#me: did you need to make 10? also me: coulda made 30 now apparently so.....

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #218

Thu Sep 12 2019 [10:54 PM] Wack'd: So uh, this continues from Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Vol 1 No 42 [10:55 PM] Bocaj: gonna pop over to it or just read a synopsis on marvel wiki? [10:55 PM] Wack'd: Marvel Wiki [10:55 PM] Bocaj: That’s the spirit [10:56 PM] Wack'd: From now on I'm gonna check there to see if the Four actually appear in the prior issue [10:56 PM] Wack'd: Thanks to the Nova debacle [10:57 PM] Wack'd: Basically all we need to know if that the Frightful Four--having slotted Electro in as their fourth--kidnapped Spider-Man and plot to use him to destroy the Four [10:58 PM] Wack'd: As we speak, Pete is wearing Peter's (oh, this won't get confusing) costume to scale the Baxter, hoping to trip an alarm [10:59 PM] Wack'd: While Wizard, Flint, and *googles* Max wait patiently in a nearby hovercraft with a tied-up Peter [10:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Just call him Trapster. [11:01 PM] Wack'd: It occurs to me that Pete's paste and Peter's webbing are basically the same thing, one is just less versatile than the other

[11:01 PM] Wack'd: It'd be funny if Pete was like "fire his webshooters!" and a massive stream of paste shot out of his wrist [11:02 PM] Bocaj: "AND DISRESPECT MY HERITAGE? I WILL ADDRESS HIM WITH THE NAME GIVEN TO HIM BY THE GLORIOUS LEE AND KIRBY! PASTE POT PETE PASTE POT PETE" [11:02 PM] Wack'd: Look if I'm gonna call the Four Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben it feels weird not to extend that to every character [11:02 PM] Wack'd: Though it occurs Pete might not be his real name and I've thoroughly fudged this [11:03 PM] Bocaj: Peter Petruski [11:03 PM] Wack'd: Oh good [11:04 PM] Wack'd: So Johnny finally notices something's up, lets "Spider-Man" in. And then Pete beats Johnny over the head while he's getting into costume [11:05 PM] Wack'd: Then heads off to take care of the rest of the--hang on [11:06 PM] Wack'd: Is the plot of this issue that Pete single-handedly defeats the Fantastic Four? [11:06 PM] Wack'd: That's delightful [11:06 PM] Wack'd: Where's Paste-Pot Pete Beats Up the Marvel Universe, huh? I'd read the fuck out of that [11:06 PM] maxwellelvis: I hope he beats all of them by just sucker-punches, cheap shots, and lucky breaks [11:07 PM] maxwellelvis: It's the only way he should win. [11:07 PM] Wack'd:

[11:07 PM] Wack'd: Dude's apparently got some moves! [11:08 PM] Bocaj: Hey, glue is the most dangerous weapon. [11:08 PM] maxwellelvis: Finally, someone remembers the Spider-Signal! [11:08 PM] Bocaj: Baron Zemo used glue to beat the whole Avengers [11:08 PM] Bocaj: Until they used the magic of 'a solvent' [11:08 PM] maxwellelvis: Peter's utility belt is so rarely used [11:08 PM] Bocaj: Actually provided by Paste Pot Pete! [11:08 PM] maxwellelvis: A solvent that only Past-Pot Pete could have come up with [11:08 PM] Wack'd: Hahaha. Pete tricks Ben into punching a wall panel, which electrocutes him [11:08 PM] Bocaj: wow [11:08 PM] Wack'd: Two down! [11:09 PM] Wack'd: Not only that, but the circuit was the manual override for the building's security [11:09 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, but those two were the easy ones [11:09 PM] Wack'd: Were they?! [11:09 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah [11:09 PM] maxwellelvis: They're much easier to provoke, Ben and Johnny [11:09 PM] Bocaj: how is reed not the easy one by default [11:10 PM] maxwellelvis: Reed's a lot more cool-headed unless his family is in immediate danger, and Sue has the greatest power of all: Common sense [11:10 PM] Wack'd: Easier to provoke but also traditionally the powerhouses of the Four. Let's not forget last time the Frightfuls showed up they basically wet themselves when they realized they'd only captured Reed and Sue [11:11 PM] Wack'd: Wizard: clearly the Reed of this bunch

