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adamwatchesmovies · 1 year ago

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Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)

I wasn’t able to track down any concrete proof that Robert Rodriguez reworked some unrelated, crappy script about kids going into a virtual world into an installment of the Spy Kids franchise but it wouldn't surprise me if he did. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over has no spying in it whatsoever and barely features the characters from the previous films. Instead, it offers special effects so poor they’ll make you think you’re watching an unfinished version of the movie, awful performances, and a story that makes no sense. It’s so shockingly terrible the first time you see it, you won’t know what to say. If you’re brave enough to watch it more than once, you might find it hysterical.

Retired from the OSS and working as a private detective, Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) is called back into the field when he learns his sister Carmen (Alexa Vega) has gone missing. She entered Game Over, a virtual reality-based video game created by “The Toymaker” (Sylvester Stallone). The highly anticipated game is about to be released and the OSS has just learned that anyone who reaches the unbeatable level 5 will be brainwashed. In the virtual space where anything can happen, Juni summons his grandfather (Ricardo Montalbán) to help, unaware he and the villain have a history.

I should be given an award for concisely and semi-coherently summarizing this plot. Even Spy Kids 3-D doesn’t know what’s going on. Juni's goal is to prevent The Toymaker from brainwashing all children and escaping from his digital prison... at first. Once the film “reveals” that Carmen has been captured while inside the game, everyone forgets the global threat. The mission is now to rescue her and escape the game. Despite this, the theme of family - so prevalent in the other adventures - is completely absent. Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino and Alexa Vega have little more than cameos as Juni navigates a virtual world created by someone who has obviously never held a controller in their entire life.

So little thought has been poured into this film it’s embarrassing. Juni begins the game with nine lives. As he progresses through the levels, he loses them by getting hit by rivals and falling from great heights. In theory, the closer he gets to zero, the more worried about him the audience will get. Except the way he loses lives doesn’t make sense. Sometimes he loses them one at a time, sometimes he loses as many as three from one hit. If it’s that easy to die, how come the beta testers he meets have all of their lives? Because they’re that good? no. Juni runs circles around them with ease. Because they’ve found extra lives at some point? no. One of them tells us they’ve never seen an extra life pack in the game before. What are they doing in this beta anyway? Shouldn’t the testing be done if the game is released in 72 hours? Why even have testers if the true objective is to brainwash kids and the fifth level is unbeatable? That’s the tip of the iceberg. This script feels like it was written on a bunch of dirty napkins while Rodriguez was waiting for executives to walk into the pitch meeting.

There is so much wrong story and script-wise I could go on longer but it's time to address the special effects and the acting. You might argue the horrible CGI is appropriate for a video game but this movie was released in 2003. It looks WORSE than the original Spy Kids and the game within the movie looks so bad no kid could believably be excited to play it. We're talking an ad for a local grocery store with delusions of grandeur bad. It’s The Phantom Menace cranked to a thousand. Not only can you tell the actors aren’t interacting with anything, they also have no idea where they should be looking. While their feet are sliding all over the floors, goop drips off of CGI armor so unconvincingly no kid - no matter how young - would accept it.

The lack of sets, costumes and props do no favors to the young performers. Daryl Sabara was always the weaker actor between the Cortez children and he’s awful here but at least you can give him some slack. He’s still a kid. Sylvester Stallone? The man’s got no excuse. With some funny costumes that include a military uniform, a bald cap and long hippy-like hair (all of which look horrible) he starts off as bad, becomes “so bad he’s good” and then spirals back around to being bad. One can only conclude from this embarrassing display that there is indeed long-lost hardcore pornographic footage of The Party at Kitty and Stud’s and that Robert Rodriguez is using it for blackmail purposes.

It’s so easy to tear Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over apart that you can probably have fun with it with your friends but to get the full effect, you’d also need to know how much of a betrayal to the series this is. I doubt your friends will be on-board for that kind of research and if they are, the laughter will turn to bitter tears. The first film is flawed but full of charm. The second one is ok for kids. This is a travesty. I can’t comment on the 3-D except that it’s kind of fun in a distracting, obvious and gimmicky fashion but I suspect anyone who watches the film with those red and blue glasses will leave with a headache. If you’re that invested in this, might as well stick all the way to the end of the credits for a small bonus too. (2-D version, July 24, 2020)

#Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over #movies #films #spy kids #movie reviews #film reviews #Robert Rodriguez #Antonio Banderas #Carla Gugino #Alexa Vega #Daryl Sabara #Elijah Wood #Ricardo Montalban #Holland Taylor #Sylvester Stallone #Mike Judge #2003 movies #2003 films

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fancoloredglasses · 2 years ago

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Lost in Space (Space Family Robinson)

[All images are owned by 20th Century Fox Disney. Please don’t sue or sabotage me]

It’s hard to believe it’s been over 25 years since the infamous Jupiter 2 disaster. You don’t remember the Jupiter 2 disaster? Well, let me educate you!

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(Thanks to bfelten)

Lost in Space is the most famous of the series produced by Irwin Allen (I’ve already reviewed another of his productions) set in the far-flung future of...

...ummm....yeah.

Anyway, the US was poised to begin colonizing Alpha Centauri (I’m sure you remember CNN covering that. This was an ambitious timeline for the producers, considering the series aired 4 years before man even set foot on the moon!) using its latest technology...

The Jupiter 2 spacecraft (they never mention what happened to the first Jupiter spacecraft) The Jupiter 2′s crew was made up of volunteer colonists, the Robinson family.

From left to right we have...

The father, John (played by Guy Williams, who previously played a whitewashed version of Zorro)

The mother, Maureen (player by June Lockhart, who previously played Timmy’s mother on Lassie (let’s hope she fares better at keeping her kids out of wells in this series))

The younger daughter, Penny (played by Angela Cartright, who was one of the children in The Sound of Music)

The older daughter Judy (played by Marta Kristen (sorry, she didn’t play anything of note outside of Lost in Space))

The son Will (played by Bill Mumy, who would go on to play Lennier on Babylon 5)

Piloting the ship is Major Don West (played by Mark Goddard (again, he didn’t do anything of note beyond the series)), who has an undefined relationship with Judy.

Finally, we have the ship’s robot, who will assist with scientific research once the Jupiter 2 reaches Alpha Centauri.

The mission is the crew would be in suspended animation for the 5 1/2 year journey until the ship lands on Alpha Centauri (then why do they need a pilot?) Quick math says that the ship would need to travel a speed of over 3/4 of a light year per Earth year, or almost 150,000 miles per second, to attain that timetable... in 1997! We hadn’t even managed to design the next generation of spacecraft after the space shuttles by that point!

However, not every nation wanted the US to succeed in colonization first. In fact, a rival nation compromised and recruited...

...Dr. Zachary Smith (played by Jonathan Harris, who would go on to play the voice of Baltar’s aide in the original Battlestar Galactica), an Air Force colonel who reprogrammed the robot to destroy the Jupiter 2 in flight. (I think I just figured out what happened to the first Jupiter spacecraft)

Unfortunately for him, he was slow leaving the ship, getting locked in as it took off! He revived the crew in an attempt to turn back, but by then...

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(Thanks to Doc Doccus)

The robot’s attack threw the Jupiter 2 hopelessly off course, creating yet another (technically one of the first) “Gilligan’s Island in Space” shows.

(and to think, 2 years after the Jupiter 2 disaster, we lost the moon!)

The series would be in black and white for the first season, and in the third (and final) season, the producers “jazzed up” the series with a new intro...

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(Thanks to gabihqi)

...and new costumes as well as going all-in on the campy vibe that was snuck in by Jonathan Harris (you will note that in the opening credits Jonathan Harris is listed at “special guest star”. Harris quickly figured out that meant his character wouldn’t last past the mid-season break. Therefore, he quickly made (unauthorized) changes to his character, changing him from a legitimate threat to the crew to the sinister comic relief)

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Thanks to davegbp)

Sadly, the third season would be the last, no doubt due in part to rising production costs.

If you would like to watch the series, it currently airs on MeTV. It’s available with an Amazon Prime subscription (or behind the paywall if you don’t have one), and Netflix has rebooted the series. I haven’t watched it, but the buzz is good but it lacks most of the campy charm.

As always, if you would like to see a particular episode reviewed, please let me know.

#lost in space #irwin allen #bill mumy #jonathan harris #Fan Colored Glasses

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arty-shadow-morningstar · 4 years ago

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Graveyard Siblings (4)

I am sorry for not posting in a while. School is a total bitch. Here is part 4 of a fic that is not a fic.

[Masterlist]

(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)

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Tall Marinette.(I admit I might be projecting a little here.)

One day, she took out something from someplace high and the whole family realized that ‘holy shit when did you get so tall?’

Bonus if Jason comes back from a long mission and had a wtf moment because she was wearing 6-inch-heels and met his eyes with them on.

“Pixie?!”

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You know how Bruce has the identity of Matches Malone to infiltrate the Gotham Underground.

While Jason does the drug deals more street crime stuff, Maria uses an excuse of being the representative for Red Hood excuse to mingle with the rich people who does crime on the side (Penguin), she uses it to go to black market auctions and buy some of the lost miraculouses which got into the hands of black market dealers.

Jason knows about it and acts as her ‘bodyguard’ anytime he can or sends one of his henchmen to be one with a death threat if she gets a single scratch on her.

Bruce is unaware of this. Or is he?

------

Mari helps with running WE since she is a little less busy with the vigilante side of things.

It started with Tim panicking about deadlines and Mari offering to help, to Bruce and Tim bullying the board to have her as co-CEO.

She has to be that and head of Afterlife. So she is very busy. Doesn’t know about what comes next….

------

Somehow the class comes to Gotham for a trip. It has been 3 years since her death.

Mari has changed her appearance since the day she left Paris. She has highlights in her hair after a ‘sibling bonding day’ with Jason. Her hair is kept short for convenience and not in pigtails. Along with her tall height and more confident aura, she is almost unrecognizable.

She rides a motorcycle too.

The class waits in the lobby for the tour and in walks this badass woman with aviator sunglasses, leather jacket and designer clothes which was all MT brand, making a lot of people swoon.

She takes off her glasses and walks past the class. Checking stuff on her phone and sipping coffee in her other hand.

She seems familiar but they couldn’t figure out why. (All except Chloe, Alix and Felix who are snickering in the background.)

Lila sees her and comments on how she must be a criminal with the way she dresses. (Lila internally freaks out because were her eyes messing with her? Because she looked a little like Marinette. Also jealous of the new arrival for stealing all the attention.) Alya takes the bait and calls security to ‘arrest’ her.

They just laugh. The class doesn’t understand, speaking in confused French.

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

“I am Maria Todd-Wayne, also known as designer MT. CEO of Afterlife and co-CEO of the very company you are in. I am allowed in here. Don’t judge a book by its cover.” she said in perfect French.

“But Lila told us you can’t speak French.”

“Who?”

“Lila Rossi, your friend. She told us that you and MT were dating.”

“Me dating myself. Okay I love myself because self-love is a thing but that is a whole other level. MT are my initials. Anyone who has a brain could have figured that out or at the very least do a Google search. I am not sure where your friend got that notion.”

