#this is michael before the comic and before his kid just losing his mind

[captainpikeachu]

I saw these comments on a post talking about John and I just felt the need to contextualize some stuff because it constantly feels like people don't actually understand John's situation at all.

Because this kid knew Sam had given up the shield and he still took it

John literally doesn't have a choice. He is a soldier, the military gave him a job, it is not a democracy, he can't just decide he doesn't feel like following an order and an assignment that was given to him. An order to be the new Captain America is not an illegal order nor an immoral order, if John had said no, he could literally be discharged for disobeying an order. This wouldn't just affect him but also throw stigma onto his wife as well. People are acting like John just casually took it or was somehow gunning for the job when it is literally stated that John and Lemar were minding their own busines prepping for a mission before he was pulled out of his mission prep to do this Cap job. He didn't ask for it. It was a job and he did his job. Sam and Bucky are soldiers too, they both should know that soldiers can't just decide to do whatever they feel like and sometimes you have to follow orders you don't like.

And that's not even touching upon the very real possibility that John didn't even know what was going on with Sam or what his intentions were for the shield. It's not as if John was watching the news. And it's also not as if Sam sat him down to explain how he never meant for the shield to go to someone else. John is not a mind reader. He can't know what's going on if people don't tell him.

Because this kid was live on national TV calling Steve "his brother"

He didn't call Steve "his brother", he said Steve felt like a brother. I swear this fandom just suddenly loses their collective minds and logical thinking at this line as if it's a heinous crime when it isn't. Soldiers often feel kinship to each other. This is nothing new. No amount of Bucky looking sad/mad is gonna change the fact that this line is not some crime or affront to Bucky personally. John is not attacking Bucky or Sam or stealing Steve from them. Chill the fuck out already.

John's speech/interview would have been rehearsed and checked by a PR team, so he's saying the things that the govt wants him to say. Much like how Steve had to stick to the script when he was doing USO tours back in the 40s. If y'all don't blame Steve for those things, then why blame John for the same.

Not to mention that line about feeling like a brother is likely a nod to John's comics backstory where John's brother saved him from a house fire as a kid, and John imagined that it had been Captain America who had come to save him, thus linking his brother to Steve/Cap in his mind.

Because Sam and Bucky don't know this kid and yet he's talking to them like they're old friends

So it's a problem that because John doesn't know Sam and Bucky then he can't talk to them like they're old friends but it's okay for Bucky who doesn't know John to insult John in his very first words to him, and additionally insult Lemar as well?

Mind you, Bucky's first words to John after John and Lemar risked their lives to help Sam and Bucky, and stopped Sam from getting his head crushed in by super soldiers, was to say John isn't good enough for the shield and then question if he's brave and self sacrificing enough. Neither Bucky nor Sam thanks John and Lemar for their help, not even a tiny thank you, just resentful silence like petty petulant children.

Because apparently if Bucky and Sam are upset, then they can act out towards other people, but god forbid John reacts in turn, then he's evil?

Do you not know how insulting it is for Bucky to even question John with that "jumping on grenade" BS? Would you ask Simone Biles if she can do a flip? Would you ask if Michael Jordan can shoot a hoop? Do you ask Michael Phelps if he can swim? Asking a THREE time Medal of Honor receipient if he's brave and self sacrificing enough is hugely insulting. And the fact that Sam and Bucky are both soldiers and doing this stuff is even more terrible behavior.

They ought to know that the Medal of Honor is not easily given out, that the military is extremely hesitant at giving out these medals that sometimes people don't get them until 30 or 40 years later?? They also ought to know that the Medal of Honor is taken so seriously that if the lowest ranking private got one, even the highest ranking generals would salute that soldier because everyone knows the level of sacrifice and heroism it takes to even just earn one of those medals??

So here is Bucky and Sam knowing all this, knowing that the Medal of Honor citations are public records so John's actions are literally open to public scrutiny because MoHs are very documented, still chose to behave in an insultingly presumptive and condescending manner.

Sam later says "we can't expect others to step up if we don't meet them half way" - yet Sam and Bucky never even tried to meet John half way and they still expected him to step up for them.

Why the hypocrisy? Why are insulting behaviors okay just because it's the protagonists doing it?

Because this kid is stupid enough to say he wants them all to work together because he wants Cap's wing-men by his side as if Sam and Bucky were sidekicks and not full grown adult men and heroes in their own right

The irony of being upset at the wing-man comment when Sam years ago called his own best friend Riley his wingman, yet I don't remember people acting like Riley was a sidekick and not treated like a full grown adult in his own right by Sam?

There seems to be an inability to accept John at his words and making up things he's meaning. What is so wrong to say that John's job would be a lot easier if people saw him supported by Cap's friends? It's a very logical reality. It's no different than if Sam wanted to start a new Avengers team, having the public support of previous Avengers would legitimize his position.

"Walker was an asshole for most of the time"

Except he wasn't.

Sam and Bucky didn't like him not because John said anything to them, but because they were already angry by the time they met due to things that weren't John's fault. They're mad at the government, but guess what? They know they can't take on the government, but John is a much easier target. The easy scapegoat and punching bag for their anger.

Instead of thanking John and Lemar for their help with the Flag Smashers and ensuring that Sam didn't die, Sam and Bucky ignored John and Lemar's attempt to give them a ride back, and then immediately Bucky launches into a tirade about how John didn't deserve that shield and how he's not brave or self sacrificing enough.

Who the fuck talks to someone they just met like that? If someone you had never met said that to you on your first day of work, would you not be looking at a toxic workplace?

And even then, John brushes off the insults and even says that he understands why they're angry, and trying to extend an olive branch, which they wouldn't take.

And yes, Bucky did constantly belittle John, from the very first moment. His first words to John was literally to tell a man he had never even met or spoken to that he wasn't good enough. It's a shitty move no matter how much he thinks he is justified in his anger.

And then he mocks the pressure that John is under. He crosses a line so far that even Sam recognized it and tried to step in to de-escalate.

Are Sam and Bucky responsible for John's actions? No. John is his own person and he made his decisions. But let's not pretend that actions can't be influenced by environment or be a response to something.

Even Sam recognized it enough to say the words that "you can't expect others to step up if you don't meet them half way" in a speech to government leaders and to the world, literally saying that how you treat someone will affect how they react or treat you.

Sure, Sam and Bucky were dealing with their own problems, and losing Steve and then this shield mess made them unwilling to open up and trust. But if we can understand Sam and Bucky's POV and why they behaved as they did, why can't we give the same grace to John?

He didn't ask for the shield. He was given an order, an assignment that that he had to obey. So he did what he was ordered to, and he did it wanting to do his best and do good and help. And from day one he is met with a wall to his face at every turn when he tries to extend a hand. He is constantly met with people telling him that he's not good enough or acting like he's a thief who's committed some crime when all he did was accept an order that both Sam and Bucky would know he can't disobey.

Why should Sam and Bucky expect John be "humble" and accept he's not good enough and swallow their attitude towards him and to step up for them, if Sam and Bucky were never willing to meet John half way and decided they already hated him or they somehow already knew him before they had actually met?

They made a self fulfilling prophecy in the end. And the show emotionally manipulated the audience by knowingly playing into the notion that people would automatically side with characters they already felt emotionally attached to, and of course people fell for it.

[percheduphere]

How do you think Mobius will live his life in the timeline? Many theorize that something happens to Don and Mobius takes his identity so his sons live with a father. I prefer that Mobius reflects on his old life, realizes he can’t live it, and creates his own life.

Oh, boy, Anon. I have a lot of fanfic ideas for this, but let's get into the meta-analysis side of this before we get into the rabbit hole that is my washer-dryer machine of an imagination.

Mobius is not doing well. He is going through the stages of grief. I've written an extensive meta here regarding the darker aspects of his character and how he's at risk by the end of the series. I also wrote a brief meta here regarding how his grief might manifest.

With this in mind, I actively HATE the idea of Mobius spiraling to the point he becomes "corrupted". I don't what Michael Waldron did to Wanda. I guess you could make the argument that it would be interesting to see a man emotionally unravel in such a way, but I hold Mobius's unshakable kindness dear in my heart. I don't ever want him to lose it because it is essentially his superpower.

[Sidebar: comics canon House of M notwithstanding; Marvel and DC comics canon are consistently horrible in their characterization of exceptionally powerful women: Wanda Maximoff Jean Grey/Phoenix; Carol Danvers/then Ms. Marvel; Rogue; on and on; I'll throw Sylvie in here, too, because why not, it's true.]

I see Mobius mourning Loki for two years. Two years because, statistically, that is how long it takes for most people who've lost an intimate loved one to get out of clinical depression. During this period, I see him losing weight, wandering aimlessly between timelines, trying and failing to copy Don's life by taking a job that involves jet skis or aquatics more generally. B-15 would make a point to check-in on him and know he's not doing well, but Mobius, because he does not want anyone to worry about him, because he is used to being the person who keeps people together, insists he's fine.

MY FANFIC IDEA

I see Mobius eventually recognizing he needs a therapist, which he will find ironic and deeply troubling, but he's not about to give up on trying to live for Loki's sake.

And in his conversations with his therapist and B-15, Mobius will come to realize that he can still use his key strengths outside of the TVA: analyzing people, deconstructing what makes them tick, using that knowledge to help the other person, similar to a therapist but more active in support. Mobius is very well-suited to become a social worker of troubled and at-risk youth. I think he should pursue this and ...

Mobius will choose a branched timeline in the late 90s/early 2000s. There, he will meet a war-orphaned, thirteen year-old Wanda Maximoff, who is friendless and struggling to understand the nature of her powers (magic). Mobius is drawn to her right away. It takes time, but he eventually gains Wanda's trust.

Red. Red is Wanda's color. It's in her hair, her cheeks, her magic. Now that red reaches Wanda's eyes, filled with tears her anger stoppers. "You saw what I can do. What I did. The other kids call me a 'witch' 'cause that's what I am. A witch. A monster."

Mobius sits next to the young girl on the stoop. The sun winks at them through the green tree boughs, and he wonders, for a moment, what Loki might think of him now, finding solace in a child who needs solace.

"That's not true. You're not a monster, but I tell you what: witches are pretty cool." Mobius grins, knocking his knee against hers. The fabric of his slacks shakes, still too loose. "Y'know, my best friend has magic just like yours, except it's green instead of red."

Wanda peers at him, hopeful and dubious. "Really?"

"Yup. He had a tough time, too, being different." He leans closer to her, sharing a secret. "But things got better. You should've seen him. He was--is-- magnificent. You're magnificent."

Her lips purse into an embarrassed smile. She drops her head, thoughtful, and tucks her hands beneath the fold of her knees. "Where is he now? Do you still see him?"

The question is innocent, as all things are with a soul of thirteen. She doesn't mean to hurt him. Mobius knows this. So he takes the thorn of her words and presses it against his ribcage. His throat works. The ache comes and goes but never fully abates.

"Well," Mobius sighs. "He had to move on. Life is like that sometimes. People come and go. Things happen and ... there's not much you can do except hope they're okay. That they're happy and safe."

He can't look up. Not at the tree or the sun. He worries if he does, he'll start to cry, and that won't do when this girl who reminds him so much of his wily god has finally cracked a smile.

"C'mon," he says, rising to his feet. "Let's get you something to eat."

"McDonald's?" Wanda brightens.

Another thorn. He takes that one too and thinks of pretty roses.

"Whatever you want, kiddo."

[winderlylandchime]

I’m just gonna go ahead and say sorry in advance the man lost his mind with the next ep but 3x04 1/2 ‘He would make great marketing for durex. Remember their covid ads? Funny as shit. Why is she here? Why can’t she take the kid with her to the hospital? I thought i gave Brian permission to hit this fucking kid? Yeah! Eat the chips you little bitch.‘ we got to Mel and Linds picking donors ‘FRESH SPERM?! LINDSAY HE IS 19- What are the-THEY CANT GO TO A SPERM BANK? THEYRE GONNA PICK BETWEEN THEIR FRIENDS?! Girl, what makes you think any of them want a kid at all or better yet with you? There is no way Brian would let that kid get into the ‘vette. JUSTIN! WHY ARE THEY CASUALLY SAYING HEY TO EACH OTHER? oh Justin hates this kid (Mel and Linds pick Mikey) MICHAEL?! THEY ARE PICKING MICHAEL?! MICHAEL?! MIKE? MIKEY?! Because he invited a kid to a comic book store? THAT IS LITERALLY HIS JOB! Thank god the diner doesn’t have more male waiters because she would think someone wants a kid just cause they told her the specials’ ‘WHAT IS WITH THEM MOVING IN SO FAST? I THOUGHT THAT WAS A YOU PEOPLE THING *waves at me*’. ‘Have you noticed that whenever Lindsay and Melly want something from someone they make them a meal? (mikey and Ben are taking a shower and he actually fake gagged) The only shower scenes I like are Brian and Justin’ ‘he’s going through Brian’s stuf- he has a lot of dildos, why am i acting surprised..HE STOLE HIS BRACELET! How dare you, you little shit! BRIAN HE HAS YOUR BRACELET! HE DOES NOT OWE ANY OF YOU ANYTHING ESPECIALLY NOT MONEY! I know I said hit him but this *points to the toilet scene* is WAY fucking better! Do Ethan next!’ He is once again using Shazam to make his playlist even better. ‘Usually when people start doing drugs, they become fun before they ruin their lives, this dude is just hitting the gym? Boring. Oh he’s angry and jealous of Michael isn’t he? Well that’s not healthy’ he is once again using Shazam, this is getting ridiculous. ‘OKAY BRIAN!! Oh damn, I don’t remember him being all 6 packy before. Why is a cop there?’ ‘Why is he surprised that he wont have full rights? Dude, you’re a DONOR! But don’t worry they never hold their word, they force the donors to step up one way or the other. Make sure you have life insurance. THATS WHY THERES SPERM BANKS MELANIE!’ And thee scene is coming up (my cousin thankfully reminded me to record him here bc she knew he’d lose his mind and thank fuck she did. Usually i record him for big moments but i almost forgot here) ‘HE ACCUSED HIM OF WHAT NOW?! *pauses tv* OH FUCK HIM AND FUCK WHOEVER MADE HIM! That is such a horrible and serious accusation to make cause some people, HA, some people..good one (his name), GIRLS! WOMEN! aren’t believed! And boys! Oh don’t even get me started and i know it’s ironic because im yelling at a boy BUT DIFFERENT! WE DONT EVEN GET TO COME FORWARD CAUSE WE SHOULD BE HAPPY WE GOT LAID! And if it was done by a man? Well then we are forced to be quiet because we get mocked since apparently gay is worse than rape. But Brian is gay, so of course he did that and nobody would think otherwise. Because gay means predator in their peanut shaped brain! Meanwhile PRIESTS exist! Or those weird family friends that you have to change outfits for when they come over but nobody calls that out. HOW FUCKING DARE THEY? You know what? FUCK EVERYTHING AND ESPECIALLY FUCK THAT KID! His family better know better, i have no faith in them but they owe him that! Nobody will believe this, he literally hates kids!‘ He then got up and went outside to smoke. I forgot that when the whole Florida gay ban bullshit happened, this man FLEW to florida to protest (we are nowhere near florida) so I should’ve seen this coming tbh. And when he came back inside he just went ‘I do wish they showed him being interrogated because I know for a fact my man was giving sarcasm and anger and funny insults!’ ‘Well look at that, it’s almost as if you shouldn’t move in together after like a week!’

Melanie and Lindsay’s insistence on using known sperm over donor sperm baffles me and must be because for TV reasons because it’s so bananas. LOLing at them making someone a meal… that is so true!

Ben not becoming more interesting with a drug problem IS A MOOD. And true.

His reaction to this storyline is everything. Factually, false accusations are incredibly rare and yes, it’s a double-whammy for boys. The other part of this storyline I hate? Is that Claire is right to believe her kid. So rarely do parents believe their kids and go to the police, when they should. I hate hate hate this storyline with a passion. I get why it happens (Justin still believing in Brian and doing whatever needs to be done to clear his name) but FFS CowLip why why why do you have to create a narrative around a false accusation?

YOUR BROTHER FLEW TO FL TO PROTEST? He gets all the fist-ally’s in the world! I love him.

[sorcererinthestars]

You’ve Got a Fast Car...

I’m back, bitches~~ But seriously, felt great to write again for the @rtwritingcommunity​‘s secret sunshine event! I will tag my recipient if/when I get their a-ok!

Summary: (FAHC) Michael doesn't expect a man to throw himself in front of his car and beg him to stop. This is Los Santos. Picking up hitchhikers is generally frowned upon. But this man has a pretty face and hell - he's got a fast car. What's he got to lose?

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32969470

-

Michael knew something was seriously wrong when a man throws himself out in front of his car.

Now, his car was nothing nice, but he still doesn't want to spend the next few hours getting some fucking asshole's blood off of his front bumper. So naturally he slams on the brakes as the man - a skinny, dirty thing with wild hair - does a legitimate fucking slide across the hood of his shit Honda Civic and nearly collapses on the other side. "Oi!"

"Get out of the damn road, idiot!" Michael yells out the window in a reply, flicking him off to boot. It was late, almost 2am at this point, and he really had anything better to do than scream at some (probably high) dickbag who decided to do calisthenics in the goddamn street. But the man doesn't run away ashamed, as Michael had expected. Instead, he frantically pokes at his phone - still in the middle of the street - and Michael sits there, a bit flabbergasted.

He doesn't move.

He still doesn't move when Michael lays his entire weight on the horn, sending a blast of sound into the Los Santos night. It's not as loud or annoying as he may have wanted - LS is always loud as fuck on a Saturday evening - but it does have the intended effect of nearly making the idiot in front of his car in the middle of the street jump half out of his skin.

"SHHH!" the man gasps, comically putting his finger over his lip like he was in a cartoon and making an over-exaggerated shushing motion. Michael has to blink. He's shushing him? While standing in front of his car? Before he can say anything or shake off the disbelief that this shit had to happen to him tonight - he had to get home and clean off before his next shift at the pizza place he had reluctantly taken a job at - the man (still crazy-eyed and wild-haired) runs up to his window. At this moment, Michael really wishes he had invested in a knife, or a Tazer, or something. People had warned him about LS, but he didn't listen. He should probably learn to do that, someday.

"Listen, man," the guy says (see?) and leans forward, a massive grin on his face. He has some pretty high cheekbones. Michael blinks. "Dude, can you please just move or I'm gonna run you the fuck down."

"No, no, no, listen," the man says again, waving his hands about. "Do me a favor, will ya? If you drive me to this address -" he holds his phone up and shows an address on the outskirts of the city - "I'll give you $1,000. Right here, right now, no questions." Michael blinks and then snorts. Yeah fucking right. "I'm not an Uber."

The man shifts on both his feet, looking agitated, and glances over his shoulder. There sounds like there's some sort of commotion coming down the street and he really has to move. So Michael leans on the horn again, blasting another honk into the LS skyline.

This has the unintended effect of making the man lean further over the hood of his car, as if he could hide. Remember. This was in the middle of the goddamn street.

"Dude!"

"I'm not kidding!" the wild-eyed man says frantically. "$1500. Deposited directly into your account. I'm serious, kill me and my crew if I lie."

That was no turn of phrase Michael had ever heard, but the money does make him pause. He's... short on funds right now. Well, he's always short on funds, but this time moreso than usual. $1,500 extra would be a huge boost to the amount he currently has in the bank. He'd pay rent. He wouldn't have to borrow any more from anyone else and avoid that loan shark fucker he found online.

Before he could really think about what he was saying, he finds himself tapping the passenger seat. "Fine. Get in. I swear to god, I better see that money."

And if he dies... well. Then he still wouldn't have to worry about rent, so win-win in his mind.