[11:12 PM] Wack'd: Which makes Pete the Sue--constantly ordered around and underestimated [11:12 PM] Wack'd: Flint is Ben, obviously. A hothead who loves to fight [11:12 PM] maxwellelvis: So I take it Sandman's the one who roped Electro into this? [11:12 PM] Wack'd: And then a rotating fourth to parallel Johnny's capriciousness [11:13 PM] Wack'd: @maxwellelvis *shrug* [11:13 PM] maxwellelvis: Which is funny because up until now that's where the person who can match Ben tends to end up. [11:13 PM] Wack'd: True [11:14 PM] maxwellelvis: Medusa's hair renders his strength of no aid to him, and Thundra's a match for him physically. [11:15 PM] Wack'd: Sue: "I better go get my husband to fuck me. Also, I better go see why my kid brother is making moaning noises in the dead of night"

[11:16 PM] Bocaj: Thaaaaaats [11:16 PM] Bocaj: an unfortunate juxtaposition [11:16 PM] Bocaj: These two panels bad [11:16 PM] maxwellelvis: "*ReEeEeEd! I'm wearing the nightie with the unstable molecules!" [11:17 PM] Wack'd: "All of your nighties have unstable molecules, in case of--" "Reed shut up and get in here" [11:17 PM] maxwellelvis: Send those panels to Superdickery! To Superdickery's Tumblr page because I'm pretty sure the website is still a nesting ground for viruses [11:17 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny is tied up in paste and the moment Sue realizes what’s happened Sandman grabs her [11:18 PM] Wack'd: Hey. Hey max

[11:18 PM] maxwellelvis: Womp womp womp [11:19 PM] maxwellelvis: "She took my squeezing arm!" [11:19 PM] Wack'd: ...can Max do that? I feel like Max can't do that

[11:20 PM] maxwellelvis: He can do whatever the plot says he can do. Electro is one of those villains whose powers should be way more broken than they usually are. [11:21 PM] maxwellelvis: Like that's not even the most broken thing I've seen him do. [11:21 PM] Bocaj: CARBONIZING THE AIR [11:21 PM] Wack'd: Like a tree do! [11:21 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, sure, Wizard. Your plan. [11:21 PM] Bocaj: even if that is a thing that made sense, the layer of carbonized air thats hard as a rock is thin as a sheet of paper [11:21 PM] Bocaj: You could lightly poke it and it'd break [11:22 PM] Wack'd: You know how trees turn people into living statues? Or, actually they oxidize the air, hang on [11:22 PM] Wack'd: Breathing. Max has described breathing. [11:22 PM] Bocaj: oh my god [11:22 PM] maxwellelvis: Please just call him Electro [11:22 PM] Wack'd: ...oh my god [11:23 PM] Wack'd: Alright, max, for you I'll make an exception [11:23 PM] maxwellelvis: Did you not realize that until just now? [11:23 PM] Wack'd: Nooooope [11:23 PM] maxwellelvis: Wow [11:23 PM] Wack'd: Spandex over utility belt over spandex. This has not been a fun night for Pete

[11:24 PM] Wack'd: Honestly really impressive that he was able to do all of those stunts dressed like that [11:25 PM] Wack'd: And now its all four against Reed [11:25 PM] Wack'd: They have him on the ropes when--

[11:26 PM] Wack'd: He hit him to get a thing off of his face! Like in a Looney Tune! I love it!

[11:27 PM] Wack'd: (Also: "coulda had a V-8" existed in 1980! Huh!) [11:28 PM] Wack'd: "In fairness, you're not laughing right now." "At my own joke? Don't be gauche"

[11:29 PM] maxwellelvis: "No! Not the shop-vac! Not again!" [11:30 PM] Wack'd: Peter takes Electro out with a rubber hose [11:30 PM] Wack'd: And Pete?

