thought viciously. If they had never sent him away, he never would have met Francis in the first place! Arthur rarely met people who genuinely stirred his interest, and so it was easy to lie to himself, to everyone else—but when Francis burst back into his life like the blast of a trumpet, with his warm voice and soft eyes and his heart that bore scars so similar to Arthur’s—how could he deny himself the truth? There was no use in pretending he didn’t crave Francis, everything about him—his company and his touch, his smell and the sound of his laughter and the warmth of his embrace—it was like he had soused himself in a heady wine, and all he could think of was having more.

He rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow. The ache in his breast felt like it was threatening to split his chest in two, and for half a moment, he waited for the feeling of Francis’ soothing hand on his back.

Once in Paris he’d had a nightmare (about the war, of course), and he had left the bed to go have a drink of water in the kitchen. Francis found him half an hour later, sitting at the kitchen table, watching the street lights outside the window. Arthur remembered how Francis, still half-asleep, had leaned over the back of the chair to wind his arms around Arthur and murmur in his ear for him to come back to bed. He’d gone back to sleep with Francis nestled cozily in the curve of his body, an arm thrown over Francis’ waist, considering the marvel of Francis noticing he was gone, and coming to get him.

It could never be—Arthur knew that to be true. If his dream about working for the newspaper was far-fetched, any thoughts he had about having a life with Francis were plainly delusional. There was no future for them, there couldn’t be. Francis was taking himself on a path to self-destruction, and if Arthur went with, there was nothing but ruin coming for him. The war might have doomed Francis—or maybe that was just fate, and would have happened whether or not the world decided to implode on itself—but that didn’t mean Arthur had to go down too.

This night, and only this night, he allowed himself to wallow in the agony of having to make the only choice available to him. And then, he would move on.

***

Alas, things were rarely so simple, as much as Arthur liked to think he could change reality through the sheer force of his will. He slept badly that night and was in a foul mood all the next day, snapping and snarling at anyone who spoke to him. He left the house for a few hours only to make his parents believe he was doing something useful (and because he couldn’t bear listening to any of their voices anymore), but wound up at the bar before five p.m. Knowing he couldn’t go home tipsy, he simply stayed until he knew the family would have eaten already, and then went home. He argued with mum, who was predictably not thrilled by his coming home drunk and missing dinner without giving a word.

Nevertheless, he got out of bed a few hours later after some tossing and turning to go down and continue. If he was going to drink, he might as well commit, right? So he sat down at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey he’d found in the pantry, incinerating a few more feelings with every burning swallow.

“Bit late for this, isn’t it?” He lifted his head to see his sister in the kitchen entryway, arms crossed.

“Fuck off,” he slurred.

“Clever.” Contrary to his demands, Mairead came closer, and took the seat opposite him. She also had the gall to help herself to some of his stolen whiskey. “Dad know you’re siphoning his whiskey?”

“Fuck off,” Arthur complained.

“Come on Gwyn, even I can see this isn’t a regular sousing. Nobody gets up in the middle of the night to drink because their head’s empty. What’s going on with you?”

“Fuck all.” Arthur slouched in his chair, leaning his back against the wall rather than the seat back.

“Right, I see.” Mairead inhaled a first glass and poured herself another. “You’re waiting for the keen listening ears of dad or Angus.” Arthur scowled at her, but was startled by the lack of fighting light or harshly teasing glint in her eyes. Something that might have been concern made him look away, and take another drink from his glass.

“Fuck are you doing up anyway?”

“Promised Seamus I’d call after work,” she said. “But he was out. Thought I’d try him again before bed.”

“S’ almost midnight.”

“I was reading,” she said. She paused. “Couldn’t sleep.” She clinked her nails against her whiskey glass. “Sometimes seems like we’re never going to actually be married, you know? Just playing around like it’s going to work out.” Light from the one small lamp Arthur had put on lit up the wedding band around her finger. He grunted sympathetically and they were quiet. “So, your turn,” she said at last. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Yeah, but you should.”

“Fuck off.”

“You’ll explode if you try to pack it all away like a Molotov cocktail.”

“Works pretty well for you.”

“Ah, fuck off. I just told you what I was doing,” she said. “Anyway, nobody wants to hear me bitch and moan about my husband.” Arthur slouched further in his seat, gripping his glass with white knuckles. The words were just on the edges of his lips, burning and pressing against his mouth.

“I’m just fucked Mairead, okay? I’m just fucked, and I know it.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Arthur groaned loudly and ran a hand back through his hair.

“Can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Just can’t.”

“I used to carry you home on my back from school when you got in fights and you can’t tell me?” she said. “Would’ve done better to get myself a dog, like I said to mam.”

“It’s not that simple!” Arthur shouted, slamming his glass down against the table, sloshing whiskey over his hand. “Fuck!” Mairead sighed and passed him a napkin.

“Gwydion—Arthur—look, if you killed a man, just out with it. Whatever you did I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is.”

“Yeah?” Arthur asked poisonously, drawing the word out and squinting over at her in a rage. “You think so? You know why I stayed so long in Paris? I was busy getting buggered by a hot Frenchman. And still I have to stop myself from going back to him.”

Mairead blinked at him.

“You’re—?”

“Yes, I’m a fucking queer,” he snarled, knocking back the rest of his whiskey in one go before grabbing the bottle and chugging a good portion from that too. “Jesus Christ, I told you I couldn’t say anything.”

“Well then.” Again the chink chink chink of her nails against the glass, and no words. Arthur’s gut burned like a fire in his body, and he fought the urge to hurl the bottle against the wall. “I mean, you didn’t kill anyone, then?”

“No,” he replied dully, simmering with fury in his seat. Directed at whom, or what, he couldn’t say.

“Well then.”

“Oh, fuck off! Go confess to a priest if you need to cleanse your soul after hearing about my transgressions.”

“I haven’t said a thing!”

“You don’t have to!” Mairead sighed heavily while Arthur poured himself more whiskey.

“I mean, it’s not ideal.”

“You’re telling me?”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?”

“Okay, okay, it was a stupid question.”

“No shit.”

More silence, and Arthur groaned again, bumping his head back against the wall.

“Fuck, Mairead. No matter what I do, I’m buggered. If I stay here, I’ll have to marry some girl and pretend I’m something I’m not for the rest of my life. If I go back, I can’t keep lying, and whether it’s legal or not, you know people will be ugly. And I don’t…” He hung his head, drawing his feet up onto the chair. “I don’t know if I want to accept that kind of life. And don’t fucking tell me I’m going to hell,” he added, lifting his head.

“I wasn’t going to,” she said, throwing her hands up. She rubbed her chin and frowned. “Do you…do you love this man?”

“I don’t know,” he replied in a pained voice, tipping his head back again. “Fuck. Just tell me if you’re disgusted, don’t pretend.”

“I mean, I didn’t see it coming,” she admitted. “But…”

“But?”

“Well…it just seems to me there are worse things you could do than be in love with a man,” she said. Arthur sat up straighter, and put his feet back on the floor.

“But what about the Church?” Mairead tilted her head from side to side.

“I know what they say. But like I said…I mean, you’re not hurting anyone.” Arthur just stared. “It used to be illegal to be a Protestant,” she pointed out in the silence.

“Yeah…”

“So…” She shifted in her seat, looking down at her drink. “Maybe we don’t always get things right the first time.”

“So you don’t…”

“You’re still my little brother,” she said, lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were green, like his, but a darker, more intense hue. “I don’t know what I think just yet, but I’m sure as fuck not going to kick you to the street about it.”

“No?” Arthur’s voice cracked, and a great tremor went through him.

“Just seems like we have bigger concerns than whether or not you want to marry a broad.” Then Arthur was rubbing at his eyes and not saying anything, and Mairead helped herself to the whiskey bottle. “So then, we’re back to the question of whether or not you mean to stay in London.” Arthur sniffled, and reached for his whiskey glass.

“I haven’t decided.”

“Well you left for a reason,” she said. “You think you’ve solved that issue?” Arthur looked down into his glass with a small shake of his head. “Because—well, you know how I felt. About Seamus.” Arthur hadn’t been there for Mairead’s wartime wedding, and he’d never really thought much about it before. But he supposed marrying someone who was probably about to go off and die required some kind of steel. And love.

“So what? You think I should go back?”

“I think you should do what you want,” she said. “Don’t wait until you’re forty to realize you knew what you wanted all along.” Arthur heaved a sigh, and looked over.

“Shit. We’re out of whiskey.”

“Who’s ‘we’? I was never here,” Mairead said, finishing her glass and setting it down. “But dad might give you a good bollocking when he finds you’ve drunk all his whiskey.”

