#like literally in the comics he's so unhinged its amazing

[agentnico]

Renfield (2023) Review

Finally we have a sequel to the 1988 masterpiece that is Vampire’s Kiss, that spawned generations worth of meme material and then some, and gave us a Nicolas Cage so unhinged, even for Nicolas Cage! It only took them 35 years, but now we get Cage as the actual vampire. Wonderful. As for those who haven’t seen Vampire’s Kiss - seek it out. It’s an amalgamation of weird, funny, silly, creepy and bat-shit (pardon the pun) crazy, and its about Cage THINKING he’s a vampire. It’s honestly amazing! Anyway, now let’s see him play an actual vamp.

Plot: Renfield, the tortured aide to his narcissistic boss, Dracula, is forced to procure his master's prey and do his every bidding. However, after centuries of servitude, he's ready to see if there's a life outside the shadow of the Prince of Darkness.

Those who know me are probably aware that I have a particular affinity to the man, the myth, the legend that is Nicolas Cage. I truly believe the man is great. With the way he uses German expressionism to deliver performances that to the casual viewer may seem over-the-top ridiculous and unnatural, but in reality is him giving it his absolute all deliver roles that are so unique and unlike anything else one has ever seen. I’m not simply talking about Vampire’s Kiss here. I mean, pick any film from his filmography - you have Face/Off, there’s Mandy, of course Con Air, The Rock...the list goes on. Even when he’s in a blatantly terrible movie such as The Wicker Man remake, he somehow comes out on top at the end with everyone loving him and quoting his lines endlessly. I mean, everyone knows the memorable scene where Cage is being tortured with a wire mesh helmet filled with bees, prompting his oft-parodied line, "Not the bees!" The man is great! He truly cares for the acting craft and is so shamelessly willing to go above and beyond in every role. 

Now the time has come for Nicolas Cage to take on a role that was a long time coming - Count Dracula. Look, I’m not going to waste your time here, Cage is fantastic as Dracula. He obviously steals the show by truly embodying the famous Bram Stoker creation. He is indeed over-acting 100%, but for this version of the character in a horror-action-comedy he is perfect. He’s everything I wanted from Nicolas Cage playing Dracula, and look, if you like Cage’s brand you will love him in this. If you don’t, then maybe just don’t go see Renfield. Easy choice there. But the way he uses mannerisms and maniacal facial movements in this movie make you truly enamoured and entertained whenever he’s on screen. A particular highlight moment is when Dracula visits Renfield in his studio apartment having caught him out on a lie, and his sarcastic delivery of every line is truly some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all year, and I’ve watched Cocaine Bear! Also shout-out to the make-up department too, as the way the make Cage’s Dracula look in this movie, particularly in the earlier scenes when he is recovering from the burns of sunlight and you see the skin on his face half peeled off, that’s some great practical effects. 

So yes, Nicolas Cage is obviously Renfield’s main selling point. However the titular character himself is played by Nicholas Hoult who too is actually really well realised, with Hoult giving an adorably innocent character performance in his demeanour, all the while also managing to rip people’s heads and arms off left and right, yet still somehow being adorable whilst doing so? Yep, quite the paradox. Speaking of ripping off limbs, there is a hell of a lot of gore in this. I mean proper over the top comic violence where there are literally geysers of the red stuff splattering all over the screen. It’s as if Tarantino walked on set and was like “you guys may not have any feet shots, but boy are you gonna blast some blood!“ Honestly, it’s like Django Unchained all over again. Kind of felt a bit video-game like, with some anime tendencies due to all the madness. 

As for what I didn’t like. Awkwafina - I do apologise for those who are a fan of hers, but I just cannot warm to her in any of her roles. I find her super annoying, and not simply due to her voice, and in here she does the same shtick she always does. And in reality, her entire side-plot in this movie about being a cop fighting against corruption - why was that in the movie? Goodness, I’ve just reminded myself of that Key & Peele sketch about Gremlins 2 where Jordan Peele constantly says “THAT’S BRILLIANT, THAT’S IN THE MOVIE, DONE!!” But yes, all the scenes inn the police precinct felt like they were part of a different movie that had nothing to do with what was going on. All the stuff with Dracula and Renfield’s toxic relationship is great, however all the cop stuff was unneeded. 

Overall Renfield is a silly horror comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously, and simply gives us some stupid entertainment. I had a blast - Nic Cage is great, Nic Hoult was fun, the gore was mental, there were some hilarious moments of dialogue. Ben Schwartz AKA Jean Ralphio plays a mobster/spoiler son brat in this and has some of the funniest lines. Arguably Schwartz is even more over the top than Cage in this movie, and that’s saying something! Renfield is a great time at the movies, as long as you’re willing to embrace its goofy gothic style and lack of seriousness. And Nic Cage fans will have a hoot.

Overall score: 7/10

[malewifehenrycooldown]

watching the boys, and honestly it’s not as bad as i thought it was going to be. like I had a really high bar in regards to its content, but honestly it’s not as bad. but maybe that’s because I know of the events that occur thanks to the original comic which is super fucking cynical as per garth ennis graphic novels and comics

[piosplayhouse]

oooooo 15, 22, 30 for the ask game 👁

15. Favorite fanart for SVSSS? Show us the amazing artist~! Feel free to plug~!

Kyle you know it's literally a hate crime for you to ask me this right . Ok so since there's no way I can pick a favorite SV fanart of all time I'm just going to showcase a favorite piece from some of my favorite artists, starting with YOU you little bastard

Kyle's genderbend sqh art fuels me please look at it it's so so so so sos so AGHGHH (cw a bit suggestive ig)

Kaya's in their unhinged era rn everyone just smile and wave (and also look at how adorable their art style is come on like everyone looks so so

BONES!!!! bones art my absolute beloved what can I even say that I havent screamed before in tags about their lineart and how funny they are. God. Cumplane for my soul

I can't pick a Goat art just look at their entire page please it's all incredible . I'll link another cumplane post just to stay on brand though and also because i love it so so SO much

Teazart's shen yuan design hits all the right spots AGH hes such a nerd I'm going to kiss him

every sharpie art instantly becomes a lourve candidate as soon as its posted but I do have to give special attention to this bingy which makes him look (deserved) SO happy and bright and content LOVE HIMM

of course I have to put another cumplane from my beloved Lace who isn't really a mainly svsss fanartist but who I will put in here anyway because I have 1000 fans that can possibly be converted to yuwu

this moose art I think about all the time because it's so incredibly tender and loving adn the colors and the posing and the ghhhhhhh makes me so soft

BERRY'S RAMHE the absolute adorablest sheep . I want to pet him more than anything in the world

festeringrian's bingyuan GRR BARK BARK BARK once again in my favorite category of "shen yuan's cringefail nerd charm has captivated me " AND sexy bingy...

SHATOU'S MOSHANG COMIC GOD shoving this in your face look at this and cry

late night cumplane the first sloane art i ever encountered and which got me HOOKED on this artstyle GODDD absolutely gorgeous art and hilarious ideas

Munchy's art is SO cute in general but I'm shouting out this one in particular because. binghe tits. yeah

Every sel au and art is a national treasure of course but I have to give special attention to this one because demon sqh is critically underrated and also SO cute

this Binghe piece by toffee-arts is simply beautiful, like a perfect renaissance painting its just so ..!! THE SKILL

I own quite literally every piece of sv merch phee sells on their site and I would buy them all over again . So so SO good. Bonus points for Shen Yuan with a body pillow and Bingy puppy eyes in this post though

THIS pxychta piece which I am buying asap when inprnt does free shipping friday again!!!!

Bo's fluffy sqh lives rent free in my head he is my world and he deserves everythign for being the cutest guy ever

If you're a moshang fan and not already following seiraheron then what are you doing !! It's getting harder and harder to choose favorite pieces but if I had to pick the atmosphere in this is so strong and their expressions are so warm I could stare at the details for HOURS

Like every other artist on this list, every tadpole_art piece is INCREDIBLE, but this one holds a special place in my heart with how vibrant and powerful its color story is <3 also it made me cry

C's tetris sqq art is an eternally loved classic but honestly all of their gouache paintings are so magnificent and deliciously textured that I think you should stare at them all for a million hours

It was hard deciding between this and the dnd au but Kelenia's demon squad designs are some of my all-time favorite in the game just AHH.. look at those cheekbones and the outfits and hair and shl's piercings and how they bitch to each other!!!

and SO many more honestly i couldn't even begin to list all my favorite artists on twitter too!! Sv fandom is filled with so many skilled people with amazing art and it's such a wonderful environment of creation I'm so thankful to share this space with everyone !!!

22. Would you or have you cosplayed as any of the characters of SVSSS?

Unfortunately I'm not super into cosplay in general just because I don't like attracting attention HAHA but if I was I would absolutely cosplay Ning Yingying bc I think I could pull it off so well

30. Who's personality do you think more closely represents yours in the SVSSS universe?

deep sigh

[rreyie]

can I make a request for a reader x connie x jean x sasha fic where reader eats out sasha (or vice versa) and jean and connie are just watching? excited to see what you do with this one 👀

YES YES YES! i’ve been debating doing something like this for a long time but doing sexual stuff with these three could be so much fun :)))

afternoon snack

summary: you eat sasha out while jean and connie watch

warnings: nsfw- voyeurism, exhibitionism, pussy eating, fingering

a/n- hey luvs! this one was a fun one to make but i had no clue how to end it, so i gave this a shot! also this is my first time writing about wlw content, but i tried my best! hope you all like it!! :)))

you had no clue how you ended up here, it just happened.

you, connie, sasha and jean were all hanging out in your bedroom. connie was splayed out in the floor, pillow beneath his head as he read a comic book, jean on a chair sketching something, and you and sasha laying on the bed as you braided her auburn hair.

out of nowhere, your hormones got to you. you pictured yourself between her legs, eating her out as she called out your name like a prayer. your cunt clenched at the thought, feeling a pit grow in your stomach.

so, you started sneaking in some curious touches. around her neck, her waist, even underneath her boobs when you knew for a fact that neither of the men were looking. your fingerpads ever so gently trailed over her clothed abdomen, going a bit lower every time you came back for more.

it was jean who first noticed it- after all, he’s amazingly observant. he could see your hands trailing along her waist, the way sashas mouth was slightly open and the manner in which you looked at her, like it was some well kept secret.

“having fun over there?” he growled. “you don’t have to be all lovey dovey in front of us.”

he tried to act angry, maybe even a little bit disgusted. the last thing he wanted to see were his two girl best friends fucking each other, right?

wrong.

he could feel his pants tighten a bit, cock waking up due to the sudden corrupt thought. quickly, he placed his sketch pad over his crotch, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by you.

your cheeks turned warm at his words, sashas cheeks also turning flush at the statement. your embarrassment soon faded away, seeing the bulge begin to form in his pants.