With a triumphant holler, the man leaps into the car and yanks up a GPS on his phone, pointing them to drive down the street. "Thanks man! I'm Gavin." -

They're not going more than five minutes when sirens start blaring behind them. The man tenses and looks backwards out the window with a frown. "Oh shit."

Michael immediately - immediately - realizes just how much he fucked up. "What do you mean, oh shit?"

"I - uh..." The unhinged man - Gavin - stutters. "Did... Did I mention that uh... the LSPD may want to arrest me?"

"May want to what?!" Michael's voice climbs so many octaves in that last word that it makes Gavin slump down in his seat, suitably chagrined. "I ... seriously, man, I - I needed a car, a way out, I promise I'll give you the money, just please for the love of god, drive the damn car."

"Pull Over," the cop car unhelpfully calls from behind them, making Michael's bowels turn to water. Gavin's even more frantically slamming keys on his phone as they approach a major intersection. Michael keeps looking behind him, unable to slow down as the cops continue to chase them. "Gavin, seriously..."

"You're with me now, man," he replies a bit frantically. "You're in it. So either we avoid them, or you're going to jail too. Sorry."

The words fall like bricks on Michael's shoulders as he realizes that what Gavin just said was true. No cop in their right mind would believe that he - a man with a few blotches on his permanent record already - would have just accepted to pick up a hitchhiker and drive him across town at 2am for $1,500 without assuming he was a criminal. No. Any sane cop would assume he was in on it.

Because the alternative was that he was a fucking lunatic, but here we are.

Gritting his teeth, a conscious shift happens somewhere in his gut. He's a survivor. He'd get the fuck out of this, one way or the other. So, without Gavin's input and in a split second decision, he takes a sharp left and rips around the corner, sending Gavin flying against the door with a shout of surprise. "HEY!"

"Gotta avoid the cops, don't we?" Michael says with a maniacal burst of laughter, the insanity that can only be best described as hysteria. "You're the navigator, idiot, get us to where we need to be!"

The nervousness - which had appeared on Gavin's face after Michael had blown up at him - evaporated as Gavin bursts into a big smile. "Hell yeah," he hums. "Let's do this."

-

After fifteen minutes, Michael had lost all his nerves. Instead, he felt like an overinflated balloon, filled with a giddy sort of lunacy that he had never felt before as they flew down abandoned Los Santos streets. He shrieked with laughter as they slipped down the runway illuminated by neon lights and flashing red and blues, which whipped around them like a rave of their own design.

The freedom was intoxicating. Michael had taken drugs before back in New Jersey, who hadn't(?), but this was a whole different sort of high. And as soon as Gavin realized that Michael was in it with him, he had turned into an erratic demon of death, urging Michael onward with the same fire that was reflected in Michael's soul.

They flew down the streets like hedonists, shrieking with laughter and happiness as Gavin shoves his head out the sunroof to flick off the cops and shout insults.

When the first gunshot cracks through the night, Michael is sobered only for a moment. In for a penny, in for a pound. He's already here, dodging the cops, so this shit may as well happen. It's like he's in a godforsaken video game but he's not. This is real life, this is his life, and maybe he's ruining it. Maybe. But what had he not ruined in his life already? For a few moments, he could feel like he was disconnected from reality, driving so fast he could swear he could fly, a - undeniably pretty - man urging him to new, foolish lengths from the seat next to them.

And so they flew. As they approached intersections and traffic lights, Michael could see - more like sense - Gavin's own particular talents. He admits he has no abilities behind the wheel, hence begging Michael to help him, but he's able to make every traffic light change from here to the safehouse, giggling like a school kid all the while, knowing he was being naughty but that just sends them into a more frenzied set of hysterics.

It tastes like the best drug, the most collective high, the freedom that comes from knowing you're one step away from death or worse but that dangle is intoxicating. Maybe ten minutes ago he hated what was happening, but all that was gone now.

It's just the car, him, and Gavin's frantic - musical - laugh.

-

Eventually - with Gavin's GPS and eventually warm hand over his - they lose the cops. Michael has no sense of time, no concept of how long they were on the roads causing havoc, fleeing and laughing and shrieking like demons.

All he knows is that he's out in the North now and the beginning shards of sun were peeking over the horizon. He's able to slow to a manageable speed and catch his breath.

Gavin's phone rings and the man answers it. Michael can't hear what he's saying past the ringing in his ears, the result of wind whipping past his face and hours of excitement. His face is red when he meets Gavin's eyes. He closes the phone and the excitement shines bright in his eyes.

For a moment, Michael's breath is taken away. Then Gavin just points. "Top of Chilliad. Get me there." His voice is hoarse from yelling, deeper than it was, and it stirs something that Michael can't explain.

"Yes, sir," he hums teasingly. In for a penny, in for a pound, like he had said before. They start the climb up the dirt road. Once or twice, Michael doesn't think his car can make it, but the tenacious Civic crawls forward as if it knows what it had done too and felt on top of the world.

They make it to the top as the sun finally breaks over the horizon completely, blanketing the world in orange and red. When Michael finally - finally- throws the car in park and looks over at him, Gavin's grinning the biggest grin Michael has ever seen.

Before he can do anything, fuelled by adrenaline and fire and the same pure joy on Gavin's face, Michael leans over and kisses him deeply, half dragging him over the stick shift.

They kiss feverishly for a few moments, the adrenaline fading, before breaking apart and chuckling sheepishly. "I - sorry, I ..."

Gavin just winks. It's knowing. "No problem, luv," he purrs. "Does it to you, doesn't it? The chase? Makes the fire in your blood run hot." He leans forward conspiratorially. "Men weren't made to walk on their knees," he hums. "Think about it." He digs in his pocket and drops a card on the passenger seat before climbing out of the door, even as Michael tries to grab his arm and yank him back. "Gav--"

"Later, beautiful," Gavin grins, seemingly more suave and sophisticated than the man he was when he first climbed into the car. Like he was grifting and Michael was his poor, unsuspecting mark. "I'll call you. You're a great driver. Check your account." He salutes and it's then when Michael can hear the thud-thud of roters. A helicopter?

Before he can say anything, climbing frantically out of the car to watch, Gavin grabs a rope ladder hanging off the bottom of a fucking cargobob and is lifted into the air, disappearing quickly out of sight like something out of a fairy tale.

And Michael is left in the remains of the sun-drenched LS morning, with a car almost empty of gas and mysteriously $1,500 richer.

Whatever had happened to him that night in Los Santos, he knows his life will never, ever be the same.

[lokiondisneyplus]

Most Marvel post-credit scenes hint at the future. Loki opted for a blunter approach: the God of Mischief would return in season 2.

Based on the final turn of events, there was really no other choice: Loki (Tom Hiddleston), having journeyed to the furthest point in spacetime with his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) to meet the founder of the TVA, a scientist-turned-survivor-of-multiversal-war known as He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), finds himself zapped into a new reality when his lady self slays the omnipresent being. The mind reels!

Creator Michael Waldron takes delight in the endless possibilities of Loki’s core premise. And as a veteran of Rick and Morty, he knows what anchors a mind-bending show, and what will keep Hiddleston’s character hurtling through his chaotic, rewritten future. Below, Polygon talks to Waldron about landing on the key choices of Loki season 1, what to expect from season 2, and a bit on his next project, the wrestling drama Heels, which is set to premiere on Aug. 15.

Did you know there’d be a second season of Loki from the beginning or was that choice made later in the process?

Michael Waldron: We always knew that it was a possibility. We always knew that we wanted to propel Loki and these characters out into the MCU after this, into further stories. But that didn’t really crystallize as a sure thing until we were in production and everything. And as we were really figuring out the finale.

So you were still cracking the ending as you shot the show?

There was a hiatus due to the pandemic. So things were constantly being retooled because of that. I think, by and large, everything with He Who Remains and the Sylvie-Loki conflict was always there. But that cliffhanger was the sort of thing that suddenly became a really appealing opportunity, a chance for that to lead into a second season.

What element of the series helped you crack the macro story of Loki, and made all the other pieces fall into place? Each episode almost feels like a standalone adventure, similar to Rick and Morty, but what helped it all click?

The first couple of weeks in the writers room was just laying out the individual episodes. It was very important to me that each episode stood on its own, and you could say “This is the Lamentis episode,” “This is the apocalypse moon episode,” “This is the Void episode.” I didn’t want it to just be cut up chapters and have one long continuous story. Obviously, we had to figure out the time travel for things to slot into place. I think a big idea for us was the way you get around the TVA by hiding in apocalypses. That felt like such a big, cool, exciting idea that it drove the action of episode 2, episode 3, and in a way it’s like Alioth is the ultimate apocalypse that He Who Remains is hiding behind. That sci-fi idea cracked a lot open for us. I know that after we had that I went home and I slept a little sounder.

Did adding the multiverse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe feel like blowing something up or expanding it, in terms of narrative possibilities?

In the same way that after the first couple Iron Man movies, and with the first Avengers, suddenly these movies were kind of going to space. Then we had Guardians. I think of the multiverse as another version of that. It’s new ground to cover, and particularly interesting because characters meeting other versions of themselves and other versions of people they know is... cool. That’s just a cool sci-fi concept! But I think with anything, as you expand outward, it only works if the humanity remains. It’s exciting to watch characters dealing with big crazy multiversal conflicts because we can see ourselves in them. I think you just have to hold on to the humanity that makes these stories work in the first place.

Did you go back to the Thor movies for Loki? Was there anything to find in the past of Marvel as you were paving the future?

Absolutely. I mean I watched them many times, contrary to what Twitter might think because I did some bits on there saying that I’ve never seen Avengers and I upset some people [laughs]. I have seen it many times. “Confirmed: Loki writer has seen Avengers and saw it before writing Loki show.”

In fact, I was watching all these movies on a loop in the writers’ room. I gleaned so much because you watch the evolution of the character. Avengers was particularly informative because our story picks up Loki right after that, but I also I found a lot of inspiration in Thor: The Dark World, a maybe sometimes maligned movie that I actually really enjoy. I just think there’s great stuff with Loki being tangentially responsible for the death of his mother, how he reacts to that. That is the start of his journey of that version of Loki’s redemption, so I was inspired by that.

What’s propelling the characters into season 2? Where are you headed in basic terms?

In season 1, you saw a lot of characters reckoning with and questioning their own glorious purpose, and that glorious purpose changing, [characters] realizing that that can change. Everybody except for Sylvie. I think she holds onto hers, which is vengeance, and to the detriment of us all, perhaps. And we’ve got a Loki who, at the top of our show, assessed himself as a villain and, I would argue, at the end of our show, has become a little bit of a hero. There’s nothing more heroic to me than fighting for the right thing and losing. You see that washing over him as he’s there back at the TVA, after Sylvie has knocked back there. And then he gets up because that is what heroes do — they keep going. So I think that you’re gonna see a Loki that looks at himself in a different way certainly that at the top of this.

Do you hope to explore more of Sylvie’s backstory in season 2?

I guess we’ll see. We certainly have our own rich backstory for her, stuff that didn’t get to make it into the show. Elissa Karasik, our episode 2 writer, wrote a lot of amazing backstory for Sylvia and everything. So those ideas exist out there.

And her version of Thor?

Tune in.

How did He Who Remains come about? Did you bring the character to Marvel or was that a character Marvel hoped to introduce?

I was pushing and our team was pushing early on in the writers’ room that it should be a version of Kang up in that Citadel, sort of fusing the mythology of He Who Remains with a little bit of the Immortus mythology. And that was a thing we were excited to do. And it became clear that it actually made sense for our story. The only way we were going to do it was if it made sense, but it was like, who had a better argument for creating the TVA to prevent other versions of themselves from existing then a guy as evil as Kang the Conqueror?

You wrote the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — did Marvel hire you for that after Loki? Does the movie feel like a continuation of the show?

Yeah, that opportunity came as we were getting ready to start production on Loki. It was a pleasure. I got to work with Sam Raimi, a hero of mine. I was in London for five months making that movie at the top of this year. We had a blast. I think that it’s a continuation in as much as ever every Marvel movie is to some extent a chapter in an ongoing story, but these things are meant to stand alone and the most important thing about Doctor Strange too is making the most kick ass Doctor Strange movie we could.

Is Loki a two-part show now or are you invested in telling a longer story with future seasons beyond season 2?

Time will tell, but I do my hope is that season 1 stands on its own. We always wanted to tell a complete story there. And in whatever the next chapter may be will stand on its own as well.

Your next show, Heels, is already on the way. We got a big preview out of Comic-Con this year, but I’m curious about the scope of this story. You’re starting with two brothers running an independent wrestling franchise, but you’ve dropped the name “Vince McMahon” a few times — is this about the building of an empire? Would you liken it to The Godfather or Breaking Bad?

I always thought about it a little bit of a Scorsese-sort-of rise, and we’ll see if there’s a fall. Starting from humble beginnings and trying to build some crazy. Wrestling was certainly not always the empire that it is and that’s what’s interesting, to watch the evolution of a family-run wrestling business from something you do in your small towns and perhaps a national, even global empire. That would be a really compelling arc for a show over the course of several seasons. I’d be excited to explore that.

What’s the most dramatically fulfilling wrestling moment you’ve witnessed? What’s the bar for the wrestling drama of Heels?

It’s gotta be Hulk Hogan turning heel in the WCW. There was an invasion storyline, these guys from WWF, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, came over and they were the bad guys. It was at a Pay-per-view and and they were beating up on the good guys that you love, and here comes Hulk Hogan in the yellow and red and he’s the hero. “The Hulk’s gonna get ‘em! The good guy’s here!” And then the Hulk just leg drops Randy Savage. That was the original Red Wedding. I just think about the boldness of turning him heel. To a little kid... I wasn’t even like a massive Hulk fan, but he was just such a mythological figure. What a chance that Hulk Hogan took as a performer, as a bankable kind of movie star at that point. That was bold, risky storytelling and it set off two years of amazing storytelling with Hogan just playing a craven, cowardly heel and just being so evil. I really respect the hell out of them for doing that. That was a great storyline.

[edgarsfrog]

this is another headcanon thing for the frog brothers having a younger sister <3

if edgar & alan had a younger sister (13-14years old):

i’ve always said that alan is the oldest

and edgar unfortunately is the middle child (that’s coming from a middle child)

and she is the “baby” of the three

but she sure doesn’t ACT like one

or…. yeah sometimes she does

she of course helps out at the comic book store

even though she’s really not all that into comic books

of course she’s going through that phase where she absolutely hates everyone

so if edgar or alan say anything to her…

she loses her mind

for example:

“hey… that shirt is see through. i think you should put something else on.”

she’ll just clench her jaw and stare at alan for a moment

“fuck you! i can wear whatever i want!”

edgar will just sigh as alan goes to reply,

“okay… yeah, whatever! but, i can literally see your nipples!”

“OKAY AND?”

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN “OKAY AND?” I DON’T WANT MY KID SISTER TO BE STARED AT BY PERVS!”

“GOD! YOU TWO ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT EVERYTHING I DO! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

and then she’ll slam her door for dramatic affect

sometimes she’ll fuck with her parents just for shits and giggles

cause like the frog siblings are just spiteful when it comes to their parents

in the shop she may turn the volume of the tv ALL THE WAY UP

and it’ll scare mr and mrs frog out of their sleep

“ah shit! i think the tv’s broke!” she’ll say, “sorry, mom. sorry, dad…”

they’ll kinda just give her a small response and go right back to sleep or smoke again

and she just laughs to herself just thinking about how hard they jumped

but one normal night,

a boy came into the store

and when she saw this boy

oh my god

she was IN LOVE.

and yes

that boy happened to be sam emerson

and when her brothers started grilling on him for his outfit and stuff,

she literally yelled at them afterwards

and then everything happens with michael and obviously she gets closer with sam

which makes her even more obsessed and smitten

she’ll start tagging along with sam, edgar, and alan when they hang out

which is weird to alan and edgar both considering she usually just tells both of them to fuck off 24/7

and one day when sam and her go to get ice cream,

she just kisses him

and sam ofc is really into her as well

so he’s just totally on board with being her boyfriend

well unfortunately

edgar and alan eventually find out when they catch her sneaking out to go and see sam

and they literally forbid her from talking to sam, let along date him.

she gets unusually silent

(as of course they expected her to scream at them)

and she just goes to her room and cries all night bc she really likes sam ):

and her brothers are just arrogant assholes who don’t want any sort of happiness for her ):<

and they’re selfish and rude and they couldn’t give less of a shit about her )):<

AND THEY OBVIOUSLY DON’T CARE ABOUT HER CAUSE HOW DARE THEY TAKE SAM AWAY FROM HER )):<<

so yeah

she gives them the silent treatment from that day forward

she just gets really sad about it

now usually in scenarios like this they wouldn’t feel too bad

bc in their minds they’re doing it for her own good

but alan is the first one to fess up and say how guilty he is

and edgar is NOT on board with sam and his sister being together

i mean HE was the most pissed off about it

now one night

she’s reading a book in her room

and then sam comes to her window

bc he just misses her :,)

and they’ll kiss and cuddle and all wholesome things bc sam is just a sweetie and really cares about her

she’s completely and utterly in love with her brothers’s best friend to say the least.

and uh oh

they fall asleep together

and alan comes in the next morning to wake her up

and his face literally just goes: 🤨😠😡🤬😑😤🤔😐😒🙂😌

so he doesn’t tell edgar

but he wakes sam up and tells him that he needs to leave before someone else catches them

so now it’s just this secret between her, sam, and alan

and alan is a little skeptical still

but he wants nothing but happiness for his sister so he allows it

so while she has a secret relationship with sam

she’s back to speaking to her brothers again and basically acting the same as she was before

edgar and alan won’t admit it

but they watch out for her at school a lot

like they’ll make sure she gets to her classes and stuff okay

they’re really weird around her friends

like they’ll hear her laughing super loud with her bestie in her room while they’re watching tv

and they’ll just kinda look at each other like: 😐

oh and two scenarios that have occurred:

number one:

let’s say that she hung out with her friends one time and got super stoned for the first time ever

and she absolutely hated it

like she was super anxious and paranoid

so she deadass just calls edgar and alan and spills her guts out to them bc she’s so scared

they come and pick her up

and the car ride home is silent

edgar is just driving and he’s just like: ):<

while alan is trying to talk to her and gives her some water

they just don’t want her to be like their parents ):

number two:

let’s say that she comes home one night from “helping out a friend”

and she’s very drunk

she can’t even make it through the front door without falling face first onto the ground and breaking a lamp

alan grills her for 2 hours straight about how stupid it was

and he GROUNDS her

which LMAO fuck that

and as they’re arguing about it, alan accidentally slips up in front of edgar and says something about her and sam being together

edgar just goes dead silent

and finally

he loses it

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! I TOLD YOU AND TOLD YOU TO STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM SAM! I’M GONNA GIVE HIM A PIECE OF MY MIND TOMORROW”

and when the next day comes

it doesn’t matter how much she begs and pleads

alan literally has to hold edgar back from beating the crap out of sam

and sam just looks at her with a sad face

and he breaks up with her ):

not because he doesn’t want to fight for her

but edgar is her brother for gods sake

he doesn’t want to come in between them )):

she just leave the comic book store and go to star’s house

bc star is really the only “mom figure” she ever had besides lucy

and she just cries and spills her guts out to star about everything

and she goes on this tyrant about how miserable she is and how she feels like edgar and alan never respect her boundaries

which….

its kinda true LMAO

but they don’t do it to be asssholes

they just really care for their sister ):

but anyways

we’ll return to that whole situation later

so y’all knew this was coming

but if there was a time that the frog brothers could recall that they were genuinely terrified of their sister

it was when she started her PERIOD.

oh my god

holy christ

jesus help these two poor boys

so unfortunately mrs frog had never really explained the birds and the bees to the frog siblings

and she definitely never said anything about periods

so like one morning the frog sister woke up

and she felt… different??

she went to the bathroom and looked down at her underwear

and her face just went: 😧

she legit started SCREAMING for edgar and alan

the boys ran to the bathroom obviously

“WHAT?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG?”

