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hellomystraightlacedfriend · 5 months ago

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Of the High Evolutionary and Spider-Woman - and why I like Jessica Drew's Second Origin Story the Most

Like a lot of Marvel characters, Jessica Drew has experienced retcons and revisions to her history. In her very first appearance, 'Arachne' was told by Hydra General Vermis that she was originally a spider but was transformed by the High Evolutionary into a woman with spider-like properties. (1st Origin, found in Marvel Spotlight #32: written by Archie Goodwin, with art by Sal Buscema.)

However, this origin was immediately retconned in her very next appearance when it was revealed that Vermis told Jess this story to make her feel disconnected from the rest of humanity. Vermis and Hydra brainwashed her into believing that they were the only people who would want anything to do with her. They were her only hope for survival and acceptance. (The fact that Jess was young and very naive and her pheromones actually did have an unnerving effect on other people made this idea even easier to swallow).

In this version, Jessica Drew was the daughter of Jonathan and Merriem Drew. Jonathan was the research partner of Herbert Wyndham, who would later become the High Evolutionary. When Jess became sick from exposure to uranium as a young child, she was given a cure (made from spider blood), which gave her her powers.

This was Jessica Drew's 2nd origin story (developed largely by writers Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Chris Claremont and their respective artists), and the one that was hard canon from the 1970s up until 2005. It's also the backstory that is still used in Marvel handbooks and was the one given in History of the Marvel Universe (2019).

In 2005, Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed wrote a 5-issue mini called Spider-Woman: Origin. And while I get why certain changes were made - obviously, there was an effort to simplify/streamline Jess's backstory - I just hate a lot of them. In stripping it down, many aspects of Jess's backstory that I found unique and personally fascinating were lost.

Also, some of the changes actually made things more complicated - like the decision to retcon Wyndham into just a Hydra general. Because the High Evolutionary is a key character in other characters' backstories - like Adam Warlock and the Maximoffs - this decision didn't really stick/was ignored by other writers. Because of this, Spider-Woman: Origin does not fit into the broader continuity of the Marvel Universe.

So today, I wanted to go over what I enjoyed about Spider-Woman's 2nd origin, and examine the changes that were made afterwards.

Before I proceed further, though, I do think it's only fair that I acknowledge that Bendis was responsible for really bringing back Jessica Drew as a character and making her a little less obscure. Also, there are definitely choices he made with the character that I like/find interesting, like: developing her friendship with Carol, continuing her relationships with Wolverine and Nick Fury, and getting her Spider-Woman title/costume back, among others. I even really enjoyed the whole Veranke imposter thing, which I know pissed off some fans.

That said, I still have a very visceral reaction to some of the ways Bendis handled Jessica Drew - and how some fans treat him as the end-all-be-all for the character.

So, let's go.

Part 1: The Man Who Would Be God

Okay, so the thing that probably offended me the most is how Spider-Woman: Origin turned Wynham into just a nondescript Hydra General. The reason for this is because the High Evolutionary and the Drew family actually have a very tightly wound history, and Bendis obviously wanted to stress Jess's relation with Hydra. But even though the High Evolutionary doesn't have a lot of comic book appearances (under 200 as of today) he has been quite an influential character, playing an important part in the Maximoff twins, Adam Warlock, and Spider-Woman's backstories - and also making recurring appearances in X-Men, Avengers, Thor, and even Spider-Man comics.

Also, I just like him. Like yeah, the dude's a piece of shit, but I find him interesting as a character - so that is why I am starting with him and who he is in the main Marvel Universe.

Note: While I am not going to give specific dates, this was originally supposed to take place around the 1920s - 30s. The time period isn't vitally important, though, in my opinion. It was more just that this was supposed to take place some 30+ years before the main Marvel events (like the Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four forming).

Also, no, the High Evolutionary's whole "evolving" animals into more "advanced" versions of themselves isn't scientically accurate - but I like chewing on the thematic elements it creates.

So to begin, Herbert Edgar Wyndham was born in Manchester, England, into what was probably once a well-off family. However, his father’s passing (when Herbert was still young) seemed to have put financial strain on the family. Due to this, Herbert's dream of attending Oxford University to further his studies in genetics depended entirely on him getting a scholarship or sponsorship.

This didn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility - because young Herbert was something of a genius who was already pouring hours of his free time into obsessively studying the genetics of rats.

Herbert had become fixated on the idea of improving the world through accelerated evolution - and he wanted to be the one to do it. He'd even made a machine that he hoped would evolve the rats into later stages of rat evolution. Although all of his attempts so far - which had mostly been bombarding rats with radiation - had just ended with dead rats. But as much as their deaths saddened him, Herbert wasn’t one to give up.

Now Herbert was living with his mother, and she completely doted on him, so when Herbert got an invitation to attend a major genetics conference in Geneva, she was the one to go to all of their relatives to collect money, so he could go on his trip.

And this is where he bumped into a young American - Jonathan Drew, a student at Yale specializing in arthropods.

The two of them hit it off right away - Herbert seeing in Jonathan a fellow "visionary," as Jonathan Drew wanted to use the genetics of spiders to 'improve' the human race - making them less susceptible to toxins and disease.

During the convention, Herbert and Jonathan attended a lecture, where the speaker warned against the dangers of genetic tampering - saying that more theoretical research needed to be done into the long-term effects. Over dinner, an angered Herbert complained to Jonathan about this, when he suddenly felt dizzy and went out to get some air. There, he was approached by the inhuman geneticist Phaeder, who gave Herbert the genetic information he needed to perform his experiments.

(Although Phaeder didn't actually introduce himself as Phaeder, he just gave Herbert a stack of papers and then fucking left. Apparently, Phaeder gave out information like this to other human geneticists as well - like some weird fairy godmother or twisted Prometheus - but his reasons for doing so aren't relevant to this story).

Shortly after this, Herbert did end up getting into Oxford, but he blew the opportunity by spending all of his time working on a machine to turn animals into more "evolved" versions of themselves. When he couldn't even manage a demonstration on what he was working towards, he was kicked out of Oxford.

After getting kicked out, Herbert finally made a successful attempt with his machine - a machine which he had named his "genetic accelerator." He "evolved" his pet dalmatian - enhancing its intelligence to that of a chimpanzee and getting it to walk on its two back legs.

Herbert was estatic. However, the poor dog was accidentally shot by hunters, who then called it "a freak of nature." This led Herbert to believe that the only way for him to keep his "creations" safe was to keep them away from the rest of humanity.

So, he met back up with Jonathan, who had married a European woman and was now living in Europe.

Note: The nationality of Jessica's biological mother is inconsistent across sources, sometimes said to be English, sometimes French. Sometimes, she is listed as being born in Transia. Also, I guess she could have been born in Hungary, too, because of the whole Viper thing. (We'll get back to that.)

Jessica Drew's place of birth, however, is universally London, England.

Anyway, Herbert reconnected with Jonathan Drew, who now had a young daughter named Jessica. Jess seemed a pretty outgoing and affectionate child as she immediately climbed up on Herbert, something her mother scolded her for, but Herbert said he didn't mind.

Herbert and the Drews decided to pool their resources together to create "a citadel of science." Jess's mother, Merriem, had just inherited a tract of land in (the fictional Balkan country of) Transia - in the shadow of Wundagore Mountain. So that's where they decided to set up their base.

Herbert sold his mother's house (without fucking asking her!) for building money. (He'd already persuaded his mother to move into her sister's place so he could rent out the house for money for his experiments - which really demonstrates his complete but rather oblivious self-centeredness.)

With these plans in hand, Herbert, Jonathan, Merriem, and little Jessica all moved to Wundagore together to start their new lives.

Part 2: Wundagore

When Herbert and the Drews got to Wundagore, they immediately heard rumours from the locals that there was an evil spirit trapped in the mountain, and werewolves and vampires living close by. There was, in fact, an evil spirit trapped in the mountain - the evil elder god Chthon - but Herbert and Jess's parents (in a very Dracula moment) dismissed the nearby villagers as superstious simpletons.

Their arrogance grew when they found that the soil in the land they owned contained a lot of uranium ore. Now they would be wealthy! Interestingly, though, this turn in fortune did not cause any friction between Herbert and the Drews, as even though the land was technically Merriem's, Jonathan assured Herbert that they were all full partners in this venture.

Note: It's funny how especially compared to how Bendis and Reed wrote the Wyndham & Drew relationship (in Origin) as being pretty much purely professional - in Mark Gruenwald's hands, Herbert Wyndham and Jess's parents come across as having a rather unconventional closeness.

Herbert especially seems quite fond of Jonathan Drew (even though he often expresses waryness of humanity as a whole), and the fact that their finances are all so willingly tied together is very interesting to me. It would be more expected, particularly in a villain's origin story, for there to be more infighting around money. Instead, Jonathan and Herbert like each other enough that this never became a problem.

Herbert and Jonathan started working on their citadel of science, but because the engineer they hired to build it was obsessed with outerspace, they got a lab with space-faring capabilities. Jonathan was like "is this really necessary???" But he had bigger problems.

His young daughter had collapsed on the dirt she was playing in. Because even though Jonathan warned Merriem to keep Jess away from the dirt, they were both pretty neglectful in actually watching their daughter. Jess was now suffering from uranium poisoning that had been building in her little body for months. She was sick and quickly dying.

In a panic, Jonathan injected his young daughter with the experimental spider-blood serum he had been working on. However, Jess didn’t respond. Herbert then offered to use his genetic accelerator on Jess, but Merriem argued against it. She thought that it was too late for Jessica, and accused her husband and his partner of just using Jess as a guinea pig. Against her wishes, Herbert did put Jess in his genetic accelerator, merging Jess's genetics with those of the spiders.

However, Jess still seemed completely unresponsive, and Herbert put her in an induced coma/partial suspended animation in the hopes that the serum would slowly cure her over time. Angry and distressed that her daughter had been experimented on for what seemed to her no reason, Merriem rushed off into the night - and was killed by a werewolf.

Note: Okay, I wanted to pause here, because I actually highly prefer this version of Jessica Drew getting her powers to the one in Spider-Woman: Origin - where she accidentally gets spider DNA beamed into her body while she's still a fetus.

I just find it more interesting seeing these characters have this genuine fear and panic about their little girl dying - and maybe it resonates with me more because my little brother became very sick when he was three years old and eventually died (and I spent quite a bit of time in children's hospitals growing up) but there's also more nuance in this origin.