“hmmm...your little friend down there doesn’t seem to agree with you”, you snickered.

now jean was the one who was red in the face, connie looking up from the comic book to see what the commotion is about.

“the fuck is going on?” he asked.

“sasha and y/n are literally touching each other while we’re in the room.” jean grunted, hoping that his very obvious boner would go away soon.

connies eyes lit up, a smug smile forming across his face.

“okay, okay. i’m sorry if i sound like a pervert but can you guys like... eat each other out?” he asked. “i’ve never seen girls do it, i’m kinda curious.”

“what the fuck connie?” jean asked. “that’s sick-“

“i’ll do it”, sasha says, a growing heat forming in her stomach. “only if y/n agrees though.” she wouldn’t admit to it, but the fact that her two best friends would be watching her give you a little bit of taste turned her on.

you nod. “sure, let’s give these horny fucks something to watch. connie, pull up a chair.”

connie and jean looked at each other with confused faces, but were they going to protest to this? absolutely not. connie hurriedly pulled up a wooden chair with salmon-colored cushions and sat next to jean.

sasha rested her head on the headboard as her hands slid down to her hips and began to remove her pants by the waistband. you helped her out by practically ripping off her shirt, revealing her toned abs and rather large chest that was hidden by her bra.

you could’ve sworn you saw connie drooling while he watched you remove sashas bra, jean beginning to palm himself while you fiddled with the clasp. the white bra fell on the mattress, sashas pale tits now being exposed to everyone in the room.

if connie didn’t have a boner already, he did now. jeans boner only got worse, now feeling the precum trickle out of the head and down his shaft.

sasha pulled off your shirt as you threw it into a random corner of the room, and you discarded your pants along with it. your heat was throbbing at this point, a stain of arousal lining the bottom of your panties.

now you knew sasha was a boob woman, and every single time you showed her your breasts they never failed to amaze her. but this time, she quite literally ripped the bra off of your body with a hunger you’ve never seen in her before. maybe it was the fact that people were watching.

she gave your breast a quick nip before you pushed her against the headboard once again. out of the corner of your eye, jean had a devious grin on his face while connie just gave you two a little smile. both of them were starting to jerk themselves slowly to the sight, both tips red and veins protruding through their shaft. both men had impressive sizes.

now sasha was prettily laid out on the bed, those braids you had made earlier now messy and tangled. you moved your head in between her soft thighs, which she gave you a squeeze with.

you started out by just dipping your tongue in between her folds to collect the juices you had made beforehand. she had a good taste to her, slightly salty and smooth. she tugged at the sheets, letting out a small moan.

you quickly found her clit, inflamed and needy. you gave it a little flick with your tongue.

“oh- more, please...” sasha begged. “need your tongue...”

you looked up from in between her legs, and gave her a pompous smile, your dimples showing along the corners of your mouth. your chin was wetted with her slick, and oh boy was it a sight to see.

without warning, you plunged a finger into her tight hole, sending her hands flying into your locks. sasha moved her hips slightly as you moved it back and forth around her, getting a feel of her soaked walls. she was trying to hard to feel full, but failing miserably.

“nother’ finger”, she gasped. “please- please y/n...”

you stuffed another finger into her greedy hole, just touching on her sweet spot that sat along the bottom. this sent sasha into a frenzy, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, that was now empty with not thoughts except pleasure.

you continued to lap at her soaked cunt, like a little kitten drinking milk from its bowl. though you may have been content at the moment, sasha was becoming continually unhinged at your constant movements.

jean spat on his hand and continued to fist his hungry cock while connie rubbed the tip of his own, spreading more precum along his swollen tip.

sashas thighs began to tremble, you could tell she was nearing the edge. you’d like to tease her, you really would, but now wasn’t the time. you could tell the men were awaiting sashas climax, hoping to cum with her as their fists wrapped tightly around their cocks. their pace was fast, and you needed to hurry things up.

your fingers practically went into overdrive, curling around her sweet spot as she yanked your hair. her tits jiggled ever so slightly as she let out a gasp, followed by a moan that bordered on screaming.

as soon as you knew it, your girlfriend was creaming around your fingers, the milky fluid dripping off of your fingers.

jean and connie hit their climax too, as their white cum spat out of their tips in ropes. connies eyes were rolled to the back of his head, both men were panting as they rode their orgasmic wave out.

“shiiiitt”, jean exaggerated. “that... was fucking hot.” he looked down on his hand and laughed at the load of cum that stained him.

“made me bust a fucking nut too”, connie added in. “what time is it?”

you checked the clock that rested on your nightstand. “bout’ noon. better start heading down to the mess hall.”

sasha seemed to put her clothes on rather quickly, not saying a word to you, or anyone else in the room. you found this questionable, she was normally chatty after sex- telling you what she liked, what she wanted to do next time, all that.

“you’re awfully quiet”, you say to her. “what’s that about?”

sasha sighed. “getting horny makes me hungry, remember?”

you nod. now that you thought about it, sashas appetite skyrocketed after she climaxed. no wonder why she was so quiet.

you four all walk out of the room as if nothing happened, the only mention of what you did came later that night.

“hey, quick suggestion”, jean said. “can we like... do that again? what we did today?”

you and sasha both blurt out a “yeah”, laughter following while you all walked down the hall.

[rottingcompost]

Oh god for the ask game I need you to tell us about every tf2 merc please (or just the ones you want to do) !!!

Hoooo lord this is going to be long so i am sincerely sorry lol

Heavy

First impression: Kinda looks like my biology teacher i had in school at the time i first discovered tf2 (2011 or 2012). would look at birds (like my bio teacher).

Impression now: Lovely big bear of a man, but very happy to kill. Absolutely looks at birds tho.

Favorite moment: the comics. both when he took the other mercs to his house and later when he beat up classic heavy

Idea for a story: Heavy retiring and having a nice life, maybe with kids and his partner (Medic more than likely lol) and being with his family.

Unpopular opinion: probably the best at base at cooking and its not explored nearly enough imo. also him being protective over the rest of the mercs, not just medic, isnt explored enough. he's a big brother to three little sisters and an old mother, and he even expressed not wanting to leave them for the mercs because he wanted to protect them, and he sees the team as his family too and thus would be protective of them all.

Favorite relationship: Medic. just everything about their relationship is amazing. if not him then honestly? i really like the idea of him and scout having like a big brother and little brother sort of relationship. i like to see them all as a big family.

Favorite headcanon: if it isnt obvious already i'll say it again: he sees the mercs as his family and he would die for them. he loves them all like family.

Engineer

First impression: My first impression was literally from seeing some weird GMod video (cant remember what it was tho) and i just thought he looked like a weird bob the builder lol

Impression now: Smart but still mad scientist. good at playing the guitar. likely would sit you down and give you life advice but wouldnt be afraid to probably chew you out if you did something bad.

Favorite moment: i really like his meet the video. it's just nice and his voice is calming even if he talks about how he could make weapons to murder people. also him and medic together doing mad science stuff is amazing. like the halloween comic and expiration date. just love them working on stuff together.

Idea for a story: engineer on a day off. he needs a break. everyone always makes him overworked :(

Unpopular opinion: he is a mad scientist. i refuse to let people tell me that he is a cool and collected and totally hinged man. he is a little unhinged and he told me himself.

Favorite relationship: Engineer and Medic. either that or engineer and spy to be honest. i like the idea of him and pyro being close friends though!

Favorite headcanon: Engineer and the opposite team's spy having a friendly rivalry more than being actual enemies.

Demoman

First impression: this man is depressed. please give him a hug.

Impression now: this man is depressed. please give him a hug. but also he is very misunderstood.

Favorite moment: him playing the piano in expiration date. also him in the comics is just. so good.

Idea for a story: Demoman and his team hanging out and having fun together! maybe just having a night off and playing some games together? it would be nice to see...

Unpopular opinion: maybe not super unpopular since i have seen other people on here say it, but him being reduced to only being drunk, and him being drunk used as an excuse to exclude him from the work, or just really excluding him in general, and leaving a conveluted reasoning for it. we dont see enough love for him. ALSO the fact that he is RARELY brought up as a scientist as well, when he makes his explosives himself and definitely knows his explosives, as his family have worked with them for ages! he is a scientist as well and we need to see him more with Engi and Medic doing sciency stuff!

Favorite relationship: demo and soldier, but i also really like demo and sniper!

Favorite headcanon: he really likes animals. he would have a pet cat or dog or something.

Medic

First impression: unhinged. why do people like him so much?

Impression now: unhinged. i understand why people like him. he's a funny and menacing man.

Favorite moment: meet the medic! it's just such a good introduction to him! it gives him so much personality! it shows that he is powerful in a terrifying way! it has some really funny jokes! also him fucking over Satan in the comic and then killing classic heavy with the power of mpreg is... a choice, but it was a funny as fuck choice. i just love how this madman just. stole the other mercs' souls and stitched them to his own soul so he KNEW he could fuck over Satan when he inevitably died. I also like the meet the medic outtakes, even if they might not entirely be canon. they are just grwat and i like to think of them as canon, since it was still made by valve.

Idea for a story: honestly i would love to see stuff from his past. like him making his first deal with the devil, how he stole a skeleton, or anything like that! it's fun to imagine that!

Unpopular opinion: he is seen as too much of an uwu soft boy. he is a merc and he is perfectly capable of killing, just like his teammates. he has the capability to cause a lot of harm. he slashed classic heavy's face open with his übersaw! HE STOLE SOMEONE'S ENTIRE SKELETON AND THEY LIVED! he is a strong dude and he could kill people. seeing people treat him like he would always be bullied into being submissive and him being entirely non-violent unless really threatened is... eh. let him cause some bloodshed! also i REALLY wish they had given him more weapons, like the concept art where he has a fucking SMG1. we could have had that.

Favorite relationship: heavy. i also really like medic and engie tho. they are great. i also do like medic and soldier, even if they are quite a rare-pair. other than that i just like that he still sees the mercs as his family, and him being nervous when classic heavy said they were hunting his old team shows that he still cared about them!

Favorite headcanon: im not sure. maybe the idea that all medics have some sort of animal lol. i like the many different headcanons people think of for how medic got Archimedes for example.

Sniper

First impression: who is this australian cowboy looking dude? Is that piss in those jars? nah it cant be.

Impression now: that's definitely piss. also he's a stinky man but he's a cool dude. this guy is in his 20s somehow but he looks like he's 40 something. how did this guy age so badly?

Favorite moment: cant exactly think of much, but i like when he goes to new zealand in the comics and meet his parents and realize they are. shitty lol. also a moment like nobody else knows about is when i dreamt the mercs were having a party or something and Sniper just. fell off the fridge like a GMod ragdoll. the rest of the dream is so hazy but him falling off the fridge is. weirdly memorable i guess lol

Idea for a story: would be fun to see him on a camping trip and see him fish or hunt. maybe he could bring scout or demo.