“I’M DYING OH MY GOD ALAN I’M DYING”

edgar is genuinely super concerned

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!”

“THERE’S BLOOD ALL IN MY FUCKING UNDERWEAR AND I DONT KNOW WHY ITS THERE!! CALL 911 PLEASE GUYS I’M NOT KIDDING!!!!!”

she’s literally sobbing her naive her out bc she’s so scared ):

alan and edgar realize what she said

and they just kinda look at each other like: 😳

alan is the first one to speak up

“um… you’re not dying…”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M NOT DYING?! THERES BLOOD IN MY UNDERWEAR, ALAN! HELP ME, YOU ASSHATS!”

the only thing they know to do is call lucy

and ofc she’s over there stat

(ily lucy emerson<3)

she’s literally in there with her sister for like a whole hour

and lucy just explains what a period is, why it happens, how to manage it, you know all the good stuff

and the frog sister is absolutely PISSED that she wasn’t aware of what a period was

it gives her more reason to spite her mom

and the whole time edgar and alan check up on her :,)

and they buy her candy and ice cream :,))

and they get her everything she needs bc deep down they hate seeing their little sister in pain :,)))

they even watch a rom com with her :,))))

so back to the whole sam situation

the frog sister is obviously still devastated

like

she can’t even function without thinking about sam and missing him ):

she dreams about him all the time and wakes up and cries when she realizes he’s not there )):

and at one point it gets so bad to where she goes to edgar and alan’s room and wakes alan up

and he’s just super confused

and she just starts crying to him ):

alan lets her sleep in his bed with him bc he just feels so guilty

and then the next morning while she’s still sleeping

alan talks to edgar

ofc edgar is still pissed about the whole thing

and he yells at alan for not telling him sooner

but by the end of it

edgar just goes:

“whatever… but i swear to god al if he hurts her… i’m going to fucking stake him.”

so alan calls sam and tells him all about it

and sam gets super happy

and then the next day sam surprises her by coming to the store

and she gets all happy and giggly and starts hugging him

she’s like the happiest edgar and alan have ever seen her!!!!! (:

and that’s what kinda settled edgar’s mind about it

so he ends up supporting it just as much as alan does

and of course they’ll end up getting married and having little emerson/frog babies but SHHH that’s a whole other thing!! (:

i feel like she would really enjoy painting

and she would paint little superhero logos and hang them all around the store

and one day someone would be checking out a comic book

and they’ll look at the superman painting and be like:

“how much for that?”

alan will just kinda look back at it

“um… not sure if it’s even for sale… our sister paints, and all of the ones in here are hers,”

and the guy will look around some more

“i’ll give her $150 bucks for it”

alan almost FAINTS.

and OF COURSE she agrees to selling it

so she starts putting price tags on all of the painting bc money money money money (:<

her works becomes so popular that she starts doing art shows!!

and edgar and alan are just so proud of her :,)

so yeah

these three have their issues

but they would die for each other.

point blank.

edgar and alan are literally the definition of:

“THIS MY BABY! AND AINT NOBODY GONNA TOUCH HER!”

[kraiyan]

i made my own little headcannons to fit in if michael and jeremy were dating and a bunch of other stuff that i don’t want to spoil so take my headcannons and please don’t pay attention to my overuse of the words ‘so’ and ‘like’

i wrote this headcannons for me in my notes so there are mentions of panic/anxiety attacks, light mentions of an eating disorder, nightmares, and self harm but i’ll just put a trigger warning for when those parts show up and if i missed anything that is triggering please let me know

- michael is trans and gay and jeremy is bisexual

- i think they would’ve been friends since kindergarten so they grew up telling each other EVERYTHING

- i feel like michael was really girly as a kid but in like 6th grade he just completely switched to like tomboy but he didn’t do on purpose it just happened

- then in seventh grade michael told jeremy he wanted to be a boy then after that with help from jeremy he came out to his moms

- michael had a crush in jeremy since 7th grade but i don’t think jeremy was his first crush

- i think since michael was straight when he was a girl he just assumed he was straight as a boy and his sexual awakening was captain sparklez

- michael has two moms and jeremys mom would’ve died in a car accident so it’s just him and his dad

- i imagine they confessed to each other in their second year of high school

- (TW: mentions of abuse) jeremy realized he liked michael in freshman year and it was really bad he could not stop thinking about him so when he got squip squip l would not stop punishing him for it

- so jeremy definitely has some problems with his bisexuality

- after years of pining for each other when they finally kissed jeremy could not stop panicking about it

- like they went to sleep fine but he was internally panicking and he tried to keep it together but the next day he absolutely broke just started sobbing saying over and over again “is this okay, are we okay”

- michael is the type to listen to a vulgar music to help his dysphoria

- so him and jeremy are in his car michael plugs in his phone and just starts singings “hoes want to be seen with me and i like their big thick titties”

- and jeremy can do nothing else but be like michael what the fuck

- they decided to keep their relationship a secret and not tell anyone bc of jeremy still coming to terms with himself and he didn’t think his dad would understand

- but i feel like michael moms had already pieced together that they were dating and jeremy didn’t mind that they knew bc they’re literally lesbians but every time jeremy came over from that point forward they had to keep their door open

-(TW: mention of an eating disorder) in a different angstier au jeremy would struggle with eating as a control thing after squip

- (TW: mention of an eating disorder) in an angstier au michael would have an eating disorder cause dysphoria

- i feel like once he realized he was trans he had really bad dysphoria but like with therapy and stuff he got over it

- so i think michael really liked afycso and had it on a vinyl and now jeremy knows all the words

- they don’t do anything at school because jeremy is still uncomfortable so they just pursuit their relationship between closed doors and michaels car in an empty parking lot

- i feel like they both got really excited when michael got referred to as sir for the first time

- jeremy and michael grew up together but ironically when puberty hit michael started to wear baggy clothes than he wore a binder than he wore super baggy clothes to hide his tits after coming out but during squip he had time to self reflect and work on his dysphoria so when jeremy saw michael outside of school he kinda said TITS and was so caught off guard by them

-(TW: mentions of self harm scars) i think michael has sh scars due to losing his childhood best friend and the whole panic attack in the bathroom thing and jeremys seen them but didn’t bring it up to michael because they’re fading so he obviously doesn’t do it anymore but it was a huge shock for jeremy to find out

- they never brought it up tho and it was never discussed bc who cares it was in the past

- michael pants his nails black and i think on some very rare occasion jeremy would paint his nails too (like the way karl paint his) and michael has lots of nail polish cuz on the rare occasion he paints his nails different colors and he repainted his nails every two weeks

- no matter how many times michael has changed in the same room as jeremy even let jeremy help take off his binder jeremy will never not get shy when he changes and will always ask to go into another room

- jeremy is a coffee person but not hot coffe because he always drinks it too early and burns his tongue

- he originally bought his hoodie™️ in really huge size to battle dysphoria but that just made the hoodie last for years

- jeremys name in michaels phone is something very gay and lovey and shit and michaels name on jeremys phone is just michael :)

- jeremy would come home all suspicious and and red faced after him and michael came from an empty parking lot that his dad would not stop begging him to meet this girlfriend of his

- i don’t think jeremy told his dad him and michael were playing a game or something and they kiss jeremys dad comes in and is like what 😦

-and his dad is shocked that he has been pushing girlfriend but he has a boyfriend and is just soooooo awkward about it and never sees michael the same but never makes any rules about them bc he doesn’t want to be homophobic 😭

- i don’t think he was really not supportive but it took him a bit to get used to it but it was so new to him and he was just so phased he just kinda talked to jeremy about his sexuality then left it at that

- they are like gendebend bubbline (marshal lee and the other one yk)

- michael has a queen vinyl the listen to a lot

- so i think michael would still smoke a bit and one time he convinced jeremy to do it with him and jeremy mainly coughed a lot then they just made out the rest of the time but they didn’t tell their parents they would be staying out after school and they both got in trouble

- michael gets blue raspberry and jeremy gets cherry but he also gets coke sometimes too (slushy flavors)

- at the beginning of their relationship they had to take it really slow so that jeremy would feel coqmfortable

- (TW: mentions of panic attacks) so jeremy has nightmares of squip and he wakes up having panic attacks and it’s really tiring bc he only gets 2 hours of sleep if he has these nightmares

- (TW: mentions of panic attacks) i feel like along with his nightmares he also had panic attacks that squip would punish him for pursuing a relationship with a guy let alone michael

- so after he got over his nightmares he just struggled with sleeping and nighttime in general like just fear around going to sleep

- so he often stayed up alll night to avoid sleeping and would like go to bed at 6 or on a good day 4 or 5

- so i think to get over his fear he had to make a routine first he would make some sort of hot drink or just water (mostly sleepy time tea) then he would text michael that he was going to sleep he also wears the same pajamas every time he goes to sleep just to make sure the routine really works then lastly he reads a comic book then he goes to bed

- i think the reason jeremy couldn’t sleep well after getting over the nightmares is because even if squip doesn’t haunt him enough to show up in his dreams anymore it still haunts him enough to stress him out constantly so he doesn’t sleep well

- to conclude the nightmare and sleeping saga jeremy basically has a night routine and sleeps with a night light

- i feel like they both go to therapy but we’re to scared to tell each other (and they both started going to therapy before they started dating)

- so fast forward they’re dating and are trying to plan a date and jeremys like i’m busy on monday at 1 and my dad needs me to help him with something on tuesday so how about wednesday at 3 and michaels like i have somewhere to be like at 3:30 and jeremys like where do you have to be and michaels like where do YOU have to be and so they count to three and say where they’re going to be and they both say therapy and then they’re like you go to therapy i think that would be so cute

- so michael has really thick glasses like his vision is awful so if jeremy is mad at michael he would wake up early and move his glasses over so michael would have to struggle to get out of bed and look for them with his poor ass vision

- he can see things right in front of his face but as soon as it moves a bit too far it’s blurry

- and speaking of his galsses if they’re really kissing along the way jeremy would take of his glasses so they could get closer to each other’s faces (like how elle and tao do in heartstopper )

- michael and jeremy have been friends way too long to not have practiced kissing with each other

- i think christine was a long time crush for jeremy so he definitely practiced kissing michael a lot since they were in 6th grade and michael was just soaking that shit up

- he’d be like what if she wants to make out we should practice that and jeremys like oh yeah you’re right and michael would be so freaking happy

- but they definitely got caught by jeremys dad and he laughed it off cause what else are you meant to when your 11 year old son and his 12 year old best friend are kissing each other

- they didn’t do it anymore after that cause they were soooooooooo embarrassed

- so i don’t talk about the rest of the characters but i’m about to make a headcannon including them so i’m gonna say my headcannons

- so chole is demisexual and panromantic

- brooke is a lesbian

- rich is bisexual and trans

- jake is pan

- jenna is questioning or straight

- and christine is aro/ace

- so i think jeremy and christine dated for a bit then christine broke up with him cause she was all like i can see the way you look at michael and also because she realized she was feeling intense platonic attraction not romantic

- and also i think they’re all friends so they have a group chat where they send homework answers and stuff

- so i think one time jeremy is doing his nighttime routine but this particular night he’s really tired so he texts michael goodnight bby <3 love u then skips the comic book reading and goes to bed but he sent it to their group chat so as soon as he got situated into bed all he hears is his phone going off so he has to check and it’s just everyone freaking out

- so he like fully sits up is looking at his phone in complete shock then realizes he never said a name so they are like who’s this mystery girl

- so he calls michael tells him about the situation then decides he’s ready to come out

- so the next day they’re more handsy then usual like jeremy wiped something off his face michael saw that he was cold and pulled him real close and their friends are like okayyyyy

- but mind you christine knew that jeremy liked michael so she knew exactly what was happening

- so at the end of the day their friend group is making plans to hang out but everyone was busy so jeremy goes well i’ll see you guys tomorrow waves at everyone kisses michael then starts walking to his house then michaels like yea i’m gonna head home to and like drives away and from that day forward their friends would not stop teasing them and were impressed they could keep there secret for so long

- so i feel like michaels moms both have jobs that run late so mom #1 is an er nurse and mom #2 is an account so this leaves michael a lot of time of being alone in his house so naturally you need to take advantage

- so one time mom #2 gets home and walks in just to see jeremy fully on the counter making out with her son

- i don’t think they got in trouble but his mom was like please not on the counter

- and then there was another time where mom #1 came home on her break cause she doesn’t live far from the er so she like yells to michael that she’s home

- and so naturally you come down to hug your mom so he comes down to greet his mom with a red faced jeremy behind him and his mom thought this was so fucking funny but as soon as she’s done laughing she immediately goes anytime jeremys over the doors open and that was the end of it

- everyone has this one thing that someone does that make them all blushy and stuff

- for jeremy it’s when michael wears fitting clothes cause michael is known to wear hoodies or just baggy clothes in general so when michael does get hot and needs to like put something on he puts on one of those body fitting v necks and jeremy losses his shit like he’s fully blushing and avoiding eye contact and since michael changed cause he was hot he’s sure that jeremy is so hot that his face is turning red and he’s embarrassed to say to take off his cardigan so the entire time jeremy is being full homo for his boyfriend michael is thinking he’s about to pass out from a heat stroke

- so i think jeremy enjoys this so much that for the first week of spring michael will only wear fitted clothes because jeremy loves it

- for michael it’s when he’s kissing jeremys neck and jeremy runs his hand thru his hair and pulls it a little when this happens michael loses all common sense one because jeremys enjoying himself so much that he has to kinda tug on michaels hair and two he’s enjoying it so much he doesn’t have time to think that squip is going to punish him and that makes michael just lose his mind so by the time they’ve pulled apart jeremy as sooooo many hickies and they both look at each other like what the fuck did we just do

- moving right along i feel like when jeremy wakes up at night and is terrified to go back to sleep if him and michael are sleeping together he will like hug him until he gets back to sleep and it works every time

- when they were like 7 jeremy got really sick with the flu and michael was so scared that he was going to die so he kissed him while he was sleeping because if his best friend was gonna die so was he and the next day he got really sick with the flu and jeremy would not stop crying because he thought that since michael refused to leave his side he got him sick…they’re idiots

- jeremy is the type to go to school with the worst fever ever he could throw up in the middle of the school day and still not go to the nurse and if he got sick during junior year forget it you had to strap him down to his bed if you wanted him to take a day off like michael had to sedecue him into staying in bed and taking medication so that he could feel better

[mickstart]

what do you think are some iconic/memorable schumi moments? i just got into f1 and would like to know more about him bc somehow i can’t really find anything like that about him.... just stats which are incredibly impressive but i can’t find anything about how he behaved or just anything about his personality..... thanks <3

:) Hi anon, thank you for unleashing the beast.

Ok I love you for asking me this thank you SO MUCH. Welcome to the circus I’m glad you’re here! Also yeah, Schumi is often talked about in terms of statistics and not as a human, Which is a shame bc like! Schumi is fascinating and the dynamics on the grid in late 90s F1 is so much fun! Also, this is mainly going to be late 90s -> early 2010s stuff bc I was born in 98 so uhhh I didn’t properly witness ANY 90s stuff and had to learn about it.

OK so I got super carried away but I’ve divided this into 3 sections: Drives/races that I think showcase some of his talents, human moments we need to talk about more, and Chaotic Little Bitch moments. The key thing to remember w/ Schumi is that he personally tends to be nice but as soon as you put him in a competition, Bastard Mode activates like a cat’s pupils going wide.

I am so sorry for the following short essay. Also some crashes are briefly mentioned but only ones with absolutely no injuries and there’s no details.

Chaotic Little Bitch Moments

Schumi debuted as a SUBSTITUTE driver for Jordan when one of their drivers was in police custody (yes. really.) The highest a Jordan had qualified all year was 10th and in his DEBUT at SPA, one of the toughest tracks, in the middle of the season, Schumi qualified that Jordan 7th! THEN his clutch failed before the first lap was even complete, but Benetton and Jordan WENT TO COURT to fight each other to sign him for their team before the next race in Monza. He couldn’t debut normally he HAD to cause a scene and set the tone.

The Red Strings of Fate: He qualified 7th, his iconic 7 starred helmet, his first victory next year was ALSO at Spa - his first complete race would be at Monza, Ferrari Holy Ground, and he finished 5th which 👀 1) he was immediately racing with The Greats. 2) Mr 5 Championships With Ferrari.

Winning a race by taking a stop and go penalty on the last lap, crossing the finish line in the pits, and making such a complicated argument about said penalty that in a hearing that was SUPPOSED to be Mclaren protesting the race result the stewards scrapped the entire penalty and the 3 who awarded it handed in their licenses??? Iconic.

Austria 2002 where Rubens was ordered to give the win to Michael. And then Michael fucking made him stand on the top step on the podium like “oh no no no RUBENS deserves this” and made a big SHOW out of it and its like “Michael stop you’re not making it heartwarming you’re making it WORSE Michael STOP” The Tension of germany 2010 podium VS the theatricality of THIS podium.

Team orders were banned because of this which also makes this indirectly responsible for Fernando Is Faster Than You having to be a coded message. You can’t escape him,

Blocking Alonso in Monaco qualifying and then, years later in 2010, overtaking Alonso technically illegally at Monaco (the race was ending under safety car, but the safety car doesn’t lead them over the line it pits and they’d crossed the safety car line and the regulations were NOT specific about the rules) and getting a 20 second penalty bc Damon Hill was a steward. Haunting FERNANDO specifically at Monaco like the ghost of christmas past? Getting a harsh penalty because ANOTHER driver he’d fucked over was a steward? Forcing the FIA to rewrite the rulebook to account for his nonsense when he was in his FOURTIES? I don’t know another chaos king.

Winning the 1995 championship by crashing into Damon Hill, getting AWAY with it for some reason, and then trying to do the same thing in 1997 to Villeneuve, failing to do so and simply rebounding off of him harmlessly, almost COMICALLY, and beaching his own car in a gravel trap at which point the FIA said “I have had ENOUGH of you Wacky Races Man!” and disqualified him from the entire championship

Forcing Mika off the track so bad at Spa 2000 that Mika realized the only way he was gonna be able to get past him was to re-invent the overtake and go for it whilst they were passing a backmarker. (The overtake itself is at 2:05 in the video but the build up to it is Important bc the key part it’s not just badass, it only happened bc Mika knew who he was dealing with.)

Spa 1998 was a Ridiculously Chaotic race it truly was the Mugello 2020 of its year, and after a crash at the start that took out almost the entire grid Schumi accidentally collided with Coulthard later in the race. (The teams used to have a spare car at every race then, so the race was able to continue after a restart.) This wasn’t a racing thing, Coulthard was getting lapped. So something in Schumi SNAPS, and he storms down the pitlane and tries to fight Coulthard while the mclaren and ferrari mechanics both hold him back and finally drag him away. He projected into the future, saw Coulthard was gonna talk non-stop shit about Seb, and acted accordingly.

Monaco 2012 Pole don’t talk to me about this I still can’t believe the audacity of this man to get the only pole of his comeback, at MONACO, at the ONE RACE where he had a 5 place grid penalty to take!!

In general, I know Cheating Bad but. I HAVE to admire the brainpower it must take to have the rulebook so memorized that whilst driving an F1 car Schumi could spot a loophole the size of the eye of a needle and then dance through it, forcing the FIA to add ANOTHER page to the rule book specially for him bc nobody else even REALISED that loophole existed.

