#this story could have been million times better if only the writers gave a damn

[pixelrushiguess]

I don’t think anybody asked you this. But what are true thoughts on Sonic Dream Team?

Any praises? Any criticisms?

Well given the awkward nature of Dream Team, I’ve never actually played it so I can’t really comment on its gameplay. I will say I think the character animation is really nice, better than the official games to be honest.

Unfortunately that’s where the positives end for me because the story and writing is really REALLY bad.

I remember really worrying that the writing style of Frontiers would carry over to future instalments but I gave it the benefit of the doubt that it might’ve been a one time thing. And while Dream Team isn’t as miserable as Frontiers, it’s still pretty damn dull. No one acts like themselves, no one talks the way they usually talk. They all just stand around and make small talk like they met at a bus station. There’s no charm, no energy, no fun, nothing. Sonic is boring, Tails is smart and that’s it, Amy is...nothing, Knuckles is just there, Rouge is the only one with a hint of personality and Cream doesn’t really add anything. I really want to give Ian Flynn the benefit of the doubt, but if this is how he’s going to write going forward, I don’t think I want him writing for the series at all.

I’m no writer, I don’t know the first thing about it. But these are not hard characters to like. Every member of the cast is oozing charm and personality. You have to actively TRY to make these characters boring and somehow they did it. The writing in the 2010s sucked, but it at least made me feel something, I could still see the characters in there.

Ariem is nothing, she does nothing and means nothing. She’s a plot device, that’s it. There was no thought or effort in making her interesting, charming or likeable. There’s literally a million things you could’ve done with this premise and this character to tell a great story and it feels like nobody could be bothered. The game isn’t even about anything, like Sonic is a series that tackles a lot of different themes and the best Sonic stories are the ones that have a core message or allegory at the centre.

Adventure is about embracing positive emotions and dealing with anger and how anger can corrupt people.

06 is about love and freedom and allowing yourself to feel emotion.

Secret Rings is about healing from an abusive relationship.

Unleashed is about friendship and balance, seeing the world and experiencing new things.

Black Knight is about grief and mortality.

There’s tons of other examples but you get my point.

Oh and the voice acting is really bad too, everyone sounds bored or weirdly off and I don’t know why.

Anyway that’s my little tirade, didn’t think I cared so much about Dream Team, but there ya go I guess.

[angelfireeast]

Caitlin Snow-Killer Frost-Multiple Personality Disorder - If only!

fyi I wrote a long time ago before Caitilin “died” and was reborn killer frost. it’s just a if idea for what the writers could’ve done. Everytime I read quote from writers or DP saying this the evil powers making Killer Frost and not the real Caitlin feel so let down because this could’ve been a really good story for Caitlin exploring her dark side. It feels like spacegoat to use the evil meta powers card. They took the cheap easy way out by making it ‘evil powers’. 

They did leave open option of Caitlin good and this ‘her’ this ‘Killer Frost’ taking over her as mental disorder. But once again the writers choose not to take it and went to cheap easy way out. Setting it Caitlin and Killer Frost as two separate personality could have been a really good mental illness story for Caitlin which would last the rest of series which would be interesting in it’s own ways. But the writers don’t seem to even have guts or care or respect to follow through on that either. They kinda half assed it.

When I look over the story so far. There is a lot here that sounds exactly like Multiple Personality Disorder (which now called Dissociative identity disorder.) Killer Frost isn’t some wicked dark other being that has taken over Caitlin’s body.  It’s all Caitlin and trying to pretend Killer Frost is something you cut out like cancer or invading alien that go is not helping with the situation. The Killer Frost personality is scared of ‘dying’ basically but being forced to go away and she wants the Caitlin Snow personality to go away for good. Caitlin wants the same thing for Killer Frost. For this whole storyline Caitlin has refused to look at the psychological side of her problems. She’s looked at this as physical problem that needed to be cured. It’s really short sighted of doctor to refuse to look at mental health side of things but Caitlin decided meta powers were to blame and thus meta powers were the answer to the problem. She also refused to try to learn to control her power.

I don’t believe Killer Frost is just the “evil” meta human powers. Killer Frost is dissociate personality who has better a control of meta powers they both share. Caitlin has used the powers many times without becoming Killer Frost. When Caitlin becomes emotionally upset she becomes unstable and Killer Frost personality emerges. When the  Killer Frost personality comes out she uses her powers because that’s what this dissociative personality thinks she is - aka Earth 2 Killer Frost. This personality is protecting both of them from whatever threat is making them feel bad. It’s said Dissociative identity disorder second or third personalities can be more aggressive and hostile as means to deal with trauma that created disorder. This certainly fits with Killer Frost. When Killer Frost is aggressive or hostile and she uses the tools has to act out on her negative feelings which means she uses their powers in ways Caitlin normally doesn’t. Caitlin fears her powers so she doesn’t use them. Her fear when she uses them causes so much stress it brings on her other personality taking over. From what I’ve been reading it’s often the case that one personality is the “apparently normal part” of the personality responsible for day-to-day functioning and another alternate personality often is personality emerging in survival situations (involving fight-or-flight responses, vivid traumatic memories and strong, painful emotions. Which fits perfectly with Caitlin and Killer Frost who emerges whenever Caitlin gets really emotionally upset or stressed.

Post-traumatic stress disorder in adults may become Dissociative identity disorder as it is caused by traumatic stresses forcing the mind to split into multiple identities. What Zoom did to Caitlin in season two IMO is traumatic enough to bring something like this on. The old timeline she was in pieces riddled by PTSD brought on by what he did to her. Oh top all the loss and trauma of watching her lovers die before her eyes again and again (Ronnie not once but twice. Zoom murdered Fake Jay before her eyes. Her father died, her mother withdrew from her emotionally. Dr. Wells turned out to be Eobard. Jay was Hunter. On and on and on it goes). The writers used Flashpoint/timeline change to do a big old skip it with Caitlin when it came to her extreme PTSD from season two. Even using Flashpoint’s changes you still use Dissociative identity disorder to say she seemed to get her PTSD much faster in changed timeline but what really happened what she had mental break down which was her mind splitting into multiple identities to cope with that happened. Again the writers are just to lazy for that.Dissociative Identity Disorder works a lot better than a half baked ‘evil powers’ nothing really explained. 

Caitlin was in a very fragile state post Zoom and she discovers her powers and it’s the straw that broke the camel back. Zoom laid into her about having darkness within her and letting it out. She scared of becoming Killer Frost after having met E2 KF and suddenly she has these powers? It’s too much and breaks her mentally and emotionally. The fact that she kept everything secret did not help her. The more isolated is she with this fear the she it run right over top of herself. She decided the powers equaled evil and that was that exactly how things ended up.

There is no magic cure for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It’s an ongoing thing that needs to be treated with long term therapy for years. There has to be deep trust with therapists which is often hard because alternate personality, especially those who particularly those associated with illegal or violent activities, distrust therapists as they think goal of therapy is to eliminate them. There two healthy treatment goals for Dissociative Identity Disorder. One is goal of unified identity. The other finding a way to have each aspect of each personality coexist, and work together. The goal of achieving a more peaceful coexistence of the person’s multiple personalities is quite different than the reintegration of all those aspects into just one identity state. Medications can be helpful in managing emotional symptoms. Remember that Caitlin gave Ronnie and Martin these sorts of drugs to help them recover after spending a year trapped in one mind. So that’s hand waving Flash medicine for you.

Given how Caitlin, Killer Frost, Team Flash and Savitar are handling the situation eliminate the alternate personality is goal of each side. Killer Frost’s fears are based reality because everyone does any to eliminate her. Since no is treating this as mental illness thus there is professional help guiding their hands they all just ‘we’ll get the real Caitlin back’. No one is thinking of middle ground - YET. Caitlin sure as heck won’t agree to it because she fears Killer Frost too dangerous. I guess the question is Killer Frost cartoon evil? What could she look like if she was offered the right to live and given psychological and emotional help along with Caitlin? I think medication to help both their mood would be in order. She’d still likely be someone ready to kill at snap of fingers but would she be out raising hell? Or would be able to function in the world?

I always wondered why and how she made that absolute belief about her powers being evil. Perhaps it was because she had already started Dissociative Identity Disorder with the second personality emerging as this aggressive and hostile person before her powers started she decided her powers had to be related to slipt dark personality. The powers have to be evil because this emerging personality is so dark and Caitlin refused to consider psychological answer. Perhaps the stigma against mental illness was driving factor in all this. Again that make for interesting subject for show to discuss. Caitlin refused to look at psychological l side because of stigma involved. You would think ‘but she a doctor should be more enlightened on subject and not caught up in the stigma’? But that’s the thing no one wants to admit it’s happening to them personally. There is a ego factor of ‘I’m a doctor! I am not mentally ill. I have this under control. It is physical issue which I can cure myself. I have control of this situation’. Caitlin didn’t use her resources wisely as she tried to cure her “problem”. At every single turn she cut out everyone and tried do this alone on her terms. She only included the team when she was forced to. She only went to her mother when there was no other place to turn to, she manipulated Julian and the team to let Julian join team Flash without ever outright stating she needed help with a cure, she took a piece of the stone and kept it hidden for MONTHS risking Iris’s life and not caring about Iris dying in search for her cure, again all she needed to do what talk to the team. When Wally was crystallized in pod she went behind everyone’s backs to seek out Alchemy for cure. She went out of her way over and over and over to keep secrets and not get help from people who only want to help her and not judge her. Fuck they didn’t even blink at her betraying them they care that much. So why does she do it over and over again? Her go it alone secret path to cure keeps failing her so why keep doing it? Maybe because part of her is scared someone will look at the situation and go “this is your evil meta human powers fault. They aren’t evil at all. Their is part of your that is Killer Frost. This is mental and emotional issue”. She can’t deal with that. She scared of the word ‘crazy’. Look at her reaction when Julian pretty much told to take responsibly for her actions as KF. She got so upset over it and on top of being so worked fearing becoming Killer Frost she reacted by the Killer Frost personality coming out in a rage going ‘Fine I’ll take responsibly for myself. I’m evil. Haha! Iris dies’. Caitlin was talked back into taking control of the body by Julian when he said ‘that’s not the real you blah blah blah’. My point is Caitlin cannot handle the idea of being evil or Killer Frost without it ending her off the deep ending. Which is what brings out the alternate protective personality even if she’s scared of alternate protective personality..

Something that could scare Caitlin and Killer Frost, since they know the same thing, is that Doctors treating people with this illness sometimes find the more prominent personality states as the “host” personality may not be the “true” identity of the patient. Just think if they have secret fear they aren’t real owner of body.

We’ve had three version of Caitlin this season. Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost and CS/KF hybrid in 3.07  who shared the same goal of getting rid of meta human power & not caring about hurting people. You could say there are 3 alternate personalities. To find people deal with alternate personalities doctors often have them face that trauma that created it. The trauma that created the CS/KF hybrid was caused by Barry’s betrayal and was “cured” when Barry hashed things out with her. The alternate personality let go and the stronger personality of Caitlin took hold again. There was no need for the CS/KF hybrid defensive personality anymore. The two larger personalities remain.

[liesoverthec]

the post hasn't surfaced yet so please use this ask to talk abt the objectification of the 911 men!!

Ahh May you’re too nice but also thank you, I’m gonna 😂💛

This got. CRAZY long bc I just had a million thoughts so I’m gonna stick it under a cut.

To be honest, I think the reason they do *any* sort of objectification at all is that middle aged and older viewers are used to being able to objectify actors to a certain extent. Lord knows it happens on literally every other single piece of media, and this is a mainstream broadcast show, not an indie series or the likes, so I think they have to cater to those people as well as us, and the WAY they do it is so interesting to me bc even when they’re doing it, they use it as a way to drive home other, deeper messages.

For starters, I feel like the show OG was trying to be in the pilot and the first few episodes would have objectified the men WAY more than we see now if there hadn’t been that shift in tone - the sex addict plot could have been SO much more extended and given us a lot more opportunities to see Buck shirtless and to objectify him and his body. So I find it SO interesting that around the same time as Bobby opening up about his family and his past, we also stop w/ Buck being blatantly shirtless all the time. Narratively, it signals to me the point where the writers moved away from the the typical tv show that will treat their actors like meat, and moved more into a “female gaze” show. And then what’s really interesting to me, is that for Buck, after that, when he has sex w Taylor Kelly in s2, both times we NEVER see him undressed. The second time they don’t get very far, but he’s wearing a buttonable shirt. He absolutely could have been wearing that shirt closed, and she could have opened it, and he could have been wearing nothing underneath it, and we would have seen his chest again in a sexy scenario - but they didn’t. In fact they made the DELIBERATE choice to give him an undershirt. And of course with the first time they cut away and just left us w the understanding that sex was happening, yet again taking away an opportunity to show O.S. at least partially undressed. Which is SO different from how s1 goes about it, where we actually see Buck w his shirt open and his underwear exposed MULTIPLE times. So it’s so incredibly interesting to me that while none of the (main/regular) women’s stories are ever about sex like Buck’s is, I also think it’s REALLY interesting that the objectification of the men was, and could have been, much worse and that they didn’t have to move away from that, but they did.