Unpopular opinion: you dont see him enough. he's sadly kinda forgettable when he actually has so much character.

Favorite relationship: Sniper and Demo. i also like Sniper and Scout tho. Sniper just feels like a pretty lonely dude and like he would stay away from the others mostly. maybe they can help him come out of his shell. also like. my brain refuses to accept that he's not like 40 so i do like him and spy in contexts where he's just written as older. i really had no idea he was in his 20s until i looked at his wiki page and it still just feels like such a weird thing.

Favorite headcanon: he uses a lot of australian slang and stuff, much to the confusion of his teammates. also just the idea of him having THE WORST ability to dress himself when he isn't wearing his work uniform is funny. he would wear socks and fish sandals and a hawaii shirt with some cargo shorts. prove me wrong.

Spy

First impression: why is he wearing such a nice suit and such an ugly skii mask?

Impression now: horrible bastard but also a good teammate and also a bad father figure and a good dad. definitely has stink lines radiating off of him. he never cleans his stupid skii mask and is never seen without it, and he smokes all the time. he can't smell pleasant.

Favorite moment: expiration date! i like how he took it upon himself to get the mercs to write down their last wishes and attempt to help them with it, and that he forgave scout for messing with him and then took it upon himself to help scout achieve a date with ms Pauling and you even see him weirdly proud of scout when he tells him he will be able to do the date himself! i also like meet the spy, i like how it feels like he's the ONLY one who actually takes the matter seriously AND understands WHY their situation is. not great. also the rant he gives sniper about his stupid suit jacket in the comic is great. AND the scene between him and scout in the comic where he tells him he’s scout’s dad while disguised as Tom Jones is also a great part and it’s sad.

Idea for a story: honestly more dad spy moments. him actually telling scout that he's his dad, catching up with him, maybe trying to fix his mistake of leaving scout as a kid. he has been shown to still care about scout's ma so i kind of feel like he maybe didnt exactly WANT to leave his child without a father.

Unpopular opinion: written as too mcuh of an asshole, when he's not JUST an asshole. he's an asshole, but he also cares A LOT about his team and he knows when to not fight some battles! i dont LIKE him as a character but i think he gets too harsh treatment from some people.

Favorite relationship: spy and engi, and spy and sniper (in contexts where sniper is OLDER), but i also really like the entire father and son relationship with scout. please he needs to have his relationship fixed!

Favorite headcanon: he still checked in on scout for YEARS after he left him and his ma. he was still watching over them in the shadows and made sure they could support themselves.

Pyro

First impression: menacing but cool looking person! i wonder what they look like under the mask.

Impression now: STILL absolutely COOL and MENACING! also a sweet person, but ultimately capable of a lot of destruction.

Favorite moment: the comics. i love how they became the CEO of a company and made every employee into millionaires. also they got a dog! and ALSO meet the pyro!

Idea for a story: honestly just a story with them hanging out with different teammates!

Unpopular opinion: too infantilized. the meet the pyro video is a little to blame for this, BUT that still doesnt excuse it! pyro is a VERY destructive merc! you cant just have the sweet and innocent side without having the destructive and violent side! show pyro committing more crimes! also i dont entirely like the pyro unmasked thing? like. i like it being a mystery! at least the canonical pyro, if you have a maskless pyro oc that's entirely fine! i have two of them and like. that's cool! i just prefer just not knowing much at all about how the canonical pyro looks like!

Favorite relationship: im not sure! i dont entirely ship them with anyone, but the idea of them being really close friends with scout, engie, and demo? amazing! i love it!

Favorite headcanon: i think the idea of pyro being some other creature entirely is fun! i wouldnt put it past them to make pyro into an alien or some shit, we already have so many weird things in the tf2 canon! we havent had a lot of alien and UFO representation in tf2 even if its set in new mexico quite some years after the roswell incident! maybe one alien got out and ended up having a huge affinity for arson and rainbows and just so happened to join a team of vicious mercs? we got robots! we got metal that extents people's life span AND make them grow a mustache and australia shaped chest hair! we got ABRAHAM LINCOLN INVENTING STAIRS ONLY TO DIE FROM ROCKET JUMPING ON THEM! why WOULDNT we have an alien anywhere in the game? we have MERASMUS! A BURGLAR PUMPKIN! we even have a ghost sword who wants to kill people and talks about wanting to harvest heads. please vlave i beg just add some aliens or UFOs i would die happy.

Scout

First impression: this guy seems cool. wait no he’s annoying. wait no he’s cool. wait no he’s-

Impression now: he’s annoying, he’s a cool dude, he’s caring, he’s a bastard, he’s a wet dog of a man, he’s fast as fuck boy, he’s respectful, he’s disrespectful-

Favorite moment: the part where he’s dying in the comic and spy tells him he’s his dad, and scout actually believes that Tom Jones is his dad. also scout spending all his life savings on Tom Jones merch is such a stupid but extremely funny moment of the comics. ALSO expiration date is just a great short with him. i’m actually really sad that expiration date is the closest thing we will get to an actual tf2 series since valve and adult swim didnt end up taking it anywhere and i would kill to see more episodes. ALSO i like scout in end of the line. End of the line is great in general, and i like that valve just liked it so much that they made it canon.

Idea for a story: Scout and Heavy having a sibling relationship. just Heavy teaching scout how to lift weights or make sandviches or taking him to see some bears or something. i just like them being siblings. maybe they could play catch together? Heavy teaching scout how to be a proper adult.

Unpopular opinion: scout is DEFINITELY reduced to just being the fast loud and annoying dude with no respect for anyone, which yeah, fair, he might come off as that, but deep down he’s insecure, cares deeply for his team, he knows when he might go too far, he does respect people, and he probably knows he cant really get ms Pauling. ALSO while i did really like him when i first got into tf2, i dont entirely get the hype for him nowadays. he’s not a bad merc or a bad fave but he feels a little overhyped.

Favorite relationship: scout and sniper, and friendship-wise him and pyro. his son/father relationship with spy and the potential for a little brother/big brother relationship with heavy. there’s just so much potential there.

Favorite headcanon: scout still having a fucking bird in his chest. it’s just so stupidly funny. technically not even non-canon since when you kill a scout there’s a small chance a dove flies out of his chest. 10/10. i also like to headcanon that he is a pizza delivery boy in his free time away from the base, mostly based on the concept art of him. also he would 100% be a gamer bro who drinks only monster (or bonk in this case) and i dont know punches drywall and tells people he fucked their mom over voice chat, and then he would feel bad and apologize soon after. 

Soldier

First impression: this dude is pure insanity. i love him.

Impression now: this dude is pure insanity but he's also so much deeper than that and i love him even more. pretty much my favourite merc.

Favorite moment: honestly? everything lol. the main comics, doom-mates, a smissmas storyn and WAR! are the most amazing ones. him in meet the director is great too, as well as gargoyles and gravel. he is absolutely great in the meet the videos, especially in meet the spy and meet the soldier. expiration date has a lot of amazing and funny moments, which is why his moments are the most meme-able ones from that short. he's also really great in end of the lines. i rotate this funky helmet man in my head all the time. 25/8. there are also some great GMod animations and SFM shorts with him, and he was ALSO my first introduction to freak fortress, which is basically fan-made cryptid mercs. THE BEST fan made animations are the ones by the winglet, specifically his fedora chronicles, where soldier plays a huge part, and Turbulence by Dunkle is also great. not canonical stuff but they are just really great. the first GMod animations i found that i really liked were the ones by rubberfruit, who made some great ones with soldier, like soldier thinks he's a robot, soldier thinks the sentry is american, soldier makes hamburger, and his SFM animations orca trouble and dude time are funny. they are pretty random xd humor, but they are a great time capsule into the early 2010's. again, while these are not canonical, they are some great moments and just add to why i love soldier so much.

Idea for a story: him spending time with the other mercs, like him hanging out with demoman, him and Zhanna together, him and medic hanging out, him and engineer hanging out? just anything, man. could be serious or could be funny or could be sad, i will eat it up. give me more soldier.

Unpopular opinion: sadly usually dismissed as just an asshole or only violent and horrible or like. extremely dumb. he obviously knows how to strategize, he cares about his team, and while he is dumb and kinda loud he is just. more than just that. he is also extremely funny, but sometimes he is only reduced to just a joke, when he is more than just haha funny helmet man. i still love the jokes with him and him being a funny dude but i wish i could see more... normal stuff with him? also people hating on his and Zhanna's relationship is just sad, because they genuinely are so cute together!

Favorite relationship: soldier and Zhanna, soldier and demoman, and soldier and medic. i also like his and heavy's relationship and brother in laws, since it's just funny. i also think that soldier and engi is a cool pairing. i also really love his ex room-mates relationship with merasmus, it's just great.

Favorite headcanon: soldeir and merasmus just being divorced. if you look really closely you can see some signs. also soldier having the most cartoony logic out of all of them, making the others look more realistic and more grounded than him. this man can rocket jump and also teleported bread for three days straight, probably not even taking a single break. this man can turn his own organs off and go into autopilot while hyperfocusing on one singular task. also i like to think that he's just much calmer when around some of the other mercs, and i love his little raccoons and i like to imagine he's like a disney princess but with only raccoons.

Ms Pauling

First impression: did the administrator get replaced? or is she the administrator's daughter?

Impression now: still dont know if they are related but i love this girl and i want her to have more than one single day off a year. please someone give her a break. she needs one.

Favorite moment: THE COMICS! i LOVE her trying to get the team together and then also trying to get the australium that's all running out. i also like expiration date, but honestly? the art of her just doing different work in different parts of the world.

Idea for a story: PLEASE just her having a break. she deserves a break. she needs a break. just a day off. please.

Unpopular opinion: while i understand why they have started using her to give the mercs missions, i still miss the administrator doing it. i LOVE ms Pauling but it feels weird to hear her so often? also i personally dont like the ship between her and scout, seeing as she has been confirmed to be a lesbian.

Favorite relationship: i like the ship between ms Pauling and Zhanna. it's just sweet in its own little way. other than that i like the idea of her just being close friends with the mercs, and them often going out to fun events, like in the comic where ms Pauling mentioned her and her friends doing things together. that's her and the mercs.

Favorite headcanon: ms Pauling being related to the administrator. either being her daughter, granddaughter, clone, sister? cousin? anything really. i think it's sweet!

that should be it, and again, im so sorry for this long post, and if you read this all i am impressed.

[aerielz]

Here's a Ted Lasso lb nobody asked for, so I can stop flooding @lifeisagiftdontwasteit's inbox.

EP 103 under the cut!

Rebecca Welton is a powerhouse of a bitch that's gonna crack at some point very soon and I CAN'T WAIT.