For some reason, Bendis and Reed made Jonathan and Merriem Miriam more black-and-white figures, with Jonathan being painted as a guy who secretly hated his daughter - because he's weirded out by her spider DNA - but still used her to advance his research. Whereas Jess's mother was presented as a much more sympathetic figure, as she was first taken in by her husband lies about her daughter being sick and thus the testing on her being necessary, and then later when she found out this wasn't true, she fought to defend her daughter from him.

But in the 2nd origin, especially in the parts penned by Mark Gruenwald, neither of Jess's biological parents was actually perfectly "right." Here, it is pretty clear that although Jonathan genuinely wanted to save his daughter's life, he also really wanted to see if his serum would work, and he very much wanted the glory of that success. However, Merriem was going to stand in the way of her daughter possibly surviving - because on principle, she didn't want her daughter to be used as a science experiment. Jonathan's motives were not close to being 100 percent pure, but if Merriem had gotten her way, Jess would have absolutely died.

Which is more unique for a Marvel backstory, because there are so, so many bad father/nicer mother narratives in Marvel. Which I am not saying this isn't a dynamic that doesn't occur often in real life, but I feel like Jessica's story was more about all her guardians failing her one-by-one.

But anyway, Merriem was killed by a werewolf, and it was Herbert who found her body. Not really believing in werewolves but also not wanting Jonathan to become biased against nonhuman life, Herbert staged the death to look like a fall.

Jonathan was absolutely devastated: first his daughter had become sick/comatose and now his wife was dead. Herbert tried to think of ways to console his despondent friend, but it wasn’t long after this that Herbert woke up to a note from Jonathan Drew, saying that he couldn’t stand being there anymore without Merriem, and he was going back to America. Jonathan left Herbert the citadel, and his daughter.

Part 3: The New Men and Recreating Camelot

So, Herbert found himself alone and lonely in his now completed citadel. The only person with him was his former partner's unconscious child. He decided that he would be a father to this abandoned little girl, and well, any daughter of his was going to have a world-class education. So he set up audio recorded lessons and lectures to play in her cryogenic chamber while she slept.

Herbert was (unsurprisingly) still lonely. He couldn’t really talk to Jessica (and she didn’t seem to be getting better), so he had this whole empty citadel to himself. To keep his mind busy, he set to work on making himself the perfect suit/armour to protect himself from environmental toxins. But also as a 'just in case' - even though he did not believe in werewolves or werewolf folklore or any of this crap about a demon living inside the mountain - he made the suit silver-plated on the outside.

When his perfect silver-plated hazmat suit was completed (after an intense process of trial and error), Herbert started wearing it all the time. It wasn't long, though, before his mind started itching to work on something else, and his thoughts drifted back to the evolved dog he had "created" before.

He started acquiring both domestic and wild animals from all over: lions and tigers and bears and pigs and cows and sheep. And he started putting them through his genetic accelerator. Those that survived and showed successful signs of intelligence, he called his "New Men" - though he would also more affectionately refer to them as his "children."

The New Men were absolutely bewildered by this whole process, but Herbert assured them they would adjust to this new way of existence. He had them watch educational tapes until they gained the ability to speak, and he started to feel a little less lonely.

Then, joy of joy, Jonathan Drew returned to Wundagore. Herbert was like, "I missed you. It hasn't been the same without you!" And Jonathan was like "Actually, I'm not Jonathan. I'm the ghost of 6th century wizard who took possession of your friend's body to warn you that you are in grave danger." And Herbert was like 😯 (Quotes aren't exact exact but pretty damn close).

Herbert didn't believe the whole ghost possession story, but he decided it was "a harmless mental disorder" caused by Jonathan's grief. So when "Jonathan" suggested they teach the New Men to be lance-wielding knights, Herbert decided to commit to some long-term LARPing to make his friend happy. Besides, this new code of honour would guide his New Men, make them civilised. Also, he did enjoy being the king of his castle. This is when Herbert started going by "the High Evolutionary" - a title that "Jonathan" encouraged.

Now Jonathan was, in fact, being possessed by a 6th century ghost. A guy named Magnus, who had come to Wundagore to warn Herbert that all his drilling into the mountain had awakened a dormant demon. Herbert - the High Evolutionary did not want to hear about this, though. He was like (paraphrasing):

"John, dear John, or Lord Magnus - however you want to be called, you can tell me all you want about how you used to work with Morgan Le Fay, before she murdered you with her bare hands, but don't speak to me of demons. I am a man of science™ There are no demons, and there is certainly no demon trapped in my mountain."

But like I said before, there was, in fact, an evil spirit in the mountain. He had been bound to it by Morgan Le Fay and her followers back in the 6th century - once she realised she couldn��t control the spirit she had summoned.

But back in the 20th century, time passed. A decade went by. The New Men, now called the Knights of Wundagore, kept training. Jessica Drew kept sleeping, and in her sleep, she aged very, very slowly. She had still not fully recovered from her sickness, and the High Evolutionary wondered if she ever would.

Then, one stormy night, a woman on the point of giving birth came to Wundagore and gave birth to twins. The mother slipped away in the night, leaving a note asking for the High Evolutionary to find her newborns a good home.

It was during this time that Chthon attacked, and Herbert/the High Evolutionary came face to face with a fucking Elder God. He and his knights fought back but were quickly overpowered, and Herbert watched in horror as many of his "children" were dashed to pieces in front of him. Luckily, Magnus ended up being able to put Chthon back into his dormant slumber, using a magic book called the Darkholde. However, not before Chthon put a piece of his essence into one of the twin babies: the girl who would grow up to be Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch.

Note: Not related to Spider-Woman: Origin directly, but I have seen other people bring up Bendis' erasure of Wanda's chaos magic (in his Avengers Dissambled Arc) and speculate that he was trying to write Chthon out of the Maximoff twins' backstory and out of the Marvel Universe. This is most likely true. For some reason, Bendis seemed determined to take all the magic away from Wundagore Mountain, which - is something I'm not a fan of.

Back to the story though, one of the surviving New Men, a cow-woman who Herbert named "Bova" (derived from a Latin word for cow) was tasked with taking care of the infants, while the High Evolutionary looked for a new home for them. He ended up placing the infants with Django and Marjya Maximoff, a Romani couple who were unable to have children of their own.

Note: Sorry, another complaint...it’s just super weird in Spider-Woman: Origin that the whole Bova in evolved cow is made out to be a delusion put in Jessica Drew’s mind by Hydra, and that Bova is actually a human woman named Bova????? I'm sorry, but why the fuck would that be her name? Did her parents hate her?

Also, it's just annoying because Bova doesn't have a purpose in the story other than to be a vehicle for the writers to be like "oh, yeah, we are retconning the High Evolutionary and his New Men! Yep, they never existed. Mhm, Hydra made them up entirely to mentally torture one child."

It seems evident that someone thought that this origin was too weird, but I just – aghhhhhhh. Okay, let’s move on.

After this, Magnus departed, saying that his duties there were done and that he had to relinquish Jonathan's body and return to his grave. But he also told the High Evolutionary that he would miss him and tasked Herbert with not neglecting the daughter of the man whose body Magnus had borrowed.

Part 4: Leaving 'Paradise'

It would still be years, though, before Jessica Drew finally woke up well from her prolonged sleeping beauty slumber. When she did wake up, her memories of her parents and her former life were very dim. She had been so young when she had gotten sick that she didn't remember anything clearly from before. So this strange world of talking, anthropomorphic animals and a knight's code of honour and all that - that was the world she really grew up in.

Note: I think that's part of what made me fall so hard for this backstory. Something about how casually and naturally Jess relayed it all to Nick Fury when looking back years later: the "High Evolutionary" promising to raise Jess like his own daughter, animals with the intelligence and faculty of human beings, the desire to recreate Camelot. They were all presented as the most normal things in the world, which is what really gripped me.

Because that is how a child raised in a bizarre environment would take it in - as their normal. And as someone who grew up in a cult, well, I really resonated with that. I mean, there are other ways that Jess's upbringing resembles being brought up in a cult (which I'll talk about a bit more soon) - but even the just talking about bizarre things as if they are completely straightforward (because that was your lived experience) is so interesting to me.

I also really like the idea of Jess being raised in a knight-centred culture, because this actually gives more context/insight into her character. Like why she has more negative emotions around being "a coward" than she does about killing people. Or why one of the things that pisses her off the most is seeing someone attack someone who is weak/defenceless, and why Jess would go in for the kill against the attacker in those situations. Of course, anyone would be upset about that, but there is a such level of anger there that we can see this goes against one of her core beliefs. An honourable knight is going to defend the weak, and hurting someone who is weaker than you is utterly despicable.

And it's just interesting that these values are following her even to this day, even though they were put in place by someone who was neglectful/abusive.

That's getting a little ahead of the story though:

So, when Jess woke up she had only physically aged to around 10 years old (or in some sources her early teens) - even though she had been asleep for over three decades. However, because she'd been in a coma-like state all this time, emotionally, she was still younger.

The High Evolutionary immediately placed Jess in Bova's care. He claimed he would be like a father to her, but he was preoccupied. His confrontation with Chthon had had a huge impact on him. For the first time, he had been come across something he couldn’t explain and was so much more powerful than him. That had rattled him, had shaken him to the core.

It's also possible that witnessing so much death and having his friend effectively abandon him a second time had resulted in Herbert becoming more emotionally detached. When he did interact with Jessica, it was mostly to examine the abilities he and Jonathan had given her.

One of the darker implications from around this time is that Jess has an ability to be resistant to toxins, but the way the power works is that she has to be exposed to a poison, endure the effects of it, heal from it, and then she will have an immunity to it. The fact that she already has a very clear understanding of how that power works in her first solo series suggests that multiple poisons were tested on her before it.

Looking back at this time in her life, Jess also expressed that she mostly felt like a labratory animal (which could be one reason why she has such a strong affinity towards characters like Logan/Wolverine or even the Hulk.)

Note: I will say that Spider-Woman: Origin does also have Jess be a test subject (although Jonathan is the perpetrator instead of The High Evolutionary.) I also do think the writers of the mini did enough research into Jessica Drew that they did try bring forward some of the same themes.

Sadly, one thing that was lost in this new origin was Jessica Drew seeing her father/father figure as a god/God. It's just one of my favourite things in stories where parental figures are lifted up onto this worshipful pedestal, and in this case, it makes a lot of sense. The High Evolutionary did save Jess's life, and he had cared for her even after her biological father abandoned her. He was her saviour.