“Hey, Bean, come on. We have a long day ahead of us.” Tim reminded her.

“Goodbye but cease the rumours or you would be escorted off the premises.”

As they rode up the elevator, “Tim, why are they here?”

“They are the lucky winners of the Wayne Enterprise Young Prodigies Contest. Why, Maria?”

“Lucky, huh.” She muttered under her breath. She might as well tell him. They are the Bats and they will find out anyway. “They are from my old class, the one you know…”

“Oh. Want me to send them back? I can do that if they are making you uncomfortable.”

“Nah. Too much to deal with. And it is unfair to send them back over a petty grudge. Besides, I could have some fun.”

“Anything that Bruce and I should be worried about?”

“I swear no killing. Just because Jason came back from the dead, hell-bent on killing. Doesn’t mean I am too.”

“Cool, just don’t do any property damage or traumatize our employees.”

“I might need you to erase some footage later and tell Bruce about this.”

“Some brownies, my favourite coffee cake, the ‘special’ brew and you have yourself a deal.”

-----

So basically she just showed up around where the class was ‘by coincidence’.

Talk to a few people and take them out of earshot of the rest of the class.

End the conversation by saying a few things only they and her would know. Insides jokes and secrets. (I pick her old childhood friends like, Nino, Kim and maybe Sabrina)

Uses Trixx to turn into a walking dead version of her 15-year old self and disappears as they freak out about how she knew that secret/story.

Freaks them out further by appearing again in front of the whole class and pretending not to know their previous conversation.

Mari manages to get Lila alone.

I should also say that Lila thought that her curse was making her see MT as Marinette.

It terrifies Lila when she finds out that MT is actually Marinette, not dead but alive after all this time and apparently living the high life she wanted. This fact made the Italian swell up with jealousy.

“I hope you are not lying about me again, Lila Rossi. Like you always do.”

“What do you want with me? I swear I didn’t say anything else about you.”

“Aw, Lila. Don’t recognize me?”

Maria flickers and Ladybug is in her place and later, the Marinette that appeared in her bedroom and back to normal.

“You! How? Why are you here? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Why not? I mean you did take away nearly all my friends, my parents and made my life a living hell. If you think about it, I am just repaying you the same favor. How are the others? Treating you well?”

“What did you do to me, you bitch?”

“I just put a curse on you. The ghosts of your past will haunt you until you stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop Lying, Liar. They all feed and grow in power from your lies. I wonder what would happen in a few years if you kept this up.”

“You think you can get away with this. This is war and I have already beaten you once.”

“Oh Rossi. This isn’t a war. It’s a death sentence.” With that she disappears.

Lila tries to tell her class that MT is actually Marinette. She is met with crazy looks. Some of them look like they want to believe her but don't because they don’t want to look crazy too.

Oh. Adrien wasn’t on the trip because his mother didn’t want him to go to the crime capital of America although the crime rate has gone down a little due to Hellbat curing some of the city’s bad energy..

Right after Lila told the class about MT, Scarecrow came to steal some Wayne tech and the class got caught in the crossfire. So later, it was brushed off as Lila seeing things due to the fear toxins.

-----

Joker made the mistake of kidnapping her. Once was enough to never try that again.

(It involved the use of nearly all of the Miraculouses, old and new. He was thoroughly humiliated at the end of it and his picture by the time Hellbat was done with him was on the Batfam’s Christmas Card. Like I said she doesn’t kill but making them beg for death was okay.)

It coincided with Jason’s Birthday and the video of the incident was ‘the best birthday present ever.’ The uncensored version was watched at the next undead siblings bonding day. Damian included.

After hearing a few rumours about what happened, most criminals were glad for Hellbat’s rare appearances. (which happens once a month and during really busy time of the year)

There was a time where Penguin was carrying out one of their plans and when Hellbat showed up, all of their thugs surrendered instantly. (No Batman did not pout at the fact that this French girl was more imitating than him.)

Scarecrow used his newest batch of fear toxin on her during the first year after she died.

He was astounded to see her still standing and she later proceeded to beat the crap out of him while being under the toxin’s influences.

He has tried to stay out of her way since then.

She saw Scarecrow as Hawkmoth and said a lot of things in French which scared everyone because she said it with so much hate, anger and in a very menacing tone that everyone is like ‘I am not touching this.’

It took Red Hood and Nightwing to restrain her from further beating Scarecrow up.

He was one of the people who sympathised with the Joker after the Incident.

The next was Riddler being so arrogant in his plans and managed to get Hellbat and Spoiler into a death trap.

“You know I have a few regrets in life. And my final one is that I got captured and am now going to get killed by a walking fashion disaster.”

“Hey! I made this myself. I will have, you know.”

“You have a brilliant mind but no sense of fashion at all. When I get out of here, I am going to burn that thing with you in it, for your crimes against fashion.”

“What is wrong with it?”

Cue a lot of roasting of Riddler’s costume and Spoiler adding more fuel to the fire.

They manage to escape while Riddler is crying on the floor, having an existential crisis.

The thing was no one knows why Riddler was silent the entire week after encountering Hellbat and crying when anyone mentions it.

They now think Hellbat is the scariest one in the Batfamily, second to Batman and tied with Black Bat/Orphan.

The few who find out what really happened in the warehouse that night. Blackmail material on the Riddler.

Three ( four if you count Penguin) of Gotham’s biggest villains of the Rogues Gallery scared of Bats’ newest addition. Hellbat was not someone they wanted to mess with.

---------

Magic crisis stuff. Like a world ending event thing. Dr. Fate says they need the Miraculous jewels but the last mention of them had been in Paris a few years ago and had vanished since then.

Costantine looked at Batman. “You know who you have to call.”

Batman calls Hellbat. Who hasn’t been introduced yet to the JL.

“Ah. Bats. Not that I question your authority or anything but how can your newest ‘ward’ help us?”

She takes off her helmet and reveals her face and more importantly, her earrings.

Tikki comes out of her hiding place.

“I am the current Guardian of the Miracle Box and wielder of the Ladybug miraculous during Hawkmoth’s reign in Paris a few years ago. Any other Questions?”

“Oh great Guardian. Tikki. It is an honour to meet you.”-Wonder Woman, who else.

“You too, Princess Diana. Pass on my regards to your mother.”-Tikki

A huge face-off and the big evil is defeated.

WW asks abt HM and gives a horrified face at the end of her story. Nearly everyone who eavesdropped on the conversation was.

"Forgive me, Guardian for not aiding you in your hour of need.”

“It’s okay. I understand that there are other crises, world-ending ones that JL have to take care of. I am better now. Mostly.”

“I doubt it with those revenge schemes I found lying around. But she is getting there with her therapist.”-Batman

“I hate you, Dad.”

“Did you just call him Dad?”

“No….”

“Do you see me as a father figure?”

“I see you as a nuisance with how nosy you are with my personal business. So you are more of a bother figure.”

“I see you as part of the family too, Daughter.” (Got that reference anyone?)

“Jason was the one who adopted me.”

“Legally you are adopted by me.”

Maria with Pikachu surprised face because nobody told her that. “My life is a lie.”

-------

(Part 5)

#graveyard sibling #platonic jasonette #maribat #mlb x dc #platonic daminette #platonic timinette #some class salt #lila salt #lila bashing #joker doesn't look good here either #platonic! jasonette #siblings jasonette #platonic timminette #marinette and stephanie teaming up to rip into Riddler's costume

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fatesdeepdive · 3 years ago

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Entry 53: Home Sweet Abusive Home

I unlocked the Conquest version of My Castle at the end of the last chapter. It’s basically the same; there are different building styles, Lilith attacks instead of heals, the shops sell Nohrian weapons instead of Hoshidan ones, etc. I’m going to be ignoring castle stuff this time and instead analyzing classes.

Class Profile - Nohr Prince/Princess

Corrin and Kana’s default class, wields swords and dragon stones. Balanced with good HP and Strength. The class’s first skill, Nobility, boosts EXP gained. The other skill, Dragon Fang, gives a skill stat determined chance to do a special attack that does 1.5 damage. Dragon Fang also has unique animations that have Corrin attacking with dragon arms. Design wise, the black and white stripes are nice but a bit busy. The cape is nice, but the random slits over the princess version’s thighs are dumb.

Class Profile - Hoshido Noble

Nohr Prince/Princess’s promotion in Birthright and an optional promotion in Revelation. Stat wise, it has better Strength, Skill, and Defense than its Nohrian counterpart, as well as the ability to use staves. It’s first ability, Dragon Ward, gives nearby allies a luck based chance to half damage taken. This fits with its more supportive role. On the other hand, its second ability Hoshidan Unity gives a 10% boost to the activation rate of all skills. Design wise, it’s a silver and gold version of Corrin’s normal design with a few details that make it look more Hoshidan. It’s a great design, assuming you ignore the fact that the female version isn’t wearing pants.

Class Profile - Nohr Noble

The Conquest version of Hoshido Noble. Has slightly better Speed, Magic, and Resistance, as well as the ability to use tomes. Its first skill, Draconic Hex, lowers the stats of enemies after combat. The other skill, Nohrian Trust, is really interesting, allowing Corrin to use the battle skills of supporting allies. I love the black coloring with hints of magenta and the tattered cape, but I have to groan at the cleavage and continued lack of pants for female units. Also something I noticed: Nohr Nobles have a shield on their left shoulder, while Hoshidans have a shield on their right shoulder. It’s a nice little detail.

Also, you know how I stole Rinkah and Sakura’s weapons? The damn game gave them back!

Conquest Chapter 7: A Dragon’s Decree

Moron and his Nohrian siblings return to Castle Krakenburg. Garon praises Xander for invading Hoshido. Xander brings up Moron, who Garon apparently can’t see from ten feet away, and Garon is shocked that Moron isn’t dead. Garon yells at Moron for coming home and accuses him of being a spy. Xander insists Moron is loyal and brings up the fight with Ryoma. Iago believes this to be a ruse, which makes sense. He did that shit in Birthright.

Moron asks about the exploding sword. Garon very convincingly pretends to know nothing. Garon uses the fact that Moron is suspicious of the repeated attempts on his life as evidence that Moron is a traitor and orders Xander to execute him. So glad we came back.

Camilla and Elise beg for mercy and Xander refuses to kill his brother. Iago says that makes Xander a traitor, too. Moron says he’ll kill himself to protect Xander. Garon, overjoyed at the idea of suicide, decides to leave it up to Anankos, the dragon god who was mentioned like once in Birthright. Anankos whispers to Garon to spare Moron, if he passes a test. Moron must suppress a rebellion in the ice tribe to prove his loyalty, without any help from his siblings or the Nohrian military. Something about Moron going off alone to enemy territory to prove his loyalty feels oddly familiar...hope this isn’t secretly a ploy to kill Moron again.

Xander says that taking out an entire army singlehandedly is impossible. Moron agrees to the mission. After Moron leaves, Garon monologues about how Moron is going to lose all hope and wish for death. Real glad we chose to side with Nohr, this truly was the right decision.