“Hey! You did too!” Mairead smirked and shrugged as she got to her feet, carefully rising and drying her whiskey glass to put it back on the shelf. “Bring it here,” she said, reaching her hand back without turning, curling and uncurling her fingers. After a puzzled pause, Arthur staggered to his feet and passed her his glass to be cleaned. He hovered nearby while she did it, and when she turned to go, presumably to bed, he caught her in a clumsy hug. Mairead hesitated, surprised, but then gave him a loose embrace in return. Arthur was just a bit taller, but could rest his forehead on her shoulder still, and he did.

“You get to bed, Gwyn,” she said, patting his back and peeling him off her. “You’re fucking plastered.”

“Don’t tell mummy,” he pleaded.

“Hm, we’ll see,” she said. “I might need something from you in the next few days.”

“Mairead!” She laughed quietly.

“Get to bed, you twit. It’s almost one. And you’re going to wake everyone up.” Arthur at last obeyed, and stumbled upstairs to his room, collapsing on the bed. He fought to pull the covers out from under himself for a few minutes before he gave up and just grabbed his pillow. He felt warm from head to toe as he closed his eyes, but it wasn’t the whiskey, despite the considerable amount he had put away. No, it was the two thoughts that chased each other ‘round and ‘round in his head until he fell asleep:

Mairead still loves me and I’m going back to Paris.

#fruk #ukfr #aph england #hws france #hws ireland #hetalia #hetalia fanfiction #fruk fanfiction #aph: england #aph: france #aph: ireland #rocky writes #hetalia fruk #aph fruk #me: i'm gonna update this semi-regularly!!#me: shows up an entire fucking year later with an update #how y'all doing #hope you have as much fun reading about the kirkland family dynamic as i did writing it

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ominousflare · 6 years ago

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It’s Been A While

So I haven’t been using tumblr for a long time (or used it that much to begin with), but since I’ve found myself some fellow Spider-Man fans here converse with, I feel I might as well become more active, or whatever.

Anyway, I might post my future Superior Spider-Man review here in the future once I get my lazy ass to finish it. I know, I know, it’s a five year old story. I’m incredibly late. Anyway, it’s also an incredibly long review, so I don’t know whether if I should post it here or just the link of it.

For now, I guess I’ll just post a past review of mine. Here’s a review of

ASM #698-700: Dying Wish

Well, it's finally happened. Peter Parker is dead. The bad guy wins. Happy 50th anniversary, Spider-fans! Hope you enjoyed watching your favorite hero kick the bucket on his special day!

I'll be honest with you. I've been preparing for the worst. I was really uncomfortable with the idea of this arc just from reading about its details, that Doc Ock was going to swap brains with Spidey and assume his mantle. It sounded very gimmicky and contrived. Ever since "One More Day" happened, the Amazing Spider-Man comic seemed less like a character study of Peter Parker, with each story becoming a product the writers pitched as the next big thing to draw the readers of tomorrow and keep the book afloat for the next 10-20 years. Even Straczynski's run spent more time exploring the kind of person Peter was as a husband, adding new layers and depths to the hero, instead of turning each book into the blockbuster of the month. That being said... it's a good story. Not a great one, but certainly not the horrible nightmare some of us had hyperbolically generalized in a fit of panic. Somewhat disappointing, but not worth writing death threats about. And honestly, after reading an insightful article written by Cody Wilson of the ever-reliable Spiderfan.org, I realized that we were partially to blame for this "new direction" anyway. It's partly on us, the death of Spider-Man. We can gripe and complain about the writers, editors and Marvel's entire company all day long, but when it comes down to it, we have to face the facts: Spider-Man is a product, and business was booming in spite of all the supposedly "terrible" creative decisions they've made. And like any product, we the customers are a key source of how the business will be run. Over the years prior to ASM #700, Marvel had been selling us different ideas by introducing story elements that would later be used again in "Dying Wish," and our feedback to those elements in earlier stories was what ultimately led to the "Superior Spider-Man," the book that would replace "The Amazing Spider-Man" title for better or worse - at least for a year and 33 issues. Through this review, I hope to address these "elements" and analyze which of them worked for me and which merely raised my anxiety levels.

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER

This wasn't the first time a supervillain stole Peter Parker's identity. Back in ASM #602, Chameleon seemingly "killed" Peter in an acid pool and subsequently went about the rest of the day being him; even interacting with Peter's acquaintances and friends. Having the eccentric behavior of improving the lives of whomever he had disguised as, Chameleon did a few selfish things, including punching Mary-Jane's stalker (with the butt of a gun), calling Flash Thompson "Puny Flash" the way he called Peter years ago, and moving Harry's homeless butt into Peter's home. These "improvements" Chameleon made in Peter's life were well-received by readers, myself included, thereby providing Marvel the first piece of the puzzle they needed. I have to admit, Peter calling the ex-bully "Puny Flash" was a guilty pleasure on its own, giving payback to the football star after so long. On the other hand, he's a crippled war hero, so it was still a scummy thing to say. And while it could be fun to see someone carry out these naughty deeds in Peter's favor - doing and saying things some of us wish Peter would just have the guts to do - it could also lead to some really creepy scenes. Let's not forget, these were bad people taking over Peter's life, Octavius the sociopathic egomaniac included. In ASM #602, Chameleon made out with Peter's roommate, who wasn't aware who she was really kissing under that mask; this lack of consent was tantamount to an act of rape.

And then in #700, Otto (in Peter's body) was clearly thinking of having sex with MJ, a woman who would be unaware of the real person she's really sleeping with. This would eventually lead to some even more sleazy storyline in the "Superior Spider-Man," which I'll touch on in the future. Playing devil's advocate for a bit, one could argue that crippling a woman and stripping her naked to show how evil a villain is was in poor taste too, yet Killing Joke was held by millions as some gold standard of storytelling. What Dan Slott wrote seemed trivial by comparison.

KILL HIM TWICE, SHAME ON YOU

There's a reason why "Death of Spider-Man" worked in the Ultimate universe: Peter Parker died being known to his world as a hero, giving us a fitting finality. In the 616 universe, on the other hand? He died leaving a villain perving on his ex-girlfriend! What kind of finality was that?! What a way to shit all over our favorite hero! Of all the feedback Marvel took into consideration, this had to be the dumbest. It's like simple math to them: "People loved Ultimate Death of Spider-Man, therefore they must be okay with killing off 616 Peter Parker and replacing him with a murdering sociopath on his 50th birthday." Unfortunately, the best storytelling is anything but simple math. And unlike USM, the moments right before Peter's death here felt rushed. Ultimate Spider-Man had the benefit of "Ultimate Fallout", a mini series dedicated to addressing how everyone reacted to the death of such a great hero. Amazing Spider-Man didn't have that advantage and had to slap together several "closures" to end the book, including MJ finally confessing to Otto-Peter her love for him, Jonah Jameson finally approving of Spidey as a legit hero, and Peter experiencing a dream sequence where everyone he cared about who died came back to greet and thank him - all within a single issue. These "closures" should have been, in my opinion, focused on in an entirely separate issue of their own, not crammed together with the already crowded plot of #700. It ended up reading like a last minute homework assignment written hastily to beat the deadline.

There's also another thing that bothered me about Peter's final moments. Using the last remnant of his energy in Octavius' dying body, Peter was somehow able to channel the memories in his own body and forced Otto to experience all the guilt and pain he ever felt being Spider-Man. Afterwards, he almost seemed content to pass on the mantle to Doc Ock. Why was he so content with letting this potential killer take over his role as Spidey, and why would his dying wish be for Otto to take care of MJ and his loved ones? He's a selfish and self-centered jerk who only ever cared about himself! Why would he trust him?! No matter how sympathetic Otto came across, and no matter how desperate Peter was, it just didn't make sense. I wish there would have been at least a last desperate struggle on Peter's part to resist letting this psycho do whatever he wanted with his powers, not quietly accept his takeover. In fact, it would have made more sense if Peter had gone to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four instead, where he could have made it his last request to have them stop Doc Ock. Not to mention, they would have bought this "mind-swap" story a lot more than Carlie - who shot him multiple times when he tried to tell her the truth - did.

DRACO IN LEATHER PANTS

The third feedback Marvel collected was the sympathetic side of Octavius. There were a number of stories detailing this, depicting him as a frail young boy in the past who had aspired to be scientist (just like Peter Parker). And there's grounds for such sympathy too, for Otto never received the proper grooming Peter had, thereby being an ideal mirror of Spidey (much like the Joker and Batman). This ambiguous side of Octavius' morality was well-received, along with, of course, Spider-Man 2, where he was made into an even more sympathetic antagonist than his comic counterpart. Yet, the decision to place a murderer behind the mask of the webbed hero for a long period of time is strange and definitely inappropriate. Octavius is tied to at least three deaths, two of which were intentional: Bradley Miles in "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" Vol. 2 #40, James Warden in "Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure" #4, and the accidental death of George Stacy in ASM #90. Would that be appropriate for the kids reading this? Spidey's been a huge recognizable icon all over the world, and now kids are going to follow in the footsteps of this scum who thinks it's okay to break the other criminals' jaws or just straight up kill them (the latter of which we'll see in "Superior" later on)? With the recent "racial/sexual diversity" movement a more political Marvel was trying to gun for, I'm surprised they would risk such an idea in our SJW climate, not to mention the aforementioned sexual aggression towards MJ.