Also, all these people around her - the New Men - they saw the High Evolutionary as God, because he was the one who had brought them to this new level of consciousness, and if he wanted to, he could also take that away. The New Men had also basically been taught that their whole purpose in life was to serve the High Evolutionary. This was readily accepted by most of them, and while others, like Bova, would go on to ponder if there was more to their existence, no one at this time was really questioning the High Evolutionary's authority. He was their king, their God, their everything.

And this does remind me of how cult members are "supposed to" and how many people in cults do view cult leaders. Add to this that the High Evolutionary did not allow outsiders (with very exceptions) into Wundagore, and that he forbade the New Men and Jessica Drew from ever leaving, and you have a very isolated and insular environment. Which is very, very cult-like.

There is also something about how the High Evolutionary can and later does devolve New Men - whether that be as punishment, or because he thought it was a mistake to evolve them up in the first place, or just because he was tired of a particular New Man - that makes me think of the dehumanisation that often takes place in cults. How personhood can be given or taken away.

Not that this is the only way to view the High Evolutionary, especially since he does eventually become more and more actually godlike in power and is even referred to as "God" at some points - you could also see the High Evolutionary as critique on God or how God is perceived, or well, something else entirely I suppose.

However you want to look at it, being "God" isn't always easy. Which Herbert was starting to realise.

Because the New Men saw him as this omniscient being, the High Evolutionary was getting flooded with questions. So, to bear the brunt of that barrage, the High Evolutionary recruited Jane Foster (yes, that Jane Foster) to be the New Men's new teacher. That way he could concentrate on what was really important to him.

Which, if you thought that would be spending some quality with his adopted daughter...well, no, that wasn't even on his radar. What he wanted to do was work on his genetic accelerator, with the hopes of making more advanced New Men.

It was just the hand that fate had handed him, his duty to make a perfect world, yada yada

Now Thor (Jane's love) happened to see Jane being taken off to an isolated location and thought she had been kidnapped. He came down to Wundagore, and basically walked into an ongoing battle.

The High Evolutionary had been making adjustments to his genetic accelerator, and had beamed a different type of isotope at the wolf he was evolving up. The wolf ended up coming out more "advanced" than the other New Men: smarter, more capable, but also filled with hate - towards the High Evolutionary and all of humanity. Declaring himself to be the "Man-Beast," the evolved wolf quickly took control of the genetic accelerator, and made new New Men - ones who would be loyal to him and help him overthrow the High Evolutionary.

A battle ensued, with Thor joining forces with the High Evolutionary, the Knights of Wundagore, and Jessica Drew to put down the Man Beast's rebellion. (This would be the first time Jess would use her venom blasts in a fight.) The Man-Beast and his underlings were defeated, but the High Evolutionary was again shaken. For the first time, he wondered if he had made a mistake tampering with evolution. Thor certainly thought so.

Finally, the High Evolutionary decided that humanity and his New Men couldn’t peacefully coexist. So, taking all but a handful of his New Men into his spaceflight-capable citadel, he took off for the stars.

Jessica Drew watched in Bova's arms, as her home lifted off the ground and disappeared into the sky.

Note: I don't know why, but I just find the image of Jess watching her home and her father/God disappear into outerspace never to return to her again particularly poignant. I especially ruminate on this when thinking about her and Carol, and how they see outerspace so differently. Carol having such positive connotations with it, and Jess such negative ones. It would just be interesting if it went all the way back to their childhood. (Even though, of course, a big reason why Jess hates/is scared of space is the whole being kidnapped/held captive by Skrull thing.)

But to return to the story, Jess and Bova and the rest of the New Men have to go on and adjust to life without their "God." Now none of the New Men, besides Bova, had really shown Jess any love or acceptance. They had tolerated her presence because the High Evolutionary had called her his daughter. However, now that the High Evolutionary was no longer there, well, things were different. The New Men started to become more and more vocal about their dislike for Jessica Drew.

The reason why they disliked her basically came down to two things. 1) at this point time Jess was instinctively/subconsciously giving off alarm pheromones that upset people around her 2) the fact that she had both human and spider DNA upset the New Men's sense of order. The High Evolutionary was fully human. They were animals brought up to personhood, but Jess was neither of those things, so they did not know how to view her.

Also, now that the High Evolutionary was gone, Jessica Drew was the only none New Man around, and though she begged and pleaded for their acceptance, the New Men just became more and more hostile towards her.

Finally, Bova decided that this was getting way out of hand, and she and Jess agreed maybe it would be best if Jess left and tried her luck among humankind. At this point in time, Jess was physically around seventeen, but because she was still catching up from spending a chunk of her childhood unconscious and had lived such an isolated existence, she came across as younger and was certainly very naive.

Despite this, Bova did not go with the child she had been ordered to take care of. Not that I actually exactly blame her in this situation. It had never been her decision to have or take care of a child. Also, she probably thought that Jess had a higher chance of being accepted if she weren't with a talking cow. Bova would have also wanted to stay with the people/community she knew and cared about, and would not want to go to some stranger place where she knew she would be shunned.

This did lead, however, to Jess going out into the world alone, a child among strangers. And in very mutant backstory fashion [even though Jess is not mutant - well, at least, not as of yet] Jess ended up accidentally killing a human man with her powers. (She was suddenly startled and hit him with a venom blast.) This led to the village turning against her, and a terrorist organisation - Hydra - coming to her "rescue."

Part 5: Hydra

After this point, this origin and Spider-Woman: Origin become a lot more alike. In both origins:

Jess joins Hydra when she is physically seventeen but emotionally/mentally younger (because in both origins she spends a sizable chunk of her childhood unconscious.) She is lied to/brainwashed in some way. She is then trained to be a spy/fighter/assassin. A guy named Jared starts a manipulative relationship with her, as he becomes her boyfriend and handler. Jared allows himself to be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., so that Jess will come and rescue him and kill Nick Fury. Jess breaks into Fury's location, but while she is there, it is revealed to her that Hydra - and Jared specifically - have been attacking innocent/defenceless people. Jared tells Jess that their relationship was fake/that he never loved her/that he found her disgusting - before he ends up dying by her hand. Jess then ends up killing Otto Vermis. Fury tries to recruit her to S.H.I.E.L.D., but she slips through his fingers.

Some differences include:

In Spider-Woman: Origin Taskmaster is shown to the one who trained Jessica Drew. This is more an addition than a contradiction to anything that was previously canon. And it's something I do actually like/have no problem with.

Well, the one nitpick I have is Taskmaster taunting Jess's costume - which would not bother me in isolation. It's just that Bendis put her back in this costume, only to have multiple people make fun of it, so whenever I see a character doing that, I hear it in Bendis' rather than the character's voice.

I also would have kind of preferred if Chris Claremont's addition to the costume's history was included. Basically Claremont had it be Jess's idea - that she fought for - to have the costume be not the usual Hydra green.

The brightly coloured costume is not great for stealth work, but I would say that it could speak to Jess's character. The colours are interesting because they are typical of poisonous animals, so the costume is like a warning sign. It could speak to Jess's sense of fairness or even her cockiness to go after her enemies in red and yellow and black.

It would also make a lot more sense to why she kept using the costume after leaving Hydra, even though that wasn't the smartest decision. If she chose the colours and felt like this was her first successful rebellion after being controlled all her life, yeah, that would give a lot more emotional/sentimental value to the costume.

I also like this idea because the person who designed Spider-Woman's original costume was actually a woman, the Marie Severin.

In previous versions Otto Vermis was the Hydra general Jess was serving under, and who she killed by bending the wing of his plane and making it crash. But because Spider-Woman: Origin plays musical chairs with the characters, Wyndham (instead of being the High Evolutionary) is the Hydra general, and Vermis (instead of being the general) is just a Hydra guy Jess sleeps with for information about her father's whereabouts and then kills after he tries to kill her.

Now I don’t think it's totally out-of-character for Jess to start a sexual relationship with someone she is not attracted to in order to save/protect someone she loves, because the upper limit to what she would do to protect the people in her life is very high, but I still thought this was well, unnecessary.

In Spider-Woman: Origin, Jonathan Drew is killed by Viper because he finally decides he doesn't want to be involved with Hydra anymore. In Spider-Woman (1978) after finally returning to America, Jonathan Drew is killed by an American congressman because Jonathan uncovered the motives of this group he was doing research for.

I will say that Spider-Woman: Origin is neater - is that the word? - more contained with Jessica Drew's parents' deaths. Miriam Drew is killed by her husband in front of her daughter, and then Jonathan Drew is killed by Hydra, specifically Viper. But in my opinion, the addition of having Jess see her father kill her mother in front of her doesn't really add anything to her character. And because earlier in Origin, they also had Jonathan Drew not like Jess from birth, it just kept making me think of Brian Banner, and how this backstory fits Bruce Banner better.

For some reason, it also really irritates me that Merriem/Miriam is made out to be the vastly better parent, and I don’t like how this has continued into newer comics. Maybe this is an overreaction, but I feel like I'm being spoon-fed this idea that all biological mothers are instinctively more loving and nurturing.

Speaking of biological mothers though, I did say I would get back to Viper. So, basically, the story behind Viper and Spider-Woman is just that Chris Claremont wanted Viper to be Jessica Drew's mother, so he made that retcon in Spider-Woman (1978) #44. However, J. M. DeMatteis, who was writing Captain America comics parallel to this, apparently didn’t like this idea, or someone didn't like it, so the retcon was retconned a year later (in Captain America #281.) So now Viper wasn't actually Jessica Drew's mother. Morgan Le Fay had just planted false memories in Viper's mind to make her believe that she was Jessica Drew's mother.

Which I mean I don’t really mind either scenario. I would be cool with Viper being Jess's biological mother, but also Morgan Le Fay did want to be the one to kill Jessica Drew (after Jess refused to swear eternal fealty to Morgan Le Fay and instead skewerd Morgan with her own sword), so I could totally see Morgan fucking with Viper's mind/memory just so that Viper would hesitate and not beat her to killing Jess.

Okay, I am just going to make note of one other difference, and then I'm done, I'm through.

Weird thing: Jessica Drew unexplainably attending San Francisco State University in Origin takes me out of the story more than the not-scientifically sound explanation of being "extensively educated by the High Evolutionary during stasis." I actually find it pretty easy to accept the story logic of Jess learning languages and the contents of books subconsciously.

But not only does Jess attending university not fit with Spider-Woman (1978) or any of Jess's earlier appearances, but it leads to so many unanswered questions, like (if she wasn’t learning anything in the ten years she was in a coma) what was her schooling like up to this point? How did she get into university without a prior education, or transcripts? Like maybe she's just sitting in on a class, but that is not explained either. Nothing is explained.