Xander, hearing Garon say evil shit out loud, does not decide to stop working for Garon. He says he knows what he has to do, but spoiler alert, it isn’t overthrow his evil father.

Moron goes through the woods of the Forlorn, where you fight Leo in Birthright, with only Lilith accompanying him. Faceless show up and attack, surrounding Moron. Felicia shows up and takes one out with a dagger. Moron points out that he had to destroy Felicia’s friends and family without help, but shrugs it off because they aren’t technically at the Ice Village yet.

This battle is actually pretty good, taking on a ton of enemies with only two units. At the start of turn three, Silas and Elise show up to rescue Corrin. At the start of turn four, Elise’s retainers Arthur and Effie join them. Arthur mentions that he’s late because a bird stole his map and Effie’s late because her armor made her sink into the swamp. Elise mentions that Xander planned out this rescue behind Garon’s back.

Arthur

Arthur is Talitu's rude Wind Mage son...wait, wrong Arthur. Arthur is a Monk who...okay, once more time. Arthur is Elise’s unlucky but heroic Fighter retainer. I love Arthur as a character, this boisterous, cheesy, superhero fighting for justice. His design has this massive lantern jaw and he wears a superhero costume with a cape. His personal skill, Misfortune, makes critical hits more likely on both him and his enemies. This is fitting for the running gag of him being supernaturally unlucky, something reflected in gameplay by him having an abysmal luck stat.

Effie

Elise’s other retainer, a Knight. She seems to be a protective warrior. Honestly, I didn’t pick up too much about her personality because I was distracted by her utterly monstrous strength star. Effie is buff. Her personal skill, Puissance, pairs well with this by boosting her damage if she’s far stronger than an enemy. Personally, I’m not too fond of Effie’s design. Her face feels to girly and looks like she’s wearing make-up, which doesn’t match her personality. The big shoulder pads look weird and the boob plate is eye-roll inducing. At least it’s better than her Heroes design, which is atrocious.

After battle, Felicia volunteers to lead us to her village. The camera pans over to reveal Iago was responsible for the faceless attack. Because he’s an evil asshole who I hate.

Also I grabbed Mozu between chapters.

Support: Corrin/Elise

C: Corrin stumbles upon Elise practicing punching in a field. Elise insists she's just picking flowers because she's sweet. Eventually, Elise admits that she's training so she won't be a burden to the army.

B: Corrin trains Elise to grow stronger. Elise struggles to do push-ups.

A: Elise sobs about being pathetic. Corrin insists that war isn't about fighting, it's about having a pure desire for peace. The amount of people Corrin kills contradicts this.

S: Corrin gives Elise flowers to propose to her. I vomit.

Review: Setting aside the incestuous pedophilia that ends this one, not bad. I think Elise works more than Sakura because at least she’s entertaining when complaining about being a burden.

Support: Arthur/Felicia

C: Felicia tells Arthur she's a bad maid because she's incompetent and clumsy. Arthur relates.

B: Arthur explains that the best way to deal with problems is to be carefree. As he walks, he almost slips on a banana peel (despite the army not storing bananas) and is swarmed by mosquitos (which don't exist in this region).

A: Arthur tells a story of a time he tried to save a drowning person, hit his head, and almost drowned. The person he tried to save was helped by someone else. Arthur explains that he and Felicia shouldn't worry about mishaps.

S: Arthur asks Felicia to meet with him so he can propose. They fall in a pit, Setsuna style, and Felicia accidentally freezes Arthur's fingers so he can't get the ring out of his pocket.

Review: Paring up these absolute messes of people is hilarious.

Support: Mozu/Silas

C: Mozu asks Silas if she should just leave the army and go back home (to the corpse filled ruins of her village I guess) because she isn't very strong. Silas volunteers to train her to be stronger.

B: Mozu says Silas shouldn't waste time training her. Silas tells her her "I'm too weak to be good" mindset is holding her back and that her wasting her potential is a sin against her murdered parents. Goddamn.

A: Mozu, believing she has potential, improves. Silas says he wasn't talented as a kid and only became a good knight because he never gave up. Mozu promises to cook for him.

S: Silas proposes so he can have pie every day. Mozu fantasizes about killing people with S-Rank pair up bonuses.

Review: Not bad, but needed a certain spark to be great. Silas telling Mozu that attitude is everything is interesting, but it kinda falls off towards the end.

Support: Effie/Jakob

C: Jakob bakes a cake for Corrin. Effie eats it. Jakob tries to physically stop her but she shrugs off everything he throws at her.

B: Effie works out by lifting water barrels and tells Jakob that she needs to be strong so she can protect her friends, even if it costs her her own life. Jakob says he doesn't want her to die for him because he'd have to spend the rest of his life feeling guilty. Ugh!

A: Effie says that she can't not protect him because they're friends. Jakob says that's fine, just don't die in the process.

S: Jakob bakes a cake with protein powder instead of flour to propose to Effie. Effie says she isn't going to marry him for his baking skills, but for his good heart.

Review: Pretty good. Effie is amusing throughout this Support and the discussion of dying for friends is nice.

#effie fire emblem #arthur fire emblem #fire emblem fates #nohr #fire emblem conquest #elise fire emblem

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current-mcr-news · 4 years ago

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Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material.

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father.

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated.

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff.

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel, he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it.

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine. Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too.

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized. Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening.

#behind the scenes of the umbrella academy #episode 1 #gerard way #gabriel ba #steve blackman #full transcription

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spider-man-2o99 · 4 years ago

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Very much love your idea of a abstract Moonknight thinkpiece. I need to hear your thoughts on how you think Moonknight feels about Khonshu and the moon, also how Mr. Knight feels about them. Thank you

A MILLION THANKS UPON YOU FOR AN EXCUSE TO RAMBLE...

I’ll talk about Moon Knight first, because my Thots™ about him are. Many.

So, for Moon Knight in particular, I think his view on Khonshu/The Moon has changed a Lot over time from when he first really became a separate entity from Marc and then to the present day (or at least as much “the present” we can get with Comic Book Timelines being what they are).

I think, at first, he was kinda reluctant to form his own opinions because he wanted so desperately to be Marc, like, he’s been told over and over again that he’s got to be Marc or Steven or Jake or somebody that he’s hesitant to stray from Marc’s view at the time-- that Khonshu is Good and Righteous and Lifted Him Up To Allow Him Redemption, yadda yadda yadda.

But, then, I think at some point Marc’s views started shifting as Khonshu became more of a presence in his life; with time, I think, MK realized more and more that his own opinions didn’t line up with Marc’s, and that’s when he really started to acknowledge how he, specifically, regarded the god.

So. Anyways. To the thing you asked: Moon Knight is probably the most in-tune with the details of Khonshu As A Deity, and I think he’s probably the only one in the system who can recite all of Khonshu’s epithets without hesitation. He’s the one who insists on calling their costume vestments, who prays most regularly and takes up the role of avatar as best he can.

As I view him, Moon Knight wants more than anything to believe that whatever path Khonshu leads him down is THE Noble Cause That Will Help The World And Not Have Any Ill Effects On Him Whatsoever :)

When he looks at the moon, Moon Knight feels safe. That’s my God, he thinks! He looks up at the night sky and wants to forever imprint every crater in his mind, because that’s his Purpose, up there. His motivator and mission and loving creator.

Without Khonshu he would not exist and he Knows this and even though Khonshu has time and again harmed his headmates, He has always been proud of His Knight. Marc may hate Him, Steven may be afraid and Jake may not want to think too hard about Him, but Moon Knight has always been the Special One to Him, right?

(I think, at the end of the Lemire run, when Marc and Steven and Jake destroy their link to Khonshu, MK is very afraid— what will happen to him, now that his god is gone? Will the others tuck him away in some forgotten corner of their brain because they have no use for him with Khonshu gone? And, more selfishly, who will be proud of him in His absence? There is no one left to call him “my son,” and there is no veiled statue to comfort him when he returns home. Without Khonshu the moon feels colder, when he looks to it. As if his Purpose has shifted but it is still the same but there is no one to gaze kindly at him after he has done good anymore. The Moon is bone shard between his fingers and even though he still comes out and does his job he spends a long time wondering why he even exists anymore without a god to love and need him.)

But Mr. Knight— Mr. Knight is younger, technically, than the others, and the purpose he fulfills for Khonshu is far different than theirs. Mr. Knight is like the sleek, streamlined version of Moon Knight, he thinks. He doesn’t beat around the bush, he’s brutally efficient, and even though he doesn’t quite consider himself a priest like MK does, he still actively spreads belief in Khonshu whenever he can.

He likes being seen. He wants to be seen, and he wants the knee-jerk reaction upon that sight to be that Khonshu’s Fist has made itself known.

Mr. Knight undertakes Khonshu’s work because he believes that it is a cause he is especially suited for.

And, well, the old sack of bones has certainly helped him, has clearly shown that He is looking out for Mr. Knight’s safety. Even if he loathes to admit it, he sees Khonshu and feels that same sense of inherent safety that Moon Knight does. When he is hurt, Khonshu heals him; when he is in need of shelter, Khonshu sends him an apartment building full of crooks that needs clearing out and is just-so-conveniently in the part of town that Mr. Knight likes working in best.

Mr. Knight sees the moon as an extension of himself, in the sense that it is Luminous and can be blue, bloody, can come for the harvest. Khonshu is the Moon is a spectre (just like he, legally, is a Spector).

The Moon is cool hands over split knuckles and it is the heat of blood in his nose. The Moon is the soft fur of a loving dog and a falcon’s screech and young chicks’ soft peeping.

Mr. Knight covers himself in moons, moreso than any of the rest of the system. The moon is an extension of him, and he is an extension of Khonshu. It is not enough to have just crescent darts— he must have crescent cufflinks, crescent buttons, little crescents engraved into the heel of his shoes. He is not a priest, he is a Fist, and Khonsu is the arm that strikes with him.

#moon knight #mr knight #marc spector #khonshu #headcanons #sorry it got so long i was real excited to ramble #tried 2 make it visually interesting but i don't know how well that went...#All I Do Is Think About Moon Knight & Moon Symbolism #somebody please hug MK he needs it #also. tumblr wouldn't let me tag this last night so :/

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calliecat93 · 3 years ago

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ST: The Next Generation Season 3 Watchthrough Episodes 4-6

Who Watches the Watchers: Picard is God now, or at least an alien species believes that he is. Whoops. While I disagree with the Prime Directive preventing the Federation from saving lives when there are no other options… yeah when this kind of things happens, I can understand why it’s a thing. So it was alright. I’m not a big fan of how ST sometimes protrays religion, but I also can’t sit here and pretend like there aren’t issues that do need to be addressed. In this case there’s the danger of introducing superstition to a non-superstitious race which quickly causes chaos. The way that Picard convinces the leader that he and the crew are mortal was depressing, but effective. The episode certainly raises plenty of philosophical questions, though again I’d like it if ST was a bit more nuanced about belief in religion or the supernatural (obviously it’s a sci-fi nto a fantasy but still) but it could have been worst. But the people are clearly not evil or insane and it certainly has a point about not enforcing beliefs of a false God or the dangers that com with it like… y’know, almost sacrificing Troi (loved her and Riker’s costumes BTW) for what was ultimately an accident/misunderstanding. Otherwise it’s an alright episode. 3/5.