Again, there is potential for a good story here... if it's a tale of redemption, which would only work if Octavius turns himself in. Unfortunately, a move like that could possibly end the Spider-Man books for good (unless Peter returns), which is the exact opposite of why Marvel shook things up with this brain-swap in the first place (to keep the sales of Spider-Man books from dying). And even if the books continue with Otto being some kind of anti-hero vigilante hunted by the law, there's no way Spider-Man fans (and probably many parents) could approve of a murderer remaining as the new face of the inspiring hero for long. I think Marvel knew that. Marvel's not stupid. And we knew that Marvel's not stupid, so I'm sure lots of people have speculated Peter Parker's return long before he did. What I don't know is why Marvel even bothered to hide it. It's kinda an obvious eventuality. But when all is said and done, I admit that the idea of a Spider-Man who's not so morally clean does intrigue me, somewhat. Over the years, Spidey cutting loose and unleashing all the strength and powers in him can be cathartic. While it was his integrity that made him an amazing character we could look up to, there was also an underlying pleasure in seeing him punish those who deserve it; in seeing him get a little dirty to get things done. So to have "SpOck" (god that's an awful nickname) stay for a while before Peter eventually come back? I'm actually okay with that. I wouldn't mind seeing a "dark and gritty" chapter for Spider-Man. However, a key reason I would like this approach lies in a factor that applies to me: I haven't read the other darker Spider-Man spin-offs, which brings us to our final feedback and problem.

DARKNESS WITHOUT LIGHT BREEDS APATHY

There were two other Spider-Man spin-offs around the time this story arc was released. "Scarlet Spider" (Vol. 2) and Venom (Vol. 2), both of which received very favorable reviews (Venom, in particular), and were darker takes on the Spider-Man theme of power and responsibility (Scarlet Spider, in particular, since he's literally a clone of Peter Parker). If I want a darker story, I would read either of those. The only reason I didn't was because I only have enough time for Spidey alone. No time for the myriad amount of spin-offs out there. And now a third dark Spider-story is introduced, filled with murders and bloodshed - and believe me, there will be blood. I've mentioned before that I love dark stories. I live for them. They can touch on our basest emotions and provide us a form of catharsis the lighter and warmer tales couldn't. But this is another case of businessmen blindly relying on the numbers without considering the context. Too much darkness can ultimately lead to indifference in your audience, not to mention the fact that the "lighter" stories have their place in storytelling too, offering something dark stories couldn't either: hope, and moral inspiration.

Batman is an amazing character. His stories (often through his rogues' gallery) delve into a complex analysis of the human mind; of our darkest and most frightening emotions and personalities. But not everyone likes reading Batman, and even Batman fans probably don't want every superhero to be like Batman either! That would just dilute his unique quality. Besides, would you want all your heroes to be brooding or morally complex? Did you enjoy the dark and morose Superman in Batman v. Superman or even Man of Steel? Sometimes, we just want heroes to be heroes! Not straight up kill criminals without offering redemption like The Punisher and Wolverine! We already have those in the Marvel universe! Sigh. I'm merely playing devil's advocate here. As I've mentioned, 'Spotto Octavius' wasn't going to stay for the long-term, so it's fine. A temporary period of dark Spider-Man stories is fine. For me. But I do have to put my foot down and lay out what a darker Spider-Man means for the world, and why both writers and business executors alike must be careful not to push the scale too far. Balance. There must always be balance in all things. Take it from Thanos.

WAS THIS STORY ANY GOOD?

I talked a lot about the aspects that came to piece together this Frankenstein monster. But was the story entertaining in its own right? The short answer is yes, especially #698. That first part of the story was truly like Doc Ock said, a magic trick. It began with an ordinary day in the life of Spidey. Nothing seemed unusual. But by the end of it, I was left slack-jawed and so utterly impressed by Slott that I had to read the ending twice to see if I had misread something. The second and third issues went a step further. Essentially, the entire story arc could be summed up with "Peter trying to get back into his own body." But after we knew Peter was running out of time, the pacing of the story started to pick up really, really quickly. The readers would be as concerned as Peter, and at that time, nobody knew what was really going to happen because there was an announcement around that time that "The Amazing Spider-Man" book would come to an end. It's a real page-turning thriller in spite of its simple premise. Most gut-wrenching of all, they made Peter plead for his life. On his birthday.

Talk about a punch to the gut. Brings back tearful memories ("I don't want to go, Mr. Octavius"). Humberto Ramos' art really didn't help things. His depiction of Peter trapped in a dying body was a horrifying sight to endure for me. You could see all the horrid details; his skin decaying, his eye-socket popping out, and blood spilling out everywhere. I could only imagine how painful Peter's final moments were. No wonder many fans were outraged. This wasn't an honorable death in the arms of his loved ones like Ultimate Spider-Man; it was pure torture. Does Dan Slott actually hate Peter Parker? Still, I have to give credit where it's due. It's an emotional story (albeit for the wrong reasons at times), and it's a really ballsy one too where the bad guy actually won. And it wasn't just any bad guy either - it was one of Spidey's biggest bads of all. Since Norman Osborn had already became an Avenger villain, it made sense for the next biggest Spider-Man villain in line, Doc Ock, to be the one who would finally do him in. Now onto the other question: do I like the overall story? No. I don't hate it as much as certain stories in the past (marriage and The Devil come to mind), but on principle, I can't accept this story. I know why they made this story. It's almost the same thing as One More Day. I'm guessing the sales for ASM must have been dropping. And even if it wasn't, even if I'm completely wrong about the comparisons to OMD, I still don't like how shoddily his death was treated. I don't mind a Spider-Man death - I LOVED "Death of Ultimate Spider-Man." It respected and really reminded us why Spidey was the hero we loved. This story felt like just another rushed effort by Dan Slott to clean up the book and move onto the thing he seemingly loved more, Spotto Octavius "The Superior Spider-Man," a book that he's written far better than his entire run in ASM. Are we sure Dan is a Spider-Man fan? Or did he just like Otto?

To clarify, I don't begrudge Dan. It's more of the corporate decisions of Marvel executives that I'm so infuriated about. It's always the executives at one point or another whenever we are talking about a creatively-skewed story. And while his work might have been sloppy throughout most of his run, I was reminded recently that it might be due to Marvel pushing him with agendas and deadlines, so again, not his fault. What's done is done. And I've already began reading "Superior", even as I'm writing this. It's not bad, and it's everything I expected: an extremist Spidey willing to cross the line to get things done. I like it, just not how we got there. I mean, give me a break, Peter was my hero. Is it too much that I wanted a death that wasn't as insulting? At the least, I wish that "dream sequence" I mentioned was more than just a dream, and everyone Peter cared about actually came to pat him on the back for doing a good job, that it was time for him to rest. The fact that it was only a dream felt like the final slap to his face. "Good job, hero. Now get the f*** out of here."

Final Rating: Two webs out of five

I was going to give this story three webs initially. I really did. But looking back now at how Peter's death was treated, I feel more infuriated than satisfied, and also annoyed that it was just another corporate decision that never stuck, since he would come back later anyway. It cheapened the already cheapened idea of the comic book death. Now, even one of the most iconic heroes of all time suffered from the tired cliche of meaningless death.

Next time, I shall finally witness the birth of this supposedly "Superior Spider-Man" and see if Otto could truly surpass our lovable Pete as the hero we deserve:

#spider-man #spider-man fans #amazing spider-man #dying wish #dan slott #doc ock #doctor octopus

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wolfsrainrules · 6 years ago

Note

Could you rate your top five fandoms that you want to write for but haven't? And maybe your favorite headcannons for some?

WHY DIDNT I GET THE ALERT FOR THIS????? SORRY.

Hmmm…..This is a good one. Five fandoms I want to write for but haven’t….

1. One Piece 2.Yu Yu Hakusho 3. Percy Jackson (Book)4. Marvel Cinematic Verse as a whole really (I know I have like one thing over on FanFic for it, but I need to do more/write more/finish that)5. Supernatural (TV Series)

They’re not in any particular order, but these are five fandoms I would like to add to.

Edit- added about two secs after I posted it when I reread the ask- YOU ASKED FOR RATINGS SORRY- I’m gonna use the numbers next to the fandom for from first to last (4, 1, 2, 3, and then 5)

And headcanons for them:1. -Luffy is street smart rather then book, obviously. Not very good with math or anything he has to sit down and think about right? Well I like to think that the exception to this is math. Not in a conventional sense of course, but in a ‘hey Luffy I need you to hit this thing’ he could do it.It’s not that he could sit down and solve the thing, but that if asked he could figure out exactly how to set up A Thing and make it happen. Hitting a target, sling-shot a crew mate onto a tiny target with no room for error for a far distance, take out a group of 20 with no line of sight, and obstacles in the way in bad lighting without use of Haki?