Okay, I'm finally done now. Thanks for reading, and if you'd like, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject too!

Sources:

Thor #134-135 (Stan Lee/Jack Kirby)

Marvel Spotlight #32 (Archie Goodwin/Sal Buscema)

Marvel Two-In-One #29-#33 (Marv Wolfman/Ron Wilson)

Spider-Woman (1978) #1, #5, #6, #20, #35, #37 (Marv Wolfman/Carmine Infantino; Mark Gruenwald/Carmine Infantino; Chris Claremont/Steve Leialoha)

Avengers #187 (Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, David Michelinie/John Byrne)

The Saga of the High Evolutionary (Mark Gruenwald/Paris Cullins & Ron Lim), found in:

X-Factor Annual #3, The Punisher Annual #1, Silver Surfer Annual #1, New Mutants Annual #4, Fantastic Four Annual #21, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22, X-Men Annual #12, Web of Spider-Man Annual #4, West Coast Avengers Annual #3

Collected by bringbackwendellvaughn here:

Scarlet Spider Unlimited (Glenn Herdling/Tod Smith)

Quicksilver #9 (John Ostrander, Joe Edkin/Ivan Reis)

Marvel Atlas #1

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1 #5

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1 #14

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 2 #15

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Avengers 2005

All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #5

FF: Fifty Fantastic Years

History of the Marvel Universe (2019) #4 (Mark Waid/Javier Rodriguez & Alvaro Lopez)

Spider-Woman: Origin (Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Reeds/Jonathan Luna, Joshua Luna)

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callmewrinkles3 · 1 year ago

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Yellow.

Warnings: Mentions of Spa 2019

September 2019

The only way Em could possibly describe the weekend they'd just had was emotionally draining. She was exhausted and worn out and just wanted to curl up in bed and forget that they'd been racing at all. She wanted to hold Dan and promise him that everything would be ok. It was always going to be ok. But it was a lie and she couldn’t lie to him.

She didn’t know how they went through the weekend after the crash. She’d heard the paddock go silent, the realisation that something terrifying had happened. Watched drivers she’d known for over a year at this point realise they’d lost a friend and it felt so wrong. She wasn’t going to lie to Dan. But she’d held him and they’d been alone and she’d forced herself to smile as he got into the car.

They were all in silence in the car together, lost in thoughts. Blake was driving, Michael in the front seat, her and Dan in the back together. She looked across at Daniel, his eyes out at the street and yellow light flashing across his face as they drove. Everyone else was looking outside the car except for her. Everyone was stuck in their own thoughts. She couldn't look anywhere except over at Dan, how could she? He was gripping her hand, fingers interlocked tightly.

That wasn't weird or new. What was new and weird in a good way were the words they'd shared. It still made a smile appear on her face even though this weekend had been the worst she'd been at a track for. She felt like she shouldn't be smiling, glad of the darkness in the back of the car to keep it hidden. Her heart was beating in time with the music. It was stupid and she was way too happy about it for what it meant. She didn't know if Daniel had loved her the same way she loved him, but he loved her. And she was holding that closely. She needed to calm it down before they got back to the hotel or Dan would hear it when they curled up in bed.

The music changed and it pulled her out for a moment, Coldplay on the speakers. For a second she was going to ask why on earth it was on Dan's post race playlist and then it hit her.

Because of her.

Ever since he'd told her he was signing for Renault she'd been singing Yellow to him as a joke. It was supposed to be for fun, but it had become her thing to text him before races she wasn't at with a joke and a link to it on Spotify. But as she listened the lyrics hit her like a punch to the gut. It was more than her stupid joke about the colour of his car and a racing team. Part of her was envious of being able to write something like that and do it just for Danny. As she looked past him towards the cloudless night it felt like every single one of the stars in the Belgian sky were shining for him. She wished she could have made it better for him on bad days. He deserved the best days, the happiness that he had from Monaco and all the other races

Lost in her thoughts she nearly didn't notice the squeeze of her hand, but it caught her and the three little taps his thumb did to the back of her hand. As soon as the lyrics you know I love you so came over the speaker he did it.

Em was melting. She went from looking at him to their joined hands to looking back at him, but Dan had turned and was giving her a soft smile. Big, brown, eyes stared back at her, shiny with tiredness. It was like the world didn't exist and Em wanted to live in this moment forever. She wanted to stay in their little bubble because in this place, with just them, nothing could hurt them. It was soft strokes against her hand and gentle looks to make her forget about the time and place and focus on them. It had been over a year since they started whatever they were and he still loved to run his fingers over her skin. She would have begged all the stars in the world to not let him get tired of it.

She wanted this forever. She wanted him to hold her hand and kiss her and she wanted to stroke his stubbled cheeks for the rest of her life. It was terrifying and awe inspiring and just maybe it would actually happen. Because he loved her.

As the car drove through the Belgian countryside, Em mouthed along with the end of the song for you I'd bleed myself dry. She meant every word as her fingers slid across his cheek. The smile on his face was enough to let her know that he understood every word she'd said. Maybe if she kept hoping to the stars for a little bit longer she'd get her biggest hope.

#call it what you want fic #ciwyw drabble #ciwyw writing #daniel ricciardo drabble #f1 drabble #formula one drabble #formula 1 drabble

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lenbryant · 2 months ago

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LATimes Column: Trump’s proposal to make overtime pay tax-exempt obscures how awful he was for all workers

By Michael Hiltzik, Business Columnist

Donald Trump speaks at the White House during his presidency with his anti-labor secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, right, at his side. Who thinks his worker policies would be any better in a second term than they were in his first?

(Associated Press)

Donald Trump, in his determined effort to claim the mantle of friend of the working man and woman, unveiled a proposal the other day to make overtime pay tax-exempt.

“People who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens of our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them,” he told a rally in Tucson.

Let’s be blunt about something here: Anyone who buys Trump’s pose about this is the mark in a con game. Trump’s claim that no one in Washington has been looking out for overtime workers was never as true as it was during the Trump administration, which slashed overtime protections for more than 8.2 million workers.

Trump’s Department of Labor was a black hole for worker rights. The agency abandoned an Obama administration policy that would have favored more than 4.2 million workers. The Biden administration restored the Obama rule and went further.

And that was just on overtime. As president, observed economic commentator Pedro Nicolaci da Costa in 2019, Trump pursued “the most hostile anti-labor agenda of any modern president.”

Trump’s Dept. of Labor was a black hole for worker rights.

Before exploring Trump’s manipulation of overtime regulations, let’s examine his overall record on workers’ rights.

In 2019, Trump appointed as his Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The new labor secretary had made his career as a corporate lawyer fighting pro-worker policies. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal had labeled him one of the financial industry’s “go-to guys for challenging financial regulations.”

Scalia had helped Walmart overturn a Maryland law mandating minimum contributions by big employers for workers’ healthcare, defended SeaWorld against workplace safety charges after a park trainer was killed by an orca (he lost that case), and had written extensively against a federal regulationexpanding ergonomic safety requirements.

He had written that the latter rule, proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “would require businesses to slow the pace of production, hire more workers, increase rest periods and redesign workstations or even entire operations.”

No legitimate candidate for secretary of Labor would have regarded that policy as a bad thing, but Scalia condemned it in print as “the most costly and intrusive regulation in [OSHA’s] history.”

Scalia’s predecessor as secretary, Alexander Acosta, had gone to Congress to oppose measures to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009 to $15 in steps. It shouldn’t need mentioning that this was an extraordinary position for a secretary of Labor to take.

(Acosta, it may be remembered, lost his job after revelations about his role in soft-pedaling sex-trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein produced a political uproar.)

Trump remade the National Labor Relations Board along the same lines. In a key move, his NLRB scrapped the effort under Obama to expand the definition of “joint employer,” which would have made big franchisers such as McDonald’s jointly liable with their franchisees for violations of employees’ wage and hour rights.

The Trump NLRB’s proposed definition would narrow the joint-employer standard “to the point at which many workers would find it nearly impossible to bring all firms with the power to influence their wages and working conditions to the bargaining table,” according to the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute.

Put it all together, and Trump had turned the Department of Labor into the “Dept. of Employer Rights,” I wrote.

Now to the overtime rules. As my colleague James Rainey reported Sunday, Trump’s proposal to make overtime pay tax-exempt was part of a passel of purported tax cuts for the working class, including tax exemptions for tips and Social Security benefits, all of which economists saw as “gimmicks” and “shams.”

In 2016, Obama had raised the ceiling making salaried workers eligible for time-and-a-half overtime — that is, working hours exceeding 40 hours per week — to $47,476 in annual wages, up from $23,660. The ceiling would be adjusted regularly to overall wage growth. Hourly workers typically get overtime after 40 hours, but salaried workers receive overtime pay if their wages are below the ceiling.

The Obama administration’s idea was to narrow the practice of low-wage employers to designate workers as “managers” to exempt them from the OT rule while paying them an hourly wage. (That’s why fast-food restaurants are always suspiciously loaded with “general managers, assistant managers, night managers, managers for opening and closing and delivery,” as former New York prosecutor Terri Gerstein observed in 2019.)

It was estimated that the new rule would give 4.2 million workers new overtime protection.

The Obama rule was blocked by a federal judge in Texas. When Trump came into office, his Labor Department refused to defend the rule in court. Instead, the agency proposed a new rule reducing the wage ceiling to only $35,568. That was nearly $20,000 below the level that would have been reached by the Obama rule, as it was adjusted for wage inflation. The Trump rule was not indexed.

Some 8.2 million workers who would have gained OT protection under Obama were left behind by the Trump rule, Heidi Shierholz of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute calculated. They would be deprived of a combined $1.4 billion in pay annually.

The 8.2 million workers left behind, Shierholz estimated, included “4.2 million women, 3.0 million people of color, 4.7 million workers without a college degree, and 2.7 million parents of children under the age of 18.”

The Biden administration restored the Obama rule, and then some. The new rule set the ceiling at $844 per week, or $43,888 for a full-time hourly worker, as of July 1.

On Jan. 1, the salary ceiling will rise to $1,128 per week, or $58,656 annually. After that, it will be indexed every three years. The new rule will benefit an estimated 4.3 million workers, more than half of whom are women and about one-fifth workers of color.

Among the largest groups of affected workers, EPI estimates, are those in healthcare and social services.

Whether Trump has sat down to map out a pro-worker policy is doubtful in the extreme — it’s not a concern he has ever displayed in the past. He appears to have blurted out the overtime policy as part of what the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole aptly describes as “the surreal bricolage of his rally speeches.”