The Bonding: The theme of the day is grief! We have a very rare occurrence here: an officer dying in the line of duty and leaving her child, whose father is also dead, behind. Since TOS didn’t have kids on the ship we couldn’t really do this plot, but TNG can. Actually makes me understand why Picard doesn’t like kids on the Enterprise and I have complained more than once on them letting Wesley, a kid, on active duty when untrained so I’m glad to see this kind of episode. I liked all the reactions and the concerns for Jeremy. Worf feeling guilty because he lead the mission as well as his parents being dead and wanting to help Jeremy as a result, Troi being understandably concerned that Jeremy isn’t grieving properly, Picard clearly hating this part of his job, and even Wesley talking about how it was when his dad died and how even though he’s gotten through the grief, it’s still difficult. I think it’s the first time he’s been able to express it in an episode, it’s the kind of thing his character needed. Jeremy’s response isn’t exactly abnormal, but it’s certainly not healthy to keep it suppressed and things only get more when his mother magically reappears alive, but it’s not at all as it seems. The choice between the harsh reality of grief, or living a lie but where the ones you love are alive and well. Which one would you choose to believe? I think this really helps show the more mature writing this season cause they handle the topic maturely and very thoughtfully with a ST twist to it. Like Data and Riker talking about how human nature causes us to feel pained when we lose one close to us like they did with Yar but one we don’t know as well or even a while group of those nameless to us doesn’t quite provoke the same response. Kinda like the confrontation Spock and McCoy had in The Immunity Syndrome, only far, FAR less heated. It’s not at all subtle with the message, but with this kind of topic especially with a kid character involved… maybe bluntness is the best way to go. I just wanted to give the poor kid a hug at the end, but I’m glad that he’ll be okay and now has a family in Worf. Also there was a kitty (not Data’s cat, that BETTER be coming soon though!), yay~! 4/5.

Booby Trap: Ah love, it can be so hard to find that special someone. IDK why Geordi’s having a hard time aside form maybe trying too hard cause he’s adorable, but hey I’ve so much as never even made romantic eye contact with someone in the 28 years I’ve been alive so who am I to judge? At least he can get a date. Anyways, after finding an ancient ship, the power starts being mysteriously drained which is bad. Turns out they’ve been caught in a trap, well no one can say that the title is misleading. Anyways, it’s okay. We have a crisis where Geordi going through the personal log of one of the Enterprise designers to find a potential fix… only to end up causing the computer to create a holographic version of the engineer, Leah. So we have Geordi trying to save them before they get blown up while falling in love with a hologram… welp. So did ST create the whole virtual lover trope? Or at least predict it? Welp. So… is he more or less flirting with the computer of the Enterprise? Or essetially the Enterprise itself? God I can see him and Scotty really getting along haha. But yeah I’m glad to have some Geordi focus… but IDK if the romantic part was necessarily needed, makes it feel more like a Season 2 episode. The next episode is another Geordi one that sounds very interesting so we’ll see if that’s a bit better. Otherwise, no real strong feelings for this one. Probably the weakest thus far but there are still 20 episodes to go and we’ve already had five quality episodes. Very least Levar as Geordi is a blessing XD 2.5/5.

#st watchthrough

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reconditarmonia · 4 years ago

Text

Dear Fandom 5K Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Dragon Age | Fullmetal Alchemist | The Locked Tomb | Motherland: Fort Salem | Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; infidelity; unrequested polyamory; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.

—

Fandom: Dragon Age

Character(s):

Group: Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Lavellan

Female Lavellan

Group: Charter & Rector

Genre(s):

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Action/Adventure

Worldbuilding

Established Relationship

Mystery/Procedural

I'm playing this game for the first time and loving Cassandra and Lavellan together so much. (I'm playing with a mod where I can romance her with a female PC!) Lavellan starts off as this confused and small and non-Andrastian prisoner who disagrees with Cassandra on so many things, but Cassandra puts so much trust and faith in her and so much on the line for her - even with Lavellans who are adamant that they're not chosen, they're just doing their best and they happen to be the ones in the position to make this choice. Cassandra is so proud to know her, and backs her up even when she disagrees with Lavellan's choices! The romance scene is really cute between two characters who are adults and have a day-to-day working relationship that isn't going to change, but are still just having fun with how charming it is in a way that builds on their friendship. Not to mention their battling together, of course - the ways they can protect each other and fight for each other's goals (and give Cassandra all the elven swords and shields), how worried they sound if the other one gets hurt...whoops, I found myself another loyalty kink ship.

I also just like playing as Lavellan generally, with how much of an outsider she feels (the "Dawn Will Come" scene is so alienating! it really works!) and how much of the game is about visiting the sites of past elven trauma and/or glory days.

My Lavellan uses the (default lol) name of Ellana, is a rift mage, sports a lovely buzzcut and vallaslin, has a lot of feelings about elf history (and visiting the Plains/Graves especially), believes in elven gods and doesn't care to pretend she's Andrastian, and besides Cass is closest friends with Solas, but don't feel that you have to write my specific PC - I'm excited to read about yours too!

But! I also love all the little hints about the work that Leliana's agents are doing, and their friendship (walking in on their card game at Caer Bronach is kind of delightful), and the letter from Rector's mother asking why he uses a code name for work (why are you ashamed of your name, Wilbur??) is one of my favorite in-universe documents. Slice-of-life or slice-of-mission with Charter and Rector would also make me really happy. Here again, just the closeness and trust and faith that these people have in one another is my jam.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Canon-typical levels of Cassandra's association with the Chantry and belief in the Maker/Andraste/the Herald shouldn't be taken to contravene my DNW of Christian themes, but I wouldn't want Satinalia fic or something focused on the Andrastian faith. Please don't put F!Lavellan in a different romance, even if we didn't match on the Cassandra ship.

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Character(s):

Group: Olivier Mira Armstrong/Maria Ross

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Getting Together

I'll admit: I am a shallow, shallow person who loves the heartwarming and id-satisfying Briggs loyalty-kink complex (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting! Olivier’s explanation of why she wants Miles around and her lack of patience for anyone’s shit) but would like an f/f manifestation of it for actual shipping. Post-canon or AU where Maria is assigned to Briggs, or works for Olivier in Central? Does Maria foil a plot against Olivier, or Olivier save Maria's life in battle? Does Olivier order Maria into a firefight? Hit me.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Olivier/men, even mentioned.

—

Fandom: The Locked Tomb

Character(s):

Matthias Nonius

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Fantasy

Nonius was one of my favorite new characters in Harrow the Ninth. His whole impossible arrival via evocation-by-poetry, battle with the Sleeper, and epic departure to fight the Beast made me very, very happy on levels I have trouble explaining. It was so heartwarming?! Because it was impossible, and because poetry won, and because they went off to do the best they could...I don't know, exactly. (Iiiii also just love that he's named for the Redwall mouse.) I'd love to read more about his life - being unprepossessing and very human but also paladin-like and really fucking good at being a swordsman, representing the Ninth House in slightly less decrepit times, his mysterious past with Gideon the First (and Pyrrha, sort of), however it happened that he died far from home in an unknown place and couldn't be recovered for burial, "chickenshits don't get beer"? Or, er, his afterlife - going to fight with Marta, Ortus, and Pro, re-encountering G1deon as allies...

—

Fandom: Motherland: Fort Salem

Character(s):

Group: Abigail Bellweather/Raelle Collar

Original Historical Witch Character(s)

Group: Sarah Alder & First Bellweather Ancestor

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Mystery/Procedural

Worldbuilding

I fell hard for this show and Abigail/Raelle is the ship I’m most excited about - they get off to a bad start for all kinds of personal history reasons and have problems with each other, but when it gets down to the wire Abigail would do anything for Raelle and is very gung-ho about having Raelle’s unconventional but extremely powerful magic under her leadership, regardless of Raelle being a loose cannon. She told her she loved her!! <3 And by the end, Raelle also clearly knows what Abigail's going through (like when she talks her down in "Citydrop"), respects her leadership, and cares deeply about her and wants to protect her in return. I love that loyalty dynamic, and their competence as fighters/witches.

Physical combat, strength in general, magical strength, ability to work magic together, knowledge of the magical canon vs. out-of-the-box techniques...what parts of their skills and their bond could be challenged in the weird dimension that the end of season 1 leaves them in? Or when they get back home and new challenges await? (In my head, the decision not to send them to War College is not revoked; the unit becomes some kind of special-forces secret strike team rather than cannon fodder.) Maybe something where Raelle goes/has gone into a fight as a berserker-type for Abigail and then comes back to her, or where Abigail protects/has protected her soldier (her girl!! I love her protectiveness of Raelle towards the other cadets, imagine it in a battle!)? Or an arranged marriage AU where it's usual for witch soldiers to marry to combine their magic power or something...If including smut in the story, I'd especially be up for something d/s-y where the loyalty-kinky dynamic of Raelle being Abigail's weapon, at her command, is echoed in sex!

OR. The alternate history that the show has created is so interesting and I'm craving expansion of that through fic! Tell me about the Bellweather ancestor who was a slave and ended up powerful and influential enough to begin a dynasty, and how she met and was recruited by Alder. Or other enslaved witches, witches in the American Revolution or the Civil War, or the founding of Fort Salem and standardization of American military magic with its various influences, or Chinese or Jewish or Mexican immigrant witches who maybe came from different magic traditions and might have had to make the choice of whether or not to reveal that they had magic (if the system knows you because of your descent in the country?), serving their country but also binding their daughters and granddaughters forever.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Abigail/Adil (at all; if he's mentioned, please make them just friends), focus on Raelle/Scylla (dwelling on Raelle still having feelings for Scylla or on her getting over Scylla for Abigail; you don't need to retcon their having been together), Scylla bashing.

—

Fandom: Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

Character(s):

Chaye Roznatovsky

Demon

Genre(s):

Fantasy

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Worldbuilding

Anything expanding on this story would make me really happy. Chaye’s years with the partisans, the comrades-in-arms she had and loved then and who else’s memory she holds or makes into a weapon, her journey to America, going by the surname of “no one.” The demon’s mirror world, its loss of that world (what exactly happened on the other side?) and its need to be where Jews are, demon Judaism? Or the future of both of them now that they’ve found each other!

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: DNW Chaye/demon. The premise of the story being what it is, I'm explicitly okay with antisemitism being a prominent feature of the story if you write something that covers either or both characters' backstory, but would prefer post-war antisemitism not to be a focus.

#dear author letters #dragon age #gideon the ninth #motherland: fort salem #fma

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belacedia-a · 4 years ago

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A TYL!Haru gift to Belphegor

(Hello! You’ve requested a gift from Haru and I’m here to deliver. Thank you for indulging me in my MoodTM. Feel free to do as you like with this drabble thing. Ie you can treat it as a standalone, post it as is, keep it in the inbox, etc )

The woman’s eyes couldn’t help but roam the chaotic halls as she was being led to where a specific Prince resided. Somehow, the base looked a lot like what she imagined it would look like. She wasn’t sure if that meant it was a good or a bad thing.