Totally doable.

-Chopper has no sense of shame when it comes to things that would usually embarrass a human to talk about. (Periods, attraction, certain habits, scents whatever) none of it bothers him. Partly due to being a reindeer with the enhanced senses to tell and mostly becuase He’s just super curious and will literally talk about whatever with whoever will sit down to chat to him

-Speaking of that last one, Robin is Chopper’s best source of info on things like that, she doesn’t mind teaching about it

-Due to his sense of smell, Chopper always knows when the women’s ‘cycles’ are coming up and he makes a point to let Sanji know so he can cook more iron/protein rich foods, and have a stash of chocolate ready to hand out

-Luffy is actually really good about having chocolate on his person for these times of the month, and makes a point to hand it out to the girls. When questioned, he just shrugs and mentions Makino and Dadan

2. -After Yusuke ‘awakens’ he has to deal with a sudden onset of pack related instincts

-They are intense and unexpected and this ups the fear factor when dealing with Yusuke by a ton when it comes to people messing with those Yusuke considers ‘his’

-Yusuke purrs when content and relaxed around any of his ‘pack’ and will murder anyone who says anything fight him

-He also purrs to comfort distressed packmates. He doesn’t even think about it

-The purring thing is actually a demon thing and will in fact set Hiei and Kurama off. It’s the most relaxed Yusuke has ever been (also the safest he’s ever felt but will never ever say this)

-Yusuke becomes very touch oriented with everyone in his ‘pack’ and doesn’t notice it- it has something to do with ‘scent marking’ them as one of his.

-Hiei is intensely flattered about this, not that he’d ever say, due to his heritage making him such an outcast before. This also makes him very, very protective of his little pack

-If his sister had to pick anyone to be with, he….supposed it was better to be one of the pack rather than a fool stranger. At least he knows Kuwabara would literally fight whoever he had to for her. That’s more than most of the human’s he’s ever seen

-He is also aware that Yukina would like that Kuwabara is going into the medical field

3. (to start with very behind in this fandom. I read the first collection of books as they came out and Son of Neptune but BEHIND OTHERWISE SORRY)

-the demigods have a habit when out in groups of friends when they want to talk to each other about ‘Camp’ stuff or otherwise things that regular humans couldn’t hear, of talking to each other in greek

-passing notes to each other when out in ‘public’ is also done in greek. It makes the looks on people’s faces when they see it really funny

-Annabeth has what is fondly referred to by Grover as ‘Percy Senses’. She always knows when Percy is doing something Stupid without her.

-After Tartarus Percy sometimes has days where he just needs fight something. Not because he wants to fight, but because these new instincts of his are too much and if he doesn’t do something with them soon he’s going to go mad.

-The gods as a whole live in fear of Sally Jackson, who has and Will Do So Again, gotten up in their faces and lectured them before.

-Poseidon has never been so proud- even when she lectured him

-Percy and Annabeth are the only people that can calm each other down from flashbacks without getting attacked for it while the other is still caught in the flashback

-Percy totally and completely has accidentally proposed to Annabeth with an apple (as far as she is aware) but Percy did in fact know the history behind the apple and tossed it to her on purpose in front of the entire camp.4. -Tony Stark is a very ‘in your face’ celebrity- everyone knows this. He makes a point to make them do so. He never says a word about the millions he donates to things like children hospitals, or the time he went around for a month and revamped a selection of orphanages entirely.

-He likes to make stops in children hospitals as Iron Man, and will take other super heroes with him whenever he can swing it. (usually without telling the hero in question that’s what he’s doing until they’ve arrived)

-Hulk is actually the children’s favorite Avenger. He’s entirely gentle with them, and will go out of his way to protect them whenever they get swept up in villain messes

-Tony has a five min video in which Hulk plays with the kids- lets them use him like a jungle gym, tosses and catches them, takes them ‘flying’ via long jumps, or lets them ride on his shoulders

-After Tony has time to calm down from the Winter Soldier Assassination thing, he begins to associate the ‘brainwash a personal assassin of our own’ thing with his capture via Ten Rings, and goes out of his way to make sure Bucky gets the help he needs (why do you think no one caught on to Bucky moving around so long on his own followed by the move to Wakanda? No matter how good he was, someone would have seen something right?)

-Tony finds he does in fact get along with Bucky surprisingly well after the help. They get into a prank war. It’s a mess. It ends when Tasha gets caught up in it and decides she’s gonna end this one way or another. While in the ‘dog house’ so to speak the two bond over burgers and milkshakes in an old fashioned diner5. -Sam knows Dean is a Nerd, despite not admitting to it, and will always get Dean some kind of fandom related present for holidays/birthdays where he can manage it

-One year, Sam managed to swing Comic Con tickets and didn’t tell Dean they were going, only that they had a ‘hunt’ in the area. Dean screamed when he saw the tickets.

Like a little girl.

Sam has it recorded.

-Cas was brought along to this, and Dean spent the entire time geeking out and introducing Cas to as much famdom and pop culture reffs as he could fit into the entire con

-Sam spent the entire time taking pictures and recording things. Best money he’s ever spent even if their last names were faked (like hell he wasn’t letting Dean get his autographs signed to Dean)

-Sam is actually a really, really good artist and draws fanart for some of Dean’s famdoms as well as the few that he liked (Star Trek and Doctor Who were favorites of Sam’s actually) and he sells some of it for easy money where he can

-Dean has no idea that a few of the really nice pieces of fanart he’s flipped out over were done by Sam. Sam is both intensely flattered and embarrassed by this

-Cas is the one to tell Dean, since he saw Sam drawing some of them.

Dean screamed.

Again.

#wolfsrainrules asks #wolfsrainrules headcanon #anon asks #Marvel #Yu yu hakusho #supernatural #percy jackon and the olympians #one piece #What would I like to add to #Fandoms #headcanons

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mirrorfalls · 7 years ago

Note

what are your top 5 comic runs of all time?

Hrrrm…

Alright, with the caveat these (even #1) can change at any dang minute…

1.) Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. The one thing that sets Moore apart from all his Vertigo successors is that he could play to the cheap seats as well as he did the ivory tower; for every reference to this esoteric mystical branch or that 18th century novel, there’s a cheap-as-hell joke about Star Wars or Burma Shave, and none of it ever feels out of place. I’m only partly ashamed to admit every damn fanfic project I’ve tried to start in the last five years has tried to rip this off - in aesthetic and construction, if not in content - as much as humanly possible. Only without all the purdy pictures ‘cause I can’t art.

2.) Greg Rucka’s Wonder Woman (the first one, haven’t touched Rebirth). Rucka’s five predecessors all had their high points - some, perhaps, higher than Rucka’s own work ever reached - but Rucka was the first to introduce genuinely, consistently solid plotting to a book that had up ‘til that point been running mostly on wishy-washy magic “rules” if not literal Deus ex Machina’s, and he did it without ever turning Diana into Superman-lite or Batman-lite or (Athena forbid) Thor-lite.

3.) Kelley Puckett’s Batgirl - at least, the first three trades. I’m not sure where the story went after that (and frankly I’m not sure I care to know), but those early issues were some of the very best experiments in applying manga aesthetics to Western comics since… shit, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, at least. Whole issues without dialogue, without titles, could paint sharper human dramas than Oscar-winning directors, and it’s one of the greatest tragedies of the era Puckett exited comics as early as he did.

4.)Chuck Dixon’s Detective Comics. I’m much more than partly ashamed of how much I stanned this guy just a year or two ago, but hell, you can never really forget what first got you into comics. The dialogue’s crisp, the plots usually need at least a thrice-over to pick apart, and after all these years, Dixon probably remains my go-to on how to write the Joker and the Riddler, and the general Batfam, too.

5.) Token nod to the Competition - Stan Lee’s original run on The Amazing Spider-Man really did deserve to be Marvel’s breakout boy. It was probably never the most artistically groundbreaking, but good golly gosh did it always feel the most human. New York might host the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and a zillion other heroes, but it is Peter Parker in a way none of them (except maybe Daredevil) could never be. It’ll shove him and kick him while he’s down and slip a $50 in his back pocket all at once, and Peter may never take that lying down, but he’ll never turn his back on it, either. That’s just the kind of man he is.

#Anonymous

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bandaidkits · 7 years ago

Text

After much too long, I (with a sprinkling of other alters) have finally sat down and watched Th/or Rag/nar/ok, and I have a hell of a lot of say.

So. Clearly it’s a major tone change from the usual Thor movies, previously told to me by the mother, which is. Really not fine. Honestly I feel the change messes with the narrative and the flow of how the series as a whole was. And I say was because I can’t get past the glaring errors of this movie.