But a clue can be found in “Project 2025,” a road map for a second Trump term drafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. (Trump claims to have nothing to do with this 900-page tome, but no one really believes him.)

Project 2025 would shrink overtime coverage materially. It advocates cutting the compensation subject to time-and-a-half to salary only, excluding pay for such benefits as healthcare, retirement, education, child care or paid meals. Under existing law, the only compensation that can be excluded from the calculation is pay for expenses a worker pays on the employer’s behalf, discretionary bonuses, gifts on special occasions, and vacation and sick pay.

The Project also advocates indexing the ceiling once ever five years rather than three years, which would slow its rate of growth, and index the ceiling to consumer inflation, which tends to grow slower than wage inflation, the current index.

The Project also advocates allowing employers to calculate overtime hours over two or four weeks rather than weekly, which would allow them to require workers to put in more than 40 hours some weeks and make it up in others. That sounds like an open invitation to employer manipulation of work schedules.

Trump’s record on worker rights is clear as day. Do you really think he’ll be looking out for the men and women in the rank and file?

#refrigerator magnet #michael hiltzik #la times #los angeles times #labor #empty promises #lies #don't believe the lying liar #trump #dump trump #maga me sick #vote democratic #vote #harris walz 2024 #kamala harris #kamala 2024

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thislovintime · 2 years ago

Photo

Song spotlight: “Can You Dig It?” (Tork); photos from the set of Head (1968).

"'Can You Dig It' is about the Tao. The hook line I wrote in my dressing room on the set [of the television series in 1967]. The chords for the chorus I’d written in college, and [they] had just stuck with me. I hadn’t been able to do a thing with them until I was sittin’ there, just writin’ on a scrap of paper with ideas, and I wrote, 'Can you dig it?/Do you know/Would you care to let it show?’ Those three as a triplet — as opposed to a couplet. I just looked at them and [went], 'Wow!’ I grabbed a pencil and circled those three. They were part of a quatrain. I said, ‘Wait a minute. No, this works best as a little three-line chorus.'" - Peter Tork, Head box set liner notes

"I think they’re ['Can You Dig It?’ and 'Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?'] the best songs in the movie [Head]. I love both of them. I thought they were just terrific. He had plugged himself into that whole Stephen Stills connection and was working with those guys. I think they fit the movie better than anything did. When those two songs start up in the movie, it comes alive for me." - Michael Nesmith, Head box set liner notes

“This started as a set of changes I wrote in college and didn’t know what to do with. Then one afternoon on the set of the Monkees we were making the TV show and I had my guitar in my dressing room. The basic lyrics came to me and these changes I had stored in the back of my brain spring forth and dictated that kind of vaguely Spanish/North African harmonic sense. I was writing about the great unknown source of all. It was perfect for the Head soundtrack.” - Peter Tork, Rolling Stone, August 23, 2016

“When I recorded ‘Can You Dig It,’ the guitar solo originally ran about three or four minutes all by itself. We cut that back to a minute and a half. Bob Rafelson took a pair of scissors and snipped off the end of it. He didn’t ask me to shorten it, which I would have been glad to do. He just chopped it off. Son of a bitch! I have a lot of gripes about that, but that’s neither here nor there.” - Peter Tork, Blitz!, May/June 1980

“Dewey Martin, Buffalo Springfield’s drummer. He was also a very good drummer. I was really impressed with him. In the Monkees movie Head, ‘Long Title’ and ‘Can You Dig It,’ he’s on both of those cuts. He’s the drummer on both of those, for the most part. Actually, I think it’s ‘Can You Dig It,’ it involves a lot of playing around on the toms, and I had Dewey take the snares off of his snare to make it into another tom, and he said, ‘I can’t get the snare back on in time to play the backbeats,’ and I said, ‘Nevermind, play the backbeats on the tom and I’ll overdub the snare afterwards.’ And I overdubbed the snare myself, so that’s me playing snare. But all the running around on the toms and the rest of it, that’s Dewey.” - Peter Tork, 2007, published by Rolling Stone in 2019 (x)

"Can You Dig It?" with Peter's vocal, 1968: here.

Peter performing "Can You Dig It?" live during The Monkees' tour in 1987: here.

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lovesosweeet · 7 months ago

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better left unsaid // cth

chapter forty eight

in which orion has leukemia, and calum doesn’t know.

calum hood x fem!oc

read other chapters // read on AO3

TW FOR THIS CHAPTER: BLOOD, VOMITING

january 25, 2019 madrid, spain calum

It’s my first birthday with Orion where she doesn’t wake up before me. Usually she will get a bunch of cheap balloons from Party City to cover the bedroom ceiling and will wake me up with coffee and the weight of her body on top of mine. I’ve never liked my birthday, but my birthday with Orion in my life has always been so special. She usually lets us spend the day with just the two of us, but then she plans a chill celebration with our friends on the beach, with a fire and guitars and nothing fancy. Every birthday with Orion has been perfect.

Now, it’s likely my last birthday with Orion.

She doesn’t wake up before me today, and I didn’t expect her to, but it’s just another gutwrenching reminder of just how different things are now. It’s a reminder of how little time I have left.

While she sleeps beside me, I just look at her. Her face is so hollow now, with permanently purple bags sunken in under her eyes. Her hair is a mess, most of it falling out of the satin scrunchie she sleeps in. She’s bundled in layers of the blankets that I had the hotel bring her extras of, and she’s also wearing two of my sweatshirts underneath all of the other layers of fabric.

I know she’s trying to pretend like she’s okay, and that she doesn’t feel sick, but I know that she does. It hurts to watch her pretend that everything is fine when it is so clearly not, but Paula and I confirmed with Emelia that we have to let her do this how she wants. As long as she’s still able to communicate how she’s doing, I have to let her continue to feel miserable but pretend that she’s completely fine.

We’re about to spend the whole morning in the car and then we’ll spend a bit of time on the beach in Valencia. Knowing that she will want to take a shower too, I go ahead and take mine so I can get our stuff ready while she takes hers.

I spend the whole time under the hot water crying.

How can this be it? How can this be my last birthday with her? Why does Orion, the most thoughtful and sweet and kind human that I have ever met, have to stop existing so soon? She doesn’t deserve this fate. Orion doesn’t deserve this hand of cards.

No one does.

Like Orion, I have to pretend like everything is fine. I can’t show her how much this is hurting me, because that will only make her feel worse. After everything, I can’t let her see my soul get darker with each day that she continues to feel horrible… each day that she continues dying.

I used to think that we are all dying every day. Each day we live leads us closer to our death. After witnessing Orion and pieces of her battle with cancer, I don’t believe that anymore. I’m living every day. Ashton is living every day. Emelia is living every day. Luke and Michael and Paula and Roy and Mali and everyone we know: they are all living every day.

Orion is dying every day.

It hurts. I wish I could take this from her. I wish it was me. I don’t need to be here. She does. Orion deserves to be here. Orion is the closest thing to perfect that I’ve ever seen. How is it right that she’s the one that’s leaving this earth so soon?

I miss her already and she’s still here. How can I live the rest of this life without her? Once she’s gone, how am I supposed to be fine?

She’s still here and I barely know how to be fine.

I shut off the water and wrap a towel around my waist, headed straight for my suitcase to grab clothes, but, shockingly, Orion is perched on the edge of the bed.

Her hair is redone into a messy knot on top of her head. She’s nearly swimming in my sweatshirts and her sweatpants that used to fit her waist but now have the drawstrings tied so tightly that they dangle to her knees. She still looks tired. She’s so tired, but she’s awake and waiting for me with the biggest smile I think she can manage while feeling like this.

“Happy birthday,” she says. Her voice is quiet and barely sounds like the Orion who wished me a happy birthday last year, but it’s hers. This is what’s left of her.

It twists a knife into my stomach.

I smile back at her, trying to mask the way that it hurts to hear and see her like this.

“Thank you, my love.” I cross the space between us and bend down, pressing my lips to hers. I feel her smile against me and I feel myself lighten up just a little bit. She makes me so happy.

When there are a few inches of space between us again, I see that she’s still smiling. This time, it’s a little closer to the smile that I fell in love with.

“Look at you in just a little flimsy hotel towel,” she says, giggling. Her eyes rake up and down my nearly naked body and I gulp while my face heats up.

I don’t know why it makes me nervous. We’ve been together, bar a few months, for over two and a half years. We’ve been naked together more times than I can count, but suddenly, under her eyes right now, it almost feels like the first time.

“Eyes up here, miss,” I tell her, grabbing her chin and tilting her head up. Her smile gets even bigger and her eyes have more light in them than I’ve seen in a while.

“Sorry, just enjoying the view.”

She leans forward, kissing me again while wrapping her arms around me, pulling me down to the bed with her.

“Wanna take another shower?” She asks. Her fingers trail up and down my arm, raising goosebumps in their wake.

My heart hammers. “I don’t… uh, can you? Can we?” We’ve only tried to have sex a few times since we got back from tour. The first couple were successful, with Orion getting pretty tired pretty quickly, but the most recent attempt, about a month ago, she nearly passed out in the middle of it, despite me trying to be as slow and gentle as possible. We haven’t tried since.

Orion laughs. “Just a shower, Cal.”

I clear my throat and nod. “Oh.”

She tenses up and lifts her head. “I mean, I can try to—”

My sweet girl.

“No, no, no, baby, it’s completely fine. Seriously. You just caught me off guard. I would love to take another shower with you.”

That’s the last thing I say before I jump out of the bed and carefully pick her up, scurrying back to the bathroom to take yet another shower with the most perfect girl, her laughter filling the room.

When we’ve both showered, I help Orion get dressed before she sits down on the couch to rest again. I gather what we need for the night — a blanket for the beach, a change of clothes, an extra hoodie for O, a beanie for both of us, and our toiletries — and toss it into my backpack. Once it’s packed, I go down to the lobby to grab breakfast for the two of us to eat in the car.

After I’ve done all of my to do list, we’re ready to hit the road. Orion curls up into a ball in the passenger seat with the blanket already draped over her lap while I start to route to our hotel in Valencia.

“Do you need me to stay awake to help navigate? Or do you think you’ve got it?” She asks, following her words with a loud yawn.

If I didn’t know that she needs to rest in order to be able to enjoy the day at all, I’d ask her to stay awake and help. The GPS might be in English, but all of the road signs and city names are in Spanish and she knows that far better than I do. I want her to be awake and rested when we actually get there.

I rest my hand on her knee. “Go ahead and sleep. If I get too far off track I’ll wake you up. Deal?”