Human Moments

A quick rant about Mika and Schumi’s entire friendship. After Spa 2000 Mika goes up to Michael, says something like “Don’t ever do that again” then they’re friends again. They had this mutual understanding that Racing was not Reality. This goes all the way back to their F3 days they were rivals AND friends for their entire career. They truly were the Sewis of the era if Sebastian was like 50% more evil. Their entire dynamic is “You’re the only motherfucker in this pit lane who can handle me”. Schumi would do some bullshit and every other driver would throw up their hands in frustration and Mika would just go “Okay” and drive better to put him in his place bc he was the only one who could keep up, and Schumi very visibly LOVED that he’s grinning after Mika owns his entire ass with that overtake at Spa. They were unstoppable force meets immovable object and I’m so sad their rivalry isn’t more talked about bc the way Mika is the only driver who can get him to behave like a normal human being is SO entertaining.

This is a sad one so I won’t link it but he started crying in the 2000 Monza press-conference with his brother and Mika when he equaled one of Senna’s records. The press kept trying to ask questions about it and Mika just has this death grip on his shoulder and tries to get them to stop or let them take a break and it’s so sad but also important to know about.

Once said he didn’t want Mick to race in F1 bc the pressure of his name would put Mick under so much stress and he wanted his son to be happy. (He fully supported Mick in his endeavors! But only after making absolutely sure it was what Mick wanted, and making sure he knew he could just race for fun if he wanted and it didn’t have to be F1)

This whole interview just after Mick was born with the Schumacher family. Special shout out to Gina on his head the entire video and also Corinna talking to the press while Michael is captivated by Mick. Me too Michael.

Once allegedly pleaded to take a stray kitten home from the track?

I reblogged this yesterday but. Sticking like glue to Sebastian at an F1 test and immediately being like “This is my new son he’s gonna go far”. There’s a lot of pictures out there also of Michael being a guest at the karting races Seb went to as a kid and baby Seb visibly losing his fucking mind at being given a trophy by his idol. Every day of my life I think about him trying to ruffle Seb’s hair through his helmet at Brazil 2012

WInning the championship in 2000. Him thanking the entire team individually and pausing mid-celebration to kiss his wife Corinna so tenderly it’s in the F1 opening. Also, the way it literally cuts from the rest of McLaren looking like they’re attending a funeral to Mika grinning at him and hugging him fucking SENDSSSSS me.

Schumi was a little shit in all the 2010-12 press conferences like, lowering Lewis’ chair, playing with a microphone wire, but ESPECIALLY corrupting baby Seb and getting him to mess with Nico Rosberg.

He’s just GOOFY! Like I refuse to let him be remembered as a terrifying force of nature he was so goofy kind of similarly to Seb. PLEASE watch this incredibly awkward interview he did with Coulthard on a golf buggy where they both had to pretend they hadn’t thought about murdering each other at least once. I think Sky F1 should force Brocedes to do this when covid’s over. “Do you mind if I drive?” “Yes.”

EDIT: I CANNOT BELIEVE I forgot the 1999 Canada press conference where Eddie Irvine and Mika Hakkinen get into a water fight and Schumi immediately grabs a towel and hides behind it and is like “I had NOTHING to do with it” 🥺 adorable, actually

A lot of people at Ferrari, including Rob Smedley (who was on the other side of the garage with Felipe Massa so not in his inner circle) have said that a lot of the success of the team came from Schumi’s LEADERSHIP more than anything, that he’d make the team get together to bond all the time. When Schumi moved to Ferrari in 1996 they were NOT dominant. He did the same thing Lewis did - went to a team that everybody said would be a huge mistake and helped build them up behind the scenes.

THIS bit of the Canada 2011 Rewind where his engineer gives him the strategy and he’s like “... OkaAaAaAay?” and then when it turns out to be the wrong strategy he cheerfully tells them it’s too late. Little shit.

Speaking of Mercedes I also wanna say that like. They were a MESS in 2012 and his car DNF’d because of a failing on their part MULTIPLE times. (In Canada qualifying his DRS was stuck open and they couldn’t close it.) He did not say a single bad word about them EVER even though the press used this to attack him non-stop as washed-up and bad without Ferrari to cheat for him. At Ferrari he was the exact same with the team, any bastard antics Schumi had for his rivals did not extend to the engineers and crew.

OK this one is soured bc Top Gear is trash BUT if you were like, a kid in England who followed motorsports? Schumi’s fake reveal as The Stig on Top Gear was like the coolest, sickest thing,

Please view this image of Schumi and Mika when they were young and stupid

Iconic Races

ok so I have limited myself to a few races that show off some of his key strengths!

Hungary 1998 / France 2004 - STRATEGY/SPEED - Schumi switched to a 3 stop strategy in 98 and a FOUR STOP strategy in 04 and won both races. In order for the strategy call to work he’d have to basically make every single lap a qualifying style ‘flying lap’ and you best fucking believe he DID THAT. God I fucking miss when Ferrari was the king of strategy.

Argentina 1998 -  has it all. Talent, battling Mika, pit lane mind games with mclaren, and bullying coulthard xxx

Spain 1996 / a majority of the wet races - RAIN - One of Schumi’s nicknames was Rain Master bc he was so fucking good in the wet. If it started raining and you were a Schumi stan you were cackling evilly before the red lights even went out. I single out 1996 bc it was his first win for Ferrari and it was unexpected but in most wet races, even Canada 2011 post comeback, you can see Schumi thriving.

Malaysia 1999 - Schumi missed pretty much the entire second half of the season with a broken leg, came back for the last 2 races with everybody murmuring about whether he would struggle, and immediately put the Ferrari on pole. Also worth noting is that he was the number 2 driver for these 2 races bc his teammate Irvine was fighting Mika for the championship and he went along with that without complaint, allowing Ferrari to win the constructor’s championship if not the driver’s.

Monza 2002, 03, 04, or 06 just because it has the energy of the tifosi kneeling at the feet of an idol to their red god.

Brazil 2006 - Fuck All Y’all - Schumi’s last race for Ferrari. He got a puncture and ended up almost lapped, and then drove his way back from that to 4th bc he couldn’t go out without reminding us he’s a bad bitch.

Monza 2012 - Defending - Don’t tell F1 Twitter that there’s actual footage of Lewis and Michael having a genuine lengthy battle on track but DO watch Michael defending like a motherfucker and Lewis breathing down his neck for half the race we need to talk about this more.

Valencia 2012 - This isn’t necessarily anything special but I cried in my living room over the only podium of his comeback so it goes on here. It doesn’t have the same impact if you haven’t been watching him struggle with the car for years, DNF-ing from car failure most of 2012, and having BBC F1 telling you he’s washed up every single weekend, but you can just enjoy one of the best drives of FERNANDO’S entire career as he DRAGS that Ferrari by its hair to a home grand prix win and then watch the crowds embrace him like jesus and also Schumi being happy on the podium. Also, the very start of this clip from the press conference: him forgetting what language he’s supposed to be speaking 

Basically, Schumi was a hyper-competitive ambitious bitch who turned into a goofball as soon as he switched the engine off. This is by NO MEANS everything if I was making an exhaustive best races guide I’d do more research and another post but I hope this is what you were looking for?? THANK YOU SO MUCH for letting me go MAXIMUM SPECIAL INTEREST and I apologize.

[aion-rsa]

What Sweet Tooth Changes From the Comic

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This article contains spoilers for Sweet Tooth, both the TV series and the comic.

Sweet Tooth, the live-action adaptation of Jeff Lemire’s post-apocalyptic comic, has now arrived on Netflix and it’s a hit! Or at least that’s what producer Robert Downey Jr. ‘s overwhelmingly prevalent promoted tweet claims. I can recite “#SweetTooth is now certified fresh with a perfect 100% critics score. So incredibly proud of the whole @sweettooth team and can’t wait for you to see ‘the show of the summer.’ All episodes are now streaming on Netflix!” more readily than my own name at this point.

Still, it’s easy to see why Sweet Tooth found an audience on Netflix. The story of a gentle deer-boy hybrid named Gus and his quest to find his mother in a virus-ravaged world puts a refreshingly optimistic face on a well-worn post-apocalypse genre. Actor Christian Convery is a real find as Gus a.k.a. Sweet Tooth and the series eight episodes feel like an ‘80s Amblin Entertainment homage done right. 

Sweet Tooth is so inherently sweet that audiences might not realize just how much it deviates from its comic inspiration. Lemire’s comic miniseries, published from 2009 through 2013 by DC’s Vertigo imprint, has many fans, including some big pop culture names. Actor Michael Sheen wrote the foreword for the series first collected trade paperback. TV writer Damon Lindelof (Watchmen, Lost) conducted an interview with Lemire for the end of the final book. The comic is also decidedly less sweet than the TV show it inspired.

Arriving in an era before apocalypse fatigue fully set in for pop culture, Sweet Tooth really leans into the Mad Max side of its “Bambi Meets Mad Max” elevator pitch. The book is quite dark and unflinching. That Netflix and series creator Jim Mickle decided to go in a brighter direction for the show is an interesting commentary on entertainment’s priorities at the moment. But what if Sweet Tooth the TV series decided to hew closer to its source material? Read on to see how the comic and the show differ.

Tone

It cannot be overstated just how much darker the Sweet Tooth comic is than the TV series. The show acknowledges that the post-apocalyptic world after “The Sick” would feature some inherent violence. In fact, the whole plot of the show involves hunters trying to kidnap a child and deliver him to the military to be ground up into medicine essentially. That’s obviously dark. But the show still does its best to avoid as much onscreen violence as possible.

When the Big Man or another character rescues Gus from hunters, he does so in a largely bloodless fashion. Even when Big Man takes a bear trap to a poacher’s head, audiences are spared the grisly sights and sounds of it. Readers of the Sweet Tooth comic, however, are spared nothing. The pages of Lemire’s work are positively drenched in blood. Midway through the story, Gus is even forced to beat a fellow hybrid’s brains in with a brick. He says he feels bad about it, but not that bad.

The comic also delves into the realm of sexual violence as many post-apocalyptic stories have felt compelled to do before. Early on in the proceedings Big Man and Gus come across a town where a family captures women and forces them into prostitution. When Big Man rescues two women, they become permanent fixtures of their party. These characters, Lucy and Becky, do not appear in the TV show (though one character does borrow her name from one). 

If all the violence didn’t already make it apparent, the Sweet Tooth comic is particularly misanthropic. Nearly all of the human characters in the comic are monsters. Even Gus’s beloved Big Man Jepperd is useful because he’s a monster. Jepperd never loses sight of what makes him useful in this world, which is killing. He only becomes a hero when he applies that skill to those who deserve it. Throughout the series run, the comic continually intimates that perhaps planet Earth would be better off without all these humans anyway. 

Characters

Befitting the comic’s darker tone, the characters of Sweet Tooth are also quite a bit darker. While Convery’s depiction of Gus in the show is absolutely pitch perfect for a young Spielbergian hero, the Gus of the comic isn’t quite as self-assured or sophisticated. The education that Gus received from his “pubba” wasn’t necessarily top notch stuff so his vernacular is filled with more slang and abbreviations. He comes across as a true Nebraskan country boy. 

Meanwhile, Tommy Jepperds a.k.a Big Man (Nonso Anozie) gets an even bigger makeover for the show. Lemire describes the Jepperds of the comic as being inspired by the concept of an aging Frank Castle. There is absolutely no warmth in the comic’s Big Man. Instead of being an ex-football player, he’s an ex hockey player…and a pretty terrible one at that, only useful as his team’s “enforcer”. Anozie’s Jepperds is quite a bit more personable and open. Though he intends to sell Gus to the Last Men, he never goes through with it. In the comic, Jepperds does exactly that before changing his mind and rescuing the boy. 

The pig-girl hybrid Wendy (Naledi Murray) exists in the comic but her mother Aimee (Dania Ramirez) does not. Instead Gus meets Wendy at the Last Men facility after Jepperds sells him off. He meets Wendy’s little buddy Bobby there too. 

Gus’s “pubba” is a janitor at a medical facility in both the comic and the show, but as played by Will Forte in the show, he’s a lot more tender and smooth. The show Pubba is the perfect father to young Gus, open, communicative, and knowledgeable. In the comic, however, the character has lost some of his mental faculties in isolation. He is a God-fearing man who entertains and writes down his apocalyptic visions. Gus loves him and he loves Gus but he’s also not operating at full capacity. Also not operating at full capacity is Dr. Adityah Singh (Adeel Akhtar), who becomes inspired by Pubba’s writings and believes that Gus is a new god.

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The Animal Army is quite different in the comic. Instead of being a ragtag gang of Neverland-style kids, it’s a disturbing cult of adults in animal masks, led by a deranged man who has five dog-hybrid children. Becky a.k.a Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen) is an invention for the show but she does take her name from a comic character.

General Abbott though? He’s pretty much that villainous in both iterations of the story. Screw that guy.

Story

Though Sweet Tooth’s first season begins and ends in a similar spot to the first “Book” (12 issues) of the comic, the path it takes to get there is wildly different. 

Read more

TV

Why Sweet Tooth’s Ending is Ultimately Hopeful

By Nicole Hill

Scenes at Aimee’s Preserve and at Dr. Singh’s Stepford-ian community are invented entirely for the show. The Preserve is mentioned in the comic, but it’s never confirmed to exist (and likely does not, given the comic’s relentlessly dark tone). The first time Gus and readers meet Wendy and Dr. Singh is at the Last Men facility where Gus finds himself in the final episode of the season. Also new to the TV series are Gus and Big Man’s side quest through an outdoor sporting goods store, and the entire Animal Army’s arc. 

In the comic, Gus, Big Man, and company’s journey stretches from Nebraska to Alaska (hey, that rhymes!). The show elects to shorten that a bit by having Gus venture from Wyoming to Colorado. In addition to introducing new stories, the show also abandons some comic stories entirely, likely in pursuit of its cheerier tone. 

Netflix has not announced Sweet Tooth season 2 yet. Based on the show’s apparent success, however, future seasons seem likely. When they arrive, they will undoubtedly have many more changes to make from the source material to ensure an appropriately sweet viewing experience.

Sweet Tooth is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post What Sweet Tooth Changes From the Comic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

And he said, I hope you know how to swim

A/N: this is for the gift exchange from @itfandomprompts! My giftee is @iheartthoreau who asked for shy skinny dipping lovers and jealous Eddie. I’m sorry it’s out so late, I hope you enjoy it anyway! 

Summary:  The Derry midnight breeze is freezing, Eddie notes, still dressed in a shirt and pants and dreading having to get rid of them. He’s bare foot now, standing on top of the quarry and peering down into the glinting lake. Next to him, also bare foot, Richie looks over his shoulder, and laughs, bright and innocent. 

warnings: skinny dipping, mentioned of nudity (but nothing graphic)

read on a3o

The atmosphere of six best friends who’ve just moved past the worst stages in their life cackles in Eddie’s brain.

He’s buzzed up, energized beyond all logic by the laughter and loving gestures so carelessly tossed around in their group. Pennywise is dead, and with it the looming threat following each of them around and the teasing unhappiness hinting at what they were missing but not giving any clues as to what.

It’s all over now, and a road full of new opportunities lays ahead of them. Everyone is acting loose, ecstatic with the weight that fell off their shoulders. Eddie’s feeling a tad guilty too, for calling Myra and informing her that way about their upcoming divorce that he’s going to set in motion as soon as he’s had a good night sleep, but he felt so brave after surviving a literal killer clown, that he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

A part of him was also frightful that he’d lose his courage, between now and getting home, that he’d look around his house and accept that this was all he was destined for, a mediocre life with a wife he didn’t love and a job that sucked the joy out of all employees. Myra deserved better though, and that’s why Eddie’s guilty eyeing his phone, debating on calling her back. He won’t take back what he said, because he’s relieved to have put it out in the open, but he’s unsure if he should have been more empathetic towards her feelings in all of this. If he should have ended the call after telling her to take care.

Bev notices his wandering eyes from where she seated beside him on the couch, the woman still laughing a stitch, shifting forward and hiding his phone in between seat cushions. Out of sight out of mind so to speak.

‘We’ve got time to worry about it tomorrow Eddie.’ She says, and she’s right. Tomorrow both him and Bev will have to deal with the intricacies of divorce and separating a company and a home. Tonight is reserved for the losers only.

‘Yeah Eds, and here I was assuming that after twenty years we’d have some stuff to catch up on.’

Richie regards him from the floor, legs tossed up upon the couch with his body upside down. His glasses are sliding off, but he’s lazy to fix them, so he looks like even more of a goofball than normal. If Eddie could, if he didn’t feel like his intentions would be even more noticeable if he did, he’d scoot over to Richie, adjusting his glasses and letting his fingers trail his cheek and bask in the skin to skin contact.

‘You never did anything interesting before we went to college, what makes you think you’ve done something interesting after?’ Eddie’s tongue is sharp, a façade he builds to stop speculation about his feelings towards Richie, though the truth is that he is intrigued and he craves to know every small detail about his life outside of Derry.

‘No you guys are not starting this again. I’m sick of your bickering,’ Bill interjects, rolling his eyes at the pair.

‘I reject that big Bill, we’re hilarious, you can’t be sick of us bickering when you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing it for the last twenty years. Michael, back me up here buddy.’

‘Sorry Rich, I’m not getting involved in the slightest.’

‘Yeah guys come on, can’t we have one quiet night in?’

‘What so Eddie can just call me boring and I’m supposed to let it slide? Me? I’m the fireworks on the Fourth of July, the highest roller coaster in the park and the whipped cream on strawberries, but I am not boring.’ Richie changes positions, almost accidentally knocking over his beer bottle. He theatrically waves his arms back and forth, trying to animate his words and add conviction.

‘Okay, okay you’re not boring, but don’t overrate yourself either. The most adventurous thing you ever did in high school was skip a class to read a comic book in the school’s bathroom. Not exactly daredevil behavior.’

Bev sips from her whiskey, winking at Richie whose face turns beet red for a reason Eddie can’t decipher. It’s not until Bev conspicuously blows out a gust of air with her lips puckered that Eddie connects the dots.

‘Didn’t you say you ditched because you were smoking with Beverly? Dude did you fucking lie about that? I was worried you’d die and get cancer ever since that day you piece of shit.’

‘No I definitely did smoke. I swear.’

‘You’re not kidding anyone Rich, I vouched for you all those years ago, but I’m not doing it again. Little Richie was a comic book nerd who just pretended to be really cool. We never ever smoked together.’

The losers all holler, clapping their hands together and cheering on the exposure of their foulmouthed friend, debunking all the story Richie apparently made up where he and Be had to sneak out at night to smoke inconspicuously, with the exception of Eddie and Richie. Eddie, because he’s busy glaring at Richie and Richie because he’s busy tapping Bill’s hand away, teasingly disheveling his hair.

Eddie wishes he was brave enough to give these little affections to his friend, especially after witnessing how soothed Richie got when Eddie hugged him after Neibolt, when he had dropped his face into the nape of Eddie’s neck and stayed there, swaying on his feet of exhaustion. It would only make him a good friend, a best friend, but Eddie is still so damn afraid.

He might have had the power to separate from his wife and kill an abstract form of his deepest fears, but Bowers angry yelled words, such as fairy and faggot, swung to his head any time he and Richie graveted closer while walking, haunt him even now.

Touching is off limits the words tell him, so he shows affection the only way he’s ever known towards Richie, by bickering and pulling pigtails.

‘I should have expected that.’ Eddie nods vehemently, laughing as Richie’s mouth drops open in a shocked manner.

‘Are you kidding me? Eddie Spaghetti is the one telling me I’m a loser?’

Eddie flips him off, ignoring Mike’s whispered; ‘he’s got a point’, in favor of levitating his full attention on Richie. The giggling in the room elevates an octave higher.