Anyways, what was she doing at Varia HQ? To deliver a gift. No no, that isn’t some codeword for something crazy. She truly was here to deliver a gift. She travelled all the way here from Japan just to deliver a gift. She had the ability to, so she was going to deliver it in person rather than tasking it to someone else. That’s why she’s here. How she managed such a feat?

She had done something called the, “Hey, I want to deliver a gift to someone in the Varia, can I do that? You’ll deliver it for me? Absolutely not, that ruins the heartfelt notion of the gesture! Do you have no sense for the romance of gift-giving? Who doesn’t want to see the expression of the recipient when they open the gift? That’s like opening a present your child gives you without them being around! Uncouth. No delicacy. Certainly you understand what I mean? You’ll let me deliver it myself, right?”- plan.

A long name, for a plan, but it was quite fitting, she’d say. Anyways, long story short, she’d stubbornly badgered Tsuna and Gokudera until they gave into her whims and arranged for her to be at Varia HQ so she could then find Prince Belphegor and give him a small gift.

Unless there was no other way around it, Haru preferred to deliver gifts herself rather than giving the task to someone else. It wasn’t as fun finding out the reactions of the recipients by a phone call or a letter.

Sure, her gift may not be much compared to what gifts a Prince could get or be entitled to, but she was a firm believer in giving gifts with a lot of thought put into them. If there was one thing that she was good at, it was crafting.

What was the reason behind her gift, you ask? Hm… yeah, she did have a reason. A pretty good reason, actually.

She felt like it.

Plain and simple, no? You don’t always need a reason to give a gift to someone. As long as the will is there, that’s all you need. In reality, it’s because she found a little crown while perusing a crafting store one day and an idea came to mind.

Absolutely nothing can stop Haru when her creativity starts roaring. She instantly bought the small crown along with fabric and other materials. She made a little mink plush with a crown atop its head. Did she make a plush version of his box animal, or did she just make a Prince Minkegor? That’s a secret she won’t tell anyone.

Though, considering she had the mink plush wearing a Varia uniform, maybe the answer was too obvious? Well, should he feel offended, she’ll use the tried and true: “Hahi! Are you saying that your mink is not a part of the Varia? Look at how cute it looks wearing a uniform. How could you reject such cuteness? Illegal-desu.”

She was led to a door which opened to reveal the Prince they all had the fortune (debatable to some) of knowing. Behind him was a… well… never mind. Haru was going to erase that from her memory. She’d never seen such a… hectic room before. A nudge at her side reminded her of where she was.

That chaotic room was almost hypnotic in a way. She had the urge to barge in there to clean it, but she felt that she’d start… and never come back out alive. She’d get buried alive. A brief shiver ran down her spine, but she quickly shook her head free of silly thoughts. If she were to get crushed under an avalanche of stuff, surely someone would save her! Yeah!

There’s no way she’d die! Probably.

“Bel~ It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I came to visit because I have something for you.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a decorated box. One that looked like a box animal could come out of. Yes, the mink doesn’t come out from a box, but she can’t perform miracles. This was the best that she could do. “Look, I decorated the gift box to look like a storm box, pretty good, isn’t it?”

She’s quite clever, she won’t deny this fact. She held out the box for him to accept. Once he opened it, he’d find a mink plush wearing a Varia uniform and a crown atop its head placed inside the box.

“Get it? Inside of a storm box is a mink! It may be a humble gift, but I did my best to make it myself.”

It did come to mind that gifting someone from the Varia a plush of all things might be a bad idea, but Haru thought that he might find the gift amusing at the very least.

“Haru did try to think of a gift that would be useful, but if the Prince were to need anything, couldn’t he simply get it? As such, I opted for a gift that is special. The only one in the world. If you don’t like the Varia uniform, you can take it off, same with the crown.”

While she isn’t the strongest fighter or the most useful operative, she had confidence in her crafting skills. Plush making? Easy. Making clothes and costumes? Also easy.

“I found the crown while I was out shopping one day and thought of you. I was grateful towards you for being kind to me before, so here’s a gift.”

It would’ve been easy as breathing for him to tell her to go back home, but he allowed her to come along for a mission in the past and it always stuck with her.

“So—Thank you, Bel. I hope you like the gift, though humble it may be.”

That’s all she came here to do, to deliver a gift. She promised she wouldn’t stick around for too long so she had to go. The one who lead her here was waiting off to the side to escort her back.

“Maybe I’ll see you again, bye bye~ See you again-desu!”

#tysm!! Bel will treasure his gift always #he's really just an overgrown 6 year old so Haru has on point gift giving sense #Bel's reaction would be like 'wait what what for me???'#'wait people being nice to me? whaaaa'#and then his brain would short circut from affection overload #and he'd say something clumsy & slightly mean like #'of course peasants should be grateful to a prince'#then he'd disappear into his nightmare of a bedroom with the gift #put it somewhere where he swears up and down he'll never lose it #hell would freeze over sooner than he'd ever admit it made him happy though #submission

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lucindarobinsonvevo · 4 years ago

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This week, a record made and released by close collaborators Eerie, Indiana and Heart on a Chain received a re-release with a deluxe edition to celebrate its 20th birthday

Though the front cover of Marshall’s Theory of Believably, the joint album by bands Eerie, Indiana and Heart on a Chain names only those two bands, the project was a collaboration between all the members of the Indiana seven. The Indiana Seven were a close group of collaborators who had a close working relationship in the 90s, creating iconic tracks and albums. The cover, which depicts a lone man in a ghost costume was shot by Sara Sue, an artist/photographer who shot most of the Eerie, Indiana’s album covers, and a track labeled ‘we gave this track to Tod’ features the enigmatic artist known as Tod, who also helped on the band’s delayed record Broken Record. The album art is different from the works of both bands, with Eerie, Indiana frequently having a sort of DIY feel to their photoshoots and Heart on a Chain tending to the more abstract kind. These particular photos (remastered for the deluxe edition) depict various band members in the dessert wearing a sheet over their heads with large black eye holes. The cover is Holmes, peering from behind a large unlit bonfire at the viewer. The title is written in the handwriting of Janet Donner, who also features as the figure on the CD itself. Teller features on the back of the album, and the back page of the liner notes, waving goodbye. Inside the liner, there are images of X, with Monroe being absent, apparently due to having a broken leg at the time of the shoot following an incident at a waterpark.

The album features twelve tracks, with many of them focusing on the idea of cryptids and other mysterious entities to make up the metaphors of the song. On the idea for the Album, Donner said: We wanted to talk about love as we knew it. This broad, mysterious concept that so many people in their twenties make love out to be.” On what she thinks of love now, Donner then remarked: Love is being glad the world hasn’t ended yet. I’ll leave you to make of that what you will. On the album, both X and Teller have cited the other as an inspiration behind the tracks, which will not come as a surprise to anyone who frequently listens to Eerie, Indiana as the pairs sometimes tumultuous relationship is often at the center of the most controversial and interesting projects done by the band. But this album is, more than anything else, a happy one.

The first single released from this album was the track ‘Sometimes I Almost Miss You’ in the one-two punch style of Eerie, Indiana the track is titled like a break-up but is a love song. Over an energetic guitar track and drum machine, Monroe sings about the heart transplant she’d had some years before and how she believes that she can still feel the donor even though he’s (according to the lyrics) long gone and sweetly resting. The track is careful to avoid any religious implications, instead suggesting that the donor (who has since been identified as Devon Wilde) instead rests inside her chest. With X on the guitar and Holmes on the drum machine and (of all things) the triangle, Teller is free to singe verses from the perspective of the heart donor, viewing the world from inside Monroe’s chest while Donner provides very beautiful backing harmonies. The overall mood of the track is one of quiet love and happiness, as well as gratefulness to the young boy who gave her the second chance. Those familiar with the work of Heart on a Chain know that the transplant features heavily in their songs and it’s no surprise to see it here.

The second track released in the work was ‘Me and My Jackalope’ and fueled rumors about a relationship between Teller and his bandmate, Dash X. At the time, both were closeted at the request of the label to avoid scandal. “Being in the closest literally almost killed me.” Teller would reflect later, interviewing for a project he did, releasing tracks for an LGBT themed album in the 2000s.”The funny thing is, I don’t think anyone who listened to us gave a damn. We’d go on stage, and we used to stand so close our knuckles were almost touching getting up in each other’s face and people would just go crazy.” Me and My Jackalope is, as you may have guessed, a song about impossible love. A love that the singer, in this case, mostly Teller, keeps hidden under his bed, only bringing it out to play when he’s alone. It’s a slow, sad track with Teller crooning to his animal “If they saw you, then they’d send you away.” Both Holmes and Monroe are credited as writers on the track, with the usual Eerie, Indiana flavor of complicated guitar playing set aside in favor of Donner and a violin and Holmes playing an assortment of other instruments.

The third and final promotional single was meant to be Skylines, which lyrics from are also featured on the inside booklet of the album however at the last minute it was swapped out to the Meatloaf cover in the center of the album, Midnight at the Lost and Found due to ‘label meddling’ after it was decided they needed another upbeat track after Me and my Jackalope. The track is nothing special, a seemingly typical Eerie, Indiana cover. Eerie, Indiana frequently covered Meatloaf and Jim Stienman tracks, hoping to work with one or the other someday. Sadly, this collaboration never came to be. But it’s a fun song, much like the original version from the 1983 album by Meatloaf. Somewhat of a deep cut by today’s standards, but it’s fun. Which I think was probably the mission statement of this album if Dash X is to be believed (Yes, that’s his stage name, no I do not know his real name). ‘We were a bunch of 20 something friends given a studio and a year or two to do whatever we wanted. So we did whatever we wanted, which was being weird.’

Skylines and it’s reprise is a group effort, with every member of the group joining in with the writing process to produce something that could have gone astray but managed to come together into something coherent. Skylines covers the re-treaded ground of many bands, it’s a song set about missing people while on tour. Set against New York’s bright, iconic skyline the track is mostly led by Donner as she wonders what her lover is doing right now. Her lover, played by Teller wonders about if his lover will stay in New York, swept up by the bright skylines, and pleading for them to simply be theirs. The track has backing vocals from all of the members involved, including Holmes who mostly shies away from singing parts. ‘It’s not that I don’t love to sing.” He explains, “I’m just not very good at it. Marshall was always the singer, I’m much happier playing the drums, or a cello or something.”

The final track on the album, clocking in at nine minutes, is Cryptids (I Still Believe in You and Me). This track shows off the impressive guitar skills of Teller and X, this time paired with the violin playing from Donner who shows she can keep up with the boys by playing speedy, intense sections with precision. This Dash X penned track also has extensive work by Holmes on the drums and a solo from a very jazz saxophone in the third act. Ultimately, the song doesn’t quite come together, feeling disjointed and a little over-complicated. But...Maybe that’s how it’s meant to feel. Dash was never brought into Eerie, Indiana as a writer, he was brought on to foil with Marshall on stage and because he was the only person the label could find that could play the punishingly difficult riffs Teller produces. On his Instagram speaking about pride X has suggested that a lot of his music was changed during production because it was too overtly about men, while Donner and Teller both proficiently changed pronouns in there songs, or stuck to calling their love interests you.

