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hunterofthemist · 3 years ago

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Strength of the Meek

Carrying a paper bag Dave walks into the cafeteria. He looks around the room and sees Kotzal waving him over. He walks over to him and sits down with Kotzal at a noticeably empty table.

"Hey Dave, how are you?" Kotzal asks with a grin. "You dont have to rub it in, I had no idea you were a natural," Dave grumbles.

"It's just that when you showed me the rules I realized how similar they were to a game I used to play on Geon. Thrum If I remember correctly." Kotzal and dave talk for some time, the topic changes quickly from poker to physical ability.

"How strong are humans anyway? I've seen your movies but you said they aren't a good representation of human strength." Kotzal asks intrigued.

"Were strong enough. Enough to take down something bigger than us, at least with some planning that is." Dave answers. "I mean back when humans still dwelled in caves we took down wooly mammoths, which were beasts around three times the size of a human."

"Oh, I didn't know that. It's pretty impressive to hear." Kotzal says more than intrigued at this point.

"What about when a human has to do something impossible, just to keep the ones they care about alive. What do you do then?" He asks, his face getting a bit more solemn.

"We push on, do whatever it takes, even if it means we tear ourselves apart doing so," Dave says with a look of sincerity. He then breaks the look and smiles warmly. "What's got you asking a question like that?"

Kotzal laughs nervously and scratches the back of his head. "I dont know, I just heard stories over the Ether."

The conversation ends as the buzzer goes off on everyone's watch. "Shit thought we had more time for lunch break. That blows." Dave sighs.

Dave and Kotzal start walking down a hallway towards their respective stations. Halfway towards Dave's station, the alarm sounds, as well as an explosion in a nearby hallway.

"What was that!" Kotzal panics, immediately hiding behind dave and shaking. Dave reacts accordingly, not to the explosion but to Kotzal hiding behind him. "Woah dude, you good?"

"Oh sorry, my species is a prey species on my home planet. We get jumpy when stuff like this happens."

Dave chuckles at the thought, "you know if you did this around the others im pretty sure they wouldn't be able to see you." His attention focuses back on the sound. " We should go check out what happened, we're engineers after all."

Kotzal steps out from behind dave nervously and agrees. They walk down the hallway towards the commotion. Smoke billows out of the walls, embers pour out of the holes as well.

A hulking beast pulls its way out of the hole, it had to be around 8 and a half feet tall. Just as dave gets a look at it, several more come out of the walls. Kotzal grabs dave and pulls him around the corner, away from the beasts.

"Get down! Those are Tarvok pirates. We need to go, we do Not want to pick a fight with those." Kotzal is freaking out, likely having a panic attack. He tries to pull Dave with him. Dave doesn't budge, instead, he stares at the wall and puts his hand on it. "I cant."

Kotzal gets more anxious and frenzied, pulling harder on Dave. "No We have to go, David dont do this." In response, Dave grins and puts his head on the cold metal wall. "I said I cant, This station is my baby. I've fixed her more than anyone else. I can't leave her."

Dave turns to Kotzal and continues. "Not to mention the number of people these guys could hurt. You know how far the nearest guard post is, and how understaffed it is. If I turn tail and run countless people will die. But If I distract them, buy us some time. Maybe I can save a few lives."

"But you'll die! You'll get killed, I can't have you do that. I can't lose you, You're the only one who even respects me, let alone is nice to me." He says as tears start to form in his four eyes.

Daves grin breaks and he pulls Kotzal into a hug, Kotzal's small stature causing him to look like a small child not wanting their parent to leave. "That's not happening. I ain't gonna die." Dave thinks for a moment and goes on. "How about you help me, I dont buy this scared child Schtick. There's something there, something strong. I can see that."

Dave breaks the hug and pulls a knife from his belt, and hands it over to him. Kotzal stares at the blade for a second and takes the knife and nods in agreement. "Use your speed and stature to your advantage. there's a lot of smoke, try to use that."

Dave and total talk for a minute discussing plans and strategies after they're done he grabs a pipe on the wall and rips it off, but not before speaking to the station itself. "Sorry about this."

Walking around the corner Dave bangs the pipe on the wall, getting the army of Tarvok's attention. "Hey you brutes, eyes on me." He says, resting the pipe on his shoulder.

One of the Tarvok's starts walking over to Dave with a look of hunger and anger. Dave grins, this being a part of his plan, and stomps on a jagged and sharp piece of metal, launching it into the air. To which Kotzal leaves cover from behind Dave and grabs the piece of metal and throws it into the eye of the Tarvok.

"See, I told you no one would be able to see you back there." Dave jokes. He takes a step forward and inspects the now corpse of the Tarvok. "Oh damn, straight into the eye." Kotzal meekly responds to the compliment. "Thanks, it was heavier than Im used to so I didn't think it hit where I wanted to."

"You're a good shot, keep it up." Dave compliments. For a split second, Dave swore he could see Kotzal's cheeks turn blue.

Dave starts walking forward towards the rest of the army, beckoning them to come to fight him. One soldier takes a step forward to fight. The hulking beast throws a punch towards Dave but he sides steps it and slams his weapon into a pipe next to the Tarvok.

The soldier notices this and started to laugh but a second later the pipe bursts and hot steam starts to burn the soldier and causing it to fall to the floor.

The next one rushes Dave and throws a punch at him, he absorbs the blow into his shoulder and uses the force to spin himself around and slam the pipe into the soldier's skull.

At the display of force, the rest of the Tarvok's take a step back from the carnage. "Hey Kotzal, I think I fucked my shoulder up. It's your turn. " Dave says quietly so the brutes in front of them won't hear. "Yeah, let's do it." He responds, trying to hide the fear in his voice.

Dave starts to run towards the group of Tarvok's with Kotzal following. Before he gets too close he ducks down and arches his back and Kotzal jumps off his back and launches himself toward the enemy.

With one hand he throws a sharp piece of metal in the neck of one of the soldiers and with the other he stabs another with the knife Dave gave him.

The last one is in front of them, he's bigger than the rest. Probably the leader. "Let me handle this one," Dave says as he blocks Kotzal from moving forward with the pipe.

Looking at the pipe in his hand, Dave realizes that the pipe is way too damaged to continue to be useful. He takes a step forward and throws the thing as hard as he can. The pipe flies through the air and when it's about to hit, the leader catches it.

As soon as he threw the pipe Dave started running towards the beast but only noticed that he caught the pipe when he was too close to do anything. The Leader propels his knee into Daves's gut, the spike on it spearing into dave.

"Oh fuck!" He screams as the spike goes through him. He falls back and tries to stop the bleeding. Another scream is heard, not of pain but rage. "You Fucker!" It's Kotzal, with the look of pure rage in his eyes.

"I'll kill you!" He screams as he starts running towards him. As he reaches him he jumps at the leader to get a clear shot at him. In retaliation, the Tarvok grabs him by the neck and holds him in the air. Kotzal doesn't seem to notice, the anger blinding him. He starts slashing wildly at the beast in front of him, a good majority hitting their targets.

Kotzal gets a good stab into the arm of the beast holding him, causing him to be dropped.

While on the ground he stabs the blade into the back of the knee of the Tarvok leader making him fall to his knees, lining him up for a stab to the side of his head, killing him.

He keeps stabbing the now dead Tarvok, more out of rage than him being unsure he's dead. After a few dozen stabs he stops and takes a second to breathe and remembers Dave. He turns around and sprints towards Dave.

He starts trying to help him staunch the bleeding and stabilize him. "No, no-no-no. Dont do this, you cant." He starts tearing up trying to help him.

"It's okay, you did well. Didn't expect the fucker to catch the pipe. I think this is it" Dave says as he rests on the wall, trying to do whatever he can to stop the bleeding.

"Dont say that! You'll be fine, I know what im doing. I can help you." Kotzal says frantically.

Dave looks at him and puts his bloodied hand on his shoulder. "You can't save me, an injury like this is impossible to fix up."

"Shut up!" Kotzals shouts as he slaps dave. "We aren't in the medical dark ages, You know how strong modern medicine is." a grin forms on Daves face as he shrugs. "Whatever you say," he says as his vision fades to black and passes out.

Daves eyes open and the bright light blinds him, "hey your awake." a familiar voice says. His eyes adjust to the light and he sees that Kotzal is sitting on the chair next to his bed.

Dave groans in pain as he tries to sit up. Kotzal puts a hand on his shoulder and stops him. "Dumbass, you can adjust the bed." He laughs, handing him the switch.

"How long was I out?" He asks as he raises the head of his bed. "About two days. You had us worried for a little while." Kotzal responds with a smile.

"You can't kill me that easily, its gonna take a lot more than that, I still have work to do here." He smiles back.

"Oh yeah, like what?" Kotzal asks. "The engines been making a thunking noise for the past week, I still figure out what the hell the problem is." They both start laughing for a minute and after they stop a silence is formed between them, which is promptly broken ten seconds later by dave. "Hey after they discharge me, do you wanna go to the bar and get a few drinks? I'll buy."

"Sure thing, I'd love to."

#Aliens #humans are terrifying #humans are space orcs #writing #MY OCs #my wrtiting #oc #oc character #frienship #sci-fi #writerscommunity

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coredrill · 3 years ago

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thots on roman holiday, spoilers for the whole book below!!!

oh my GOD sjjdbdnemakfjen the line on page 17 “you have a unique grasp of socioeconomics” is SO ROMAN FBSBSBDBSJAIDLD. i love it

INVISIBILITY CLOAKS???????

v funny that when roman is considering where to go after leaving mistral, he shoots down vacuo first. obviously he’s gonna wind up in vale bc Plot, but it just feels like the writer going I AM NOT WRITING ANOTHER BOOK IN THE GODDAMN DESERT lmao

interesting note abt beacon tuition on page 92. i wonder if this is actually canon for a few reasons:

how tf would ren and nora afford TUITION????

i wonder if the other huntsman academies have tuition??? like atlas i could see doing it and haven too. maybe not shade but idk.

does this mean scholarships are a thing??? is ruby on scholarship???? what even constitutes a scholarship on remnant????

idk they probably didn’t think this deep abt this joke line but IM GONNA lmao

y’all some of these names…brick??? mortar???? bisque????? burgundy???? roch szalt???????? KANDI FLOSS??????? that last one is peak stripper name meme ansjdbfnnebehd. this is just like in btd when they had to name a team fondue 😭😭😭😭 i think they’re officially running out of colors 😂😂😂

THE EMBLEM OF NEO’S BOARDING SCHOOL IS A TRIPLE SPIRAL?????? the gurren lagann of it all……………

very funny that both neo and roman poison people with sleeping pills. hashtag just bestie things <3

pg146 “to listen to their body and what it was telling them about their feelings (gag)” ASPEC NEO RISE!!!!!!!!!!

ok i May be stupid but i thought everyone had a semblance???? bc semblance comes from aura, and everyone has aura??? maybe it’s just people without activated aura who wouldn’t have a semblance (so like if pyrrha had never unlocked his, jaune would’ve never discovered his semblance???? idk) but i’m also fairly certain roman has an activated aura????

very fond of roman meeting neo and understanding her very easily. platonic soulmatism i think.

ok wait actually i kinda wanna elaborate. LOVE that roman’s whole schtick is that he’s had to look out only for himself his whole life and he doesn’t wanna be a babysitter while neo is SICK of being babysat and so they work well together. ALSO LOVE that BECAUSE roman’s had to look out for himself his whole life, he’s good enough at reading body language and filling in the blanks to know what neo’s saying even without words.