"Siri, call shithead."

LMFAO.

Directing and editing in this show like *chef's kiss*

No okay I mean Ted is the purest cutest mfr out there and I get it but can we talk about how sexy it is when he fixes his hair back? When it falls to his forehead and he slides two fingers back and-- ✨

"So, use Jamie as a decoy?"

Yeah he's gonna love it.

"Manager innocently feeds young woman whose relationship does not define her."

TED LASSO NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED. OKAY?

"Jamie's Tart Breaks Tartt's Heart."

"You have no idea of the power of rhyming in this goddamn country."

I LAUGH AT EVERY LINE. HOW DOES THIS SHOW DOES THIS? Last thing that made me laugh this much was like. Idk, TWW.

The "I know the owner of the paper scene"-- I keep pausing and coming back to see each of their reactions because the actinG.

Like I love the nuance in Ted's face? That little "She's amazing, isn't she amazing, look at her, my boss is great" smile, and the turn of his head. And how everything goes from like screwball comedy to really serious in their face in like microseconds, these people are beasts when it comes to acting. Just fucking beasts.

Like. Mind the next few lines in the exchange between Rebecca and Higgins

"There's no way she can trace that photo back to me, can she?"

"...yes."

"What do you mean 'yes'? Did you not use an alias or a burner phone?"

"I'm not a spy Rebecca, I just a director of football operations."

"And equally proficient at both."

"Well, thank you. Wait."

The way she says the "What do you mean yes???". The entire exchange is just delightfully unhinged. It holds such a delightful comic exasperation, and the actress clearly has a solid grip on this kind of comedy, this really in-your-face thing, super reactive etc.

But then... the exasperation --idk, is it just me projecting or does the desperation really comes through between the cracks?

Like. At this point we've seen enough to know there's some deeper stuff going on with her, and the range of emotions on the second episode is really something. Specially when she tries to be kind: her kindness feels guarded. The script the takes that guarded, wounded kindness, and turn it into rage, and she turns the rage from the words into comedy gold, but there's desperation in that rage, because she never let go of that wounded-guarded thing? I mean ?????/!:$3&3&2'dkss

She takes the hints of deflection in the script and builds so much complexity into a line or two -- how the fuck does she do that? How the fuck does someone even has that much control.

And the writers know and they're very fucking good and they take that and manage to layer even more on top of what the she does and.

I have so much respect for everyone who writes for the actors. Everyone should always do it. They'll invariably show you the five hundred layers of sheer humanity in a stupid line about toy soldiers or burner phones or not being a spy and it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Actors impress me every time, dude. every day. they're literally the reason I do what I do

"I spoke to the owner of The Sun--"

"You spoke to god?"

I'M HOLLERING I DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING

"You know what you do with a tough cookie? Dip 'em in milk"

I'm shipping these two so hard you have no idea. It's been 3 episodes what the fuck

Who'd've thought I'd be actually liking Roy. Huh.

I'm in love with keeley.

That's it. That's yall gotta know.

Keeley.

"Made me think of you."

[Puts a cactus down the table]

"Its strong and a bit prickly."

Like I said.

Keeley.

I love to see Rebecca's moments of vague vulnerability. The small cracks, the moments when she's being really honest but there's this very thick veneer of being sensible and professional and logical.

"Oh my God. That means there's a picture of you naked in a yacht."

Keeley.

"Where did you get those?"

"My mum."

SUCH A GENUINE SMILE. I DARE SAY SHE'S FLATTERED.

Rebecca is my favorite trope of character. The "Rich, Smug and Issues™" type. And that is usually a trope reserved to men, and I'm fucking thriving that there's a woman fitting this so well and it's so well acted and at least so far so well written.

Oh my god did Rebecca just bonded with someone 🥺🥺🥺🥺 AND WITH KEELEY?

I'M GONNA SCREAM.

Ted's "I appreciate ya" is just... Like. Perfect characterization. Just. Fucking perfect.

PHOEBE KICKING THE BALL RIGHT IN TED'S NOSE OH MY GOD

I think I just learned something a out comedy here? Like, it's obvious when you think about it, bc comedy it's all about timing, but most jokes only work if you do it so fast there's no time for people to notice what you're going for? Like she just takes the ball and kicks it and when you register it you're already laughing.

"Let me ask you this... Is my tongue still inmy mouth?"

THE CHANGES IN TONE I'M GONNA HAVE A STROKE THIS SHOW HAS NO BUSINESS BEING THIS GOOD

Oh my god I love Roy ;; I can't believe this

WAIT IS KEELEY/ROY GONNA BE A THING?

OH MY GOD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

the-the-the changes in her expression that last shot, I'm-

Oh my god who the fuck is hannah Waddingham?

Jesus fucking christ.

[she’s already half melted into Ted’s charm fight me]

Edit: OKAY LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS LAST SHOT SHALL WE

Let's talk about Rebecca's little smile. A smile that's unsure and wavering and brief and that comes at a moment she probably didn't want it to come -- because it's all about Ted being so, so, sweet. And also because yeah, he's gonna fail!!! And then it slips into something sad and wistful and now she's mad because her plan is going so smoothly down the drain.

Because for some fucking reason everyone likes Ted fucking Lasso.

Even her. She likes Ted.

And then when she screams "FUCK" is more than just her plan failing because of external reasons, it's her plan failing because even she's starting to surrender to his sweetness and are those-- yep she's this close to crying out of anger and just sheer desperation because nothing works and what am I gonna do and--

This show. This fucking show.

[nochiquinn]

exandria unlimited episode 3: g l o r i o u s

I am late because we were watching Time Machine but BRAIDS MATT

ash hole mesa

I really like the purple beads in aabria's hair, they look v nice.

dariax has a mullet

roll for hair care

oh NO

NARC MCGRATH

oh matt's wearing the teashirt

fearne has every ribbon on the continent

oh NO

is dariax a warlock now, I don't know how this works

DID HE JUST SEXY NO JUTSU

TRACY LIVES

oh one of Those Women

henry crabgrass says consent

seeing fearne be hard-nosed made me realize who she makes me think of

it's liara but as the shadow broker

The Mom Yank

see I'm over here thinking the Feral Darts from Zootopia

matt consciously choosing to just sound like dariax sounding like a gross old dwarf

oh NO I almost missed gilmore

"I just start crying" same

NO where is the purple man

you cannot tease gilmore and then not deliver gilmore

opal

oh just drop keyleth's name

[pounds fists on table] gilmore giLMORE

GILMORE

liam's face

ashley's face

"he's in his sixties but fine as hell" correct

am I about to have to do a secondhand embarassment lap around my house

oh no I'm feeling things

mala: Gilmore's like "oh dear, its again"

liam's face is causing me pain

dariax: [crown] gilmore: [internal screaming]

cool I hate every moment of this

every time aabria does the "[blink] [wide eyes]" reaction I gain a year of life

is it allura? it's probably allura.

don't give it to yussa, he can't be trusted

dwarf backpack DWARF BACKPACK

I didn't realize it until something aabria retweeted, but she very much is done up in gilmore aesthetic isn't she

"am I old? no, it's not me, it's him"

dariax is killing me with the finger guns

mala: Gilmore like Allura, has Vox Machina syndrome which is when you see any group of chaotic idiots, you inexplicably like them no matter how many problems they show up with there is no known cure

the way I wheezed at the way matt said "no"

"don't you lie to me you beautiful boy"

"I had a quincinera!"

Naked and Afraid

"with a q, because I hate you" crwby naming qrow branwen

bring gilmore BRING GILMORE

(there's no way they bring gilmore)

I have actually hurt myself laughing, dear god

"I have never been able to resist a pretty face" liam: 8D

"I was going to steal it" I love her

I really enjoy the little chevrons under aabria's eyes

real laura? real laura!

I want the mugs but if I bring more coffee cups into this house I WILL be evicted

I missed her

okay the comic book panels are wonderful

oh cool critrecap animated will be pretty much my entire knowledge of Mighty Nein Ocean Adventures

somewhere vex is screaming

"I'm not your friend" daMN

"there's a sad dog thing happening"

ahhh yes, the Poor Experience

I miss grog

oh no I love her

"I did it to myself!!"

opal leveraging dariax against inanna

"cool whip" get out

"sometimes you can use both kinds together" matthew also get out

aabria dragging aimee out by the bun

liam stop staring into the camera we all heard you you dork

ashley: "deck of many things!" aabria: "no!"

sherri unhinging her jaw to eat the deck of many things

cuthbert is absolutely going to die

"I'm still on the clock so I'm not gonna interact with that"

fsldfjs is matt doing coconut hoofbeats

cuthbert is 100% dead

dorian: we might need to use it orym: ??? ? ??

I am absolutely waiting for the cart to just get pincushioned with swords

and I feel laura bailey's influence in this chili's tonight

I KNEW that's what he was gonna do and it was STILL amazing

a literal wizard van

no stinger? :(

[captainshazamerica]

dude I have no chill when it comes to asks 😅

2. Do you like the arrowverse if so what's your fav show? (Mines flash but legends is so so chaotically lit it's a dumpster fire of awesomeness highly recommend that even tho they did my fav kinda dirty they had no need to do that to her but hey)

5. Fav character(s)?

15. Dark trinity or trinity?

17. Teen titans or Young Justice?

18. Fav animated show and/ or movie? (BTAS is supreme to me lol)

22. Fav Robin! ( this is so hard but also not I feel like dick gets it just cuz he was the first )

31. Do you like the character of the joker?

38. Who do you think is the most over looked and under used character?

51. Justice League or League of Assassins or Justice League Dark?

🎪I haven't started wayne fam adventures yet but it looks sooo good and is everyone there!? It seems like everyone's there just from what I've saw on tumblr but I don't remember seeing steph? Please say alfred is there!?

random side note just cuz you like jonny there's DC fear state coming out over fall and scarecrow is the main villian messing s*it up in Gotham and the batfam, I ain't gonna be reading that for a while tho cuz I've put a cap on comic purchasing because I'm making myself broke 😅 but it looks quite cool tbh

Dude I love that you have no chill with the asks omg xD Its so great, I get so excited when I see you do it hahaha

2. Do you like the arrowverse if so what's your fav show? (Mines flash but legends is so so chaotically lit it's a dumpster fire of awesomeness highly recommend that even tho they did my fav kinda dirty they had no need to do that to her but hey) Same, my fav is Flash, tho Im not caught up at all/havent caught up since like mid to late season 4, I got too busy during college and I was kinda getting bored with it, but now that Bart is in it, it makes me wanna watch it again! It was also before I got super into DC so Im sure Id love it even more now. I actually havent fully seen the others, just some episodes here and there and the Crisis crossovers! LoT looks like a chaotic lovable mess though, Ive heard that several times xD Who is your fav that they did dirty?