But then secondly! The very last time we get into a plot that revolves around the men’s bodies specifically is in 2x01, which is SUCH an interesting plot. Surface level - it’s just about the men competing about who’s more attractive, and we get lots of muscle flexing and hot manliness to go along with it. And it is, at a surface level, incredibly shallow. But simultaneously they use it to 1. Introduce the idea that Buck wasn’t a sex addict bc he was “dealing w the stress of the job” like s1 mostly implied. It was bc he’s desperate to feel useful and wanted by someone, and at that point he really wanted that acceptance within the firehouse, rather than from other people. (Bc lbr, Abby didn’t do shit for Buck. It was Bobby, opening up and accepting the family, and specifically Buck, that gave him the connection he’d been seeking through sex.) And then 2. They also use it as an opportunity to SPECIFICALLY, IN CANON, say that it’s what you do that makes you attractive, and that makes you a hero, not how you look. Which is just!!! A crazy message!!! Especially considering they follow through on it, particularly in the areas where the women are concerned!

And in regards to 2x01, it’s soooooo fucking interesting to me that the ONLY time we really truly see Eddie shirtless, he’s actually putting clothes ON. They literally do the opposite trope of 'giving the hot male an excuse to take his shirt off'. And sure, they make it a sexy moment, but there's absolutely interesting commentary there about him actively covering himself up at the moment he is most sexualized, and it being taken as a sexy thing. Something about how you don't have to be naked to be attractive, it's about your intent in your actions, rather than your physical body. (Probably me reading too far into it, but again, they COULD have had him striping off his regular shirt, a good few seconds of him shirtless digging through a bag, and THEN the sexy slow mo pulling shirt on. At the very least, when they objectify him there, they make it MUCH shorter than they could have, which is SO DAMN INTERESTING to me).

But then finally, we still do have shirtless scenes! But the fact that it’s Chim who’s shirtless is just SO FASCINATING. Bc THE WAY THEY DO IT - they're never dunking Chim in a lake, or having something spilled on him, like other shows would do, to get his shirt clinging to him and him to whip it off in a spray of water or whatever. It's in scenes where it makes sense for him to be shirtless, and its NEVER treated like a big deal. It's just Chim, in his body, comfortably living his life. So I think the way they do it gives him more respect than other shows give their male characters, let alone their female characters 💀

And it's SO interesting to me that they use Chim (I mean, besides the fact that K.C. clearly has muscles for days and wow of course you'd use Chim). But I just think - on any other show, it would absolutely be Buck who we see casually shirtless. And that WAS almost this show, which is why we saw him shirtless at all. But failing that, it should have been Eddie. And then of course, after Eddie, it should be Bobby. I mean, plenty of other shows go for the 'sexy middle-aged white man' (cough cough LS) so Bobby would be the next logical step in the "who are we gonna make our hot man?" ladder, also - P.K. has BICEPS THAT COULD CRUSH ME so I would not blame them for making him the hot one.

But - like I said in my tags on my original post - I'm always thinking about Chim's story in 2x01 with the calendar, and feeling like he never gets to be the hero (WHICH I COULD GO ON AND ON ABOUT HOW BEING THE HERO IS EQUATED THERE TO BEING THE HOT ONE, SO LIKE, CHIM BEING SHIRTLESS, SUBTLE REINFORCEMENT OF HIM BEING A HERO!) I love that for him, being the truly hot one on the team. And then you throw in his story from 2x04, and feeling like his life wasn't going anywhere and seeing him now, comfortable in his body and his life and being happy??

I wish no one had to be objectified and shirtless but I know this is broadcast tv, and honestly, the choice for it to be Chim, with his story and his background, in itself is I think a choice that makes me happy.

Of course, the show is nowhere near perfect, and I’d argue that it’s one of the areas they fall shortest in. Buck sleeping w his therapist would never have happened for a woman on this show, and it CERTAINLY wouldn’t have been brushed off again as a joke like it was in s3. And it really bothered me in 4x07 when the lady slapped Eddie’s ass, esp since he was clearly uncomfortable with it. I’d actually really enjoy seeing them write a plot for one of the men that addresses them feeling oversexualized as firefighters, and how people seem to think they have permission since the men are all public employees, bc I think the show could do it really well, and I think it’s an area that hasn’t been addressed on other shows recently (plus lbr I know I’m biased but I think OG would do it better if it has been done…)

So idk. I don’t know if I have a solid conclusion here. The show does SUCH a good job with the women, and a solidly less good job with the men - but I also see some really interesting choices at work that I really respect.

Thanks for the opportunity May, sorry if there was no coherent thread to this. 😂🤷���♀️

[popculturebuffet]

One Year Anniversary: Top 12 Ducktales Episodes!

Happy anniversary all you happy people! Yes it was one year ago today I started reviewing animation and it’s been a ride to be sure. I’d always WANTED to be a reviewer: I love going on and on about stuff I love, really digging into it and picking it apart... but I could never get started. I tried youtube but I didn’t have the money for the equipment nor a proper shooting space to record, so my efforts.. were not great. And while I TRIED text reviews, my own looming pile of self hatred meant every attempt I made was shot down when it got hard as me not being good enough. 

But one year ago I finally got past that. I’d already been reviewing a bit, doing invididual issues of comics... but got way in over my head trying to do the current line of X-Men comics as it came out, and wisely bowed out of that. But that left a gap: I had nothing to cover week to week and with a demanding new job, I drifted into just doing in charcter chats, little fan fictions script styles. Not bad work, I should do some more at some point and I even got a comissoin once in a while, but nothing I could really live on and not what I wanted to do with my life. 

Enter Ducktales. I’d always WANTED to review the show.. and when the double premire happened, I decided fuck it, and put up my thoughts. And then decided.. hey maybe I can do this every week.. and slowly.. my work evolved, getting better and better, getting more and more likes. I picked up Amphibia when that came by week to week.

And eventually.. this went from a hobby, if one I was passionate about to a career. Not a largely paying one, as only one person was really intrested in paying me for it, friend of the blog and our fincial backer @weirdkev27, but .. it’s money and i’m now making about 30 dollars a month due to a comination of comissions and patreon. Other contributers are always welcome mind you, my patreon is here if your curious and comissions are 5 dollars an episode, but i’ts just nice to have money coming in. To have gone from simply WANTING to review things and make a living off it.. to simply doing it. 

And it’s been one hell of a year.. and not just because 2020 felt like hell or 2021 began with a full on insurrection. I feel like i’ve acomplished a lot in the year i’ve been doing this: I finished what I started with Ducktales season 3, getting better and better as I went. And I didn’t stop there with ducks: I started covering what brought me to Ducks in the first place, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and while that retrospective has slid a bit on the schedule, I intend to get it back on track this month. I reviewed a bunch of Darkwing Duck episodes leading up to the Just Us Justice Ducks.. chronologically anyway. The actual airing order reads like someone took 50 issues of a comic, made it rain with them, then just started reading whatever ones they picked up randomly. I also covered some of Duck Master Carl Barks work with the classics Night on Bear Mountain, A Christmas for Shacktown and Back to the Klondike, with more to come. 

And the Duck didn’t stop at just reviews I did on my own: Kev comissioned two MASSIVE retrospectives from me: My first for him was Ride of the Three Caballleros where in just a few short months I covered the boys entire televisied careers together from the movie, to house of mouse, to mickey and the roadster racers, to ducktales (again) and finishing with the wonderful Legend of the Three Caballeros. It has probably the worst Daisy imaginable, but otherwise is really excellent and i’m glad I finally watched it. I also covered Don Rosa’s two stories with the boys as part of it. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it... okay most of them again Three Cabs Daisy is the worst. And once that finished Kev started up another idea: Shadow Into Light: a look at Lena’s character arc from start to finish that has gone on to be my most popular series on this blog, and that finishes next week. And there’s more to come as after that there’s a short breather with a look at Lilo and Stitch’s crossover episodes.. folllowed by me looking at all three of season 2′s ducktales arcs. And I fully intend to have covered every episode of the series by this time next year, so stay tuned. 

Outside of ducks though I didn’t slow down. I restarted my Tom Lucitor retrospective, covering what i feel to be one of Star Vs’ two best characters, tied with eclipsa, and my personal faviorite as he redeemeed himself, found love and I bitched a lot about the horrible directions the series took and probabably will more as that’s still not done yet. I did what I always wanted to do and started looks at some of my faviorite comics ever, starting with Life and Times and adding in New X-Men and Scott PIlgrim. I also threw in the awesome comic Blacksad. I did pride month for the first time and not only came out publicly, but also did two whole arcs i’m proud of with The Saluna episodes of Loud house and the rednid episodes of OK KO, and generally just had myself a good old fashioned time as an out bi man reviewing childrens cartoons. 

I started Season 2 of amphibia with it’s lows of an endlesss road trip and highs of adding Marcy to the cast and giving us more of the silky voiced keith david. And finally Patreon wise Kev’s taken me on a hell o fa journey: In addition to the restrospectives i’ve covered some additional darkwing duck, and a simpsons homage to the duck comics... but also got a bit weird and obscure with detours like the lost animnaics sucessor Histeria, the apocalyptic comedy where Santa dosen’t know how doors work Whoops! and the adventures of Santa’s bratty teen daughter jingle belle. In short.. it’s been a long year but damn has it been fun and there’s more to come. I’d like to thank all of you for reading, thank my Patreons Kev and Emma for supporting me, and thank my family for doing the same.  So with that out of the way, I figured the best way to celebrate was to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something honoring the show that gave me this calling in the first place. And with Season 3 sadly being the last, and enough weeks having passed for me to digest it between the finale and today, I could think of nothing better than my top 12 episodes of Ducktales.

Ducktales is one of the best cartoons of the 2010′s. Brilliantly taking EVERYTHING that had come before, the comics, the original cartoon and every bit of duck media period to craft a masterful, unique and wonderful reboot. It was funny, it was insane, and it had damn good character arcs. By the end every member of the main cast along with major supporting cast members like Fenton, Drake and especially Lena, had changed and signifigantly at that. The show was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more and I miss it terribly, hoping DIsney will do a revivial movie at some point. For now though, Frank and Matt’s run on ducktales, as they called it and I do too since i’m a massive comic book nerd, it’s time to look back on my favorite tales of ducks. So grab your sharks, your number one dimes and your friendship cakes with clear gay undertones and join me under the cut as I celebrate one of my faviorite shows and my anniversary in the best way possible. 

12. House of the Lucky Gander! 

 So as i’ve gone on about before and no doubt will again, Donald kinda got the short end of the stick in season 1. While Frank and Matt had good story intentions, keeping Donald away from adventure since he had no interest in it, in practice it meant a beloved Disney Icon who they and disney HEAVILY promoted as part of the series and whose being here this go round was a big draw for fans of the comics.... was only in a quarter of the season and only got TWO plots centered around him in 23 episodes, with only one being the main plot of the episode. The PIlot and Finale both centered around the family more as a whole if your curious how I counted those so while he got plenty of focus in both, it’s still not a day in the limelight sort of thing. 

But unusually for Donald, he lucked out as his one big starring role for Season 1 was both one of my faviorites and one of Season 1′s most inventive outings.  A lot of the episodes enegy comes from a one two punch of a great guest star and one of the series best settings. The guest star is of course everyone’s faviorite overly lucky himbo Gladstone Gander. The show adapted the prick perfectly: The original Gladstone from the comics.. was the worst asshole imaginable, utterly insufferable. And for a villian, and Donald’s rival, that’s all well and good.. but his super luck meant he RARELY , if ever, suffered any consequences for being just...

The 87 series simply made him nicer, while Going Quackers simply removed his luck. No adaptation really got how to make this fucker work.. until this one. Here Frank split the diffrence: Gladstone is still smug.. but he’s no longer actively malicious. While he is an insensitive prick to Donald in this one, unlike the comics he’s not constantly bragging about his luck or how great he is or actively BAITING Donald to fight with him or trying to ruin his relationship or a million other reasons he sucks and I hate him.

This version by contrast... is generous. He’s not the most empathetic, because he doesn’t get how life works, but he does share the riches of the casnio with everyone and in a cameo appearance in “Treasure of the Found Lamp” gladly offers his nephews some diamonds. He’s got a nice surface level charm to him that makes you understand why people like him.. but it’s also clear ther’es nothing UNDER that of value, making you equally understand why Scrooge and Donald hate him. Gladstone in this reboot is a perfect example of why we need reboots or new adaptations in the first place: Because sometimes the original got something wrong or something can be done much better by the new writers. 

He’s perfectly paired with the setting: The House of Lucky Fortune, a mystical casino with an East Asian astatic based in the country of Macaw and provides two great plots. Donald’s really highlights his character: His understandable jealousy at gladstone earning the boys love through nothing while he struggles to make a living for them, and how he feels like a looser and like Gladstone is simply showing that off instead of just not knowing what empathy is. Having Louie be the one to bond with Gladstone was also just pitch pefefct, as is showing some depth for the boy by having himr ealize his hero is an asshole and be the one to help donald in the end. 

The other plot is just pure joy though and is where the setting REALLY shines: Scrooge and the rest of the kids try to leave.. but can’t find the exit. This is where the creative part comes in: The Casino simply morphs to keep people trapped, and caters to them, giving them whatever they want to keep them trapped. In the cases of the kids it’s all hilarious and adorably in character: Huey becomes entranced by a fancy water show, in one of his best bits of the season, Dewey gets a pet tiger who sadly did not come home with him and Webby gets to live the dream we’ve all had of stuffing her face directly in a choclate fountain. Scrooge’s escape is likewise clever: He simply prepares to get a room.. then books it as the check in desk is ALWAYS near the front. 

We then find out Gladston’es trapped get the whole mystical contest with absolutely gorgeous animation, i’ll talk about it in full some time but this episode is just a treat to watch, has a great arc for donald and had some memorable gags. I can’t help but smile when I watch it. 