also. hang on. OKAY. so neo gave roman his hat and roman gave neo her umbrella and neo made them BOTH outfits. BUT THEN ROMAN DIES and all neo has LEFT is the HAT SHE GAVE HIM and she goes to HIS OLD BOSS to help herself get revenge AND ONLY THEN DOES SHE CHANGE OUTIFTS????? BITCH??????? CHECK OUT HOW HARD I CAN APPARENTLY CRY OVER THEIR FRIENDSHIP

(okay note on the previous bullet after actually finishing: not the same hat :( and also how did neo convince lil miss malachite to help her when she nearly blew her up??? money ig lmao)

i’m literally obsessed with this being a ya book so roman and neo can’t steal alcohol or drugs, they gotta steal COFFEE 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 LIKE. ITS SO FUNNY TO ME

also in love with how (just like every other rwby friendship!!!!) there isn’t any pointless drama. they trust & love each other and that’s that!!!! like roman’s told that neo sold him out, and despite that being consistent with the rest of his life, he knows that’s not consistent with NEO and sees that she’s come to rescue him so there’s no petty drama around it!!! bc he TRUSTS HER!!!!!

pg268 “neo blinked back tears and hugged roman. ‘hey. don’t wrinkle the suit.’ but he put a hand on her head and over her shoulder, and that felt more like home than that house and her parents had in a long time.” HELLO????? HELL LOOOOO?????? bro i am CRYING i’m gonna SUE

tbh i was really worried they wouldn’t get to hug in this book BUT THEY DID!!!!!!! IM SO HAPPY WTFFFFFF

pg269 “her father threw up his hands. ‘do you know what she wants to say?’ he asked roman. ‘i do, actually.’ roman looked at her fondly. ‘i’m surprised you don’t.’” IM LOSING MY MINDDDDDD THATS LOVE!!!!!!!

pg270 “roman cleared his throat. ‘her name is neo.’” ALSKDJJREJNENFHCISOMENRJDIS BITCH

pg300 “he stopped walking. ‘while you get away. she’s mainly interested in me. drop this disguise and i’ll distract her. you get out of here. and never look back.’ she shook her head defiantly. he tried to pull his hand free, but she only held on more tightly.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

PAGE THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN SHE KISSES HIM ON THE CHEEK AJDJFJEJENDNJDN KSIDOEOSPSKEJEHEBE. F THE POWER OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP WINS AGAIN

okay okay so now that i’m finished here are my Actual thoughts alskcjejenbrhdisk:

i wish! that more of the book! was focused on roman & neo together and their friendship!! like i get that the first half was important bc they needed to show Just How Alone they both were before each other. but i would’ve gladly traded some of the beginning stuff for just a little more time with the two of them together. like maybe condense some of that and give us a few more anecdotes from their time training together?? just to show the development from wary partners to ride-or-die a little more. but idk. because the first half of the book felt a little slow for me but as soon as i got to the back half i could NOT put it down!!!!!!!!

i owe this writer (& the rwby writers ofc) my heart and soul and also probably my spleen. first cfvy, now roman & neo???? taking characters i didn’t have any strong feelings about but giving them personality and history and love and making ME love them???? AND WRITING FRIENDS/FAMILY SO WELL???? bro. BRO. i’m losing my MIND

ALSO. very excited for neo’s role in v9 now. and will also probably cry.

like. it would’ve been so easy for them to make roman & neo romantic. especially since there’s only like a 4 year age gap. but they DIDNT they let those two BE EACH OTHERS FIRST PRIORITY AND CLOSEST FRIEND AS FRIENDS AND I AM SO ECSTATIC ABT IT HOLY SHIT

#as always dont feel obligated to read this is mostly just nonsense aofjshlidh #like feel free to!! but the point of this is just for me 2 document my thoughts so it probably does not make much sense lmao #f: rwby #rwby: books #rwby: rh #t.txt

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meyeselph · 4 years ago

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Gwenpool: Desperate Misanthrope's Confused Angst

Showtime

Ms. Pool woke up in a familiar room. Not in Krakoa - there are no mutants around. This isn’t a story about that. Look, honestly, without an actual Gwenpool series and the constant breaks in her comics appearance I can’t even begin to give a fuck. I cancelled my marvel universe subbie. I might get back to my stories but single issues are iffy. I read fast and don’t pore over the artwork. So I get 10 minutes of entertainment for….FIVE DOLLARS? When did this happen? Jeezus.

Who even reads comics anymore?

Anyway, long story short, Gwen got out of bed and recognized the room as her old one from the “old times.” The dark times. The ‘not running around in pink and white outfits and shooting people’ times. She panicked (Been there. It is what it is though). The only way out of trauma is through.

She dressed in old clothes, immediately hit by old smells, she couldn’t help but cry. Was it all a dream? Have I gone insane (again)? All the usual self doubts cropped up. I mean, really, if you think this kind of thing didn’t pass through her mind regularly why don’t you transport yourself to a comic book universe?

Oh, you can’t?

Oh. It isn’t actually possible for you and I’m stupid for suggesting it. So, yeah. If it actually happened and you kept that attitude then the logical assumption for a normie is a mental breakdown. Trick for Gwen, though, is it's probably always been both real and her being nuts.

So she goes downstairs to the kitchen to figure out why this is happening and Evil Gwen is having cereal. Let's say cocoa puffs. I’ve been thinking about those recently. You ever remember cereal as something worth cherishing. Not as just bullshit that TV convinced you to want? God damn, now I want Cookie Crisp. Cookie Crisp wasn’t even ever that good. Why do I want Cookie Crisp?

So also sitting around the table were the faceless versions of her father, mother, and her brother. Just chilling. No BD. Seen Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind?

Yes, I know that references aren’t jokes - fuck you, I’m painting a picture and I CAN’T PAINT, THAT’S WHY THIS ISN’T A COMIC. Fucks sake. Anyway. So, Gwen is so creeped out that she just sits her butt down by Evil Gwen as if she’s the comforting presence here.

Her name’s too long. Let’s call Evil Gwen uh…….Gren. You know, like Grendel from Beowulf. I haven’t actually read Beowulf and this is all a little confusing but I'm solving problems here. Writing this is harder for me than you would think so it’s best to keep things flowing off the cuff. That’s the Gwenpool™ style anyway, isn’t it? Are you laughing yet? IMPROV. “YES AND” MY SHIT, READER!

“So, you ever really look into the retconned past thing, hun?” Gren said, moving her tongue around her food. Being gross as an attempt to be properly evil. She swallowed before continuing. “This is all I could really put together on short notice but i’m pretty sure what the future people created, all that stuff to try and trick you, it was all bullshit.”

“What do you mean? Are you trying to convince me to go all psycho like you again?” Gwen asked, exasperated, realizing she was now back in the whole ‘fuck with Gwen to decide her fate’ song and dance routine from the end of her first arc.

“Nah, not really.” Gren said. A hammer appeared in her hands out of nowhere and Gren swung it into their fake father’s head, snapping his neck..

“DAD!” Gwen instinctively cried as she saw her father’s body slump to the floor. Gren slapped Gwen’s face. “That’s it,” Gren said, “this is what the trick was.This is a poorly created character in a fictional story. Meant to manipulate you into attaching your concept of “father” to it. Even his finished version in the original comics run wasn’t THAT well drawn. Your dad read like a boomer’s idea of a responsible parent. You were going through a mental crisis and struggling to find purpose in life and his genius idea was get a shitty low paying job and suck it up?”

Gren turned to their brother, pushed his face to the table and smashed the back of his skull. . “Brother dearest, too. Going right along with their victim blaming. He gaslighted you as if what you were going through was just you being ‘irresponsible.’ Bitch, people working a minimum wage job aren’t somehow not impoverished and miserable because they get some of that ‘honest work’ that folks keep badgering on about. Minimum wage work is occupied by many physically and mentally disabled people held hostage; they’re people society only pretends to care about. Then they turn it all into you acting like some world ending threat. No questions about what drove you to the edge in the first place. You are just ‘unstable,’ so you’re just a problem to be solved. They say, ‘Let’s all solve this girl being upset and on edge by ruining her concept of self, reality, and memory.’ Brilliant!”

Gwen barely processed this in horror. Gren then slit the poor facsimile of their mother’s throat while continuing to rant, “You see people die all the time, Gwen. Half of the time you are doing the killing. You do it because it’s in a story. In a story the NPCs don’t matter and, after all, your original schtick in the story was to be kill-crazy. The non-marketable characters can be replaced or retconned at the stroke of the artist’s pen.” Gren leans forward as she pulls a Gwenpool mask over Gwens face. “Then the writers convince you that you have some middle class milk toast family and you take abuse and subsume your emotional needs because the problem MUST be you. You aren’t ‘normal’ so you have to be fixed.”

Gwen wiped her eyes over the mask and sighed. A bit of fire filled her gut as she stared at Gren. “So fucking what? You want me to go on a killing spree and be a big time villain to get myself a nice, shiny permanent big bad status? That’s how I stay around right? Just build my legacy on bodies?”

Gren scoffed “You already lost that fight, girly. Where do you think we are? Because this ain’t Marvel Comics.”

Confused, Gwen blinked and tried reaching for the page margins, finding nothing. Wait….why was everything on this page so ill defined and undetailed? Wait? Why was the story in kinda wobbly third person past tense?

Gwen sighed “Oh. I’m in a fanfic. I guess the publishing fight is for another day eh?”

“My advice, personally,” Gren stated, “is that you consider the lobster.”

“Wait, what the fuck?”

Gren pulled aside the kitchen curtains revealing the face of a giant lobster, its claws tapping on the glass. The lobster muttering gutterally about personal responsibility.

“Because there’s a couple thousand giant lobsters outside that would like to claw you until you read their book.”

Scared of Girls

On the rooftop, Gren shoved a high powered rifle into Gwen’s hands while she handled the close range threats. So, this conversation they’re about to have is important. Sniping puts Gwen into a sort of zen space, so that’s a better task to keep her focused, after all.

“So, what? You wanted me to internalize that my “origin story” is bullshit? Okay, what does that accomplish, then?” Gwen asked in a bit of a deadpan. She was so tired today. Not really feeling her happy go lucky energy. More like a “happy go fucky” energy. It was hard to always be on a knife's edge. Still the rifle’s kick into her shoulder was satisfying as she blew through two of the creepy looking lobsters at once. “Also, why the lobsters?”

Gren considered this. “Okay, last question first, I had to experiment a lot and do a lot of research to construct this place for your learning and healing in fanfic form....These buddies are a failed experiment of mine that I repurposed because the fic needed more action. Isn’t that right, giant enemy crap?” As she peppers the nearest goon with a hail of shotgun pellets the entire throng of them burst out, sharply muttering about divine symbols.

“As for what I'm trying to teach you, it’s that you aren’t reaching your potential.” Gren grumpily huffed.

“Duh,” Gwen reloads, “I mean you just killed a mannequin version of the voice in my head that says that to me every day.” one of those crustaceans talks about feminine symbolism while she decides on her next target.

“Not like fake daddy’s ‘Be a responsible member of society by paying your taxes’ type of potential. I mean your creative and emotional potential.” Gren flipped off the slavering throng of monsters, noticing they were starting to keep their distance from the roof.

“I never did finish that fanfic idea I had.” Gwen mused.

“God, don’t mention that,” Gren thrusts a finger at Gwenpool. “Not that I don’t respect fanfic, but when comic book writers make you and Kamala squee about fanfiction to try and relate to “the kids” it comes across as so condescending.”

“Really? I mean…..I'm sure it’s meant as support for the concept?”

