#like other people have said he's finally becoming a muppet! he has the space to be silly and dumb!

[thegroundhogdidit]

never gonna get over "a curse is a curse and once it takes hold... well, it takes hold" because that's such a dumb line! izzy is finally allowed to say dumb shit unironically!he's finally made the genre transition and now everything he says doesn't have to be dark and gritty it can just be silly!

[androgynousblackbox]

have you seen the latest RaM episode? I was hoping to see if you had any thoughts about it! I really liked the exploration and the going off the gotdamb rails with the decoys. Also that scene with rick just. dick out and making morty peek at his ass for No actual reason sndhs

Don't forget the fact that his family didn't questioned for a single second that it should be MORTY the one to look into Rick's ass, like there was never anyone else but Morty who should be do it. It was gross, sure, but also such a... "guys would be guys" moment but not in the violent/toxic way but on the silly and unnecesary way, you know? Like Morty called it "punishment" and, sure, nobody wants to be farted into their face, but I can see Rick pulling a similar move on just any friend he feels like pranking to and, on a way, that was kinda wholesome. Okay, so I am going to pour my thoughts about this and the other episode as I usually do here so bear with me: -The fact that Summer IMMEDIATELY picked on what could go wrong about the whole decoy thing, and Rick has to aknowledge that Summer was smarter than this on this regard. This to me is talking again about how Summer IS actually smarter, emotional and socially wise (meaning with interelationships at least), that she could tell that if one Rick thinking he is not a decoy was going to make decoys then of course other Ricks would have the same idea. But Rick never saw this coming because he was only thinking of the decoys as instruments to be used and disposed, even as he was giving them actual personalities and filled their memories with real ones. He never considered they could go on to make their own because, well, they are not This Rick and this Rick is the smartest man in the universe, the guy that unironically think himself to be god, so OBVOUSLY think only HE would be capable of pulling that off. -The fact the immediately after a Rick wins while proclaiming himself "not a man, I am god!" only to be killed by what is essentially JUST A TOY, some little creature that was MEANT to be killed but got pissed when nobody did it. A literal "god" got eliminated for something fucking mundane that didn't even had to do with the main conflict. He doesn't even understand WHY this little dude just killed him, he died with uncertainty, and if that isn't the most human experience ever then I don't know. -With this episode and the first one, I HOPE this season is going to be about desconstructing Rick thinking himself above anything else. I said this before, but I don't trust fans who truly believe Rick is entitled to do anything he wants and be shitty with everyone because he is smart. It seems to be like these two episode literally adressed that kind of attitude by putting Rick on situations where not even he can get out of and revealing he is, in fact, still just a flawed human being. A major criticism that many people have levered against the show is that yes, we know Rick is sad and miserable, but the show still goes out of it's way to keep making him win on anything he wants (most of the time at least) and thus is signaling to the audience the idea that he is always right, that he should be always right, because he has the power to do anything he wants. The very first episode start with Rick about to fucking die with all his regrets ("I am a silly man, a silly old man") and then he is saved BY MORTY. If it wasn't because of Morty being there that would be it, they both would be gone. -The previous season was already descontructing Rick as the patriarch of the house and show how nobody "needs him" on the same way they needed him on the first season. The only character you could argue still gives a fuck about Rick's approval/recognition is Summer, but even then Summer was never submissive and passive like Season One Morty was to Rick, instantly believing anything he said. Plus, we all know that Rick COULD take Summer on all his adventures and she would never complain about it because she doesn't give a fuck about school anyway. But he still insist on taking Morty instead, despite his protests, because he just likes Morty better than Summer and he does not take well with Morty not relying on him. I don't fucking buy the whole "cancelling brain waves" excuse anymore because, come on, there is a million ways in which Rick could circunvent that problem if he wanted to

but he just prefers keep Morty around. -On the first episode Rick literally says "let me deus ex machina out of here". Deus ex machina literally means the hand of god because in ancient greek mythology many plays would have an element of a literal hand coming from the sky to take the characters out of any problem they are in. And it didn't worked! He needed Mr Nimbus to save them. Because he is not fucking god, and the show is finally showing us concrete evidence of this, while Rick is still the only one with this delusion on his head and this delusion is part of his downfall. The whole second episode is nothing else but Rick's ego fucking him in the ass, literally killing him over and over again. -Beth was GREAT rejoicing on Rick's existential crisis and she fucking deserved that moment, I am glad they gave it to her. -The way so many of the decoys decided to react to knowing they were decoys was so amazing. Like yeah, a majority of them decided to be all "oh no, there can only be one", but many other just off themselves because they couldn't handle not being The Original, insisting to the last moment that they MUST be the original because, well, that is what they think, and then other decoys were just ready to accept death because they had accepted there was no other way. -The only wish of Summer to be on the ocean was... so wholesome? Like it made for a beautiful scene in general, but then they dying hand by hand and just happy to be together, Rick apoligizing to Morty because they couldn't make his wish come true, such a good moment. -The fact that all those Ricks made decoys purely out of a sincere desire to protect his family, it's just great. It was still selfish to basically create life with the only purpose of it being destroyed, but it was motivated as another security measure to protect others, not just himself. -The skin wearing Rick on the swamps talking about "a Rick must provide for his family". Ricks CARE about their family so much. -The puppet Smits were so cute, I loved their voices. -THE MUPPET SMITHS. Even if it was nothing but a costume, it was cute and I want them on Pocket Mortys. -This scene is a Call Me By Your Name reference and nobody tells me otherwise:

As I explained on a server: 1. Italian. The movie happens on Italy. 2. Pool. Many crucial scenes include a pool. 3. Age difference. If they just wanted to imply Morty was flirting they could have used just an older teenager, they didn't need a literal hunk that kinda looks like the older character on the movie. 4. THERE IS FUCKING PEACHES ON THE FOREFRONT. If anyone saw Call me by your name, they know they literally fucked a peach at some point and then the love interest EATS IT ANYWAY. And what does it look like the guy Morty is with is eating? PEACHES. 5. Parents are watching and don't give a fuck. 6. I have decided. -Regardless if it's a reference or not, though, is still pretty fucking gay. -I have seen some fans theorizing that the Smith family we see in the end with Space Beth was our own, and at first I thought so too because they are with Space Beth but then I was... wait a minute, ALL Beth decoys knew there was a Space Beth. They went out of their way to show us this by always having Beth being the one who insisted that no decoy had to die, because she knew what was to feel like a copy. When Rick decided to make another family exactly as his own, he also made HIMSELF expendable and interchangeable. We don't need thirty Smith families, the show only needs one and it doesn't matter which one is it as long is one we can recognize. Why couldn't that have been another decoy family that just so happened to want to do a space trip while all the bullshit was happening? I don't think they are ever going to confirm if this was our original Smith family or don't, just like they won't confirm which Beth is the clone, but I personally think it would be fucking hilarious if they were a decoy and Our Rick just died thinking he was a decoy. -Also the way that Space Beth was just casually putting an arm around Morty made me so happy. Considering that Beth is also the mother who prefered to save Summer over Morty when their lives were in danger, I really like the idea that Space Beth sees how much Morty has grown and is proud of him for becoming a badass himself without Rick's help. That is just my headcanon though, but wouldn't be nice to have SOMEONE appreciate Morty? -Finally, but not less important... Rick knew Morty uses a yosemite shirt in order to cum. This man literally knew about the masturbatory habits of his grandson. Rick went as far on his desire to protect his family he used that knowledge for the decoys. He also told Morty to not fuck his double, which is a nice little reference to Morty literally doing that on the comics but also a subtle way to tell us that Morty is definitely Not Straight because, yeah, I am fucking counting selfcest as a form of queerness because regardless of everything else, that is still two identifying male characters fucking. We only need Beth showing attraction to some female character and the entire Smith family would be officially pan/bi.

[knochengeier]

Drawfee Classpects???

I set a while ago to spitefully Classpect the Drawfee crew because they rightfully made fun of homestuck.

PREFACE:

I should state clearly that this is not meant as an attack on any members of Drawfee, and that I will be leaving out the majority of the negative aspects of the analysis. It should also be mentioned that this is more of an analysis of their online personas rather than who they actually are.

I did mention that I would leave out most negative things, but some things are core to a persons persona something they consciously and willingly put out into the world; again, this is not what I actually think these individuals are like, and is not a reflection of how I feel about them as a person. Things like "Julia doesn't know media" and "Jacob is the bad boy of Drawfee" that are explicitly stated as part of the persona is free game.

So, without further ado

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Caldwell, Prospitian Muse of Breath:

A Muse is the embodiment of and the inspiration to others through their aspect. The Muse class is one in a pair of incredibly powerful and rare classes known as the “master classes.”

Breath is the aspect of individuality, drive, optimism, and most importantly freedom.

As the Muse of Breath Caldwell inspires others to be themselves and be free, motivating creativity and driving others to pursue their dreams. Caldwells unbound optimism and resolve is a force to be reckoned with, in fact he so embodies freedom and enthusiastic ambition that he left Drawfee to pursue his own creative endeavors on the west coast.

Caldwell commands not only the forces of Skaia, but Skaia itself; his inspiring aura would be strong enough to end the war between Prospit and Derse in an instant, and even those that opposed him would find it hard to stay committed to their cause for long.

Caldwell would have the power to: a. control the wind, weather, and possibly even lightning by freeing the electrons from their atoms (though that might be an active ability) b. bypass any restraints, physical or otherwise, by any means necessary which c. Also means that he can most likely teleport at will and d. Probably turn incorporeal.

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Nathan, Prospitian Sylph of Hope:

A Sylph is a person who passively invites the healing and generation with their aspect.

Hope is the aspect of possibility, inspiration, and positivity.

As the Sylph of Hope Nathan is the light that helps others with his positivity and inspiration, not only does he help people but he inspires them to create their own hope. A Sylph of Hope would be able to see the potential for positivity in everything, and seek to be as amiable as possible, in turn helping others do the same.

Drawfee is as much a show about success as it is failure, it’s something that people can watch and say “These people make mistakes just like me” and they inspire hope for those down on their art.

One of the longest held of these humanizing aspects of the show is the apology at the end of every episode, which only became a thing after Nathan disliked a drawing so much that he was compelled to apologize, and it stuck. As much as that drawing might have sucked it inspired others who weren’t happy with their art to keep at it, and we are reminded of that after every episode.

Nathan is one of the first members of the crew to assure somebody that even if the piece didn’t come out the way they wanted, that it still looks good and is impressive nonetheless.

Nathan is the glue that holds this session together; with the presence of a prince, a bard, and a lord this session should have been doomed since the start, but Nathan’s pure awe inspiring hope promoted the best in everybody.

Nathan’s powers would include: a. A buff akin to bardic inspiration that could affect people to fight harder b. Healing abilities c. Probably an energy beam d. Manifestations of other’s hopes and dreams in the form of glowy specters like a JoJo stand.

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Julia, Dersite Lord of Void:

A Lord is the embodiment and commander of their aspect, not through inspiration but rather assimilation and domination.

Void is the aspect of confusion, secrets, and doubt.

As the Lord of Void Julia is the sovereign of secrets; unpredictable, unknowable, and the proprietor of unknown knowledge Julia uses her runes and studied knowledge to summon hideous abominations creatures from the void.

Void players have an inextricable link to the furthest ring; the furthest ring is the incomprehensible and unnavigable space that exists outside of the universe. The furthest ring acts as an impassable border between universes inhabited by massive eldritch gods called the “Horrorterrors.”

Julia would not only have the ability to traverse the furthest ring and visit other universes, but she would also have the ability to bend the horrorterrors to her will. She would be able to switch in and out of grimdark mode at will, and most likely would not be adversely effected.

Julias powers would most likely include: a. The creation and manipulation of black holes and the general desperation of physical matter b. The ability to turn invisible and probably teleport c. The ability to erase peoples memories and mute their senses, and d. The ability to speak, read, and write the language of the horrorterrors.

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Jacob, Prospitian Prince of Rage:

A Prince is a destroyer of and with their aspect.

Rage is the aspect of fate, defiance, and rejection.

As the Prince of Rage Jacob is the destroyer of and through failure, negativity, and rejection. Jacob forged his own path, he destroyed his fate as a writer and destroyed the limits and expectations for what an artist could be, and he got a job at college humor despite the odds.

Jacob is also, or was, a punk; a subculture that is predicated on the destruction of barriers through rebellion.

Even though he can use Rage for good he often doesn’t; he is well known for stirring discourse, his particular brand of Rage elicits anger and hatred thanks to his flaming hot takes.

He is also known for his infinite petty anger at dumb things ex. “see animals shouldn’t live under ground,” “lizards shouldn’t have to lick their eyes,” “muppet is short for man-puppet,” “mayo is food lube,” and “if god’s ever been mad at anything I’ve said, he hasn’t done shit about it.”

Jacob’s abilities would be: a. Becoming physically stronger the angrier he gets, or somebody gets at him b. The ability to create and control lightning c. The ability to pacify or remove the anger from somebody d. The ability to make people fear him or e. turn against their own allies.

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Karina, Dersite Knight of Heart:

A Knight is a person who precisely uses and exploits their aspect as a weapon or a tool.

Heart is the aspect of emotion, passion, and identity.

As a Knight of Heart Karina uses feelings as a weapon. Not only does Karina use her powers to literally use the emotions of her characters (see Schmidt and Nando) as a tool to effect others, but she also has deep passions like Neopets, Digimon, and Yugioh that she uses as a weapon to torment the Drawfee crew.

Karina is passionate about her identity, never missing a chance to mention any of her favorite things like Beelzemon, Seto Kaiba, catboys, or her Texan roots (Bucky’s).

Karina would have honed impulses, knowing when and where to act and how to do (or draw) something challenging. She also has the ability to hype up her friends, strengthening their resolve.

Karina’s abilities would be: a. She can create a powerful glowing weapon by materializing her soul b. She could find out the weaknesses, emotions, and insecurities of enemies c. She could split into multiple versions of herself to create a veritable army of clones, and d. Enter a soul form where she is basically impervious to most attacks.

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David, Dersite Maid of Time:

A Maid is a person who heals and regenerates their aspect or with their aspect.

Time is the aspect of machines, music, and endings.

As a Maid of Time David heals time; more often then not time is not an abstract thing, and the responsibility of time players is to keep the timelines in order and fix paradoxes.

David, as the chief editor for Drawfee is responsible for taking whatever dumb shit the crew gives them and edit it to make the video palatable.

David is also interested in theater (see “Artists Draw Posters for Musicals (They've Never Seen)” one of the only episodes in which they appear) which is related to time through music.

An interesting thing to note about Time is that it is often equated with heat, fire, and lava, something David has experience with, revealed in the episode “Drawing What We're Thankful For In 2019” in which Nathan depicts David with an overheating external drive (something that is also mechanical).

David could: a. Essentially freeze time, making moments last for hours b. Heal paradoxes in the time line c. Fix events so they go favorably, or d. Speed up time to heal a wound

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Tristan, Prospitian Mage of Light:

A Mage is a person who understands their aspect by experiencing it.

Light is the aspect of fortune, luck, relevance, and knowledge.

As a Mage of Light Tristan has an innate and personal understanding of lore; Tristan, through his interactions with pop culture, knows a lot about said things.

Mages often experience their aspect in a negative way, seen in the frequent possession of Tristan by the Lore Librarian, and his burden of knowledge about absurd and obscure facts about nerd media.

Tristan is one of the only people on the crew who understands how the game works and what the final boss’s deal is, but you know he’s going to be cryptic and vague about it because it’s funny. Tristan would have the uncanny ability to know what something is without having seen it before.

Tristans abilities are: a. Foresight, he can tell exactly when and where something will happen and manipulate them in his favor b. He can give people luck or take it away c. He can manipulate light and probably use it as a projectile, and d. Know exactly what has to be done at any moment.

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Willie, Dersite Bard of Blood:

A Bard is a person who invites the destruction of or with their aspect

Blood is the aspect of bonds, stability, and unity.

As the Bard of Blood Willie actuates the severing of bonds and the dissolving of stability.

Willie is a change maker, he breaks down the stable and familiar structure of the established group dynamics in Drawfee often in an antagonistic way; Willie is well known for his hatred for Jacob, and his very presence elicits the rage in both of them.

Videos in which Willie appears are marked by hostility, but through him new and interesting things get made.

Being a bard isn’t all bad, Bards of blood are not one sided; A bard of blood has the ability to destroy using the bonds they have, uniting a group of people under a cause to destroy something, like rallying the crew against Jacob.

Willie, like a lot of the crew, has a lot of buffing abilities; utilizing his bonds he can make others more powerful and fight harder than they could otherwise.

Willie’s abilities are: a. Control of literal blood b. Group sync, he acts as a conduit through which the coordination and damage output increases, and c. Dismantle, he can break the bonds of atoms and make physical matter crumble away.

[popculturebuffet]

The Color of Friendship Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27): A World of People

Happy Black History Month! Another day, another comission from longtime supporter of the blog Weird Kev and like a good chunk of his-non duck asks, he asked me for something outside my usual wheelhouse. In the past this has meant an episode of the short lived fox show whoops in which we found out how Santa dealt with the end of the world, didn’t know how doors worked, and interacted with some characters so thin you could remake the episode with just Mick Foley in a santa suit and carboard cutouts playing the characters lines and it’d be about the same, and earlier this month Sorry Wrong Meeting, an episode of a sitcom i’d never seen an episode of the Jeffersons about the KKK. So unsuprisingly his big comission for Black History Month was the 2000 Disney Channel Original Movie, The Color of Friendship. 

I couldn’t find much on the making of the film, which dosen’t entirely suprise me as at the time this came out, Disney was releasing around 10 a year and whlie that stopped shortly, it still was a whopping 6 a year for some time, ocasionally more ocasionaly less, slowly dwindling down to the two of year we have now. Though it’s still an ongoing concern and has been since the channel started in 83, closing in on 40 years ago, so it’s still impressive Disney hasn’t just outright phased them out. Then again the popular ones make them a lot of money and some like High School Musical and the Descendants Trilogies have broken out so big they’ve lead to spinoff books, tv series in the latter’s case, and all that stuff making them money hand over fist. So making some cheap movies that MIGHT end up making them rich and usually star people that are already on shows they have or were at one point is a no loose proposition, especially now they add an extra release to the Disney Plus callender twice a year. And while the library has it’s gaps and i’ve griped about them enough.. I will say it’s stil la damn good library and it’s nice to be able to watch a film like this, as the dvd was LONG out of print and likely horribly expensive, and while renting it was an option, it would’ve chipped into what I got commissioned for the film. Still would’ve done it it just would’ve sucked to loose money on the deal, if only two bucks, for something I had no control over. Still would do that over adding it onto the comission fee. Point is stuff that’s not been easy to get for some time is now just a few clicks or taps of the remote away, and having the VAST majority of disney’s long and storied history from theatrical to dcom to weird tv oddities like.. this thing

I don’t know what Fuzzbucket is, and frankly I don’t want to know.. I mean I will for a comission or something but i’m not going to go out of my way to find out what that thing is and if it can give me scabies through a telvision screen despite being fictional and proabably long dead. At least I tell myself it’s long dead so ic an sleep at night without worrying about that thing breaking into my house and watchnig me while I sleep changing “SOON JACOB, SOON”. So yeah while you’ll hear me complain about the gaps in DIsney Plus’ library a lot on this blog. 