‘You all laugh’, Richie addresses the entire group, ‘but was I not the one who came up with the idea for the list?’

Abruptly, all sounds snap off, as everyone is snapped back to the past. Even Richie is, at face value, confused about the word he spoke, until the concept and creation of the list is brought to the forefront of everyone’s mind.

‘Holy shit.’

‘Oh my god Mike please tell me you still have it.’

Mike shakes his head with a far-off look. ‘Sorry guys, I don’t know who had it last but I never found it again.’ He’s saddened by it, like he did them all an injustice by not holding on to a flimsy piece of paper.

The List, capital L, was nothing more but a checklist, composed with all the fun and dangerous things the losers all had hopes of doing after graduating high school. Eddie remembers now, the hushed laughter and uncompromisable joy that came with the simple idea of these things, how everyone pitched in and added dare after dare while him and Stan exchanged glances and hoped to god that some things would never be executed.

‘That’s okay Mike, I’m just happy we can all remember making it.’ Ben smiles reassuringly Mike’s way, who smiles back and takes a deep breath.

‘Wait, I think I can recall some of the things we wrote on there. Hold on’, Bev squeezes her eyes shut and snaps her finger in the hope it will get to her faster. ‘Oh’, she exclaims, startling Bill who chokes on his own saliva, ‘we were going to visit Europe, do a high rope parkour, rock climb and some other things I can’t remember right now.’

‘Didn’t we also agree to volunteer in a hospital and go camping in the national forest?’ Ben asks, awaiting confirmation.

‘Yeah we did, Stan was throwing a fit over going camping because of the environment and the dirt, but we were well on our way to convince him.’

‘Wow,’ Richie breathes, chest puffing up and head dropping back into the couch so his face isn’t visible to the rest. ‘I forgot all about that, but come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I did most of those things with Bryan.’

And who the fuck is Bryan? Certainly not Eddie, sweating in fear from the things that were being listed, searching for the most extreme dares he’d seen happen on tv to suggest, doing anything he could to impress Richie. Eddie was terrified of most of the activities on the list, like Bev’s idea to waterski in the ocean, or Mike’s zip lining idea, but he would have done them if it meant he could bask in Richie’s attention, impress Richie to rid himself of scared baby Eddie was so sure he must have been in Richie’s eyes. So who the hell was this Bryan stealing his thunder like that?

‘Who’s Bryan?’ Bev inquires with a smirk, winking at Richie blush ridden face. Eddie’s jealousy rears its ugly head, flaring up and making his head woozy. He simultaneously both considers choking Bev and thanking her for the question.

With Richie’s secret fresh on his mind, the way he’d so shamefully admitted that he was gay and they were the first people he’d ever found the courage to tell, Eddie wondered if Bryan was perhaps someone Richie had been romantically involved with.

Richie would have deserved it, Eddie argues in his mind, to at least for a short period of time have someone love him back as fiercely as he dons it out, but Eddie’s also furious that he stole Richie out from under his nose.

Which is illogical, because even if he and Richie had managed to stay in touch, and Eddie confessed – not much chance there, as Eddie didn’t even tell anyone he was gay when Richie did - there was no guaranty that Richie would’ve reciprocated.

‘No one snoopy’, Richie argues with a jittery leg, ’just some guy I hung out with for a while.’

Bev appears unconvinced, but she’s also respectful towards Richie's decision to not say anything. ‘So which ones did you complete?’

‘I went to Europa senior year of college, smoked a bunch of weed, went zip lining. The normal kind of stuff.’

Zip-lining, or smoking weed for that matter, causes Eddie skin to crawl, not that he’d ever admit it. He hates that that’s not the case for Bryan.

‘Well thanks Rich, none of us ever did anything on the list without the other losers. I guess you didn’t miss us too much.’ It’s not fair, of course it’s not. He can tell by the eagerness to spend time together that Richie was very lonely, and experienced the same aching emptiness where his friends were supposed to be as the rest of them.

The bitter tone of Eddie's speech, and the way Richie’s eyes turn a little dimmer extinguishes the fire of Eddie’s envy. Richie deserves better than him in every way. An apology lies at the tip of his tongue, ready to jump into the open and hopefully aid the wounds before they’re fully developed.

Sensing the impending hurricane of trouble on the horizon Mike is eager to intervene, playing mediator for two forces that are about to collide. ‘Well I mean, we probably wouldn’t have gone through with most of them anyway.’

‘Speak for yourself’, Eddie waves him off, spiteful that Mike has a good point. He would have found a way to undermine their plans and make it so that he could back out without appearing like a meek lamb, for at least half of the activities. If he had known about Bryan’s existence though, he would have done anything. He feels ready now to do anything, to one up him and establish his spot as Richie’s number one.

‘Prove it,’ Bill dares with a lopsided smirk, certain he’s got Eddie beat. He sustains eye contact, reaching for the bag of chips on the table and gnawing on it with the most smug aura Eddie has ever witnessed him having.

‘I would’, Eddie defends fiercely, ‘but we can’t do any of the things in Derry.’

‘Sounds like a cop out to me.’

‘Yeah, sure Big Bill, because you can easily find a zip line here in Derry. The town that refused to spend money on renewing the library back in the eighties is no doubt going to have that installed by now.’

‘What about skinny dipping?’ Ben proposes innocently, having no idea the kind of strain he’s putting Eddie under.

‘That’s a great idea Ben, I forgot we put that one on the list.’ Beverly acknowledges despite Eddie’s frantic head shaking. The room temperature drops down and rises back up steadily, at least according to Eddie. He’s starting to sweat, something he never does and takes pride in – in the office he’s the level headed one, and that’s saying something – and he pulls at his collar to allow some air to ventilate.  

Everything except that. A swim in a dirty lake that was most likely infected was a whole plate of different bacteria, and being naked in front of the man he’s in love with is not something Eddie is particularly fond of. He almost asks for a different thing to do, but that would truly be a cop out, and he both refuses to back down in front of Richie and give Bill the satisfaction of being right.

‘Good luck with that Eds, question before this all goes down, am I allowed to use this in my next bit?’

‘Actually,’ Bev interrupts, ‘I think you should join him too.’

‘Hey I wasn’t the one that said I’d be willing to do anything.’

‘No, but you were the one who added it on the list in the first place. C’mon Richie, It’ll be fun. For us, not for you guys, but we’ll get a good laugh out of it.’

Richie is hesitant, same as Eddie, readjusting his glasses again. Eddie is sure that if he says the word Richie will tell everyone to back down for him. He wouldn’t even make fun of Eddie for it, should Eddie give any indication that he wouldn’t want him too. He thinks back to Bryan, and how he wouldn’t have backed down for such a thing, and how in awe Richie must have been seeing the man abandon all safety precaution and go for it, Eddie’s mind is made up instantly.

‘Let’s do it.’ He says without leaving room for argument, nodding at Richie as he looks to him. He hopes Richie will go with it, but is also confident that of course he will. As kids they followed each other everywhere, and surely that hasn’t changed.

‘Really? I mean yeah – sure I guess. Bring it on.’

-----

The Derry midnight breeze is freezing, Eddie notes, still dressed in a shirt and pants and dreading having to get rid of them. He’s barefoot now, standing on top of the quarry and peering down into the glinting lake. Eddie’s jumping from one foot to the other, annoyed that dirt is clinging to his skin and branches are piercing his soles, even more aggravated at the idea of cleaning them in infection filled lake water. Bev better keep her end of the promise, and be waiting near the end of the lake with a pair of fresh pressed towels.

Next to him, also bare foot, Richie looks over his shoulder, and laughs, bright and innocent.

‘I forgot how high this was.’

It is high up, but they’ve done this jump at least a hundred times before, so Eddie’s not worried about the plunge. He’d assume Richie isn’t either, but the man keeps glances towards the path they took to get up here, uncharacteristically silent.

‘It’s okay if you're too scared to go through with it Eduardo, I won’t tell the others.’ Richie smirks when he notices Eddie’s glance, crossing his arms over his chest.

The movement makes his shoulders bulk, highlighting just how much bigger Richie is compared to Eddie. Eddie’s mouth waters, and he starts to worry about how he’s going to have to get through seeing Richie’s naked shoulders in the flesh.

‘Just get undressed will you? Hurry up.’

‘Why? Eager to see my bare ass?’

‘Yeah, because who doesn’t think jumping naked into a lake they frequented as kids is the epitome of sexiness? No you self-centered idiot, I want to get it over with so I can go back to the Inn and grab a warm shower.’

With one last peek, Eddie moves backwards, standing away from the ledge and begins to unbutton his shirt, before thinking better off it. Richie picks up on his hesitation, shifting backwards too and motioning his head towards the ridge.

‘Do you want me to show you how it’s done?’

‘No,’ Eddie objects, ‘I’ll go first.’

‘Why? I’m not going to stare at your junk while you're jumping in if that’s what you're worried about Eddie. I’m not that kind of gay.’ Rarely does Richie toss aside an opportunity to grant Eddie another humorous nickname, so the use of his real name spooks Eddie just enough that he opens his mouth to apologize without even realizing what he’s apologizing for.

Richie’s facial expression, set in a grimace and squinting his eyes defensively, are a dead give away that Eddie’s words are being taken the wrong way. If only Richie knew that Eddie wanted him to go in first so he could avoid the same temptation Richie thought he was forcing on him.

‘Richie no, that’s not what I meant I-.’ Heartfelt compliments are not something Eddie has had a lot of practice for these last few years, and he’s not doing a good job catching up on them either. Therefore he sighs and hopes that he can find another way to prove to Richie he’d never accuse him of something like that. ‘Whatever, just go first already.’

‘Fine but turn around okay?’

Eddie listens to him, back towards Richie and the jump off, though he doesn’t really understand the request. With Richie comes a lot of flair, and he was more or less been prepared for a joke about how Eddie got to confirm how big his dick is in reality.

He waits and listens carefully for the sounds of clothes being dropped on the ground, and he can’t stop his mind from secretly imagining how Richie looks like without them once he distinguishes it.  Eddie shakes his head, scolding his own mind.

The next few moments are filled with raspy breaths originating from Richie, footstep sounding further away and then closer again in an erratic pattern. He must be scared of the jump. Under normal circumstances, Eddie would ask to jump in at the same time, but since Richie asked Eddie not to turn around, he won’t.

‘If you don’t jump in the next five minutes,’ Eddie teases, the way Richie used to tease him, ‘I’ll push you in.’ A second later Eddie hears Richie’s loud whooping as he plunges down into the dark water.

Eddie spins, the only thing greeting him the dark with very little light clearing up his path, from the moon. He’s having a hard time to even see where the cliff ends, and he can’t disguise Richie in the water at all.

‘I’m coming in’, he yells to the void, in case Richie can’t discern his body in time and needs to move out of the way. He takes off his clothes, goosebumps erupting on his skin, and folds his pants and t-shirt up neatly, touching the ground with his hands to find a dry spot to lay them on. The air is cold, and so Eddie refuses to linger on top any longer than he has to.

He jogs up to the ledge and darts off before his mind can conjure up the thousands of things that can go wrong from swimming in the dark this late at night. His body flies through the air and connects with the water in one swoop, a pit of glee bursting in Eddie’s stomach. Jumping from the quarry equals freedom, a hot summer day and love for all of his friends, but in particular Richie.

Eddie keeps his head underwater until his lungs burn, eyes closed and allowing himself to just feel all the sensations. Then, something tickles the back of his leg, and the peaceful moment is over. He kicks back the surface, away from the spot where he could swear something touched him, and searches around for Richie.

Richie, with his wet black hair clinging to his forehead, strands of it sticking out in every direction, and his droplet covered glasses, roving more of Eddie’s heart each minute they’re near each other. He’s never looked more beautiful, and Eddie has never had to fight the urge to kiss him as much as he does now.

‘See, I told you I wouldn’t stare Eds, I can’t even see anything with all these splatters on my glasses.’

The moon reflects on the water, so that it’s impenetrable, and neither Rich nor Eddie can look down and see their lower body parts.

What Eddie can see is enough anyway, Richie’s shoulders and part of his chest hold Eddie’s attention, and he forgets to respond to Richie’s comment.

His eyes land on a dark bruise, just on the bottom of Richie’s neck, a remnant of their fight with Pennywise earlier that day. Without thinking, without standing still on the consequences of such an action, Eddie swims closer, stretches his arm out, and lingers his fingertips over the bruise. He carefully positions his body to not touch any other body part of Richie’s except for his fingers on his neck.

He makes an inquisitive noise, thumb stroking over the injury in what he hopes to be a calming matter. He physically can’t pull away, entranced with the way he moves and responds to him, trying but failing to get his fill of Richie clenched.

‘Eddie’, Richie whispers, scared to break the silence and the intimate moment. ‘It’ll be fine. And hey, at least he didn’t do anything to my dick.’

‘Yeah, would have been a shame if it were to become even smaller.’

Richie snorts, retaliating the jest with a wave of dirty water aimed at Eddie.

Eddie gasps, spitting out a bit of water that managed to sneak into his mouth. ‘Oh you’re on.’

The two of them chase each other, and if it weren’t for the fact that they were both naked, Eddie would have thrown his entire body weight in the game to push Richie underwater. As it stands, they just splash back and forth until they’re exhausted and the remnants of their laughter dies out, barely enough energy left to stay afloat side by side.

‘Did you have this much fun with Bryan?’ Eddie asks, a bit envious. He hates how he’s still stuck on the Bryan thing, hates that his mind keeps popping images of them doing the exact same thing only to end it with a kiss.

‘What?’

‘With Bryan, the guy you did all that other stuff with?’

‘Oh no, me and Bryan – we were never together like that.’ Back at the hotel room, Eddie figured that that was a ploy to distract Bev, something Richie just said because he couldn’t comfortably admit the real intent of their relationship. But he’s never lied to Eddie, and his eyes, magnified by his glasses, seem so sincere, Eddie has no other option but to believe him. ‘I-I’m- some other guy already has that place all taken up.’

Eddie stupid, oblivious and dense and everything in between. He knows Richie isn’t talking about him, he knows he could never be the guy Richie would hold all hope out for – he also secretly hopes it’s none of the losers -, but he wants to be so bad. Just one time, just one kiss and he’d be sated enough to let go of his feral behavior towards any potential love interest Richie might have. Just one time.

‘Richie’, Eddie starts, biting his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. He’s taking a huge risk, by foreseeing a rejection but hoping that Richie won’t drop him as a friend because of this. If Eddie doesn’t do this, he’ll never stop wondering what it feels for their lips to meet. He’ll never get over Richie because he never got to experience any with him.

‘Can I kiss you?’ He risks releasing his lip.

Richie is visibly shocked. ‘What? What the fuck? Eddie is this a joke?’

The joke is, as usual, all on Eddie who regrets ever opening his mouth in the first place. He could try to laugh it off, say that it was a joke, but that would mean that he pretends to make a jest out of something Richie has struggled with for his entire life. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Left with no other options but to further dig his own grave, Eddie decides to be honest. At least that means he gets to keep part of his integrity.

‘No Richie of course not, I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m sorry. Look I like you but it’s obviously one sided and I just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss you but it was a stupid request and I shouldn’t have asked you that. Oh god, I never even asked if you were dating someone –‘

‘Eds?’

‘- Fuck can we please forget I said anything so we can still hang out?’

‘Eddie?’

‘What?’

‘Yes. Please kiss me.’

Eddie gapes with his mouth open, struggling for breath and for words. He’s half convinced he misinterpreted  the words, but his tilted head proves otherwise. Eddie doesn’t question it further, counting his lucky start for once, and leaning in to his emotions and Richie, breaching the water to get to him.

Their kiss is surprisingly gentle for the ungovernable lead up prior to it. Richie’s lips taste like lake water, but deeper underneath lies a tang of something distinctively Richie. Eddie can’t wait to devour him whole once he’s cleaned up. Their lips move together in tandem, a perfect harmony that for once neither are willing to break.

They pull back, Richie’s arms circling Eddie’s waist, and he smiles. His smile mixed with the love stricken gleam in his eyes, mysteriously tells Eddie that Richie feels the exact same way he does. His chest caves with happiness.  

‘I like you too, if it wasn’t obvious. A lot more than Bryan.’

‘For the love of God can we never mention that again? It’s embarrassing. No, Hush’, Eddie says urgently, covering Richie’s mouth with his palm when he opens his mouth to conjure up another joke.

‘Fine,’ Richie says while pulling away from Eddie’s hand. ‘How about we talk about something else then? How the fuck are we supposed to get to our clothes?’

[quietepics]

                                      ♡ · 　INTRO.　 * .  V / ?.

        here comes the boi !  hello boi~  welcome~  there he is ,  he is here ~  /  ie i finally brought a himbo .  i’m gonna try and keep this relatively short and sweet since i’m still figuring him out myself ,  but i hope y’all love my  typhon  kid ,  mister  jesse garcia  as much as i do !

THE BASICS

name:  jesse antonio garcia nickname(s):  jess, jessie birthday:  february 25th ,  1996 ethnicity:  latino ( colombian - ecuatorian - mexican ) birthplace:  new york , usa gender identity:  cis male sexuality:  pansexual / panromantic powers:  beast creation mixtape:  hml / sisyfuss ,  too close / sir chloe ,  loverboy / a - wall ,  cariño / the marias ,  just right / got7 ,  lo que siento / cuco ,  i need a hero / bonnie tyler  character inspiration:  jonathan joestar ( jjba ) ,  michael kelso ( that 70s show ) ,  sokka ( atla ) ,  dick grayson ( dc comics ) ,  josuke higashikata ( jjba ) ,  fushiguro megumi ( jujutsu kaisen ) ,  george ( george of the jungle i am so sorry )

THE MUSE  ( bullying ,  blood tw )

jesse is the only child of clara garcia ,  a veterenarian based in queens ,  new york .  though their family is small ,  consisting of both of them and the ocassional phone call from grandparents or other relatives ,  he never really had a problem with it . 

jesse was always a sociable kid ,  making friends wherever he went and ,  since his mother was a vet ,  the boy grew up surrounded by all sorts of pets .

he lived a pretty normal life ;  passable grades ,  good at sports ,  always willing to land a hand to anyone in need or help an old lady cross the street .  he’d even run errands around his neighborhood ,  hoping to score a buck or two in the process .  but things took a turn by the time jesse was in his early teens .

specifically after helping a guy from school who was being bullied by strangers who were much ,  much bigger than him ;  even bigger than jesse himself .  still ,  that didn’t stop him from walking over and standing up for the poor boy  ---  nor did it stop him from getting his ass kicked .

the fight was pretty bad ,  eventually leading to the point where jesse could feel himself begin to lose consciensce .  whatever happened after that is history ,  but there’s one thing he remembers to this day :  two big dogs ,  a black one and a white one ,  rushing from right where he laid on the ground and attacking the bullies ,  who ran away in fear .

when jesse woke up ,  he was lying inside an ambulance right where the fight took place ,  both his mother and the boy he’d saved standing outside and talking to the police .  then ,  he noticed both dogs ,  the ones he’d barely caught a glimpse of before collapsing ,  sitting right outside the vehicle ,  watching him with an all too familiar gaze . he knew they were worried about him ,  and in return ,  he was grateful for them saving his life .

it was after that day that jesse learned about his father ,  typhon ,  and how the dogs were actually the young man’s very own creations ,  born from a moment of despair to save his life and his new friend’s . 

it wasn’t long after that day that he was scouted to nemean lion by two agents ,  and though it wasn’t easy to leave his mother behind ,  jesse listened to her encouragement and moved to nl .  they keep in touch regularly  ( as he is extremely protective and caring of his mom ) ,  but there isn’t a day where jesse regrets coming to nl .  he sees everything as one big adventure ,  even the things he doesn’t quite understand  ---  but hey ,  at least he’s got his dogs with him ,  as well as dozens of other pets he’s created over the years !