“Most fucking superhero comics are just legalized fanfiction! The people who created the characters are either long gone or working on someone else’s characters! They just think they are so much better because they got fucking paid. They can’t imagine themselves as on the same playing field as fanficcers even though most of them have the same level of connection to the roots of the work as anyone else.” Gren groused loudly as she seemed to pull Reed Richards out of nowhere.

Confused, Reed looked around until his eyes met Gwen’s.“Oh great, you again.” Reed groaned as he turned to survey the piles of lobster gibs while Gwen cheered the lobster forces’ retreat with a resounding “EDF, EDF!”. The scattered creatures skittered amongst the bland scenery. It looked like a suburban neighborhood but someone forgot to color in the sky….or write that the sky had color. A castle hung out in the distance breaking up the generic normalcy and lay cloaked in shadow despite being surrounded by an endless white void.

“And…..black….you?” Reed pointed to Gren, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have an evil future self….well I stopped that future so it’s an….evil...alternate timeline self?” Gwen said with a nervous chuckle, abandoning the kill quest for the minute and rested her rifle on the roof.

“Ah. Yeah I’ve been down that road. It’s a rather common occurrence. Multiverse being what it is.” Reed laughed heartily while putting his hands on his hips.

“I’m not sure I’m evil, honestly,” Gren interjected. “I think I’m just really fucking grumpy and I’m slightly more gung-ho on the homicide. Considering Gwen’s already one of the more kill crazy characters on the roster it’s not that much of a distinction.” Gren flipped her cape. “My main distinction is I don’t like that meme from The Incredibles! You can just make it so the cape detaches automatically when it’s pulled hard enough!”

“You could still have it tangled up around your face.” Reed pointed out in his standard know-it-all fashion.

“Don’t make me go into fuck wife mode, stretch.” Gren spat. “Okay, anyway, so I brought him here to illustrate a point. Reed. Explain particle physics to me as a laymen.”

“Huh...i’m not sure why but okay. Particle physics (also known as high energy physics) is a branch of physics that studies the nature of the particles that constitute matter and radiation. Although the word particle can refer to various types of very small objects (e.g. protons, gas particles, or even household dust), particle physics usually investigates the irreducibly smallest detectable particles and the fundamental interactions necessary to explain their behaviour. In current understanding, these elementary particles are excitations of the quantum fields that also govern their interactions. The currently dominant theory explaining these fundamental particles and fields, along with their dynamics, is called the Standard Model. Thus, modern particle physics generally investigates the Standard Model and its various possible extensions, e.g. to the newest "known" particle, the Higgs boson, or even to the oldest known force field, gravity.” Reed rattled this off rather mechanically.

Gren then took out her phone and showed Gwen the Wikipedia article on “Particle Physics,” which is naturally the same words that Reed had regurgitated above, just without any formatting and, again, on a phone.

“Reed can’t be a genius in any subject unless he’s written by a genius in that subject. That’s how stories work. Everyone is limited by the understanding and capabilities of the writer. Same with your origin story and all the people you’ve interacted with. If you are as ‘meta’ as you think you are then you have to realize that you aren’t actually talking to people. You are talking to the writer. Dr. Strange didn’t rewrite your existence to be a part of the Marvel Universe. As far as most of Marvel continuity goes Dr. Strange was never there and doesn’t know or care about his MCU casting…..Hey Reed, buzz off please before the conversation pivots to why you haven’t cured all known diseases.”

Reed looked a little surprised but then pulled out a teleportation device (of course he has one) and blipped away with a shrug.

“How awkward is that going to be when he enters the MCU after Kamala is already introduced with a very similar power set?” Gwen chuckled.

“Keep up the way you’ve been going and you’ll never see it. I’m not exactly expecting a young blonde girl casting call for Deadpool 3 and that’s your best bet.” Gren snarked. Gwen winced with a sigh.

“I don’t get what I'm doing wrong. I have a fanbase comparable to some of the characters that have already shown up but I can’t even get comics written about me most of the time. An MCU push seems unlikely. They would literally have to deal with completely recontextualizing my powers and gimmick”

“Let’s ask her what you should do.” Gren motioned her way to the suddenly appearing long hair future Gwen, looming over them like The Attack of the 50 foot Woman for some reason. Dwarfing the roof they are on. Let’s call her BIGwen!

Gold Guns Girls

As BIGwen acclimated to her surroundings she stubbed her toe on a car, dramatically flipping it so that it took out a few more lobsters before caving in a nearby house. The lamentations about clean rooms soaring as the remaining couple dozen of them attempt to clean up some of the bodies of their fallen kin. The large and sort-of-in-charge Gwen hissed in pain and adjusted her boot. Getting her balance as best as possible she muttered curses that traveled rather well considering the lung capacity of a giant.

“You know,” Gren started, “I wasn’t expecting much from our previous uses of the ‘make her big for emphasis’ trick, but it really does only work as a vague ghostly background element. I didn’t just want it to be ‘oh, here's a third Gwen for the conversation, though. Would lack umph.”

“ Yeah, I get it, but staring at my own giant taint is unsettling.” Gwen muttered.

“I’d still, hit it.” Gren grinned, then immediately got punched in the arm. “OWWW! Look, I’m the evil one here and we’re in a fanfic. I’m allowed to make internet fetish jokes.”

“And I’m allowed to hit you for it.”.

“Dirty lampshading goody two shoes. Don’t act like half your fanbase isn’t thirsty. It’s “insert current year argument”, all art is sexy to someone.” Gren complained back,rubbing her arm before hopping off the roof. Gwen followed while listening as patiently as she could considering how many changes in topic her evil-caped self is going through to get to her point. “This chick is the reason you’ve been on the path of good girl. Some vague idea that in the future everything will work out for the best. HEY, DOWN HERE, BIG SHOW!” Gren waved at BIGwen and she looked down curiously.

“Yeah what??” BIGwen responded in a booming and agitated tone. Honestly, being in this fic made every version of Gwen a little grumpy.

“How’s she supposed to be a popular hero that makes it into the MCU and has a stable publication history?” Gren asked.

“Fuck if I know.” Came BIGwen’s response. “Have you tried growing your hair out?”

“Rub it in,” Gwen muttered under her breath, “I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of depressed now.” Gwen said as she sat on an abandoned car.

Gren hopped on the roof of the car, patting Gwen’s shoulder before squatting with enough force to flex the car’s shocks like a rocking chair just to amuse herself. “Future “good” Gwen wasn’t an actual plot point, it was a call to action to the fans to make fanfic like this and support the character outside of the actual Canon. Chris didn’t trust that Marvel would treat the character right. That, and your obsession with getting a new book, are both the writer’s attempt to turn a marketing tactic into fan engagement. If you want to be real then that makes the fans want you to be real even more, too.”

Gwen sighs heavily and leans her chin on one hand. “I mean...the time traveling through the life of an NPC fan complete with a Never Ending Story reference was a bit sappy even by the standard we sometimes set...damn it it really was just kind of a fan manipulation trick wasn’t it?”

BIGwen Sat down on the street next to them and crossed her legs. “Hey, little me. Don’t get too down. I mean it worked for the most part. You have a healthy cult following. Characters have survived on less and there are worse things to be known for then as a fan first character”

“But I have to fight for attention all the damn time, though. It’s so easy for Wade with his fucking meme bullshit. He even gets runoff enthusiasm from me. Jeff the land shark is all over Oldpool online” Gwen felt rather heavy and tired all of a sudden. Marvel editorial forcing a gun to your head is not a fun way to be.

“All that fight is hell on the fanbase too.” Gren sighed. “Advocating for shit, getting crumbs and being expected to accept it while Disney lavishes all the attention based on some bullshit numbers game. Even if you make it into the MCU will it be a Batroc style cameo with obligatory ‘killed off in case we don’t feel like paying the actor again later.’ Will it be an emotionally rounded character or an ambush bug style joke? The thing is. You're Not the one fighting and you never were.”

“The fuck do you mean?”

“This version of her doesn’t know?” BIGwen whimpered.

“You aren’t real, Gwen.”

Head Like a Haunted House

“No….we aren’t having this conversation. Fuck you fuck you i’m not a fucking Nihlist and i’m not going to do this right now.” Gwen said as she scrambled off of the car and pulled out some guns. BIGwen then picked her up off the ground.

“You need to hear this, Gwen,” BIGwen boomed. “The gimmick has run its course. It’s fucking with your canon. You’re never going to be a marketable character keeping up a half fourth-wall Kayfabe”

Gren climbed onto BIGwen’s Shoulders and perched over Gwen all menacing like. “You need to listen. I’ve been trying to ease you into this. Making things more meta slowly until you were ready but it was never going to be easy.”

One of Gwen’s guns was fired from it’s holster and pierced one of BIGwen’s fingers. BIGwen screamed and her grip loosened. Soon Gwen was on the move running up her arm and firing at Gren, who dodged like the nimble and cute badass she is. “Don’t do this Gwen. Just because it doesn’t matter to the comic version of you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m a real person god damn it! I read the comics out there! I came in! That’s why I know shit I shouldn't know. That’s what I am! THAT’S ALL I AM!” Gwen shrieked as she pulled out a sword from hammer-space and decapitated BIGwen. Suddenly a mess of colored streamers and a pile of Mickey Mouse merch tumbled out. Look, I am busy right now. Gwen is still slashing at my ass. I'm not going to explain it.

For some reason now the remaining lobsters were helping Gren. For Gwen’s own good you understand. This is proof that I’m right for some reason.

Gwen pulled out a revolver, firing pumpkin sized holes in lobsters who were still wailing about self actualization. She fully planned on shoving a sword up her evil self’s ass and getting rid of this doppelganger shit for good. Which is total bullshit by the way. She totally just cut off Gren’s leg because what the fuck you mean I’m not real? I’m going to be real all over your corpse.

Gren didn’t really think that was even a good comeback and also thought you should probably say it instead of meta willing the smack talk into existence, otherwise this fanfic is going to read like trash. Also, Gren’s leg wasn’t actually cut off. In a puff of smoke it is revealed that the cut off leg is a log and her leg is fine. Gren is a ninja now, believe it.

Gwen proceeded to do a sick ass CQC judo throw on Gren and then grab her cape and wrap it around her face like Reed suggested. Callbacks for the win! Callbacks to Checkov’s gun ideas always lead to victory in fights! She then totally shot at her and such.

But the bullet was caught by the cape because the cape was a symbiote! That’s right Gren is also GRENOM!...boy that sounds stupid. Anywho, the cape was no longer around her face and the fight continued and Gren now ALSO had extra powers and special wizard-symbiote armor (that would only show up in the MCU version if Marvel finally got the Sony characters back). The meta powers work like shit in text but this would be really good in CGI or animation if Marvel wanted to adapt this fic and give the writer lots of money. Gren still has more experience with them, though, and Gwen can’t really just kill her way out of this fic so she has to just let the story play out.

…...eh?....oh Gwen’s crying. I love/am you girl but we gotta work on the crying. Fucks sake this is harder than I thought. I’m depressed now too. Well I'll try to get the writing back on track so you guys can see what is going on. Even the lobsters are minding their manners now. Chill vibes, guys.

“The marvel character page for Gwenpool says, and I quote:

Gwenpool arrived in the Marvel Universe from the “real world,” but has wasted no time in making the most of her time in her fictional universe. Using her knowledge of comics to her advantage, Gwenpool causes and solves problems for her fellow heroes.”

Gren drags a lobster corpse slowly toward Gwen and sits on its tail as she talks to her. Taking her time to really scrape the lobster against the ground, smearing the gore on the pavement. Not that it was heavy for her or anything. Totally still has that symbiote, which would make moving it easy. Totally wasn’t a detail added in the second revision of the fic slightly before the lobsters were added.