[11:31 PM] maxwellelvis: They all sweated him to death. [11:33 PM] Wack'd: Should've worn multiple layers, Peter! Pete had the right idea!

[11:34 PM] maxwellelvis: Or transformation gizmo like Japanese Spider-Man

[goddessnemain]

The Guy From The Party- Part 4

Wouldn’t you know it, it’s 5 days after the Friday night he drove all the way down here just to see me and he came down again. It was Wednesday, my pool league night, which is fine. He picked me up. He took me for dinner. He went to pool league with me. I play pool on the same team as his buddy who’s bday we met at, so we were on a date/I was doing a scheduled activity/hanging out with his/my friend(s). We had fun! When pool was over more friends showed up. I have a woman I’ve known for 18 years. She spent almost 20 years in a very abusive relationship, and this woman can spot a red flag in a man before anyone else does. She’s pretty protective of me. She LIKES Party Guy. Likes him so much in fact, she hugged him before she left the pub. LIKES him so much in fact, she whispered in my ear as she hugged me goodbye “I like him, he’s a good one”. That’s pretty high praise. 

I decided that since Party Guy had put so much effort into driving 90 minutes each way- twice- that the following day, the Thursday, I would drive into the city and make him dinner. He couldn’t believe that I would be willing to drive to the city to see him, and he was even more shocked that I’d be willing to cook him dinner. He was as shocked that I would come and cook him dinner as I was that he would drive down to see me twice. It was February 13. I walked into his cute little basement suite with a backpack of clothes, a cooler full of food, and there he was with a single red rose in his hand and a little box of chocolates. He looked at me with a big smile on his face “Happy early Valentine's Day”. I was stunned. Embarrassed. Blushed. He handed me the rose and gave me a sweet little kiss. 

Melt!

It turned out he’d also gone to 3 different liquor stores looking for a hard to find bottle of Jack Daniels that I liked. He didn’t find it, bought a regular bottle in a nice box, but the fact that he went to 3 different stores to try and find this whisky for me!

Melt!

I made dinner, and we talked about our families, he told me about his sisters, his parents, his very normal childhood, a childhood of stability, loving parents, no moving around all the time. Just a very normal childhood. It made me feel insufficient because I couldn’t relate to the things he was saying.              

Making dinner was an experience. He doesn’t have an actual stove, just an element (we thought he had two but it turned out one didn’t work), a convection oven and a microwave. I made it work. He just watched me cook and kept talking. We laughed when we tripped the breaker trying to run too many appliances in the kitchen. We laughed when he had to go find an extension cord so we could use the microwave. And he slowly ate that damn dinner like it was his last meal. Turned out, he doesn’t really cook, doesn’t really know how to cook- with a devoted mom and 3 older sisters, he didn’t really have a reason to learn and just never has, but apparently, he can operate a BBQ like a wizard- and it had been 7 months since he’d had a home-cooked meal. He was over the moon about this damn dinner. 

We spent the rest of the night watching a movie on the couch. We watch a couple of stand up comedians. We just laughed and laughed and laughed.         I wound up staying at his place for a total of 10 nights.                                        

We went to the dog park every day- he’s got a huge black lab he takes to a dog park 20 minutes from his place every day. We’d walk through the park, he’d reach for my hand. If he had to let go for some reason, he reached for my hand as soon as he was back beside me. Even held my hand IN HIS POCKET one of the chillier days. We went grocery shopping- he’d been holding my hand as we walked through the parking lot, but I let go once we got in the doors, saying it felt too “relationshipy”, and he replied that he’s “not big on PDA”. Coulda fooled me. There were way more people at the dog park than the grocery store. He brought me breakfast and coffee every day from Timmy’s. On the days he would have to work that night we would cuddle and nap on the couch for a couple hours. I found myself feeling very comfortable and content in his space quite quickly, and I shocked myself when I realized it.                                          