11. The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!  As I mentioned before i’m a superhero nerd so naturally Fenton was one of my faviorite parts of the show. Frank and Matt were just damn good at crafting superhero stories, and like gladstone improved fenton turning him from an awkward donald stand in to an awkward peter parker-esque science nerd who just wants to be a good person and the best hero he can be. He got into science not just because he thinks it’s neat, but because he honestly wants to help people and you can’t help but foot for him whenever he pops up. Lin Manuel Miranda is a large reason for that, bringing his incomparable a-game to the character. While we sadly didn’t get a ton of gizmoduck focused episodes, the fatct we got AS MANY as we did and that Lin didn’t drop out for a minute even with his busy schedule was a miracle and I’m acknowledging that. 

As for why this one, I feel it builds brilliantly on the previous Fentoncentric episode Who Is Gizmoduck?! which just BARELY didn’t make this list and uses the fact we haven’t seen fenton in a while as both a plot point and to move some things forward without having to spend screentime they clearly didn’t have. By having Fenton be just burnt out on superheroics it finds a way to both explain where he’s been, he’s been busy with his new job, and give us an interesting angle to the old “superhero is tired of the life” thing. He never once complains about saving people or stuff... it’s just like any job it gets tiring after a while. As someone who has his dream job but has struggled with it from time to time, I vastly relate. 

Though while I love my boy and Lin is game as always, the episodes real MVP is my other boy Huey. The episode has moved Huey up from being simply Fenton’s fanboy to being his best friend, and adorable as hell relationship. The two clearly respect and appricate each other and Huey is looking out for his buddy the whole episode. His love of love is also just really cute. Added in the mix is Webby, who in one of my faviorite gags of the series, finds out Fenton is  Gizmoduck because Huey is incredibly and insanely blatant with his unecessary coverup. But she of course is game to help while Fenton is trying to play it casual. We also just get a waterfall of great gags as everyone overdoes it wingmanning for fenton: Huey sets up an itallian bistro and tries to purposfully create a lady and the tramp situation, and sings opera (With Manny on acordian), the wonderfully 80′s suit from Fenton’s dad his mom gives him to wear, and Launchpad, who gives us a tremendous list of his exes, and plays my favorite song of the series: It’s a Date, a micheal mcdonnel riff. 

This episode also wisely ups Mark’s Beaks game as Fenton’s arch enemy, still keeping him hilaroius, with the guy acting like a bored teenager and guzzling so much nanite jucie he turns into a hulk, as well as said hulk mode leading to a ton of great gags from kidnapping the children (”I got your kids.. are they your kids? I don’t know how this family works), to “take that coach dad” to eating a pie with tins and all and wondering about said tins. But he’s an actual threat now, taking on fenton in one hell of a fight, and having an utterly transcendent scene where he hacks his way past gyro’s security while dancing.. and dabbing because of course he does. It’s a fun, well done character piece that’s mostly here for i’ts laugh but Fenton’s struggle with Gizmo overtaking his life, and finding out someone he truly hit it off iwth only wanted him for that.. it’s really good stuff and Lin’s delivery after Fenton finds out, the pure pain and betryal in his voice, is just excellent. Also that opera scene is poetry. 

10. Quack Pack!

One of the episodes that started my career naturally landed here. Not for that reason though: Quack Pack is a fun riff on sitcoms, specifically the tgif ones of the 90′s that Disney Afternoon Kids no doubt also watched, the kinds Disney Channel still makes today, and most importanly the kind the Disney Afternoon itself made like Goof Troop and well... Quack Pack. 

Riffs on sitcoms are nothing new and the last year has been FULL of them. 2020 gave us this episode, Beef House and the wonderful “The Perfect House” episode of Close Enough, and this year gave us WandaVision, my second favorite MCU project so far, right behind Black Panther, which used the sitcom deconstruction to create one hell of a character study. 

So you’d think with a year having passed and this concept happening as an entire mini series would dull this one.. but no. it’s still damn funny, having fun at the cliches while, again like WandaVision, having one of the main cast be responsible by accident but go along with it. The episode pivots from glorious affectionate parody of cheesy sitcoms, to that plus horrifying “Humans”, and a character piece for Donald. This brings Donald’s hatred and fed up ness with adventure to a head revealing his fondest wish is just to have a normal life and not loose anyone again. 

It takes one of his best friends to snap him out of it. Look Goofy is my second faviorite of the sensational seven, an episode with him was already an easy sell for me.. but the episode uses him really well. First for laughs as he’s gentically dispositioned to be a perfect sitcom neighbor.. but also for heart. With his family preoccupied and a bit hurt, i’ts Goofy who cuts to the heart of the issue, pointing out NO ONE is normal and even his normal domestic life raising Max, who we see go to prom with roxanne eeeeee, has all sorts of chaos. Normal is what you make of it and pining for some ideal that will never happen was just tearing donald apart piece by piece and by letting go of that.. he finally begins to grow as a person throughout the season. It’s also a great thematic tie in to the season’s overall plot with Bradford and what Makes donald, despite also disliking the chaos his family gets into, different. Donald accepted it and grew as a person.. Bradford clung to his hate and it ate him alive. Or turned him into a non-sapient kind of vulture. Before I close this part out Jaleel White is also excellent and I wish eh’d get back into voice acting. He’s so freaking good at it. Seriously man i’d love to see him and ben in a sonic property together as a mythology gag. Same with Jims cummings and carey. Just think about it whoever owns the sonic movies.. think about it. 

9. The Last Adventure!

Look I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming. But it had to be on here. The Last Adventure is not perfect: The lack of a build up episode like the previous two finales had really hurt this one: even at about 70 minutes, it still feels rushed in places and Huey, one of hte main characters of the season, dosen’t feel like he has a full payoff to his character like Dewey and Louie got. 

But despite those flaws.. this episode is just a damn good ending. Almost everyone gets a big moment paying off their character arc, everyone in the party that comes to rescue webby and huey, along with the two themselves, gets a moment to show off, and everything comes together to give us one last epic sendoff. There’s just moment stacked on moment stacked on moment from Launchpads heroic second wind and donning of the gizmoduck armor, to Webby’s tearful confrontation with Beakley, to Huey using the greatest adventure of all line to foil bradford in one of the most deligfhully nuts moments of the series, I could go on for days with just how triumphant this finale felt. While it left a lot of doors open.. that feels like part of the design. It’s the end of the fight with FOWL.. but our heroes will never stop adventuring, never stop going and never stop being in our hearts and the curtain call at the end is now my faviorite bit of end credits ever, perfectly giving the main cast and friends one last chance to take a bow in their own unique ways. I will always miss this show but I will never be disapointed by the note it went out on. 

8. The 87 Cent Solution!

Look some episodes are show stoppers, some are heartfelt tearjerkers, some are all this and more.. and some episodes are just clever and hilarious. The 87 Solution is the second funniest episode of Ducktales with me and my go to episode when watching the show. It’s just pure fun and with a clever premise: Scrooge notices 87 cents have gone missing, and already coming down with a cold, goes mad with paranoia as the kids slowly don face masks, something that has become even eeerier given everything, one by one realizing he needs to stop. 

While David Tennant is an EXCELLENT dramatic actor, his comedy timing is really something that shoudln’t be ignored and i’ts on full display here as his performance gets more and more deranged, to thep oint he thinks an 8th dimensional imp is repsonsible. He nicely balances the disturbing side of Scrooge’s paranoia, his distancing from his family, with plenty of great gags about it too, the standout being when he offers 2 million dollars to whoever took the money like he’s publicly appeasing kidnappers. It’s fucking brilliant. 

But while David is awesome as ever what really, truly makes the episode is my boy, one of my faviorite characters on the show if not my single faviriote FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Keith Ferguson is ALWAYS a dream as the character but this is his best performance by far. Part of this is the addition of Zan Owlson, Kev who I mentioned earlier’s faviorite Ducktales character. She’s not only throughly likeable in her own right, but provides the one thing Flinty was missing; a straight man.. or woman in this case. Scrooge wasn’t TERRIBLE in the roll, but can easily step away from his shit or foil it. Owlson has to put up with Glomgold’s nonsense while desperatly trying to stop him from undoing all her hard work with sheer force of jackass. The two jut play off each other brilliantly, Glomgold not getting sh’es not his employee but his equal and Owlson constnatly snarking at him. 

And of course both things hit their peak in the climax with the family staging a fake funeral (Though no one told donald it was fake), and we get the funniest scene in the entire fucking show as Glomgold burts in in a white suit, money shades and full dance number to “All I Do Is Win’, which when first watching this I was convinced the song was somehow accidnetly on in the background but nope. They got it after using it in the test phase and the scene is better for it. Glomgold twerking on Scrooge’s casket, trying to get on it to dance, and having to be placated like ac hild is the icing on this very rich cake

And the reveal scene is also gold as Glomgold gets into a YEARLONG staring contest with a baby, fails to steal more than the 87 cents and, in my faviorite touch, put on an imp costume just to make scrooge seem crazier... then keeps the damn thing on the rest of the time for no explicable reason. The episode is the show at it’s comedic peak while giving Glomgold a chance to be a genuine threat and that’s Glomgood. 

7. Let’s Get Dangerous!

Frank’s Rebooted Version of Darkwing Duck is probably his greatest achivment with the show. While this show is a team effort, something I slowly realized as I reviewed the show, it’s very clear from the way he talks, how well he knows the show and how much effort was put into porting Darkwing into the reboot that this was his baby. While redefining ducktales for the 2010′s was clearly a huge dream of his... doing the same for the master of suprise was an even bigger goal. And as a huge fan of superheroes i’ve seen my fair share of half assed takes on laired and complex characters. The XCU alone is one giant grab bag of missed opportunities for me. 

So i’ts no exageration when I tell you Frank.. nailed it. In one of the most brilliant moves i’ve seen for a superhero work Frank worked his love of the show into the reboot.. by having Darkwing have been a show, one Launchpad loved.. and so did Drake, who was inspried by the show to become an inspriation himself and while his attempt to do that through a zack snydery reboot failed, Launchpad encouraged him to do it for real. Drake was still himself, but the meta aspect and the toning down of some of darkwing’s more obnoxious traits that didn’t work in a universe that, while patently rediciulous still took it’s characters seriously, he made a BETTER version of the character.

This is where all that comes to it’s peak, and hoppefully convinced Disney to let Frank , and possibly matt, run the reboot. And no, even if Point Grey is producing that dosen’t stop that: Thanks to Invincible i’ve now realized that Seth and his friend Evan producing the show dosen’t mean it’ll be RAN by them, nor unrelated to this. It just means their helping make it and if anything given how lush and gorgeous invincible’s animation is, it’s a VERY good sign their helping out with it if it’s true. 

But wether this versoin continues or not, Frank gave it his best shot. Part of his diffrent angle is having Drake as a rookie here and as such here we see him truly struggle: he’s had his origin, he ahs the cape, he has the gadgets (in a brilliant turn thanks to fenton, who he actually likes... but is so far the ONLY person to not get he’s Gizmoduck), and the city.. but no crime to fight and no real idea how to go about his lifelong dream. The events of the episode slowly shape him: WHile he already had the spirit for darkwing, never giving up, looking good in a cape etc, this episode gives him the heart the same way it gave his original it: With Gosalyn. Dimantopolis and Beatriz just play off each other perfectly, as the two go from neimies to slowly bonding as Drake realizes this kid needs him and that he needs to fight for more than just filing the ohle inside, and goes to hell and back to help her get her grandpa back, with one of the best moments of the episode to me being when Launchpad helps her realize how hard he’s been working at it, an exausted drake refusing to acccept that he can’t get her grandpa back because he promised. He grows from simply trying to live the dream.. to surpassing the original. We also see more from Launchpad, who grows into his new family and helps push his boyfriend and newa dopted daughter in the right directions. The episode really evolves these characters from the simple disney afternoon versions, who while awesome were made into fully fleshed out characters. Gosalyn still has her edge but now has a hard lesson to learn about doing the right thing, forced to give up someone she loves for the greater good but finding a new family in the process. 

Part of what makes the episode work though as while it is funcitonally one big darkwing duck reboot pilot that’s awesome, heartrending and a joy to watch... it’s still a ducktales episode in parts without either part hurting each other. Huey plays a vital role, figuring the ramrod is too good to be true.. and discovering just how it is, then when captured, slowly unravling why Bradford’s there and being at least in part responsible for outing him as a FOWL agent. While this is largely Drakes story the rest of the cast is still vital to it: Scrooge trusting in huey, Louie serving as his logical counter and Dewey meanwhile bonding with team darkwing and helping Gosalyn, knowing exactly where she’s been and providing a nice foil. The episode is just one long and impressive love letter to the original show while creating it’s own thing and that’s really this reboot in a nutshell. It also has some of the best fights of the series, with the first fight between darkwing and bulba, where our hero, unlike his original counterpart, easily troucnes bulba using his speed and skill, is the standout. 

6. Woo-Ooo!

I covered this one recently so I won’t go on for too long.. but I will say I hold this one up as the gold standard for first episodes. In one hour, hell even in jus the first half we get a sense of the whole cast, the tone of the show, and the world we’ve been thrust into. It gets all the table setting out of the way by weaving it into a compelling story of Scrooge getting back in the game, finding a reason to get back to what he does best in those he loves most and setting up the season long arc effortlessly in the process. The worst I can say about the episode is it sets the bar a bit high for Season 1 and a lot of the first half really struggled to reach these heights. This episode is a masterwork and the perfect showcase for what the series would be at it’s height. 

5. Moonvasion!

Speaking of Golden Standards, Moonvasion is one of the best season finale’s i’ve seen. it’s not THE best.. but that’s a really high bar to clear and that spots currently taken in my heart by “The Crossroads of Destiny” from Avatar the Last Airbender. But while not the best of it’s kind, it’s sitll the best the series put out and is an utterly satisfying epic that ties up season 2. 