“The words “Real world” are in quotation marks in that wiki. Real people don’t make it into comics because fiction isn’t real. Half of your versions barely make use of the ‘real person’ gimmick because it’s too meta by half and not every writer wants to waste time justifying it. So they just treat it like Deadpool’s medium awareness. Which it mostly is.”

“I really am just a fucking rip off distaff character.” Gwen moans. “Just a Gwen combined with a Pool. I’m worse than the Batman who laughs. I never mattered because I was never real”

“Fuck don’t say that. You were made with love and care by a team of creators who took a weird offshoot idea and built out a compelling metafiction idea and a likeable protagonist off of it. They just didn’t have the time and foresight to go far enough.” Gren sighed.

“Far enough?” Gwen sniffed as she was pulled up to her feet and dragged toward one of the big castles. As they walked Gren kicked along a Mickey Mouse doll that had rolled out of BIGwen’s severed head. Every time it bounced it cheerfully said ‘hahah. I love you!’

“Too much haha, not enough trauma. You’re not just a joke character.” Gren said as she kicked the Mickey doll into the big front door of the castle. The shadowy thing of course lighting up and being all fantasy and shit as the door opened.

“Well I did end both of my comic runs pretty mopey.”

“Damn right you did. When the jokes run thin they run to your real bread and butter. You’re an empathy machine.” As Gren shoves Gwen through the gate they are swallowed up in the castle, going dark again. “Let’s getcha sad clown on.”

Never there

“See, what evil me should have been telling you about in the original run is how to find meaning and purpose when technically nothing means anything. Comic book characters live in a world without real death and suffering. It’s all a puppet show version of real pain and real emotion meant to bring that out of an audience.” Gren opined as they walked through a black void to a couch floating in a nothing area lit only by the static of an old TV.

“Can we turn on a light?” Gwen asked as she sat on the couch. Gren sat on another recliner that suddenly appeared and put her feet up.

“Fuck off. Ambiance is a thing. We aren’t having a ‘lights on with something fun on the TV’ conversation. So look, I am not really ‘evil gwen.’ I’m half an author insert and half a plot device. If we are talking about the reality of the story you are basically talking to yourself. I am speaking about the things you don’t want to admit to yourself. You know, you’ve seen this kind of story sorta... right?” Gren picked up the remote and frustratedly changed channels between a bunch of vaguely illustrative footage on the TV, not finding anything that worked. A lot of black and white footage of trains for some reason. Just what comes to mind when I think of documentary footage? Weird.

“I am not sure how to illustrate this shit visually and this is a text story anyway so I would have to explain the illustration,” Gren griped.

“I basically get it. It’s not that uncommon a trope.” Gwen nodded.

“Because of the level of meta we are on right now we have to really acknowledge that you are basically an author insert, too. I mean, to a certain extent every version of you is more the writer that is working with your character at the time than a set character.” Gren said as she settled on a visual of Gwen being pushed out the window by her own narration text in the original comic run. When all else fails, resort to footage from the last story. That way people can look it up online!

“Right here is where the character crystallized in the mind of the author of the current fic we are in. A vague suicide metaphor wrapped up in the flavor of self destructive escapism. Your parents in the story thought it was a suicide attempt on at least some level. This is serious business. Not just a girl who doesn’t like work and can’t finish her fanfic. In this comic you are built on this understanding. The writer of this fic has ADHD and autism. So his version of you more or less has it, too. Writers bring themselves with them into their work.”

Gwen nods and takes a deep breath. “I….I can feel it. Like the world is closing around you. You aren’t built for anything that anyone wants from you. The one thing you really believe in, the one thing that really defines you, the stories in your head…..it’s just not enough.

You can’t trust you’ll ever make it with writing because you can barely write. You barely have the energy to do anything but wish that you weren’t you. What if someone actually listened? Actually believed in you and whisked you away somewhere else where the world would fit your needs? What if you were someplace you could be someone else, someone strong and confident?”

“Yeah. Like a funny anti hero in a comic for instance.” Gren nodded. “But the original comics sort of left the theme on the table. They were captured by the misconception of Gwen as the problem and not a person who needed help. All that desperation that real fans of the character might feel just bundled up into love for this character that really ‘gets’ them but Marvel doesn’t ‘get’ the character. They won't use her. They won’t go past vaguely gesturing at her mental issues and moving on. They saved the angst for Wandavision.” Gren scoffs.

“I mean the show was okay but they literally have a character built entirely on the theme of escapism and trauma. One that’s custom built for mind-screw visuals and reality bending plots and they think she’s just a lazy fangirl who really likes guns that they can sit beside Deadpool sometimes and stick in the X-Men’s bloated background character roster when they don’t need her.”

Gren leads Gwen off the couch and deeper into the void where a door to a bedroom waits. A room like her own, absolutely slopping over with old toys of comic book characters. An unclean messy space in a run-down house that smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Huddled in bed, reading an 80s era X-men comic with a flashlight, is a 12 year old Gwen.

“This is never going to be canon but this is the version of Gwen in this fic. She can’t stop crying at school. Things that shouldn’t be hard are so hard and she can’t explain why. Everyone says she’s making excuses. Meanwhile her mother is fucked out of her mind on pain killers and her step father killed himself last year ‘cleaning his gun’ while drunk. You know exactly what is on her mind right now?” Gren says as she gestures at the girl.

“I wish the superheroes would save me from this.”

“They won’t. They can’t. They were never meant to.” Gren Slams the door loudly on the scene.

“That is the emotional core of Gwenpool in this fic. The desperation that so many of the fans down here in the fucking muck of the real world feel. Poor and emotionally unfulfilled. Confused and vulnerable. If Disney and Marvel gave two fucking shits about people like that they wouldn’t waste as many stories as they do. They wouldn’t just use untold wealth to make expensive escapist stories with the military. Their gestures toward progressive ideas that they occasionally make in their stories would be THE ENTIRE POINT of their stories and the actual thing they used that money for instead of lobbying the government to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.

“Disney has the power yet they save a fucking miniscule fraction of who they could. Saving people doesn’t make money.”

When I Get To The Green Building

Gren stormed through the void. The scene disintegrated around her as Gwen followed. Both now in a bit of a sour mood but with newfound determination.

“Come to think of it. Why is the fucking Hulk getting to fight for social justice in the comics? Why are they making a gay alternate universe Captain America? Why are they grasping at straws so hard to find characters that get to advocate and I am just sitting on a fucking island being grumpy?” Gwen groused. “I’m pretty sure I’m pansexual….at least in this fic. I could advocate for a bunch of shit at once.”

“You have a youth fanbase, a unique story and you technically aren’t an alternate universe version of fucking anything no matter how many people still think you are a Stacey. They made a fucking ‘for the fans’ character and then neglected it. Presumably because some fucking money making metric didn’t pan out despite the comics just being an MCU test kitchen and IP farm anyway.”

“You’re a fucking check mark on a ledger. I don’t even know if anyone technically created Gwenpool as a whole and Disney/Marvel can give the character to whoever they want to do whatever they want completely separate from what the fanbase wants and needs because she isn’t established. The IP landlords have spoken. The fans haven’t risen to enough ‘buy my merch’ calls to action to invest more resources. So tease endlessly until that changes.”

“Gah. Now I'm actually as pissed as you are.” Gwen said as she started fiddling with her guns. “Who do I kill?”

“We can’t do shit. You’re not even a character at this point. You are a meme for an underused character.” Gren smirked all evil like. “See but that’s it. You aren’t just a meme. You’re a MEME.”

“Uhm...I don't follow.”

“Like the concept of Justice. Gwenpool is an idea. Defined entirely by how people who engage with the idea choose to engage with it. The IP law means Disney owns Gwenpool but they don’t own how Gwenpool is perceived. Just like we as a people decide what justice is through popular consent we also decide what Gwenpool is. You see they made a character for the fans…..in my opinion that means the fans can do as they like with it even if it makes Disney uncomfortable.”

“I mean they can’t even stop porn of their characters just because of the sheer volume of the problem. I suppose people could do whatever.” Gwen nodded.

“Exactly. So the fans should just fucking Occupy Gwenpool!” Gren said as she flipped her cape dramatically with a mad smile on her face. That’s right. She was Dirtbag Leftist Gwen all along!

“Squat on that IP. Make Gwenpool a mental health advocate. Make her an LGBTQ activist. Make her fight for social and financial justice so hard that Bruce Banner looks like a poser. Make her talk shit about politicians who put their career ahead of the people. Do all the shit that makes the comicsgate crowd sad. Keep politics in our stories! Rally around that pink and white ass so hard they have to notice and then tie it all to the fact that Disney has great power and with great power they take no responsibility for how shitty the world is.”

“ If they are going to fuck Gwenpool fans they gotta learn Gwenpool fans fuck back. We have already proven we can make all kinds of cool shit. Let’s get serious and make more, harder, faster! Get a hashtag or some shit. They can't DMCA all of us! GWEN IS OURS WE JUST HAVE TO REACH OUT AND TAKE IT. Then they either respect the character and her fans or they just hit a PR disaster.”

“Marvel/Disney neglects fan focused cult character themed protest movements. Proves they are only progressive when it makes them money. They’re so worried about Mickey ending up in the public domain? We’re the public domain! After our entire lives stannin their characters and buyin their merch building them from an animation house into a juggernaut they are just another weight on top of the boot on our necks. They have to take responsibility!” At this point Gren is pretty much ranting maniacally and neglecting the actual writing of the story so this is Gwen taking over to wrap up.

Guys I may not be ‘the real Gwen’ but really, isn’t the version of Gwen that actually came from the real world all of us? Isn’t Gwenpool really the Gwens we made along the way? We could easily bring a little heroism and chaos to the real world (at least to the internet) if we really tried. Put the fear of God into some IP landlords and fight for some cool people that society is screwing over, too.

Prove that even in the fandom abyss people aren’t as powerless as they seem. Use that internet comic fan mobbing for something besides giving Zack more money. Disney is gearing up for their next IP fight for Mickey in 2024. Seems like a fine time for IP themed protests. For now we just need to spread the word that our needs are more important than their profits.

It’s been real. It’s been long. It’s been a real long time coming…..

But I finally finished my fanfic.

See ya, true believers.