Did I like it? Not entirely. As a whole, no. There were some bits I laughed at. Some bits that I’m quite pleased got addressed (such as when Hulk slammed Th/or around like a bean bag and I jumped up and shouted that now he knows how it feels! That was beyond rewarding), but there wasn’t enough.

What’s going to happen to Bruce now that he turned into the Hulk after he said he shouldn’t? What will happen to me after I return to earth? Why did Thor suddenly become Odin 2.0? Being the king of Asgard doesn’t mean one needs to lose their eye. Honestly I feel that was in poor taste. Also the destroying of his hammer. I was waiting for that to be fixed at the end. Never happened. What’s Thor without his hammer? Or his hair for that matter? I don’t know if this was the director’s choice or the actor’s choice, but it was a bad one. I’m assuming Chris had extensions in for this movie and the last, so what was the point in cutting it? I don’t believe it was ever cut in the comics.

Now let’s move onto Hela and Fenrir. Marvel is already known for bastardizing Norse beliefs. We know this. We should not accept this but fans do so anyway because there is nothing we can do.

There isn’t much to say other than Hela (Hel) is actually my daughter, not Odin’s, as well as Fenrir. This whole “big sister comes back to wreck havoc on Asgard to get back at dear old dad and the family she never met before” is ridiculous. It’s a bad plot. Also, she looks nothing like Frigga or Odin and I’ve already seen people say they see the family resemblance between her and I, and that is... stupid. I am adopted. I am not Asgardian and I never will be because I am a Frost Giant and that is all it is and will be end of story.

Without getting too deep into their terrible take on that, honestly it would have been better if they stuck with the Loki has several children thing. It would make more sense why she actually looks like me. Are you scared, Marvel? Are you scared to show big scary mischievous Loki as a parent? It wouldn’t even do anything, in fact it would show me in a more “villain” light. I have a lot of odd children who do not so great things?? I really think that would tie into that (stagnant) character (more on that later) they’ve built for me. Unless, they are going for the Loki redemption arc. Which. How is that going to happen? The movie ends with us going to earth. A place where everyone is either terrified or scared of me. And after the whole Cap 3 movie with those treaties, how is that going to work?

The next movie coming out is In/fin/ity War. Just reading the plot is giving me a headache. Too many characters. So what Marvel is telling me, is that we are all taking the ship full of Asgardians to earth, to set up some sort of life there for all those otherworldly people, and then, somehow, Thanos finally makes it to earth after years and years, gets the infinity stones, and we team up with the Gua/rdians of the Ga/laxy to save the earth. All of us. All the Av/engers, who have fallen apart since Civil War, other people who’s names I don’t even recognize. Even me. Me! What is with that major shift? Please get a proper narrative for your movies, Marvel. I’m getting tired of all this running around in circles. You haven’t let me down this much since Th/or 2 and Civil War.

(And I did not like Civil War, because, even though I didn’t watch it myself, Bucky did. And he knows better than anyone how that movie should have went.

The most I can say is the movie babies Tony, as if he’s some feeble child who is suffering so dearly from something that is never mentioned to have affected him before this movie. This was not an Ir/on Man movie. This was a Cap/tain Ame/rica movie. If we wanted to see Tony being the star, we would have paid for an Ir/on Man movie. This was supposed to feature Steve as the main character, focus on his feelings, his views most of all, but it instead painted him as some stubborn idiot who has outlandish ideas and only cares about saving his friend.

And in the end, what happens. Tony blows off Bucky’s arm and afterwards they all decide to put this man, who has been trying to heal and be a better person, into the ice. I highly doubt Bucky would have wanted to get within five feet of that thing. And Steve somehow barely shows Bucky an ounce of that best friendship he insists they have. No hug at the end. Nothing significant. They just put him under. Why? Wouldn’t that remind him of Hydra? Nowhere in that entire movie did he turn on any of them. He was not a threat. There was nothing pointing him to being a threat anymore and yet, he comes out of nowhere with that?

Unacceptable.)

Onto my character. They seem extremely intent on making my role the God of Misch/ief and nothing more. The little change of heart at the end isn’t enough. Especially with the pause, stare longingly at the tessaract, cut to another scene, oh Loki thanks for saving the day!, except oh no where is he oh that’s right he’s on the ship suddenly with no explanation at all whatsoever and Thor didn’t even seem the least bit concerned and it really gave off the impression that he didn’t care for me at all and essentially gave up on me halfway through the movie.

“I mourned for you” doesn’t mean a whole lot when you keep tossing me aside when I get too difficult for you. Thor’s undying love for me is a major element of his character! It’s so shoved in our faces in the first two movies and the Ave/ngers. And now it’s barely touched upon. And how can I even blame him when my character is so stagnant. Why am I not getting character development that even people like Tony got? (not very good development but that’s a review for another day and Bucky is more suited to writing about it) If there aren’t some improvements of my character by the next movie there’s going to be a serious problem. If they make me betray everyone by the end and it falls into the old grating shoved down everyone’s throat trickster god is only ever going to be a trickster and will never amount to anything else narrative I’m going to rip out all my hair and my eyes.

Moving on. Odin dying. My fault? How? I didn’t strip him of any powers. Odin is a god. He’s powerful. I left him on earth and if he wanted to leave, he would have, but he did not. He was perfectly content down there. Heimdall should have seen and known all of this (which is the issue with an all seeing all knowing character because if they are able to see all then why did they not do anything with their knowledge? Plot holes. So many of them). Odin died because he was old and should have died years and years ago. That was not my fault and to pin it on me was unfair. Grief is understandable but the scene did not play out properly.

Ruling Asgard so frivolously, so stupidly... and doing a piss poor job of acting the moment Thor comes back was cringey at best. Ridiculous and inconsistent with my abilities shown in the second movie. The shapeshifting ability is something that is very poorly presented in this movie. I know it is a Thor movie and it is focused on him but if they can take a Cap movie and make it into a Tony’s Very Sad Day movie then I think they can put a little more effort into characterizing me properly, especially when I have such a big presence in the comics and I’m such an integral part of the family and a fan favorite.

The opening scene sweeps everything Thor’s been doing under the rug with a very small explanation and nothing to show for it.

And going back to the use of humour in this movie. Or rather, the overuse of humour. The other movies had their fair share of mild humour thrown in so as to not set the tone of the movies as more heavy than they already are. Just a little is enough. These movies aren’t humour based. They aren’t supposed to be funny to the point where I’m completely thrown off by the complete shift of tone from the other movies in the series. I went into this movie expecting more jokes, but not that many. It really took away from the main focus. It was too funny. There were too many light moments.

(In an unrelated criticism, the relationship with Jane being such a big thing in the first and second movies, then suddenly being tossed aside around the time of Age of Ul/tron and being only mentioned once in this movie doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t we see any of this? Why even put her in the movies in the first place if she was just going to be tossed aside later? Why the unnecessary romantic subplot that irked a number of fans to begin with? It’s almost as if the writers realized they didn’t have a use for her anyone and scrapped her. They shouldn’t have put her in the movies as a romantic interest in the first place.)

If this is the direction they’re going for the next movies, then I don’t know how I’m going to handle watching them. I wish it was as simple as sending a letter to Marvel and having them rethink their scripts but unless enough people complain about it, they won’t care.

TD;LR: Too much humour in a movie that really did not need it. Bad tone. Stagnant characters. Plot holes. Bad choices. I’ll give it a 4/10.

#loki.txt #don't reblog please and thank you.

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memorylang · 5 years ago

Text

Remembering Mom—Third Year After | #36 | May 2020

I joined Peace Corps chiefly to experience part of my mom’s life teaching English in Asia. Thus, nearing one year since I left the States for Peace Corps, I reflect now on what I’ve come to understand about her... and me.

Coincidentally, this story #36, published on my normal Friday schedule, coincided with May 8, 2020, the exact day marking 36 months since my mother’s sudden death. While most events occur during Week 9 (Chinese number for longevity), this story begins Week 10 (number for perfection). Amazing.

As something unprecedented to this blog, I felt transcribing for you one of my penned free writes would give the clearest sense of where I’m at with Mom. So expect a tone different from my blogging norm.

A Story for Mothers’ Day

[4/22/20]

God gave imagination as a gift, so [I use] it now to envision [my] mother and grandma. [My paternal grandma Mary] and [Mom] greet [me] in the meadow. They smile lovingly, and [I feel] their warmth.

“I want to tell you everything,” I emote. “Life under quarantine has led me so much closer to you.”

The two continue smiling, kind eyes wide. I go on, speaking the frankness I long to know. [...] The two seem so glad I’m taking time to share with them. I muse I’ve really nothing better to do at 11 p.m. on this Wednesday night. They’re glad.

“Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying it up there together with everyone else. Mom, I envisioned you with your parents and brother some sleepless nights ago. Mary, I imagine you, too, at peace with your parents and among your son and your husband. You all must be doing just fine in Heaven.” [...]

“Do you have any advice up there for me on the spiritual life? It gets awfully tough down here sometimes. I know you know. [...] Rosaries help, that’s true. And acts of kindness are certainly key. [...] My, you two both had busy families to attend to. I guess you must be praying beside Jesus now, for the rest of us still here on Earth. [...] Maybe it’s hard watching us all slip and fall sometimes. But then again, you’ve such hope in us. Thank you for praying on our behalf.”

I try to think of what else I might say while the Spirit’s given me their attention. I feel moved by how the two grew up from such humble origins yet were so loving all the same. [...] I hope in Heaven they've gotten to know each other very well.

“I guess one area that’s troubling me these days is the prospect of pursuing academia. It’s daunting. It’s tough. But Mom, you did it. And Grandma, you sound like you had so much hope. So, I guess I’ve patron Saints like you up there helping me here, reading while I read, praying while I pray.” [...]

“I mean, heck, Grandma, I’m writing to you as though I know you, but I don’t believe we’ve met. I hope you don’t take offense. You don’t sound like the woman who would, though.”

*sigh*

“It’s a big world out here on Earth. I guess it’s even bigger in the heavenly kingdom. Oh, how I wish I’d be better at taking breaks and just resting in the majesty of your world. God made us to love, more than to work. [...] And in time, we’ll be healed to something beyond the beginning. That’s the resurrection. This is Easter.

“Maybe you two get to spend holidays together. If you haven’t I hope you try it. In mortal time, Mom’s been up there nearly three years, anyway. I like the term, ‘passing on’ more than ‘passing away,’ by the way. I think you’ve moved from this life to the next more than you’ve simply left this one.

“How joyful it must feel to live in a reality without status, one where all are one! Perhaps my depravity in this life will teach me gratitude in the next, as Peace Corps informed my time right now. That’d be nice…”

The two gesture it’s getting late, and there are things I’ve still to do tomorrow. But I shouldn’t forget to cherish my pilgrimage on Earth while I’m still on it. They’re right on both these accounts.

I’m glad of the time we spent together in these short moments. May the Spirit guide and protect me onward to my rest and return to living tomorrow. All is well.

Wrote My Way Out

Although this is the first and only 2017-2020 free write I’ve shared publicly among nearly 100, I felt its content valuable to help you witness a grieving process. And no, I don’t imagine Heaven as a place, “up there,” exactly. But since childhood, I’ve pictured my “happy place” as a meadow of Psalm 23.

Now I’ll give context.

That Week 7 (April 17-23), I’d just finished seeing “Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker” and felt too annoyed to sleep. Still, a few of Skywalker’s quotes spoke to me: “A thousand generations live in you now,” “You have everything you need,” “No one's ever really gone.”

The quotes reminded me of my “Frozen II” feels and brought to mind a sleepless thought I had earlier. As in Mongolia, I struggled at times to sleep these past months home and would think to Mom. I envisioned her at peace, reunited in Heaven with her parents and older brother who passed while she was rather young. Mom came from a troubled childhood, I’d learned. But her older adulthood spiritual struggles inspire me to this day.

Generations In Me

Nearly a month before, Week 3 (March 20-26), I’d begun home improvement operations, namely garage sorting and donation projects. My younger USC sister helped during her visit home the following week, too.

Uncovering Dad’s old family photos on our Austrian-American side, I felt motivated to dig into family history. So I aggregated years of emails between an uncle and me and paused my garage operation to spend nearly two days straight weaving stories into one narrative.

I uncovered on Dad’s side, generations of faithful heroes in a vaguely biblical way. Through my uncle’s resources, I traced back at least three ancestral marriages of a ‘Joseph’ and a ‘Mary.’ A couple of my Austrian ancestors had 12 children, a Christian number. And those parents may have met on a Marian pilgrimage. I felt awed to have genes from them, who walked before.

But I felt most moved by stories of my late grandmother, Dad’s mom. As among the Marys who married a Joe, she was especially devout, relatives said. And only later in life did my uncle, who would study German, learn his mother came from a troubled childhood. My grandparents’ devotions to the rosary and ancestors’ devotion to our Holy Mother shone new light upon my spiritual lineage.

So, that Wednesday, April 22, 2020 night, I took to the pen. Since winter 2017, I've revived an old grade school hobby of keeping an unedited free write journal. As an undergraduate that 2017 spring, having left a stressful job and joined more liberating orgs, I wrote for a creative and mental wellness outlet. After Mom passed, months later, my free writes would draw more catharsis. Even years later, while in Mongolia, I took free writes as my ‘time heist’ mentioned in my first Mongolia blog story, June 2019.

Thus, remembering Mom and conjuring my grandmother, I penned what I shared here.

Hidden Mother

During Week 9 (May 1-7), I experienced significant moments around Mom. Here lie the many.

After posting a Monday blog story, I usually spend the Tuesday after on house projects, to break from screen time. Recall, when my USC sister visited for Easter, she and I sorted away Mom's lifetime of dresses. Back at Christmas, I sorted Mom’s books—all but her desk’s, feeling those among her most cherished.

May's first week, having finished “Easter Epilogue | #35,” I felt ready for Mom’s desk. My family left it almost untouched the past three years.

What a struggle. I saw a dusty accordion folder, for example. I opened it to find what it might be and suddenly met a whiff of Mom's perfume. It saddened me. I could imagine why my family put off touching her desk post-death. I could practically feel her presence in her things. Finding a 2010 letter penned in China, I marveled how our relatives loved her, decades beyond her leaving.

Here’s where things get very curious.

Earlier that day, I felt like practicing Spanish again, but with the communicative way I practiced Chinese and Mongolian. Reaching out to Salvadorian friends, I felt glad they supported me eagerly. (Later, I realized it was Cinco de Mayo, though I doubted that affected El Salvador.)

But while sifting Mom's books to bins, I felt astonished.

I found a black notebook not unlike those I use. Dated spring 2013, I would've been a high school sophomore finishing Spanish classes.

At first, the book seemed nothing special. Mom penned pages of translations to technical words from the decades of Chinese-English dictionaries her shelves housed. Her notebook focused on English for medical science and technology. Still, I paged through.

Then I felt so shocked, I left the room.

My mom studied Spanish.

She practiced what she preached... She professed languages open doors, wanting my siblings and me multilingual. But she aspired toward it, too.

I could hardly believe it. Wisps of memory returned to me.

If Mom was alive during this Coronavirus period, she'd surely be doing exactly what I'm doing—studying.

And then I felt, yet again, I really am my mother's son. Her love of languages—I'm of her next generation.

Mom still has my back, all these years later. :)

A Blessed Generation

I continued the night for hours stowing Mom’s things. And curious thoughts came to mind.

Mom and I learned differently. She self studied phrase books and dictionaries. But my family’s had internet since I was young. Besides grammar books, I’ve had online translators, video access and friends as native speakers.

Throughout my childhood Mom and Dad would say how they were giving me a better childhood than either of them had. I realized it, with such abundance. At my fingertips have been resources hardly seen in human history. I have ways to learn that few could envision mere decades ago.

I noticed in one of Mom's dictionaries after she was an English professor, she, too, wrote with the International Phonetic Alphabet. One of my Mongolian colleagues first showed me that alphabet.

For better or worse, maybe my colleagues were right—English as the globe's most valuable language? And Mom sacrificed the life she knew in China. Emigrating, she gave my siblings and I abundant lives. Like her, I became an English instructor—but one privileged with native English.

As I walked our house to find new homes for Mom's possessions past, I noticed my Mongolian language notebooks and suddenly felt emotional.

Could Mom have imagined I'd know Mongolian, too? That I'd spend nearly a year bordering China? That I’d teach not only my English but also her Chinese—to real students.

I sighed. I hope Mom saves me a nice seat in Heaven beside her.

The Little Flower

Later that night, one more find spoke to me.

I noticed peculiar plastic bags with a book about grief among Mom’s things. I assumed the city handed these to my family when officials visited to impart our mother was killed. (I wouldn’t know, for I was away at uni, asleep with a vision I’ll never forget.) But, maybe the funeral home gave these after sealing Mom’s casket. I noticed especially the crimson rosary siblings said Mom kept on her.

Holding its beads, I noticed an inscription read, “St. Therese, pray for us.”

Strange—Mom never mentioned St. Therese. Mom grew up without churches in China, though, so I wondered whether Mom knew St. Therese’s story. I wondered, was this St. Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux or another?

On the back I found a little flower. Alright.

Then a thought struck me—St. Thérèse the “Little Flower” would be this year my 19-year-old little sister’s confirmation saint. Since me, Sister would be my first sibling to receive the sacrament.

Maybe St. Thérèse prayed for us.

Case Closed

Wednesdays keep coming up. Before I share what happened this Wednesday, here’s an Easter egg.