I will give credit where it’s due, and what is on there is pretty expansive and now includes the Muppet Show, which I give them full credit for as that probably took a LOT of work and money to make happen. Plus WandaVision is fucking fantastic, especially now i’m finally all caught up. 

But while as I said I couldn’t find much on the making of the film I did find a bit on it’s inspiration: It was inspried by a short story wrtten by Piper Dellums, a writer, poet and activist, and daughter of Ron Dellums. Dellums is a notable congressman who fought against apartheid and constantly fought for a bill to divest from South Africa, something that SHOCKINGLY, Ronald Regan tried to veto because he was a racist disney anamatronic what did you expect, and all in all seemed pretty awesome. He sued Bush SR to try and prevent Desert Storm, in his earliest days in office had an exibit near his phsyical office of vietnam war crimes to try and hold them acountable and in general seems to be a fascenating, hardworking man who constantly and religiously fought for the people and against war. 

The story was a real life account of the Piper’s experince housing a South African Student, Marie, who the Delums Family expected to be black.. but turned out ot be white. During Apartheid, south africas racist as hell and horrifying goverment system of segregation that wasn’t abolished till the 90′s. As expected she was racist, but as a proudct of the horribly racist country she came from and much like with her fictional counterpart in this film, slowly grew to realize how fucked up her homeland was and by the time she went back, became an activist She and Piper were very close but her story ends tragically as eventually Piper stopped hearing from her after she was arrested and despite attempts to talk to her.. it was clear by the silence, and by the fact Piper visited South Africa post-aparthied to help and likely would’ve seen her.. that she was likely quitely killed by the state. But her story thankfully lives on, so join me under the cut to see how a 20 year old disney movie aired during black history month handles this difficult real life story, racisim and the 70′s. 

The Cast: Quick bit about the cast since I usually do this for first episodes of an animated show and wish i’d done so for my other film reviews so far. Though to keep things simple, i’m only doing the main four cast members, especailly since frankly outside of Mahree’s parents the rest are more supporting roles that don’t have a lot of screen time and in hte case of the south african embassy workers, are just there to be racist card board cutout villians.  Piper, who keeps her name from real life is played by Shadia Simmons, who eventually retired from acting to become a High School and Acting Teacher. During her career she was in a bunch of Disney Channel Original Movies, including the first two Zenon Movies, and was in a major role in a bunch of live action childrens shows: I Was A Sizth Grade Alien, Strange Days at Blake Holsely High, and Life with Derek, the only one of which i’ve seen and even then barely so I can’t comment on the rest of her work. Simmons does a decent job in the film, and does shine in the more dramtic scenes, not the best part of it but certainly not bad at all. 

Lindsay Haun plays Mahree, and had more of an acting career after this one, having a small recurring role on True Blood as Hadley, while also directing some smaller films. Haun is easily one of the two highlights of the movie and the best of the two main tween actresses by a mile. More on that in a bit. 

Next we have Carl Fucking Lumbly as Congressman Ron Dellums. Carl has had a long and storied career and the fucking is because of what I best know him from: Playing the Martian Manhunter Jon Jonzz on Justice League. And let me not undersell it: his version of Jon is waht made me LOVE the character, still do to this day, being the first time I encountered any version of Jon and the one I still love the most, a stoic man who tries to adapt to a world he feels he can never be a part of, adding shades to his stitled demeanour to show off his emtitons and in general being the heart and soul of what made this verison work and made me love the character with his performance. He’s done other stuff too including Cagney and Lacey, Doctor Sleepand what have you.. but he’ll always be Jonn to me and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest. Unsuprisingly he’s the other standout here. 

Finally we have Penny Johnson as Ron’s wife and Piper’s Mother Roscoe,  who played Captain Sisko’s love intrest on Deep Space 9 and was one of the leads on castle. Haven’t seen either of those but she does seem awesome and does a terrific job here. 

Moving on to the film itself.. it’s really fantastic. It has some awkwardness and goofy bollocks as you’d expect from a disney channel original movie in 2000, but it handles a really heavy subject, race relations, gracefully and clearly with the goal of educating an audience with a lot of white kids in it about race. So I can praise what it does right i’m going to be handling the parts that are a bit wobbly first so I can get to the good stuff

Awkwardness and Goofy Bollocks:

First the out and out criticism: The films TV Movie roots show in places, as this film lacks the polish these films would have later this decade, with the film barely having an opening title sequence and just sorta throwing you in, though to their credit it does open with the utterly awesome Back in Love Again, because 70′s. 

That slaps and that’s an undeniable fact. What’s also an undenaible fact is the film dosen’t try the hardest to be very 70′s in it’s sets and what not, though it does do it a little with the clothes and that not being the case with Mahree is intentional, as her family while wealthy is from another culture and one literally and metaphorically behind the times. 

I will also say Shadia Simmons is a decent actress, but is mildly weak in comparison to the other 3 in the leads, but its more the result of putting a pretty standard child sitcom actress up against two experinced actors who know what their doing and one whose about as experinced as her, but simply has a LOT to work with and goes above and beyond. It’s less that she’s bad and more that she’s simply not as good as what’s around her, and in general I tend to go easier on child actors since it’s not an easy job for a grown adult much less a teenager, it’s very pressurey and there’s a reason a LOT of them bottom out as they get older or retire all together. 

I will say though that Piper’s brothers are awful and I feel are only there because she actually had brothers. The actors try, i’m not pinning this on them but writing wise their just two little shits who contirbute ntohing of value to any scene their in, being generally way to young to get into the heavy topic at hand, and mostly being there for unfunny shneanigans. They aren’t in the film too much otherwise they might’ve ruined it for me, but if Shadia struggles a bit agianst sttronge perofrmances imagine who younger actors with the stage direction “Be the bane of my existence” and you’ll MAYBE see the problem. 

The film also loves cheesy time passing montages, including an actual factual shopping montage, easily the goofiest, but it’s something you’d expect from a dcom and helps lighten the mood. That’s a running theme outside the brothers there really isn’t anything too silly.. until the last act.  See in the last act, the film tackles the real life death of Steve Biko, a South African activist against apartheid who was captured by the state and very transparently murdered in jail. with the government claming he killed himself which no one bought because why would they, and it sparked riots worldwide and finally got the US to take Apartheid seriously according to the film. Though as I mentioned earlier Regan did not in case you thought the republican party being terrible and deeply racist was a brand new thing. It was not. Guys like Tucker Carlson and Former President Trump are a symptom, not the disease.. though they certainly look and feel like some form of plauge. Point is Mahree is breifly taken by the embassy.. whose staff who take her feel like the Disney Channel Original Movie form of Nazi’s. The heavy accents, the way they compose themselves... I half expect an elderly indiana jones to show up to whip the piss out of them. And dont’ get me wrong, the only diffrence between these pricks and a nazi is the fact they don’t call themselves nazis, this isn’t a nuanced horrifying racist to be scared of but a saturday morning cartoon version. 

While  white supremacists in real life can be cartoonishly evil, again see trump and carlson, it does kind of undercut the seriousness and nuance of things to have your villians be cold, cackling cutouts who are 5 seconds away from saying “You are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor take her away” to our heroine, especailly since Mahree’s reaction to being taken away and confusion at everything and at being treated like a prisoner by her own people are very painful and very well acted.   I do get showing them as monsters, because they were, but given Mahree’s father who as a south african police man was DEFINTELY ONE and even outside his racisim doubts and downtalks his own daughter, still feels like an actual person, if not a GOOD person, they could’ve done better and did in the same film. 

But that stuff aside.. I really can’t find much that’s honestly that silly or bad and as you can tell what little I did was more a product of being a tv movie. So now i’ve got the negatives out of the way

This Film Is Pretty Good: It truly is, for a lot of reasons. But the biggest is the nuance. It could’ve been easy to just have Maree as some racist kid needing to learn a lesson who was openly cruel and easy to jeer at.. but the film went iwth the reality: that she was instead an extremley privlaged and insulated girl who simply NEVER knew better. To her her very racist and segregated world is just the way the world worked for her and she dosen’t even consider when the Dellums come to pick her up minus Ron these aren’t servants and her own servant’s words fall on deaf ears, as the poor woman tries to make it clear how miserable her life is and how much she deseprately wants this child to do better. Marhee is never actively malicious even when, due to the shock of her all black host family, she baricades herself in Piper’s room. It’s obnoxious sure and CERTAINLY hurtful and the film makes no bones about it and Piper rightfully calls her out on it. The film dosen’t let her get away with any intetnional racisim like that and after Piper calls her out, she realizes she’s been selifsh and makes a genuine effort. And even then the film makes a good choice in not making it an easy road to realization. Mahree makes a genuine effort in the first place not because of any big revelation or anything, but because she simply hears her dad in her head telling her she’d give up after a week and that, coupled with Piper’s words, makes her see herself as a selfish brat. Even after she’s floored by a mall where black and white people stand side by side aand casually talks about horrors like ID Cards like i’ts a GOOD thing, because that’s what she’s been taught by her dad. That black people are happy being told where they can and can’t go when no they weren’t they simply had no chocie in the matter. And while we do see early on when an asshole at a restraunt assaults a waiter for an accident that Mahree clearly isn’t okay with the more horrifying side of things, she still dosen’t quite grasp WHY that happened, simply that it’s something that does reguarly she dosen’t like. It’s excellently, and unsuprisingly called back when they visit an ice cream place in the states and something similar happens.. but the guy takes it in stride, even ordering a sundae, to Maree’s confusion. 

It’s what makes the film work and all the more striking: As Roscoe makes clear to Ron, whose admant about nto having a racist in the house, this is not her fault. While the film makes it clear Mahree’s behavior at first was not okay and her prejudiece is not okay, it also makes it VERY clear she’s a product of a terrible system and terrible parenting from people who choose to benneift from the system instead of challenge it. She’s only like this because she hasn’t had a reason to ever think diffrent and just took her parents at face value and no mater the country, this is something that sadly happens far too often: Someone hating a group or thinking discrimination is okay because that’s how they were taught and that’s all they’ve known and the only way to change that is to challenge that opinon and try to get them to have some empathy and see the other way and as this film shows it’s a struggle.. and at the end of the day while the Dellums make a concentrated effort, Maree is the one who has to realize what her parents taught her is bad and her country is inherently flawed and NEEDS to change, just like ours did, and STILL badly needs to. 

And that’s where the nuance kicks in as the good congressman is understandable in not wanting a racist in his house... but his wife is equally right that Maree is not some easy symbol of his hatred towards south africa, but a girl who grew up knowing nothing more than the fucked up system, and eventually he comes around, realizing , especially after she apologizes for him even thinking she’d use a racial slur on piper after a very powerful conversation with the two and piper accidently saying she used the South African N Word, almost accidently getting her friend thrown out, that she simply hasn’t been outside her shell and gently guides her to keep reading roots, even letting her take it with her if she wants back home. The film shows the full pain of the situation  but also shows change is posisble. Again it’s not easy, Mahree has a panic attack waiting in an almost all black line in school and it’s shown to be as horrible a thought as it is., but she DOES change and it comes off as real, as someone realizing the system they grew up with is broken and needs to be fixed and she can’t just sit back and let it. 

What makes this happen, besides the aformentioned kidnapping by saturday morning cartoon racists, is Piper confronting her after a friend from south africa forces Piper to acccept that while her and Mahree are friends, Mahree might not seee her as equal and Piper in turn in a heated argument and easily Simmons best performance of the film, that things are broken and wrong and that her “firend”, her nanny/servant back home, is not happy. It leaves Mahree crying and Ron telling her the honest truth: Change was, and again still is but this was 2000 and while we should’ve had this talk disney channel wasn’t ready for it, needed to make things better here.. and tha’ts what south african’s doing> Fighting for equal rights at last. It’s some powerful, heavy as hell stuff you woudln’t expect from a line of movie that also include a robot house, before that was an actual thing, a merMAN dad MerMan, a boy slowly turning into a leprechaun, and at least two diffrent movies centering around wacky kidnappings. It’s a nuanced and hard look at race, as hard as late 90′s jsut turned into the 2000′s disney could get mind, aimed at kids and the film, whiel stilted really has my utter praise. It’s genuinely moving, well acted and teaches a valuable message that while not eveyrone can change.. it dosen’t hurt to try and help them, as well as the equal message that change start with YOU. someone has to WANT to be better and learn and actually let other people in to help them. And I wont’ lie and say this is the most naunced or subtle film.. at time’s it’s about as subtle as a ralph wiggum throught he window

But sometimes you don’t need to be. It also taught kids about apartheid, not me as I barely saw the film, but many learned of something ghoulsih that had barely ended at the time of the film’s release, something I only learned about as a teen via bloom county and a diffrent world, which has an utterly awesome apartheid episode “A World Alike”. Seriously check it out if you have prime, as it shows that america isn’t the only country with a deep history of ingraned racisim. And was it an easy way to have an anti racisim narriative without fully confronting america’s own racist history? Yup. Just.. yup. Can I blame Disney Channel for it when they clearly, while equipped to tackle racisim, weren’t ready to tackle something that dense or heavy, and while Proud Family later would there’s a diffrence between a 20 minute one off episode of a cartoon and 90 minutes of film? Yeah. For what it is and for what the time period is, I applaud this film taking on such a heavy topic with grace. Some goofyiness here and there yes and some lack of subtly.. but still grace. For what it is is, it’s pretty good and i hope to show it to my nieces one day soon. It has i’ts heart in the right place and thus has a place in my heart. See you next rainbow. 

[aion-rsa]

What Went Wrong With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze?

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The story of how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went from underground comic book to the highest grossing independent film of all time is the stuff of Hollywood legend. But ask producer Tom Gray about the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and you are likely to hear an altogether different tale. One of a frantically rushed production, censorship backlash and a change of director and direction. Actors were replaced, there were clashes with the comic book creators and a series of strange and unusual characters were added to the mix – including Vanilla Ice.  

Gray was head of production at Golden Harvest, the Hong Kong studio behind martial arts classics like Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, when comedian-turned screenwriter Bobby Herbeck first approached him about a live-action film adaptation of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s cult comics.  

It’s fair to say he took some convincing.  

“I hated the idea. I thought it was stupid,” Gray tells Den of Geek. Undeterred, Herbeck pestered Gray for months until the Golden Harvest chief had a sudden change of heart.   

“I had an epiphany and thought we could just put stunt guys in turtle suits and make all our money in Japan. That was why I was interested; making it low budget. It escalated when Steve Barron came onboard.”   

Barron had made his name with groundbreaking music videos for Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and A-Ha’s “Take on Me” and sold Gray and TMNT creators Eastman and Laird on his vision for the movie.   

More importantly, he enlisted the late Jim Henson and his legendary Creature Shop to bring the Turtles to life using state-of-the-art animatronics, which came at no small expense.   

Even so, Gray found the project was a hard sell when it came to finding a major studio willing to distribute the movie.   

“George Lucas’s Howard the Duck had just come out and bombed,” he recalls. “When I went around people would say ‘oh no I’m not going to put my name on the next Howard the Duck. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, how absurd.’ Nobody wanted to step up in the major studios.”   

Undaunted by the mass rejection (“Hollywood is always the last to know”) Gray eventually secured a deal with New Line Cinema, then best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street. 

The rest, as they say, is history.  

That first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came from nowhere in the spring of 1990 to make an astonishing $135 million, becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process. A sequel was inevitable but the results were anything but.   

“It was rushed,” Gray says when asked for his overriding feelings about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.  “Once the first film opened, we figured we had to get another one out as quickly as possible because this whole thing could fade away very quickly if we didn’t come back.”   

Incredibly, a release date for the sequel was set for almost exactly a year on from the original. That seems crazy to think now, in the era where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is carefully plotted out years in advance, but this was 1990 and New Line Cinema. At this point the production company which was working on its sixth Nightmare on Elm Street Movie in the space of just seven years. The quality of those films had varied wildly but one thing had remained consistent: the quick turnaround.  

“New Line wanted it out on pretty much the same date, maybe a week earlier in fact. So, we rushed into the production, got a script together. The overarching thing was speed. We had to get it out,” Gray remembers. “I think that’s probably the reason why it doesn’t top many people’s list of the best Turtles movies.”   

A Change in Tone

One of the first challenges facing Gray was a tonal one. While the first TMNT film had garnered praise for maintaining the dark and dangerous feel of the original comics, not everyone was happy.   

“We started getting some pressure from parental groups. They felt it was a little too dark and a little too frightening for children,” Gray says.  

In the US, there were reports of Turtles toys and merchandise being banned in schools over worries they encouraged aggressive behavior in kids. In the UK, the characters were even rebranded the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles amid concern among censors that the word “ninja” promoted violence. Michelangelo’s nunchucks were also banned. It wasn’t just the censors who expressed concern either.   

“The toy company was also telling us that maybe we shouldn’t be too dark,” Gray said. “And then, of course, then there was Jim Henson himself, who died while we were making the first film. His whole thing from the beginning was that he didn’t want to make a really dark film. Steve [Barron] was able to convince him it was the way to go even though it was different from the Muppets and everything he had done before. They had a great relationship. Jim trusted Steve.”   

The decision was made to approach the material with a lighter tone, with Todd Langen’s original script undergoing a major rewrite to address the change. Despite the change Gray insists an attempt was made to retain some of the darker elements.   

“We tried to get somewhere in between but probably didn’t succeed.”   

Ultimately, however, the looming deadline left little room for nuance.    

“If you sit down and think about this thing too much, you’re never going to get underway,” he reasons.

A New Director  

In another notable shift that fans have questioned down the years, Barron did not return for the sequel.  

The Irish filmmaker told Flickering Myth that the shift in sensibilities was the deciding factor.   

“[It was] lighter, and all the instructions that had gone on from the first film were coming from the producers about keeping the color and lightness and getting away from the dark edge in number two,” he said. “For me it was poppy, and that wasn’t my sensibility.” 

Gray tells Den of Geek Barron didn’t come back “for reasons that I won’t go into” but during the interview paints a picture of difficulties during their work together on the first film.   

“I fought with the crew every single day but they did a hell of a job. Budgets were not adhered to but I’ve always given them credit because of their vision,” Gray says.   

The producer also revealed that the first film was re-edited from Barron’s original version after his bosses were left unhappy with the director’s cut.  

“The studio did edit the film in the end to come up with a different version.  It was felt it was cut so you didn’t get to see the roundhouse kicks and fighting which was the hallmark of Golden Harvest. When the bosses saw it in Hong Kong, they complained that they couldn’t tell what the turtles were doing. They wanted to see these guys kicking and fighting. Steve’s style was good but we wanted another look.”   

Despite Gray’s diplomatic tone, it’s not difficult to imagine such developments might have created tension. In Barron’s place came American filmmaker Michael Pressman, who Gray knew from his days at United Artists.    

“What I liked about Michael was that he was a disciplined director. Having gone through the problems with the first picture I wanted someone who shot fast and stayed on budget. That was my main motivation,” the producer says.    

A capable director who has gone on to enjoy a long and varied career in television, little of the blame for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2’s failing can fall at Pressman’s feet though it’s undeniable that some of the creative spark of the first film was lost with Barron’s exit.   