#gwenpool #fanfic #deconstruction #outofloveiswear #fortheoriginalwritersnotmarvelordisney #tw mental health #tw mentions of suicide #tw mentions of drug abuse #tw violence #tw gun violence

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taiblogcomics · 4 years ago

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The Joke’s on the Readers

Hey there, hotel gift shops. Well, the year's about to end. Why not close out this terrible year with one more terrible Teen Titans comic? Do you realise we're halfway done with this series already? If you go solely by the main numbered issues and not any of the crossovers or annuals or special issues (trust me, we'll get there), this is the halfway point. So in other words, expect this series to last all the way through 2021 as well~

Here's the cover:

Well, it's a better cover than last week, I'll tell you that much. I mean, I still don't like it, but it's better than last week's. A Jokerised Tim Drake? Well, someone was watching the Batman Beyond movie before writing this, huh~? The confusing part is this: why is everyone in the background trussed up in a web? Did he become Jokerised or Spider-Manned? And one more bit of advice, comic. Don't remind people of a better comic they could be reading instead of yours (with roughly the same premise, no less) right in the tagline~

So we open on somebody's slash fiction: Red Hood and Red Robin bound on the floor facing each other like an S-shape. Too many reds. This is why I call them Jason and Tim in the actual reviews, and especially in this one. The Joker enters, does his schtick for a bit, then leaves to find the controls for his dungeon here. He wakes both of them up with a jet of water. The boys greet each other, and Jason apologises for getting Tim into this, citing last issue of Red Hood for a source. I'm sure I did review it back in the day, but that was so long ago on the Xanga blog that I'd actually have to re-upload it here to link it~

Tim warns Jason not to let Joker get under his skin, since of course that's what Joker wants. Well, that and to kill them. Jason asks if Tim has a plan, and Tim replies that he always has a plan. That's his secret, Cap. Joker indicates they should turn around, and they discover behind them two bodies tied to the pipes, bags over their heads to conceal their identities. The outfits and tags hanging on then strongly imply that these are their respective fathers. Jason's dad is dressed in his prison oranges, and I don't remember enough about the original run of Red Hood to remember how much of that was revealed by this point~

So we cut over to the people this book is actually about, the Titans. Hey, remember how the last issue ended with a cliffhanger of all the folks in the apartment complex being Jokerised? Apparently that got solved offscreen over in Red Hood #16. But the comic assures us that both teams were instrumental. Roy assures us and Cassie that no matter what she thinks, he's still a dumbass. Aw, I miss you, Roy. The group rushes off, with Solstice noting her power levels have gone up. This can only mean one thing: that guy Lance is around somewhere. I don't know why it means that, but I'll take her word for it~

She's right, too, because we then cut over to that Lance guy, decked out in ugly green power armour, with the helpful caption "Nearby". His internal narration even confirms that it was thanks to him boosting their powers that they cleared up the Jokerising thing. Before he can move on and report back to Amanda Waller, though, he's attacked by a snakey lady named Basilisk who says that "her organisation" will claim the Titans. Lance counters that his powers can not only boost the powers of others, but also shut them down. Those sound like radically opposing powersets, but here we are. While he focuses on Basilisk, someone attacks him from behind, knocking him out. That was all one page! I'm impressed!

Not done with cutting to other characters, we cut to... Trigon the Terrible. Yes, you remember how I complained a few issues back that the book had been builiding up Trigon, only to not reveal him? Well, here you go, a completely anti-climatic reveal of Trigon, just slouching on his throne, announcing his newest plan to his minions like he's a Saturday morning cartoon villain. And what is this plan, this new evil he intends to unleash on the Earth? Why, it's his daughter Raven, of course. The comic asks us in an editor's caption "Who saw this coming since Phantom Stranger #1?". No one, comic. No one knew they needed to be reading Phantom Stranger to understand this plot point in Teen Titans.

We'll deal with Raven (and her horrible new design) when she actually makes an impact on the plot of the comic, which she does not do here. This is just a teaser for future events, none of which have anything to do with the current plot. And the current plot is that the Joker is making Jason and Tim fight to determine which dad will survive. Tim's like "You really think we're so dumb as to fall for this old cliché?" And Jason proves, yes, he really is that dumb, as he points a gun at Tim. ...Why did the Joker let him keep his guns?

Anyway, a big fight ensues. I hate recapping fights, as you should know by now. The long and short of it is that in the end, Tim gets the upper hand and he comments how much he's resisting the urge to kill Jason right there. The Joker pushes him to do it, or he'll kill both dads. Tim reasons that the only thing to do... is not play by the Joker's rules from the beginning. Turns out, their whole fight was actually intending to destroy the prison they're being kept in, and Tim springs back to let Jason shoot directly into the Joker's chamber.

Tim reveals that indeed, he knew all along. See, even with their heads bagged, he could tell it wasn't his father. There's a scar on his wrist that's at least four years old, given how it's healed, and he's kept a close personal eye on his parents ever since they went into witness protection. That sounds somewhat antithetical to witness protection, but okay. They peek in the hole they've made, and then the Joker's body starts spewing gas.

Somehow, the Joker switched out for a body double just before Jason shot him and escaped. This is a fake, and the gas quickly knocks both lads out. So they're right back where they started the comic. And the comic ends with the Joker holding a couple of bloody covered dishes, inviting us to see the conclusion in Batman #17. Or, if you're like me, years later in a trade collection~

Well, first of all, the cover was a lie. Let’s just put that out there right now. I know that’s often to be expected, but nothing even thematically similar appears in the comic. The previous issue was more forgivable because it was just setting up the event. But this? This issue is barely even readable. You cannot read this issue as a standalone story, let alone as part of a sequential story from issue to issue. Every single cut in this is either continuing from some other comic or teasing you to continue the story in some other comic. Nothing is allowed to stand on its own. And the fact that the story concludes the same way it opens, with both former Batman partners unconscious, really just feels like the whole thing was a waste of time~

#comics #reviews #Teen Titans #Death of the Family #Taiblog

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oscopelabs · 5 years ago

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Telling Lies In America 1985-1995: The Joe Eszterhas Era by Jessica Kiang

“Written by Joe Eszterhas” is a phrase that has not had much of a workout on US cinema screens in over twenty years—and it’s arguable whether the 1997, 19-screen nationwide release of certifiable shitshow Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film exactly qualifies as “a workout.” But for those of us who had the parental training wheels come off our theatrical filmgoing in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, there were few individuals more central to our cinematic coming-of-age. And with perhaps the sole exception of Shane Black, a different animal in any case, none of the others—the Spielbergs, Camerons, Tarantinos—were exclusively screenwriters. For over a decade, the Hungarian-born, Hollywood-minted superstar writer of Basic Instinct bestrode the adult-oriented commercial screenwriting mainstream like a smirking colossus in a tight dress wearing no underwear. And given that Hollywood is primarily how the USA, the most loudly, proudly self-created of nations, expresses itself to itself and to the rest of the world, by the man’s own bombastic standards it’s only a slight exaggeration to suggest that America, between the years of 1985 and 1995, was written by Joe Eszterhas.

But for all the dominance he exerted, the rules he rewrote and the sheer money he made, examining Eszterhas’ heyday today feels like an act of paleontology, even for those of us who lived through it. 1992 is not so very distant; in a variety of ways it is still with us. It was the year Quentin Tarantino, whose latest film is in theaters right now, broke out with his first, Reservoir Dogs. It was the year the current loathsome, racist, tinpot President of the United States made a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, back when he was merely a loathsome, racist, tinpot property tycoon. It was the year that the number one box office spot was taken by Disney’s animated Aladdin, which felt close enough in time that the live-action remake which—and I’ve checked my notes on this, apparently was a thing that happened to us in 2019—felt entirely too soon.

But it was also the year of Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, the sine qua non of Eszterhas-penned films. And if Sharon Stone’s lascivious leg-cross (Verhoeven’s invention, incidentally, not Eszterhas’) provided posterity with the most iconic upskirt of a blonde in a white dress since Marilyn Monroe’s encounter with a subway grate, that is largely all that remains to us of it today. Well, that and the instantly forgotten sequel (sans Eszterhasian involvement) that already seemed wildly anachronistic in 2006. The original film, its writer, the erotic thriller genre it exemplified, the dunderheaded sexual politics it upheld while attempting to subvert, the whole idea of a mainstream screenwriter having a brand at all (even one as loosely defined as “writer of films you don’t tell your parents you snuck into”), all seem like ancient relics. These are the artifacts not only of a bygone age but of an extinct genus, a whole evolutionary branch that was nipped in the bud so comprehensively that even now scientists might argue over how closely the skeletons of certain bird species resemble the bones of Basic Instinct.

This containment, however, is what makes looking back at the Eszterhas era so fascinating. His brief Hollywood hegemony is a microcosmic event in cinematic history, one with a beginning, middle, and an end (barring some late-breaking epilogue, or a post fade-to-black pan down to an ice pick under the bed). And it didn’t start with his first produced screenplay, for the leaden Sylvester Stallone truckers-union drama F.I.S.T. (Norman Jewison, 1978), although the glimmer of future feats of financial alchemy was already present in the reported $400,000 he received for the novelization. Dawn really broke for Eszterhas, as it did for three of the only other people who could legitimately be termed his peers as purveyors of massively popular, high-concept, low-brow ‘80s sensationalism (producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, director Adrian Lyne), with 1983’s Flashdance.

It was an improbable success, less a film than an aerobics video occasionally interrupted by some awkward sassy banter and Jennifer Beals’ popping-flashbulb smile. Its vanishingly thin story, which Eszterhas co-wrote, is of an 18-year-old welder in a steel mill, who moonlights as an exotic dancer while aspiring to become a ballerina—a logline that sounds like a hoot of derision even as an unadorned description—and is full of Eszterhasian hallmarks. There’s the high degree of preposterousness. There’s the gym scene, during which the ladies of the cast grimace and lift weights in full makeup, and while here the frictionless unreality of Lyne’s TV-commerical aesthetic makes the sequence abstract, the peculiar faith in the erotic potential of a workout would recur in the squash sequence in Jagged Edge (Richard Marqund, 1985) and the ludicrous gym date in Sliver (Phillip Noyce, 1993).

And Flashdance also prefigures almost the entire Eszterhas oeuvre in being a story that centers on a woman’s experience and that laudably—if here laughably—positions her career ambitions as at least equal to her romantic aspirations in the mechanism of the plot. But, as elsewhere, it’s a view of women constructed by a proudly unreconstructed man, directed and photographed by men. (Eszterhas’ hard-drinking, womanizing, hellraising, Hunter S. Thompson-of-the-movies persona is enjoyably self-mythologized in his memoir Hollywood Animal.) If anything, what comes across most strongly in Eszterhas’ conception of a “strong woman” is his bafflement when tasked with imagining what such a woman might have going on inside her brain. His filmography may be full of female-fronted titles, and may contain the most famous mons venus in film history, but most of Eszterhas’ work could not be more male gaze-y f it were written from the point of view of an actual phallus, like the closing chapter of his 2000 book American Rhapsody, which is narrated by Bill Clinton's penis, Willard (I am not making this up).

This powerfully eroticized dissociation, this sexualized incomprehension of women as people with interior lives, is the animating idea behind the most Eszterhasian of Eszterhas scripts. But it’s a blank space in which directors, and especially actresses, could sometimes find room to create for themselves. Sharon Stone is genuinely, in-on-the-joke fantastic in Basic Instinct—who else could have delivered “What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?” as if it were an unreturnable Wildean riposte? Costa-Gavras’ Music Box (1989) is by some distance the sturdiest and least dated of Eszterhas movies, a lot due to its comparative sexlessness, but also because of a great, warm, real performance from an Oscar-nominated Jessica Lange. Debra Winger just about wins out in her more thankless role in Costa-Gavras’ first Eszterhas collaboration, Betrayed (1988). And Glenn Close imbues the heroine of the superior thriller Jagged Edge with such shrewdness that it’s almost a liability to the believability of the central deception.

But live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the director/actress combo fails to operate in similar sympathy we get Stone horribly miscast as a… sexy wallflower?… in Sliver, or Linda Fiorentino visibly flailing as a… downtrodden femme fatale?… in Jade, or poor Elizabeth Berkley thrashing wildly about in the neon-lit swimming pool of kitsch that is Showgirls. In these failures, the writer’s almost panicky vision of women as vast, dangerous cognitive black holes is best revealed. But then, mistrust of the opposite sex is only one aspect of the wider mystery that underpins even Eszterhas’ outlier titles: his entire output is preoccupied with how little any of us can ever know anyone.

In Eszterhas’ semi-autobiographical Telling Lies In America (Guy Ferland, 1997), a teenage Hungarian immigrant (Brad Renfro) is dazzled by Kevin Bacon's smooth-talking DJ, but blindly unable to work out if he is friend or fiend. Music Box details a lawyer’s dawning disillusionment over her adored father's murderous past—eerily mirroring Eszterhas’ discovery of his own father’s collaboration with the Hungarian Nazi regime. Betrayed has Winger’s FBI agent falling for Tom Berenger’s farmer only to discover he is, in fact, the neo-Nazi she insisted to her bosses he was not, in similar vein to Jagged Edge, in which Close’s lawyer discovers that the lover she successfully defended actually dunnit after all.