Earlier that week, I returned to a series I used to see the summer before I left home for uni—Marvel’s “Daredevil.” Picking up where I left off, the hero wins a court case and approaches his client, a youth who’s lost something for life. The hero, who bears a similar cross, coaches his client, winning the case doesn’t change reality. The client will have to live with this loss the rest of his life.

That Wednesday afternoon, our family had an unexpected web call with our lawyer. Mom's wrongful death case settled. After over two years' challenging litigation, we won. Mom wasn’t at fault. “Justice prevailed,” say some. Our lawyer echoed the hero. A win could never replace a parent.

Feelings Beyond Mother

This is the most emotional part of today’s story. We’re hitting “Frozen II” spoilers, so fair warning if that worries you.

Alright. While flying home from Mongolia, I wanted to see something either in Chinese or with subtitles. "Frozen II” had Chinese subtitles. So I chose it.

But it surprised me—magnificently.

From the moment the musical numbers began, I felt moved by timely lines, “Yes, the wind blows a little bit colder / And we're all getting older / And… That's why I rely on certain certainties.” I sat in the jet plane leaving nine months of uncertainty into the unknown.

I reflected on losing my community suddenly. The film’s themes of change felt nothing new, though welcomed. As it went on, I related to the princess’ unwavering love for her sibling. I related, too, to her sibling’s quest to their late parents.

But “Show Yourself,” that crushed me.

Its piano, the iridescence, the darkness and wisps attracted. But something more related. Lyrics felt as me talking to me, trying to talk to God or Him trying to me.

“All my life I’ve been torn. … Are you the one I’ve been looking for, all of my life?”

Then, determination: “You are the answer I’ve waited for, all of my LIFE!”

I thought the hero would find herself… I didn’t expect who would help.

The climax came. These moments stunned:

Hero: “Mother?”

Mother: “Come, my darling, homeward bound.” Hero: “I am FOUND!”

Together: “Show yourself! Step into the/YOUR power. Grow yourself, into something new.”

Mother: “You are the one you’ve been waiting for!” Hero: “All of MY LIFE!” Mother: “All of your life—”

I replayed that movement four times after finishing the film.

I cried.

Mom’s Effect

Years since Mother’s death, I’d racked my brain trying to find her.

Three years ago, I instinctively knew after Mom’s death, my siblings and I carried in our very lives the image of her. But I felt I wanted to know her, who she really was.

Then I heard and saw the hero’s mother afar profess with her, “You are the one you’ve been waiting for, all of MY/your life!” To remember, I am the very one I need and seek… That broke me.

The song struck like “Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” three years before. Yet, this transfiguration felt… personal.

Weeks later, I still reflected on why I identified so strongly with the climax.

I felt in some ways released from the quest that drove me my upperclassman uni years, indeed, to the point I entered the Peace Corps. I pursued this path to find my late mother. I wanted to know her better. She taught English in Asia. I’d teach English in Asia.

Because, in many ways, I trusted I would find and know myself through her. Indeed, following my mother’s star led me back to her… and me.

I felt my power. If I return to Peace Corps, I’m doing it for my reasons, not Mom’s. If I’m teaching in Asia, I’m teaching on my path, not hers. For mine is not hers. And hers isn’t mine.

Liberation’s euphoric.

Transfiguration

For weeks, people had told me as a Christian, the power of the Holy Spirit is mine to use in God’s name. I just need to call on it.

To my bewilderment, the exact day after seeing our “Frozen II” hero’s transfiguration, my first return to Mass in weeks celebrated the Transfiguration of the Lord. What? That following week—attending daily morning prayers, rosaries and Mass—concluded with reconciliation. My Lent continued.

Weeks later, I finished Mom’s copy of “Tuesdays with Morrie.” But days before seeing “Frozen II,” I felt awed to chance upon these lines: “‘Morrie,’ Koppel said, ‘that was seventy years ago your mother died. The pain still goes on?’ ‘You bet,’ Morrie whispered.”

I circled those lines.

Three years later I still search—for much. I still write. But, the journey won’t end soon. And the journey is the most beautiful part.

My Chosen Five

I focus on nurturing strong mental, moral and physical habits daily, amid Coronavirus quarantining. Each day, I've been working out, eating more protein, reading Scriptures, journaling, getting information, relaxing and practicing languages. And I welcome the friendly chat.

I especially love my early mornings in America, when it’s evening in Asia. My friends are up and eager to pick my brain. Their drives to learn English inspire.

I practice Mandarin Chinese and Mongolian to keep in touch with friends and family and to enjoy meaningful exchanges. I'm learning Church Latin and Spanish to help me read histories to pursue in graduate religious studies. Spanish benefits my Latin and helps me keep in touch, too.

So these are my five languages to which I’m committing. From Mom and Dad I inherited English—from Mom, language power. Now I grow myself into something new.

New Beginnings

Losing my mother shall not define my life. But, I won't fear letting go, either.

Instead, I hope to integrate more the passing of her life to mine.

For I reflect her. In me always lives her. That's special.

The end of May 2019 began my life with Peace Corps Mongolia. During my nine months, Mom resurfaced throughout. A year later now, back in the States, I’ve kept my service close at heart.

So, rest assured. New stories will come.

All in God’s time.

Up next is a 2020 Father’s Day reflection.

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

P.S. Since Dad checked by the Marriage License Bureau today, who knows? Maybe by Mother’s Day 2020, Dad’s fiancée will be my next mom. But as for today’s piece, this took days to revise. So I hope it made sense. Feel free as always to share thoughts. —And thanks, friend. Peace be with you.

#Peace Corps #Mongolia #memoir #story #Catholic #God #memoryLang #transfiguration #Easter #grief #Lent #love #death #COVID-19 #identity #StayHome #WithMe #Mothers Day #Frozen #Disney

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comicswithcate2020 · 5 years ago

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Connor’s Collection of Comics

Imagine being seven years old, sitting in a movie theater and watching Toby McGuire on the big screen wearing the iconic blue and red suit. Imagine leaving the theater speechless and wondering what other adventures and stories Spiderman has to offer. That’s exactly when 25 year old Connor O’Keefe decided he wanted to try comic books. Connor has been collecting comic books for almost 15 years. Growing up in Medford, MA, Connor was influenced by his parents and the pop culture that surrounded him. Between the cartoons that he used to watch and growing up with comic book movies originally starting to come out, Connor became hooked. It was after the third Sam Rani Spiderman movie that Connor officially got into comics. He became a collector of all things Venom and Venom related. Although Connor's collection isn’t just limited to Marvel, as he also collects a lot of Star Wars merchandise. He specifically likes General Grievous- he recently completed a General Grievous model. To complete the model, he painted it by hand to make it look more realistic. A peek into his bedroom can show you just how much he has collected throughout the years.

His walls are adorned with quite a few posters, his shelf is filled with comics, posters and frames that have yet to be hung sitting in a pile on the floor. A lot of these frames were gathered at Comic Cons- when he got old enough, he started going to Boston Comic Con with his father and has been known to go for at least one out of the three days every year. He has autographed headshots of different characters, like Bane from Batman. Yet to be hung up is a Venom shadow box filled with different cut outs of Venom’s different art styles throughout the years. Funko Pops adorn his shelves and his TV stand, ranging with characters from The Big Bang Theory to Smuag from Lord of the Rings. Everywhere you look in his room, you can find something comic related- whether it is DC, Marvel, Star Wars, or even select video games.

Growing up in Medford, Connor would go to shop at Harrison's Comics, found in The Meadow Glen Mall. When he was 14, his family moved to Reading, MA and Connor realized he needed to find a new store. He happened upon Comically Speaking and has been going there ever since.

Q: How were you introduced to comic books?

A: They were just there. I was born in 95’ so I had my adolescence and early adulthood molded by the comic book movies. As we know them today, they started really in 1998 with Blade. That's kind of when they started taking off, because then they had the Sam Raimi SpiderMan movies, the original X-Men trilogy, and so on. I grew up watching these movies and watching the cartoons and eventually, I think it was after SpiderMan 3 came out, I was in fifth grade, I thought, ‘yeah, I want to read the material that inspired these movies that I liked so much.’ I was living in Medford at the time, so there was a comic book store, Harrison’s, that was in the Meadow Glen Mall, which is no longer a thing in Medford. But I went there and I picked up a couple of back issues of comics and I have been reading comics consistently since then. It's a month to month thing, but the movies basically got me into it. Well, the movies and the cartoons.

Q: Who is your favorite character and why?