So was much of the original’s violence, with the Turtles rarely shown using their weapons in the finished film while the action set pieces were also significantly watered down.  

Eastman and Laird

Despite the criticism levelled at the sequel for failing to retain the tone of the comics, all of what went into the movie was greenlit by the TMNT creators. Part of the deal inked by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman saw them retain final approval on anything in the film. But that created other issues both at script and production level, as Gray recalls.  

“Kevin was certainly more malleable with going along with things because of the budget but Peter was very difficult to get things by because he would say ‘Oh, well Michelangelo would never say that’. So, it was very hard from the point of view of the writer trying to figure it all out.”   

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With Barron no longer around to mediate and sell them on the plans and with time ticking on, the pair’s reluctance to sign off on ideas led to increased tensions.  

“We argued a little bit,” Gray says. “These things are never sweet or nice. It gets down to what we can do and, in the time provided. It’s about compromise. In the end they approved Langren’s changed script.  Maybe it was reluctantly but we weren’t going to meet the demand and get this out if they kept changing things.”   

Tokka and Rahzar

One of the most noted criticisms of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 concerned the decision to introduce two new sidekicks alongside returning villain Shredder, rather than draw on the wild array of mutant animals that had featured in the comics and TV series. 

Many fans had expected to see Bebop and Rocksteady, the mutant warthog and rhinoceros supervillains made famous in the cartoon, feature. However, that cartoon outing proved both a blessing and a curse. 

“I didn’t want them in any of the movies,” Laird later revealed on his personal blog. “It’s not so much that I disliked the characters so intensely, but more that I found their constant one-note shtick in the first animated series to be extremely annoying and silly to the point of being stupid.”  

Gray’s version of events differs slightly.   

“We wanted new villains because we would get a piece of the royalty, which we didn’t have with the first movie. We figured if we created something they didn’t come up with we would get a piece of the pie. It was a business decision.”   

Together with the creatives at Henson’s Creature Shop, they “threw together” Tokka and Rahzar, a mutant Alligator Snapping Turtle and wolf respectively, based on pretty much whatever was available. 

“Those things were basically the Henson Creature Shop’s ideas, because they had to figure out, technically, what they could do, how big they were going to be and how they could move,” Gray says. “They had to design all this stuff, put someone in the suit and then wire them up or get the animatronics going to make it work. So, we just went to them and said we need a couple of villains.” 

Indeed, the resulting animatronics proved less complex and less compelling than the heroes in a half shell – and it showed on screen.   

“They were just big models,” Gray admits. “We cut corners, there’s no question about it.”   

Sweaty and Claustrophobic

Meanwhile, the turtle suits themselves had undergone little in the way of upgrades since the first film, when the actors playing the four leads experienced any number of issues. Not the least of which being the claustrophobia and sweating that comes with wearing up to 70lbs worth of turtle suit.  

The animatronics also, despite being state-of-the-art, continued to suffer their fair share of glitches.  

“We knew what the difficulties were and they were unbelievable,” Gray says. “There were days when we couldn’t even get these things set up.  We were filming right near the Wilmington Airport. We set up a shot and when it came time for action the Turtles would not speak. We realized they were on the same frequency as the airport.”    

Gray blames the lack of a major upgrade, in part, on the lack of additional budget.    

“The budget didn’t exponentially go through the roof, because of the speed,” he explains. “I have read things saying it was $20 million. It wasn’t, it was $16.5 million.”  

A New April O’Neil

Away from the animatronic issues, the human cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 proved a mixed bag.  Corey Feldman didn’t return to voice Donatello after pleading no contest to a drug possession charge while, more notably still, Judith Hoag was replaced by Paige Turco as April O’Neil.  

Hoag later told Variety she was never approached about the sequel, claiming her omission was a result of the fact she complained about the level of violence in the first movie and the six-days-a-week shooting schedule.  

“Everybody was beating everybody up,” Hoag said. “I thought the movie suffered because of that. It was something I spoke to the producers about, I think they thought I was too demanding, and moved on.” 

Not that Gray felt the production suffered as a result of either changes.  

“No, not at all,” he says. “Certainly not with Corey Feldman because it’s a voice. Remember when you play that movie around the world it will be in 40 or 50 different languages and subtitled anyway. It makes no difference and nobody overseas even knew Corey Feldman was doing a voice…With Judith, we thought it might be of concern but then again it’s all about the Turtles. People aren’t showing up for Judith – though she did a fabulous job – it was really all about the Turtles.”   

Elias Koteas also failed to return as the ice hockey stick-wielding vigilante and ally Casey Jones – though that was more down to the film’s shift away from adult themes and one of the more violent human characters.   

“Casey was discussed but the reason he dropped out – and I don’t think this was a major issue – was the direction we wanted to take the film,” Gray says. “We wanted to go lighter. That was part of cleaning up the act.”   

In his place came Ernie Reyes Jr, a rising martial arts star who had served as a stuntman on the first film and was introduced as Keno, a pizza delivery boy who befriends the turtles. It was a stark departure from Koteas’s character but, once again, it was one Gray says came with the backing of the TMNT hierarchy.   

“If Peter and Kevin had wanted Elias back, he would have been back. So, either we were able to convince them that we wanted to go with Ernie and they went along with it.”   

Vanilla Ice

Quite how they were convinced to include rapper Vanilla Ice in the proceedings is anyone’s guess, with the rapper turning up in a mid-film nightclub scene to perform new single “Ninja Rap.” His cameo continues to delight and horrify fans to this day. Few will be surprised by the commercially-minded circumstances that led to his appearance.   

“SBK the record label producing the soundtrack album said ‘You gotta have Vanilla Ice in this, he’s hot’ so we put him in…We had a good album out of it. Sometimes you don’t make the movie for the reason of art you make it because the thing could go away in a heartbeat. I’ve always been fairly honest and upfront about our motives. It is a business.”     

While others might disagree, Gray stands by the inclusion of Vanilla Ice in the film.  

“He actually did a very good job. He’s a very cool operative and he loved doing it.”   

Shredder or Krang?   

Looking back on the sequel, as much as anything, the most disappointing aspect was the decision to resurrect Shredder rather than explore different villains in the way other comic book franchises have.  

While Shredder has always been the main antagonist, as with Bebop and Rocksteady, there remained a plethora of colorful villain characters that could have been plucked from the pages of the original comic or the animated series. But the decision to stick with Shredder was not one takem lightly by anyone, and others were discussed.  

“We went through the whole catalogue of villains and certainly Krang and all these other characters were in play,” Gray says. “We thought of them but we stayed with what works and that’s what you do in these situations. Don’t try and get too clever.”   

As much as anything he blames the Hollywood system and a refusal to take risks. New Line too, would have no doubt been happy to press ahead with a Shredder-oriented sequel, seeing him as the TMNT’s very own Freddy Kreuger of sorts.  

“Nobody trusts their instincts,” Gray says. “You go with what worked before and try to modify it a little bit. If it works [and the plethora of Freddy sequels suggests it did] then you are justified in using the same thing over and over again.”  

Once again though the decision to stick with Shredder and avoid the kind of time and expense required to create something like Krang, a brain-shaped alien carried around in the waist of a robot man, was influenced by that release date.  

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze opened in theaters on March 22, 1991, less than a year on from the original. It went on to make over $78 million to become the second most successful independent film of all time.   

Despite turning a profit, the film garnered mixed reviews and left Gray and others disappointed.  

“It didn’t deliver on what we had hoped because there was this race against time to get it out one year after the first one. When you do that, you really have to compromise.”  

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III 

After the rush to make a second film, it was decided that they would take more time over the third one.  

But anyone hoping for a return to form was left disappointed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in TIme, which saw the gang head to 17th century Japan.  

“With number three, we were aiming something at the Japanese market, which was the number one market for foreign films,” Gray explains. “That’s why we had the time travel storyline with the samurais. That was definitely one of the motivations.”  

There was just one problem though.  

“We hoped it would get the film released in Japan. To this day, it has not been released in Japan.”  

Though Gray returned to produce an animated fourth film in the 2000s box office returns diminished with every film. By the time Michael Bay got involved in the franchise, Gray was long gone. He now considers himself “out of the turtle game” with this being one of the last interviews on the subject. But despite the highs and lows endured on the second film, Gray remains proud of what was achieved. 

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“These movies were made by committee. It’s amazing they turned out so well.”  

The post What Went Wrong With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[honeymoonjin]

enjoy your stay - chapter five

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven

A/N - Just for now, I’m trialing not putting in chapter links on this post to see if it helps more people see it since the tumblr search function cuts out posts with links. If there’s not a big difference, I’ll put them in later, but to see the first chapter if you’re a new reader, please click on my blog and check out my masterlist. 

ENJOY YOUR STAY ↳Boss!Namjoon, Chef!Jin, Receptionist!Hoseok, Bellboy!Jimin, Bartender!Jungkook, Accountant!Yoongi, Photography student!Taehyung ↳Some inappropriate language and cursing. Later chapters have sexual content.

SUMMARY ↳Working the graveyard shift at a hotel isn’t the most exciting job in the world, but your coworkers are certainly happy to have you here.

CHAPTER FIVE ↳Your work friends help encourage you to straighten out your problems with Jin, but is there really such an easy solution? 

Over the week that had passed since you had breakfast with Hobi and Jimin, it became a daily occurrence for the three of you to wander along the main street, finding a dinky little overpriced café to hole up in and hang out for an hour or so.

It was nice hanging out with them outside of work hours, especially when all your past jobs had been filled with toxic competitiveness or people way older than you. You had never really made any work friends before, but if anyone asked you, you wouldn’t hesitate to call Hobi and Jimin your friends.

Today was the first time the three of you had managed to step into a coffeeshop that was actually any good. It had kind of become an inside joke that at one point you’d just end up going back to the hotel to use the staffroom amenities, that at least they were more reliable than the places you’d been going to, but for once the food was good and the hot chocolate with a raspberry shot you got was divine.

“Ugh, these people aren’t prepared for the sick tip I’m about to drop in the glass jar,” Hobi enthuses, “it’s honestly a blessing having a coffee that doesn’t taste burnt.” You wondered how Hoseok ever managed to get to sleep with the double shot black coffee he always chose, but the man did have a habit of constantly surprising you.

Jimin puffed out his cheeks and let out a stream of cooling air over the surface of his mocha. “Shouldn’t you be saving up your money for your share of the cake?” Jungkook’s birthday was in a few days, and as it turned out the hotel night staff had a habit of celebrating each staff member’s birthday. Jungkook had only been working there eight months, and it was his first birthday working for Namjoon, and his 21st no less. You had promised to a stressed-out Joon that you would organize it for him, and the three of you had decided to go thirds in a cake for him, while Jin was going to make kimchi stew for a shared dinner. “Man, if you flake on me again, I’m getting you coal for your birthday.”

“I said I would pay!” Hobi defends himself emphatically, holding his palms out. “Besides, let’s just say I have a…secondary source of income now,” he wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully.

Jimin frowns at him dubiously. “I already told you - you don’t have the ass to be a stripper.”

“What, and you do?” Jimin simply raises an eyebrow in silence. “Okay, that’s beside the point, what I’m trying to say is that I got a job helping out Yoongi during the day.”

Your mouth flops open. “Accountant Yoongi?”

“What other Yoongi is there? Yes, Accountant Yoongi.”

You frown at him in suspicion. “What could you possibly have to offer him?”

Hoseok lets out a strangled cough of indignance. “Excuse me, but I am a man of many talents! And for a busy man like him, sometimes it’s more convenient to buy talents than take the time to pursue them naturally, you know?”

Jimin’s eyes have narrowed into slits, and he would look menacing were it not for the foamed milk moustache sitting on his upper lip. “He pays you to fuck him?”

“Hey!” Hoseok glances around the room to make sure nobody heard, but he doesn’t deny it.

The bellboy pouts and throws his teaspoon on the table dramatically. “Why do you get all the good things in life?” He sighs. “That’s like…the dream.”

You shake your head, still processing. “How did you even- How you do get into that? Did he wander up one day with a business proposal? That’s so wild,” you exclaim in a hushed whisper.

Jimin smirks. “Why, wanting to make your own business arrangement, baby? I’m right here.”

You glare at him beseechingly. “Hobi’s getting paid and you think I’m going to let you fuck me for free? Get real.” Over the past few coffee dates the flirtations between you and Jimin had gotten way more explicit than they ever could at the hotel, and at this point you wondered if he would even take the chance if he was given it, since he seemed to get so much joy just out of teasing you.

“Oh no, baby, I think you’re the Yoongi in this situation. After all, you did try and pimp me out to Taehyung last week.”

“Okay, you know very well that that was blackmail, we’ve been over the Taetastrophe before, I was just playing matchmaker, it’s not at all indicative of… of how I usually am.”

Hobi scoffs into his coffee and shakes his head bemusedly. Jimin grins, catlike. “So you normally prefer somebody else to take control, then?”

You stare at him for a moment. “…Anyway, Hobi, you still haven’t told us how this whole sugar daddy thing works. Feel free to share with the group.”

He looks up from absentmindedly stirring his drink. “Well, there’s an app, and it sorts you out by location, and it just happens that the number of rich gays in the area is limited, so really it was kinda inevitable that we would be matched up.”

You frown. “Oh. I was expecting a little more romance, passion and intrigue, you know? That’s boring.”

Hoseok turns to you. “I never said there wasn’t passion and intrigue. Have you ever gone down on a guy while he’s having an important Skype meeting with Chinese investors? Cause I have.”

You break out into a scandalized blush, but Jimin just lets out a short laugh. “Damn, Hoseok, I cannot believe the receptionist is getting more action than the bellboy. I mean, have you seen how hot my thighs look in these pants? It’s sinful that Namjoon lets me wear them, but he knows I bring in the customers, so he won’t say anything.” Jimin shifts in his seat and stares you down. “Speaking of action, has your sad little slobberfest in the kitchen actually gone anywhere? I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you to dinner yet.”

You let out a defeated moan around your last mouthful of hot chocolate. “No, and for a while he’d leave cute little gifts and stuff around, but I feel like maybe he really did just want some reassurance in a tough time and that he’s not actually interested…” you trail off when Hoseok and Jimin share a meaningful look. “What? Has he talked to you guys about me?”

The receptionist scratches under his collar awkwardly, and Jimin looks a little guilty. After a few attempts to get the gossip out of them, Jimin finally lets out a deep sigh. “He does like you, honestly, but… Look, he’s heard some other staff, and guests, talk about you, and he doesn’t want it to be a competition, so he’s giving you some space. Poor guy probably thinks you’re already taken.”

Your frown deepens. “What do you mean? Who’s been talking about me?”

He glances up at the ceiling for a few moments, working his jaw, then looks down again. “All of us, Y/n. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t noticed. Hobi’s probably the only one who doesn’t, but now I realize that’s probably just because Yoongi wears him out.” You let out a shaky laugh when Hoseok nods sadly, but your face is still twisted up in confusion. “Jin’s not a competitive guy, babe. If you want to be with him, you have to let him know, otherwise he’ll just carry on acting like nothing’s happened. He’s not very confrontational. He just doesn’t want to create any tension between the guys, that’s all.”

Your mind races at a hundred miles an hour, trying to catch up. This is surely the weirdest conversation you’ve had in a mom-and-pop coffee shop, and you’re still trying to process everything. “Wait, you said guests, too?”

Hoseok hums in affirmation. “Taehyung’s been kinda bragging to Jungkook about the fact that he’s had you in his room multiple times. Technically it’s true, but he makes it seem like the two of you are a thing. Jungkook idolizes Jin, so the news got back to him pretty fast. I’m sorry, muppet, the whole situation is kind of a mess. We should’ve told you sooner, but we figured you must’ve already known.”

You shake your head slowly, brushing off his apology. Tae was acting like the two of you had sex? How were you going to face sweet Jungkook at his party knowing that he probably thought you had fucked his friend? Hoseok was right, the whole situation was fucked up.

You stare into the dregs of cocoa at the bottom of your mug. “What do I even do? I don’t want people to think any less of me, much less for something that never actually happened.”

Jimin shrugs. “I mean, the two of us are on the same page as you, so don’t worry about us. You just need to work out which of the other guys you want to explain things to first and go from there. Work out some priorities, girl, or this whole drama will end in tears.”

You nod, resigned to your fate, and get up from your seat. “I’ll see you two later tonight, then. I’ve got a call to make.”

You made in home in a little over twenty minutes, quickly changed out of your work clothes into some pajamas and sat on the couch staring at your phone for way too long, finger hovering over Jin’s name in your contacts list.

Should you call him now and wake him or just wait until work tonight? It was already quite late, or rather, early, and you wanted to get a decent sleep. No matter when you spoke with Jin, you still had Tae and Jungkook to sort out. It was going to be an intense shift.

Clenching your eyes shut, deciding to bite the bullet, you call him, and try to still your racing heart as the rings echoed in your empty apartment.

Five, then six, then seven, until you considered just hanging up. Finally, on the ninth ring, the call goes through and Jin’s delightfully deep voice calls out your name.

“I’m sorry for waking you, but I really needed to talk to you.” It’s only when you get this far that you realize you actually haven’t planned out what it was exactly that you wanted to say. “I… I miss you. I feel like you’ve been avoiding me lately.”

A pregnant pause on the other end. “I, yeah, I have.”

Your heart drops. You have to focus all your energy into keeping your voice steady. “I hope I haven’t done anything to upset you. Jimin told me about some of the workplace banter that’s been going around about me. I wanted you to know it’s not true.”

Again, he takes a while to reply. You can’t work out if his sleep-addled brain is just taking longer to process, or if he’s really thinking about what he’s saying. “Well. I’m glad it’s not true. You shouldn’t be sleeping with guests, especially not ones that are directly related to the boss, and especially not on company time.”

“That’s the thing! I didn’t! I had to go into his room to talk to him about something, but nothing of that nature happened. I promise you.” It takes you a while to realize that the extended silence that follows isn’t him preparing a response, but that he really isn’t going to reply at all. You clear your throat. “I really like you, Jin. I know workplace romance isn’t really the best thing to get into, but… I don’t know, that kiss changed a lot of things for me. I can’t stop thinking about it. And I feel like such an idiot that I’ve gone and wasted my chance because of a rumor going around. I’m sorry.”

He breathes your name the moment you apologize, and the weight of the emotion it holds leaves you speechless. You lean back against the arm of your couch, both hands holding your phone snugly to your ear like it could get you any closer to the man on the other end.

“It’s not about the rumors,” he confesses quietly. “Look, I think the world of you, and I hope you know that. But you said that the kiss changed everything for you,” he breaks off to sigh heavily and you have to chew on the inside of your cheek to stop from taking back the words that upset him, “I’m sorry, but that’s just not me. Fuck, if my ex saw me like that she’d probably change her mind and take me back, but the reality is, that’s not what I’m like most of the time. Would you ever feel this hung up over the chef you met on your first day that was carting around lobsters in an ice bucket? Because that’s me. That’s me when I’m not miserable after a break-up, and that’s why my girlfriend couldn’t stay with me. I can’t… I can’t be with you if you see me as that heartbroken pile of mush on the kitchen floor. I’d just be setting you up for disappointment like I did with the last girl. You don’t deserve that.”