While I love the Last Adventure, it had a LOT to tie up and was really hampered by having to do all of that with no direct lead in. Moonvasion by contrast hits the ground running with the Moonlanders arriving on earth and all hell breaking loose, and the episode itself breaking into two stellar plots. Scrooge leading an army of every ally he has against the invaders, and Della seemingly going for reinforcements.. but really just trying to keep the kids safe from it, to their anger once they find out. 

Both sides end up going badly: Scrooge looses most of his army as Lunaris was one step ahead of him and is left iwth Beakly and Launchpad, while Della ends up marooned.. and finds Donald. The reunion between the two is the highlight of the special, as the two argue as you’d expect (And Dewey cutting in seemingly to stop it.. only to rant at Donald for costing him “ten years of turbo” is the best gag of the episode), before embracing. 

Our heroes naturally find ways to bounce back though. Louie, capping off his growth for the season, convinces his mom they can’t just hide.. and in the second best scene of the episode sings the lullabye she wrote.. one Donald sung them every night

And no sooner than Della gets her step back and realizes that dangerous or not she and her newly reunited family have to get back in there, do the cousins show up on Fethry’s giant shrimp/girlfriend Mitzi, and our heroes head back. 

Scrooge’s plot hits i’ts peak though as he’s forced to accept the help of an unlikely and unwelcome ally: Glomgold, who turns out to be exactly what they need: While his plan is as stupid, short sighted and insane as you’d expect, complete with forcing Scrooge to dress up as santa just to piss him off and dressing his sharks in parkas (”I call them sharkas”), the sheer lonacy throws Lunaris off as he dosen’t know how to deal with this and Glomgold not only gets the better of him but gets his company back as part of his scheme.  “You were prepared for our best but not our dumbest!” “And i’m the dumbest theirs ever been! Muahahahaha! Wait...”

And of course our other heroes arrive just in time to save things.. and the episode still manages to pull off what many works struggle to, something tha’ts very hard to: a SECOND climax. Lunaris decides to just say fuck it and blow up the earth and i’ts up to our core family to kick his ass in space. Epic space battles, Della’s girlfriend meeting the family and more insues and an emotoinal, action packed and fully satisfying finale is had by all... and it’s all topped with one of the best sequel hooks i’ve ever seen as FOWL makes themselves known to us.. and prepares to strike. 

4. How Santa Stole Christmas! This one will also be short as i’ve talked about this one.. a lottttt. The initial review, my best christmas specials list and my best of 2020 list. I stand by all of that: this is a unique and wonderful christmas special, i’ll be watching it every year, and i’ts full of charm, humor and gay subtext. In short it’s this series but on christmas footing. 

3. Last Crash of the Sunchaser! 

Another one I covered very recently, this episode is a master piece of suspense, slowly building tension as our heroes get closer and closer to the truth about Della.. and to death, the simple but deadly stakes making this an absolute nailbiter from start to finish. This is some of the series best pacing bar none... but what seals it is the ending: the masterful flashback finally explaning whatever happened to Della duck, our heroes lashing out at each other.. all cumilating in the best Scene of the show. I said it might be in the review but no I can confirm: Scrooge bitterly ruminating over things while we find out just how much he’s lost... ending with him tearfully and angrily sitting once again alone in one hell of a powerful shot echoing Scrooge’s first apperance. Damn fine stuff. 

2. Escape from The Impossbin Only one episode not only matches Last Crash in mounting tension and atmosphere but suprasses it. With FOWL and Bradford’s true nature now out in the wind, this episode uses that to create tension and rattles it’s two most unshakable characters: SCrooge’s normal boundless confidence is shot, not sure he can win this time against an opponent who knows him as well as he knows himself while Beakly slowly unravels, pitting Webby against the boys.. and pitting herself against Webby when Webby sees her terroizing them is only dividing them. Both plots start out funny enough but slowly escalate in tension and stakes until by the end your on the edge of your seat. The Beakly plot is the standout of the two, giving Bentina the starring role she badly needed, having gotten even better in light of the finale. Everyone is at the top of their game and everything builds up to one hell of a twist ending and one hell of a badass boast from our heroes: Their down.. but their far from out and this is far from over. 

1. Nightmare On Kimotor Hill!

I”ll be reviewing this episode in full later this week as part of my Lena retrospective, but I stand by putting it up top. This episode is ducktales in it’s purest form and focuses on it’s best original character as Lena grapples with her self hatred and her past. That core helps anchor an amazing concept: going into the Kid’s dreams and finding out their greatest desires. The results.. are all gloriously rediclous and are easily the best gags of hte series as a whole: Dewey’s high school musical santa claus is going ot high school nonsense from getting a’s in Dewology to running away from the abstract concept of a love intrest, to not getting the sybolism of himself crying a moon made of his own tears. Louie quite literally becoming garfield, and my faviorite scene of the show: Huey, wanting to be the tall older brother..g iving himself horrifcly long leg. While everyone else is just understandably baffled, what makes the scene is the banter between Dewey and Huey, with Schwartz and Pudi at their best as Dewey first freaks out and then asks what the hell man, while Huey defends his weird decision (”I”m not good at imagination stuff okay!”), and then tries to get a jar of pickles. Each dream is just so oddly and wonderfully specific to each kid and each one of the triplests dreams, as well as violets being color coded down tot he backgrounds is a very nice touch. The visuals here are just peak ducktales, using the setting for all it’s worth and the climax is utterly emotoinal and heartbreaking... and Lena’s break from her abuser, finally realizing she has the power now is not only a wonderful metaphor... but also just so damn cathartic. And that’s why this one’s the best to me personally: it just packs so much into 20 minutes: some of the series best and most creative jokes, a gripping emtoinal arc, and so much more. It’s just that damn good and tha’ts why it’s the best... that and starting Huelet for me. Seriously that LIbrary scene is so fucking cute. 

Thank you all for reading. If you liked this artcle, join my patreon and help me get to my stretch goal for monthly darkwing duck reviews, a review of super ducktales and more after! Until the next rainbow... it’s been a pleasure. 

[allhailthemightyquattro]

Okay so I have finished season 6 of Lucifer so now I can properly compile my thoughts. It had a lot of good, but unfortunately it was overshadowed by the bad. Because the finale wasn't just bad, it fundamentally went against the show’s messages of the past six seasons (including the message it tried to give at the end of said finale).

On the good side, all the side stories were lovely. I loved Dan’s journey in particular, and I even grew to like Eve. There were some lovely moments and some great call backs. It’s just a shame they totally screwed the main two characters over.

I’m putting the rest under the cut so if you liked the finale, you don't have to put up with me bitching. Because believe me it will not be kind.

Two big themes throughout the show have been making your own choices, and abandonment. And the finale shat on both of them.

Let’s start with free will. Lucifer has always been about free will. Through the main character who is basically the lord of it, Chloe being a miracle but still being her own person, and Eve finding herself and leaving Adam; making your own choices has always been important. But with all that as a background, they just bowed down to fate at the last minute, and then had the gall to say they weren’t. The whole point of the show was that you shouldn't let outside forces control you, that you make your own destiny. And adding a god damned time loop just ruined it all, made even worse by the fact that this is not a time travel show and no one actually knows what the rules are. 

And the second theme: Abandonment. This issue has also been ripe throughout the show, with nearly every character having some sort of abandonment issues. And in the end, the message the show gave us was that it was a good thing? And that Lucifer is no better than his abusive father? FUCK YOU. Abandoning someone is NEVER “for their own good” it’s just a shitty excuse for not being able to be there.

At first the season tackled it well, with Lucifer being there for Rory and making up for lost time, like Linda did for her child, but then they just did a sudden 180 and said, actually, abandoning a child is the right thing to do. It’s part of the journey they need to make them strong. Once again, FUCK YOU. All it did was make Lucifer and Chloe shitty parents.

And the reason for all this bullshit? Rory - a tacky trope and selfish character. And no I’m not talking about how she treated Lucifer in the beginning, that was understandable (she was a bit cruel to Maze and Eve with her joke but hey she was partly raised by a demon so fair enough). The selfishness didn’t come into play into the finale. You all know the scene I am talking about.

Lets put aside the fact that she was basically a replacement for Trixie, something which the writers put no effort into making us think otherwise (I can think of three things off the top of my head that they could have done to make it a little less obvious without even giving her extra scenes), and focus on Rory thinking she knows what’s best and guilting her father into spending million years alone and leaving her mother and Trixie (not that they seemed to care about her) even knowing that this is the absolute last thing he wanted to do. She’s not an expert in time travel, no one in the show is. Chloe and Lucifer kept changing their minds on time loops and paradoxes so much that it was hard to keep up. But Lucifer and Chloe still bow down to fate instead of fighting for their family - all because a stubborn 40 year old teenager told them to. Did Rory not care about what everyone else went through? Did she not care that “a blip” of time for her is half someone else’s life and millions of years for someone else? Did she not care that her sister had just lost her father and was now going to lose another one? Whatever happened, Rory would have gotten her happy ending, even if it was a different one, but she sacrificed her family’s happiness because she wanted this particular one. And not one of the so-called parents called her out on it. Maybe if there was some sort of sign that changing things would have bent time and destroyed the universe, I would have been okay with it, but there wasn’t. 

If the writers wanted to separate Chloe and Lucifer until death, fine. I can deal with that and was kind of expecting it. But if that’s what they wanted, they should have left it at Series 4. At least in that scenario Lucifer left for the greater good and had an actual reason why he couldn’t come back and forth from Hell. His sacrifice meant something.

All in all, I am heartbroken and feel like I’ve wasted years of my life on these two  characters only to have the writers throw them in the trash. I have always had mixed feelings about the “show, don't tell” advice, but damn these writers needed it. It literally felt like someone’s crappy fanfiction. And I say this as someone who writes and is proud of their crappy fanfiction.

End rant.

[princesswan]

I haven’t been here in ages but I desperately need a place to rant right now. This is gonna be long, I’m sorry but I need to get this off my chest.  So, Bellamy Blake.  This doesn’t make any fucking sense to me. Nothing about this entire season makes sense, but what happened in 7x13? That I just can’t get past. I genuinely can’t believe that the writers room thought that scene out, wrote it and then was like “yeah this is a good way to kill off the male lead who’s been with us since day one”. It makes zero sense that it is a thing that actually happened. I set the bar so low for them and still they manage to achieve a level of shitty, spiteful, senseless and absolutely horrible writing. And it’s not like I was convinced that Bellamy wasn’t gonna die, because deep down we all knew that in some way he was gonna leave us, and I would have been okay with that with time, but not even in my worst nightmares I expected this bullshit to happen on my screen. And I’m mad, I’m so mad right now because I never thought I would come to hate one of my favorite shows in the entire universe. It just doesn’t make sense to me, I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that one of my fav characters is gone just like that, it completely clashes with everything that has happened and has been said in the past six seasons. He died in the worst way EVER, because I’ve never in my entire life witnessed such a horrendous death, killed by one of the people that meant most to him, a person he trusted, that he loved and took care of, and stood with, he died convinced all of his friends hated him, he died without any kind of redemption, without saying goodbye to his sister, he died on another planet, completely alone and abandoned by all of the people he considered his family. And the worst thing is that we saw nothing of him in season 7, he disappeared for most of it and when he got back they made sure he would be villainized, they isolated him and made everyone turn their backs on him without a second thought, without even trying to understand his point, his fears, his story. And then, 3 episodes after getting him back he’s brutally killed, just like that, over a book Clarke didn’t even get. And I know it’s more than just a book and that she wanted to protect Madi, and I absolutely don’t blame her for putting her daughter first, but that scene could have gone in like a thousand different ways, and still, she chose to shoot him, TO DEATH. She could have shot the disciples, and then him in the leg to get the book, I really don’t know, she could have done a million things to prevent literally killing one of the people she was closest with, and still she didn’t, and STILL she left that damn book there. This was just so fucking unnecessary and let me add, so out of character for her. I don’t care, the real Clarke would never ever do that, she couldn’t kill him to save the human race in s4, and I don’t believe for a minute that she would actually do that now, despite the betrayal she could be feeling over her best friend acting like that, she would never do that without thinking of another solution first. And that’s all on Jason’s spiteful ass, this is just a slap in the face of the fans who supported his show through the years no matter what. I knew he loved doing things just to spite us, just to make us feel bad and angry, but this is on another level. He literally killed off Bellamy, ruined one of the most beautiful and developed relationships ever and ruined his show in the matter of 10 seconds because he needed to make a stand and show that it’s his show so he can do whatever the fuck he wants. I still don’t get and will never get Jason’s need to cut Bellamy off like that, but what I know is that this horrible, dumb storyline they gave to the male lead is just because of his private matters with Bob, and that simply shows how disrespectful and unprofessional he is. I don’t give a fuck what their problem was, when you are on set, when you are working on your damn show, you put your differences aside, you try to make the best out of it, for you own sake, for the sake of the content you put out, you don’t just throw away an entire character, his development and his relationships because you are petty. That’s not how things work, but it’s exactly what jason did anyway, and for that I will never forgive him. He really managed to ruin his own show, everyone will literally remember the 100 for this, for his pettiness, for his constant need to bait and then let down the fans; looking back, despite all the fond memories I have of this show, my mind will always go there first. I’m just so ashamed, I feel so disappointed and so emotionally drained like “why did I spend so many years investing my energy in THIS?” and that’s the worst feeling ever in regards to a show, it just means that the story failed. I’ve never regretted watching anything before, even when things got bad and out of control, and now I just kinda wish I never put myself through this in the first place. I’m so sorry for what it has become, I’m so sorry for the cast who worked so hard for this last season to be a complete mess only because a childish, petty, ridiculous show runner made the dumbest decisions ever, turning his own product into a fucking joke of a show, solely to concentrate on a prequel project that’s not even assured to be picked up, solely to get revenge on his lead for who knows what fight they had in the past. But most of all, I’m so sorry for Bellamy Blake who deserved at least the chance to get his redemption arc, to work things out with his friends, to have them understand him, to reconcile with all the people he loved, to get a chance at happiness. He deserved so much better but he was left with nothing. As we are. And lastly I’m sorry for the fandom, we deserved so much better too.