5. Fav character(s)? I mean its me so I can never chose just one xD Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Gar Logan/Beast Boy, Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Edward Nygma/Riddler are my all time favs!

15. Dark trinity or trinity? Dark trinity as in the 2nd Red Hood and the Outlaws? (Jason, Bizarro and Artemis ) Then def dark trinity haha, I love those 3 misfits so much omg

17. Teen titans or Young Justice? AHH this is soooo hard omg. Like the shows or comics or groups in general?! Like imma go with Young Justice show but Teen Titans overall. They overlap though soo

18. Fav animated show and/ or movie? (BTAS is supreme to me lol) Ahh I actually seen all of BTAS! Ive just seen the first couple episodes and seen random ones here and there but like know everything about it xD Hmmm, for show I gotta go with the Young Justice cartoon, and animated DC movie, a tie between Justice League vs. Teen Titans and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (the Damirae ahhhh). Though oooh also Under the Red Hood is also a classic and Jasonnnn

22. Fav Robin! ( this is so hard but also not I feel like dick gets it just cuz he was the first ) Ahaha I knew you would say Dick!!!! xD I was gonna ask and be like, its Dick isnt it xD This is like the hardest question ever oh my goodness. While they have all been my fav at point point, Jason and Tim have like been tied for first for the last couple of months. Like I love them both so freaking much. But if I absoltly HAD to chose one, ahhhhh, im going to have to go with Jason, Im so sorry Tim D: But Jason's character is just so complex in every version and his comics are sooo good(tho I love Tim's Red Robin ones too) his arc as a character is just SO interesting to me and his constant battle with himself and how far he fell from being robin and its all so sad but makes such a good character ahhhh

31. Do you like the character of the joker? Ahaha, this one is hard/I have mixed feelings. I have always liked him as villain even before my Batman obsession (and of course use to say he was my fav dc villain hahaha) and tbh I still think he is a pretty darn good villain and there is a reason he is so popular, even though he is an abusive piece of poop. Id like him a LOT more if he didnt abuse Harley so much tbh. And I think DC over uses him waaaaayyy too much, though I do like every version of him, excluding Leto's version, and think the acting is always amazing. So yeah, I guess I do like him but he isn't my fav, but I can appreciate him and his pop culture impact and how good he is as a truly evil unhinged villain who is interesting to watch.

38. Who do you think is the most over looked and under used character? TIM DRAKE!!!!!!!! And Riddler!!!!!!!!!!!

51. Justice League or League of Assassins or Justice League Dark? Gotta go with the classic justice league man

And ahhhh yes you have to read Wayne Family Adventure, its pretty much literal perfection. Here is the official link if you need it! https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/batman-wayne-family-adventures/list?title_no=3180&page=1 It comes out every thursday! (tho you can pay to read ahead a few weeks) But yes, Steph is in it too! Her and Tim were being the disasters they are <3 And yes, Alfred is freaking great in it omgggg, you will love him in the 2nd one ahhh

Oooooh, I didnt know that!!!!(its soo hard to keep up with dc comics omgggg) I thought I heard something about that the other day but didnt know what it was/anything about it! Thanks so much for telling me!! I hope they release it digitally on DC Infinite!!!! Cause sameeee

[phynali]

If given the chance, how would you rewrite the MCU?

Anon. Anon. Anon.

How wouldn’t I?

I mean - okay, there’s a lot you have to keep the same just for the sake of like, continuity, clarity, and keeping the bones there.

I’d probably keep all the original movies in Phase 1 as they are with only minor tweaks. I’d fix the mess that was Iron Man 2. I’d give Black Widow and Hawkeye a movie of their own to establish their characters. Hmm, I can see that coming after the first Avengers, possibly.

The first Avengers film though, that’s where I would make the first major changes. 

Loki’s characterization is a mess and not properly explained in canon. I’d put him more obviously under Thanos’s thumb. I’d fix Cap’s messed up characterization. I wouldn’t have Thor show up when he does because, hey - bifrost issues. We’d see him and Heimdall from Asgard trying to work on that problem and let them find a cogent way to get Thor to earth. So, he’d show up for the final battle and to take Loki home. He’d be the ace in the hole that helps allow the Avengers to assemble and overtake Loki.

Okay, so fix Iron Man 2. I can barely remember it but I know it needs fixing.

Cap 2 I’d leave intact. I might give Hulk a follow-up movie tbh, or rather, probably tie him in to the Black Widow and Hawkeye movie that would follow the first Avengers.

Also put more female heroes front and centre earlier on. And especially WoC. 

Big issues arise by the time we get to Age of Ultron. Fix that hot mess of a movie.

Hawkeye doesn’t have a family and a farm. That was weird. Erase that shit. Don’t set up a romance between Nat and Bruce. Don’t - 

Look, I mean no disrespect to Tony stans - 

Don’t make every problem in the MCU something that was inadvertently caused by Tony. Because like every Iron Man movie involves a villain who felt scorned by him, and then AoU was caused by him messing with the Mind Stone (Bruce too, okay, but Bruce isn’t the one with the narrative trend here) and all the villains in the Spider-Man movies, and then there’s how shit played out in Civil War and - 

Okay so fix AoU. Have the Mind Stone literally take on a life of it’s own and don’t fucking make it the fault of Tony’s hubris, okay. Make it more accidental and incidental than it was. Don’t make it something that happened overnight from tinkering. 

And for the love of god, make it so that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver did not sign up to be experimented on, but rather keep their comic origins. They’re Jewish Romani PoC. Give them a narrative that’s authentic to those identities.

I also would not fucking kill off Quicksilver, what the honest fuck?

Actually also don’t just make up a random country and code it a given way and then destroy it. I know it’s an MCU movie and therefore actually needs a giant CGI battle at the end, but okay - Age of Ultron. Stretch that shit out. Make it more clever. Show some more subtle and almost… guerilla tactics from the Avengers, taking down Ultron’s armies? Instead of a single battle in a country we don’t know about and haven’t been told to care about from a narrative standpoint, have Ultron go after their friends and families, have them fight smart and mean but no less visually pleasing to watch. The Avengers don’t have the numbers on Ultron’s army, but they can (and do) recruit Wanda and Maximo and they fight their fight using all their resources - not just their fists.

Okay so let’s move on.

iron Man 3 was great, but the whole bit with Pepper being kidnapped? Not that into it, personally. Also not into her getting powers and then getting them taken away. There was a lot to love about that movie, but so many Iron Man movies tease at this idea of Tony wanting to retire, or getting out, and they need to just back off that and let him own his heroism. That movie navigates so much so well so let it be.

Okay - 

Thor 2? Don’t fucking kill Thor’s mom. Friga deserves better. Stop motivating male characters by killing women. Let Loki and Thor come together by Friga being injured, by their dad dying, by a desire to bring their mother joy - whatever. Just - don’t kill her. I’m still pissed about how much they take from Thor over time.

I’d keep Cap 2 the same, and the only changes I’d make to GotG would be - 

Okay wait actually. There are huge glaring issues with that movie. Gamora is poised to be the hero of these movies and finds herself as the damsel in distress or incapable whenever the narrative needs her to be. I fucking hate it. Let her shine more. Show instead of tell. Let each character develop in their own right rather than dropping some random backstory notes in expository dialogue. Build up to the notion that it’s super weird Quill can hold the Stone and actually like… acknowledge it in the movie. You can keep the story basically the same but fix things with Gamora’s narrative, please please please.

Okay Ant-Man is great. There’s a huge narrative issue within the entire MCU with how they exclude Janet Van-Dyne though, and how she isn’t introduced until now even though she should be a fundamental member of the Avengers. I would almost like, at some point in Phase 1-3, a movie with Janet at the helm, possibly (to keep their timeline intact), her working with Peggy, working with SHIELD, with a young Fury or something, and laying the groundwork for the Avengers. A lot of what Captain Marvel eventually did, but situated fully on earth, and coming much sooner in the MCU itself.

Civil War was a hot mess. They needed to actually explain and detail both sides and the problems with them. It functioned amazing as an introduction to Black Panther and I love it for that, but it wasn’t a Cap movie, not really, and I’m bitter about it. This movie should have focused around the Black Panther, Cap, Bucky narrative, and dropped the whole Civil War with the other Avengers stuff entirely. 

Actually - Civil War needs to be either an entirely separate movie on its own or else… drop it. Deal with it differently. That airport fight was an embarrassment. Let the Avengers break down during Cap 3 if you need do, but make it more interpersonal and tense, and less throwing punches and locking each other up. Make it more human, more relatable, because those were the best parts of that whole divide. Make it real for the viewer, for fuck’s sake. Don’t have Tony (seriously what’s with them making him do villainous things and painting them as heroic) blackmail a literal child into a battlezone???? 

Okay - and Cap issues, they need to either set up Agent 13 aka Sharon Carter as a proper love interest sooner, or else drop that. They drop breadcrumbs of her in a few movies but that’s it. It feels hollow between them by the time they actually kiss. They should either keep their dynamic as “could have been but whoops, nope” or have done more to set them up together in Cap 2. 

(Totally honest, total bias here - take out love interests altogether or let Cap be the bi icon that he should be and let him and Falcon hook up in Cap 2. Let the fact that he was in love with Bucky be canon but you don’t need to set them up as a couple. Let it be recognized that they love each other but god there’s too much there, too much mess, they don’t need to be together in the present to acknowledge that history. Either way keep the Bucky and Sam dynamic because it’s amazing).

Doctor Strange - fix the casting. The racism, appropriation - just - wow. Use this as an opportunity to introduce more Asian and East Asian characters and actors into the MCU rather than it being the appropriative mess that it is. Keep the cool visuals though, and the cape. The narrative itself isn’t bad, but spend less time establishing this asshole character and more time establishing the side characters and the dynamics between them because those are far more interesting.

GotG 2 - uhhhh… okay what was this? Peter Quill is Ego’s son, but how does that really advance anything in the MCU or about the character or … ? Just fix the whole goddamn plot, I don’t even know. Tie this shit into Thanos way better. Introduce that better. Make this movie more interesting, make Nebula the Big Bad of it, honestly. Dive into the other members of the Guardians and give them their backstories and plots that they deserve. Is this the Guardians or the Peter Quill show? I don’t know I just - just fix this, okay?

Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther need no fixing. Remember that in this version of the MCU, Thor’s mom is alive, so that’s there. She’s still on Asgard and with Heimdall and being awesome, and we get some awesome interactions between her and Hel because we fucking deserve that, okay? Also Valkyrie’s bi scenes aren’t deleted (fuck you, Marvel execs). I would love love love for Killmonger not to die at the end of Black Panther, personally, but I wouldn’t change much more than that.

Oh wait I forgot - with the whole Bucky in Wakanda thing? Fucking take that out or do something narratively with it. It’s the weirdest brushed-aside thing that serves no genuine narrative purpose. I’d err on the side of taking it out entirely, personally. 