It’s not until you go to reply that you notice how much your eyes sting and how your throat is beginning to choke up with emotion. You take a breath before you speak but it’s too shaky to reassure you. “What can I do to prove to you I like the real you? How can I show you I’m serious when you never let me see you?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I’ve gotten over my ex, and when I’m in the kitchen I’m back to my normal self, I’m sure to Namjoon’s despair, but whenever I see you all that disappears, and I feel like a smitten teenager again. All I want is to hold your hand and take you somewhere nice and-” he breaks off to groan in annoyance. “Fuck, even now you have me confessing my deepest darkest thoughts like a lovesick fool. If I was on the phone to anyone else, I’d be joking around and teasing them, and they’d have hung up already. I just…” he sighs again, but softer than before. “Give me some time to sort myself out. You can…you can do whatever you want with your time, I won’t be mad. But it wouldn’t be fair of me to pursue you when you don’t know what you’re really in for. I’m sorry.” The line clicks dead, and the silence that fills up the apartment is deafening.

You let a few tears fall that had been building up, letting out a wobbly laugh. That was the most heartfelt and emotional rejection you’d ever had. You didn’t know how you were supposed to fall asleep after that, but you crawled down the hall to your bed and collapsed onto the duvet anyway, hoping that sheer exhaustion would take you under.

It was pitch black outside when you awoke, and you hummed in content at the full-body stretch that overtook you, relaxing your muscles and making your vision swim for a bit. As the spots in your peripheral cleared, so did the daze of just waking up. You roll over and check your phone only to see a stream of messages and missed calls, all subtitles under a headline of 1:47am.

“Fuck!” You jolt out of bed and run down the hallway, going to the bathroom as quickly as you could before brushing your hair and teeth, tugging your uniform on bit by bit as you go. You get ready in a record time of 8 minutes, arriving at the hotel a little after 2am.

Rather than spending the extra few seconds it took to go around back to the staff entrance, you pull up and dash into the lobby, ignoring the two men that call out your name, asking what happened, and sprinting down the hall to Namjoon’s office.

Rather than waiting to knock, you burst open the door, panting heavily, and a stream of apologies come out in stutters of breath.

It’s not until you’re met with silence that you actually look up and pay attention to what’s in front of you.

Namjoon and Taehyung are in the office; the elder sitting at his desk like usual, dangling his glasses frame from a single finger while the other hand is buried deep into his hair, tangling up strands. His younger brother is leaned up against a filing cabinet, arms crossed.

Only Tae looks up at you when you storm in, and you’re shocked to see the look of pleasant surprise that crosses his face when he sees you. “Y/n wouldn’t mind! I won’t be a nuisance, honestly, hyung.”

The manager simply groans. “And how would you know what she would or wouldn’t mind? Were you so struck by her presence when she met you for like two minutes?”

You raise your eyebrows at Taehyung in an expression that hopefully conveys ‘good going, genius’, then turn to Namjoon’s hunched form. “What’s happening?”

Finally, he sighs tiredly and sits up, slipping his black frames back on. “Taehyung here wants to earn some money for a new camera, and he’s proposed he can be your assistant.”

You blink, mouth dangling open a little too long. “I thought I was the assistant.”

Namjoon waves one hand in the air and nods. “I told you, Taehyung, you can’t just expect she needs the help. She’s a wonderful employee as is, without you tugging on her skirt for some pocket money. It’d be good for you to spend some time outside of this hotel.”

Even though Tae’s proposal involved you, you still felt like you were intruding on a private conversation. Neither man had even thought to ask you why you were almost two hours late to work. You come in to the office just enough to shut the door quietly behind you, and awkwardly stand in silence, fiddling with your fingers.

“I don’t need to spend time outside of this hotel! Just last Tuesday I went in to uni to hand in my rough draft for the portfolio, which, by the way, you haven’t once asked me about.”

“Oh, you took a trip in to school one time and now you think you deserve a job?”

Taehyung rolls his eyes and looks moments away from stamping his foot in frustration. “Fuck, seriously? I said you could just buy it for me as a birthday gift but no, that would be too much trouble for you, Mr. Small-business Owner,” he drawls sarcastically. “Isn’t it such a shame that mom and dad wasted all the perfect genes on you and used all the sloppy seconds for me? I bet they’re real disappointed that you’re a successful entrepreneur and I’m just some sad, starving artist, huh? I bet you’re real disappointed in me, too,” he mutters the last part, kicking his feet on the carpet, not looking his older brother in the eye.

You try desperately to avoid eye contact with either of them, certain you shouldn’t be here, hearing this, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Namjoon hasn’t given you a second glance this whole time. He’s staring straight at Tae, struck silent, with tears slowly gathering in his eyes.

There are a few moments of uncomfortable silence, broken only by Tae’s sniffing, and when he does finally speak, it’s so soft that you strain to hear it only a few feet away. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Well,” Taehyung scoffs, but there’s no bite to it, “now you do. If my own brother won’t hire me, I guess I better go find a job somewhere else in town. Excuse me.”

He bustles past you and you wince when the door slams, Namjoon looking up at the noise with red eyes. He seems to at last take note of your presence, and his gaze flickers once to the clock on his desk, then back to you. He doesn’t say anything, but simply tilts his head slightly as a gesture for you to explain yourself.

A little put off by the events you probably shouldn’t have witnessed, you have to clear your throat before getting any words out. “I had a rough day and forgot to set my alarm when I went to sleep. I’m so sorry. It won’t be happening again.”

Too drained to really put up a fight, he just nods. “I think we’ve all had a rough day. It’s fine.” He takes a stabilizing breath and sits up straight in his chair. “Hoseok’s run out of printer paper again, can you please drop some off to him asap?”

It’s clear that the conversation has ended, and he just wants you to leave so he can compose himself, but after grabbing a couple reams of paper from the stationery drawer in the office, you pause by Namjoon’s desk, bend down, and pull him into a quick hug.

He still doesn’t say anything, but his arm comes up to wrap tightly around your back, and you can feel the way his hands are shaking slightly. You give him one last squeeze and let go, sending him a soft smile before you leave.

Once you leave the tension of the office behind, you blow out your cheeks and sigh. Even though your shift was technically going to be a couple hours less than normal due to your tardiness, you had a feeling it was going to be the longest one yet.

[stupidinspadesconstantine]

This is a fic set in the Caught in the Undertow Verse where Rip and John are fox shifters, and also, eventually, in a relationship.

Please note the trigger warnings.

Numb

-

John tries his best, but it isn’t good enough. He’s on autopilot. Rip is excited about the flat, about them moving in together and having a place of their own. John is a grieving, emotional wreck who can barely make it from one day to the next without tears or nightmares or just needing time to himself. So, John smiles because he doesn’t want to ruin this moment for Rip, and puts on the best act that he can. It’s important to Rip, that he’s leaving home, even if he’s only moving a few miles away, and John owes Rip so much lately. The fake smile becomes more permanent the longer he uses it, and he’s not sure he remembers what the real one feels like anyway.

He wants to be genuinely happy about this too and he knows that under other circumstances he’d be just as excited by it as Rip is. He is pleased not to be sleeping on the couch and at the idea of having his own bed, or at least he would be if he could manage any kind of real emotion. But everything is flat and grey, and nothing seems to hold much interest for him. He’s just tired, and every little thing feels like it’s a struggle, even the happy things like moving into a new flat with his best friend.

Rip has boxes of stuff that need to be moved from the car into the flat, including a whole load of things for the kitchen that Mary gave them after she had a turnout of her own kitchen. She’s given them a few other things too, a couple of armchairs that have seen better days and two old floor rugs that will at least brighten up the place a little. John has his backpack with his clothes in it, his guitar, and a box of things that he collected from his Dad’s house. It’s pitiful. He doesn’t even own a set of sheets to put on his new bed. Mary gives him some, and a hug. He tells her that he’ll pay her back, and she tells him not to be silly.

The visit to his Dad’s house didn’t help his mood. Tom Constantine is still the same drunken bastard that he always was, but also lazy, so John’s room was almost exactly as he’d left it. Rip went with him for moral support, and John picked up the few things he wanted, the last of his clothes, his alarm clock, some records, books, and his small collection of gifts that Rip has given him over the years, each one cherished for what it symbolised.

John unpacks. The collection is placed on the shelf in his new room, not exactly given a position of honour because he feels too self-conscious about them for that, but they’re a small cluster of things placed at one end, beside his books. No one had ever given John many gifts before Rip came along, and certainly not in the casual way that Rip did, like there was nothing important in the act.

There’s a pencil Rip once lent him in maths and told him to just keep, a guitar keychain that he thought John would like, the wrapper from a bar of chocolate, the stub of a cinema ticket, a mug that says “rock star” on it, and none of it is big or even things that other people would keep. But John kept them because they meant something to him. Rip gave them to him, so they are special.

They get more things for the flat as the days go by. John takes Rip on a tour of the best charity shops in London and they pick things out together. Their new home feels less empty. It’s a space that they fill just with their presence mostly, and John is happy that they finally get to just be friends together. Ever since their argument he’s been worried that he and Rip were done, but apparently not.

It seemed like they were pulling in opposite directions when he left London. Rip didn’t want him to go at all, but John couldn’t stay in father’s house any longer. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Mary would have taken him in, so he left. He’d intended to come back, but so much had changed whilst he was away that he wasn’t sure he could. He wasn’t even the same person who’d left the city all those months ago. He felt unclean, like he wouldn’t be welcome there any longer, and he didn’t deserve Rip’s friendship after the things that he’d said.

And Rip had summoned him home with three words. Just like that, and everything was forgiven.

“Come home, John.”

So, he had, because Rip was his home. His home was a person not a place, and it had taken far too long to realise that.

He was somewhat amazed to find that the revelation didn’t actually surprise him that much. Of course, the person who had helped him understand himself, and had always been there when he needed him, who’d woken him from nightmares, who’d opened his house to him, of course he was home. It made so much sense that he kicked himself for not understanding before.

*

John gets a job at the local supermarket, because they need the money and he needs to do something. He stacks shelves, moves boxes and desperately tries not to swear at his idiot manager. He plays melancholy guitar in the evening at a pub where a friend of Chas’s is the landlord, and that helps ends meet. He tries to forget Astra’s face, the blood on his hands, the sharp scent of iron in the air when he found her…

Sometimes he can lose himself in booze and cigarettes and being on stage. Sometimes he can forget for just a few minutes what happened in Newcastle when Rip is explaining something in intricate detail, with hand gestures and that look of delight that he gets in his eyes. Occasionally, very occasionally, John can just lose himself in those green eyes, and he wonders what that means. He can’t think about it now though, whatever it is. It’s too much for him to take on right now.

*

They buy a second hand, battered leather sofa with the first pay cheques of their new living arrangement. It’s worth every penny and more, they both love it the moment they set eyes on it and it’s a good purchase. It makes the flat feel more like it’s theirs, and it gives them somewhere to sit and watch movies on Rip’s laptop. They won’t have enough money for a proper TV for at least another couple of months, maybe more.

Things go well for a while. John doesn’t like his job, but they pay him and it gets him out of the flat for a few hours. He does like playing guitar, especially when Rip comes down to the pub to listen. He knows that his friend is out of his comfort zone when he does that, and he appreciates it all the more for that.

He spends most of his time hanging out with Rip when he isn’t working or sleeping. He tries to flirt with a few good looking girls who frequent the bar, but his fox is very displeased with him. The one time it looks like he might have pulled, he realises that it isn’t what he wants after all. He supposes he must be going through a phase where he’s into guys instead, it’s happened before. Except there’s only one guy he seems attracted to. Rip is the only person he really wants to be with, which is kind of weird. He’s his best friend and Rip is definitely not into him that way. He supposes that it’s just that he’s spending a lot of time with him at the moment, and the band are making another stab at touring with Muppet as their lead singer. None of his other old friends are around, and he supposes he’s just a little lonely.

He can’t complain. He feels lighter when he’s with Rip and occasionally a genuine smile crosses his lips now. Perhaps he can move on and put the past behind him.

Then he sees a small, dark haired girl in the street and has three weeks solid of nightmares. Rip hugs him back to sleep late at night as he cries in his friend’s arms, and neither of them talk about it in the morning.

He tries to keep going, but he can’t. He sleeps in and doesn’t go to work for two days after the first week of nightmares. He’s not surprised when they fire him at the end of the month. He signs on to the dole and doesn’t tell them about the gigs in the evenings. He has just enough to make his share of the rent if tips are good, and maybe have a bit left over to buy food if he’s careful. Sometimes he spends his tips on beer instead, and hates himself for it afterwards, even though the numbness was good at the time. It feels like he’s a kid again, living in his father’s shadow, wondering if the housekeeping money will be there this week or already spent on booze. It’s just that this time he’s the one drinking away the money he needs to live on.

The band come back from their tour and it’s obvious that it hasn’t gone well. Muppet doesn’t have the stage presence that John did, and it’s clear that they’re angry that they’ve lost their front man. Chas doesn’t blame him for leaving when he did, or for staying with Rip instead of coming back later. The others aren’t so kind.

He would like to move on, but nothing seems to help, and his mind is hardly ever in the present. He sleeps long days in bed, unable to summon the strength to face the world, unable to even keep up with what day of the week it is.

*

Rip lives his life whilst John gives up on his. He has no idea where he’s going, and sometimes Rip seems like he’s the only real thing in his existence. His friend always makes a point of putting his head around the door and trying to drag John out of his room. He brings him food, even when John doesn’t feel up to eating it. He reminds him to shower occasionally. He brings his laptop into John’s room and bullies him into watching movies with him. Sometimes Rip turns into his fox and falls asleep on John’s lap, just like he used to do when they were kids. John runs his hand through Rip’s fur and calmness follows.

Rip is a solid presence in his life, reliable and understanding. He isn’t sure why he stays, and if he’s honest, he expects him to leave. John is just a burden at this point. He barely brings in enough cash to pay the rent, and often Rip ends up buying food for them both because John is broke again. He keeps expecting him to walk into his room and tell him that John needs to shape up or he’ll go.

Rip doesn’t leave though, he’s still there, and he keeps trying to feed him and get him to get out of the flat more. He coaxes him out for the occasional day in the woods as a fox, even though the fox sulks impressively when John shifts. He plays with the other fox for a while, but his heart isn’t in it, and he usually ends up shifting back and just watching Rip running between the trees, enjoying himself. If John is honest, watching Rip hunt rabbits is one of the few moments he feels at peace with himself. It’s so obvious that Rip is having fun, in his natural element, that it makes him happy to watch his friend.

The days merge together and weeks pass him by. He is well aware that he’s just existing at this point. He keeps hoping that something, anything, will make him feel better, but he can’t seem to pull himself out of this slump that he’s in. None of the things that used to give him joy work anymore. Not playing his guitar, not listening to his music, not movies, not good food, not his friends, and not even Rip some days.

However, there are better patches and, in one of those, John applies for some jobs just so that Rip will stop pestering him to get out and he’ll be able to contribute more to their housekeeping budget. He feels guilty about how little he makes playing guitar at the pub. They still don’t have a television, and when it’s cold, they just put on another jumper.

John is quite surprised when one of his applications bears fruit and he finally does get a new job, working in a warehouse dispatching boxes of things to places that he’s never heard of. It doesn’t take much of his brain to fetch and carry, which is just as well because he feels like he’s seeing the world through a haze. He feels slow and stupid, and he can’t string more than two thoughts together most days. It’s hard to even get to his job, let alone care about it when he’s there, but he does it because he doesn’t want to be a burden to Rip forever.

He looks at Rip and sees him differently now. He doesn’t know when the change happened. It’s like it was so gradual that he can’t even tell when it started. Rip feels like he’s more than just a friend. He makes him feel warm when he’s with him, and like he matters. He finds himself wanting to spend all his time with Rip and no one else.

He still plays guitar in the evening, and smokes more, and drinks more, and wonders what it would be like to kiss Rip Hunter. That stray thought gets shoved to the back of his mind as fast as he can manage it, but it won’t stay there.

Rip comes to the pub to watch him almost every time he plays now. He can see that it’s more out of worry than anything else, because John is always drunk by the end of the night now. There have been a couple of times that he probably would have just slept in a doorway, except Rip is there to see him home.

Rip is always there to be his home, John realises. He wishes that it was enough, and that he could pull himself out of the rut that he’s in. He wonders if anything will now. Maybe he’ll just be like this forever, sad, numb and trying desperately to be happy when he doesn’t even know how.

*

At some point it becomes clear that Rip hates the job that he has. It takes John a lot longer to realise it than it should because he just can’t focus on anything outside his head for very long. He feels bad about that. Rip has done so much for him and he hasn’t been there for him when he could have used a friend. Rip’s job pays well enough, and he’s good at it, because Rip is good at almost everything he tries, but the people are difficult, and he finds it hard dealing with them day in day out. John suggests that he find something else and Rip talks wistfully about opening his own repair shop, like it’s an unattainable dream.

“You should do it,” John says.

“When we’re more settled,” Rip replies.

If John had more energy then he’d tell Rip that he should do it anyway, but he doesn’t, perhaps because he understands what Rip isn’t saying. That Rip doesn’t want to leave his stable job when John is on his second job in less than six months, and who knows how long this one will last? John has barely any qualifications and his current job only pays just above minimum wage.

John loses his second job only a few weeks after that conversation, and feels both guilty and relieved that Rip stayed in the job that he hates. At least they can still eat and pay rent. He doesn’t tell Rip how he lost the job because he’s too embarrassed to explain that he cut himself on a box opener and the blood sent him spiralling into a flashback of finding Astra’s dead body on the floor. Rip just comes home to him in fox form, licking at his front leg and limping a bit. He stays as his fox all night, because it means Rip can’t ask questions, or at least he can’t expect answers.

He goes straight to the pub once he’s human again, and drinks all day. He’s too drunk to play his usual gig that night, and he’s fairly sure that Chas is the only reason that he doesn’t find himself fired from two jobs in two days. Chas calls Rip and Rip takes him home.

John tells Rip that he’s good looking on the way home, and Rip laughs. John doesn’t know what to make of that.

“You’ll find another job,” Rip tells him.

“I know,” says John, but it’ll be like his old job, dull, and a dead end with no future. He isn’t sure he can face it again. He begins to wonder what the point of his life is. Why should he continue with this miserable shell of an existence when there is no happiness and no prospect of anything improving?

The only good thing in his life is Rip, and even him he’s dragging down. He’s hurting him by needing him to look after him, by meaning that Rip can’t have his shop. That isn’t what he wants for his friend. Rip has his own life and John shouldn’t be stopping him from living it.

His thoughts are all poison and they build up in his head until he’s lost all sight of the good things in his life. Even Rip’s presence becomes something that just makes him feel worse.

*

John is wandering the streets, trying to find work, but not really trying as hard as he should. He sees a knife made of plate silver in a pawn shop window. It calls to him. Shifters are hard to kill, and John has been considering that fact for a while now. He’s fallen to the bottom of a dark hole and he can’t even see which way is up anymore. He just wants to stop feeling this way, that’s all. He’s had enough, and he would give anything for it to end.