[imaginedmelody]

Thanksgiving “Community” Fic Rec Post!

It’s been a hot second since I posted fic recs on this blog! When I went to put this list together, the “Community” fics vastly outnumbered everything else I was planning to include. So I’m dividing this into 2 posts: you’ll get the “Community” ones now, so I can take time to track down some of my faves from other fandoms.

Not to sound saccharine, but Thanksgiving is about gratitude, and the Community fandom is the one I’m most grateful for this year. Both the show and the people I’ve met because of it made 2020 go from a hell year to...well, a slightly more bearable hell year, if we’re honest. And the fandom produces some damn good fics. So here they are, in no particular order, for your quarantine reading pleasure! And be sure to let me know your favorites that I might have missed!

1. “Advanced Companion Reconciliation” by adorations; Troy/Abed, not rated, complete (but part of a series marked in-progress)

This is one of the first fics that really stood out to me when I started getting into Community fic in the late spring/early summer of this year. The fandom is filled with post-series reunion fics where Troy goes to find Abed in LA, and this one is particularly exquisite. The whole story is wonderful, but I’ll go ahead and publicly state that Chapter 4 of this fic is one of the best single pieces of writing I read on AO3 this year. The level of intimacy and understanding and protectiveness between the characters, even in a non-romantic context, is mind-blowing. Their relationship just builds and builds beautifully.

2. “Lessons in Adjustment” and “Remedial Recovery” by biggod ( @nadir-barnes ); Troy/Abed, mature (LiA) / explicit (RR), complete (but part of a series marked in-progress)

A tender, angsty, but absolutely beautiful pair of fics- the first about chronic illness, the second about mental health. It can be a real gamble to take characters from a piece of comedic media and write about them undergoing scary and sad things, but Cherie does it perfectly here. This series will break your heart and make it soar at the same time, because even as Abed struggles to face a painful (and painfully realistic) diagnosis, the love between the characters and their humanity just shines right through. By the end of “Remedial Recovery,” I could feel that moment of learning to wake up to life again just like the characters were. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

3. “Studies in Evolution of Affection” by onemechanicalalligator ( @1mechanicalalligator ); Jeff/Abed, explicit, complete

There are some writers where the main barrier to including them in rec posts like this is that you want to rec everything they’ve written. Maya is absolutely one of those writers. Her fics may not have been the first I read when I joined the fandom, but they were one of the first where I began to make friends, to have conversations and feel like an active participant in the fandom. Like Cherie (above), Maya has also written fics about the characters going through dark situations, especially Abed dealing with mental illness and Jeff recovering from alcoholism (both of which, while dealt with more seriously in her fics than in the show, are canon-compliant aspects of the characters). And there is a special place in my heart for those, but if I had to choose one fic to recommend out of all of her dozens of works, it would be this one. Jeff/Abed is a rarer, more niche pairing, but one with incredible potential, since both Jeff and Abed are damaged in their own ways (and often understand each other better than the others, especially in the later seasons- even when they’re at odds). Each of the chapters is a little glimpse into a different scenario as Jeff and Abed’s relationship develops. Some of them are connected, and some are more stand-alone, but they’re all filled with lovely fluff and hurt/comfort.

4. “Seminar on the Legality of RomCom Tropes” by ama ( @greenandhazy ); Troy/Abed, teen, complete

No joke, this fic may actually have made me cry a little from all the emotions it gave me. It definitely made me gasp and burrow into the pillows smiling and say “awww” out loud. It starts with a pretty solid romantic comedy fake-dating premise: instead of Pierce requiring Troy to sail around the world to earn his $14 million inheritance, the conditions in this fic are that he must get married in one month and remain married for at least a year. After trying and failing to find a partner, Abed agrees to marry him to fulfill the terms of the agreement. And this begins an epic slow-burn for the ages, that rivals any romance movie I’ve watched in recent memory. The way they have to act like a happily married couple while, at the same time, not acknowledging their growing feelings for each other- it’s so beautiful and the longing is exquisite. By the time it ended, the joy I felt was incredible. This is the only single-chapter non-series fic on this list, so if you’re looking to read just one standalone, this is a perfect heartwarming choice.

5. “Basic Heartbreak Repair” by lgbtrobed ( @lgbtrobed ); Troy/Abed, explicit, complete as of TODAY!

While we’re on the topic of slow-burn... This fic is another perfect example of that. It sets up a scenario where the study group reunites in Colorado at Troy’s house, which they are using for Jeff and Britta’s wedding, years after the finale. They’ve kept in touch, but Troy and Abed have only seen each other once since Troy got back from his time at sea- and they’ve never discussed their feelings. The romantic buildup between them is just amazing; they’ve had all this distance, so things feel new, but at the same time it’s palpable how well they know each other. So every little step they take towards one another is absolutely note-perfect.

I can easily think of a dozen amazing fics that I didn’t even have room to include on this list. This fandom is full of some of the most ridiculously talented writers you can imagine. And now that the show is on Netflix streaming and enjoying a revival of popularity, there’s more fandom activity than it’s seen in years. I can’t wait to see what amazing works are waiting for us in 2021!

[yukinojou]

I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

[salarta]

What don't you like about Lorna's characterization in X-Factor?

Thanks for asking!

I believe in transparency, so before I get into that, I want to provide a little background on the point of view I’m coming from that influences my opinions.

I was opposed to Lorna being on X-Factor when it was announced. There was already a lot of bad blood and history for me with Marvel as a result of these past few years especially. I won’t exhaustively detail all of it, but the bottom line is, I was already in a place of having a low opinion of current X-Men comics in general.

Then when it was announced she would be on X-Factor, not even as the leader but just as a team member, that immediately grated on me. She’s been buried and sidelined for so long, and now she’s not only right back on the same title yet again after 30 years - that’s a second wave fringe title - she’s not even leading it, or doing other, more meaningful things outside it simultaneously.

Then I saw the interviews by X-Factor’s writer at announcement, which immediately gave me a couple red flags. One, the writer couldn’t seem to say a single thing about Lorna besides essentially “Magneto is her dad and Havok is her ex.” Not even about trauma, of which Lorna has tons of it. Yet she had no problem acknowledging trauma as an important story point for other characters. Two, in trying to form her opinion of Lorna, she said she talked to a couple friends, one of which she said put the Lorna x Havok relationship in a “new light” for her. Meaning she was limiting her fan input just to a couple people she knows and whatever biases those two have, at the exclusion of all others.

That’s my background. Before a single issue dropped. Now let’s get to the things I have problems with since it’s started getting published.

And I do welcome people correcting me if I’m incorrect about details of the book. Being wrong happens. The only true path toward a better future for Lorna is honest assessment.

My biggest problem with X-Factor’s characterization, as a whole, is that it completely disregards important parts of her history in the way she should think and act, and instead treats her like a blank slate.

This is clearest in X-Factor #4, the issue during X of Swords where Rockslide dies. Lorna is a survivor of the Genoshan genocide. We saw how deeply that wounded her. We outright saw her experience of being hailed as a sovereign princess by the people of Genosha, followed by those same people begging Lorna, specifically, to save them. Only for Lorna to be unable to do so, and unable to handle all the death and carnage and pain around her (note these pages are in order of her experiences, not publication order).

After the Genoshan genocide, we saw how not only did she survive this, she had those moments replaying constantly in her head and all around her until the other X-Men dug her out of Genosha’s ruins.

She suffered immensely from what happened to her. So much. But by the end, after dealing with the strain and trauma for so much time, she started to settle into a role from that experience somewhere in between Xavier and Magneto - which is extremely appropriate, considering her very first appearance in comics was all about her struggling between the “good of the X-Men” and the “evil of her father’s blood flowing through her veins” (as it was incredibly simplistic at the time).

This is the Lorna that came out of her hardships with Genosha. The one who felt the weight of those deaths and took them on to a point of being ready to fight for mutant rights.

In spite of this, Marvel has been ignoring the Genoshan genocide concerning Lorna’s history for 15 years now. Refusing to acknowledge it at all, as they let Jean fight Cassandra Nova on its ruins, and let Storm act outraged about its dead, and let Axis exploit it for Red Skull while Lorna’s written as off doing something completely unrelated.

The problem noted in the paragraph above is not X-Factor’s problem alone. It’s a running problem across all of Marvel.

But where X-Factor differs and is far, far worse is that X-Factor #4 not only completely ignored this event in her history. It had her behave as if she had no concept whatsoever of death and loss, had never received the development she did from the Genoshan genocide.

For over 15 years, Lorna’s been wiped from the Genosha story even though she went through the genocide and had served at Magneto’s side (before learning she was his daughter after all) during his rule. Not once in any of that time did Marvel allow the deaths of millions crying for her specifically to save them to impact their treatment of her. It’s been as if she suddenly no longer gives a damn about them.

But one mutant she doesn’t know at all dies nearby and she has a complete breakdown, running around unable to figure out what to do with herself, getting yelled at by her father to make the prophecies come out and later on wishing she could just disappear and stop being a part of anything at all?

That is not Lorna. Or rather, maybe it could count as Lorna from the 90s before Genosha ever happened. But it is absolutely not post-Genosha Lorna, the woman who endured the pain of millions dying all around her and came out of it a woman ready to fight through that pain.

Perhaps if this story acknowledged and incorporated the Genoshan genocide, did an incredibly good job justifying her behavior through that and making it all make sense, I would feel differently. But as it stands? This is an insult to everything she’s endured.

Which gets me to my other big complaints about this book. It doesn’t ACTUALLY acknowledge anything about her history at all.

This is where fans of the book will say “Oh X-Factor acknowledged Giant-Size X-Men when she built the base” and things like that. No. The book has only vaguely hinted at that history, which is very different from truly acknowledging and using it. The few times the book does this, such “acknowledgments” last for exactly one panel, and you have to be a real hardcore Lorna fan or long-time reader to have any chance whatsoever of seeing those statements as callbacks to her past. If you’re a casual reader, Lorna’s comment to Krakoa before creating the base could just as easily be read as that Lorna and Krakoa used to date and had a really bad breakup.

I’ve been asked before what would count as acknowledging her past. So here’s an example. Instead of the vague hinting with Krakoa, Lorna could’ve explicitly said something along the lines of “Hey, remember when Storm and the others helped me launch you out into space?” That would have been enough for a casual reader to know the amazing feat she did, its importance relative to current Marvel events, AND that she has a history with major known names in the franchise. 

But as written? It’s just a silly little joke of a character who’s apparently never done anything notable or interesting “before now.”

Aside from these problems, I’m not keen on what has over time appeared to be a running theme of “Lorna is stupid” on this book. It started with this simple “joke.”

An important note: this panel is out of context. It looks worse by itself, but I have since been corrected by a reader that what happened before this was Northstar trying to charge in, Lorna trying to stop him, both getting caught in this trap, followed by Rachel’s quip. And they do have a history from before X-Factor. They were on the same team, Starjammers, in the late 00s to early 10s.

If this was the only case I had, I wouldn’t be bringing it up. It’s fine taken in isolation. There’s a question of why Lorna’s the sole target of the quip when it was Northstar’s fault, and a problem that people could easily misremember this in the future as Lorna taking the blame. But a single moment is no big deal.

But then we have the scene from X-Factor #4 above where Magneto’s written as yelling at her, putting her down for not being able to get the prophecies out. Lorna even explicitly calls it a “fitting humiliation” during that story.

And then we have the most recent issue. Where Siryn outright calls Lorna dumb as the story has her act in a way that makes her being called that appropriate.

In other words, three times now, Lorna’s been presented as the object of ridicule. As a failure who isn’t able to make plans, think ahead, or handle these stresses that come her way. In essence, it’s wiping out the development she received not just from her experiences on Genosha, but also from her time as leader of All-New X-Factor. Would YOU expect this character, as presented, to be at all capable of leading her own team some day? Or of leading people in a movement, harkening back to when she was called the Queen of Mutants both post-Genosha and when she was initially revealed and Magneto was believed to be dead?

My expectations of X-Factor before it started releasing issues were low, as stated above. But as it’s been releasing issues, it’s just been confirming my worst thoughts about Marvel and how little they think of this amazing character who’s been through so much and never receives her due.

All it’s doing is exploiting her to sell the book and promote everyone else on it. That is my straightforward assessment and opinion of the book. None of the stories or moments truly address anything Lorna’s experienced. The initial story was about Aurora, setting up Northstar as the leader, and forming the team. The Mojoworld story was about Shatterstar. X-Factor #4 was about Rockslide and his death. The latest story is about Siryn.

And it’s great for all these other characters that they’re getting all this care and attention that they often don’t get. But it doesn’t have to come at Lorna’s expense. If she’s going to be on the book, it has to actually give a damn about what she’s been through and how it’s shaped her, and openly acknowledge her too often forgotten past spanning 52 years.  

I am not saying X-Factor taken as its own thing is bad. I’m not saying it treats any of the other characters bad. I’m saying it’s bad for Lorna, and she’s better off not on it even if she doesn’t get to join the new X-Men team. 