Oftentimes, the credulity-stretching ambivalence of these characters is all that powers the suspense, as in the is-she-gonna-kill-him-or-is-she-just-orgasming moments in Basic Instinct. In the misbegotten Nowhere to Run (Robert Harmon, 1993) Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a ruthless ex-con turned valiant protector, his blockish inertia apparently meant to signal that inner ambiguity. More often, it leads to final-act fake-out twists so unmoored to anything like recognizable motivation that they become weirdly weightless, as in Sliver when Stone’s Carly does not know if she’s killed the right man until the final four seconds of the film, and where, had the coin-flip gone the other way, it would still be equally (un)believable.

If it’s part of the egotistical remit of the writer to believe they have an insight into human psychology, it’s remarkable how much of Eszterhas’ oeuvre pivots around how fundamentally unknowable people are to one another. And while that schtick, by which you can’t tell if someone cares for you or is simply a talented sociopathic mimic, resonated briefly at the exact moment when the grasping, solipsistic ‘80s were segueing into the untrustworthy, PR-managed ‘90s, it proved not to have much long-game sustain. Critics had always been sniffy about Eszterhas, who clearly mopped up his tears with massive wads of 100 dollar bills. But when audiences started staying away, like in the Showgirls and Jade-blighted annus horribilis of 1995, the inflationary bubble that allowed Eszterhas to command millions for two-page outlines scribbled, one suspects, on the back of strip club napkins, abruptly burst. The idea of screenwriter-as-auteur, or rather as reliable bellwether of commercial success, proved a fallacy, an expensive experiment that began and ended with Joe Eszterhas, its earliest progenitor, luckiest beneficiary, and biggest casualty.

Glossy, vacuous, adult-themed thrillers were not the only thing going on in Hollywood, and Eszterhas was not the only big-name screenwriter. Shane Black, writer of Lethal Weapon, also commanded astronomical sums for his early ‘90s scripts, but the key difference is that Black wrote in the register of the franchise-able action-spectacular blockbuster that would eventually trounce all others as the Hollywood model for the future. Black has gone on to become part of the Marvel machine as a writer and director, while aside from one Hungarian-language period film, Children of Glory (Krisztina Goda, 2006), Eszterhas’ contribution to the pop cultural landscape post-2000 has been in the form of self-aggrandizing memoirs, or highly public fallings-out with celebrities, like Mel Gibson, of a similarly corked vintage.

The tastemaker point of view has historically been to consider Eszterhas among the worst things that ever happened to Hollywood—so much so that disdain-dripping sarcasm seems to be the fallback for critics summarizing his impact. But while no one is going to make the case for the man’s filmography as some sort of artistic landmark, the Eszterhas era did represent one of the last gasps of a Hollywood that believed, however misguidedly, in personality over product, when the idiosyncrasies, idiocies and ideologies of a single person—a writer at that—could, with studio backing and a 1,500 theater release strategy, influence the cinematic development of an entire generation. That might not have seemed like a good thing but retrospect, like cocaine, is a helluva drug and in 2019, with blandly anonymous, market-tested content churned out by mega-corporations bi-weekly to siphon your hard-earneds away, the kind of salacious tackiness Eszterhas represented feels oddly adorable, even quaint. Now that singular talents—even the obnoxious and objectionable ones—who could make decent returns on mid-budget, adult-oriented mainstream fare, have been steamrollered by infantilizing, monolithic billion-dollar mega-franchises, it’s hard not to be a little nostalgic for the vanished hiccup of time when Hollywood briefly uncrossed its legs for Joe Eszterhas, and Joe Eszterhas told us all what he saw.

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spaceorphan18 · 5 years ago

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SO Watches Friends 1x01-1x03

Apparently, it’s been 25 years since Friends aired - and I’m seeing all these articles on it, how it was the greatest ever, how it sucked, how apparently the youngins are discovering it on Netflix.

So - I felt like, what they hey, I haven’t seen it in years, and I need to watch something while I have meals, so let’s see how well this show holds up.

Pilot - The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate (because how else is she going to pay for that apartment.)

It’s funny to me that this was the hot new show of the time. Because these people are... incredibly boring. The beginning montage is them sitting in a cafe talking about random boring things for what appears to be hours, then they go home and watch TV. This seems to be what they do on the weekend. I mean, I realize in the early 90s there wasn’t /that/ much to do - but still, they live in NYC, and most of the stuff they do on this show will be sitting around doing nothing.

So, let’s break down these characters, shall we?

Rachel - It’s her wedding day, but she skips out on her wedding because she didn’t love her fiance. I think this is supposed to be funny? While I do think, in general, all of the characters are more relatable (and nicer) than in later in the series, she’s such a weird amalgamation of what the writers (or network?) thought would be relatable? I mean - she’s kind of dumb, and rich enough that money isn’t a problem, and her family values are set back in the 50s - hence her getting married so her husband can support her instead of her father.

I get where the character is coming from - but while it might have been more of a progressive stance at the time -- it seems like a relic now.

Monica - Who is the most together one of them at the moment. I like early Monica, tbh, who appears intelligent (for the most part). They’ll later take her quirks and make her a neurotic nutjob - but I can appreciate her mature nature right now.

She goes on a date with Paul the Wine Guy - and again, it shows just how boring these guys’ lives are that they’re standing around her apartment with nothing better to do than to cheer her on about her date. Is this what people in ther 20s did in the early 90s? I was much too young to know. Anyway - Paul the Wine Guy is an asshate who uses lines to get Monica into bed. The network thought this would make Monica sleezy. I’m so glad times have changed enough that we can look back and be glad we can see that it’s really Paul the Wine Guy who’s sleezy, and that there are faster ways to figure out if a guy is a creep or not.

Phoebe - Phoebe has absolutely nothing to do in the pilot other than be there and be weird. I much appreciate it - because this show would be utterly boring and devoid of any quirky elements if she wasn’t there. Also - Lisa Kudrow sells the comedy while most of the rest of them (minus Matthew Perry) seem to be just reading the script.

Joey - I have no idea what Matt LeBlanc is trying to do here. Is he doing a NYC Italian accent? Is he trying out for a part? He’s kind of the most cringy during the Pilot but at least that’ll go away quickly.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Joey, he and Chandler are like two halves of the same character at the beginning, both with little development. But - funny enough, maybe it’s age, I found myself agreeing with Joey during the whole dishing out life advice thing to Ross -- there’s no such thing as soul mates or destiny, get out there and live life :P

Chandler - Like Phoebe he doesn’t have much to do other than make quips. Granted - he did have some of the best, genuinely funny lines of the episode. Matthew Perry’s comedic chops as well - and it’s a shame there is much Phoebe and Chandler stuff on the show.

Anyway, the writers originally toyed with making Chandler gay, which I find a shame, I think that would have worked so well. And added some diversity to this really, really non-diverse cast. I completely understand why this makes lists of ‘Things Straight, White, and Loosely Christian People Like’. 25 years later, it’s incredibly glaring. Even Saved by the Bell, which was ending its run at the time, managed to be more diverse.

Ross - I’m curious as to when Ross becomes that one Friend whom everyone hates. He’s recently divorced (from a woman who figured out she was a lesbian) and being really mopey about it (which, you know, is understandable). I don’t particularly like or dislike Ross at the moment.

I will say the whole Ross and Rachel thing is telegraphed from a mile here, and it’s weird that they’re going to drag this romance out for an entire season and a half when he literally asks her out at the end of the episode, and she says yes. Why, why, why is this going to be dragged out so much. (I know the reason - sweeps week - but still.)

Is the episode entertaining? Eh. It still has a lot of the trappings of an 80s sitcom - the annoying laugh track, the forced jokes, the surface level stories - only it’s new and hip because 20-somethings had never had a show to themselves without an older mentor around. At the same time, there isn’t anything that remarkable about any of these 20-somethings, which may or may not have been the point. I suppose we’ll see.

The One With the Sonogram (of Ross’s baby that he’s having with this lesbian ex-wife) at the End

This episode is merely a continuation of all the threads set up in the pilot. You can tell Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe aren’t developed yet, as they really don’t do anything other than crack one-liners at opportune times. I shouldn’t complain that these characters just don’t feel like they’re getting enough time together as a group (because obviously, there are a ton more episodes to go where they are) but I feel like they’re spending too much time in individual plot lines that aren’t that interesting.

Plot A) Ross finds out that his ex-wife (who’s a lesbian) is having his baby (because apparently they did it one more time after she left him? Idk), and he’s not doing so well with that. Idk - I don’t hate this plot line. For being the early 90s, the show is treating being gay with much more respect than pretty much everything before that (even if the idea of lesbians is treated as a joke rather than a serious thing people are). At least the gay stuff isn’t villainized.

Plot B) Rachel gives back the ring to her ex-fiance, whom she finds out was fooling around with her maid of honor. This is the first time we meet Barry, and everything about him screams douchebag. There’s nothing remotely interesting here, and it almost feels obligatory for Rachel’s story. Also - I find it ridiculous that he and Rachel would be having private conversations with a (child) patient there.

Plot C) We meet Monica and Ross’s controlling and judgmental parents who prefer Ross to Monica. While Elliot Gould and Christina Pickles are both fantastic actors - I cannot with the amount of judgy-ness that spews forth, and really can’t wait for them to be the quirkier people they eventually become.

Oh- and I forgot, this show decided for the beginning of season 1 to have these philosophical discussions about the differences between men and women, and I feel like this episode is supposed to loosely tie into that and I kind of roll my eyes and am like -- just be the situational comedy that you’re meant to be.

Is this episode any good? Eh, not really. There are some funnier moments in an otherwise bland and obligatory story.

The One With the Thumb (in a can that Phoebe almost drinks)

This episode is so boring that it’s almost tedious to get through all 22 minutes of it. Here we go!

Plot A) Monica dates a guy named Alan that everyone likes but she doesn’t and she finds it hard to break up with him.

I get what the writers were going with here - that she’d have to tell her friends that they need to ‘break up’ with Alan, despite them all really liking him. Idk - I don’t think the whole schtick is that funny, and feels pointless when we barely get to meet Alan himself.

I do have to note that Monica talks with one of her coworkers - who is the first PoC on the show, a black woman. But we’re never going to see her again, so...?

Plot B) Chandler starts smoking again - and we get a PSA plot line about the dangers of smoking. Friends is rarely going to be a preachy show, and it’s super weird when it is. It’s especially weird that it’s centered around smoking because -- who cares?

Plot C) Phoebe accidentally has good things happen to her. It’s almost like a running joke more than a plot line that ends with her ending up with a thumb in a can that nets her $7000. It’s... just a really dumb sitcom plot line. But, hey, we learn that Phoebe hangs out with homeless people. And, the episode gets a point for tying all three plot lines together at the end.

So... I’ll probably do these three or four at a time. And the first three? Eh, not great. It’s fascinating that this show became such a hit right off the bat - because there’s not anything uniquely interesting about any of these characters yet. And the plot lines are all so generic and/or dumb that there’s little to latch on to.

We’ll see how this goes.

#friends #so watches friends

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choppedcowboydinosaur · 5 years ago

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Joker Review (spoiler)

So I saw Joker twice to fully understand it. It was a damn good movie. Joaquim Phoenix’s performances really elevated it. It really does delve into the psychology of Arthur as he breaks down. The media fear mongering for this was insane. I have other posts covering this but it is just bogus that this movie would cause a mass shooting. It’s a reflection of that kind of scenario not the cause of it.