The album has three tracks that feel like filler, the intermission track which is not unusual on the cinematic, large scale Eerie, Indiana albums, a seemingly ‘story’ track called ‘Lost in Time’ which is a piece of Holmes poetry performed by Donner and an odd little track called ‘We Gave This One To Tod’ While the enigmatic Tod was often credited on Eerie, Indiana albums and opened for them at live shows he never quite reached the level of recognition his peers did. However, seeing the bizarre and experimental nature of his work, and his goth and punk leanings I think it’s safe to assume he was happier underground than his friends were blinded by the lights of showbiz. This piece features heavy synths and a drum machine. It doesn’t hit for me, but perhaps for a fan of Tod, it could be a holy grail.

On this version of the album, known as the deluxe edition, we’re given three additional tracks. A demo version of Elvis and the Mothman, which is lyrically the same slowed all the way down with the shouting chorus replaced with a mouth against the mic crooner style. The released, upbeat anthem style track is a far better fit for the album. Baba Yaga in Heels is a Heart on a Chain only track, perhaps why it was discarded. It features a techno style dance beat, with the lyrics being about a night out with Baba Yaga, a Banshee, and a harpy. Ultimately, the lyrics are not that impactful but they don’t need to be. The final listed track is a cover of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell, which lyrically and sonically is almost identical to the original.

Overall, what Marshall’s theory of Believability tries to do is ambitious. It’s an album between two experiential groups of friends trying to make something that they enjoy. But it’s not the best work of either group, which is a shame because it could have been something very special if they were given a little more time to work out some of the kinks and if they pruned some of the tracks that are superfluous to the story of the album. I’m happy to have a copy in my collection, but honestly, I’d rather listen to something the group produced independently anyway.

#eerie indiana #mitziedits #(eerie indiana as albums cinematic universe)

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avatarconner · 4 years ago

Note

With miles morales coming out and having super positive reviews similar to the first game, why do you think insomniac was able to make two successful spider man games while Crystal dynamics failed so badly at making a good avengers game?

There’s a couple reasons:

First and foremost? Focus. In the first game, peter is our protagonist. Everyone and their mother knows the origin by now so they smartly skip over it and instead deliver something Spidey games haven’t given us. An adult peter Parker story. He’s out of college, he’s living on his own, he’s been Spider-Man on his own for eight years. The story focuses on Peter Parker and his relationships. May, MJ, Martin Li, Norman, Harry, and of course Otto.

Miles’ game is focused on coming into your own. I’ve said to myself that the first mission of the game is what Spider-Man Homecoming wishes it was big with White miles. Miles wants to be Spider-Man, he wants to make Peter proud because he looks up to him and he’s the OG Spider-Man. And it’s him realizing he doesn’t need to be like Peter’s Spider-Man, he’s gotta be his Spider-Man.

Avengers however decides to do what Justice league did and introduces five Avengers at once with us knowing nothing about them or their relationships with each other, Kamala is the only one we’re introduced through since she’s the protagonist and we get an idea of who she is.

Obviously everyone knows the film versions of the Avengers but from what I’ve seen these guys aren’t that. We’re led to believe that these heroes have been on a team for years but they bicker and argue like they’re still working things out. And as soon as Cap ‘dies’ they fall apart.

Kamala has a good arc of stepping up and finding out who she is as a hero, but honestly? That doesn’t need to be an avengers game. That’s a Kamala Kahn game! It’s a personal story, now I don’t read Team books, I don’t read Avengers, Justice League, Champions, or X-men. But I have read Titans. And what interested me in that story was the relationships between the characters.

If the focus of the game was instead the Avengers trying to move on and find a way to still be heroes after their leader died? That’s instantly a more compelling story than Moodok making inhumans.

Secondly. Gameplay.

Both Spider-Man games are perfect for a third person Action Adventure game type. The characters work extremely well with combat style that is similar to Arkham, web swinging is MADE for an open world game.

Avengers, is a Gotcha Game. Its fucking greedy as all hell with microtransactions, skins, gear, etc. it’s like Destiny. And the structure of the game just doesn’t make sense for a team based game! Single player story missions are not bad, that’s a solid idea. But multiplayer is four people (not even the full avengers team) doing capture the flag/hold the spot missions?!?

This game should have been left 4 Dead, but with Avengers. Long linear levels with Tom’s of challenging special enemies anf tons of grunts. With each character having a unique play style abd way to traverse. As well as certain character actions. Hulk and Thor are the strongest so only they can move the rubble while the others defend them.

Black widow and Cap are the best hand to hand fighters so they can go through grunts easier but have harder times with special enemies. They’re a team, make it feel like a team!

Third: Deign.

I know I’m not the first or last person to say it but the designs for the avengers are not that great. Yeah they pulled from comics for certain costumes and some of them are actually really good. But their default looks?

Spider-Man wears his classic red and blues in the beginning of the game and miles gets his iconic in his and they both look like they fit in the world. The Avengers look bad. Tony’s armor is generic, Thor’s looks like it was made at a renaissance fair, and cap’s looks like a swat team member decided to put together a lazy Halloween costume. Kamala’s looks like cosplay but that works since it’s her.

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nomanwalksalone · 4 years ago

Photo

ALTERNATIVE STYLE ICON: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN IN WALLENBERG: A HERO’S STORY

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

The writer George Santayana famously wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Ironically many who repeat his quote forget who first uttered it.

I had long meant to write about Richard Chamberlain in this role. I once referred to him as “the fey king of the miniseries” and I don’t regret it: foppish, almost milquetoast in fare as varied as a two-part TV version of The Bourne Identity (with Jaclyn Smith, natch), Shogun, and as a leading candidate for an honorary Seinfeld puffy shirt: Not only did he play the Count of Monte Cristo in a 1975 TV movie, but a bunch of what Elaine Benes would have called chandelier-swinging characters in other Dumas adaptations, including Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and Louis XIV and his twin in The Man in the Iron Mask. Postmodern swashbuckler author Arturo Perez-Reverte even described a character in one of his own novels as looking “like Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds, only more manly.” That same Thorn Birds role, Father Ralph de Bricassart, also inspired a certain Rhunette Ferguson to give her son, a future New York Jets player, perhaps my favorite name ever: D’Brickashaw.

Dubbing Chamberlain an Alternative Style Icon for his role as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is low-hanging fruit. For years this TV special dwelt at the bottom of my Netflix queue for that express purpose. Former Savile Row tailors Manning & Manning won an Emmy award for the outfits they made for him; decades later Bryan Manning had some very interesting things to say to the inimitable Simon Crompton of Permanent Style about the 1930s and 1940s cutting styles he had to adopt for Chamberlain’s outfits for the movie. Chamberlain’s costumes are appropriately dashing, from the full diplomatic gala white tie ensemble worn while conspiring with the Papal Nuncio of Budapest to a tan double-breasted suit with horizontal peaked lapels that is, quite simply, magnificent. Zagreb, one of the most beautiful cities in eastern Europe, admirably filled in for 1940s Budapest and Stockholm in the making of this production. I’m fairly certain that I’ve stayed at the Zagreb hotel on whose esplanade Chamberlain wore that suit, in an early expository scene where the American and Swedish governments encourage Wallenberg to take a position with the Swedish legation in Budapest. I’ve been told Zagreb’s one of two cities in Europe where the street lamps in certain neighborhoods are still gaslit. Gaslighting happens to have been one of the reasons that I finally wrote about this icon.

Of course there’s plenty to mock in the conventions of this telefilm, even beyond Chamberlain’s indisputable 1970s and 1980s stock hero status: its heavy-handed setup and plotting, making Wallenberg out to be a one-man anti-Nazi force from his time at home in Sweden (wearing a U. Michigan sweatshirt to indicate that he had studied in the US - did college sweatshirts even exist back then?). Miniseries meant melodrama and its archetypal characters: an adorable child whom Wallenberg saves from the death camps only to die of illness; a shoehorned-in love interest in the form of a kindhearted baroness who lobbies her suspicious husband to relax the Hungarian government's strictures on Jews; a fiery Hungarian resistance fighter who provides the unofficial, combative counterpoint to Wallenberg’s diplomatic, humanitarian efforts through official channels. And, of course, Wallenberg’s kidnapping by the Soviets at the fall of Budapest meant his story was perfectly framed for 1985, when we still couldn’t trust those Russians. (In fact, to this day no one knows what they did with him.)

A few appropriately haunting and powerful moments do ring true, including Wallenberg’s cordial verbal fencing matches over contraband Scotch and cigarettes with Adolf Eichmann. Whether those meetings really took place in that form or not, their film versions appropriately capture the realities of how we are forced to engage with evil. Rarely are we simply battling an easily identifiable other, weapon to weapon. Instead, we encounter evil in the everyday – in fact, it seeks us out, finds shared ground, converses with us over pleasantries and hospitality even as we recognize its intentions. It identifies with us, we identify with it. Even as you know it is evil.

Eichmann had made it his avowed duty to kill the Jews of Europe. Wallenberg’s mission, as an emissary of an officially neutral power, was to help save as many as he could. And he did, through famously fearless, reckless endeavors including the distribution of thousands of official-looking Swedish passes to the Jews of Budapest, the creation of vast cultural centers and warehouses in the Swedish mission buildings in which these new countrymen could work under the aegis of their adoptive country, and savvy diplomatic maneuvering with the Hungarian and German authorities and military. He went as far as to climb on top of a train bound for Auschwitz and distribute passes to as many deportees as he could while soldiers fired shots at him. Looking back, historians suggest they were firing over his head to warn him as they could easily have dropped him at that range, but it’s not likely Wallenberg knew that at the time.

At that time diplomats of neutral powers could make fortunes more safely as armchair heroes: playboy Porfirio Rubirosa reportedly did so in Paris selling visas to the Dominican Republic to French Jews during World War II. In that respect, perhaps, both he and Wallenberg were heroes… of different sorts.

Wallenberg did not do it for money. The Wallenbergs were Swedish aristocracy (with, the film takes pains to remind us, an ounce of Jewish blood) with considerable means – hence the finely tailored wardrobe for Chamberlain. Thus, an easy cynical response to this essay could be that a rich aristocrat with diplomatic immunity risked nothing swanning around the salons of Budapest, just like the fictional gentleman spies we read about and watch on screen.

That response is wrong. Heroism is not just born of opportunity. It is recognizing when a choice confronts you and taking the difficult, unpopular and dangerous one in order to do what is right. Fictional heroes like Bond or Steed rarely suffer meaningful personal loss and rarely confront the reality of evil. Evil is your friend with many positive qualities, maybe more intelligent or cultured or better dressed than you, the one you looked up to, who gradually reveals the awful things he or she believes and has done. Evil is those complicit in carrying out those things by their inaction, their credulity, or their cooperation, not at the point of a gun but of a paycheck. Evil is legal, logically explained, repeated and reported until its baseless reasoning becomes fact and the foundation for more lies, more evil. Evil can so easily become the system.