She smiles and nods. “Okay, don’t get too lost. Just wake me up if you need help.”

Waking up Orion these days isn’t easy at all, but I don’t remind her of that and just let her slide her beanie over her eyes and fall asleep next to me. Worst case scenario we get there a little later than we planned, but I’d rather that than she be too tired to even sit on the beach this afternoon.

The drive ends up being fine. Orion wakes up about thirty minutes out from the hotel, which is helpful for getting there from the highway and when we get to the valet. She speaks her Spanish differently than I feel like she used to, but I don’t know what’s different. I think it’s slower, and she has a look of deep thought each time she has to listen to someone else.

We get up to our room for the night and Orion excuses herself to the bathroom, so I check my phone notifications. To my surprise, she tagged me in an Instagram post.

Since going public, she hasn’t posted much, but since we’ve been in Spain, she has been posting pictures of Paula, Lucia, Marta, sunsets, the view from our hotel room, and of random graffiti she sees that she likes the colors on. Nothing that she’s posted has had any piece of me other than my hand, shoulder, or the back of my head.

Until this post, apparently.

It’s a picture of me driving that I don’t know when she managed to sneak, with a black and white filter on it. She always makes any birthday post black and white, regardless of who it’s for.

orionseraphina: happiest birthday to my best friend, the only person i want to wake up next to, the one i can’t live without… todo mi corazón. happy 23rd. you are my greatest gift.

Tears are in my eyes as I read the outpouring of love in her comments. Word got out a few weeks ago about her diagnosis. Someone managed to leak a private medical document and then Orion took to Twitter to confirm the news. I haven’t seen a single negative comment about her since, and I’ve looked.

Most of the fans are just wishing me a happy birthday, too, but some are telling her to enjoy the day with me, and those are the ones that make tears form. This birthday really isn’t about me. This birthday is about being with her.

I could break down sobbing if I think too hard about her not being here a year from now.

Orion coughing in the bathroom makes me look up from my phone. I hurry to the door and knock on it. Since she’s lost so much weight and been having general health problems, our dynamic with knocking versus not knocking has changed. We used to just walk in whenever either of us was in a room. There was never anything to hide or anything too gross for the other to see, but she’s felt really self conscious lately, so I’ve started to knock before I enter.

“Are you okay?” I ask when she doesn’t answer.

She coughs again and then flushes. “Yeah! Fine, sorry, it’s dusty in here.”

Orion is lying.

I debate calling her out, but just shake the thought from my head.

She opens the door and grins at me. “Ready for the beach?”

“Sure, let’s go.”

I intentionally chose a hotel on the beach because I knew that was our main point of this brief excursion outside of Madrid. I knew Orion would be tired and being able to go back to the hotel easily to lay down or warm back up in the middle of winter is something I kept in mind.

It’s the off season, so it’s nearly empty on the beach when we get down to it. While they have beach loungers available, Orion always prefers laying on a blanket or a towel, so we walk down to a few feet beyond where the tide reaches and I set it up for us. She lays down on her back as soon as she can, her eyes closed while the sun washes over her.

“Did we come all this way for you to just take a nap on the beach?” I tease. I lay down next to her, giving her space, but taking reaching into the pocket on her hoodie and grabbing onto one of her hands.

“You’re the one who booked the trip to Spain, Cal, not me.”

I laugh. “Fair.”

She opens one of her eyes to peer over at me, her face scrunched up as she squints under the brightness of the sun. “I love you.”

“I love you more, O.”

Orion sticks her tongue out at me. She closes her eyes again and sighs, relaxing further into the sand.

I do the same, sinking into the cool sand and feeling the sea breeze whip around us. The waves crash in the distance, but aside from that, it’s practically silent. There are no voices, no cars, no music. It’s just us, enjoying the peace and each other’s company. The beach — any beach — with Orion is my favorite place on the planet. Right now, everything feels normal, even if just for a moment.

The peace is instantly ripped away from us when Orion starts coughing next to me.

Acting quickly, I sit up, while she keeps coughing loudly. She’s wheezing, with labored breathing. I help her sit, not saying anything, but rubbing her back gently while she tries to catch her breath. When she makes eye contact with me, I see the panic in her eyes. She can’t breathe.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” I tell her. I don’t know if it’s true, but I don’t need her to stress herself out more to make it worse.

Her face is getting paler while she takes short inhalations that sound like they get caught in her throat. Orion keeps coughing and trying to give herself enough oxygen to breathe normally, while I look around to see if there’s anyone I could flag for help. There’s nobody around.

Even more suddenly than the coughing started, Orion leans over, away from me, and throws up.

I try not to freak out when I watch blood drip from her lips.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and looks at me. She’s still panicking and scared. Her breathing gets better, but it’s still labored and doesn’t sound good. When she starts coughing again, her eyes start to tear up.

“You’re okay, love,” I assure her. I stand up, throwing my backpack over my shoulders before I bend over and scoop her up.

I have to act quickly. I at least need to get her to some kind of doctor. She can’t breathe and she just threw up blood. Her face is as white as a sheet. There’s no time for me to panic. I have to take care of her, and if I start acting scared, it will only make things worse for her, but god am I scared.

When I get her into the lobby, the concierge is thankfully fluent in English.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Hood?” She asks, but I watch her neutral expression change to panicked as she looks down at Orion.

“Can you call us an ambulance?” I ask her.

She nods and grabs her phone, quickly dialing 112 and pressing the phone to her ear. While she does that, I place Orion on one of the leather couches in the lobby. I don’t listen to the concierge since I know I won’t be able to understand her.

“Call Paula,” Orion says between her shaky breaths.

I nod, and pull out my phone. I use my left hand to hold onto Orion’s, but she barely holds mine back. She looks like she could pass out at any time.

“Hey, what’s up?” Paula’s voice sounds through my phone’s speaker.

“Hey, we are about to get into an ambulance. Hoping you can help translate when we get in.”

“What? Oh my god, what happened?”

I glance nervously at Orion. Her breathing is starting to slow, but her eyes are barely half open. I really don’t want her to pass out. I don’t know what’s been going on with her. She’s been hiding everything from me. I won’t be able to answer any of their questions.

“She’s having trouble breathing,” I say. “And she, uh, she… threw up blood on the beach.”

Orion opens her eyes a bit so I can see them. She’s trying not to cry. Amidst all of this, she feels bad. I squeeze her hand.

“I’ve done it four times before,” Orion says with a voice that I wouldn’t be able to hear if I was any further away from her. “First at the botanical garden.”

I close my eyes and throw my head back. I want to yell at her and ask why she didn’t say anything, but that doesn’t matter right now. “She said this is the fifth time. The first time was at the botanical garden.”

Paula curses in Spanish on the other side of the line. “Okay, I’ll tell them.”

Paramedics suddenly rush in and I put Paula on speaker phone. They have a gurney and come straight for Orion. I think it’s obvious that she needs help.

“They’re here, let me hand you over,” I say. Helplessly, when they start speaking in Spanish to me, I just shrug and hand them my phone so Paula can speak.

I have to let go of Orion’s hand while they help her onto the gurney and strap her in. I feel useless. I can’t even talk to the EMTs and explain anything. I can’t make Orion feel any better. For a second, I’m frozen, watching it all happen. I’m forced to wake the hell up when my girlfriend moves her head to the side of the gurney to vomit more blood over the side of it.

“Novio?” One of the EMTs asks me.

Thank god I know that word.

“Si, novio.”

“Vamanos,” he says, and I nod, following him to the ambulance.

While we ride to the hospital, I watch Orion continue to struggle breathing, coughing, gagging, and barely able to stay conscious.

What have I done?

#5sos #luke hemmings #5 seconds of summer #ashton irwin #calum hood #fanfiction #5sosfam #imagine #fanfic #michael clifford #calum 5sos #calum fanfic #calum fic #calum x ofc #calum x fem!oc #better left unsaid #tw blood #tw vomit #tw

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blckbarbiedoll · 2 months ago

Text

Ghost Of You (M.B.)-Chapter 19

I Bet On Losing Dogs

2019-Chicago, Illinois

Half a year had passed since the chaotic Christmas dinner. Donna's house was now fixed, and she was stable enough to watch Sophia and Eva for the night while the adults went out.

Angie finished up her makeup in the bathroom mirror, trying to get herself together in time.

"Holy shit." Natalie sighed, looking in the mirror. "I'm getting married next week."

"You're getting married next week." Angie grinned.

"Am I making the right decision?"

"What?"

"You've been married for like ever. What do you think?"

"I think you shouldn't compare any marriage to mine."

"True. A few months ago, you guys were on the verge of killing each other."

"We still are. We just hide it better."

"Do you think I'm gonna regret this?"

"You want me to be honest?" Angie grabbed her friend's hands.

"Please."

"Marriage is hard. It's really fucking hard. But spending the rest of your life with the person you love makes it so worth it. Natalie, you love Pete. He's a great guy. He makes you happy. You won't regret that."

Nat smiled and hugged her tightly. "I love you."

"I love you too."

'Knock, knock'

"Hey, we gotta go!" Richie called from the hallway.

The women exited the bathroom, Nat going downstairs. Angie leaned against the wall and smiled at Richie.

"Hi."

"Hey. You mind if I hide up here with you for a sec."

"I thought we had to go."

"I just needed an excuse to come upstairs."

"You okay?"

"It's just Tiff." He sighed, running his hands over his face. "She's pissed at me."

"What'd you do?"

"Nothing. We've just been getting into it lately." He looked at Angie and saw her sympathetic expression. "But we're fine."

"You sound like me."

"I'm fine, Ange. You don't gotta worry about me."

"Oh, come on, Richie." She reached out to touch his arm. "I'm always gonna worry about you."

"Hey." Mikey called from the stairs. "What's going on?"

"We're just catching up, man."

"Well can you do it downstairs? We got a party to get to."

"We're coming."

After Mikey went back downstairs, Angie turned to Richie and sighed. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Will you watch out for him tonight? I know it's a party, but I really don't like it when he drinks all night and mixes it with his pills. I mean, you remember what happened at Christmas."

"Don't worry. I'll keep him straight."

She wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

🤍

"You're being weird."

Angie looked up from her half empty glass. "Huh?"

"I said you're being weird!" Tiffany restated. "Why're you so quiet?"

"I'm tired."

"It's nine o'clock." Nat told her.

"Look I don't wanna ruin the vibe. This is a bachelorette party, not therapy."

"Why can't it be both?"

"You don't wanna hear about all my shit."

"Is this about Christmas?" Nat asked.