He doesn’t play guitar at the pub now. Chas suggested that he take a break because he just wasn’t at his best. John agrees, and gratefully accepts the “fired but not fired” as at least better than he’s had before.

He had an argument with Rip the night before. He just wanted to be left alone but Rip wasn’t having it, so he’d snapped at him, and then regretted it and apologised. The damage was done though and it’s just another way that he’s hurt his friend, along with failing to pay even part of his share of the rent this month. He’s not sure how they’re going to manage without even his money from his guitar playing and the tips had been good too.

The knife calls to him, so he buys it. And he feels… he thinks it’s relief, that’s what it is. He finally has a way out, and a strange, sad calm falls over him. The knife comes in a box, and it’s uncomfortable for him to even hold it. He’s not sure how he’s actually going to use it, but he’ll work that out later. He takes it home anyway, and sits on the floor of his room, looking at the knife, still in its box, open in front of him, trying to summon up the courage to do something.

Hours go by, and he is startled by the front door opening and closing. He hears Rip shout that he’s back, but John is somewhere else, lost in his head. Tears are streaming down his face and he doesn’t remember when he began to cry. Answering isn’t something his voice can do at the moment.

There’s a knock on the door and Rip pokes his head into the room. He’s smiling until he sees John, and all John can do is look at him, and feel deeper guilt settle in him. Rip knows something is wrong, but it takes him a moment to spot the knife.

John doesn’t think that he’s ever seen Rip move quite as fast, at least not as a human. He is on the box and slamming it shut before John can even persuade his sluggish muscles to move.

“You stupid bloody bastard!” Rip picks up the box with the knife in it, and then drops it like it’s burnt him. “Silver! You have a silver knife?”

John can’t look at him.

“What the hell were you thinking? We’re getting rid of it, now!”

“No,” says John.

“This could hurt us!”

John just meets Rip’s eyes, and realisation dawns. John wipes a hand across his eyes, and looks away again.

“You selfish, idiotic, arse! How dare you! Do you know what I’d have done if you’d hurt yourself? How I’d have felt?”

“I’m sorry… I’m just sorry for everything… you’re my best friend, but I can’t go on like this, Rip. I can’t.” John shakes his head. “I can’t keep a job, I can’t sleep, I can’t pay the rent, and I don’t even do my share of the housework anymore, because what is the point. I don’t leave my room except to use the bathroom or maybe to get a paper so that I can depress myself more by looking at the jobs section….” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t get Astra’s face out of my mind, I can’t forget what her blood smelled like, and I can’t forget that I could have done something…”

He lets the tears fall now, because there is no point hiding it anymore.

“Just let me die, Rip. It’ll be better for both of us.”

He hears the sigh, loud and exasperated with a touch of anger about it. And he expects more shouting but suddenly he is being hugged.

“You’re more of a fool than I thought if you really believe that, John Constantine.” Rip speaks quietly, but his tone expects no argument.

John cries on his shoulder, clinging to his friend like a drowning man to a life raft. It feels like a dam has broken, and he needs this, as he is tossed on a sea of emotion.

“We will fix this,” Rip continues. “You will feel better. You just need some help, and to stop thinking that any of this is your fault.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Rip hugs him tighter. “I know it’s not, believe me, I know. I’ve watched you struggle these last months, and not known how to help you, or if you’d even accept my help if I gave it...”

“Rip, this is rock bottom. I don’t think there’s any further down for me to go. If you’re offering help, I’ll take it.”

“I still don’t know how to make you feel better about what happened… but there are other things that I can do. We should probably start with doing some research on ways to help you.” He releases the hug just a little. “And maybe have some ice cream while we do it, in the sitting room, on the sofa, somewhere that’s more comfortable than your bedroom floor anyway.”

John makes a sound that might have been a laugh under better circumstances.

“Okay,” he says, because he doesn’t really trust himself to say anything else.

“I bought you some of that chocolate you like too.”

“You did?” John’s slightly surprised.

“Of course. I was in the shop and it was there. You are important to me. Please try not to forget that.” Rip stands and pulls John to his feet.

“Right,” he replies. “You’re important to me too.”

And he means it. Rip is not just his best friend, he’s kept him going.

John feels tired and rung out as Rip leads him to the sofa in their living room and then proceeds to treat him like a child with a cold. He tucks blankets around him, pulls out his favourite movie and puts it on the laptop for him. And they talk, this time John really explains how he’s been feeling, like he’s just a mill stone around Rip’s neck, and Rip tells him that he isn’t, he will never be that. And there are a hundred small touches and more hugs, and John slowly feels his heart thaw. He begins to think he has hope, because when Rip Hunter is determined, you do not stand in his way. Rip Hunter has just declared that he will help John and that John will feel better, so he is inclined to believe that it will happen, even if he knows he has a long road ahead of him.

Rip looks up suicide prevention websites, and then depression websites, and they eat the entire tub of ice cream and the chocolate and they come up with a plan. Shifters can’t really go to human doctors, but the two of them can talk to Mary and maybe she has experience of this. Rip has never come across a depressed fox shifter, but that doesn’t mean that John is the only one.

They fall asleep on the sofa together, tangled up in each other’s limbs, just like when they were teens, and John has a good night’s sleep for the first time in weeks.

*

The first point on Rip’s list (because of course Rip has made a list of “things to make John feel better”) is to find John a job that he doesn’t hate.

Rip approaches research methodically, logically working through the options. John is less rigorous, he just finds a starting point and begins reading. They both come to the conclusion that John has options, and there are things that John is good at that someone would pay him to do. He wants to help people, so he considers social work, but he’d have to go back to school for that and they don’t have the money for it right now. He looks at joining the police but he needs A levels for that, and he never finished his. He could become a Community Support Officer, but that isn’t the area that he wants to be in.

It's Rip who comes up with the idea of him becoming a Private Investigator. John has already solved a murder, and they know that he’s good at tracking, finding things and people. John doesn’t think he’s smart enough to do the exams though. So, to prove a point, Rip finds an online IQ test and gets John to take it. They’re both slightly surprised by the result. John is verifiably smart, and within a few points of Rip when he takes the same test. John thinks that Rip might be annoyed by that, but of course he isn’t. Rip is proud of him.

“I always knew you weren’t stupid,” says Rip, with a playful push.

“You called me an idiot less than an hour ago,” replies John, with an amused eye roll.

“Because you are. That doesn’t mean you’re unintelligent. You just don’t always choose to apply your intelligence.”

John laughs at that. He feels some darkness lift. He puts his hand on Rip’s and gives it a squeeze in a gesture of affection before he realises what he’s doing. Rip looks at the hand for a moment and then covers it with his own, giving it a quick pat of acceptance.

Mary provides John with medicine that is supposed to help disperse his bad mood, which is another point on Rip’s list ticked off, and it does seem to help. Rip enforces regular fox days, because exercise is supposed to be beneficial too. John is tired a lot of the time, still sad, and he knows that even though he’s decided to live it’s going to take a while to turn things around, but being a fox does seem to give him more energy. Rip is there too and that’s all that matters to him.

Point two on Rip’s list is that the knife leaves their house. He doesn’t care how, but John can’t keep it, and John understands why. It’s symbolising the fact that John was going to abandon Rip on his own, and Rip takes that very personally indeed. He’ll never blame Rip for being hurt by that. He gives the knife to Chas for “safe keeping”. There may come a day when they need it and he’s never been one to throw things out that might be useful later. The local wolves have been known to cause trouble.

Point three on the list is “spend time together and talk every day” which John is all too pleased to do, even if the talking is hard because Rip demands reports on his mood, daily. John can’t help but look at Rip and get a goofy smile on his face, because it’s so clear that Rip cares about him. It’s one of the early things to make him feel happier.

He and Rip have always helped each other, and for once he doesn’t lie or brush off his concern with “I’m fine”. He tells Rip what he’s feeling, and Rip listens. Often there is a hug but sometimes Rip just says something like “you know your brain is lying to you”, and it pulls his head out of his arse. Rip has done a lot of reading about mental health recently, and challenging John’s faulty thinking is one way of getting him to understand that he isn’t worthless or a burden or any of the other things that have been plaguing his thoughts lately.

And at some point, John realises that he is in trouble, because he thinks he might be falling for Rip, and he has been for a while now. This isn’t just physical attraction though, this is more than that now. He doesn’t just love the curve of Rip’s lips, he loves what those lips say and the brain behind them. He loves everything about Rip: the way he gestures with his hands as he speaks, the green of his eyes, eyes that are so deep and sincere but also sparkle with mischief on occasion, the fact that Rip can call him an idiot and somehow still make it a term of endearment, that he’s not afraid to tell John what he thinks, and that he won’t let him have his own way all the time.

John has no idea what to do, so he shelves the problem for the moment. Rip obviously doesn’t feel the same way about him, so he’ll just have to get over it. He couldn’t bear to lose Rip’s friendship on top of everything else at the moment.

*

John gets as far as packing a bag and leaving Rip a note. He doesn’t think that it’s good for Rip to have him living here. Rip is basically acting as his carer at this point, and it isn’t fair on him. Which is before he even gets to the fact that he is definitely in love with him.

Rip comes home unexpectedly early and tells him not to be such an arsehole. There is an argument in which Rip points out that he doesn’t care that he has to look after John at the moment, it’s what friends do. He cares about him and one day maybe Rip will need John to look after him. He can repay the favour then. Until then, well, John can damn well unpack and stop being an idiot.

John unpacks and does his best to stop being an idiot. It’s a work in progress.

*

There are a string of nightmares, bad ones. John has been doing a lot better lately, but there are bound to be patches which are worse. Rip has been trying to finish off something for his distance learning course, and working all day, then coming home to John, and working all evening to get his course work done. John has done his best to help, but he’s still not on his best form, sleeping a lot and only getting out occasionally.

Inevitably the nightmare wakes Rip, because they always do. John has tried a lot of things to stop that from happening, but Rip’s fox ears are too good and he seems to be tuned in to John’s distress. There is a familiar pattern to Rip soothing John now. Rip wakes him, being careful to keep out of range of John’s flailing limbs and occasional flying fist, and then talks to him until he’s sure he’s back in the real world. Usually Rip climbs into bed beside him and holds him, and it helps him to go back to sleep. John has never really considered this to be strange. It works and they both get back to sleep most quickly when they’re together like that.

Tonight is different.

“Aren’t you fed up with this? I know I am,” says John, running a hand through his sweat soaked hair.

“You need me, John,” replies Rip. “You always go back to sleep more quickly if I’m with you.”

“But you shouldn’t have to do this. You were late to bed tonight because you were writing your essay, and now you’re up in the middle of the night because of me,” says John.

And he doesn’t add what he’s thinking, because he very much doubts that Rip would be pleased to know the thoughts he is having about Rip’s body being pressed so close to his.

“One night of poor sleep won’t kill me,” Rip replies.

“But it isn’t just one night. Why do you do this? I’m not worth it.”

Rip takes John’s face in his hands. “Don’t you dare say that. I haven’t spent the last few weeks persuading you that you have a lot to live for, for you to just throw all that work away because of one nightmare. You are my friend and that is why I do this.”

John’s brain is not involved in what happens next. Rip is so perfect and beautiful, both inside and out. He is looking into those beautiful eyes, and suddenly he is leaning in to kiss Rip’s gorgeous lips. It is only as his lips touch Rip’s that he realises what he has done, groggy from lack of sleep and apparently not quite in his right mind.

His eyes widen, and he notices that Rip’s have too. He scrambles away from him as quickly as he can manage it and out of bed.

“Bollocks! I’m so sorry. I’m not sure what I was thinking…”

John has ruined everything with one moment of lapsed judgement. Rip is looking rather stunned, as if he hasn’t quite caught up with what has happened.

“I’ll move out in the morning,” John says.

Rip sighs and gets out of bed.

“We’ve been over this. I don’t want you to move out. Why would you move out?”

“Because I love you! I am in love with you! I kissed you! My best friend. And I know you don’t feel that way about me. I’ve ruined everything.”

“How do you know that I don’t feel that way? We’ve never talked about it.”

Damn Rip and his logic. Then Rip is closing the gap between them, and suddenly John is being kissed. His eyebrows disappear into his hairline. He is very surprised, but not so surprised that he doesn’t kiss back. It may be the best kiss that he’s ever had.

The fox in his head is celebrating with extreme enthusiasm. It is practically shouting its approval, and it wants to shift, to be the one with the mate, but John isn’t going to allow that just yet. He needs to be able to talk still. Which assumes that any of his braincells are left functioning enough to form coherent conversation.

The kiss finishes.

For a moment neither of them speak. They are touching, holding the other close, hands stroking down the other’s arms, both a little shocked but basking in the moment.

“I love you too, John. You are my best friend and I love you.”

“You mean that? You’re really okay with this?” asks John, still not really believing it.

“I am more than okay with it. I’ve wanted this for a while, even though I’m not sure that I knew this is what I was wanting…” He shakes his head a little. “I like holding you, hugging you and just being with you. I love you.” Rip smiles at John. “I am in love with you.”

John kisses Rip again, a quick one this time. “Come back to bed with me then.” And a beat too late he realises how that sounds. “I mean, just so that we can sleep, but maybe kiss a bit more? Unless you want…”

Rip shakes his head. “I’d rather take this slowly, but being hugged and kissed sounds quite nice right now.” There is a shy smile, which John returns with a massive grin. He pulls Rip back to his bed.

“I love you and it feels so good to be able to say that,” says John with a happy sigh, and he enfolds Rip in his arms.

“I love you too,” Rip replies, and he wraps his arms around John too.

“How does this work now? I mean, what do we do now?”

“Tonight? We hug and kiss and sleep,” says Rip. “Tomorrow… well, we’ll talk about this, and we’ll work out where we go next, but that is for tomorrow.”

“Okay, I can live with that,” says John, and he leans in and they kiss again.

For the first time in months, John is truly happy, and they sleep in each other’s arms.

*

Any new relationship takes time to settle, and this one is no exception. Neither of them really know how to negotiate this new thing that they’ve started, and it’s awkward to begin with, until they both decide that really the only thing that’s changed is that they can hug and kiss now, and say I love you without it being weird. They take things slowly when it comes to the physical side, and John is mildly shocked to find that Rip actually has very little experience, none in fact. Rip and his previous boyfriend broke up before they ever got to more than kissing. But that’s fine John isn’t about to rush Rip into anything that he doesn’t want.

John gets a job, except this time he keeps it. He needs to pay for his PI licence exams, so he has to stick this one out. This is office work, in the HR department of one of the large insurance companies. It’s still not exciting but it doesn’t leave him physically exhausted at the end of the day. They send him on a few useful training courses too that help him get the hang of computers, and he thinks some of it might even be transferrable to his PI work.

He studies in the evenings, going to night classes, and he works hard. He grieves for Astra, but it isn’t the only thing he can think about anymore. He moves out of his head and starts living again, going to gigs to listen to music, dragging Rip with him a lot of the time, but not always. And they finally have enough money to buy a TV and they watch Rip’s favourite movie on it to christen it. They cuddle up on the sofa together, with beers and snacks, and the flat feels like a home now.

John gets better. He feels hope. He loves Rip and together he’s pretty sure that they can do anything. It would be wrong to say that he never falls back into depression again, he has bad days and probably always will, but he knows that they’re just bad days. Rip never judges him for them, and he always helps. He knows him well enough to understand when he needs space and when he needs to be held, with everything in between as well.

He lies in bed one morning and looks at Rip, sleeping peacefully beside him, and realises that Rip isn’t just his home, Rip is his everything. Having Rip, having someone who loves him without condition, gives him the strength that he needs to move on. Rip can’t protect John from the world, but he damn well tries, and John loves him all the more for it.

[itspatsy]

the most wonderful time of year

Growing up, the closest Trish gets to traditional family Christmases are holiday specials she films for It’s Patsy, curled up with her reel family and friends by the fireplace, trading presents and smiles and hugs. Then it’s cut and take two, and she can’t pretend it’s her life anymore. For her, the reality of Christmas is weariness and restlessness and walking on eggshells. Filming breaks, but so does school, so there’s no refuge from her mother’s sharp tongue or backhand. Christmas is uncomfortable dresses and wide vacant smiles and fake gratitude for thoughtless, impersonal gifts and stuffy dinners with empty suits and food she’s not allowed to eat. It’s scornful words and fingernails digging into her shoulder and flying plates and busted lips and licking her wounds and “don’t hide in your room, dear, it’s rude, and this is a time for family” guilt trips.

But then there’s Jessica. Jessica is disdainful of most things, and Trish isn’t sure if that’s just her natural state of being, or if it was losing her family that did it. And yet, for all her sneering bitterness and withering sarcasm about everything else, Trish realizes Jessica gets unexpectedly sentimental about Christmas. 

Trish doesn’t know this until she walks into the kitchen and finds Jessica roasting chestnuts. Actual fucking chestnuts. More specifically, Trish finds Jessica ducking on the linoleum floor to avoid exploding chestnuts because Jessica doesn’t know shit about cooking anything that’s not microwave popcorn and Kraft Mac and Cheese. Of course, Trish can’t help but poke fun, and Jessica tries to brush it off like it’s a joke. But when Trish won’t let it go, Jessica storms off and refuses to talk to her for days. Even keeps her door locked, which she never does, not even after an argument, because she knows it’s Trish’s only safe place. Trish is baffled and annoyed and… lonely. They’re always mean to each other; it’s just how they communicate. Why should this be any different? 

It finally occurs to her what might be going on, and she feels like an idiot. Trish might hate Christmas, but it’s entirely possible Jessica doesn’t. Jessica grew up with a family that loved her. They probably chopped down their own tree like fucking lumberjacks and decorated it with stringed popcorn and stars, left milk and fresh baked cookies out for He-Sees-You-When-You’re-Sleeping-Stalker-Santa, watched The Muppet Christmas Carol curled up together with a fire blazing in the wood-stove, or whatever bullshit. Those twee things loving, happy families do in Christmas movies that make Trish roll her eyes and her chest ache with something she can’t verbalize without her throat closing up. 

Jessica never admits to it, of course, but Trish thinks it’s the one time she lets herself do something in remembrance of her family. So she makes a peace offering. It’s turns out easy bake Plilsbury sugar cookies with the ugly little Christmas trees aren’t so easy to bake, or maybe Trish is just bad at it, but she tries (she’s always trying, for better or worse, probably most often worse). She sets down a plate of the mostly brunt cookies and a glass of milk on the floor in front of Jessica’s door, gives it a light rap, and walks away. When she walks by later, the cookies and milk are gone, and she can’t help but smile. She smiles even wider when she finds an ugly, misshapen reindeer made of pipe cleaners outside her own door. 

Trish still goes to the awful industry holiday parties, and she makes increasingly stupid decisions at those parties, but with Jessica in her life, the bad Christmas memories are more often replaced with something better. Dorothy takes to fucking off with whatever slam piece she’s currently seeing, so that gives Trish and Jessica a moment’s reprieve in the house. They make their own traditions. The chestnuts become one of their things, and they get better at cooking them in ways that don’t involve explosions. Same for the Pillsbury cookies, except those don’t really taste good even when they aren’t burnt. They order take out and curl up together to watch stupid movies and snark MST3k style.