After 10 nights, he came home with me. The first Friday he’d come to see me, he’d gotten 3 minutes out of my town when his car broke down. So coming home with me that Sunday made sense, so he could pick up his now fixed car the following morning. I had to be home that Sunday because it was my kiddo’s 19th birthday and I wasn’t about to miss it. We brought his black lab with us to my place to see if he would get along with my female chocolate lab. And they did. Aside from trying to hump her a lot, they did better than I expected.             We were lying in bed the Monday morning, I was half awake, half asleep, still groggy from my sleeping pills (I’d only packed enough meds for 2 nights when I went to see him the day before V-Day, so the first night back on my meds kicked my ass) when he says “Come back to the city with me today in my car, bring your dog, and I’ll bring you back tomorrow night”. I realized afterward what he had said, but at the moment, it was kind of a Charlie Brown “whah whah whah” situation in my head and I found myself agreeing just to make him stop talking. So, I packed a night's worth of meds, a change of clothes, everything I needed for my doggo, and away we went in his car back to the city. I was afraid. I didn’t have an escape plan. I didn’t have my own vehicle. If he refused to take me home, I didn’t know what I would do or where I would go. So when Tuesday evening rolled around and he was hesitant to take me home, I started to panic a little. As it got later into the night, he insisted we stay that night and he would take me home in the morning. What choice did I have?None. So we stayed, and he did take me home the next morning.                                   

He’s teaching me some pretty serious lessons in trusting people. Let’s face it, if you’ve gone ahead and read any of my other posts, you’ll know that I often find myself in situations where I get screwed over. And those are just the situations I write about. That’s not including the $200 I lent ‘You’re Safe In My Arms Now’ guy when he was broke and needed to buy firewood to heat his house when it was -40 outside, on the promise he would pay me back, and then refused to pay me back because he’s convinced I lost a $30 tool he’d left at my house (he never left a tool at my house). Or the $200 I lost on my birthday after the person that was supposed to be throwing me a bday party brought a new girl he was seeing, didn’t say 2 words to me all night because he didn’t want to make her jealous, didn’t pay me for what I picked up for him, and still won’t pay me. All the times I’ve had friends promise to show up and they don’t. The examples are countless. But Party Guy is teaching me that it’s okay to trust people, I just have to be more selective about it. 

I give him a hard time about his “other girlfriends” (that don’t actually exist) and say things like “your other girlfriends will be happy I’m finally going home” or “better warn your other girlfriends I’m coming to the city Friday night” or “I won’t just show up at your place out of the blue, I don’t want to catch you with your pants down and a naked chick on top of you”. He gets frustrated and says he’s “not a cheater” and that he’d “never ever do something like that”. Sure, all humans say that, but I actually believe him that he wouldn’t cheat. I understand why he gets frustrated, he’s a good guy, he’s a genuinely good person. He interrupts me all the time when I talk and I often can’t finish a story because he’s interrupted and talking about something else and it drives me kinda crazy, but he really is a genuinely good, kind, honest, respectful person.                                                                                                  

So here I am, right this minute, sitting at his place, chilling with his doggo while Party Guy is at work. I did have plans to go out with a friend tonight but plans changed last minute and I don’t care to make new ones at this point. However, tomorrow we’re doing all his running around and then we’re crawling in his car and going to my town where I just came from today, to spend tomorrow night drinking and hanging out with my friends/our mutual friends at the pub. We’ll spend Saturday night at my place and then back to his place early Sunday morning. It worked better for me to come into the city today, 1 so I could see my friend, 2 we get to spend more time together and 3 we can drive his car back and forth, it’s way cheaper to fill than my truck, and I won’t be trapped here, I can leave on Wednesday afternoon without an issue.                                          

I found out the other day that he and I are dating. So I suppose I’m in a relationship now. And I haven’t been in a functional relationship in over 5 years, let alone had a boyfriend. A normal, kind, caring, sweet, honest, will bend over backward to see me, boyfriend. The weight of those words are hitting me like a Kenworth truck and I am realizing I’m scared. He’s trying so hard to wiggle his way in and I’m trying so hard to keep him at arm's length. I’m going to have to give him some of the room he wants, and that’s scary too.