This movie has so much meme potential. Like you could rename this Honkler the movie and it would work well. That and the clown world memes could fit in just as well. It probably isn’t intentional but it fits so damn well.

I really do like Arthur’s gradual transformation into the Joker. There are some details in Joaquim’s performance I like. Right after he kills the three wallstreet guys he runs into a bathroom and begins this sort of calming dance. I don’t know if it’s a Tai Chi thing but it seems like something he tries to calm himself down with. Whenever he dances later in the movie it becomes more fun, upbeat and chaotic. Especially, when he’s dancing down the stairs you can tell he’s enjoying himself. There is a rich vs poor angle to the movie but it’s more of a background setting I think rather than some deep statement. I kind of agree with Jay from RLM about the whole rich vs poor angle. It’s not as well developed as it could’ve been but it’s suitable enough for the movie. Especially, when the riots begin it’s not even about rich vs poor anymore it’s about just chaos.

Another thing I thought was interesting about the movie was the use of hallucination sequences. The first time we see this is when he dreams of meeting Murray Franklin and having a father son relationship with him. The second one is with the woman he meets on the elevator where he hallucinates having a relationship with her. Now when watching these hallucinations its kind of obvious from the beginning that these are fake due to how perfect they seem to be. This makes me wonder about the rest of the movie, if it’s all a big hallucination. I’m not entirely sure about this but it would be clever if he just did those two hallucinations to make you think you can spot them giving you a false sense of security when the rest of the film is a hallucination. I don’t entirely buy this but there are times where it might feel like it. Especially, in the finale where the crowd gives him the recognition he always wanted it seems kind of too perfect.

The other father son relationship in this was Arthur and Thomas Wayne. Even though Thomas isn’t Arthur’s father it could be debated that he actually is and used his influence to cover it all up. That and that bit where Arthur sees a picture of a younger version of his mother with Thomas writing on the back, “I like your smile.” I do like how the movie leaves that open to interpretation giving it more layers like an onion.

One scene I do love is the scene where he goes on Murray Franklins show. He starts off as polite then starts to go hard on Murray. He does this bravado thing where he talks like a campy gay guy to piss off Murray and the audience as he confesses to his crimes. Yet this itself is a front and the real Arthur is really this angry person who is pissed at Murray deep down. I though this was interesting given how his Joker persona is supposed to be his true self yet there’s another layer to him. I also like that bit how he talks about what’s acceptable comedy like Murray and what isn’t. You could see this as a criticism of modern late night talk show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel where he’s just tame or the Daily Show knock offs that just repeat each other’s schtick over and over again. Then again I’m probably reading too deep into that.

One thing I do like about Joaquim’s performance is while you do feel sorry for him he is still kind of awkward to be around. Like the scene where he meets Bruce Wayne. He starts off friendly doing that magic trick then he puts his fingers in Bruce’s mouth to make him smile. Now this is kind of creepy. While you do feel sorry for Arthur he is a bit creepy to be around. That does give it a sense of realism to it I suppose.

One thing I’m still trying to wrap my mind around is the end where he talks to the psychiatrist and it shows a young Bruce Wayne standing over his dead parents as a joke. I’ve been trying to figure out what the joke meant. That Bruce and Arthur’s fate are now bound together? They made each other as part of some cycle with Thomas supposedly being Arthur’s dad (still debatable) and Arthur’s actions leading to the death of Bruce’s parents? I’ll never know but it’s fun to think about.

I know this film is based on older films like Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. Sadly, I haven’t seen those films but from what I heard Joker borrows a lot from those two. So if I see those two that might lessen my enjoyment of Joker. Overall, this was a really good movie that is held up by Joaquim Phoenix’s performance. There are layers to it, though how many I don’t know since some of it could be genuine and some of it could be me reading way too deep into this. I really liked this movie and makes wonder what other kind of takes you can do on comic book movies.

P.S.

One weird thing I encountered when I went to buy the ticket for this movie was that they moved the ticket buying to the refreshments area. This was a bit surprising for me since usually I would just go to the ticket counter to buy it. I talked to the guy working at the register about it and he said they move it to the refreshment area sometimes.

#Joker #DC #movie review #spoilers

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Schitt’s Creek: The Tragic Backstory and Glorious Redemption of Twyla Sands

https://ift.tt/3w8aa61

Given the title is basically a Schitt pun, it’s perhaps surprising that Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek is one of the sweetest most nuanced shows around. Written by and starring father and son Eugene and Dan Levy it follows the Rose family, once extremely affluent, now entirely bankrupt after a tax scandal, the only asset they are allowed to retain is the town of Schitt’s Creek which Johnny Rose bought for his son David as a joke.

If you haven’t seen the show – well go and watch it immediately (and also spoilers) but know that it takes a couple of episodes to really get into it. Once you’re in, you’re in.

Though there are many things to celebrate throughout the six seasons of the show – its incredible focus on inclusivity and how it handles its LGBTQ+ storylines, Moira and Johnny’s loving and supportive marriage, Alexis and Ted’s heartbreaking romance, David and Stevie’s friendship, Moira’s wigs and much more, there one character who is often on the sidelines who very much deserves to be celebrated.

Twyla Sands, played by Sarah Levy – sister of Dan Levy, daughter of Eugene – is the manager of the Cafe Tropical, apparently the only diner in the town of Schitt’s Creek. She’s a woman with a semi-tragic backstory and a relentlessly sunny disposition – a twist on how the character was initially imagines, according to Sarah Levy.

“She was very nerdy and introverted and there was a sadness to her,” Levy explains on the Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt’s Creek Farewell documentary. The decision to turn Twyla into a far more cheerful character brought much humor to the show, so although her brilliant one liners hint at a very dark past her upbeat outlook allows us to laugh rather be disturbed.

When we meet her, Twyla is dating Mutt (Tim Rozon) but it becomes clear quite early on that there’s chemistry between Mutt and Alexis. Mutt isn’t great at communication and it seems like he doesn’t appreciate that true brilliance of Twyla’s asides. During a dinner party hosted by Ted the two bicker when Twyla attempts to introduce one of her anecdotes:

Twyla:I had a best friend that hooked. She married one of her Johns on my birthday

Mutt: It’s not the time, Twyla.

Twyla: You don’t talk all dinner, and now you’re telling me I can’t talk about Trixie?!

Mutt: I’m sorry, it’s just I think sometimes you have a tendency to say the wrong thing, that’s all.

Twyla: Is there a right time to talk about being a hooker?

Could this best friend be the same one she mentions in a later episode?

“My best friend in kindergarten ran away, and her parents didn’t notice, and she ended up getting adopted by this really rich Asian family in Vancouver, but then they had their own kid, so she kind of got neglected a bit, and I can’t remember whether she’s back on the streets now, or…”

Though Twyla is initially planning to write a song for Mutt for his birthday, Alexis learns that he’s planning to break up with her. Instead she encourages Twyla to get in there first and end things with him. It’s an act of kindness, although Alexis does then date Mutt herself.

It’s ok though. Twyla, who has a strong spiritual side (she can see ghosts who are usually angry, has an aunt who has a ghost in her house that keeps leaving dimes everywhere, can read Tarot cards given to her by one of her mum’s ex-boyfriends who predicted to when he would leave her mum, to the day), knows that Mutt was just a ‘placeholder’. Her tea leaves told her that the man she’s supposed to marry is Black.

Twyla’s parents

Twyla’s dad, we learn, is in prison and it’s not clear exactly what for. We do know that he used to be a roadie for the band Fleetwood Mac, though, and that they took out a restraining order against him.

Schitt’s Creek Season 6 Review

By Kayti Burt

Twyla’s mum has a fairly terrible track record with men, and has had numerous failed relationships. She was engaged to two pizza delivery guys, she dated a magician and gambling addict and she was also engaged to a satanist whose snake ate her turtle dove on Valentine’s day. The gambling addict might be the reason why Twyla has been banned from numerous casinos for being an unaccompanied minor. We also know Twyla’s mum is still dating, but these days half the time she thinks Twyla is her cousin Angela. When Twyla’s end of show twist is revealed (more on that in a bit) we also learn that Twy’s mum spent the money Twyla gave her on “a lot of snow mobiles”.

At least Twyla’s mum always comes to her murder mystery nights, even if she does bring whoever she’s dating, and that person usually brings a young friend…

We also learn that one of her step siblings is probably, dead after she and Alexis swap jewelry and Alexis gets her step brother’s dog tags. We said it was dark.

Her extended family is messed up too

Twyla has aunts, uncles and cousins who have equally dark backstories. This is kind of Twyla’s schtick and it’s introduced in episode one when she offers cold comfort to Johnny Rose, after his family has lost everything.

Twyla: I had a second cousin in Elmdale who did telemarketing, he made a ton of money. It turns out his entire business was illegal, and he lost everything.

Johnny: Hm. Not quite the same.

Twyla: Yeah, no, he went to prison, which is terrible, but… But he is learning Spanish, “No mas, le duele!” I think it means, “Stop, it hurts.”

Her uncle also has had problems with debt, she shares

“Between you and me, I know how hard it can be to pay off debt. My Uncle Ken only has three fingers now, which is too bad, because he’s deaf, and he only speaks using sign language, but he made his choices.”

Is this same uncle that had a parrot that kept telling her to take her bra off?

Her cousins don’t seem to have much luck either. We learn that one was in Riverdance until she got trampled.

The Cafe Tropical

Though Twyla has run the cafe for a while and works extremely hard, the cafe tropical, despite apparently being the only place to eat out in Schitt’s Creek isn’t exactly a culinary paradise, and at least part of that is down to some bad decisions on Twyla’s part.

There was the time she bought black market milk and a lot of people got sick. In hindsight it probably wasn’t even cow’s milk – is elk’s milk a thing?

Then there’s the meadow harvest smoothies, which are exactly what they sound like and change every day. And probably don’t order the soup to go – it comes double bagged with a spoon or straw.

Twyla’s glorious redemption

Fittingly, though, by the end of series six, we learn Twyla isn’t such a tragic character after all. In fact, before the Roses even arrive in town she won the lottery, splitting $92 million with one other person. She doesn’t work in the Cafe Tropical for the money, she just enjoys it. By the end Alexis has convinced her that it’s ok to use the money to treat herself to something that she wants. What Twyla wants is the cafe so she purchases it outright, with plans to rename it as Twyla’s Cafe Tropical. And why not?

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It’s a perfect ending for a character who we have grown to love – she might be ditsy and prone to bad luck but she’s also emotionally intelligent and empathetic often offering good advice to Alexis, showing support and enthusiasm to Moira and bonding with Johnny even though they don’t necessarily always deserve it.

Twyla loves where she lives. She loves her life and loves where she works. Twyla is a wonderful example of a person who knows herself, doesn’t need attention but is a great success without having to shout about it. We should all be a little bit Twyla.

Like Twyla, Sarah Levy isn’t in the spotlight but she’s still a part of the Schitt’s Creek family, so to give her her own joyful denouement is just right. Twyla Sands, we salute you.

The post Schitt’s Creek: The Tragic Backstory and Glorious Redemption of Twyla Sands appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3w8CKUL

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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cooperjones2020 · 7 years ago

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Second City, chp. 2

Betty is a basic bitch and I’m not sorry.

This fic is quickly spiralling into a love letter to my favorite city. I’m not sorry about that either.

Also, let’s pretend Jughead and Jellybean are slightly more than six years apart, like eight, or even ten. That would make my underachieving ass feel better.