Inspired by Jessica’s first gift, they trade shitty DIY presents. Some highlights over the years include: 

a tote bag that says “fuck off” in gold glitter

a gratitude jar full of insults

a vision board of Dorothy’s demise

a piece of cardboard cut into a circle with a picture of a smiling Jessica on one side and a judgmental Jessica on the other, with the instruction of “flip it to help you make decisions when I’m not here”

When Trish starts at the radio station and especially after Trish Talk takes off, she’s back to attending business related Christmas events. They’re always dreadfully boring, but she much prefers boring after the kind of parties she used to attend. She mainly goes because they’re an excellent opportunity to network, pitch ideas, and win over advertisers. She convinces Jessica to come once or twice, but a bunch of suits talking about work isn’t enough to make the free alcohol and food worth it for her. The parties are in the days leading up to Christmas, not on Christmas, because normal people have families that they love and want to spend time with, and that’s okay, because Trish has Jessica. 

Until she doesn’t.

For the first time since Jessica came into her life, Trish spends Christmas alone. Trish knows something is wrong and that Jessica would never just leave her like that, but she can’t get in contact with her or find her. The only thing she can do is pretend it’s okay. Before she stopped answering Trish’s calls, Jessica said she was safe and happy and loved, so Trish tells herself it’s all true. She orders Chinese takeout, calls Jessica’s old number, now disconnected, just in case, and she spends the night curled up in Jessica’s bed watching Jessica’s favorite stupid YouTube videos so she can laugh instead of cry. (She has no idea Jessica is also eating Chinese, not so far away, with a man in a purple suit.)

The second Christmas without Jessica is worse than the first, because Jessica did leave her, of her own free will, in the way Trish never thought she could, and there is no pretending this time. And she feels like everyone, at the station, strangers she passes on the street, somehow knows that when she goes home, she’ll be the sad lonely woman spending Christmas by herself, and it’s probably all in her head, but she swears she sees pity in their eyes, and fuck that. 

She goes to a bar on Christmas Eve, orders a drink with no intention of touching it, and picks up a guy, fully aware the only men in bars on Christmas Eve are almost certainly human garbage. The garbage she chooses is good-looking enough, though, and she takes him home to relieve some stress. The sex is okay, but when it’s over, she doesn’t feel better, only nauseous. She kicks him out and lays on her couch starting at the ceiling and when it becomes obvious she isn’t going to fall asleep, she pulls out her plans to convert Jessica’s room into a workout space.

On Christmas Day, she orders takeout (not Chinese, not after everything Jessica told her) and listens to the awful, drunken messages her mom leaves every Christmas because a blocked number means nothing to Dorothy Walker. Feeling particularly masochistic, she connects to her expensive speaks and plays the messages on repeat in the full glory of surround sound. It’s always the same old song from her mother: it starts with ingratiating compliments and begging guilt trips before transforming into berating contempt. She blubbers about how sorry she is and she’s better now and she’s just so glad to have a brilliant, beautiful daughter that’s successful and will you just give me a chance to be a mother again I just want to be part of your life if you’d just let me why are you always so selfish you ungrateful little bitch.

She sits at her kitchen table and eyes the absurdly expensive whisky she’s gifted Jessica with since they became legal (she bought it this year out of habit… and hope), and she almost breaks, but she isn’t willing to take her pity party so far that she’ll risk a relapse for Jolly Old Saint Nicolas. Christmas is bullshit, but it’s not worth that. Not even Jessica is worth that. (That is, of course, a lie. Jessica is worth everything.)

Kilgrave is dead, for good, and Jessica is in her life, maybe for good and maybe not, and Trish is relieved and grateful but it still hurts. She isn’t sure that Jessica actually wants to spend Christmas with her, and she’s not even sure if she wants to spend it with Jessica. So she just avoids mentioning it, and Jessica doesn’t bring it up either, and they both assume they’ll go about their own thing just like last year. Trish still hasn’t figured out how to spend Christmas without Jessica, but she’ll manage.

She goes to a charity dinner on Christmas Eve, and even though she finds them dull, it seems a little more rational and healthy than her ill-advised one night stand and pity party last year, and that’s progress, right? She smiles her red carpet smile, laughs and nods and looks sad at all the appropriate times, and makes a generous donation to the cause, but all she can think about is how strange it feels, knowing Jessica is there, within reach, but not with her. It would only take a call. 

When she gets home, she spends a few hours with her punching bag. When she finishes, she’s exhausted, but not the kind that leads to peaceful sleep. It’s after midnight, and she resigns herself to another night of insomnia. She prepares a Merry Christmas text for Jessica, intending to save it for a reasonable time in the morning, but after staring at it for a solid minute, she sends it. She makes sure the little line below her text says “delivered,” and her stomach does a tiny flip when it changes to “read.” She’s honestly a little disgusted with herself for it, but the number is still connected, she can still reach Jessica, and even if she doesn’t get a response back, Jessica’s listening. 

Not an hour later, there’s a knock at her door. She worries it might be her mother. She’s given the woman an inch in order to obtain information about IGH, but she knew Dorothy would try turn it into a mile. It’s not her mother’s cloying smile she sees through the video feed, though, it’s Jessica’s scowl. Trish scrambles to let her in, asks if everything is okay. Jessica nods and lifts the scowl into a half smile. Trish smiles back.

They stand a little awkwardly in the hallway, part haunted by the memories of their last two Christmases, part hopeful that this year will be better. Then Jessica catches sight of her usual gift sitting on the kitchen island, laughs, and tromps over to pour herself a glass. Trish rolls her eyes fondly but also kind of hates herself for enabling Jessica. She wishes she’d thought of another gift, but that would’ve been too obvious, would’ve led to defensiveness and coldness and avoidance. She knows they’ll have to talk about it eventually, but she doesn’t want to scare Jessica off. Things are still too fragile. 

Instead, Trish sits by Jessica on the couch while she sips her whisky. They watch videos of people falling down, and when Jessica busts out laughing, Trish sneaks looks at her out of the corner of her eye, savoring every moment. It’s a good Christmas. 

[john-is-on-the-rails]

On my way & Dexit

@shrewsburystation

As I write this I am sat with my right knee in an acre of aisle space in coach 001, that’s zero-zero-une in French, on the Eurostar. I wasn’t sure what to expect, or whether paying slightly more for 1st class was worth the extra wonga. It categorically was worth it from several perspectives. Perspective 1) I am sat by the window (with no one sat next to me) with so much space I feel like an exceptionally small toddler sat in a large shopping trolley. I’m also looking around bleary-eyed and in awe, making it abundantly clear to all the business types on the train that I am an obvious first-timer. Perspective 2) The bar (and bathroom) is around 20 steps away (actual distance to be confirmed very shortly). Perspective 3) The speed of the thing and the pressure in the carriage has cleared my sinuses right up, which is an unexpected extra. Forget vix sinex, next time you have a cold just go to Brussels. (I can’t accurately convey a pause via a blog post but there was a pause here of around ten minutes here as I stuffed my face). I looked up in disbelief as an immaculately dressed French person asked me if I would like the tray of free food he was holding towards me. Ok, it wasn’t actually free because it was included in the price of the ticket. But things always feel free if you don’t pay for them at the time don’t they? 

I looked at him in disbelief, blinked a couple of times and said “yes, yes of course, thank you”. THEN he said “would you like a danish pastry also?” Imagine this in an immaculate soft French accent..hhhmmm. Now, I have subsequently heard several other people say NO to the free Danish. Fools. I had that cinnamon covered thing out of his paws before you could say well...anything. As is standard with free, or perceived to be free, food, I immediately shovelled the lot into my face before someone came along and revealed the whole thing was a sordid joke. Nobody should joke about Danish, that’s a rule I live by. One final observation about the free (kind of free) Eurostar breakfast. Hiding away in a basket at the corner of the tray was a single, dry bread roll, seeded it was. I almost forgot it was there until after the croissant, danish & yoghurt had all ceased to exist. Just a dry bread roll as a chaser. I didn’t really want it to be honest. More carbs. But the little fella looked so lonely, and I wasn’t going to leave anything after being so incredulous at the Dexit cowards in the carriage, with their anti-Danish stance. Dry bread roll joined the croissant and Danish where he is soon to meet my old friend Mr.Gin. 

Part of the reason for me wanting to do this trip was to challenge myself and push my boundaries. Partly, becoming more comfortable interacting with people I don’t know. Which I’m actually fine at but think I can’t do very well. However, I made the mistake of trying to overcome this particular phobia in London. Big mistake, and one not to be repeated. I also chose a bad place to try and joke around with my Southern brethren. The daily mash had warned me against this, I should have known better.

Whilst queueing for airport-style security checks at the Eurostar departure lounge I was struggling for a sliding tray thing to put my valuables in. I turned to the lady next to me and said “There’s a bit of a tray drought today isn’t there?”, I assume she was animate but I may as well have spoken to an inanimate object, such as a bucket for example, for all the response my witty remark solicited. Saying that, the person on the other side of me tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the adjacent security tray sliding thing contraption, where spare trays were abundant. If you have ever seen the muppet Christmas carol, it was reminiscent of the ghost of Christmas future pointing his bony finger to Ebinezer Scrooge's grave. 

I’m in France now. Not sure when that happened. The miles of barbed wire fence at Calais where The Jungle used to be gave it away. At least the sun is shining!

[coll2mitts]

#72 The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

I knew the Muppet high would crash sooner or later.  I was just hoping it wouldn't be on movie 3 out of 7.

The Muppets Take Manhattan has a tone problem.  And a story problem.  And the songs are pretty lackluster.  And there might have been a handful of jokes I laughed at?  I fell asleep during this movie... twice.  Why is it so high on the list?

The story revolves around the newly college-graduated Muppets, as they move to New York and try to sell their new musical, "Manhattan Melodies", which has nothing to do with Manhattan, and instead focuses on the impending nuptials of Kermit and Miss Piggy.  They pitch their show for months (even though it is not complete because it is missing something) to all kinds of producers, but eventually run out of money and have to find alternate jobs.  Instead of staying in New York, the script does the dumbest thing ever by splitting up the Muppets, scattering them all across the country to secure jobs high school students would qualify for, even though it has already been established they all have college degrees (maybe this is commentary?  Because in its unbelievability, by today's standards it felt too real).  Kermit stays behind to continue to search for a producer so he can lure all his friends back to the city with gainful employment.  He travels to the top of the Empire State Building to reminisce on what he lost, but in this scene I was mostly distracted by the fact the camera is pointed on the back of his eyeballs the entire time.  These bouncing white obs were increasingly disorienting to look at because my brain kept trying to fill in some eyelids.

This sad, motivational event happens 30 minutes into the movie, when usually it would be reserved for the end of the second act.  The audience then has to slog through 30 more minutes of the same plot, except with none of the other goofy Muppets to bounce jokes off of.  They are replaced with a boring human waitress named Jenny who has no personality and only exists to make Miss Piggy jealous.  There are some moments of levity, but they're immediately followed by Kermit and Miss Piggy moping because they miss their friends.

Then, Kermit finally sells the show, and after calling Jenny and Miss Piggy to tell them the good news, is hit by a car and gets amnesia.  Jenny and Miss Piggy can't find him, so they work without him to get all the other Muppets back to New York and rehearse the show for a premiere in two weeks.  After Kermit is discharged from the hospital, he starts his life over by working in advertising on Madison Ave.  Sidenote: I would have LOVED if Mad Men were a gritty remake of the last 10 minutes of The Muppets Take Manhattan, where instead of murdering someone and stealing their identity so he can leave Korea, Don is hit by a car and falls into advertising on accident.

Hours before the show's opening, the Muppets find Kermit, but he doesn't remember any of them.  It's not until Miss Piggy hits him that his memory comes back, because Miss Piggy's violence solves all the problems in the Muppet universe.  He realizes the thing that is missing from the musical is more Muppets, and they jump on stage, perform the show, and Miss Piggy and Kermit get married and presumably live happily ever after.

Ultimately, The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan are the same premise - a group of individuals want to pursue their dream of working in show business.  The strength of The Muppet Movie is the emotional core; Kermit travels the country and finds friends that believe in his vision, and together they work their way toward Hollywood to make millions of people happy.  The solidarity is what makes the movie work.  The Muppets Take Manhattan answers the question "What if the movie executive said no?" and the Muppets slummed around for months, bummed out they can't sell their show.  They break up, and Kermit has to carry the dream on his own.  The core of the movie isn't hope - it's loneliness and despair.  The moment things start to look encouraging, Kermit - and I cannot stress this enough - is hit by a car, and ends up in the hospital, leading into the most ridiculous 15-minute subplot that was unneeded so close to the end, if at all.  The Muppets performing their show at the end does not feel like the same emotional payout that The Muppet Movie earns.  It's because it's rushed to its conclusion, and Kermit's absence in its realization makes it feel hollow.

That being said, there are some cute moments, but they're pretty spaced out:

Miss Piggy chasing down a guy who stole her purse in the most fierce way.  

Gonzo becomes a stunt performer in Michigan, and the dude pulling Gonzo on water skis is wearing a chicken suit and riding on the boat with a bunch of chickens.

When Kermit gets amnesia, he's unable to control his voice modulation and it sounds robotic and strange.

The "Manhattan Melodies" songs are mediocre, which makes the end fairly lackluster.  With one exception, "I'm Gonna Always Love You", where the Muppets are imagined as babies.  It comes out of left field, as if they realized they needed to inject some fun in the movie, so they added this one-off number of the Muppets goofing around and looking adorably cute and ripe for merchandising opportunities and spin-offs.

I’m going on record now to express my distaste for Doo-Wop music, and man... this is a great embodiment of it.  But I do acknowledge this is the only scene in the hour and 40 minutes that stands out.  Even then, it doesn’t instill desire enough in me to relive this movie in any capacity.

Next is The Muppet Christmas Carol, which I’m fairly certain I’ve seen before and enjoyed, so it can only go up from here.

[alicedoessurveys]

loooooong survey

Childhood

Did you spend your childhood time with mostly real or imaginary friends?: real. I spent most summers/half terms with my cousins and my neighbour’s grandkids. Did people consider you an odd child?: not odd, just shy  Do you have memories that go back to when you were only a few months old?: nope Do you remember any thoughts you had when you where very young?: not really nope  

Were they intricate or simple thoughts?: probably simple but I can't remember 

If you answered “intricate”, give an example of one of those thoughts: n/a

Were you dreams very vivid as a child?: yes, still do. I also used to get really bad night terrors a lot as a kid What is the strangest memory you have from early childhood?: can't think of anything strange.. Were you a child prodigy or did you display any gifts at a young age?: I drew a lot, but I was no prodigy What was the most “grown-up” thing you ever said as a child?: I have no idea What were your favourite TV shows in early childhood?: I grew up on Fairly Odd Parents, Rugrats, Tracy Beaker Were you afraid of monsters?: yes, especially zombies Did you believe that fictional characters were real?: yes Were you more quiet and artistic or loud and physical? quiet and artistic  Issues and stuff Do you eat meat?: yup, but only beef, chicken and bacon/sausage  If you do, what is your justification for it?: I dont feel I need to justify it, just like I wouldn't expect a vegetarian to justify why they dont eat meat. each to their own.  If you could legalize 3 things in the US, what would they be?: I dont live in the US, I dont really know their laws and I dont really care  Do you believe in the death penalty?: nope Did Mumia do it?: do what..? If you had a choice, which country would you have chosen to be born into?: I like that im English, I just wish I was born in a different part of England cause Birmingham is a shit hole What are your opinions of Michael Moore?: I dont know who that is  Describe your feelings about marijuana legalization: I think it should be for those who need it for medical stuff Red, White and Blue is a ghastly color combination, right?: nope What television news coverage do you detest the most?: all of it, I dont watch the news What will you do if Bush is re-elected? Im British, I dont care  Which state do you think will drop off into the ocean first?: idk Who do you consider “American Heros”?  I feel like these questions are very aimed at Americans  Completely Obtuse And Silly Questions Have you ever taken something apart just to see how it worked? yes  Do you ever yell at the television while you are alone? Reason?: not yell, but talk to the telly yeah. and not even just while im alone.  Name a few things (if any) that you bought on Ebay recently: I cant remember the last time I bought something off eBay  Are the Muppetes sinister? Think about it.: nope... o.O Do you watch the Science Channel (Discovery) on a regular basis?: no ive never watched it  Ever gotten into an “in person” argument with a total stranger? Discuss: yup. basically I was at this event thing where they had boats and pretty floating lights and shit on a river. we had waited all day to see them and when they were finally coming past we couldn't see them because it was so crowded and there was a “security guy” stood in the way. There was kids infront of me who kept saying they couldn't see because of him so I yelled “MOVE” and he turned around and started arguing with me. Long story short, he eventually moved out the way and found a space where he wasn't blocking anyones view and the people around me thanked me. I felt so awkward after cause im not a confrontational person at all but I was so tired & irritated that I just snapped.  Sugar or Honey?: Sugar What’s on your desk right now?: im not sat at my desk atm  How many e-mails do you recieve a day?: about 20 Do you think that time travel is a possibility?: no Are you slightly addicted to online tests and surveys?: not addicted, I just enjoy doing them to pass time San Francisco or New York City?: ive never been to either, but I would like to go to New York  What are your favorite color combinations?: grey and light blush pink looks nice Close your eyes and type the first random image that pops into your head: I cant because im listening to hairspray so thats all I can see right now  Do you enjoy night or day better?: depends what im doing  Favorite animal: Dogs   Have you ever been to a protest?: Nope, but ive ended up in the same place as a protest was taking place and it was horrible Aggravated a cop on purpose?: No Ever gone train hopping/ridden the rails?: Nope If you could choose a time period in which to live, which would it be?: I’m fine with this one Ever put your hand through a window?: no List a few words you hate the sound of: the c word And a few you like the sound of: idk Are you sick of this survey yet? not really  Emotions And Such Have you attempted suicide more than once?: No  Cutting?: Yes Do you get violent when you are angry?: Not with people, just with myself or just like throw stuff on the floor like a brat  Which emotion are you most consumed by?: fear Are you highly emotive?: Yes Do you discuss problems or keep them to yourself?: keep them to myself, and if I do discuss them I downplay or make jokes Do you fall in love easily?: not in love, but I do fall for people too easy What age/year was the most difficult for you?: around ages 19-now How do you channel your anger/sadness?: shut myself away and cry  Ever been addicted to alcohol or drugs?: No

Ever been homeless?: No List a few simple things that make you happy: playing sims, Tumblr, theatre When were you most recently your happiest?: hanging out with nick and Addison the other day  Do you consider yourself empathetic?: yes Friends Do you have friends that are drastically different from each other?: my main group of friends is only like 3 people and they have their differences but not drastic differences List a few key traits that all of your friends have in common: my friends are all into gaming, watching films & eating Do you keep in touch with friends from high school?: yes, two of my best friends are from school Have you lost touch with many of your friends?: almost everyone I become friends with end up losing touch in the end but ive been friends with Addison for 10 years and Rhys for 20 years Are they mostly local or long distance?: local  When you go out with friends, what kinds of things do you do?: usually go to the arcade, cinema and get food Have you ever been betrayed by a close friend?: yes If yes, are you still friends with that person?: no Are your friends mostly your age, younger or older?: rhys & Addison are 23, nick is 25, I am 22