"It's about everything."

"Talk to us." The blonde said. "That's what we're here for."

"I just...I don't know if this is worth it anymore."

"If what is worth it?"

"Staying with him. Because when he's good, he's the best. But when he's bad...I don't even recognize him."

"Oh, honey."

"I just feel so alone."

"You have us. We're here for whatever you need."

Nat and Tiff softly held Angie as she sobbed into their embrace.

🤍

Angie squinted at the bright bathroom light while she wiped her tear stained face. The door opened and shut as she stepped into the living room.

"Hey. How was it?"

"Fine." Her husband grumbled as he kicked off his shoes.

"I talked to your mom. She said Soph is having the best time with her baby cousin."

"Yeah, I bet." He grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter, taking a long sip.

"Michael, what'd I tell you about that?"

"I got a fucking headache, Ange. I can't take the nagging right now."

"You just came from a party."

"Would you get off my ass?"

"Mikey-"

"Maybe I wouldn't have to drink all the time if you would just stop your bitching."

"I can't fucking do this shit. I can't argue about this anymore."

"So why don't you just let me do what I want?"

"Because I don't wanna be married to an addict!" She said with a slight crack in her voice.

"First I was a junkie, now I'm an addict?"

"Yeah, you are!"

"Just 'cause I drink a few beers, and I need to take something for pain makes me an addict?"

"You go through two cases a week! That's what like six a day? That doesn't sound like a problem to you?"

"I'm a fucking adult! Alright? I'm an adult!"

"Where are you getting the pills, Michael?!"

"What?"

"It's been two years! No doctor would prescribe them for that long! Where are you getting them?!"

"Fuck this!" He smashed his bottle on the floor as it shattered across the room. Angie jumped back and tried to avoid the broken glass. "I don't need this shit from you! You think you're so holier than thou just 'cause you're doing okay and I'm struggling?"

"Michael, I have been begging you to talk to me! All I wanna do is help you, but you won't let me!"

"Yeah, like you'd understand!"

"So explain it to me! I am your wife! Don't shut me out! Talk to me, and we'll make this work! We always do! We have to make this work or-"

"Or what?"

"Or I can't do this anymore." She stumbled over her words with tears in her eyes. "I am so sick of fighting with you. I am so sick of sitting here and watching the man I love turn into someone I don't recognize! I don't wanna lose you!"

"I'm right here. I am right here, Angelina! Yet for some reason, you don't see me!"

"I wanna see you!" She sobbed, stepping towards him while she avoided the glass. "I wanna know you again! Just let me know you." She whispered.

The look on his face changed from anger, to guilt. His eyes began to water and he looked up to stop them from falling. She pawed at his shirt and brought him closer to her.

"You were right. I'm just a fucking junkie." He spoke quietly, cupping her face. "I'm sorry I'm such a fucking failure." He pressed his forehead against hers as tears fell onto his cheeks.

"You're not a failure."

"I'm not a good husband. I'm not a good father. I don't deserve you."

"Shh." She wiped his eyes. "Don't say that."

"Fuck!" He raised his hand up. For a moment, Angie thought he was gonna hit her. He went on to repeatedly slap himself instead.

It truly broke her heart to see her husband like this. "Stop." She grabbed his wrist. "I got you."

"I told you that I wasn't good enough. I told you I wasn't what you needed."

"But you're who I chose. And I would still choose you a million times again."

He cried against her for a while until he took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about the bottle. I'll clean it up."

"I'll do it. Just go lay down. I'll meet you in there."

"Okay." He nodded. He lingered in her arms a bit longer before walking into their shared room.

Once he was out of earshot, she sat on the floor away from the glass and sobbed into her hands.

#fanfic #the bear #mikey berzatto #black oc #mikey berzatto x oc

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turquoiseorchid · 1 year ago

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what is roswell about? i've never seen anyone else post about it but you've got me intrigued

Ooh, join us! Roswell New Mexico has 4 seasons (2019-2022) with 13ish eps each; it was on the CW and is available on Netflix. (It’s a remake of a 90s or early 00s show just called Roswell. That one’s on Hulu and I’ve only seen a few episodes.) Overall, it’s about aliens living in Roswell and their human friends/love interests, plus a few alien-related mysteries. Most of my summary will be about season one and I’ll leave the rest for you to see for yourself.

Liz (human) comes back to Roswell ten years after high school, discovers her high school crush is an alien, and then finds out her sister had been killed by aliens. This and other developments lead to their whole social circle getting in on the secret and there’s a bunch of love triangles.

If I knew who you were, dear anon, I’d tailor this to what fandoms we’ve already got in common but to cover some of the likely options and their high level comparisons: If you like Leverage, this has found family and the love triangles can easily be shipped as throuples/polycules. If you like The Magicians then same as leverage plus canon queer characters and magic(technically science) powers. If you like Supernatural, there can be a lot of overlap between malex and destiel (for better and worse). If you’re still here from my Torchwood days, again queer characters with messy relationships and a lot of snark.

Let’s introduce some of the characters!

In the Pod Squad (the three main aliens), we’ve got Isobel, Max, and Michael (left to right in gif). Max and Isobel were adopted together and grew up as the Evans twins while Michael was a foster kid but all three are inseparable. Isobel starts off the series as someone whose identity is mainly focused on wife/sister/volunteer but breaks down her walls and grows into a total badass. Often portrayed in fanon as “the woman with the brain cell” for better or worse. Max is a writer-turned-cop and total romantic who has been pining for his high school crush (Liz) for over a decade and risks his family secret in order to save her and struggles with choosing between her safety and his family’s. Michael is an angsty bisexual mechanic with a troubled past and became many people’s blorbo on sight. He too has a high school sweetheart (Alex) who he’s never gotten over but grows enough to find healthy relationships and let people in. They all have various powers including telekinesis, healing, and mind control/influencing.

And now for Team Human! Liz is a scientist who left town after graduation because her sister died from (apparently) drunk driving and gets shot an hour after she returns. The lack of being dead causes her to investigate/confront her crush (Max) and learns about aliens, leading to the realization that her sister was killed by an alien and the crash was a coverup. The first person who she brings in is her ex-boyfriend, Kyle, a jock-turned-surgeon with a strong moral compass who tries to rein in the mad scientist tendencies of his ex-girlfriend (who he still has feelings for).

Next in on the whole alien thing is Alex, a gay emo who had a secret thing with Michael in high school before leaving to join the Air Force. He’s back in town (minus a leg) and has his plate full with finding out that his abusive homophobic dad runs a secret military team hunting aliens and oh hey, his high school boyfriend turns out to be an alien! He’s best friends with Maria, a psychic who runs the local bar. Besides bartending, she splits her time between fortune telling as a side hustle, encouraging Alex about his old flame (secretly Michael), and nursing a crush on the local barfly/mechanic (also Michael).

(Fun fact: I have no idea how to use tumblr’s gif search so both of the human gifs were found through their respective throuple ship tags.)

There are plenty of ships around depending on your preference but the most prevalent is malex (Michael/Alex), it’s nearly inescapable. Echo is Max/Liz and generally well liked. Isobel starts off with a husband (Noah) but also gets other love interests. The two main throuples are malexa (malex plus Maria) and kaliz (echo plus Kyle).

Anyone else please feel free to add why Anon should watch RNM!

#asks #not putting this in any tags since I might have come off as harsh about malex and or some fandom #I swear this is a great place it just has the same pitfalls as many fandoms #anyways yes anon you should watch RNM #this is longer than I intended can you tell I didn’t want to work today?

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elvismentions · 5 months ago

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Hi. Love your IG ! I always have lots of fun with the Elvis mentions you put together here. Thank you for that, by the way. 🩷 Don't know if you talked about those I'm gonna tell you about now, but there's some Elvis mentions I'd like to let you know.

TV SHOWS

• The Office (US) — TWICE: 1st there's the "Elvis voice" by Michael Scott (https://www.tiktok.com/@scarn4life/video/7247611486078586155); and another time is on the (S5 E2), when during a meeting there is a picture of 70s Elvis behind Michael Scott, on the wall.

• South Park ("Going Native", S16 E11): Elvis' spirit appears in a cave to help one of the characters, Kenny (skip to 18:06 on the episode).

MOVIES

• "Someone Great" (2019): There's an Elvis painting on the wall in one of the character's bedroom. It's a real cool painting, he's wearing a blue jumpsuit and has an orange lei on his neck while he's holding the mic. ⚡🌺

Hi! Thanks for the kind words and for the suggestions. Sorry for the wait btw.

Here's the Elvis photo on the wall post. You can find the rest of The Office's references you suggested and more on The Office tag here.

The South Park screencap post and video post. And the Someone Great screencap post.

Thanks again! and have a great day <3

#asks

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f1-disaster-bi · 1 year ago

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For the Max and cats, how do you think each driver will behave in the rain? Like Charles is obviously would NOT like it since he doesn’t even like it as a human, Lewis would love to see it but not get wet cus it would mess his fur, 2019 rookies and Daniel would be just chaos, but what do you think about the rest?

I'm going to assume this is about Shifters au, but if it's not and I've forgotten one of my au's please let me know!

Max doesn't like the rain and either does Charles. Max prefers being clean, doesn't like his paws of mane getting wet as it gets tangled and then he always had to begrudgingly let someone hose him off before he's allowed to rejoin the pack in the pack room or shift back.

Charles HATES the rain, full on hisses at it and anyone who dares to shake off their furr near him.

Pierre loves the rain. He loves jumping in puddles and rolling around in mud, but he does hate how Lando also loves the rain because tiny Island Fox Lando will jump in the same puddles that regular fox Pierre will jump in and he disappears into them and gives Pierre a fright every time

Yuki is also in the rain hater club and the little raccoon dog will refuse to step foot outside in the rain. Similiarly, Valtteri, Oscar, Logan and Checo will not go out in the rain

Esteban will only go out in the rain if someone carries him, and that someone is normally human Lance. Lance doesn't mind the rain when in his lynx form but finds it more fun to wander round with happy quokka Esteban enjoying the rain

Lewis will curl up by the door or on a window seat to watch and snooze to the sound of the rain falling, it soothes him. However the other wolves, Alex and George absolutely love the rain and will cause chaos by chasing Lando around while Pierre frets

Dan sometimes goes out in the rain but as a kangaroo, he prefers bein in doors. He will swish his tail through puddles or stop a foot in them to drench people for fun though

Lion Kevin and Hyena Hulk will take walks in the rain and often Kevin will groom Nico's furr afterwards

Sebastian and Jenson are the most chaos in the rain. The two leopards are very playful in the rain (or anytime someone throws a ball near them). Similarly, artic fox Mick and his two boyfriends wombat Marcus and mongoose Callum are chaotic rain gremlins

The bears, Jon and Michael, normally remain human and wait with towels and warm drinks for those that get the rain zoomies as Daniel calls them

#shifters au #rain chaos

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lookwhathappenedtomack · 2 years ago

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Ladies, gentlemen, and interesting people, welcome to...