A: My favorite character is Venom, specifically Eddie Brock as Venom. There have been a couple of different characters that have had that title. Eddie is my favorite character because first of all, his visual design is very good. It's very crisp- you immediately know when you're looking at when you see him. He’s super edgy and I really like that kind of thing. I like Eddie because he's had a very long transformation over the course of the 30 years he's been around. At first he was just trying to kill SpiderMan and then he had an arc where he realizes that Spiderman isn't such a bad guy. And then he was sick with cancer and he realized, ‘Hey, I have kind of been doing some terrible stuff’ and he gets better from the cancer and he decides he's going to take this new lease on life and become a better person and be a hero. When I first started reading comics, they were in the middle of the cancer arc. So while I've been reading comics, I only know Eddie Brock as a hero. So in my mind, Venom is a superhero because that's what he's been for 20 of the 30 years he's existed.

Q: What type(s) of comic related things do you collect?

A: I do collect back issues, starting when I was in fifth grade, so I am 25 now. I take great pride in the fact that I have amassed, I don't want to say all of them cause I'm sure there's an odd issue here or there that I might've missed. But every single issue that Eddie Brock has appeared in, with the exception of his first and second appearances, which are like massively expensive, $200-300 issues. Those are the great white whales. But I have just about every single issue of comic book that he's ever appeared in over the course of 30 years. I kind of take some pride in that. That's taken a while to amass. Obviously that's ever expanding because he has a current ongoing book. In terms of other things I collect, I am trying to build a physical collection of the movies. Personally I enjoy streaming content but at the same time I realize that I don't want to be left without a particular film, if a company decides that they want to pull an individual move from a service. A little while ago they almost pulled Friends from Netflix and people started freaking out, everyone was losing their minds about it. And I'm like, ‘Hey, buy the physical copy, no one's taken that away from you.’ So I collect the movies. I think out of the 20 Marvel Studios movies, I have about 17 of them in some capacity or another. I don't necessarily collect games, there haven't been too many comic book games lately. But I do play them when they come out.

Q: Which is your most treasured comic?

A: My most treasured comic is the first mini series of comics I ever got. It's a series of six issues that came out in 94’, called Venom: Lethal Protector. It was Eddie Brock's first standalone story where he was trying to prove his worth as a hero and they were kind of hard to track down. I had to track them down over the course of two years. I started collecting them when I was in fifth grade. It was before the internet really took off, and before online ordering was a thing. So I was tracking 20 year old comics down at brick and mortar stores, which is kind of a tall order. Especially when you're 10 years old and you can't get anywhere yourself. So I have all six of those. They're in packages, they're propped up and they're preserved. I don't read them, I have different means of reading the story if I ever want to revisit it. But those are probably my most treasured thing in my comic collection.

Q: Which comic book related movie is your favorite and least favorite?

A: I'm going to sound like a bit of a broken record, but the Venom movie that came out, the other year has a very special place in my heart even though it's not necessarily one-to-one with the character. That movie was in production, since SpiderMan 3 came out in 2007. It's been in production a very long time and people have been trying to get it off the ground for many, many years and I was following it day by day. When that finally came out, I had this big party, I basically went through my contacts and got a bunch of people that I knew over the course of that 10 year span. And I'm like, ‘Hey, you remember that Venom movie I always talked about? Uh, it's finally coming out. You guys want to go see it?’ It was this big thing. I have pictures from that day. We all went to Dick's Last Resort in Boston, we went out to dinner beforehand and we all just had a great time with it. That movie, even though it's not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, it holds a very special place in my heart.

Q: Are there any movies that you think goes against a character completely?

A: This is a slightly controversial opinion. I don't think Marvel Spiderman, like the current Spiderman, Tom Holland is good. I enjoy the movies and I think Tom Holland's great. But Spiderman- he's supposed to be his own man. In the new Marvel movies that come out, he's presented as Iron Man's sidekick. He has not had a solo movie where he's dealing with one of his own villains. Every villain that Spiderman has so far is somebody who's pissed off at Iron Man. So Spiderman has to spend his solo movies, cleaning up Iron Man's messes. I think that it's really unfortunate that they used Iron Man as Spiderman's jumping off point because Spiderman has, out of all the characters, some of the richest individual stories he can tell. Every character has their big stories, but Spiderman has the most. He is that company's flagship character and has been for so many years before Iron Man blew up. It's especially unfortunate that Iron Man has taken the place of Uncle Ben in the current Spiderman movies. Uncle Ben is the reason Spiderman does what he does in every single medium across the board. So, slightly controversial take on that one. But yeah, Tom Holland Spiderman, while enjoyable to watch is definitely not the Spiderman I would have liked to have seen on the big screen. I still think Toby Maguire is probably the most accurate Spiderman.

Q: Can you touch upon the movie script that you wrote for Venom when you were younger?

A: I was 10 or 11 years old and I had written a script for the Venom movie that was 20 pages long because I had no concept of how that would translate to the screen. I still have it by the way, it's up in my room on my desk. It's terrible and it's cringy and it's everything you would expect a 10 year old to write. But I got to say, I wrote a fight scene in that movie and that fight scene is a banger. I would love to see that translate to the big screen. 10 year old Connor could choreograph fights. All this crazy stuff was going to happen, they're really beating the life out of each other. Lampposts were flying, it was great. I want somebody, if you're reading this, give me a call. We can work something out.

Q: How did you find out about Comically Speaking?

A: A couple of years after I started getting into comics, my family moved from Medford to Reading. Granted this was not the thing that really drove me to Comically Speaking. The thing that drove me to Comically Speaking was Harrison's shuttered their doors like a year or so before we made the move. So when we ended up in Reading, I knew I needed to find a new place to do comics stuff . So I just Googled places for comics near me and Comically Speaking came up and I went there and I've been going there pretty consistently since we moved to Reading about 11 years ago.

Q: What were your first impressions of the store?

A: My first impression of the store was that I felt a little overwhelmed. They have a lot more than Harrison's did, in terms of their selection of books. You got to remember also at the time, I was like 13 and they like to think that they know everything and when they are presented with something that they do not know, they refuse to admit that they do not know it. So I spent about 40 minutes in that store just wandering around like a dumb ass, searchng for what I was looking for. Eventually I figured it out, It was the preteen equivalent to when they change stuff around at the grocery store and you get angry that you can't find it. But yes, I was very overwhelmed and I was too full of myself to accept anyone's help.

Q: You’ve been to other stores that sell comics, chain stores and whatnot, how does Comically Speaking compare?

A: I’m struggling to remember what the Harrison's in Medford was like because that was a lifetime and a half ago. There’s one in Salem, it’s pretty easy to navigate. They have stuff like manga, the Japanese comics. Harrison's is all right, I prefer Comically Speaking myself,it's my home store. Newbury Comics they're less of a comic store, you'll go into Newbury Comics and you can get a lot of stuff there, but you walk in there like, ‘Hey, I'm looking for comics’ and they have this tiny itty bitty rack in the corner with like only like 10 of the most recent comics of the most from the most popular books. And it's just like, 50% of your name is complete bullshit Newbury Comics. You're selling like 10 comics in this store. Comically Speaking, for me, is where I want to go and get some books. I'm gonna get some books and with the downstairs area I can go down there and get collectibles now. I only go to Harrison's or Newbury if I'm completely out of the area, those were my go to while I was at school in Beverley. But if I'm here and I have the time and money, I'm definitely going to be in Comically Speaking at least once a month, picking up the books that I read.

Q: What do you think about Comically Speaking as a whole?

A: It's my store. There's a lot of concern right now, I don't know how familiar you are with the actual comics industry, but one of their big shipping companies, Diamond, shut their doors for the minute because of the coronavirus. So DC and Marvel can't get their books out if Diamond isn't actually moving them. The Corona virus is going to be hitting the comics industry a lot harder than most industries. I am a little concerned about it because the locally owned stores are going to be the ones hit by it. I'm hoping that everything works out once this wears off and things are stable again. I'll definitely be going in there and helping out, spending some time. I like the store, it’s a good homey environment. That's the other thing about Newbury, I walk into Newbury Comics and I get the trendy geek vibe. When you go into Comically Speaking, I never get that vibe. It's just very down to earth and it doesn't feel pretentious. It's always like these people like what they're doing, they like comics. If I walked into a Newbury Comics and I asked them what they thought of a particular artist, they wouldn't know. I don’t know, there's more genuineness there to the people and the environment. Everything about Comically Speaking, I feel like I'm with my people there.

Q: What do comics mean to you?

A: They entertain me. I like reading the stories. I think most of the characters are pretty good. There are more characters you can count with comics. I could sit here for hours and I probably wouldn't even scratch the surface. They’re really good to convey things about who we are as a people and what we hold dear. If you exist on this earth, if you have a pulse, there's a comic book character that you can connect with in some way. Or you can look at this character and say, ‘Hey, I understand what that person is going through. I want to read more about that person and I want to see what kind of adventures they go on’. You can connect with that and I think that's what gives any type of medium; comics, movies, TV shows. That's what gives mediums their strength. When you can look at characters and see characters who you are inside, or you know someone like that. I think that's what gives a story their legs. Comics for me are filled with characters like that.

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