MISC.

himbo .  he is a himbo .  he is big and drinks respect women juice daily ,  and also brings some to his friends .  he’s also not very smart but at least he’s cute and has a good heart .

jesse’s dogs are called dara ( female ,  white fur ) and zoro ( male , black fur ) .  he didn’t choose their names ,  they just came to him as if the dogs had told him so ,  as if those were their names long before they were created .  if he’s walking around campus without much of a plan in mind ,  just hanging around ,  you can bet both dogs are with him .  they’re very protective of their owner ,  but also extremely kind and never really start a fight .  pls pet them .

he works at the pet shop ,  and he LOVES his job !  not only does it make him feel closer to his mom even at a distance ,  but he loves sharing his love of animals with people from and outside of campus .  he also makes some of the cutest little creatures you’ll find there !

james is his best friend and together ,  they are one whole idiot .  their friendship literally began after they realized they basically share names with jessie and james from pokemon .

not a vegan ,  but doesn’t eat red meat at all .  he’s not gonna murk you for doing so ,  but pls don’t take him to a stakehouse or anything like that .  he usually avoids other kinds of meat in general ,  too ,  but especially red meat .  that one is never being eaten .

his favorite things to create are dogs ,  cats ,  guinea pigs ,  wolves ,  bunnies and small birds .  he can also create stuff like the hybrid creatures from atla ,  such as turtle ducks or koalaotters .  he refrains from doing so though ,  and keeps those particular creatures strictly under his care in fear that someone might hurt them .

HE’S SO SOFT .  biggest softie in the whole world ,  will do anything for his friends ,  will do anything for anyone at all !  he believes in you !  he’s your #1 fan !

honestly just let me write this boy i am so excited to share him with you all

[captainjimothycarter]

How about a Steggy drabble for the "stormy day" prompt in that October prompt list you posted? (Only if you feel like it of course!) :D

This is so not what you wanted. *insert Modern Day Steggy* I don’t know where I was going with this.

--

The fact that his apartment complex or fuck the whole neighborhood had been plunged into darkness during a heavy, stormy night didn’t surprise Steve. He sat in the sudden darkness on his couch, phone in hand as he listened to the lightning and thunder clash outside, like two Gods in battle. He listened to the heavy wind and rain threaten to burst down his apartment and flood everything away. Lightning streaked once more and when he thought the coat stand in the far corner of the room, Steve sighed and figured he’d better get a flashlight or two.

It was supposed to do this all week, with very little breaks in between. They were expecting over seven inches of rain, if not more, not that those measurements meant anything to him. With the power out, his job of working as a comic book artist and finally putting some fresh ideas to paper was useless.

It was cold in the apartment now without power and the blonde was fully aware as he pulled out his trunk of emergency flashlights, camper burners, candles, etc. that he remembered someone had moved in just next door. He doubted they had prepared for this either. 

The past few storms had taught him that his neighbors had all prepared for this, after going through every other home and giving out flashlights and candles to be sure they had something to see by. No idea how long this outage will last.

Hopefully not long, because Mr. Jensen upstairs needed his oxygen, but his wife assured him that they had a generator. That was just her text coming in again to confirm they were okay.

How do you even go to your next-door-neighbor? Hi, I’m Steve? The power is out and I’m not trying to be creepy or have some Hallmark moment, I just didn’t know if you had flashlights or a charger for your phone. 

“Mother-fuck-get off!”

Steve’s heart lurched into his throat at the shouting, the worst ideas coming to mind. He didn’t even think. He jerked the door open and pointed the bright beam of light at the figure on the floor, eyes wide.

“What the hell?!”

She was...his neighbor. The brunette with the chocolate brown eyes, pretty red lips, and a flare for the dramatics with a spark of stubborn energy that never seemed to die. He’s seen her around the lobby, the cafe down the street. Never had the courage to talk to her.

“I-I-I-I…” Steve swallowed the stutter and dropped the box, reaching a hand down to pull her to her feet. “You...shouted, I overreacted.”

“Damn right you overreacted, breaking into my home. What gives you that right?” She growled, her accent doing nothing to help Steve and his muddled brain.

“None, ma’am, but...I thought you were in trouble and reacted. I…” The light fell to her feet, where a pale blue and yellow baby blanket was wrapped around her leg.

“Unless you’re here to save me from my son’s baby blanket, then I think I could handle it.” The anger melted from her face as she read Steve’s expression. “I can’t be too mad, can I? You heard me screaming, luckily I didn’t wake the baby up. I’m sorry. I’m frustrated with these cheap lights and this storm. Michael can’t sleep without his nightlight, I was going to fix him a bottle.”

As if right on cue, there were heavy screams of an infant who’d woken up in a confused and dark setting didn’t like to be. 

“Excuse me, Steve, was it? I better go get him.”

“Yeah, it was...I…”

By the time Peggy came back, an infant in one arm curled up against her chest. His hand was no larger than Steve’s pinkie. And oh, oh he must just be less than a week old.

Peggy looked up from cradling the sniffling baby and frowned at Steve holding a bottle and a steaming cup of ginger tea as if it was a peace offering. He’d placed several lights around them, some battery-powered and stuck to the walls to give the living room some space. He’d even fixed the couch so she could lay back with the baby.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she whispered as she sat on the couch and adjusted Michael in her arms to get him to take the bottle. There came that sigh of relief when he latched on instantly. “I’m Peggy by the way, I...diddidn’ introduce myself before. Your neighbor, Mrs. Jensen upstairs talks about you all the time. She helped me move in last week.”

“I wish I was here, I could’ve helped. I was in D.C.,” Steve sighed, sitting on the edge of the couch and adjusting a blanket so it covered Peggy’s cold feet. It was odd, being in a stranger’s home that was clearly halfway unpacked with boxes, moving blankets, half put together furniture, but it felt more like home than his four walls did. 

“Doing a presentation on your comic, right? She told me all about your comics and how you’ve donated so much money to various organizations when you could’ve lived comfortably by now and how you even purchased her husband’s generator.” The pride in Peggy’s voice made Steve’s throat tighten. He found himself looking down at his hands where she nudged him with her foot. “I think it’s awfully nice of you. You do more for these people in this lil, ole apartment than you do for yourself. Is that why you came here - to my apartment?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. I just knew you had moved in and didn’t think you were prepared for this storm. I didn’t know you had a son, Mrs. Jensen didn’t mention it.” He wanted to ask the obvious, where’s the father. Partner? There was no ring on her finger, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t taken. He didn’t want to overstep but so far, it didn’t seem like he was. 

“No, I doubt she knew. I had already had Michael’s stuff moved in before I even moved here. I doubt many know since I haven’t been out much. When I have, it’s without him, my friend and his wife come to babysit while I run errands. He’s so small and I’m terrified of something happening when I don’t know the streets so well, I…”

The human fear of being a first-time parent was there. Steve didn’t know that fear well but he’s grown up around it with his ma being a nurse. His hand slowly moved to close around Peggy’s calf, giving a tender squeeze. 

“You’re human,” he tells her in the softest tone he can manage. It still manages to rumble from his chest like a dragon about to blow flames. “You’re a first-time mother, it seems and a single-parent if I have to guess. This terror you’re feeling is new. Michael looks like how I did - premie?” At her nod, he smiled. “You’re doing great, Peggy. I don’t have kids, but I...can help. My ma is a nurse. I’m sure she can offer some advice.”

--

That’s how at nearing midnight, Steve found himself putting together a rocking-chair thanks to a video on YouTube. Following the rocking-chair was a changing table, dresser, and even Peggy’s bed. She’d been sleeping on the couch with the bassinet beside her. He made a call to his mother to ask about Michael’s medication and introduced over video Sarah and Peggy and unsurprisingly the pair hit it off.

And in private, Sarah warned Steve he better not mess around, not that he was the type. Peggy needed someone to depend on in this scary time but she was glad it was her son. 

“Okay,” Steve sighed, taking the plastic that had been around the mattress and tossing it down the recycling chute with a grin. “I think that’s done. Is there anything else?”

Peggy still laid on the couch, bottle and tea empty, cradling her son close. She nodded and sat up, nodding at Steve to sit. When he sat further away from her, she came closer and slowly eased Michael into his arms.

Steve froze because for his vast size and despite his mother’s knowledge, he’s never held a child before. Oh, he was so small and warm. And full of life. Wrapped up in a tight bundle of duckie-themed blankets. 

“Shh. There we go, just support his head. See, you’re a natural.” She laid her head on his shoulder, the smell of her lavender shampoo flooding Steve’s nose. “I wanted you to...hold him. He hasn’t been held by many others. Oh, he likes you.”

The smile on the infant’s face did warm Steve’s heart, enough to slowly rub his fingertip over the infant’s nose.

“No, I think that just means he passed gas.” Steve’s nose wrinkled up at the smell but he, like Peggy found himself on caring as she snuggled into him. “If you don’t mind me asking - what does bring you all the way here and with an infant?”

“Work,” she yawned, picking up a heavy blanket to wrap around both of them. The storm was still going on outside and given the notifications on their phones, it was expected to go on for a while. “I start teaching at Brooklyn University in a week. They paid me to move here and to settle, even with my son. The hardest part was leaving him in NICU until he was strong enough to fly. But my...friends, Mr. Jarvis and his wife were able to care for him in there while I was gone. I felt like a terrible mother.”

“You are no such thing. You had no choice, Pegs. Come here.” It took some adjusting before Michael was situated in her arms and she was in his. He didn’t understand this - how did they get so close like this? He was just here to offer a flashlight and maybe rescue her from a baby blanket, now he was holding a tired mother in his arms.

“Pegs, from all that you’ve told me...from moving, losing your family, to...having to close estates and do paperwork back overseas, all after giving birth and leaving your son behind to be in the care of your friends, it shows how strong you are. You came back. You’re here now. He still loves you. No one judges you for that.”

Well, he could think of a few of those snobby nurses but hopefully, he thought she didn’t have to deal with them. 

“You’re here now,” he continued. “You’re making a life for the two of you.”

How was it that this was happening? That Steve found himself nodding off with a single mother and infant in his lap while a storm raged on around them? When the sun would later stream through the window, he’d find Peggy in the kitchen, unpacking the last of the pots and pans. His flashlights were piled back into his box, and the baby, sleeping in his bassinet again.

The blanket fell from Steve as he got to his feet and slowly crossed over to the kitchen, not wanting to wake the baby, just watching Peggy. 

She smiled as she turned around to hand him a cup of coffee, sipping on her own. “You looked so peaceful asleep, I didn’t want to wake you. The storm finally stopped.”

With no storm between them, it almost felt awkward with last night’s memory. The cuddling, the closeness, the sense of home, it felt foolish. Had he just imagined it all? 

“It did,” Steve mused, looking out the window. “I can help you unpack later, I have to go into the office and submit some new drafts. Would you...like to come with me? I think Michael could use a little bit of sun. His stroller is together, I worked on it last night while you changed him and the...the car seat. I have a Jeep we can use.”

The flush on the blonde’s cheeks told Peggy everything she wanted to know, the stumbling words were just added details. He wanted more time with her, with her son, and so did she. “To your place of work? Isn’t that a bit scandalous, Mr. Rogers? What would they say?” To Steve’s ears turning red, Peggy laughed. “I’d love to. We could make a day of errands. Do you mind - of course? It’s your vehicle after all.”

“If I minded, I wouldn’t ask.” Setting the mug aside, Steve reached around her to pick up a box of dishes before they started to fall to the floor. “Good. We’ll make a day of it, grab some breakfast.”

And maybe with luck, Steve could learn more about his new neighbor. Of course, when he’s not rescuing her from tangling baby blankets.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 4/23/21: MORTAL KOMBAT, DEMON SLAYER, TOGETHER TOGETHER, STREET GANG, SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS

Ugh. Trying to maintain this column as a weekly entity during the final few weeks of the longest Oscar season ever has been really hard, and I’m not sure that will change once the Oscars are over either, because I look at the number of movies being released both theatrically and streaming over the next few weeks, and it makes my head hurt. Sorry for the kvetching, it just is what it is.

There are two big theatrical releases this weekend, Warner Bros’ MORTAL KOMBAT and DEMON SLAYER THE MOVIE: MUGEN TRAIN from FUNImation Entertainment, both which have already been released internationally. I also probably won’t be able to watch or review either before this column gets posted.

Mortal Kombat seems like the easiest sell being that it’s based on the popular Midway Games video game franchise introduced in the early ‘90s that led to a series of films, books, comics and you name it. It was a very popular fighting game that had over a dozen iterations including one in which MK characters fought against DC superheroes.

The very first Mortal Kombat movies opened in 1995, right amidst MK-mania, and it was directed by one Paul W.S. Anderson, his very first movie in a long line of video game-related movies, including a number of Resident Evil and the recent Monster Hunter. There are a lot of people who love those games, and yes, even people who love that and other movies, but to others, who may have been too old to get into the games when they came out, the whole thing about different fighters fighting each other just looks kind of studio. Even though I’m interested to see what producer James Wan brings to this reboot, I just don’t have much interest otherwise.

Unfortunately, and this is pretty daunting, Warner Bros. wasn’t sending out screeners to critics until Wednesday with a review embargo for Thursday night at 7pm, which is never a good sign, and yet, it continues Warner Bros. continuing the trend of being one of the only studios that screeners EVERY movie to film critics rather than just making them pay to see it on Thursday night or Friday. I hope to watch it and maybe add something Thursday night, time-permitting. Not sure you heard but the Oscars are Sunday.

As far as box office, Mortal Kombat opens on Friday but also premieres on HBO Max, and I’m not sure there will be as much urge to see MK on the largest screen possible, as there was with Godzilla vs. Kong. Because of that, I think the cap for this one over the three-day weekend is about $10 million but not much more and probably more frontloaded to Friday than we’ve seen in some time.

Mini-Review: As you can imagine from my statement above, I don’t hold the Mortal Kombat games or other iterations in any particular high esteem, so I’m basically jumping into this movie, directed by Simon McQuoid, just as a movie and not necessarily as a video game movie.

It starts off promising enough like a samurai movie with a flashback where we watch Hiroyuki Sanada’s hero sees his wife and son be killed by Joe Taslim’s character that will later become Sub-Zero. The general principle seems to be that there’s a world where people from other worlds fight each other to gain complete control. The hero is Lewis Tan’s MMA fighter Cole Young, presumably a popular character from the game? He is also soon attacked by Sub-Zero presumably because he’s marked with a dragon tattoo that deems him a champion of these fights, but he needs to find someone named Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) to help him get to the “Mortal Kombat.” At the same time, he meets the movie’s most entertaining character, Kane,

played by Australian actor Josh Lawson, mainly because he swears constantly and cracks wise -- he’s a bit like Wolverine, actually, and he’s actually the best part of the movie.

Otherwise, everyone and everything is always so deadly serious that everyone else we meet just doesn’t have much impact, because frankly, none of these names or characters mean jack shit to me. Sure, some of them sound vaguely familiar but I was more interested in the great Asian actors who turn up including Tadanobu Asano’s Lord Raiden, who is gonna claim Earth if its champions lose at Mortal Kombat. And Sub-Zero basically just shows up and tries to kill everyone.

As with far too many action movies, the action itself is great, the writing and acting not so much.

As it goes along, things become more epic and fantasy-driven but that also makes the dialogue seem even worse. Similarly, the fight choreography is pretty great, but the movie still leans way too heavily on visual FX to keep it more interesting for anyone not too interested in MMA… like myself. When all else fails, they can show off Sub-Zero’s cool ice powers every chance possible as well as the other’s powers, but some of them (like Lord Raiden) just made me think of this as a rip-off of the great Big Trouble in Little China.

The thing is I’m not a fan of the video game nor of MMA, so Mortal Kombat really doesn’t have much to offer me. The whole thing just seems very silly, just like almost everything from the ‘90s. (How’s THAT for a bad take?)

That said, I thought the final battle was great, and I enjoyed some of the gorier aspects of the fights, too, and it all leads to my favorite part, which is the three-way fight between Cole, Sub-Zero, and… actually I’m not sure if it’s a spoiler or not, but it’s a pretty cool fight that almost makes up for some of the dumber characters introduced earlier on. (LIke that guy with four arms. I know he’s a character in the games, but I didn’t even care enough to look up his name.)

It’s perfectly fine that they decided to go Rated R with the movie since most of the nostalgia for this movie and franchise will be towards older guys, but at times, the CG blood is so hinky it feels like the decision to go R-rated was made well after it was filmed.

Even though I went in with the lowest of expectations, I still found most of Mortal Kombat kinda trite and boring, maybe something I’d appreciate more as a teenager but not so much as a grown adult. But what do you expect for a movie based on a video game that’s just a bunch of “cool fights”?

Rating: 5.5/10

And yet, Demon Slayer could be the surprise breakout of the weekend, considering the theatrical success FUNimation has had with theatrical releases of the My Hero Academia movies into theaters in 2018 and 2020, and the hugely successful Dragon Ball Super: Brolly, which grossed $31 million domestically after a surprise $20.2 million in its first five days in roughly 1,200 movies. In fact, it made $7 million its opening Wednesday in January 2019, and FUNimation is hoping that Demon Slayer will have a similar success by opening it for a single day (Thursday) in IMAX theaters before Mortal Kombat takes over on Friday.

Demon Slayer has already grossed $383.7 million internationally compared to Mortal Kombat’s $10.7 million, and you cannot ignore the huge popularity that anime has seen over the past few decades. In fact, a bunch of screenings for Demon Slayer in NYC have already sold out, although you have to bear in mind that these are 25% capacity theaters. Even so, I still think this can make $4 to 5 million on Thursday and another $7 to 8 million over the weekend, depending on the number of theaters. Yes, it will be quite frontloaded, and I’m not sure what the cap is on theaters and how that will affect how it does over the weekend, but expect a big Thursday and a more moderate weekend but one that might give both Mortal Kombat and Godzilla vs. Kong a run for the top of the box office.

Also hitting theaters before streaming on Netflix (on April 30) is THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES, the new animated movie produced by Chris Miller and Philip Lord, following their Oscar win for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s a little weird to open a new animated movies, presumably in select theaters, when such a hugely anticipated animated movie like Demon Slayer is opening, but Netflix won’t

The movie itself is directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe, and it involves a family named the Mitchells, whose eldest daughter Katie (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) is leaving home for college, so her father (voiced by Danny McBride) decides that he’s going to drive her there and use it as the chance for a cross-country family trip. Meanwhile, it’s set up how the world becomes overrun with robots when a tech giant creates a new personal assistant.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d like this even though I’m generally a fan of all of Lord/Miller’s animated movies including both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies. It took me a little time to get into the family and the general premise. In some ways it reminded me of Edgar Wright’s The World’s End where it’s trying to merge these two disparate genres, but when they actually merge, it just doesn’t work as well as it may have seemed on paper. That worry is soon expunged, because Rianda finds ways to integrate the two ideas over time.

On the trip, the Mitchells run into their perfect family neighbors, the Poseys -- voiced by Krissy Teigen, John Legend and Charlyne Yi -- and you’d think they might be a bigger part of the movie then they actually are. I’m not sure I would have liked doing the family-vs.-family thing so soon after last year’s Croods movie, but I did love the dynamics of the Mitchells being a very relatable imperfect family with Danny McBride being particularly great voicing the family patriarch. It even has a really touching Pixar’s Up moment of Katie’s father watching old home movies of them together when she was younger.

In general, the filmmakers have assembled a pretty amazing voice cast that includes Conan O’Brien, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen and Beck Bennett. Actually the weirdest voice choice is Katie’s younger brother Aaron, voiced by Rianda himself, and it sounds like a strange older man trying to be a kid, so it doesn’t work as well as others.