The Mackolades are my personal annual film awards, awarded to my favorite (for the most part) movies, performances, and people from all the movies I watched for the first time in 2022, regardless of release year. This is more or less a companion series to Brendan’s Pink Bettes, as most of our movie watching is together. You can see the first and second Mackolades here on my tumblr, now let’s get started on the third!

FAVORITE DRAMA

WINNER: tick, tick...BOOM! (2021) dir. Lin-Manuel Miranda

FINALISTS:

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) dir. James Cameron

Dramarama (2020) dir. Jonathan Wysocki

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. Daniel Scheinert & Daniel Kwan

TÁR (2022) dir. Todd Field

NOMINEES:

The Batman (2022) dir. Matt Reeves

The Godfather (1972) dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Klaus (2019) dir. Sergio Pablos

Pride & Prejudice (2005) dir. Joe Wright

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) dir. Anthony Minghella

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) dir. George Miller

GREAT year for the Favorite Drama category! I knew from the first few minutes of tick, tick...BOOM! that it was winning, but two of the finalists (Dramarama and Everything Everywhere All At Once) gave it a real run for its money. And then TÁR was just impeccable in every way (CATE!!!!!!). Special shoutout to The Godfather for actually living up to the hype and The Batman for being a genuinely good superhero movie. Highly recommend Dramarama in particular to any of my theatre friends that see this.

FAVORITE HORROR

WINNER: The Menu (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

FINALISTS:

All About Evil (2010) dir. Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ)

Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele

Pearl (2022) dir. Ti West

Scream (2022) dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

NOMINEES:

Arachnophobia (1990) dir. Frank Marshall

Barbarian (2022) dir. Zach Cregger

Fresh (2022) dir. Mimi Cave

Hellraiser (2022) dir. David Bruckner

What Keeps You Alive (2018) dir. Colin Minihan

X (2022) dir. Ti West

GREAT year for horror, too! The Menu is such a fun ride, almost more of a dark comedy than horror. I had a lot more actual scares this year than in 2021, particularly in Nope, Scream, Arachnophobia, and Barbarian.

FAVORITE COMEDY

WINNER: Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021) dir. Josh Greenbaum

FINALISTS:

Do Revenge (2022) dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Glass Onion (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015) dir. Michael Showalter

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

NOMINEES:

Burn After Reading (2008) dir. Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Fire Island (2022) dir. Andrew Ahn

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022) dir. Anthony Fabian

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) dir. Joel Zwick

See How They Run (2022) dir. Tom George

Hey guess what. It was a great year for comedy, too. Barb & Star is destined to join Romy & Michele and the Tragedy Girls as a pair of gal pals that live in my head for the rest of my life. They’ve had this win sewn up since I first saw the movie in August, but there was still plenty of competition. Do Revenge is probably my unofficial runner up - those twists and turn and goops and gags and outfits!

FAVORITE SERIES

WINNER: Before Trilogy (3/3)

FINALISTS:

The Godfather (3/3)

Hell House, LLC (2/3)

Wong Kar-wai’s Love Trilogy (3/3)

X/Pearl/Maxxxine (2/3)

God, what can I say that hasn’t already been said about Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy? It’s just two people talking, but it’s perfect!

THE THANKS! I HATE IT! AWARD

WINNER: Whiplash (2014) dir. Damien Chazelle

FINALIST: Fall (2022) dir. Scott Mann

This new category is for movies that are good, but I hate them anyway! And there’s no movie that quite fits that bill like Whiplash. What an incredible work that I never wanna see again. Or dwell on for long here.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

WINNER: Halloween Ends (2022) dir. David Gordon Green

FINALISTS:

Brothers (2009) dir. Jim Sheridan

The Invitation (2022) dir. Jessica M. Thompson

Nerve (2016) dir. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

Uncle Peckerhead (2020) dir. Matthew John Lawrence

NOMINEES:

Fall (2022) dir. Scott Mann

Hatching (2022) dir. Hanna Bergholm

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015) dir. Michael Showalter

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

The Lost City (2022) dir. Adam Nee & Aaron Nee

Valentine (2001) dir. Jamie Blanks

After Halloween Kills won Biggest Letdown at last year’s Mackolades, I went into Halloween Ends with rock bottom expectations, but was pleasantly surprised! From the opening scene it showed it was completely different from any Halloween movie that came before it, and I was mostly delighted by what followed. It’s far from the best Halloween, and has some major problems, but it’s leagues ahead of Kills, and that alone win it Biggest Surprise for me.

BIGGEST LETDOWN

WINNER: Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) dir. Sam Raimi

I’ve engaged in a fair bit of MCU hate over the last few years, but I’ve held onto the belief that I’d probably enjoy them if I gave them a chance and just didn’t think too hard about it. Well... I guess I was wrong. I really thought I’d like this, the trailers looked interesting and Sam Raimi has a pretty good track record with me. But yeah... Martin Scorsese was right, these are just flashy theme park rides. Absolutely zero substance worth engaging with. What a disappointment, for me and for general culture. Anyway, somehow this was the only movie I watched in 2022 that I went into with expectations that were significantly let down, and I figured I’d give it its own multiverse of mediocrity with the myriad of posters available.

FAVORITE LEAD ACTRESS PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Cate Blanchett, TÁR (2022)

FINALISTS:

Mia Goth, Pearl (2022)

Janelle Monae, Glass Onion (2022)

Keke Palmer, Nope (2022)

Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

NOMINEES:

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Sally Field, Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)

Natasha Lyonne, All About Evil (2010)

Lesley Manville, Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022)

Thandiwe Newton, God’s Country (2022)

Anya Taylor-Joy, The Menu (2022)

Okay I have to bullet point this one so I can talk about all the finalists.

Cate is THE performance of the year for me. Her take on Lydia Tár is nothing short of amazing - even from the opening scene, with that TED Talk-like scene where she just talks about music for a few minutes, had Brendan and me grabbing each other and whispering in the (otherwise empty) theater about how breathtaking her performance was. I can’t believe I’m giving her lead actress two years in a row (out of three total!) but she really does deserve it.

Brendan and I loved Mia Goth in 2020′s Emma, but she reached new heights in X and, in particular, Pearl. The monologue! The face journey! The everything else! She’s now on the We’ll See Anything She’s In list, and I can’t wait for MaXXXine.

Janelle! I don’t have as much to say for her, but damn she picks projects well! Incredible lady and fantastic performance(s) in Glass Onion.

Keke - #ReleaseTheSpinCut! What a joy.

Okay I adore Michelle Yeoh and if Cate doesn’t win the Oscar I hope it’s hers. Truly wonderful and deserves everything good that’s coming her way right now.

FAVORITE SUPPORTING ACTRESS PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Hong Chau, The Menu (2022)

FINALISTS:

Jamie Clayton, Hellraiser (2022)

Courtney Cox, Scream (2022)

Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Brittany Snow, X (2022)

NOMINEES:

Margaret Cho, Fire Island (2022)

Tovah Feldshuh, Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)

Vanessa Hudgens, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Andrea Martin, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Alia Shawkat, Being The Ricardos (2021)

Tandi Wright, Pearl (2022)

Hong Chau is another 2022 addition to the We’ll See Anything She’s In list, and she got an Oscar nom for the other one! Yay! But this is about my favorites, not objectivity, and I prefer her in The Menu. What a treat! I don’t have much to say about the finalists and nominees that wouldn’t require this becoming far too long, so I’m just gonna move on.

FAVORITE ACTOR PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

FINALISTS:

Marlon Brando, The Godfather (1972)

Austin Butler, Elvis (2022)

Alton Brown, Elvis (2022)

Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

NOMINEES:

Rohan Campbell, Halloween Ends (2022)

Ralph Fiennes, The Menu (2022)

Andrew Garfield, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Robin de Jesús, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Haley Joel Osment, Sassy Pants (2012)

Conrad Ricamora, Fire Island (2022)

I started watching Little Miss Sunshine for Toni, but I remember it for Paul, particularly the sequence pictured above. Special shoutout to Alton Brown for stealing the show for a scene or two of Elvis (a difficult task when Austin Butler’s Elvis is present!)

THE TONI “SHE HAS THE RANGE” COLLETTE AWARD FOR MULTI-GENRE EXCELLENCE

WINNER: Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)/Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

FINALISTS:

Jamie Dornan, Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021)/Belfast (2021)

Idris Elba, The Dark Tower (2017)/Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (2022)/Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Jenna Ortega, The Fallout (2021)/Scream (2022)

Tilda Swinton, Burn After Reading (2008)/Constantine (2005)/Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

I mean, Jim Carrey was basically born to play Dr. Robotnik, and when you contrast that with Eternal Sunshine, well, that’s basically what this category is for!

THE CARLY RAE JEPSEN “SHE MAKES MY BLOOD FEEL CARBONATED” AWARD

WINNER: Elaine Stritch, Original Cast Album: Company (1970)

During the Ladies Who Lunch sequence of the Company documentary, I must’ve turned to Brendan at least three times to say “I love being gay” - Elaine’s an icon and a queen and I hate I didn’t get into theatre soon enough to appreciate her while she was alive. (NOTE: If I’d started this category a year earlier, Carol Channing certainly would’ve gotten it for the documentary Larger Than Life, and it felt wrong to not mention that here)

HOTTEST DADDY

WINNER: Russell Crowe, The Nice Guys (2016)

FINALISTS:

George Clooney, Solaris (2002)

Guillermo Diaz, Bros (2022)

Thomas Forbes-Madison, The Lost City (2022)

David Harbour, Violent Night (2022)

NOMINEES:

Daniel Craig, Glass Onion (2022)

Idris Elba, Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Ethan Hawke, The Black Phone (2022)

Martin Henderson, X (2022)

Peter Sarsgaard, The Batman (2022)

Bradley Whitford, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Someone ask me what kind of guys I like. I dare you. I downloaded six entire movies to get enough usable shots of these men - definitely the most work I did for any single category.

Anyway, that’s the 2022 Mackolades! 65 movies honored (or dishonored) from an eligibility pool of 205. Now you know what I love - any recommendations of what to watch in 2023?

#mackolades

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