Do you have a hard time making friends because most people bore you?: no, I have a hard time making friends because im socially awkward Do you like to hang out with friends one-on-one or in groups?: groups, it takes the pressure off in conversations Which of you online friends do you have the most in common with?: I dont have any online friends Family Are you close to your family?: yes What traits are you glad you inherited from them?: faithfulness & a good sense of humour  What sitcom does your family most remind you of?: I cant think of anything other than that me and my mom are a lot like Miranda and her mom from the sitcom ‘Miranda’ Does your family live locally or far away?: local Have you ever stopped speaking to someone in your family?: yes Have either of your parents died?: no, thank god Is your family very much like you or are you opposites?: a lot like me  How many siblings do you have?: one older sister Has your family ever thrown food at each other?: yes, every christmas season we throw chocolates at each other from the Quality Street or Roses tins Are the holidays a nightmare or a time of joy?: I love Christmas Day and I normally love christmas shopping but this year I found it all very stressful because I was so busy at the theatre and I had no money to buy gifts  Do you look like your parents?: ive been told I do List one interesting fact about your family: apparently my dads side of the family is descended from royalty Lovers Gay, Straight, Bi-sexual or no idea?: Straight Married/partnered?: Single Ever gone out with someone you were embarrassed to be seen with?: no Ever broken someones heart?: someone I “dated” in infant school told me when we reunited in senior school that I broke his heart. but I didn't actually do anything so I dont know where he got that from  How many serious relationships have you had?: none Have you ever lusted obsessively over someone you knew you couldn’t have?: not obsessively lusted, but I have fancied guys that I knew nothing could ever happen.  Do you believe in the theory of soulmates?: yes Ever cheated?: No Been cheated on?: No Thrown someones stuff out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: Nope Had your stuff thrown out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: Nope Most important emotional qualities of a lover?: someone who makes me feel happy and can make me smile, makes me feel comfortable, is caring, trustworthy, honest, affectionate  Most important physical qualities?: I dont think physical qualities are super important but I do fall for peoples eyes & smile Food & Drink Non-alcoholic beverage of choice: cherry coke or caramel hot chocolate Alcoholic beverage of choice: cider Foods you crave on a regular basis: chocolate

Salsa and Chips or Pita and Hummus?: neither Meat or Tofu?: Meat Soup or Salad?: soup Soda or Juice?: Soda Can I get you anything else?: You didn't get me anything..? :’) Favorite candy:: chocolate in general Favorite food to make: lasagne 

Food brand that you hate?: idk Do you try to buy all organic?: nope  Favorite fast food?: mcdonalds Final Questions Ever had a great song ruined for you after it was used in a commercial?: yes

Ever yelled at an SUV?: nope A Hummer?: Nope Ever faked being sick to get out of going somewhere?: yes If you could turn back time and change one thing, what would it be?: stay in college Bambi or Nemo?: Nemo List 3 things that are worrying you right now: 1, money. 2, a meeting I have to go to next week that im absolutely dreading. 3, I have this constant annoying anxiety that tells me my friends dont actually like me and that I get on everyones nerves.  Do you think you’ll ever have children if you don’t already?: not my own now, but I hope to adopt Do you think there is life on other planets?: no Have you ever broken a leg or arm?: nope Would you rather stay in the house or do things outside: depends on my mood David Letterman or Jay Leno?: I dont know who they are  Last words?: Bye

[extraneousdominomask]

~It's time to stake positions!~ ~It's time to set our sights!~ ~It's time for exposition on the Muppet Show tonight!~

Chapter 3: In Brief

I'm very fond of this chapter, especially the transitions. After Nick's remark about staying awake, we cut to Sly waking up - and after that, mid-sentence cuts, which are so fun to do. It felt great to chain a bunch together. I think it really adds a sense of energy and flow to what is otherwise just a chapter of people explaining other people's backstories.

Before that, though, we have The Morning Report - which, yes, is a reference to the not-very-good song added to special editions of The Lion King. It was nice writing for these two newscasters. Originally, I called the snow leopard anchor (underrated fave and bae) "Xue Winters". When her name was finally confirmed decided to be "Fabienne Growley", I changed it. There'll be other Xues. 

There's one and only Doctor Emily Nope, though! Say hello to the fursona Zoosona of my very great elder sister, complete with geological training! She was the one who insisted on "Nope Diamond", so she names it in-universe too. Having her team be multi-species was a quick attempt on my part to make this whole diamond heist tie into Zootopia's overall themes. Heh.

I'll probably mention this once or twice more, but it becomes clear when the exhibition is said to be scheduled for "Friday night" - this entire story takes place in under a week. Monday night to Saturday morning. compress Finally, Gazelle's massive (and unwanted) popularity in the mayoral election is a nod to the sentiment going around immediately after the film's release that... she should be the next mayor? It was weird. Yeah, she's nice, and politically active. But it's something of a leap, no? Instead we have Mayor Dewey, a la Steven Universe. Never decided if he was a pig or a deer, but either way, he's anxious and sweaty. “The people want what they want, Peter.” One of my sister's favourite lines. Nice ending to the scene, I think.

bunny s n e e z e s

Here's some dumb trivia about my literal writing process; I use OpenOffice, which automatically remembers words of over 10 letters in length. This includes hyphenated-words. It's mostly a useful feature, but the hyphens get irritating. My last laptop permanently saved "hyena-supporter" and "lion-chunks" because of my old LK fics. So now I tend to use tildas, for hypenated~words I don't want saved. My sister finds this amusing, and pronounces the compounds with ~stupid emphasis~ Anyway, the point of this rambling anecdote is that for "Super-pneumonia~" she suggested to keep the tilda, since that silly emphasis worked for the scene.

god i love clawhauser. He's so fun to write for! Enjoyable energy from our lovely duo here, too. Zootopia fic comes easy for a reason; put Nick and Judy in any situation, and the conversation flows from there. What a joy they are!

"I'm pretty happy here at front desk, really. Gotta play to your strengths, y'know?” My boy Benji just casually dropping the entire moral of Sly Cooper

I'd really love to see more domestic Sly stuff. Just the boys! Hanging out! Cooking each other breakfast! Good fucking shit. Gimme that content.

Probably unrealistic that the ZPD doesn't immediately have Tai Lung's full file, in this age of e-mail and the World Wide Web. But gotta save some of the mystery (and exposition) for later. “You know how many times this degenerate has been arrested?” “Uh,” said Fangmeyer, “tweeeelve?” “Two hundred, or something?” guessed Francine. “Zero,” said Nick with a calm confidence. “Once!” snapped Bogo. “Goddammit,” muttered Nick. Nick's smart enough to spot the pattern, but still gets the answer wrong just out of bad luck. If that ain't an unintentional metaphor...

Coming up with a "normal name" for Peridot was a lot of fun. Peri -> Perrault. Dot -> Dottie  -> Dorothy. So, Dorothy Perrault! I considered having her Hacker Name be "Peri.Dot" but I decided it was ultimately unnecessary. writing Computer Stuff as a goddamn sociology student was hard, my dudes. i am completely talking out of my hat here Tai Lung and Peridot are both from "some distance out of town". Tai Lung is from ancient China and Peri is from fucking space

"Usually steals from other criminals, but has been known to break that pattern for anything he considers to be suitably important or interesting." This is arguably a bit of a cheat. It's based on side adventures, like Goodbye My Sweet and the museum heist animation I possibly dreamed, where the goal is what's being stolen rather than who's been stolen from. It is treated as a deviation from the norm, though, and we see what Sly's reasoning is later on. Chief Bogo offhandedly calling the Cooper Gang's name narcissistic - Dr M's ghost lives on. Like I said earlier, putting the Gang against the ZPD means somebody's gotta "lose"; probably the ZPD, since otherwise the Gang's adventures are over. Bogo's lack of optimism was deliberate. They really don't have a hope.

Sly smirked. “Sounds real inspiring.” “Social media certainly thought so,” said Bentley dryly. bentley's not a disney fan

I think Nick's enough of a good boy to not assume the Interpol officer will be male, but I couldn't resist the extra foreshadowing/dramatic irony And Locksley Park is, of course, a nod to Robin of Locksley, Robin Hood himself - the Disney fox whose movie directly inspired Zootopia. Gotta have a reference in there somewhere, of course.

[dweemeister]

The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

Like a security blanket to bundle into on a cold, distressed day, the Muppets have been a force of happiness and entertainment for several decades. 1979′s The Muppet Movie had been a rousing success, as had The Muppet Show – which had just completed its fifth and final season when Jim Henson directed (his directorial debut) The Great Muppet Caper. This second Muppets movie was an attempt to steer the franchise towards its future: feature films (Caper is the second of eight Muppets films so far) and television specials. The Great Muppet Caper does not result in a sophomore slump for the franchise, but there is an important tradeoff that occurs in the film. As Henson created the Muppets, it should be no surprise that this entry represents one of the more faithful portrayal of the Muppets as characters (to an extent). However, this comes at the expense of the heartwarming humanism and messages of perseverance that one comes to expect in a movie starring the Muppets.

More than any other movie in the Muppets franchise, The Great Muppet Caper topples the fourth wall repeatedly. In fact, it happens so often there might not be a fourth wall. Traveling by hot air balloon, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, and Gonzo are commenting on the opening credits – yes you three, some weirdos out there read the opening credits (it includes yours truly, and like Kermit says, the people in the credits have families, too) – and land their balloon just outside their workplace: the Daily Chronicle. The trio are investigative reporters and are tasked with a London assignment where fashion designer Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg) has become victim to a headline-grabbing jewel robbery. With the Daily Chronicle refusing to cover expenses, our Muppet reporters fly in ninth-class (which apparently means the airplane’s cargo hold, with a dangerous method of disembarkation) and check into the battered, but free Happiness Hotel. There they meet up with the rest of tenants – which includes the rest of the Muppets, save one. That one is Miss Piggy, who Kermit mistakes as Lady Holiday and will ask out on a date.

The other human star of note is Charles Grodin as Nicky Holiday. Cameos include John Cleese, Joan Sanderson, Jack Warden, Peter Falk, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov, and Muppet performers including Henson (Kermit, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, Waldorf, Swedish Chef), Richard Hunt (Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums), and Jerry Nelson (Floyd Pepper; originated Sesame Street’s Mr. Snuffleupagus and played Count von Count from 1972-2012). One Sesame Street character makes a brief, hilarious cameo with Peter Ustinov.

There are running gags in The Great Muppet Caper that I should not describe in the slightest. In writing a movie for the Muppets, there are two formulae to choose from: the Muppets playing themselves as they look at a tricky situation through their point of view (think: The Muppet Movie and 2011′s The Muppets) and where the Muppets are playing characters that, though somewhat unlike them, retain a part of their Muppety essence (1992′s The Muppet Christmas Carol). The Great Muppet Caper is the latter (even after seeing four Muppet movies, some of the original television series, and the failed 2015 TV series, I’m not sure which I prefer; perhaps you have a preference). The most important joke running throughout the film is that the characters know that they are in a movie and the characters they are portraying are distinct from the Muppets themselves. For example, Kermit and Fozzie are supposed to be related and screenwriters Jerry Juhl (multiple Muppets movies), Tom Patchett (The Bob Newhart Show, ALF), Jack Rose (a longtime writer for Milton Berle and Bob Hope), and Jay Tarses (Bob Newhart, The Carol Burnett Show) – with their formidable, combined comedic writing experience – somehow keep that gag fresh, among others, for the entire ninety-seven minutes.

This film is clever as hell. Its screenplay lands its jabs to the funnybone cleanly, almost never missing. Yet that means as The Great Muppet Caper is reveling in its comedy, the Muppets themselves lose their trademark gentleness and belief that tomorrow is a fresh start to dream, laugh, and play. That positivity – with the exception of The Muppet Christmas Carol – is always embodied by the characters made of felt, fur, and fleece. The Muppets have become so familiar to those of us who have enjoyed their company, and that is why they are allowed to be as self-referential here as they are. Few other comedians or comedic pairings/groups could plausibly make a movie like this and inspire so much laughter.

I don’t mean to sell the writing short, so I will note that The Great Muppet Caper treats Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy with tremendous respect. These are the two people Kermit the Frog has always cared most about; through playing other characters, we see how that love is expressed.

Fozzie is not always effective in The Muppet Movie as he should be – that film portrays Fozzie’s inability to read social cues as a character quirk, not as something that brings disappointment, wrecking his self-confidence. Notice how Fozzie reacts when he believes that when Kermit is going on a date with Lady Holiday Miss Piggy – how innocent this misunderstanding is, how deeply Fozzie is hurt at first when Kermit says that his furry relative (remember, in this film, they are related) can’t come along.

For Miss Piggy, her vanity and volatility are more visible than her vulnerability. As Frank Oz (her performer) once said about Miss Piggy, “she is a seething mass of conflicts... It’s hard enough being a woman in our society. It’s even harder being a pig.” So determined is she to be successful in whatever she decides to pursue, she sometimes forgets the feelings of others she comes to care about. At a younger age, I found this behavior to be frustrating – I’m a guy, so a gendered bias is also involved. Thus, when her misunderstanding with Kermit comes, I felt a sadness there I might not have felt fifteen, maybe even five years ago. Her defenses have fallen, exposed and embarrassed. She and Kermit find a space to reconcile.

That reconciliation, and so many elements to the plot, is expressed through song. Composer Joe Raposo (various pre-Muppet Show Muppet specials, The Electric Company, Sesame Street) wrote all seven original songs appearing in The Great Muppet Caper – none of them mediocre, yet not a single one achieves the transcendence of “Rainbow Connection”. What makes Raposo’s musical score work is that – without the Muppets running around – if these songs were written for humans, they would still be as effective. Opening with “Hey, a Movie!” is a high-energy, exposition-hastening number, even if it might be a discount “That’s Entertainment!”. “Steppin’ Out with a Star” is a fun romp of what some men might do to prepare for a date – the dialogue and banter, of course, being G-rated. But the one song gifted with lush orchestrations is “The First Time It Happens”. It is played as a straight love song, with all the tenderness that Kermit and Miss Piggy can provide with their singing voices. Shortly afterward, Miss Piggy channels her inner Esther Williams in a synchronized swimming sequence entitled “Miss Piggy’s Fantasy” (complete with Dick Powell-like singing from someone dubbing Charles Grodin). Raposo’s familiarity with the Muppets pays dividends for The Great Muppet Caper.

That old saying about something not happening before pigs fly? You might need to update that to pigs performing complicated choreography in the pool. For this scene, eighteen professional swimmers were employed with all lighting, camerapersons, and speakers being placed underwater. Frank Oz had three days to learn scuba diving so that he could have Miss Piggy perform these sequences to perfection.

With Jim Henson directing, there are other ways in which the Muppet performers – Henson, Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Dave Goelz, and Steve Whitmire – are allowed to show off. Where Kermit riding a bike impressed audiences and critics a few years prior, Henson figured that he might as well have all the Muppets riding bikes at the same time. For the musical number, “Couldn’t We Ride”, no computers were used. Instead, all of the Muppet performers clambered into cranes and rode bicycles of their own – attached to the Muppets’ bikes – while synchronizing their pedaling with the music and lyrics. Kermit’s stunt where he is riding his bike with only one hand included some complicated string puppetry. The final sequence where everybody is seen riding together saw Henson and two children (including one of his sons) riding oversize tricycles attached to the Muppets’ bikes with rods to complete the illusion.

Because The Great Muppet Caper knows that it is a movie and that it actively recalls Hollywood’s musical past, it comes off comforting nostalgia that neither alienates younger viewers or distracts older ones. It lacks that clear-eyed humanity of other Muppets movies, but this film has what one would want from Kermit, Miss Piggy, and company as it preserves what is essential to these characters: humor, vibrancy, and reassurance. Though we laugh at their pain (pain is funny), we witness how courageous they are in remaining optimistic through their struggles. As we watch the Muppets, we question if we are capable of such fortitude. I tend to think we already know the answer – sometimes, we just need a reminder.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here. 

[marketinghero]

BrewDog’s controversial honesty Six years since co-founder James Watt said he would rather set fire to his money than spend it on advertising, BrewDog has launched a brand marketing campaign on TV and the sides of buses to launch what it claims is “the most honest ad ever”. The poster version is a blank space with a picture of BrewDog’s Punk IPA and the word ‘advert’ written behind it in big black text. The TV version is the same but with a metal (yes metal, not punk) track playing for the 30-second duration. As far as ads go, it definitely errs on the simpler side of the creative. But this isn’t just a basic poster or TV spot; this is BrewDog spending big on advertising for the first time, having realised that word of mouth, shock tactics and using website ratings to slate other beers will only carry it so far. This is no bad thing; most brands have to do above-the-line advertising if they want to scale up and go global, which is what BrewDog is trying to do. Where feathers have been ruffled is that BrewDog is happy to take swipes at its competitors for their “bullshit” advertising when it has just spent god-knows-how-much on a Game of Thrones ad break and buses across London and Manchester. It still sees itself as the rebellious craft beer brand that joined the scene 12 years ago, when in reality it is really no different from many of the beer brands it claims to hate. There comes a time when every punk has to shave off their mohawk and hang up their boots. The sooner BrewDog realises that, the sooner it can get on with its journey into adulthood without being called out for hypocrisy when it launches a regular, mainstream ad. Just like everyone else. EH READ MORE: BrewDog needs to be honest with itself about its ‘honest’ new ad Boots digitises loyalty and launches summer campaign It feels like it’s been a long time coming because it has, but Boots has finally made its Advantage Card loyalty scheme digital. Compared to the rest of the retail market, Boots is incredibly late to the party, which is strange given Advantage Card is one of the oldest (22!) and most popular loyalty cards in the UK. But now customers will now be able to scan to collect, redeem and check their points straight from their mobile via the app. The digitisation of Advantage Card will no doubt be welcomed by Boots’s 17.1 million loyalty members – 1.5 million of which signed up in the last 12 months alone – and help it compete better with the likes of Superdrug’s Beauty card. Boots also began its summer activity this week with a refreshingly body positive campaign looking to “celebrate confidence” during the summer period. The campaign was based on depressing research carried out by Boots which found three quarters of British women have avoided summer activities because they felt self-conscious. There has been a big shift in the way women are portrayed in ads in recent years and a number of retailers are making a conscious effort to be more inclusive and representative with their advertising. This is an example of using advertising as a force for good – let’s hope it continues. EH READ MORE: Boots makes Advantage Card loyalty scheme digital You talkin’ to me? Warburtons partners with Robert De Niro Warburtons is no stranger to a famous face. It has previously partnered with Sylvester Stallone and the Muppets, and now Robert De Niro has taken the starring role in its new campaign. The bakery brand has used Oscar-winning actor to promote its new bagel range in a bid to create “talkability”. Using famous people doesn’t guarantee that, of course, but it’s a model that has worked well for Warburtons previously, not least because of clever contrasting. De Niro acts alongside chairman Jonathan Warburtons, who plays himself, and the brand knows how to use self-deprecating humour to juxtapose its Bolton heritage with De Niro’s world in the ad. The new bagel product is also a smart move that mimics the evolving bakery market. Sales of white sliced loaves were down 12% over the five years to 2017 and more consumers are looking towards ‘sandwich alternatives’. It launched ‘bagel thins’ four years ago, which the brand claims now accounts for 20% of the market. In the short term, the talkability that Warburton’s wants has been achieved, with national newspapers and social media going crazy for the ad. The key now is to translate that to sales. MF READ MORE: Warburtons on its new bagels ad: ‘Without De Niro we wouldn’t have run that creative’ Asda outlines strategy following failed merger Asda has spoken for the first time since its proposed merger with Sainsbury’s was blocked by the competition watchdog last month. Echoing the sentiments of Sainsbury’s CEO Mike Coupe, Asda boss Roger Burnley said it’s business as usual for Asda and it will focus on price, customer experience and driving growth “where customers care”. However, at the same time Burnley admitted the Competition and Market Authority’s decision to block the deal will make it harder to deliver its strategy at the same pace as if the merger had gone ahead. But Asda is focused on price and that’s what people know it for. Building on that consistency should work in its favour, but it will need to work hard to make sure its brand message doesn’t become stale and it is giving people reasons to shop there other than just price. That’s where focusing on the customer experience becomes important. Asda is investing in technology, with its Stevenage store set to become a test bed for new tech solutions to help Asda understand what works and what doesn’t. It will be interesting to see what comes from that and how this impacts the customer experience. Asda will no doubt be keeping a close eye on Sainsbury’s current checkoutless trial. And let’s not forget Morrisons, which recently announced its intended move into the delivery space, which will surely have piqued some competitive intrigue. EH READ MORE: Asda refocuses on price and customer experience following failed Sainsbury’s merger Prostate cancer plays on emotion in awareness boosting campaign Prostate Cancer UK’s new campaign aims to raise awareness and educate people about the disease that kills one man every 45 minutes in Britain. The charity says the sheer scale of the cancer is often not understood, meaning people don’t realise how it could directly impact their lives and the lives of those close to them – something Prostate Cancer UK wants to change. Its new campaign, ‘Men, we are with you’, features raw imagery and footage of real men, some of whom are living with prostate cancer, in a bid to reach the people that matter most in an authentic way. For instance, rather than talking about the cancer itself and shouting at people to get tested, the “stripped back” spot was based on audience research and the concept of talking about, and making people feel emotionally connected with, the men in their lives. Olivia Burns, director of communications at Prostate Cancer UK, says the spot was based on years of research around engagement with the British public to better understanding both cancer patients and those whose lives have been affected by the disease. “The campaign has been a long time in the making. Two years ago we started doing research around engagement and understanding our audiences,” she adds. “Then we looked at our brand through the lens of those people to learn about what appeals to them and what we needed to do. This set the framework in order to understand how we would then go about communicating with them and developing our brand campaign.” It’s a refreshingly raw wake-up call on the immediate threat of the cancer and a subtle nudge to encourage those around you to take take precautions and raise awareness. EL READ MORE: Prostate Cancer UK celebrates men with ‘stripped back’ campaign that aims to raise awareness The post BrewDog, Boots, Asda: 5 things that mattered this week and why appeared first on Marketing Week.