What I genuinely liked about Mitchells vs. the Machines is that it doesn’t go out of its way to talk down to overly sensitive kiddies or skimp on the action while also including elements that parents will enjoy as well, and to me, that’s the ideal of a family film.

While some might feel that The Mitchells vs. the Machines is fairly standard animated fare, it ends up being a fun cross between National Lampoon’s Vacation (cleaned up for the kiddies) with Will Smith’s I, Robot, actually, and yet, it somehow does work. It’s a shame that it’s really not getting a theatrical release except to be awards-eligible.

Next, we have two really great movies I saw at Sundance this year and really enjoyed immensely…

So as I mentioned, I first saw Nikole Beckwith’s TOGETHER TOGETHER (Bleecker Street), starring Ed Helms and Patti Harrison, at Sundance, and it was one of my favorite movies there with Helms playing a middle-aged single guy named Matt, who hires the much-younger Anna (Harrison) to be his surrogate, because he wants a baby. It’s a tough relationship thrown together due to each of their respective necessities.

Part of what drives the movie is how different Matt and Anna are, him being quite inappropriate with his suggestions and requests but not really having a working knowledge of female anatomy, pregnancy, delivery etc, but being really eager to raise a child and having the money that Anna clearly does not.

While I was familiar with Helms from The Office, The Hangover, etc. I really didn’t know Patti Harrison at all. Apparently, she’s a stand-up comic who hasn’t done a ton of acting, comedic or otherwise. That’s pretty amazing when you watch this movie and see her dry sardonic wit playing well against Helms’ generally lovable doofus. What I also didn’t realize and frankly, I don’t really see this as something even worth mentioning, is that she’s a trans woman playing a clearly CIS part, and she kills it. I certainly wouldn’t have known nor did it really affect my enjoyment of the movie, yet it still seems like such a brave statement on the part of the director and Harrison herself. The thing is that Harrison isn't just a terrific actress in her own right, but she brings out aspects of Helms that I never thought I would ever possibly see. (If it isn't obvious, I'm not the biggest fan of Helms.)

The movie has a great sense of humor, as it gets the most out of this awkward duo and then throws so many great supporting actors into the cast around them that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy the laughs. There’s the testy Sonogram tech, played by Sufe Bradshaw from Veep, who tries to maintain her composure and bite her tongue, but you can tell she’s having none of it. Others who show up, including Tig Notero, Norah Dunn and Fred Melamed. Just when you least expect it, Anna Conkle from Pen15, shows up as one of those delivery gurus that make the two of them feel even more awkward.

What’s nice is that this never turns into the typical meet cute rom-com that some might be expecting, as Beckwith’s film is more about friendship and companionship and being there for another, and the lack of that romantic spark even as chemistry develops between them is what makes this film so enjoyably unique. Beckwith’s sense of humor combined with her dynamic duo stars makes Together Together the best comedy about pregnancy probably since Knocked Up.

Another great Sundance movie and actually one of my two favorite recent documentaries AND one of the best movies I’ve seen this year is… you know what? I haven’t done this for a while so this is this week’s “CHOSEN ONE”!! (Fanfare)

(Photo courtesy: Robert Fuhring/Courtesy Sesame Workshop)

Marilyn (Mad Hot Ballroom) Agrilo’s STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET (Screen Media/HBO Documentaries) is a fantastic doc about the long-running and popular PBS kids show that’s every bit as good as Morgan Neville’s Mr. Rogers doc, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Which was robbed of an Oscar nomination a few years back.

Let me make something clear on the day I’m writing this, April 21, 2021, that this is my favorite movie of the year, the only one I’ve already given a 10/10, and the end of the year might come around, and I have a feeling it will still be my #1.

You see, I was raised a Sesame Street kid. It’s not like I didn’t read or play outside or not get the attention of my parents or family, but there was so much of my happy, young life that I could attribute to my time watching Sesame Street, and when you watch Marily Agrilo’s amazing doc, it all comes rushing back. There is stuff in this movie that I haven’t seen in maybe 50 years but that I clearly remember laughing at, and there’s stuff that got into the mind of a young Ed that influenced my love of humor and music and just outright insanity. Sure, I loved The Muppet Show, too, but it was a different experience, so to watch a movie about the show with all sorts of stuff I had never seen or knew, that’s what makes Street Gang such a brilliant documentary, and easily one of the best we’ll see this year. Of that I have no doubt.

From the very origins of the show with Joan Cooney developing a show that will be entertaining and educational to the kids being plopped down in front of the TV in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so they can learn something, it’s just 1:46 of straight-up wonderment.

Besides getting to see a lot of the beloved actors/characters from the show and many of the surviving players like Carol Spinney aka Big Bird/Oscar, you can see how this show tried to create something that wasn’t just constantly advertising to young minds.

More than anything, the show is a love letter to the bromance between Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and you get to see so many of their bits and outtakes that make their Muppets like Burt and Ernie and Grover and, of course, Kermit, so beloved by kids that even cynical adults like myself would revert childhood just thinking about them. Then on top of that there’s the wonderful music and songs of Christopher Cerf and Joe Raposo and others, songs that would permeate the mainstream populace and be remembered for decades.

The movie is just a tribute to the joy of childhood and learning to love and sing and dance and just have fun and not worry about the world. I’m not sure if kids these days have anything like that.

It also gets quite sad, and I’m not embarrassed to say that in the sequence that covers the death of Mr. Hooper, I was outright bawling, and a few minutes later, when Jim Henson dies in 1990, I completely lost it. That’s how much this show meant to me and to so many people over the decades, and Brava to Ms. Agrilo for creating just the perfect document to everything that Sesame Street brought to so many people’s lives. This is easily the best documentary this year, and woe be to any Academy that doesn’t remember it at year’s end.

The other fantastic doc out this week, though I actually got to see it last year, is Lisa Rovner’s SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (Metrograph Pictures), which will play at the Metrograph, both on demand and part of its Digital Live Screenings (available to join for just $5 a month!). This is an endlessly fascinating doc that looks at the women of electronic music and the early days of synthesizers and synthesis and some of the female pioneers. It’s narrated by Laurie Anderson, which couldn’t be the more perfect combination.

The movie covers the likes of Suzanne Cianni; Forbidden Planet composers Louis and Bebe Barron, who created the first all-electronic score for that movie; the amazing Wendy Carlos, who electronically scored one of my favorite movies of all time, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; Delia Derbyshire, who was also the subject of Caroline Catz’s short, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes, which tragically, I missed when it premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March. Derbyshire was also famous for creating the iconic theme to “Doctor Who�� while working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the '60s. Others who appear in the movie, either via archival footage or more recent interviews are Pauline Oliveros and Laurie Spiegel, who I was less familiar with.

The point is that as someone who was a fantastic for electronic music and synthesizers from a very early age and for someone who feels he’s very familiar with all angles of music, I learned a lot from watching Rovner’s film, and I enjoyed it just as much a second time, because the footage assembled proves what amazing work these women were doing and rarely if ever getting the credit for what they brought to electronic music, something that still resonates with the kids today who love things like EDM.

An endlessly fascinating film with so much great music and footage, Sisters with Transistors can be watched exclusively through the Metrograph’s Live Screening series, so don’t miss it!

Hitting Shudder this week is Chris Baugh’s BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL (Shudder), which I didn’t get a chance to watch before writing this week’s column, but Shudder in general has been knocking it out of the park with the amazing horror movies it’s been releasing on a weekly basis. This one involves a quarelling father and son on a road who must survive the night when they awaken an ancient Irish vampire.

Also hitting theaters and streamers and digital this week:

THE MARIJUANA CONSPIRACY (Samuel Goldwyn Films)

MY WONDERFUL WANDA (Zeitgeist Films)

WET SEASON (Strand Releasing)

CRESTONE (Utopia)

VANQUISH (Lionsgate)

BLOODTHIRSTY (Brainstorm)

SASQUATCH (Hulu)

SHADOW AND BONE (Netflix)

And that wraps up this week. Next week? No idea… I know there’s stuff coming out but I probably won’t think about it until after THE OSCARS!!!! On Sunday.

[clericbyers]

after mike comes out to the party, no one is really unsupportive. lucas, dustin, and max are a little uncomfortable at first, but after a while they stop caring. anyways, when they get more comfortable, whenever no one but the party is around mike, and trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do, he uses "being too gay" as an excuse

Mike didn’t really expect to tell the Party anytime soon, not because he didn’t trust them but simply because he didn’t know how to say it. Words were Mike’s forte but words when being used to express his own emotions usually escaped him. He had been formulating a plan on what to say for a good number of weeks once he decided he would eventually tell them, but in the end, the news was unceremoniously dropped during a lazy weekend night.

“Mike,” started Dustin as he splayed himself on the floor. “you gonna ask out that cute chick from homeroom already? I heard she’s really into you.”

“What?” Mike scoffed and distractedly ate chips from a bowl on his chest as he laid his body across the couch. “No way.”

“No way she’s into you or no way you’ll ask her out?” Lucas asked from the other side of the room where he was lounging with Max. “Because yes way, she’s into your oblivious ass and yes way, you should.”

Mike sat up a little, frowning as he rubbed at his eyes and felt an uncomfortable buzz in his chest. “Uh, no way to asking her out.” He looked down at the chip bowl and felt his stomach flip. “I’m not interested.”

Max gave him a curious look. “I’m surprised, Mike; she really seems like your type.”

“And what is my type then because I’m pretty sure you don’t know.”

“Short, brunette, wide smile, good humor,” Dustin started listing off traits and then paused. “Basically El, actually. Wait…El is literally the only girl you’ve liked.”

Mike rubbed at the back of his head and nervously took another chip to his mouth. “Yeah, huh? Wow, that’s crazy.”

“I thought you said you were fine with it being over between you two.”

“I am fine.” Mike chewed on his chip, opened his mouth to say more, and then shut it as he felt his heart speed up in his chest. He looked over at his friends and then sighed. “It’s just…there’s not gonna be another girl out there for me.”

“Unless it’s El?” Max guessed.

“No.” Mike gritted his teeth and slouched as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t look them in the eye and say this. “Because there are no girls for me.”

“Plenty of girls like you now, Mike; it’s not like middle school anymore.”

Lucas was right, it wasn’t like middle school anymore. Mike couldn’t hide it. “I’m…I don’t like girls. Like at all.”

There was silence for at least two minutes and Mike kept his eyes closed until Dustin spoke up. “Like in general or like like, like you don’t have a crush?”

Mike threw his hands up with a groan. “I’m gay! Like, really fucking gay and super into guys, alright?” He rubbed his hands down his face. “That’s why you don’t know my type.”

“Oh,” Lucas croaked and Mike took the chance to give his friends a glance. Dustin had sat up and was eyeing Mike curiously while Lucas and Max had twin furrowed brows. None of them looked visibly upset about the news but they didn’t look particularly settled about it either.

Dustin spoke up. “Wow, that’s…that’s surprisingly not as shocking as I expected it to be.” He squinted his eyes and looked Mike up and down. “Are you sure?”

Mike blinked twice. “What? Of course I’m sure.” He frowned and stared back at his bowl. “Why would I not be? It’s not like anything has changed.”

“No, no! I didn’t mean it like it’s a bad thing I just,” he waved his hands about, “it’s taking a moment to sink in, you know? I didn’t mean to seem like I don’t believe you; I do! I really do.”

“You don’t, uh, hate me?” Mike turned to Lucas and Max who were still silent after he came out. “I meant to tell you earlier but…it’s not really everyday conversation.”

“We don’t hate you, Mike, not at all.” Max started with a soft smile. “It’s just something to get used to, you know? But I promise you, there’s no hate at all.”

“Yeah,” Lucas grinned widely. “You’re still Mike after all. Now we just know why you keep rewatching Back to the Future.”

Mike flushed and scowled as he stuffed his face with more chips to avoid having to answer the incoming questions. “Oh my god, all this time I thought you had the hots for Marty’s mom,” Dustin gasped before cackling. “Fuck, Mike, you have the hots for Michael J. Fox.”

“Shut up,” Mike spat back though his face was bright red with embarrassment. “It’s not my fault he’s cute.”

Even saying that aloud made Mike blush harder and he returned to the chips with a vengeance. “Oh, this is so weird,” blurted Max and everyone turned to her with a quickness. “No, not that Mike is gay, you idiots, just that Mike and I have more in common than I thought.”

“Hey, I thought you told me you think River Phoenix is way hotter that Fox!” Lucas grumbled.

“That doesn’t mean Michael J. Fox isn’t hot! I mean, look at his ass!”

Mike nodded. “She’s kinda right.”

“My girlfriend and best friend are conspiring against me.” bemoaned Lucas as he slumped in his seat. Max scoffed but laughed and pulled him back up in their shared seat. “I can’t win against celebrities.”

“You’ll always win for me.” Max cooed as she pressed a kiss to Lucas’ cheek. Mike felt a little twinge in his chest as he thought about one day being able to be as open about loving someone as Max was about Lucas. That someone had already stolen his heart long ago but he’d already told enough on the day. Maybe that news would come later.

Later took a while longer than Mike expected. Even though the Party was honestly totally fine about Mike being gay, they still had moments of silence whenever Mike voiced an opinion about finding some guy cute or something along those lines. The moments of silence grew shorter and shorter, especially when Max would fill it with an agreement or beg to differ. She was surprisingly helpful with keeping the awkward dissonance between everyone low and even though Mike was loath to admit, he was genuinely happy they could bond over this. He really never expected to be able to simply talk about his attraction so easily but Max was frighteningly receptive and Mike couldn’t ask for anything better.

“So, who are you crushing on?” Max asked one day when it was just the two of them hanging out outside the comic book shop with Wonder Woman and Captain America back issues in hand. “I can tell you’ve got someone in mind so spill it; I wanna know.”

Mike shrugged and sipped at his Coke. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“Well, if it was I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Fair point.” Mike looked to make sure no one was nearby and then softly said, “Will.”

Max took a couple seconds and then nodded before motioning for Mike to get up and follow her. “That explains a lot.”

“Does it?” Mike tightened his grip on his comics. “I thought I was good at hiding it.”

“I didn’t say it was obvious, dummy.” Max flicked his forehead and then shook her head with a chuckle. “It’s just when you put the way you are with him together with knowing how you feel toward him, it all adds up. It makes sense.”

“Oh.” Mike stared at the ground and then cleared his throat. “Well, yeah. Yeah, he’s kinda it for me.”

“That’s disgustingly cute, Mike; don’t ever tell me that again.” She laughed and then grew a little softer. “Seriously though, I’m glad he makes you feel all fuzzy warm like crushes do. He’s a good kid from what I know. I’m glad you feel, uh, comfortable enough to share with me.”

“Me too.”

After that, there were basically no issues whenever Mike mentioned something in passing about being gay. And eventually, Dustin and Lucas learned about Mike’s crush on Will and they spent most their time accepting the news by teasing Mike relentlessly, especially when Will called the Wheelers and Mike would answer down in the basement where Dustin and Lucas would make kissy noises.

(When Will confessed over the line one day and Mike basically replied with, “I’m so in love with you; yes, I’ll be your boyfriend, why did you ever think I wouldn’t,” Lucas, Dustin, and Max cheered so loud Mrs. Wheeler came downstairs to check on them. When she left, they continued their cheering at a lower decibel but still equally excited.)

About a month later, Mike was lazily outlining a new story he had spent hours bouncing ideas off Will for (a conversation that was half Mike organizing his thoughts on his soon-to-be novel and half being the grossest couple on the face of the planet) and the rest of the Party was impatiently waiting for him to finish. He has said six times already “just five more minutes” and at least three of those times he didn’t actually add more to his notes as his mind kept wandering to Will’s soft words about how much he missed Mike. He really didn’t want to get up and lose inspiration or the freedom to laze around and daydream about Will.

“C’mon, Mike,” whined Dustin, “we said we’d go out biking over thirty minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” he replied mindlessly as his traced the scribbled I love Will in the top corner of the page, “I’m too busy being gay right now.”

Max fell out cackling and Lucas made a face. “If you don’t want to go you can just say so.”

“Hmm?” Mike looked up, seemingly confused before he thought back on what he said. “Oh. Well, I mean, I do wanna go, I was just…” he motioned vaguely with his hands and then groaned. “That came out so wrong.”

“That came out so wrong,” Max giggled and Mike flipped her off.

“I swear, Mike, if you start tossing around your gayness as an excuse to not do shit with us,” Dustin playfully teased as he plopped down next to Mike and snatched his notebook from his hands. “Oh god, Mike; not even I doodle love letters in my notebooks.”

“Hey!” Mike squealed, sitting up as his face went scarlet. “I didn’t say you could take that!”

“My heart yearns for the warmth of your gaze, desperation laced in every beat as each breath from my parted lips echoes the taste of your lips,” Dustin wheezed out between huffs of laughter as he bounced off the couch to find refuge in Max and Lucas. “Do you even know what his lips taste like?”

“Shut up, Dustin!”

Max took the notebook next. “Eyes as bright as starlight, enchanting as the northern star above whose light offers the path to freedom. For me, that is freedom to love you as deeply as I do.” She wriggled her eyebrows and passed the papers to Lucas as Mike lunged for her. “Mike the poet, huh?”

“It’s not for Will–I mean it is for Will, but not like that!” Mike snatched the notebook back before Lucas could get a good glance. “It’s a letter one of the characters in my novel wrote for his love interest, okay?”

“Sure, Mike,” Lucas drawled, “whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Mike pouted and stormed back to his seat, tucking the notebook under his arm as he plopped down. “You guys can go biking then; I’ll stay here writing love poems and being gay for my boyfriend.”

“You’re such a drama queen.” Max laughed but stood up and stretched before walking to Mike where she patted the top of his head. “Have fun, but next time you’re coming with us.”

“Depends on how much gay is in the forecast,” Mike petulantly mumbled under his breath, but he grinned when Max started laughing again.

“Wheeler, you’re something else,” she turned back to the other boys and motioned for them to follow her upstairs. “We’ll see you in a few! Tell Will and El we said hello; I know you’re gonna call Will the moment we’re gone.”

Mike looked over at his friends on the staircase, a little guilty as his thoughts had indeed turned to possibly calling Will, and he smiled softly at their warm gazes. “I’ll be sure to pass along the message.”

[captainsassmanes]

I Don’t Look Away

Part one here and part two here

He’d been tense for too long. He really had tried avoiding Alex, giving him the space he deserved away from the perpetual mess that was Michael Guerin, but it was as though they were constantly being pulled into each other’s orbit.

As his own form of punishment, he’d forced himself to stay home for close to a week, pouring through some documents Valenti had delivered on Alex’s behalf. Like a good boy, he stayed away from the booze and only took small sips of acetone when he felt himself getting tired.

Texts from Liz and Maria went ignored and unanswered, while Isabel only received clipped, one word responses. It was after a night of fitful sleep, dreams of Noah, and pain, and his mother’s weak smile, and Alex, trapped behind glass, that he realized he couldn’t isolate himself anymore.

Bright and early the next morning, Michael forced himself up and took a long shower. With some fresh clothes and a purpose, he headed into town on a mission. 

Family first. 

Isabel was the only family he had left. The only family that hadn’t been sacrificed. 

Or pushed away. 

He was gonna make damn sure he didn’t lose her, too.

With the few dollars he had, and with what little charm he could muster, Michael bought his sister’s favorite bottle of red and a bouquet of brightly colored flowers. He tipped his hat to the woman at the counter, who had generously offered a ten percent discount, and headed to Isabel’s.

Sober and with a fresh take on his surroundings, Michael was surprised at how much of Roswell brought Alex to the forefront of his thoughts. The UFO emporium. The drive in. The Crashdown. The Pony. It made a sadness creep into his chest; unwanted but undeniable.