(ao3-->http://archiveofourown.org/works/11409360/chapters/25619850)

(part one)

In which Betty Cooper is a stereotypical millennial who can’t make a phone call

It has been three weeks since Jughead drove her home, stroked her arm, and called her Betts.

She is on her third re-read of The Final Fissure. Her airport copy is now nearly as worn and marked as her hardcover from the first print run.

She could never read it through just once. Each time she picked it up, she went through at least three re-reads. Pencil sketched out her initial thoughts. Blue pen compared Betty’s memories, her knowledge of the case notes, to Jughead’s narration. Green pen underlined the phrases and passages that made her want to weep and shake Jughead. To ask him how he strung together phrases that swept through her like fire, that absolved like the sea. Green pen underlined the places that laid bare the relationship between the man who’d written the words and the boy who’d lived them. The green pen underlined the places where he’d laid her bare.

She is reading on her lunch break, green pen tucked behind her ear, when Cynthia walks in.

“Aren’t you kind of behind the times? That came out over two years ago.”

“Oh I’ve read it before.” She sets the book down and moves the pen to the spine to mark her place. Cynthia sees her annotations. “Jeez, you in a book club or something?”

“What? Oh no, I just went to high school with him.”

“Him. You went to high school with FP Jones III.” She picks up the book and holds the back cover, with Jughead’s headshot and author blurb, up next to her face. Her eyes slide to the picture on Betty’s desk of her and Archie with their parents at their high school graduation. “What is in the water in your town?”

It’s a joke people have made about Sweetwater River before. For years in fact. But, since Betty was in high school, those jokes have centered on murder and corruption and cover ups. They have come perilously close to touching her family.

Cynthia does not know about that. Or, if her background checks have turned up anything tangential to Jason Blossom’s death more than ten years ago, she has been kind enough not to mention it. So Betty just shrugs and gives her a smile that turns down at the corners.

“And how are you settling in?”

“Good, I think! I’m putting the finishing touches on the profile of the independent bookstores in different parts of the city.”

“Great, you can send it to me to look over when you’re done. But I meant how are you settling in in general? Are you getting around okay? Do you need suggestions? A brunch date? A social life?”

Betty swallows the grin she can feel pulling on her face. She loves Cynthia—had missed her when she left New York a year ago—loved that she’d personally reached out to Betty and wooed her to the Tribune right when she was ready for it. But sometimes the woman acted like an overbearing aunt.

“The answer is, still, good. The rest of my boxes finally arrived and I got a Divvy Bike subscription for the summer. And you’re not the only person I know here, Cynth. I had dinner with my ex’s mom a few weeks ago.”

“Well, I’m glad for that, but I don’t think it counts.”

“Hey, it so does! And we have plans to go to a farmer’s market and her boyfriend is getting us tickets for a Cubs game. And I ran into Jughead — FP — while I was there.”

“Again, all good things, but that sounds more like her social life and — Jughead? FP Jones goes by Jughead?”

“It’s a childhood nickname thing.”

“Wait, Betty—you know FP Jones. Like, nickname-level know him.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“You need to interview him!”

“What? Why?” Her heart kickstarts into a merengue.

“Well for one, he has a new book coming out soon so someone from the paper needs to interview him. For two, I hired you specifically for Printers Row.”

Cynthia gives her an appraising look, then continues: “Look, I know this job is downsizing for you. I know it’s less money and I know New York is the center of the writing world. It’s not investigative journalism. You’ll probably have to write more puff pieces than longform for a while. I practically had to promise you my left kidney to get you out here. But I meant it when I said I thought this move would be good for you, that an Arts beat would be good or you. You write better interviews than anyone I know. FP Jones is a rising star. It would be a great opportunity. For both of you.”

“Okay, we’ll blow past the drama queen antics for now. No bodily organs were exchanged in the making of this job contract. Jughead and I…aren’t on the best of terms. We haven’t even talked since high school. We just both happen to come from the same small town is all. We know the same people.”

“Well that could be better! You know—you’ll be able to be more objective about him while breathing life into the background, really telling the story. You can give us another lens on what makes Riverdale tick — that whole seedy underbelly of small town America schtick he’s working with.”

Betty capitulates with a groan. She could see she wouldn’t get out of this without a fight she isn’t ready have while this new on the job.

“Look, I don’t have a way to contact him. But I’ll try. I can call Archie’s mom.”

“Perfect.” Cynthia folds her hands over her crossed leg and cocks her head at Betty.

“You want me to try now?”

“Why not?”

“Okay, fine,” she grumbles. She prays Mary is in court.

Her prayers are not answered.

“Hey Mar! No, yeah I’m good…You?…No sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to ask if you had Jughead’s email address. I had a—a work question.” Her eyes bulge when Mary offers her his number instead, and she quickly looks down to the hand picking at her skirt hem. Cynthia knows her tells. “No, no, his email’s good for now. Thanks. Talk to you soon. Love you too. Bye.”

When Cynthia waltzes out ten minutes later, Betty’s inbox already contains an email from Mary with Jughead’s contact info, so she leaves with a Cheshire Cat grin on her perfectly made-up face.

Betty sighs. She really doesn’t want to do this. It feels like taking advantage of an old relationship. An old friendship. She doesn’t want to make Jughead uncomfortable. But she also doesn’t want to make herself uncomfortable.

She looks at the book on her desk, moving her thumb to trace the curve of his mouth, the slope of his jaw.

It takes her four hours to write the email. Not that she just sits there and stares at the computer screen for four hours. She’s still Betty Cooper. She sends other emails, sets up meetings, finishes proofreading her article. She takes a power walk around the block with the running shoes she keeps stashed in her purse. She does a ruthless purge until she hits inbox zero. She multitasks.

But always in the back of her mind: Dear Jughead? Dear Jug? Dear J?…Dear Jones?…Would ‘Hi’ be better than ‘Dear’? Ugh I hate myself.

Finally, at quarter to five, she shuts her eyes and hits send, then immediately begins packing up for the day.

When she goes to log off her computer, he’s already responded. Fuck.

“Hi Betty,

Of course we can set up an interview. Unfortunately all that stuff has to go through my agent and I’m sitting at a gate at O’Hare at the moment on my way back to Riverdale. If you don’t mind waiting, we can set something up next week. But if you’re up for it, I have a Skype call with him on Thursday and we’re due to talk about my promotional schedule anyway.

Let me know whatever works.

Best,

J.”

He certainly didn’t spend hours stewing and overthinking every damn syllable.

She agrees to set up the call for Thursday afternoon. Cynthia is so pleased with her she gives her permission to work from home for the day.

In Betty’s lexicon, ‘work from home’ means go on a really long run to burn off excess adrenaline and come home with a sugar coma-inducing drink from Starbucks.

So, she stands on the edge of Promontory Point, still shivering a little in her gym shorts in the early morning breeze off the lake. She forces herself through some Ujjayi breaths. One of the biggest differences she’s noticed thus far from New York is the sheer variety of scents in the air. No one leaves their trash on the curb here. There’s a chocolate factory downtown and its aromas waft over the city with the afternoon heat. In the mornings, the lake exhales a melange of algae and minerals as it laps against the rocks.

Today is the first time she’s felt panicky since moving to Chicago. Moving debacles aside, the whole experience had been pretty damn empowering. She found a sublet for her old apartment and a gorgeous new one. She hired a moving van. She made the calls to end and start her utilities. She told Alice Cooper where to stuff it when she tried to make Betty feel guilty. And she ended a relationship that wasn’t making her happy anymore, appearances her damned.

She takes a picture of the skyline across the lake and instragrams it with the skyscraper emoji and the caption “Sweet Home #Chicago.” Then, she tightens her laces and takes back off.

Sometimes she worries that by moving here she’s settling — for a smaller job, a smaller city, a smaller life than she’d promised herself — but then she remembers the other things her younger self used to want and shakes those anxieties off. Maybe people don’t decide whether their lives will be large or small. Maybe life decides for them. Maybe the correlation between size and value is smaller than she’s been led to believe.

And that is okay. She is learning that that is okay.

A few hours later, she sits on the floor in front of the coffee table, her laptop propped on a stack of books, and waits for Jughead’s call. This she can handle. This is business. There will be a chaperone, for god’s sake. She’s purposely made sure she’s in the latter part of their agenda, so there’s no chance Jughead can call her before adding his agent to the call.

So she might be a little bit of a coward. She’s okay with that too.

She almost misses the call thanks to the inanity of her inner monologue. When she answers, she sees a split screen of Jughead and an iron-haired man with wire frame glasses, and hears Janis Joplin’s cover of “To Love Somebody” pulsing in the background.

“Hey Betty — this is David. David—Betty Cooper, Chicago Tribune. She…ugh, give me a second. Those speakers carry farther than I thought.”

He disappears from the frame and the music grows softer, though it doesn’t disappear.

When he returns, they talk through some of the preliminaries — she gives them an idea of some of the questions she’s brainstormed over the past few days, of the pitch she and Cynthia have crafted. “We’re thinking a two-parter — the interview, and then I’ll review the ARC, and color it all with my own background in Riverdale. You know, add some human interest.”

Jughead opens his mouth to speak, but David jumps in before he can.

“That sounds perfect, Betty. In fact, Jughead mentioned you gave him his first writing job in high school — that the character of Betsy Coleman might in part have been inspired by you.” Jughead is clenching his jaw, looking as uncomfortable as Betty feels, so she averts her eyes.

“We’re thinking we’ll run extracts of the interview on J’s blog and the publisher’s website — maybe take out an ad in the Times when the publication date draws closer. We’d love to get some official photos.”

“No.” She looks up, startled at the vehemence in his voice. He runs a hand through his un-beanie-ed hair. A move that apparently still signals his exasperation. “Jesus, Dave. She just moved here. Give her a chance to build her own life before we start plastering her face all over buses.”

David’s face tells her they’ve already discussed the photos. That he is well-aware of Jughead’s opinion on the matter and is attempting to go over his head. She fights — and fails at — suppressing her urge to help, to fix, to placate.

“Maybe we can revisit that idea if the interview is well-received.”

“As you say. Well, I think that’s all on my end then. Betty, make sure your office contacts mine with the small print stuff. I’ll leave you two to set up the details. J, call me when you’ve looked over the new copy for the book jacket.”

“It’s not a surprise, Jughead,” she says softly when David has left the call. “I have read the book.”

“I know—I know. And I didn’t try very hard to mask the details. But you haven’t read the second one yet.”

“Well, I will soon.” She shoots for light, casual. She probably misses, if Jughead’s face is anything to go by. He’s still grinding his teeth.

The music has been getting steadily louder. “Here, I’m gonna take you with me and go outside. Jelly’s graduation is tomorrow and she’s started celebrating early.”

Of course. The music. Jellybean would be 18 now. When he settles the iPad on what she assumes is a patio table, she realizes that, though he’s in Riverdale, she actually has no idea where he is. It seems like his patio overlooks the woods.

He still knows how to read her face. “It’s—uh—a little house off Pine. For Dad and JB. The down payment seemed like a good use of my first advance.”

She feels her expression soften. It’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.

He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lights one up. “Look — I’ll be back on Monday night but I have some things to take care of. Would Wednesday be okay for you? Say around 8?”

“Yeah, that’ll be great.”

“Thanks. I’ll think of a good place and get in touch.” Then he looks up at something beyond the screen. “Jesus Christ. Her friends have arrived. They’re heading for the fire pit.

“I’ll talk to you soon Betty.” He’s gone before she can say goodbye. She makes a half-hearted attempt to wipe the sappy grin from her face before she calls Cynthia.

#bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #riverdale #mine #second city

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