I will end off on a bit more of a positive note for people who happen to like this book. There are a couple things I do like about it.

I like the creative usage of Lorna’s powers in building the team’s base, and in having the prophecies encoded in electromagnetic signatures. Those are an excellent way to show she can be and do other things besides “bend spoons,” and she’s not just “Magneto with boobs” as far as power usage.

I also like that the book does not have a sexism problem in its treatment Lorna. Past treatment of Lorna had this problem in a big way, as demonstrated by this awful as fuck cover from X-Men Blue.

And I partly like the very last few panels of X-Factor #4, in that Lorna gets to do some public speaking among mutant colleagues. I loathe the treatment leading up to it, and I think it could’ve been much better if it followed the vein of one of the variant covers of Lorna holding up a sword in front of an army as if urging them onward to battle as a warrior queen would. But it was still better than okay.

But those few good bits do not in any way make up for the bad as I’ve seen it in this book.

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 11

Filming for Steamboat had wrapped by the first Saturday in September. Weeks of cutting still remained on the horizon, but Buster could do that from the comfort of his production room at the Villa. The cutting was precisely why he was now knocking on Joe’s office door. If he had anything to say about it, the words ‘Supervised by Harry Brand’ would not appear anywhere in the credits. Once was more than enough. 

“Come in,” said Joe. 

Buster walked in and seated himself in the chair in front of Schenck’s desk. 

“What’s on your mind?” said Joe. He was drinking coffee.

“The picture. What’s on anyone’s mind right now?” said Buster affably.

“Sure,” said Joe. “Still on track to finish tomorrow?”

“That’s the plan,” said Buster. 

Joe wasn’t stupid and Buster could see that he was trying to figure out what the visit was about. He seemed a little uneasy as he sipped his coffee.

“So,” said Joe. 

“Sew buttons,” Buster said, the witticism lame and off-handed, before getting down to business. “Anyway, I was thinking about how we’re going to cut the picture and that got me to thinking about the credits. About how we’re doing things in general.”

Joe looked at him, waiting for him to go on.

“So you’ve got a picture. Say it’s a Doug Fairbanks picture. For example, Doug comes on and you say, ‘Douglas Fairbanks supervised by Joe Doakes.’ It’s bad on the face of it. You’re belittling Fairbanks. Fairbanks, not Doakes, is what you’re selling.” Buster leaned forward and knit his hands on the desk. 

“I’m listening,” said Joe. A frown was creeping onto his face. 

“When you’re talking about a picture, what do you really need? Three things. One man writes it, another man directs it, and a star acts it. Those three people are responsible for every great picture that was ever made. In some cases one man is all three—Chaplin,” said Buster.

“I see where you’re going with this and I disagree,” said Joe, giving a frown. “Supervisors are the big thing. All the big studios are using them.”

“Maybe they are,” he said. “But they can be wrong. It’s not going to last long. The whole damned thing’s a bad joke.”

Joe shook his head, looking displeased.

Buster laid the trump card on the table, poker-faced but confident. “There’ll be no more supervisors in the pictures Buster Keaton makes.”

He waited for Joe to reply. As the seconds ticked by in silence, he began to wonder if he was in for a real fight. He’d said he was taking the pot, but maybe Joe didn’t know that he wasn’t bluffing.

At last, Joe cleared his throat and said something. Buster had to lean forward to catch it. His brain grappled with the words, not comprehending.

Buster Keaton isn’t going to make any more pictures.

That’s what Joe had said. 

He sat back in stunned silence as Joe continued. 

“No, no,” said Joe. “That didn’t come out right. What I mean, Buster, is that you’re not going to make any more pictures for me. I’m dissolving the studio.”

“Why?” Buster managed to say. His lips felt tight and dry. 

“Now I don’t want you to worry,” Joe said, holding up a hand in a benevolent way. “I’ve gotten it all straightened out. You’re going over to M-G-M. That’s where Nick is. He’ll take great care of you. Look, I know it’s not what you want, but just think about it for a minute. You’ll have ten times the opportunities. A whole staff of writers working for you, helping you with cutting and production and stories. The money’s bigger. The pictures will be better. You can’t lose, it’s a chance of a lifetime.”

Buster couldn’t make his mouth work. Joe was now waxing poetic about the settlement Buster would be getting for his interests in the studio. The studio? His studio. Buster Keaton Productions. Five thousand dollars for eight years of making millions for Joe, and now he was finding out in the worst possible that he didn’t have the power in his own enterprise that he thought he did.

“Nick will treat you just like his own son. I’m telling you, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Joe was more animated now as he reviewed the details. It was clear that he had been chewing on this decision for a while now and there was no appealing it.  

Buster listened on in disbelief. An image was crystalizing in his mind of a theater trunk sitting in an alley, left behind and forgotten. He’d felt exactly the same way the day he’d split up The Three Keatons. 

He didn’t remember what he said to Joe before leaving the office. He didn’t even remember leaving the office. He just found himself walking east on Romaine Street toward 1025 Lillian Way. His thoughts couldn’t seem to coalesce. He supposed he was in shock. Part of him wanted to think that it was all a dirty joke, but Joe—Joe, who attended the Sunday barbecues at the Villa faithfully, who had been so worried for Buster when he’d returned from France that he’d emptied his wallet for him, who’d lent Buster money to buy his first house—had never been that kind of man when it came to serious matters. Buster was torn between wanting a stiff drink and wanting to jump off a bridge. 

He did neither, of course. Back at Lillian Way, there was a film to finish. He now knew what the crowning gag would be. Tomorrow, the Saphead Would Face Down Certain Death. Whether he survived, he didn’t much care at the moment. *** Nelly had never worked on a Sunday before, but the Sunday before Labor Day was the final day of shooting and she couldn’t object even if she wanted to. Of course she didn’t want to. She’d been with the picture from almost the first and couldn’t think of a greater honor than finishing it out. The other actors and much of the crew had departed since they’d left Sacramento, and now it was just her, Bert, Buster, and a skeleton crew. A small set had been built on the United Artists lot and she was presently furnishing a small two-story house. The second story needed only to be filled with boxes, but the main floor required homey touches, so she and Bert arranged a rug, a sofa, a chair, and pictures on the wall. She set a lamp on a table in the center of the room. The house had a breakaway facade that was lying face-down in the dirt, but had hinges enabling it to be drawn up. 

As she decided whether a fringed floor lamp should go to the left or right of the sofa, Buster and one of the crew walked up. They both got on top of the flat facade and she watched, pretending to be busy with the lamp, as Buster stood in the frame of an open second-story window and looked to the top of the house. She positioned the lamp to the left of the sofa and slid the cord under it and out of sight. When she glanced at Buster again, he was hammering a nail into the dirt inside the window frame. She couldn’t imagine what he was doing. Plumping one of the throw pillows on the sofa, she looked again. He was hammering a second nail. “This’ll do it,” he said to the crewmember.

Bert came through the back door of the house with an armful of curtains as Buster and the crewmember walked away. 

“What’s he doing?” Nelly said to him under her breath.

“Buster?” said Bert, sounding a little out of breath as he dumped the curtains on the sofa. “Figuring out where to stand. The facade’s gonna come down right on top of him. Except he ends up in the window and doesn’t get hurt.”

“On top of him?” said Nelly, her innards seeming to go cold. The breakaway facades weighed a ton. The crew and cast had been warned to stay well away from them when the previous breakaway scenes were filmed, since getting caught underneath one would spell catastrophe.

“That’s right,” said Bert. “It was just supposed to fall down near him, scare him a little bit, then he’d run toward another building and it would fall down too, but he got the idea to have the window pass over him last night he said.” Bert didn’t seem to be at all perturbed by the nature of the stunt as he set to hanging a curtain.

“He’s going to get killed!” Nelly said, rooted to the spot. “That facade has to weigh at least a ton.”

“Two tons,” Bert said, walking across the room and pulling down another curtain rod. He eased a curtain onto it.

Nelly felt panicked. “He’s crazy. He’ll get killed. Has anyone tried talking him out of it?”

Bert laughed. “You think anyone has ever talked Buster Keaton out of anything once he’s got an idea in his head?”

“He’ll be killed,” she said. She was starting to feel almost hysterical. 

“Trust Buster,” Bert said, stretching up to hang the curtain on his tiptoes. “He’s always fine.” Nelly sat down on the couch, trying to calm her thoughts. Bert was probably right, but suppose …

All of her supposes, like the hinges failing or a wind machine shifting the facade just inches in either direction, ended up with Buster crushed to death. Bert walked back out the back door and she barely noticed. She tried to think of some way to stop the maddening act, but couldn’t. She didn’t know Buster as well as Bert, but she knew Bert was right. Nothing stopped Buster once he was set on something.

“Better move, sweetheart, we don’t want you in the scene.” She looked up and Buster was at the corner of the house peering in at her. 

It was her chance to beg him to reconsider, to throw herself on him, scream, and rend his clothes. Instead, she apologized and let herself out the back door. There was nothing that causing a ruckus would do except delay filming and possibly get her kicked off the set, spoiling her future chances of working for the Buster Keaton Studios. The facade gave a titanic creaking as it was eased back into place. Outside of the set, a couple crew members were wetting the dirt in front of the house with a hose so that it was slick and muddy as if from a cyclone. Nelly made her way toward some other crew members clustered off-camera to the right of the house. As she got closer, she noticed they were huddled in a funny way. 

“...hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.”

They were praying. The realization almost made her sick to her stomach. She didn’t go in for religion, but as she stopped in their midst, she made the decision to join them. If there was any chance the prayer would spare Buster, it was worth it. The ending lines had a foreboding potency they’d never had before.

“But deliver us from evil

Now and at the hour of our death.”

The hour of our death. She looked up and saw Buster a few feet from them, looking placid in his baggy pants and suspenders. Was she seeing a man in the final hour of his life? If she had any sense, she’d leave. There was no reason to watch this. Yet she felt duty-bound to stay. A superstition said that maybe it would help preserve him from the stunt going wrong. 

She watched Buster helplessly as the minutes went by and the final preparations were made to the set and the cameras. The wind machines were turned on and Buster walked in front of the house. He went down to his knees and sprawled out flat onto his chest in the mud.

“What’s he doing?” she said to one of the electricians.

“Continuity,” the electrician replied. “He was muddy in the scene we shot yesterday.”

The cameraman yelled something she didn’t hear and Buster walked in front of the house. He faced one of the cameras. Nelly felt almost light-headed. What if the wind had blown the nails out of place? What if—

Buster rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his jaw. The house’s machinery groaned and the facade heaved forward. At the last second, she turned her head. There was a gut-wrenching thud as the facade landed. Tears sprang into her eyes. 

After an interminable second or so, a roar went up from the men around her and they began to clap. She looked back. Through the glaze of her tears, she could just make out Buster, still rubbing his neck and rolling his jaw nonchalantly. A great cloud of dust had sprung up. Buster pretended to suddenly realize what had just happened and dashed out of the ruined facade, stopping once at a safe distance to stare at the house in terror. 

“Cut!” shouted the cameraman over the wind.

The group of men headed toward Buster at a clip. There were hoots and handshakes and claps on the back, and Buster was grinning. Nelly shielded her face with her hand and cried, overcome with relief. She still felt weak and sick. 

“Why are you crying?” said Buster.

He had crept up without her noticing. She turned her face away quickly, shaking her head. “Because you’re a damned idiot!” she said, not caring now whether speaking her mind would ruin her chances of staying on with him. “You had no business doing that.”

Buster touched her shoulder. “Look, I’m okay, ain’t I?”

She shied away. “No gag is worth your life,” she said. 

Buster looked surprised. His hand fell from her shoulder. “Okay.”

He left to go talk to the second cameraman and Nelly stole away, tears still coming, feeling downright dreadful. She wished she hadn’t stayed on for the final day of filming. It hadn’t been the celebratory end she’d expected. It had been awful, like seeing a man trying to commit suicide but by a miracle failing. Note: The dialogue with Joe Schenck is adapted from Rudi Blesh’s biography.

[linmanwe11]

P-P-P-P-PRIZEO

Pairing: Lin-Manuel Miranda x Reader

Words: 1,731 words (Part 3 will PROBABLY be the longest)

Warnings: Swearing, WAY TOO MUCH FLIRTING, Lin’s eyes and his lips (they’re so damn nice and pretty)

Summary: It’s been about a week since you found out that you won the Prizeo contest, and you and Lin have kept in contact. It’s finally time for your date, and you couldn’t be more excited yet anxious for the day to unfold.

A/N: It’s slow burn, y’all... Just wait for part 3. I hope you’re enjoying this so far!

-

Part Two: THE DATE

Nearly a week after it was announced that you were the winner of the Prizeo contest, the time had finally come for you to meet Lin. To say you were nervous was an understatement- you were TERRIFIED. Since that day, you and Lin had texted every day, just getting to know one another. Of course, you saved most of the “important topics” for your date, but you let him know the bare minimum about you, and he did the same.

Since it was a Saturday Matinee, you woke up earlier than usual to start getting ready, and also because you couldn’t wait to finally see Lin in person. After seeing him once as Usnavi and then so many years of seeing his success through a screen, you could hardly wait any longer. You picked out the perfect outfit; a beautiful black dress with a slit that rode up to your thigh, black heels, and matching jewelry. As you sat in your bathroom while you did your hair and makeup, you felt your phone vibrate against the counter. Unlocking it, you were all too familiar with who was texting you.

From: Lin I legit cannot wait to see you today. I’ve never been this excited about meeting a prizeo contest winner before… Seriously!