Hindsight is a handicap, for it doesn’t usually permit us to see that there were no times without ambiguity in battles between good and evil and no certainty that good triumphs. We have the privilege of retrospect to acknowledge the dashing diplomat in Savile Row suits was a hero for saving innocents from deportation and death as part of the most ghastly genocide in history. We learned what genocide is, and had to invent the word to describe it. Because at that time the people singled out for persecution and death were unpopular, historically, socially and legally marginalized, supposedly easily identifiable and classifiable. A group that societies had made it easy - through regulation, ghettoization, oppression and antagonism – to hate, and whole false narratives drawn up to explain why that group hated and wanted to destroy us even more than we them.

One of A Hero’s Story’s most timely and inspiring lines is Wallenberg’s reply to the Hungarian ruler’s query why the King of Sweden cared so much about the Jews of another country, when he was a Christian. Wallenberg reminded the prime minister that the King’s “concerns transcend religion or national borders.” That concern is humanity, our lowest common denominator, our shared recognition of our capacity for suffering. That concern drove a man to acts of incredible selflessness, a generous mercy that seems to have cost him his liberty and his life. There is no romance to Raoul Wallenberg’s fate. It is worth remembering that he probably saw little romance in the actions he took in Budapest.

Now is no less an unromantic time, no less a time when others – so many different others –are easily denigrated, feared, distrusted, brutalized. Otherization, both of many within our borders and pressing against them, has returned, as has fascism, with apologists blandly elegant or brutally populist, like some inauspicious comet in our skies. Now, again, is a time for heroes – men and women who recognize how difficult and dangerous it is to do what is right. That struggle is far from those of Chamberlain’s habitual roles swashbuckling against a monolithic, universally despicable, evil. Evil is among us, habituating us, desensitizing us, gaslighting us. Far from frills and fanfare, celebration, or certainty of triumph, can we place ourselves in Wallenberg’s Budapester shoes and do what is right?

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This post first appeared on the No Man blog in February 2017.

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lailannajacobs · 5 years ago

Text

Circles

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!reader

Prompt: Costume Party: Stark is throwing a work Masquerade party and you’ve decided to go, hoping you’ll finally work up the courage to talk to a certain someone you’ve had a crush on for a while now

Warnings: fluff!

Word Count: 4.3k

A/N: My submission for @moonstruckbucky Halloween challenge! Although it’s not creepy in the slightest (I’m the world’s biggest scaredycat) I had a great time getting into the Halloween spirit! First time writing Steve Rogers so I’m curious to know what you guys think!! <3

“I look stupid,” You whined, staring at your reflection in distaste, “Why am I even going to this thing.”

Nat’s gaze slid away from her own reflection in the mirror to yours, “Because you’re hoping that Steve shows up so that you can finally make a move.”

She fiddled with the clasp of her earring, one of the final pieces to her costume. Leaning against her bathroom doorframe, you watched as she finished getting ready, trying - and failing - not to be so much of a Debby Downer. Normally, you weren’t against accompanying Nat to these events, but it had been a long day. All you wanted to do was go home. Instead, you had dressed up in a cliché, itchy cat costume you had found last minute in a thrift store downtown, and had shown up at Nat’s door, pairing your costumed with a forced smile.

Tony Stark had decided to throw a masquerade work party for Halloween this year and had stated in his e-mail that he hoped everyone would make an appearance. Although you had been tempted to spend the evening handing out candy at your mother’s house in the suburbs, Nat had convinced you that Captain Rogers - Steve as he had insisted you call him on multiple occasions - would be there as well and that it would be a perfect opportunity for you to stop pining over him and actually do something about your crush. Now that you were all dressed up and the party was already getting started a few blocks away, you weren’t so sure about any of it.

“We both know I’m never actually going to make a move,” You tugged on the hem of your costume, trying to make it longer than it actually was, “And even if I did, you know he never shows up to this kind of thing.”

Her lips curled into a wicked grin, “It’s not my fault you’re into a centenarian who’s too old to party.”

“When you say it like that, you make it sound like I’m into old men.” You laughed, staring at her elegant yet somehow distinctly peacock dress.

You wondered if she knew exactly how stunning she looked.

“You are into old men,” she extended her arm so you could tie the clasp on her bracelet even though you knew perfectly well she could have done it herself. Still, you were thankful it made you feel useful while you waited, “Or at least one old man in particular.”

You rolled your eyes, having trouble keeping the smirk off your lips, “Age is just a number.”

“I don’t see why you haven’t talked to him,” she paused, sifting through her makeup bag, “He’s not scary or anything.”

“Says the former assassin who’s been friends with him for years now. I’m not like you guys remember? I’m normal.” You scoffed.

The humour vanished from her face, “Anyone working for Stark isn’t normal.”

“Are you telling me that Janitor Bob has a special skill set I don’t know about?” You raised a brow, trying to get her to see your point that you weren’t in the same league as any of the Avengers, regardless of the fact that technically you all worked with Tony Stark in some form or another.

Every once in a while, you wondered how you had gotten to be friends with the infamous Black Widow. She was one of the Avengers - she had saved the world. You were one of Stark’s no-name employees in the IT department who, more often than not, worked regular 9-5 hours. Sure, every once in a while you were called in to help out on certain missions, but in general, you didn’t live in the same world as the Avengers.

The only reason you had met Nat at all had been because you had been the one to get her out of a particularly sticky situation, hacking into Hyrda’s security system and disabling their communications systems. She had found you when she had gotten back and had taken you out for drinks as a personal thank you. Since then, she had become your closest friend, but it still shocked you a little when you really thought about it.

“What I’m trying to say, (y/n), is that working in Stark’s IT department, after being hired for hacking through his security system for fun, doesn’t make you normal.” She insisted, an eyelash curler clamped tight around her lashes.

Even if you didn’t quite believe her, you shrugged, knowing you couldn’t change her mind, “Fine, so I’m not normal. But that still doesn’t make me special enough for a guy like Captain America to notice me, right? To him, I’m just the woman who fixes the problems on his laptop about once a week.”

“He’s really the biggest dork,” she repeated for probably the hundredth time since she had discovered your crush, “He doesn’t notice anyone much. He’s all about work. And like you said, this really isn’t his kind of thing.”

You stared at her incredulously, “Then why am I even going? You said he’d be there! I should just go back to my apartment and have a nice a cozy night in with a cup of tea, a soft blanket and my lap top.”

“Trust me, he’s going to be there. Maybe not for long, but he will be there.” Her lips pulled into an encouraging smile, “And you’re coming to keep me company. It’s good to feel normal every once in a while.”

You raised a brow.

“Just because we’re not normal doesn’t mean we don’t want to take the weight of the world off our shoulders for the night. That’s why Tony throws these things after all.”

“You know nothing Tony Stark does can be considered normal.”

“As close to normal as we can get,” she laughed, zipping up her bag, “And it’s not like we’d have it any other way.”

“Fine,” you groaned, pretending not to notice how gorgeous she looked as she titled her head from side to side, looking for imperfections in her makeup, “But I still look stupid.”

Nat turned all her attention on you, making you want to cower under that intense gaze, “That you do,” she amended, a wide cat-like grin spreading across her lips, “But I have something that’ll fit you much better.”

Steve combed his hair back, looked over at Bucky, and then sighed. It seemed that after all that had happened to the guy, Buck was still ten times better at the the whole social thing than he would ever be. He liked that he had managed to keep a hold of the part of himself that would always be that skinny kid from Brooklyn, he just wasn’t too sure how much help that part of him would be tonight. He’d take a bully and a fight over any one of Stark’s parties any day. How Bucky had convinced him to go tonight, Steve still couldn’t figure it out.

“It’s Halloween.” Bucky replied when Steve voiced his concerns, “You show up in a mask for an hour and then leave. No one notices you’re gone because everyone’s too busy getting drunk to pay attention to who’s behind the mask, but everyone is pretty sure they remember you being there.”

Steve looked down at his mask, almost afraid to pick it up. “Don’t you think it’s a little ironic that we’re all dressing up to go to a masquerade party?”

“I think that was the point,” Bucky shrugged on his tux jacket, “He did say he did say a ball cap and sunglasses didn’t count as a costume tonight, remember?”

“He did?” Steve unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, suddenly finding it hard to breath.

Bucky secured the mask around his face, white and silver framing blue eyes. “I’m pretty sure you were at that meeting”

“I might not have been paying attention.” Steve confessed, “I had a flight to catch right after and a mission to get to.”

“Of course you did,” Buck let out a sigh that was a cross between amusement and disappointment, “It wasn’t like you actually thought you’d be going to a party tonight. Now that you’re here though, you should work up the courage to talk to that girl from IT you can’t seem to keep your eyes off of.”

Steve fumbled and dropped the cuff links he was attempting to secure, “What? I do not.”

“Sure.” Buck’s lips spread into a knowing grin, “Whatever you say.”

Steve stared at his friend, a little mesmerized that he was getting back to normal so well. The bags under his eyes had lessened in the past months and over all he seemed happier and just a little more awake. It would never completely go away, but the fact that Buck was trying so hard made him sigh and say through gritted teeth, “One hour. That’s all.”

“That’s all I can ask from you buddy.” Bucky chuckled, “Anything more would probably kill you.”

Steve looked back down at the mask and tentatively picked it up as if it might transform and a attack him. He was kind of hoping it might. At least then he’d be more comfortable with it.

“It doesn’t feel like me.” He grumbled.

Bucky shot him a daring grin over his shoulder before walking out the door. “Well that’s the point isn’t it? It’s a costume party.”

“Stop fiddling with it.” Nat scolded, swatting your hand away from your mask.

By the time Nat had found the black dress she was looking for, had coaxed you into it, and had made it up the sky rise, the party was in full swing. Colourful costumes and intricate masks hid hundreds of party goers, while upbeat music resonated through the air and through your chest. The massive ballroom, taking up the entire 50th floor, had cobwebs hanging from the chandeliers and other Halloween decorations strewn across the room. A thin layer of smoke hung just above the ground, and although it was all a bit tacky, you supposed that was the point.

The decorations might have resembled a slightly higher budget version of your high school’s Halloween dance, but the costumes were stunning and in a league of their own. When Nat had pulled out the dress for you to wear, you had been surprised by how much you liked it. It was beautiful yet subtle, though not something you’d have ever bought yourself. The material was soft and unrestrictive, the lacy cape-like wings just apparent enough to consider the dress a costume. Complete with the thin, golden bat mask and maroon lipstick, you had liked what you had seen and had found yourself smiling for the first time that night. Maybe you would go up to Captain Rogers - Steve - and talk to him about something other than work.

Now that you were among so many other incredibly gorgeous party goers, you weren’t so sure about anything anymore.

“You look really good, trust me.” Nat continued, giving you a comforting squeeze.

You forced a smile and tried to be brave about this whole thing, “We look really good.”