When Isabel’s house came into sight, Michael slammed on the breaks, confused and concerned. Next to Isabel’s car in the driveway sat a familiar Jeep. His heart raced as every scenario, the stupid to the scary, ran through his mind. Before he could let himself get carried away, he pulled in and hopped out, wine and flowers grabbed with no finesse, cellophane crunching under his grip.

The door opened and Michael froze. In the middle of the immaculate living room stood Isabel in full work out gear with a glisten to her skin and Alex, holding up boxing mitts, sweat clinging to the long, dark hair at the nape of his neck.

Isabel was laughing; out of breath but clearly having a great time.

“That was better. Focus on accuracy, though, not-” Isabel had surprised him with a punch to his left mitt, knocking him slightly off balance.

“-not brute frickin’ force. Ow.”

Isabel stood triumphant, hands on her hips and chin raised. Michael thought she looked like a queen. Or a warrior. Both.

“Don’t be mad, military. Just ‘cause I can hit harder than you.” She gave him a light tap on the cheek with her glove and turned her back, heading toward the kitchen. “C’mon, it’s wine time.”

Without looking back, she added a deliberately loud, “hello, Michael!”

Instantly he saw Alex tense. What had obviously been a fun and relaxing morning, Michael managed to turn sour with just his presence.

He sighed and took off his hat. “Hey, Iz.”

Deciding it was worth the risk, he moved slowly into the room, watching as Alex took off his boxing gear and ran a towel over his head.

“Alex.”

“Guerin.”

If it was possible, and clearly it was, Alex was more beautiful every time Michael saw him. His eyes shined in the sunlight streaming through the windows. He had started to grow out a beard which only made his jaw line look even more well-defined. His forearms looked so strong, veins decorating the muscle there. Michael couldn’t get enough.

Clearing his throat, Michael said, “I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt. I had just hoped to catch up with Iz.”

Alex nodded, focused on shoving all his stuff into a large duffel. Michael was suddenly overcome with fear that Alex would leave and he had no idea when he’d see him again.

“You’re not interrupting. We were just finishing up.”

Alex tossed the bag over his shoulder and offered Michael the most insincere smile he’d ever seen. His chest hurt with realization the he’d put that facade there. He was the one who had shoved Alex hard enough that the walls had flown back up. He was responsible.

“I’ll see you around, Guerin. Tell Isabel I’ll text her, yeah?”

Michael nodded dumbly, unsure of what to say and positive he couldn’t make Alex stay. He watched as Alex climbed into his car and drove off.

“You, my beloved brother, are an idiot with the worst timing.”

Michael huffed a laugh and shook his head. “No shit, Iz.”

With a dramatic plop, Isabel dropped herself onto the couch looking like she just stepped off a runway, not from workout. “You chased away my partner in wine.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. But here.” He offered her the wine and flowers with a small smile which she took cautiously, eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Did you do something?”

Michael made a noise of pretend offense. “Me? Absolutely not. Not today at least. I don’t think, anyway.”

They both laughed as he sat next to her, hands playing mindlessly with one another. “They’re to help me say sorry, actually.”

Isabel turned, serious look on her face. “For what?”

With a shrug, he said, “for not being here. For being so absorbed in my own shit, forgetting everyone else had shit, too. You, especially.”

The room was silent but comfortable. Without a word, Michael knew he was already forgiven but it didn’t feel like enough.

“Alex is gonna be around more. He understands.”

Michael shifted on the couch, turning toward his sister who was staring out of the large window. “Understands what?”

She turned to him, eyes hard but sad. “What it’s like to have someone who’s supposed to love you abuse you.”

Michael bit his lip and nodded. Another example of what Michael had pushed out of his mind to focus on his own losses.

“I know why you like him, you know,” she said with a smirk and a bump to his shoulder. “He’s really kind and surprisingly insightful. Funny, too, although he can be a real di-”

“Love.”

“Hmm?”

“You said you know why I like him.” Isabel nodded in agreement. “I don’t like him. I love him.”

She gave a small smile. “Which is evident when you date his best friend.”

Michael scrunched up his face in pain and walked to the window, pressing his clammy forehead against the cool glass, eyes shut tight. “Practically every bad thing that’s happened to me involves Alex. I-I don’t blame him; the shit that’s happened isn’t his fault. But he’s tied to it. I see him and I remember everything that hurts.”

“Example, please.” Michael jumped slightly, finding Isabel standing next to him suddenly.

He lightly bumped his head against the glass a few times, willing himself to talk about the images that haunted him.

“Like Caufield. I meet my mom and then, literally bam, she’s gone. He was there. He brought me there. I see him, I think of her.”

Isabel’s hair moves over her shoulder as she nods. “So Alex showed you that there are more of us that exist here, you met your mom and he got you out alive.”

Michael’s head whipped so quickly to face her he thought he heard something crack. “How do you know all that?”

She shrugged. “Combination of things. I’ve been able to read you like a book since we were kids. Plus, I’m Alex’s best friend now so, I know things. Or, at least, his perspective on things.”

Michael rolled his eyes and began pacing, hands moving wildly. “So, what? He thinks I should thank him or something?”

The look of exasperation on Isabel’s face was borderline comical. “You’ve met Alex, right? You think he’d ever say that? Really?”

Michael deflated. “No. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Iz.” He moved back to the couch and sat, head in his hands, fingers gripping his hair tightly.

“He’s all I think about.”

The cushion dipped next to him and a hand rubbed comforting circles on his back. “Then why DeLuca? I get that you need time to work through your feelings about Alex. Trust me. I understand. But why her? Why be cruel?”

He looked up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. “I didn’t mean to hurt Alex. It’s just...I like her. I really do. And she wasn’t ashamed of me the way I thought Alex was. She’s not complicated, either. I look at her and I like her and she likes me and it’s, just, simple.”

Isabel’s soft hand came to rest on his cheek wiping away a lone tear, then turning his face towards hers. She practically whispered, “but it’s a lie, Michael.”

He nodded, biting his lip and trying so hard to keep it together, but Isabel was having none of it. She pulled him in by the back of the neck and held him close, tucking his head under her chin. Michael couldn’t hold it together anymore. He sobbed, cries shaking his body and making him gasp for air. He held Isabel tight, squeezing a little too hard, but desperate for the comfort she brought.

“Alex may hurt, but he’s real. He knows you and he loves you. He’s real.”

His throat burned and his eyes ached, the tears refusing to stop. But her words became a mantra, echoing in his ears with each breath he took, each time his heart beat.

He’s real. He’s real. He’s real.

[bellakitse]

Prompt #38 for Malex

prompt list

38. “Have you lost your mind?”

Five timesMichael stole something from Alex to get him to come to him, and the one-timeAlex stayed for good.

10.

Michael has learned how to act like a human, it’s taken him a few years,but he knows now not to draw symbols of his home on the walls, to not screamfor hours on end and to talk when he needs to. He plays the part of a human boywell enough that he’s made his way back to Roswell with his siblings. He’s withthem again, and that’s all that matters, all he should focus on.

Except that there’s a boy in his class that Michael can’t help butstare at.

A boy with dark brown hair that falls over his chocolate-coloredeyes, eyes that follow Michael and make him hyperaware in a way that makesMichael’s skin feel tight. It makes Michael want to ask what he’s looking at. Itmakes Michael want to ask the boy anything. The desire to talk to someone whoisn’t Isobel or Max is new.

The boy likes to sit alone at free reading time, always with a comic,splashes of color on the cover, Michael can make out the title ‘Superman,’ andit makes him curious enough that when he sees the boy put it away in his desk,Michael can’t help but swipe it.

He sits behind one of the trees far away from the playground sothat the rest of the kids won’t bother him, but not so far Mrs. Gilbert; histeacher will worry and look for him. He stares at the cover of a man in a blueand red suit, soaring through the sky.

“That’s mine, you know.”

Michael looks up startled and finds the boy with the brown eyeslooking down at him with a slight frown on his face.

Michael nods, opening his mouth to apologize for taking it. He’slearned, that’s what humans do. But before he can get the words out, the boysits down next to him, his knee knocking into Michael’s.

“Do you like Superman?” the boy asks. “I have other comics abouthim if you want to read them.”

“Superman?” Michael questions looking down at the comic.

“You don’t know, Superman?” the boy questions, tilting his head tolook at Michael. A silky strand of hair falling over his right eye, it looks sosmooth unlike the mop on Michael’s head, and Michael has the urge to reach outand touch it.

“Superman,” the boy starts, pointing at the man on the cover. “Isan alien from the planet Krypton, his parents sent him away when his planet wasdestroyed, and he landed on Earth, he can fly and is stronger than everyone.”

The boy continues to tell him about Superman as they go throughthe comic, and Michael listens, enthralled. And alien superhero with a secretidentity. Michael is amazed.

“No one is afraid of him?” he questions after a while.

“No,” the boy scoffs. “Well, maybe just the bad guys, but he’shere to help the people of Earth,” the boy finishes just as the bell signaling theend of recess rings out.

“That’s us,” the boy stands up dusting off his pants, he holds outa hand to help Michael up. He stares at it for a moment before taking it.

The boy looks at him, biting down on his lip nervously. “Do youwant me to bring you some more comics?” he finally asks. “We could read them togetherat free time.”

Michael stares, he’s never seen the boy read with anyone at freetime, unlike everyone else who pairs off and now he wants to read with Michael.Michael nods quickly, his stomach giving a funny jump when the boy breaks outin a huge smile.

“I’m Alex by the way, Alex Manes.”

“Michael Guerin.”

14.

“That’s mine, Guerin,” Alex calls out walking up to him on thedeserted schoolyard.

Michael doesn’t bother to look up from the skateboard under hisfoot, and he frowns as he tries to steady himself. He doesn’t know why he can’tget this. He’s a genius, damn it. He understands gravity, motion, balance. Thereis a science to skateboarding, he knows it, but he can’t figure it out.

“Seriously, you steal my skateboard, and now you ignore me?” Alexcomplains, huffing when Michael still doesn’t say anything and continues to tryto work out the problem. “Why are you staring at it like it’s one of thosephysics problems you pretend you don’t work on for fun, it’s skateboarding, it’snot like it’s hard.”

Michael looks up at the boy and glares when he sees a smirk playingon his face. He’d tried earlier to skate on the board only to fall on his ass,and yet he’s seen Alex with it. The boy doesn’t just ride the thing; he likesto show off, doing more and more complicated air tricks.

It’s not hard for Alex, and it’s frustrating for Michael.

Alex looks at him a little longer, his smirk turning into a softsmile. “Do you want me to teach you?”

Michael nods after a minute and holds his breath when Alex steps upclose to him.

“Up on the board, Guerin,” Alex instructs.

“Really, Alex?” Michael rolls his eyes. “On the board, that’s yourgreat lesson?”

Alex gives him an unimpressed look. “Are you going to sass me, orare you going to listen?”

“Can’t I do both?” he teases before asking. “What if I fall?”

“You probably will,” Alex acknowledges, placing his hands onMichael’s waist and Michael gasps as he can feel the heat of Alex’s hands throughhis t-shirt and flannel. “But I’ll hold on to you to help, and if you do fall. I’llbe here to get you up, okay?”

Michael looks at the boy, the earnest expression on his face andbelieves without a doubt.

Believes Alex.

He might fall, but Alex will be there to get him up.

“Okay.”

17.

“What the hell Guerin, you can’t just steal instruments from themusic room,” Alex calls out marching over to Michael as he sits on the tailgateof his truck, taking the guitar from Michael’s hands. “This is mine.”

“I was going to return it, and it was out of tune, so…” Michael answers,a smirk firmly in place. “You’re welcome.”

Alex rolls his kohl-lined eyes at him, there is a small smudgefrom the black pencil under Alex’s left eye, and Michael has to curb the urgeto reach out and wipe it away with his thumb. It seems these days he’s constantly fighting the urge to reach out andtouch Alex.

He’s not stupid enough to not know what it means, and he has eyes.Alex is stupid good-looking even if he does dress like a My Chemical Romancegroupie, which he actually is. But it’s more than that, when it comes to Alex,there has always been a pull for Michael, ever since the first comic book theyshared, only that now it comes with a strong desire to know what Alex’s lipstaste like.

Alex is watching him with those same expressive eyes that alwaysseem to see too much.

“You really do live in your truck?” Alex asks, nodding towards theblankets behind him.

Michael bristles at the question, and he snaps one of his own. “Areall the rumors about you true?” he asks, instantly feeling bad as Alextakes a step away from him. He knows Alex has been getting shit for being gayand not hiding it. Kyle Valenti and his group of neanderthals can’t seem to goa day without picking on Alex.

“You’re kinda lucky you know,” Alex starts, looking away before backat Michael. “Things at my house suck.”

He starts to walk away, only to stop again, his back to Michael.

“There’s this toolshed out behind my house,” Alex says quietly, stillnot looking at him. “It’s warm, and I go there when things get bad, so…” he trailsoff and leaves.

Michael sits there confused at to what exactly Alex is offering.

Later, when they’re in the shed playing music, Michael finallygets it.

Alex is offering him what he’s never had. A home.

21.

Michael is watching Alex pull up his pants as he lays on the thinbed of the cheap motel they found an hour outside of Roswell. Alex is back intown for exactly 48 hours, and they have spent 40 of those hours in bed wrappedup in each other, willfully ignoring that their time is running out.

Michael hates it, and for a moment hates Alex. It’s like thisevery time Alex blows into town. He follows wherever Alex leads only to be leftbehind again. He spots Alex’s dog tags on the bedside table and reaches forthem, putting them on.

“Those are mine, Guerin,” Alex says, tucking his shirt into hisfatigues.

“If I keep them, will you stay?” Michael can’t help but ask,blushing at his own ridiculous question. Of course, Alex can’t stay; he knowsthat. He’s not stupid. Staying means going AWOL, but he still wants Alex tostay. He’s 21, and he’s in love, and the boy he loves keeps leaving.

He just wants him to stay.

Alex looks at him, and it breaks Michael’s heart how sad Alex looks.

“That’s not the way it works, Guerin,” Alex says quietly, thesorrow in his brown eyes too much for Michael. So even though he should be buildingup his walls, ready to watch Alex leave again, he finds himself standing up andwrapping his arms around the Airman, holding him close as he lets out ashuddering breath.

When they separate, Alex has his hands around the dog tags,holding them to Michael’s chest.

“I’m keeping them,” Michael says firmly. “I’ll give them to youwhen you come back.”

28.

“Give me my fucking keys, Guerin!” Alex shouts, his face red andangry.

“Why!” he shouts back, just as furious but also scared, terrified,because if he lets Alex leave now, he’s going to lose him forever. And not inthe way he’s already lost him. Not in the way that Alex avoids him since hefound him at The Wild Pony with Maria.

No, this is a losing him forever, bury him kind of way, thatleaves Michael without any air in his lungs.

Alex hasn’t talked to him in months other than when strictly necessary;only when it comes to alien business. It doesn’t matter that he and Maria lasteda millisecond. It doesn’t matter that he’s told him he made a mistake. Heanswers that Michael has nothing to be sorry about and that it wasn’t a mistake.Michael should want to get away from him.

Alex has completely shut down around him, around everyone, livingand breathing to bring his father down.

“I have to go, Guerin,” Alex starts tiredly.

“And what?” Michael questions, his voice going high, and he feelshimself shake, fear gripping through him. “Try to stop your dad and getyourself killed? I read the files, Alex! I know what you want to do. If you go,you won’t come back.”

“I have to make things right!” Alex shouts, still angry but now desperate.“I have to fix everything he’s done to you; I have to make amends.”

“You don’t have to make amends for your father, Alex!” he screamsback, at his wit’s end. “You aren’t him; this isn’t on you.”

Alex stops and looks at him, letting out a bitter laugh after amoment. “Aren’t I, Guerin? Isn’t that why you didn’t want me anymore, why youwent to Maria? Because I remind you of my dad,” Alex whispers, tears runningdown his face. “Because I’m just like him, in your eyes?”

Michael shakes his head, crying. His words and actions have done somuch damage, and now he’s about to lose what matters the most to him because ofit. He doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until Alex’s hands are on his faceforcing him to look at him.

“Breathe, Michael,” Alex commands, his gaze steady. “Breathe forme.

“Please,” he begs through gasping breaths. “Please don’t go, don’tleave me. I love you, Alex, I love you, and if you die, I’ll die.”

“Michael,” Alex exhales, but Michael isn’t done, he gripsAlex’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he continues. “I’m so fucking sorry. I was hurt, andI turned around and hurt you too, and If I could take it back, I would. Ishould have told you I loved you that night you came to the airstream. I shouldhave come back the next day instead of standing you up. I should have done somany things differently.”

Alex shakes his head, his hands running through Michael’s hair,making him sob, it’s been so long since Alex has touched him. “It’s not just onyou, I have fucked up so much Michael, I get you wanting to move on from us;from me. I don’t blame you.”

“I haven’t moved on,” Michael whispers, his voice wet from crying.“I could never move on from you; you’re my home; you’re my everything. If youdon’t want to be with me, I can learn to live with it, but if you die, I’llfollow you, Alex. I swear I will.”

Alex lets out a pained noise right before crushing his lipsagainst Michael’s, only pulling back when breathing becomes a problem.

“I have always wanted you,” Alex says as he cradles Michael’sface, wiping away the fresh tears his words cause. “I always will.”

“So don’t leave,” Michael begs one more time, letting out a tremblingbreath when Alex presses his forehead against his and nods.

28.

Michael is sitting around his fire pit when Alex pulls up; he looksdown at Bagel who raises her head in curiosity before laying it back down overMichael’s boot. “It’s showtime, baby girl,” he whispers down at the beagle. “Rememberto be super cute.”

Bagel gives him a look that screams ‘Bitch, please.’ And Michaelgrins, he loves this dog.

“Have you lost your mind?” Alex asks as he walks out of his car,his eyes wide, a familiar piece of paper in his hand and Michael has to bitedown on his lip to keep from grinning, even as his heart pounds wildly in hischest as he looks at his boyfriend.

“Problem?” he asks innocently, smirking as Alex lets out an exasperatedscreech.

“Yes, Michael!” Alex yells. “You can’t kidnap my dog and leave mea note telling me if I want to see her again, I’ll have to marry you!”

“Dognap,” Michael corrects, easily. “I mean she is our kid,but technically it’s a dognapping.”

Alex gapes at him.

“And really,” he continues as he stands. “Bagel is as much my dogas yours, so really I just took her on a little trip.”

Alex seems to snap out of it at that and glares at him. “You can’tjust claim my dog as yours.”

“The hell I can’t,” Michael shoots back. “I claim her, and I claimyou, you’re mine. Enough of our bullshit.”

Alex lets out an incredulous laugh, but Michael can see the hopein his eyes, the love shining through.

“You can’t keep stealing my stuff,” Alex protests halfheartedly,taking a step towards him.

“Sure I can,” Michael says softly as he reaches for him, holdingAlex by his waist. “At least I give them back, you stole my heart years ago,and you don’t hear me complaining.”

Alex looks away for a moment before looking back at Michael, asmile on his face. “Well, it’s mine,” he says easily.

“It is,” he murmurs in agreement, leaning to kiss Alex’s temple. “So,marry me.”

“Michael,” Alex starts softly. “We’ve only been back together acouple of months.”

Michael laughs just as soft. “We’ve been together for years, Alex.”

Alex goes to speak, and Michael presses two fingers against hismouth. “We’ve been together since the first moment we kissed, but I have beenyours since you first shared Superman with me.”

“An alien superhero,” Alex whispers, smiling at the memory, hiseyes bright. “And now I get to marry one.”