To: Lin I can’t wait either. Talking to you this past week has been unreal, like a dream come true. I still can’t believe I won! Even if I didn’t win, I’m still so happy that I was able to help and contribute to such a great cause.

From: Lin I’m really glad to hear that, [Y/N]. You’re probably getting ready right now, so I’ll leave you to it. I’ll see you in a bit, love.

You smiled to yourself, the anticipation growing inside. As you finished getting ready, he called you and said he was on his way, and you laughed as he told you how cool the limo was, [Y/N], this limo is so DOPE. Checking yourself one last time in the mirror, you grabbed your small purse and tried your best to calm yourself down. Finally, you heard the buzzer go off followed by Lin’s voice letting you know it was him. You buzzed him up then patiently waited by the door before you heard him knock.


When you opened it, you saw his jaw drop as he looked you over and you blushed as you saw how he was looking at you. 

“Wow...” 

He looked at you as if you were the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on, and he felt his heart light up and his stomach turned upside down while butterflies flew all throughout it, he was in love from the beginning.

For you, just about the same thing was happening. Sure, you had seen photos, videos, and read interviews and listened to podcasts, but you weren’t prepared for how you would feel when you met him in real life. He was… breathtaking to say the very least. His short hair fixed neatly, the suit fitting him perfectly in all the right places, and his eyes, oh goodness, his eyes. They were dark, but you felt as if you could see the entire universe by just looking through his eyes. You looked at him, your eyes studying him carefully when he looked in your eyes, and you felt it. Something was definitely there between you two, you both knew it, and you just smiled at each other before he held out his hand for you to take, his fingers lacing themselves with yours.

“You look beautiful, [Y/N]. Even more beautiful than I imagined.”

“Thank you. You look very handsome, Lin-Manuel. Way more handsome than I’ve seen in any picture or video of you. I can’t believe this is happening! I’m so excited!”

“Well then, let’s get going then, shall we?”

You smiled at him as he led you down to the limo which was waiting for the two of you outside your apartment building. He opened the door for you and you felt goosebumps as he placed his hand on the small of your back, following you into the vehicle.

“Such a gentleman! How sweet.”

“I try, [Y/N], I try.”

He said before he smiled at you as you sat next to one another, the two of you riding in a comfortable silence as you drove down the streets of New York. You had such a deep love and passion for the city that never sleeps, even in the afternoon glow, you admired the lights of the city with nothing but love.

Finally, you arrived at the wondrous Richard Rodgers Theater, your eyes lighting up as the ‘Hamilton’ sign came into view.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy SHIT! Lin! I can’t believe I’m here! I’m about to see HAMILTON with YOU!”

“C’mon, love, let’s show the world the beautiful Prizeo winner.”

Lin stepped out first and you followed, being greeted by flashing cameras and people yelling to get Lin’s attention. He walked you to the stage door, stopping for a few pictures, and then you walked into the theater. You got to meet the entire cast, each and every one of them congratulating you on winning and telling you how beautiful you were before Lin escorted you to your seats, it felt like you were in a dream.

As the show started, you looked at the stage, the actors, and the dancers with such wonder and amazement, you hardly noticed that Lin was doing the same, except he was looking at you instead of the stage. In the middle of the show, you felt Lin’s hand find a resting place on your thigh. It was respectful, of course, but the feeling still gave you goosebumps and made you shiver. You looked over at him, and he looked at you, eyes meeting with nothing but love, and you placed your hand on top of his, leaving it in its place on your thigh.

You were bawling by the end, and you were on your feet in a split second. Its’ reputation proceeded itself, it was single-handedly the most beautiful piece of art you had ever seen. Wiping away your tears, you and Lin made your way out of the theater, back to the limo, and towards the restaurant.

“Wow, Lin, this restaurant is REALLY fancy.” You said to him as you sat down.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful! I love it.”

“So, what’d you think of Hamilton?”

“Oh my goodness, it was… amazing isn’t even a good enough way to describe it. It was everything than I hoped it would be. Hell, it was even BETTER than what I hoped it would be, I loved it so much. You really did create a piece of art.”

“Thank you, [Y/N]. I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it. So, as first dates usually go, tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I was born here in New York and grew up in Queens. When I graduated from college at NYU, I got a job as a high school Advanced English teacher, but I’ve had a few writing jobs on the side. That’s really my main goal, to be a writer, but as you know, it’s hard, but I love teaching and wouldn’t mind making an actual career out of it.”

“That’s amazing, I’d love to read some of your work if you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind at all! And what about you?”


“What do you want to know?”

“Anything you’re willing to tell me. I’m all ears.”

And just like that, the two of you went on for what seemed like hours, taking small breaks to eat. You had never connected with someone so quickly, and you were pretty surprised considering the fact that this man was possibly the most famous person in his industry, he was so unbelievably humble.

“I meant what I said earlier, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re really beautiful.” He said it with so much sincerity, you knew your face was candy apple red from blushing. He chuckled then kept the conversation going.

As the date went on, the two of you began scooting closer to one another, and before you knew it, Lin was holding your hand, his thumb stroking your smooth skin, eyes listening intently, and never leaving your face as you spoke. You loved how expressive and animated he was when he talked- his hands almost never staying still and his eyes lighting up and telling a million stories within themselves. He was honestly a dream, you still couldn’t quite believe you were here with him.

As your bodies drew closer together, you turned your head to look at him and he did the same. You just stared at each other, eyes drowning in his before you saw him glance down at your lips then back up to meet your eyes as you did the same to his, hoping you could get your mind elsewhere but in that exact moment, he licked then bit his bottom lip. You exhaled heavily, trying to slow your heartbeat and the arousal you were suddenly feeling. Lin was feeling the exact same thing, and he couldn’t deny his own arousal, then he smiled when he saw you begin to blush once again.

“You’re really cute when you blush.”

“Oh, so I’m just cute?”

“Well, I’d say something else Miss [L/N], but I don’t want to scare you off…” He said, barely above a whisper, his face getting closer to yours, lips only centimeters apart now.

“I don’t scare easily, Lin-Manuel. I’m not that kind of woman.”

“No, you’re not… You’re more than beautiful and this dress… Wow. You make it look so damn good, so sexy.”

You felt the wetness that had suddenly gathered between your legs accumulate as you swallowed hard, your lips now brushing against his. Lin looked into your eyes once more before letting his gaze flick back down to your lips, he leaned his head to the side, and then-

CRASH.

You both jumped apart from one another as two waiters bumped into one another causing one of them to drop a tray full of drinks. He smiled at you, and you let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding in.

“[Y/N], I know this technically isn’t included with the prize, but I don’t really want to end this date. Do you maybe want to take this somewhere else? We can walk around the city if you’d like? I’d love to see some of your favorite spots, and I’d love to show you mine.”

“I’d love that, Lin-Manuel.”

“Great, let’s go.”

Lin paid the bill, grabbed your hand, then led you out into the night.

-

Part One: THE CONTEST

Part Three: THE PRIZE

[staliasjeronica]

Riverdale S5 Ep9 Thoughts

It’s been awhile since I’ve watched Riverdale, I’m getting bored with them going back to Varchie out of literal nowhere and I’m assuming BH will soon follow because they don’t know how to write anything else even though that’s all the show needs to be good. Look how great the show was when they were finally starting to give us Barchie…. anyways thoughts under the cut so this post doesn’t clog up the tag. Also: MANIFESTING JERONICA AND BARCHIE BYE

- Honestly a lot of people are weirded out/annoyed by the alien plot but I love aliens so I’m lowkey okay with it.

- Alice this is Riverdale you really think some bad coincidence couldn’t have happened right after Polly left the phone booth?

- Veronica stop using money for no reason PLEASE. And god more VA scenes I’m so tired of it… though somehow it fits better than them being together as teens. But we’re not forgetting how he cheated on her with Betty, still loves Betty, and is mostly just going back to Veronica because it’s “comfortable”

- TABITHA AND VERONICA SCENE!! They look so good standing near one another ugh

- … if I heard the football coach say that over the intercom I’d literally think he’s a whiny piece of shit and never go to the games in spite. What the fuck was that???

- Jughead acting like he probably wouldn’t have written a story like that kid when he was in school lol okay...

- Reggie pointing at each bulldog and calling them a loser on his way out…. what the actual fuck asdfgjkl;

- Give Veronica literally anything than plots surrounding Archie and Hiram we’re so fucking TIRED

- Veronica needs Archie to talk to Reggie about this boring football bs but will make a wager with her dad that will go against everything Archie would like… please nothing about them as a couple has changed!!! IT’S SO BAD AND BORING!!!! WE DON’T WANT THEM!!!

- We really could have had teachers!Barchie and Jeronica but noooo they’d rather cater to toxic bh and va who don’t deserve to have their boring ships that ruin their characters. Why did Riverdale get stuck with the people who can’t write to save their lives?

- Cheryl and Betty finally having an actually good conversation wow-

- VA once again in bed sigh. The only thing getting me through is that Archie seems much happier with Betty muah

- Veronica stop being cute I’m trying to hate you and Archie getting back together out of nowhere

- Betty please for once in your life stop lying… I know you’re trying to protect her but if Polly really is dead it’s gonna hurt even worse now that you gave her hope

- LERMAN LOGAN AAFJDSHKHFJDFASHJKN THAT’S HIS FUCKING NAME? BRUH-

- “The story could have alluded to stuff happening at home.” “Then you should have come to us!” yes because parents who were abusing their child totally wouldn’t say anything to throw off the teacher who’s just trying to make sure their student is okay…….. why would he go to the parents first?

- #Kangs Cheryl shh we already don’t like them together please stop… anyways Swangs and Keggie when???

- Fangs really dated Kevin for 7 years, weirded out with his bf going into the woods to hook up with strangers and only now is talking about it… and they thought they’d be able to marry and have a baby together??? damn anyways SWANGS AND KEGGIE WHEN????

- But also Fangs is so right that’s why Kevin’s angry

- Adult friends BH is literally so much better than teenage co dependent toxic wannabe detectives but also if this makes them get together, also out of nowhere, I will rip out my hair

- what kind of nick name is T-Dub………… but anyways this scene was so cute

- See adult BH and VA could have been so good if they kept romance out of it since they already milked the shit out of it for four seasons (at least three too long), because them as adults, as FRIENDS feels so good to watch.

- HIRAM BENCHES REGGIE BC HE DOESN’T WANT TO LITERALLY BREAK A CHILD’S LEGS?!?!??!? This is how we get Reggie back to the “good side” and not Beggie sighhhhhhh imagine if we had good writers

- Betty’s like “…… the mothmen……. god I literally grew up to be a real detective what is this bullshit?"

- Also instead of mothmen why not just make it all about aliens by themselves

- This proves that BH is STILL not compatible after five seasons muah I guess I can deal with boring VA as long as the worst of the worst, BH, is gonna stay dead. At least VA is hot

- That edited picture of Betty and Polly I— afsdfhfasf

- Polly deserved so much better… anyways go read my Sweet Pea x Polly drabble!!! based after the time jump :)

- Kevin please if you’re gonna painfully flirt please learn a few actually good pick up lines

- Ummmm okay first of all why did that guy not say anything about Kevin calling him hot if he was straight and not into him hitting on him? Second of all, why does Kevin always get these awful plots, and lastly, what the fuck anyways can’t wait for Fangs to find out and sick the serpents on that Shane guy bc while him and Kevin aren’t together anymore, he definitely still cares about him

- Betty once again resorting to assault……. okay…… what a gross misuse of power

- Kevin feeling ashamed of him being gay because his mom once talked about him wearing husky clothes…? God everyone on this show deserves much better plots what the fuck

- Can’t wait for Betty to be suspended for this bullshit

- I don’t think the Logan’s would like Jughead of all people helping find their son but okay

- Betty is so unstable please how did she become a detective… ahhh right the writers eat from her ass lmao

- Love that Reggie gets no shit for just suddenly switching sides

- also sigh pairing up bh and va for the millionth time. It’s interesting that everyone enjoys the show much better when literally anyone else interact

- more singing…………Cheryl you’re not in high school anymore BUT it is lowkey a bop somehow though

- I know the answer is no but V never told Archie of her dumbass wager huh

- 0 to 52………………. so how is Hiram not gonna win this. We find out he cheated in some way and is disqualified or something?

- VERONICA, REGGIE, AND TABITHA HUGGING AHHH NEW OT3 FUCKKK

- Why is Hiram so mad his team has 52 points I—

- That kiss was so boring please give us Barchie and Jeronica and stop having V go back too Archie

- THEY LEFT RIVERDALE THAT QUICKLY? damn okay

- Betty feeling bad just because her mom found out she lied… like okay I know we’re supposed to want Betty on the case but she really shouldn’t be. She’s such an awful detective. She had potential in the beginning but :/

- anyways thank fucking god it’s over that felt like a million years long of boring bullshit where is Barchie and Beggie and Jeronica and Keggie and Karchie and Swangs ugh make Riverdale interesting again PLEASE I’ve never stopped watching like this, ever…

[aion-rsa]

Memento and the Significance of Sammy Jankis

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

“Have I told you about Sammy Jankis?”  

On March 16, 2001, Christopher Nolan announced himself to the world with the US release of Memento. Not that everyone heard him straight away.

Despite garnering rave reviews on the festival circuit, Nolan’s mind-bending jigsaw puzzle of a movie failed to land a major distribution deal in the States. In the end Newmarket Films, the independent production company bankrolling the project, took the plunge and distributed it themselves. 

Memento went on to earn more than $45 million at the US box office from a $4.5 million budget – a huge sum for an independent film.