[movieiwatchedtonight]

Monthly Movie Recap: May 2017

Monthly Movie Recap: May 2017 It was one of those months that it was nearly over before I realized that I hadn't seen any movies yet! I did see Guardians of the Galaxy on opening night with Amy, but then I didn't see another movie till my group of friends and I saw Everything, Everything for my birthday. Then with my parents the next night I saw Baywatch. So only three this month but between both my brother and I's birthdays,finals, graduation, and starting my new job that's not too bad. Guardians was by far my favorite, then Baywatch, and least was Everything, Everything. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2:

Now I remembered little to none of the first movie, I think I only saw it full out once but I didn’t really need to to understand what was going on here. Side story; but the only time I’ve seen the first movie was in Disneyland back in 2014 before it was officially released in this really cool 4D theater. Also let’s keep in mind that I’m a casual comic book movie fan so I’m not really basing my opinions on anything other than my enjoyment.

I was able to see it twice. I went to a preview screening that my local theater does (and brought my best friend Amy as well) on the Thursday before it came out and then again on Sunday in a old small town theater in Jacksonville. (Completely unrelated but one theater showed the Thor trailer and one did not)

The first time I really was just paying attention to the story and just enjoying it (which I did) and the second time I actually took notes. Here’s some of the general notes about the movie that I wrote down from my second viewing:

- There’s a new intro where it shows movie characters rather than flipping through comic book pages. Not sure which one I like better, though I don’t mind the new one

- I love the opening scene. Am I biased because I’m from Missouri and I love the 80s? Maybe  

- Also James Gunn is from Missouri; St.Louis more specifically so I love it. Fun fact Sean Gunn went to SLUH for high school

- An odd thing to love but I love all the colors, especially at the end (more on this later)

- Is Awesome Mixtape Vol.2 actually awesome? Yes. I personally prefers over Vol. 1

- Hey the dad from Sky High is here too

- Baby Groot needs a car seat

- Some lines were predictable but that’s every movie. One I really didn’t care for was when Ego tells Peter he’s just like everyone else and Peter says “what’s so wrong with that?”

- Also thought that sometimes jokes weren’t needed, a moment can just be a moment

- “Spacesuits for emergencies, or for fun”

- Ego’s planet was so pretty ( why does it remind me of the emerald city?) but was there really a need for a museum type show about why and how he formed the planet

- Kicking and messing with Baby Groot? Not okay

- Baby Groot dancing to basically the whole song Mr.Blue Sky while everyone else is fighting a giant space monster? Very okay (and so adorable!)

- Okay but like we kind of knew Ego was the bad guy the whole time, right?

- “You’re like Mary Poppins!” “Is he cool?” “Yeah he’s cool” “I’m Mary Poppins!!”  

- Didn’t mind that they used The Chain twice because I love that song but we could have fit Fox on The Run in there somewhere

- I agree, Baby Groot is too adorable to kill

- I don’t know what Cheers is either Gamora, but if I did I’m sure it would have been a cool reference

- “I thought Yondu was your father.” Turns out he was

- Why do I love Sean Gunn’s character so much? I’m not even really sure I know who he is or what his purpose was besides getting the ship ready but I loved him. Especially when he asks Nebula what she’s going to do with her cut of the money (units?) and she tells him about wanting to kill her sister and buy a bunch of weapons and he’s just like “I meant like a pretty necklace, or a hat, something the girls would aw at”

- “They killed all my friends"😭

- Yondu’s arrow is so cool, Hawkeye should get himself one of those.

- Baby Groot getting crushed by rocks (?) and has no idea what else to do so he just starts crying, that broke my heart   

- Cute little space family

- Screw Ego for putting the tumor in Meredith’s brain. I hate him

- Ok but Peter building Pac-Man was so cool

- “I’m going to make some weird shit!”

- I wish I knew what was so important about the batteries that the gold girl kept trying to kill them for stealing them

- The gold people’s little remote controls spaceships had arcade sounds and I loved it

- So many credit scenes that were about the movie (the Peter and Groot scene was my favorite)

- Also when Rocket, Baby Groot, Yondu and Kraglin were jumping through all the worlds (the part where Stan Lee has him cameo) I thought it would have been cool to like flash Asgard, just an idea

- I’m a sucker for friends choosing to become a family

- So did Peter lose his immortality and God qualities when they killed Ego? Or not?

- The scene where Ego and Peter are playing catch is emotionally manipulative  

- I’m also a sucker for power group shots and there’s a good amount of them, enough to make me happy

- Baby Groot trying to get the fin but he keeps coming back with different things was so cute. Brings back a desk; “we told you it was this big!”

- My favorite arrow scene was when it hit the lights out and then killed all those people and all you could see was the trail of red glow

Now back to what I said earlier about colors. I have a personal theory, that at least for me, bright colors matter. I mean I often find myself re watching movies like The Avengers or Captain America: Civil War (which isn’t overly colorful but is bright) but not movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or like Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice because they’re just dark. Like literally have a dark color palette. I don’t know if that makes any sense but this movie was full of colors and it was beautiful.

This may be a movie series where I prefer the second one over the first. They’re both good but I really like Vol. 2. I love the music in it so much, defiantly more than the first movie.This is definitely worth seeing in theaters and not waiting till it comes out later. Also wish I would have seen it in 3D because there’s a couple scenes that I bet look amazing in 3D! Especially the funeral scene, I bet that’s awesome in 3D! With all the colors and pretty lights.

Watch again: YES I will for sure see it again in theaters, hopefully 3D, and this will be a movie I preorder the DVD

Watch the sequel?: it’s a marvel movie, so of course, I’ll watch Vol. 3 as well as anything else remotely related to this movie

Baywatch: I thought this movie was alright. I definitely laughed and thought some parts were funny and I wouldn't go out of my way to not recommend it to someone. It's not going to be a summer favorite or anything but who doesn't love Zac Effron? I think my favorite part was definitely the High School Musical reference and just the whole name thing was funny to me and my parents. I didn't not enjoy this movie, it had me laughing a decent amount but I know it's not going to be like a classic comedy for me or anything like that. It’s a typical good summer comedy. I'll probably watch it again and most likely will get it on DVD but I don't think I'll go see it in theaters again.

Watch again: Yeah, I would watch this movie again but I don’t think I ever seek after it or get a craving to watch it again.

Watch the sequel?: Yeah, again I think I would. I enjoyed the first one enough to watch the second one, should one be made. Everything, Everything: I was not a fan of this movie. I mean it's one of those movies you go into knowing it's going to be far fetched and ridiculous but I just couldn't get on board with this movie. I went with about six friends to see it, Amy and I sat next to each other and just ripped the movie apart. I mean we made fun of everything, she described us as the old guys from the muppets (Statler and Waldorf). The movie wasn't as bad as we made it out to be, but I still didn't really like it. I knew it would be out there but like it was so out there. Now I never read the book, I do own it, and it's in my personal library, but I haven't had the chance to read it yet so I can't say how accurate it was to the book. I did like something's about it, I like the little twist where Maddy discovers that she was never really sick, and I liked the actor who played Olly (Nick Robinson) I thought he was pretty good. I also really loved the scene where he taped all the pictures of the ocean on her window and said something along the lines of “Every ocean deserves to be seen by you” that was really cute and I do really love that moment from the movie. I did also like how the movie made me think differently, like how we as people put so must trust into the people we love because we love them, we just believe everything they say is the truth because so far they haven’t proven us otherwise. That’s kind of scary, like to think that we just trust the people we love so easily, and we really could have no idea what's actually true and what isn’t. So in summary, I didn’t love the movie, but I liked how it got me thinking deeper.

Watch again?: Not on my own, no. The only way I see myself watching this movie again is if I’m with a group of people who want to.

Overall: May was a bus month and I didn’t see as many movies as I would have liked to, but with it now being summer vacation, I should be able to catch up for what I missed in May in June. I love that I got to see Guardians on opening night, that was really cool and a great way to start the summer movie season.

Next Month: June is a jam packed month for movies. So excited for Wonder Woman!! Also I feel like I might be alone in this, but I’m actually really excited for Baby Driver as well! As for kids movies, I’m actually going to Disney World the week Cars 3 is released so I plan on seeing it down in Orlando and Despicable Me is one of Amy’s favorite movies so we’ll go see the third on for sure. I will 100% be skipping out on 47 Meters Down, no thank you. Book of Henry has my interest because I’m slightly confused by it. Basically June is the hot spot for summer movies and with my theater having 5$ Tuesdays and 5$ student Thursdays, I hope to see as many as I can

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Moooore Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow stuff, courtesy of another Tom King interview: 

King was on the Supergirl Radio podcast this week, and while a lot of it is just a repeat of what was said in the previous interview on ComicPop Elseworlds Exchange, there were still some interesting bits, IMO!

They opened with some general questions--how did he start writing, when did he get into superhero comics, etc. 

And then, the Supergirl portion!

The hosts asked where he first encountered Supergirl, and as before, he said that Supergirl is one of those characters that everyone just knows, like Batman and Superman. So he felt there was never a time where he wasn’t at least aware of her.

If forced to pinpoint something specific, though: the cartoons (Superman: The Animated Series and JLU) and for Kara Zor-El in particular, hardcover trades of the 70s stuff.

He had some AWESOME Carmine Infantino art, from the issue where Supergirl fights a bunch of mini-supergirls, in Daring New Adventures.

When asked if he used any of those stories for this new project, King again said that he went back to the ORIGINAL origin, in the Silver Age Otto Binder stuff.

Because he’s written Superman, the hosts asked if he thinks about the differences/similarities between the two when writing Supergirl.

He said that Kara’s more of a survivor than Clark, she’s been through more; he feels that Superman is always striving to be the icon that is Superman, whereas Kara can just be herself. 

He describes her as harder, more cynical, ‘she’ll drop an F-bomb here or there,’ she’s ‘old and crusty.’

The hosts asked him how he came to be on the book and while it’s basically the same story he told on the other podcast, there were a few additional details he mentioned here.

He specifically said that editors were frustrated, because there is this. Thought? Among creators, that Supergirl is perfect, and there are no fun Supergirl stories to tell. 

(Brief, opinionated interjection here: HOGWASH!)

He again brought up the idea that people can be precious with Supergirl; he said she is precious, but she’s also badass.

When asked if there was any particular piece of Supergirl mythology that he wanted/was excited to use, King said that this book isn’t really about that--he again used the expression of stripping off the barnacles that have built up on the characters over the years, really getting at the most basic, pure take on them.

He was like, ‘we keep the dog, maybe the horse if we can make time for him, because [Comet] is the weirdest thing in all of comics.’

Elaborating on the book/lack of Supergirl mythology: He put her in space, gave her a simple mission, and let the story be a thesis on why Supergirl is awesome.

Next question was about the comic writing process.

King said there’s no set way to write a comic script; he tends to write ‘full scripts’; they resemble movie scripts in that there’s panel descriptions for each page, as well as the dialogue for each panel.

His descriptions are light, though. For example, he’ll simply put: ‘Supergirl encounters a Space Dragon’, and leave the rest up to Bilquis.

Again had nothing but praise and excitement re: working with Evely and Lopes. 

Said Evely adds such depth and emotion and storytelling to the artwork.

Then there was a question from the live chat; the listener noted that a lot of King’s work contains romance/is focused on romantic love. They asked if this book would also be about romantic love, or another kind of love.

King: This is not a romance. The love in this comic is a friendship love, between Kara and Ruthye.

When asked if other pre-existing characters would make an appearance: There will be shout-outs, but this is first and foremost a book about Supergirl; she is at the center of the book.

The goal is to make her one of the pillars of DC Comics.

On the subject of the ‘western’ part of the space western: Again mentioned True Grit, as well as The Searchers, and Red River.

Compared Kara to John Wayne.

Likes the idea of a character who has a simple mission, needs to go somewhere, and travels through various lands to get there, like the Odyssey.

Initially, he was going to have Kara be a sort of ingenue who learns to be tough as she goes on this journey, but his editor said, ‘No, she should be the teacher, instructing this young girl on how to be tough’ b/c Kara has the life experience. And King was like, ‘yeah! Let’s do that!’

And of course, because it is Supergirl Radio, they asked if he’s watched the show.

He watched the 1st and 2nd seasons with his daughter, then they fell behind/stopped watching because she moved on to other things, but he loved it! Specifically loved that he could watch a superhero show with her; good bonding time.

They asked him about incorporating stuff from the show and he said that he opted not to do that, as it’s sometimes not done well/feels forced. The example he used is that it’s very hard to get something like Calista Flockhart’s performance from the TV show into the comics, both in terms of the actual writing, and also in terms of legal stuff like the likeness rights, etc. 

Then they talked about KRYPTO! And King’s own dog, Roxy. 

Because King is a dog owner, he said he found it very hard to write Krypto sometimes, because he never wanted to put him in danger.

He also said that you can feel like a dog is a family member, and that is how Kara views Krypto; he is not a pet, or a tool, but a member of her family.

Another live chat question: Does he think of Kara differently, now that he’s written her?

King said she’s a much tougher character, than he initially thought.

Compared her to Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark; you don’t see him become Indy, he just already IS Indy, and he’s done this stuff a hundred times over.

And then he shared a little bit of issue 2 to illustrate this point: Ruthye and Kara encounter a guy who has beef with Superman, so he decides to take it out on Kara, and Kara easily dispatches him; Ruthye (the narrator of the book) marvels at how this happens everywhere they go, and it’s just a daily occurrence for Kara, because everyone thinks she’s the weak link/a way to get back at Clark.

Final question was about what he hopes is his legacy/the takeaway of this book.

King said he wants it to do well, and convince DC/the editors that there ALWAYS needs to be a Supergirl book on the stands.

And now, SOME THOUGHTS!

As mentioned, a lot of this stuff was already covered in the prior podcast, BUT! There are some new details here that build on those points.

For instance: King is really committing to a harder, cynical Kara. Who knows if she’ll remain that way by journey’s end, but that’s the take he’s going with.

(And, as before: not my preferred/ideal Kara! But I am open to seeing this. Largely because it is rooted in like. Character backstory/history; he’s not being edgy for edge's sake.)

Also, NO ROMANCE. 

*insert happy muppet flailing here*

I will admit that I had the extremely cursed thought that he’d bring back Comet, or worse, 90s Comet as some sort of guest star--and maybe he will, who knows! But I don’t get that vibe, really. Like, maybe as a fun shout-out, but not a full-on character in the story.

I do like that he repeatedly emphasized that this is a very simple book, with Kara at the center, and that it’s basically about Supergirl, and why she’s awesome.

Especially given how Future State whiffed that one.

That said, was a little dismayed to learn that Ruthye will be the narrator of the whole thing. It brings back horrible visions of Future State, and it’s harder for the reader to get into a character’s head when you’ve got someone else narrating the whole thing, but. We’ll see.

(What might take the edge off of this narrative choice is Evely’s art, since you can better determine Kara’s emotions/thoughts/etc.)

Interestingly, King didn’t want to comment too much on this book’s potential connection to Future State: Superwoman which...has me a little concerned.

(Please, never let that book be canon. PLEASE.)

The further details on the BTS stuff is disappointing, but not surprising. ‘Supergirl is too perfect/boring’ is a take that 1.) mirrors the same nonsense you see about Superman, and why everyone would rather be writing Batman and 2.) has existed FOREVER, and was particularly prevalent after the introduction of Power Girl. 

(It’s also flat-out wrong, in the same way that ‘Superman is boring’ is wrong.)

Other little things: Love that King says Kara views Krypto as a family member (because he totally is), and the Camine Infantino art was SO COOL.

SO, OVERALL: Gonna have to get used to the idea of an old, crusty Kara.

(Honestly I can’t even be mad at that description because I kinda find it funny? I mean, what with the Superman Fortnite announcement recently, I’m feeling pretty old and crusty, ngl. XD)

But I like a lot of the stuff King’s said so far.

Some of it does give me a little pause--like the heavy emphasis on the Supergirl part of her identity, as opposed to Kara, and how she’s just this awesome badass, with no real mention of other aspects of her character--but.

As should be very clear by now, I’m not in it for the writing.

Rather. I am here primarily because of

*takes a deep breath*

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!