“That we do,” Nat scanned the room until her eyes landed on the bar in the far corner, “Now, let’s go get a drink. Something that’s toxic green or has gummy eyeballs floating in it.”

A laugh bubbled out of you, but you were genuinely amused by her excitement. Although she was usually in a teasing mood, it was nice to see her getting excited about something so inane. It almost made you suggest organizing a board game night once a month at work to get people’s minds off of some of the horrors they’d seen, but you kept your mouth shut. They all had so many other important missions to go on, the idea felt silly in comparison.

Following, you wove through the crowd on her heels, pausing as she said hi to a few people in passing. Some were completely recognizable, the mask and costume unable to completely hide their distinct size or look, but others were as recognizable to you as strangers. Honestly though, you stayed holed up in IT so often that the odds of you having actually met them were slim to none.

“What do you want to drink?” Nat shouted over the music, gesturing to to the bartender.

You shrugged, “Whatever you’re having!”

She nodded and leaned over the bar to order. You glanced around, fiddling with your dress and knowing too well that you wouldn’t be able to hang around as Nat’s shadow all night. You’d have to mingle eventually, but you couldn’t spot any of your coworkers from IT who might have made the prospect less terrifying.

Maybe all you’d have to do was hang around for an hour and then you could call a cab home. Or maybe even walk home. It was a surprisingly warm night and you didn’t live far.

A hand on your arm snapped you out of your dreams of escape, and Nat handed you a pink drink with the gummy eyeball she had promised bobbing merrily on the surface.

She leaned in close, a sly grin on her lips, “Now, let’s go see if we can find those two, hundred-year-old dorks.”

“This whole not being able to get drunk thing is a bit of a bummer, isn’t it.” Bucky said, handing Steve his third beer of the hour.

“At least you didn’t have to find that out after having watched you die.” Steve mentioned before taking a long swig of his beer.

“Woah, that’s a little dark for a party there, buddy,” Bucky clapped him on the back, “And anyways, didn’t Thor have something that ‘wasn’t meant for mere men’?”

Steve shook his head, a smile growing. It was impossible not to find Bucky’s light-hearted mood at least a little contagious.

“He’s not hard to find. The bear over there is clearly him.”

Bucky nodded, scanning the room, “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious who’s wearing what costume.”

“Yourself included?” Steve asked.

The white suit jacket with silver lining, black dress pants and intricate wolf mask might have hidden all but piercing blue eyes, but there was no mistaking who wore the costume.

“Yeah, like mine.” He answered automatically, still searching the room.

Steve peered in the general direction Bucky was looking in but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. If he was lucky, his friend might have sensed something amiss and they could leave the party.

“What are you looking for?”

The words seemed to snap him out of his hunt and Buck dragged his attention away from the crowd, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Steve echoed, not quite sure he believed him.

“Nothing.” Buck affirmed, “Just taking in all the costumes”

Steve let out a dissatisfied humph, figuring he’d know what Bucky was really looking for by the end of the night.

“Well don’t you boys look ravishing.”

Steve smiled, Nat’s voice a comfort among the unfamiliar faces hidden behind masks.

“Natasha,” Bucky dipped his head in greeting, a funny little smirk on his lips, “You look stunning as always. How many weapons do you have stashed in those magnificent feathers of yours?”

Her lips pulled into a wicked grin, “No less than you have tucked into that dashing suit of yours.”

“It wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t.” He amended.

“We both know only one of us actually needs them though.”

“And we both know very well who that is…but maybe we should test it out on the mats tomorrow just to be sure.” Bucky answered, a goofy little grin on his lips.

Nat nodded, her lips pursued as if trying to contain a genuine smile.

Steve watched the whole interaction, something tugging at the back of his mind, telling him that he was missing something, but before he could figure it out, she turned her attention to him.

“Steve, I’m surprised you actually made it. Isn’t it past your bedtime, old man?”

An amused chuff escaped his lips, “It is, but sometimes you got to make an exception. Or so I was told.”

“I’m glad you did. There’s someone I want to introduce you to-“

“Nat, I told you, I’m good.” He interrupted.

Buck coughed and Steve shot him a look that only caused his smirk to widen.

“I’m not looking for anything,” he insisted, “Seriously.”

She searched the crowd for a second and sighed, “Fine. She ran off anyways.”

“I know you’re only going to let it go for tonight, but I appreciate it.”

The music slowed and people started pairing off. Steve watched them all, thankful for the change. Slow songs meant that it was beginning to be acceptable to leave.

“Steve, you’re not leaving now, are you?” Nat asked as he began to inch away from where they were standing.

“No, I’m just going for out for a breather.” She shot him a skeptical look she had every right to throw his way. “I’ll be back. Why don’t you dance with Bucky while I’m gone? By the time the song ends I’ll be back.”

Something flashed through Buck’s eyes and he tried to run his fingers through his hair but was stopped by the mask he clearly forgot he was wearing, shrugging instead.

Nat shrugged as well, an unfamiliar look crossing her face so quickly Steve thought he had imagined it. “What do you say soldier?”

Bucky nodded, looking like he was at a loss for words and extended his hand.

She took it, “Let’s see if you can dance better than you can fight.”

He chuckled, loosening up a little before leading her toward the rest of the dancers, never once taking his eyes off of her.

Steve figured he had just gotten permission to step out for a bit and beelined for the balcony.

You were glad for the fresh air. When Nat had begun weaving through the crowd, claiming to have spotted Steve and Bucky, you had made your escape. Even if you hadn’t actually gotten a glimpse of them, the prospect of seeing the two soldiers outside of a professional work environment terrified you to your core. You hated to admit it, but you had literally run away.

Your breathing had finally slowed, but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave the cool comfort of the night’s silence. You hoped Nat would stay inside and have a good time. She deserved to and you had a feeling there had been someone there she had been hoping to see, though you weren’t skilled enough to have figured out who.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone else was out here,” A deep voice broke the silence as if you had conjured him from your daydreams, “I’ll go back inside.”

Your whole body had gone rigid at the sound, but you blurted out, “Not that’s okay. It’s a little crowded in there but I think there’s enough room for the two of us out here.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind…” He trailed off.

You forced yourself to turn around, knowing it was impolite and more than a little strange if you kept talking out at the skyline.

Of all the masks you had been expecting on Captain Rogers tonight, the only one you hadn’t was the one he was actually wearing. The costume he wore could only be described as one thing; the prince of darkness. He looked like a fallen angel, his inky suit blending in with the darkness around him, the intricate black mask painstaking beautiful against blue eyes. The top buttons on his shirt were undone and his pale hair a mess on the top of his head as if he had been running his hand through it all night.

You didn’t know if he had been the one to choose the costume or if someone else had, but whoever had chosen had apparently wanted to kill you by stopping your heart.

Long, confident strides led him to the balcony not far to your right and he shot you a polite smile before staring out at the city. It took everything in you to tear your gaze away from him and look out at the skyline that now paled in comparison to the sight beside you. The silence grew and you knew that the longer neither of you said anything, the less likely you’d think of something relevant to say - not that you had any more of a clue what to say now. You were about to turn away and leave him in peace, but it was as if Natasha was in your head, ordering you to stay.

You let out an annoyed sigh and glanced over at him. He seemed content with the silence and probably didn’t want to be bothered. Nat’s voice in your head told you that you were making up excuses.

“Long night?” You finally asked.

He let out an amused little huff, “You could say that…this kind of thing is not something I really do often.”

“So I’ve heard,” You shrugged a small smile on your lips, “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not really my thing either.”

He cocked his head, as if trying to figure something out, “That why you’re hiding out here?”

“You could say that,” You parroted his words, hoping he would never figure out it was him you were trying to avoid, “I seem to be much better at dealing with computers than real people.”

“If you don’t mind me saying” He cut himself off and looked back out at the skyline.

You took a step forward, more than a little curious, “What?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “If you don’t mind me saying, you definitely look the part. You don’t look like you belong anywhere else than a stunning Halloween party.”

You weren’t too sure if it was a compliment or not, but the words caused the butterflies in your stomach to take off. “Then I guess we’re both pretty good at blending in. That costume is a long way from the red, white and blue spandex.”

He chuckled, “Was it naive of me to think I could go unnoticed tonight?”

“Honestly?”

He nodded.

“Yes,” You kept your eyes locked on the horizon, “You’re a hard person to miss Captain Rogers.”

“Call me Steve.”

“Sure.” You answered, the same way you did every time he asked you to call him Steve.

The silence stretched until felt his eyes on you, and you realized he was staring.

You slowly turned your head to face him and raised a brow.

“umm, yes?” You weren’t too sure what else to say, all you knew was that you wanted to know why he was staring. You suddenly wished the mask wasn’t stopping you from reading his expression.

“(y/n)?”

You breathed out a “yes?” surprised he remembered your name.

He let out a laugh of disbelief.

“What?”

“I can’t believe it took me this long to recognize you.” Even in the dark you could feel his eyes travel from your feet to your head, actually taking you in.

You shrugged and wrapped your arms around your chest in a loose hug, “In your defence, I’m not very noticeable.”

“That’s not true.” He shook his head, taking a step closer.

You scoffed, “If it wasn’t for your reputation, I’d say you were lying Captain Rogers.”

“Steve,” His voice was a deep command that sent shivers down your spine.

“Steve” You echoed.

“Good,” The corner of his mouth curled slightly, “Can I let you in on a little secret, I.T.?”

You nodded, only able to watch as he took another small step closer, the gap between your two bodies only a couple feet.

“I figured out that computer ages ago.”

“What? Wait. What? I…” You couldn’t say anything coherent, his answer not making any sense.

“Yeah…I liked having you come up once a week.” He was so close now you could smell the spicy scent of his body wash.

“Why?” You whispered.

He shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Oh…yeah…of course,” Your heart fell, knowing there was no way he could have the same thing in mind that you did, “you don’t know…”

“Well…maybe I do,” He paused, plucking one of Nat’s loose feathers from your shoulder, “I just don’t know if it’s a good thing to say aloud.”

You tilted your head up to get a better look at him, to try and see past the mask. The whole conversation was confusing you, but you couldn’t step away, as if you were magnetically drawn to him, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

His lips spread a little further into something almost dangerous, “Because I don’t know what it would mean if I did.”

You sucked in a deep breath, trying to slow your pounding heart. This was it. If there was ever a time to be bold, it was now.

“Who says you have to say anything at all?”

His hand snaked its way to the back of your neck, and before closing the distance, whispered, “That’s a very good point.”

The kiss was firm but gentle, his lips moving and guiding yours. You slid your hands up his strong chest, your fingers wrapping around the lapels of his jacket and tugging him even closer. He took that as a sign to deepen the kiss, his other hand traveling to your hip, fingers pressing firmly into the material. It only made you try to get even closer, but you had to know what was going on.

Breathless, you broke the kiss and leaned back to look into his bright eyes, “umm, right…wow, okay, umm, what? Should we go back to the party?

“How about we not.” He all but growled, pulling you back in.

#halloweenhauntsauchallenge #steve rogers fic #steve rogers #steve rogers x you #captain america #fan fiction #fanfic

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