Infinity War is fine, leave it as-is more or less, except for - 

Okay, so we need textual discussion and canonical pushback against Thanos’s ideals. Because so many people came out of that movie all “oh but he’s got a point - population is expanding blah blah blah” and it was such fucking bullshit. We needed Gamora to point out why Thanos was fucking wrong - why her people were not actually better off after he killed half of them, thank you very much. We needed Tony to point out “population doesn’t work that way, it’ll bounce back in 50 years - do you plan to keep doing this each time? why not double resources?”. We needed people to tell the audience not just that Thanos was bad, but why he was bad, and that there is no ‘random’ and he needed to be a monster and selfish and it needed to be way more clear that his was not a sublime ideal of a detached idol, but rather the ravings of an entitled man whose gone unhinged and hateful.

Okay. So that. And don’t make the final battle just decimate Wakandan soil and its army? Why do they have to fight Earth’s battles for it? Let that be a joint effort and not just a Wakandan one, jfc. I get that you had the set ready and all, but no, don’t treat Wakanda like that, it deserves better. If ever there was a time to blow the budget on a final fight, this would be it, so freaking do it and have that battle be in space and over earth and at many different locations but then zeroing in on where Vision is (which itself can be in Wakanda because it’s safest but yeah).

And honestly I wouldn’t make it so Gamora died, like wtf. I hated that. I hated the whole bit with the Soul Stone. I could swallow it if what they did was have Gamora turn into the Soul Stone - so that she could, as the stone, set up a sabotage to Thanos.

Okay - more on that. Let’s talk about Endgame. Endgame needs so much goddamn fixing. Holy fuck does it need fixing.

Okay - okay where do I even start. I make myself mad whenever I think about it. 

Five years? Five fucking years? What the fuck is wrong with you, Russo brothers? Time travel? What - just - 

I hated that movie with a passion.

Okay - so the Snap happened. Pick up right after. Give us the fucking shock and horror. Give us the attempt to regroup, just quick, the intense emotions - people punching walls. Show us snippets of the world quickly, news casts etc. This is a horror, let it be one. Own the shit that you did.

Give us a time skip-montage. A month out, the pressure is on to the Avengers to fix this. The Avengers are all traumatized. Clint doesn’t have a family in this version, and doesn’t go all terminator. Thor - he wouldn’t have as much time to spiral but let him get there, let him be unwell, unkempt, let him own his suffering because goddamn he’s lost so much. (oh I forgot, I actually wouldn’t kill Loki and Heimdall because wtf wtf I hate you Infinity War, but let’s move on - )

Five months - people are losing hope. There are therapy sessions. Cap is a mess. Everyone blames themselves. Tony “if I’d only made the call to Cap sooner, we could have worked together” (also he and Nebula make it to earth fast, none of that lost in space and starving stuff), Cap “if only I hadn’t been so arrogant as to not trade lives”, Thor “if only I’d gone for the head”, etc etc. let it be clear that it’s not just Thor’s fault and not just Peter Quill’s fault - that all of those in charge of decision making fucked up.

Ant-Man isn’t freaking saved by a rat, thank you. He comes out of the quantum realm on his own merits, some safeguard, only to realize shit’s messed up. He and Janet work together with the remaining Avengers. maybe Janet saved him from the quantum realm this time? what a nice parallel to him saving her. anyway, they use the quantum realm to find thanos. Or - fuck that, they use Nebula to find Thanos. She knows shit. What they use the quantum realm for is to realize that all the souls that were lost in the snap aren’t ‘dead’ dead, they’re in stasis. They’re in a liminal space - they’re in the Soul Stone. Because Gamora is the stone and she sucked up all those lives and is holding them, holding for dear life but she can’t hold on forever (make sure the stakes are high, they feel real, the clock is ticking). Captain Marvel teams up with them of course. they track down thanos.

“but Phyn” you say, “thanos still has all the stones? how can they defeat him?” great question! difficult to answer! i’m not sure! with the power of love! 

okay but really - they have an awesome team. they need to work smarter than the enemy, not harder. they can take out thanos’s generals. they can use nebula to slip past defenses. if loki were alive, which he should be, they can use his magic. if friga were alive, which she should be, they can use hers. if heimdall were alive, which he should be, they can use his eyes. they can use the magic of all the magicians in the doctor strange films. they have captain marvel.

but they will never win on might alone, or magic alone - not against a full complement of infinity stones. not unless - 

have you seen Avatar: The Last Airbender? if so - you know how Azula gets a little unhinged toward the end? she’s just a kid, i feel for her, but the point for here is that she does enough shit and gets what she (thinks she) wants and it takes a devastating toll on her. using the stones, clearing half the life in the universe - that took a toll on thanos. it was a terrible choice. he’s in denial, in self-deception about that. he’s coming apart at the seams. he’s not all chill about it, he’s spiralling hard. he lost half his army too, after all. and life doesn’t seem improved. he can hear the cries of the souls locked in the soul stone (not that he realizes what he’s hearing nor acknowledges it) and it’s like the beating heart under the floorboards. his crimes have left scars. he’s not well. physically, from the toll of the Snap, nor mentally, from everything else it took out of him.

let gamora save the fucking day. let her and Vision and their stones - hell, let Loki (maybe he’s fused with the tesseract and maybe thanos did kill him to acheive that, or maybe something else) - let the stones respond to people. to quill. to freaking Jane Goddamn Foster. let the stones’ connections to life undermine and corrupt thanos and his connection to death.

is it cheesy? maybe. is it better than time travel bullshit? definitely. because it uplifts. because it draws from heroes in all the movies, even unlikely ones. people who’ve touched the stones, held them, melded with them. it assumes that the stones aren’t static entities, that they are just as alive as us, in a way we can’t comprehend, and so much more. they resonate with the universe, and thanos has done something that scarred the universe. let this be rectified, not through the actions of a man’s sacrifice, but through the actions, big and small, of a ton of people, of unlikely heroes, of those who suffered personally at his hand, at the hands of the stones - let it be the will of half the goddamn universe to see thanos fall.

let the snap-back happen when thanos loses control over the stones (he’s been holding on tight this whole time, can’t let it slip, the stones have a ‘mind’ of their onw). let it happen again right before the final battle against his armies. let him not have the power to immediately re-snap, hand burnt by the force of the snap-back, and let thor take off his fucking arm this time. let nebula take off his fucking head. let there be a huge final battle with everyone alive and ready to go down swinging once again.

and okay, i’m okay with tony dying. i’d be game for him to die by destroying the stones, tbh - taking them out of existence henceforth so they can never be used like this again, even though it kills him. i think that would honestly be a really fulfilling conclusion to the narrative set up in the first Iron Man film - the reformed arms dealer destroying the ultimate weapons in the universe.

by this way - there’s been 5-8 months or something like that, not 5 years, but why not have Pepper be pregnant, why not have a little child who’ll get to live on after he’s gone, even if that kid won’t remember him? she’ll get to live in a universe that exists and is safe because of him.

i’d be okay with cap dying in this movie too (much better than him going back and stealing peggy’s life from her by changing her history, wtf wtf wtf). i refuse to accept nat dying in clint’s place, that was bullshit and totally not necessary in this version. gamora is also back, not from the past but from the present, and with her sister again. this time nebula got to save gamora, isn’t there some poetic justice in that?

okay okay that’s all that. whew.

I forgot about Captain Marvel. It was decent, I liked it. It wasn’t my favorite in the sense that it was laid out odd when it came to falling in love with this character. Like I wouldn’t change much of the plot but I’d change the… storytelling? The emotions used to connect us to Carol. Give us more of her past from the start, before you introduce her. Give us her childhood. And let Maria be her girlfriend, fucking please.

Okay - now we’re at Far From Home. I didn’t mention Homecoming before but the problem with both of these movies is one I mentioned earlier - that the villains are byproducts of choices made by Tony Stark. That’s a problem. There’s just so many goddamn movies in which that’s the ultimate villain and it fucks with Tony’s characterization so much. How am I supposed to love Tony (which I want to?) when he’s got satellites with drones that can attack anyone he names, tech not that unlike the tech Hydra was aiming to make. Sure, he won’t use it the same, but why the fuck does he have it? Giving it to Peter is all well and good, but - they have interacted maybe a grand total of 5 times? 

The relationship between Peter and Tony is cute but if you stop for a second, it’s annoying as hell that it’s built up to what it is. Peter gets recruited by Tony, mostly works with Happy and not Tony in Civil War, and then gets ignored by Tony for months and months on end, then Tony shows up and scolds him and takes his suit, and then invites him to be an Avenger when he doesn’t fuck up, and then they go off to space and Peter dies, and then everyone comes back to life and Tony dies. Why the fuck would Tony entrust Peter with this Edith system that allows him to kill anyone on Earth? Actually, fuck that, entrust is the wrong word - why the fuck would Tony put that weight on the shoulders of a child?

Far From Home is great but Tony’s post-mortem role in it makes almost no sense. Let Peter’s movies be about Peter and not about the shadow and then the ghost of Tony Stark. Please. I love Tony, I do, but if you stop and think for one second, you have to jump mental hoops to absolve the shit Tony does in Peter’s movies, and for many of us, it leaves a really awful taste in our mouths.

anyway - i probably missed stuff. that’s just what’s currently top of mind. #whoops

[headlesssamurai]

Your review for blade runner was wellworded but you don't talk about the central problematic issue with that movie's antifeminism overtones.

Oh, that? How’s this [caution, the following is all satire]:

The film showcases a decaying future Earth dominated by trite universalist ideals and exceptionalist philosophies leading to the triumph of capitalism and consumerism, having clearly disastrous consequences on the biosphere and the financial status of lower-class citizens. The central protagonist, K, is a  cliché one-note “strong silent type” with nary a hint of actual personality, whose entire existence is predicated on doling out violence against helpless renegades to the oppressive status quo. Further galling is the fact that the primary antagonist, Luv, whose demeaning name sounds like that of a cheap stripper, is tasked with hunting him down and relieving him of his manhood by any means necessary. Luv is cast in a negative light from the start, having been raised to believe she is an angel, and the best thing to ever exist, yet she fails to accomplish what K somehow manages with relative ease, causing Luv to become more and more unhinged as the film goes on. Additionally, K’s innate relevance in the overall plotline seems to frustrate Luv who is merely doing a job for her very masculine and patriarchal employer Niander Wallace, by which the film’s male writer Hampton Fancher casts her as not only a footnote but also a unilateral hypocrite. K is not perfect however, he has a fake, computerized girlfriend, a very symbolic representation of modern man’s demeaning beauty standards on females the world over, and he also has a clear case of Oedipus complex for his superior officer Lieutenant Joshi. Luv properly executes the treacherous Lieutenant Joshi for her role in assisting the patriarchy, but in the end despite mortally wounding K in battle, is overcome by his stereotypical masculine strength and literally drowned to death. This blatant, horrific display of male power over women is one of the most criminal elements of this already very problematic screenplay. One would think, in our more enlightened world today, the MPAA would hardly endorse this terrifying exemplar of patriarchal propaganda which thumbs its nose so brazenly at the post-structuralist terrain of today’s modern artistic scene. Yet, it seems as a society our blizzard of ignorance has a very long way to go.

[satire now ends]

And there you go. Boring, life-sucking political and social commentary of the most egregious sort. It’s not even that difficult, but fuck me in the ear if I don’t feel exhausted from just writing that short bit. I’m amazed some people are so blind with anger and outrage they actually enjoy reading, never mind writing, garbage like this. Sorry man, but I don’t look at movies through those lenses. I actually possess the ability to remove myself from my passions and prejudices long enough to approach fiction on its own terms. I see films and other forms of media and artistic expressions as constructs capable of uniting people in our appreciation of them, rather than dividing us like every-fucking-thing else.

Why, just last week I was approached by a young barista who excitedly started to chat with me about the X-Men shirt I was wearing. I later learned she is from a place called Cho Vam in Vietnam, and we had a nice chat about different comic books and anime that helped shape our lives which we both grew up watching. I don’t remember politics or social ideologies coming up at any point in the conversation, despite the fact that my nation once lost a very long and costly war to hers.

To start with what divides us, when you could start with what we share and have in common, doesn’t seem like a very productive outlook, dude. Because, you know, I’m sure Blade Runner 2049′s McGuffin being a woman, who happens to be the central driving factor of the plot because of her miraculous lineage, and her potential to completely alter the landscape of her world by merely existing, is just the most offensive thing one could imagine, right?

 “The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.”        ― Helen Keller  

                侍    headless                                        

[thefilmsimps]

Licorice Pizza (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

-Jere Pilapil-

I wish I loved this more.

I guess let’s start with the most obvious thing: I am an Asian (specifically Filipino) man, and there is a running gag with a white guy marrying Japanese women and doing the stereotypical asian accent as though it were a replacement for actually speaking Japanese (it was the 1970s so he didn’t have apps and anime binges to get him conversationally fluent). And I get it - it’s based on a real guy Paul Thomas Anderson knew, it’s meant to evoke how different a time it was, it’s not meant to be an endorsement of that kind of thing, etc. etc. But you cannot convince me that there is any benefit to Asian American people sitting in a theater and hearing people laugh at? With? About? A white man doing an “asian” accent. I know Dave Chappelle has many bad points now but years ago he had a very good point about people laughing at his jokes in the “wrong” way, a way that confirmed and affirmed the stereotypes he was trying to subvert. Honestly, it mostly makes me just sad - not offended, or triggered, or whatever the edgelord terminology might be today - just sad.

Licorice Pizza is not even about that guy, not even a little bit. It’s about 15 year old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and Alana Kane (Alana Haim, born to play this role (because they share a first name)) as their lives intertwine. It’s the other thing that bugs me about this movie. The age gap does bug me. I can’t get past it, and I’m not really sorry about that! I get it, don’t fucking worry about that - it’s a movie ultimately about a boy who’s trying to grow up too fast and a woman stuck in an extended adolescence. They help each other out in some ways, pushing and pulling each other in and out of different comfort zones that’s very sweet and thematically ripe. In a figurative way, it’s very beautiful. And in a literal way, it’s icky. And it’s not like it’s unacknowledged, but every conversation that starts about it kind of ends in an implied “ah well”. But this is a movie where a 15 year old does a ton of stuff I have logistical questions about, so my brain, if not my heart and gut, are putting a lot aside here.

That all being said, I do ultimately like but can’t love this movie. I can and do compartmentalism all that extra baggage and look at what is a shaggy dog of a movie. It moseys along at its own pace as Gary, a child actor turned wannabe entrepreneur (really, hustler) starts his own waterbed business*. Alana works for him, essentially, as one of a few friends picking up the phones and getting people in the door. Hoffman is perfect, conveying a sweetness and charm that does, to the movie’s credit, make everything about this nostalgic fantasy feel extra believable. In the meantime, Alana has some brushes with adulthood that make her friendship with Cooper - and the comfort it offers, despite his youth, despite his unrequited affection and lust - make sense. Regardless of how I feel about a 25 year old woman hanging with a bunch of teenage boys, it is thematically sweet.

A movie as episodic as this (even it’s not explicit). The movie kind of bounces along like a serialized comic strip about little stories of this crazy duo and their little adventures in trying to find their way through life. And thankfully, every beat that PTA came up with is pretty fun. The waterbed sales bring them to an electric, amazing Bradley Cooper, probably doing the funniest, most unhinged work of his career. We get Tom Waits and Sean Penn high on their own nostalgia, Benny Safdie as a local politician. It’s a series of scene-stealing performances and a litany of wacky characters (yes, this includes the restaurant owner and his Japanese wives). It’s too bad the central premise doesn’t agree with me, but I can’t say I’m immune to the movie’s charms.

6.5/10

*Growing up, my parents had a waterbed. This was definitely the tail end of the fad. I remember when my parents finally relented and got a new bed, my dad asked the mattress salesman “Where are the waterbeds?” And the salesman said “Uhhh, well, nobody buys those anymore”. Every scene involving a waterbed brought back memories of just how terrible the upkeep of those things was.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The Vindication of Venom Part 1: Introduction and Background Context

Part 2

This essay series is my attempt to address some of the criticisms surrounding the most famous Spider-Man villain of all time, Venom.

 To be specific I will be tackling the original earliest portrayal of the character from Amazing Spider-Man #300 and the criticisms levelled at him in that issue.

 I am not endeavouring here to look at the Lethal Protector era of Venom, the Daniel Way run of Venom or even versions of Venom from later on in the David Michelinie run of Spider-Man and make a case for why they aren’t so bad.

 Fair warning, not only will there be SPOILERS if you’ve not read many Venom tales but this series as a whole is very lengthy. I will also be reusing images throughout these posts as reminders or to illustrate different points so apologies there. The same goes for some of my general points.

 With that all said let’s kick off by laying down some foundations for what is to come.

Introduction

 Long story short, my thesis boils down to two essential lines of argument (though there are some other points I will get into as well). These are:

 a)     That Venom/Eddie Brock was a more poorly conveyed character than an outright poorly conceived one. That is to say he isn’t a character who, as has often been the criticism, doesn’t inherently make sense. Rather the nuts and bolts of what makes him tick, whilst present when you look closely enough, are not made explained in the clearest way possible.

 b)   Readers of the past and present project expectations onto the character that are not in fact warranted by his original concept, or at least the original intentions for the character.

 With that said, for the sake of context let’s give little bit of history on Venom leading into ASM #300 and his real life origins as they are vital to understanding people’s problems with the character and my proposed counterpoints.

 Conception

In the mid-1980s writer David Michelinie was given the chance to write the recently launched Web of Spider-Man ongoing series. It was during his tenure as the writer of that series that he originally conceived of Venom, later bringing his ideas over to Amazing Spider-Man when he became the main writer of that book.

 Michelinie’s original conception of the character though was drastically different to what we wound up with on the page in 1988. In a 2008 interview he explained in his own words the early thinking behind the character:

 Initially she [Venom] was a woman...The whole idea is that whenever I write a character I try to utilize the unique aspects of that character. And one thing Peter Parker had that no one else had was his spider sense...Someone flings at him from behind its a reaction he doesn’t even think about it, he ducks. And this has saved his life so many times I started thinking ‘Well, what if there was a villain who didn’t trigger that spider sense? How would he react? How would he cope with that?’

  And they had already established in Secret Wars that the black costume didn’t affect Peter’s spider sense. So I started working out a character who would join with the symbiote costume and actually be a villain...

 ...My original origin story had been a woman who was pregnant and...her husband was trying to flag a cab as she was going into labour, and a cabbie was driving along looking into the sky at the Living Monolith, tying it into that graphic novel, [Michelinie wrote the Graphic Novel in question] where Spider-Man was fighting the Living Monolith...and he hits the husband and kills the husband...the shock of this sends to woman into premature labour and she loses her child, all because the cab driver was watching Spider-Man. So she became unhinged and when she got out she had this fanatical hatred of Spider-Man, blaming him for the loss of her husband and their unborn child. And that drew the symbiote to her and she became one with the symbiote and was going after Spider-Man... 

When Michelinie came to write ASM something special was required for the milestone ASM #300. To this end he proposed they use his Venom character, but then editor Jim Salicrup felt that the readers wouldn’t be able to accept a woman being a threat to Spider-Man. As such Michelinie revised his origin for Venom and we got the character we know today.

 Now let’ take a look at Venom’s origins in the pages of the comics themselves.

 Backstory

 In the Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars maxi-series Spider-Man, among other characters, finds himself transported to the patchwork planet Battleworld to fight a group of super villains. Over time his costume is damaged and, on advice from other heroes, he seeks out an alien clothing machine. However he gets far more than he bargained for. Instead of simply replacing his traditional red and blue outfit Spidey now sports a sleek new black and white costume seemingly made of an extraterrestrial material that flows like liquid and responds to his very thoughts. 

After taking the costume back to Earth and going through various other twists and turns in his life, Peter takes the costume to be analyzed by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four where he discovers the truth about it. That is it not in fact a piece of clothing but in fact a symbiotic alien life form that does not wish to separate itself from Spider-Man.

The symbiote later escapes from the Fantastic Four and attempts to forcibly bond with Peter again in Web of Spider-Man #1.

Knowing the symbiote’s vulnerability to loud noises Peter frees himself by going to a church bell tower, although this puts his own life at great risk too. Unexpectedly the symbiote actually saves his life despite Peter’s rejection of it. This is because through being bonded to Peter the symbiote has begun to experience human emotions. 

Though no one knew it at the time (and it wasn’t strictly speaking confirmed in-story until Amazing Spider-Man #388, published over 8 years later), the character we now know as Eddie Brock/Venom was first hinted at in Web of Spider-Man #18. In a single page Peter Parker casually awaits a train when a pink sleeved hand pushes him from behind into the tracks. Though he saves himself what is most alarming about the incident is how Peter’s spider sense never reacted to warn him of the danger.

Personally I think the pink coloured sleeve is a hint that this mysterious assailant was intended to be a woman. 

A similar incident to the above occurs in Web of Spider-Man #24. Peter (sans his costume) is using his powers to walk on the outside wall of a building when a mysterious figure abruptly grabs his leg and detaches him from the wall sending him falling. Peter is alright but again he is alarmed by the lack of warning from his spider sense and presumes that the culprit of this incident and the one at the train station are one and the same.

On a side note the fact that the assailant was physically strong enough to detach Peter from the wall could have been a hint that they possessed a degree of super strength.

Though no readers knew it at the time, we got our next look at this assailant in Amazing Spider-Man #298 where he observed news clippings about Spidey and spoke about how he ruined his life and how he will soon return the favour.

We got our first full look at the character in the very next issue when he confronts Peter’s wife Mary Jane in their apartmen, giving birth to (for better or worse) a giant of the Spider-Man mythos.

In ASM #300 we finally got to see the face of our new villain and follow his activities leading into his climactic battle with Spidey. 

 And then of course, rather infamously, we got his origin story dropped on us. 

He is Eddie Brock former reporter for the Daily Globe newspaper. During a killing spree perpetrated by the mysterious serial killer known only as the Sin Eater, Brock was contacted by Emil Gregg who confessed to being the Sin Eater. Brock published his story and later revealed Gregg’s identity to the world. However shortly thereafter Spider-Man captured Stan Carter who had been the real Sin Eater all along, Gregg merely being a mentally ill serial confessor.

Losing his job and reputation Brock hit very hard times and blamed Spider-Man for his misfortune, nursing a burning hatred for the wall-crawler.

Trying and failing to end his own life he found himself in the same church that Peter rid himself of the symbiote. The symbiote had grown to resent Spider-Man and sensing a mutual hatred in Brock bonded with him, granting him powers similar to the wall-crawler as well rendering themselves undetectable to his spider sense.

Armed with the knowledge of his secret identity they dubbed themselves Venom and embarked on their mission of vengeance by killing Spider-Man.

 An important note to all of this is the fact that Brock’s recounting of the events surrounding the Sin Eater seemingly contradict the original story starring the character. In the original Sin Eater story arc (also known as ‘the Death of Jean DeWolff’) Emil Gregg dressed as the Sin Eater and invaded the Daily Bugle, where he was apprehended, Brock seemingly never playing a role in his capture.

 I should mention that there are three mini-series which retcon certain elements into this backstory.

 In Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, we discover that the insane mercenary Deadpool participated in the conflicts on Battleworld and actually wore the symbiote before Spider-Man, the story even alluding to Deadpool’s own mental conditions as contributing to warping the symbiote (and by extension it’s future hosts).

 In AXIS: Carnage we revisit Emil Gregg who is operating as ‘the Sin Eater’, an apparently supernatural entity who literally consumes somebody’s sins. The story even outright states at one point that Eddie Brock was correct in his original outing of Gregg as the Sin Eater.

 And finally during the Deadpool: Back in Black mini-series we see Deadpool once again bond with the symbiote a while after it was rejected by Peter Parker in Web of Spider-Man #1. It is in this mini-series that the symbiote first transforms into the fanged, long tongued monstrous visage we all know today. The story also hints that Venom’s very name comes from an encounter between the symbiote empowered Deadpool and Kraven the Hunter (the incident also apparently giving Kraven the idea to bury Spider-Man alive as seen in Kraven’s Last Hunt).

 Whilst entertaining stories, since these stories are retcons stemming from non-Spider-Man titles (and also don’t make sense in some cases) I’m not going to take them into account going forward with this essay series.

 The criticisms

 Now we’ve laid out Venom/Brock’s origins we need to define what the main points of criticism are when it comes to Venom’s beginnings. Chiefly these amount to the following:

 ·         The extraterrestrial origins of the symbiote are ill fitting for Spider-Man’s more grounded world

 ·         The symbiote’s hatred of Spider-Man is contradictory to how it had been previously portrayed

 ·         The symbiote is alive despite us seeing it die in Web of Spider-Man #1

 ·         Other versions of the character (such as Spider-Man the Animated Series, Spider-Man 3 and the Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series) all make Brock to be a much better dark reflection of Spider-Man than the original comic book version

 ·         Brock was a previously unknown character who is unconnected to Peter Parker’s life in or out of his costume.

 ·         Brock’s origin story involves rewriting events from the Sin Eater storyline to facilitate his fall from grace

  ·         The reveal of Brock as Venom, especially in light of previous two points, is a bad resolution to the mystery story seeded in issues leading to ASM #300

  ·         Eddie Brock’s motivations for hating Spider-Man are weak and make no sense, this being perhaps the single biggest point of contention surrounding the character

 I am going to now try my best to address these criticisms in order although some of my points involve tackling more than one of them simultaneously, or otherwise weaving between them. Furthermore some of those points require multiple instalments to properly address, especially that last one. 

Whilst I will endeavour to bring these point back up when appropriate please try to bear them in mind as we proceed going forward.

Part 2

[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2 Puts a Friendly Face on Fascism

https://ift.tt/2EmGWKK

There’s a quote out there floating in the American ether, often misattributed to Upton Sinclair, that reads “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” Amazon Prime’s The Boys takes this quote and concludes “Kinda subtle. Why not have it shoot lasers out of its eyes too?”

The first season of The Boys, based on the comic of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, was an in-depth exploration of all the creative and colorful ways fascism can come to America. It combined hero worship, celebrity culture, unhinged capitalism, and diseased politics into a view of a country where superheroes really are the ubermensches fascist were waiting for. Understandably, many reviews and critics thought this was all a bit…on the nose. But since the show premiered in July of 2019, reality has decided to shove our noses into just how close a friend America can make of extremism.

The Boys season 2 is set to arrive on September 4, amid an election season dominated by a fear of a pandemic, questions of voter suppression, and a head of state openly musing about serving more than two terms. Now all we’re missing is the eye lasers. 

“The mantra in the (writers’) room is ‘Bad for the world, good for the show,’” Boys showrunner Eric Kripke says. “Believe me, I wish this wasn’t the case, but we get a fire hose of material daily to inspire storylines and moments. There’s just so much happening so fast that would fit into this show.”

Kripke notes that much of the writing for The Boys season 2 occurred during the most recent American election season in 2018, when the president stoked fears of a “caravan” of migrants heading up from South America to jeopardize the All-American way of life. As such, “fear of the other” is one of the second season’s most timely themes. 

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The Boys Season 2 Review (Spoiler Free)

By Michael Ahr

The first season of the show revealed that superheroes (or supes) or not born but made through the use of Vought International’s pharmaceutical product Compound V. By the end of that season, Seven leader and blonde-haired American golden boy Homelander (Antony Starr) had ensured that some Compound V had made it into the hands of America’s enemies in the Middle East, giving his team a new crop of supervillains or “superterrorists” to contend with. Much of season 2 features scenes of frightened masses of people, holding up xenophobic signs and protesting.

“I think it’s timely, man. I think it’s timely,” Laz Alonso, who plays Boys’ resident medic Mother’s Milk says. “We shot this stuff last year. And so it’s amazing how predictive a lot of the writing was last year as to the tonality and what conversations are happening when season two actually premieres. You would think that we shot it during the last five months.”

Highlighting the show’s nuanced approach to extreme ideologies in America is a new character to the series straight from the comics – albeit with a major cosmetic switch. Aya Cash plays Stormfront, a charming new supe who is more than able to work a crowd. Her friendly demeanor and social media mastery masks a darker persona. 

“For anyone who knows Stormfront in the comics, it’s sort of what you see is what you get from the very first moment you meet him. And that’s not really how hatred works these days,” Kripke says. 

“I think a lot of people espouse hateful ideologies cloaked in a pretty savvy, even sometimes attractive, social media packaging. They say they’re coming off as disruptors, or free-thinkers. A lot of times they’re even good-looking young men and women to attract a younger generation. Then you dig deeper into that and you realize that they’re peddling the same old bullshit that people have been peddling for a thousand years.”

In her gender-flipped transition from the comics, Stormfront becomes emblematic of a new, more insidious branding of white nationalism – one that knows how to put on a friendly face. That’s a phenomenon that has become more evident in our own world, dating back to 2016 and glowing profiles of the burgeoning of the “alt right.” But it’s always been evident in the world of The Boys, where entertainment and fascism operate hand-in-hand.

“The show just happens to be sort of the perfect metaphor for the exact moment we’re living in, where authoritarianism and celebrity combined, Kripke says. 

Just as is the case in season 1, the superheroes of the show’s world are celebrities first and foremost and helpers of the public second…even the heroes who have fallen from grace. Super speedster A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) finished last season brought down by a heart attack from abusing Compound V. Meanwhile the be-gilled fish communicator The Deep (Chace Crawford) remains in exile in Sandusky, ostensibly for the crime of sexually assaulting a fellow Seven member – but really for embarrassing the team and having a lame power. As individuals in the public eye themselves, both Usher and Crawford reflect on what the show has to say about celebrity culture and its dystopian leanings. 

“But being out in Hollywood, you do see different things reflected that can help you understand that theme of ‘you don’t want to meet your heroes.’ Some of our characters, the celebrities, put on such a good face and then they can drop it in an instant like Homelander,” Crawford says.

“If I had just walked into this industry, I wouldn’t really understand what that means to a person trying to navigate through normal life with the pressures of being a public figure,” Usher adds. “A lot of that played into A-Train’s psyche in season one. You see when that status gets stripped from him at the time when he broke his leg, how that really affected him. And you can kind of understand that. In season two it becomes even more of a thing for him.”

Though The Boys’ depiction of fascism is bright, colorful, and influenced by celebrity culture, its depiction of its titular team in opposition to those extreme forces is anything but. Season 2 begins with The Boys on the run, disavowed by the CIA and having to fight back against The Seven on their own terms. In fact, they’re quite literally underground, in a dismal environment far away from the glitz and glamor of Vought’s heroes.

“The Boys are basically in quarantine at the beginning of season two,” Alonso says. “They purposely put us in these rough environments, because if you’re on the run and you’re literally living off of the scraps that you make. You don’t have any luxury, you’re making ends meet and you’re living off of crumbs until you can finally find your way out.”

“What Eric Kripke and the writers managed to do is draw up a very clear picture of the polarity between the haves and the have nots,” Karl Urban (who plays leader Billy Butcher) adds. “That’s what makes The Boys’ side of this show imminently relatable because we don’t have all of the assets at our disposal. We are trying to fight the good fight from a position of huge disadvantage.”

That’s the flip side to The Boys season 2 increasingly blending shiny entertainment and fascism. It reveals that doing the right thing and fighting the good fight is often deeply unpopular. Like Stormfront, the forces of darkness don’t always appear dark at all. In fact, sometimes they even get their own line of toys, like the bone-chilling laser babies Amazon sent out as promotional items for the show’s second season. 

Even Kripke knows that marketing and branding for the forces of evil is often more fun.

“I love the cuddle buddies.They’re the stuffed animal versions of the Seven that we really ended up producing. We have a whole room full of them. And the Translucent one doesn’t have a head. I just love that we put so much effort into these dumb things.”

The Boys season 2 premieres its first three episodes on September 4 on Amazon Prime.

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