Within five years, Nolan would move on to bigger and Bat-er things, but Memento remains among his most ambitious and effective films to date. A non-linear neo-noir that doubles up as a psychological thriller, it’s a film that continues to offer up subtle surprises on repeat viewing.

Guy Pearce takes centre stage with a mesmeric performance as Leonard, a man with short-term memory loss trying to track down his wife’s murderer. His pursuit is hampered by an inability to create new memories. 

It’s a similarly disorientating experience for viewers who must piece together Leonard’s story while it plays out in reverse order. Allied to this is the story of Sammy Jankis, played by Stephen Tobolowsky, which intersperses that of Leonard’s and plays out across a series of black-and-white scenes shown in chronological order. 

Narrated by Leonard, from an apparent recollection of a case he took during days as an insurance investigator, like our protagonist, Sammy also claims to be anterograde amnesiac – and that’s not all they have in common.

The film continues to alternate between the two narratives, with Leonard obsessively telling the tale of Sammy to anyone who will listen, before the two stories eventually converge in a climax where their shared plight becomes painfully apparent. 

Despite its modest budget, Memento boasted an impressive cast. Pearce had shot to mainstream fame with LA Confidential a few years earlier while Joe Pantoliano, who played Leonard’s helper/fixer Teddy, was an established figure in the business along with his co-star from The Matrix, Carrie Anne Moss.

There was even a role for future Sons of Anarchy star and Nolan favourite Mark Boone Junior as the underhand manager of the motel where Leonard lives. Tobolowsky more than held his own though. 

A seasoned character actor, by the time Memento came around he had enjoyed a memorable turn in Groundhog Day as the hilariously grating insurance agent Ned Ryerson. But it hadn’t been without its drawbacks in the years that followed.

Tobolowsky explained to Den of Geek: “The good news and bad news of being Ned in Groundhog Day is, guess what? You’re going to be Ned in Groundhog Day for the rest of your career. A lot of times when people are in comedic roles and want to do something more dramatic, it’s not available to them. Especially with something like Groundhog Day. An actor like me could get an opportunity to be in a drama but it might not work out because the audience would still see Ned Ryerson. Not this role. Sammy Jankis was so remarkably different.”

Landing the role of Jankis proved remarkably different too, starting with Nolan’s script, based on a short story written by his brother Jonathan called Memento Mori.

“My agent called me up and said John Papsidera, a casting director, wanted me to take a look at this script. John had a reputation for doing really unusual and generally good movies so I was very happy to. A standard first draft script is usually around 120 pages before a producer or director gets their hands on it. Because of the way it is formatted, one page should equal around one minute of screen time. I got the screenplay for Memento and it was like the Old and New Testament combined. I had never seen a script so big. I don’t remember the exact page numbers but it was in the 300s.”

Having seen his fair share of scripts over the years, Tobolowksy was apprehensive about reading what looked like the equivalent of “Gone with the Wind times ten.”

“I was thinking to myself ‘Oh God, this is going to be terrible. ’I even said to my wife, ‘ I know it’s going to be awful. It’s three times longer than normal but I’m going to read it just to be a good sport.’ I start reading and I’m halfway through and my wife comes in and I’m saying ‘damn it, damn it’ and she says ‘Terrible?’ and I say ‘No, so far really great but there’s no way these writers can continue at this level. It’s going to crap out by the end.”

“I get to the end and I throw the script across the room and my wife hears me, comes in, and says ‘Terrible?’ and I say ‘No, quite possibly the best script I’ve ever read.’” Nolan’s script was unlike any Tobolowsky had read, bringing the filmmaker’s vision for the movie to life in stunning detail.

“Chris and Jonathan wrote it in a way where they describe exactly what the camera is doing. Everything was perfectly described and you got a picture of the movie in your head, backwards and forwards in time. It was mind-blowing. I called up my agent immediately and said I had to meet Chris Nolan. I had to talk to him about Sammy Jankis.”

Despite few lines, the role of Sammy was a significant one. A part that much of the film’s plot ultimately rested on. Determined to make the role his own and shake off the ghost of Ned, Tobolowsky met with Nolan knowing he had a unique selling point when it came to the role. 

“I said ‘Chris, I didn’t come here to read for you. There’s nothing really for me to read, but this is what I want to tell you: this is quite possibly one of the best screenplays ever written. You are going to have actors all over this city that will want to be in this. However, I am going to be the only person that wants to be Sammy Jankis who has actually had amnesia.’ 

Chris said: ‘You’ve had amnesia?’ and I was like ‘Yes, and this is how it happened…’”

Tobolowsky explained that during surgery for a kidney stone, doctors had used an experimental drug in place of the standard anesthesia.

“I’m a big guy, like six foot three and 210 pounds, so they gave me a new drug that they had been using on bigger people. It means they are able to give instructions to the patient like to get up on the operating table, rather than have orderlies lifting them. The patient performs the task and then forgets it had happened. It worked the same with the pain.”

It led to what he describes as “drug induced amnesia” as the medication worked its way through his system. “I would be in my living room and then boom! It was like I was just born. The worst was when I was standing over the toilet and suddenly didn’t know if I was about to pee or if I had already peed. Fortunately, I heard my wife yell ‘you finished ten minutes ago!’”

The description of his ordeal was enough to convince Nolan he was the man for the job – but that was only the start of the challenge for Tobolowsky.

“It was the most difficult part I have ever played in my life. When you are an actor, the thing that moves you through a scene is your motivation. But when your character can’t remember anything, you don’t have that.”

In order to better portray Sammy’s damaged mind, he began by breaking down the character’s actions into behaviors marked as either old or new.

“There are the old, every day, behaviors we don’t think about like making breakfast. The rote nature of that behavior means you might do it quickly, almost mechanically. Then there is the newer stuff that takes longer because you are trying to understand what you are doing for the first time. 

“I had met people who have lost their memory, through Alzheimer’s or an accident, and noticed how these old behaviors were still familiar to them.”

This attention to detail was not lost on audiences.

In one small but memorable moment, Sammy greets Leonard at the door of his home with a look Leonard initially believes to be recognition and proof he is faking his condition.

It’s only later, when Leonard begins to understand his own plight, that Nolan has us revisit that same look, only this time with the realisation Sammy’s expression is instead one of desperate hope with that complex duality perfectly conveyed by Tobolowsky.

“That look was about putting out a message saying ‘I am sorry I may know you, so I don’t want to embarrass myself or you by acting like I don’t know you,’” Tobolowsky explains.

Later, after Leonard has rejected Sammy’s insurance claim, his wife, played by Frasier star Harriet Sansom Harris, decides to test the theory for herself by having him administer shot after shot of insulin, in the hope he will realise his mistake before she suffers a fatal overdose.

It’s then that we see Tobolowsky channeling the mechanical, emotionless actions of old, going through the motions of giving his wife the shot, as he has always done, oblivious to the tragic implications for both characters.

But Sammy is oblivious, with Tobolowsky’s emotionless, robotic approach to the repeated injections – something he has done for years – adding a layer of tragedy simultaneously to both characters.

“We all worked it out together in the moment. You let the truth emerge from the scene in the moment the camera is running.”

However, the true significance of Sammy in the wider story of Leonard only fully emerges later in the film after the latter’s revelatory encounter with Teddy.

It’s Teddy who reveals that he has been using Leonard to kill criminal associates. He claims to have tracked down the real “John G” behind the murder of Leonard’s wife years ago and, most tellingly, that Sammy’s story is actually Leonard’s, created to absolve himself of guilt. 

Which begs the question: Are Sammy and Leonard simply one and the same person? And, if so, did Leonard kill his wife by accident?

While some degree of ambiguity remains, Tobolowsky says such notions played into Nolan’s decision to include a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where Sammy, holed up in an old folk’s home, is for a brief flash, replaced by Leonard. 

“Chris played with the idea on set. He said he had an idea for a moment where he would replace me with Guy. He wanted to try that out. That was determined while filming, the idea of the switch, which cements the idea of the two characters being one and the same. 

“Chris was mining the depths of his script in the moment, which takes nerve as an artist.  “

Reflecting on the experience, Tobolowsky only has positive memories of his experience on Memento, and the commitment shown by Pearce – particularly when it came to the tattoos that serve as reminders to Leonard of his past and forgotten present.

“Guy Pearce was just magnificent,” he says. “Every day, he would be in the chair getting those tattoos put on or removed. There would be long make-up breaks to get them adjusted perfectly and Chris would have it so that we would be shooting while Guy was in the makeup trailer.”

“Chris was a fabulous director to work with. Full of good humour and insight. The entire shoot was filled with energy and fun and that came from the top. I knew right away I was working with somebody very special. Chris takes chances.”

Tobolowsky holds his experience on Memento in the highest regard.

“When you do a lot of shows and movies, the idea is not how many you can squeeze in, it’s about which ones mattered to you.  The work you did that affected you as a person and an artist. Something like Memento is profoundly affecting with the questions it asks.

“What haunts me about Sammy Jankis was that idea that if you cannot remember what you do, both your sins and your blessings, what kind of hell are you in?  That final scene where Sammy is the old folk’s home, there is this question: Is he at peace? If you don’t know what is happening to you, what is your life? And what happens to Leonard? 

He also credits the film with changing his career for the better.

“After I did Memento, I was considered for all sorts of roles that I wouldn’t have been before. It broke the Groundhog Day mold and showed what I was capable of. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“There have been so many movies I have been in. Some terrible, some mediocre and a few classics. It always comes down to the script and director. Memento is one of the good ones. It’s a masterpiece. There’s nothing quite like it.”

The post Memento and the Significance of Sammy Jankis appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30SAPVO

[occasionalfics]

the arrangement (1/1)

main masterlist | thor masterlist | ko-fi 

Summary: The past, present, and future collide when communication stops and your mind spins. But what happened? And what can you do to fix it?

Pairing: Sugar Daddy!Thor x Writer!Reader

A/N: I’ve basically only made posts on this blog to complain about how I can’t write anymore. This isn’t something I thought was gonna fix that, and I still don’t think it’ll make everything better (there are still at least 4 series I’ve started and never finished over the last year that might never see the light of day), but at least I got it out from start to finish. It’s only lightly edited because I genuinely just want to share it, so please enjoy it for what it is.

It’s also 100% wish fulfillment fantasy because I probably very much need to be cared for and dicked down.

Warnings: Mentions of sex (a lot of them), one scene that starts at the end of sex but isn’t super detailed or anything. Language. 18+ content ahead, read at your own risk.

Words: 7,536

You pretend to be asleep when he leaves in the morning. At first, when you started doing it weeks ago, you were just doing it to see what he was like when you weren’t looking. Just to confirm a few things that you didn’t want to have to go through his security camera feed to see because that would make you feel disgusting.

Every morning, he gets up at the same time (even weekends), showers and dresses, puts his pack together for the day, then sits on your side of the bed and bends to kiss you. It’s sweet. He asked if he could do it months ago, when this whole arrangement started, and you’d said yes thinking he wouldn’t stick with it.

But as far as you can tell, he has. Every. Morning. He makes sure to say goodbye to you, through kisses or words or both, every morning, even when you look and breathe like you’re asleep.

But two weeks ago, things at night have changed that don’t let you rest easy. It’s nothing drastic - nothing that makes you fear for your safety or anything - but...it’s enough.

He’s been coming home later each day. Minutes apart, like you won’t notice. He says less each night. Disengages from you earlier. You haven’t even had sex in a week.

A whole week!

That bothers you because sex is part of the arrangement. Now it s, anyway. You like it that way.

You were a struggling artist trying to pay bills and he was a wealthy Real Estate exec who’d happened upon a piece of yours in a literary journal that’d been mistakenly placed in his office one morning. Two pieces, actually; you’d written a poem and a short story for that edition, just to be able to go the extra mile and show what you were made of.

Thor’s always said he knew he needed to meet you the second he’d put the short story down. He’d contacted the literary magazine and its parent company and, finally, got through to someone with your phone number.

Yeah, it was really weird getting that phone call. Of course you were cautious to meet a man that’d tracked you down over a story, but he seemed genuinely interested in more of your work. It’d attracted you to him from the start, enough that you felt comfortable accepting his offer to meet in a very public cafe during one of their rush hours.

The rest was fate.

--

Dark henley, light jeans, pushed back dirty blond hair and the brightest blue eyes you’d ever seen. Holy shit you thought. That’s the single most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. And he was there for you.

The instant his eyes met yours, he recognized you. There was no chance to turn around, no time to even give thought to leaving. The beautiful man waved, smile gleaming as he stood to greet you. You felt pulled in by the atmosphere of him, like if this were to go on for too long, you might actually start rotating around him.

If only you’d known.

The energy between the two of you was electric from the start. He was kind, funny even, and his questions were never too much. He wanted to know what you were working on, was sad when you told him you had a novel in the works but it was too slow going to expect anything soon because work and home were too much for you to juggle them all regularly.

“My day job is kind of a nightmare,” you told him, hoping to wipe some of the disappointment from his beautiful face. “Like, I’m sure it’s actually not that bad, but it leaves me feeling...empty. It’s bad enough that, sometimes, I can't write. But I can’t afford to just leave it, so...writing takes a back seat.”

You knew it was too much to say, and yet, it felt like the weight of a whole planet was lifted off you once it was all out. Until another weight settled - the weight of losing your passion to the everyday grind of life.

“I know this isn’t how writing works,” he said, “but I was wondering if I might be able to commission something. Anything. I don’t have anything in particular I want - just...more of what you do.”

That caused you to pause. You’d never taken a commission before. You’d never even known it was possible for a writer, outside of journalism, really. 

“You want me...to write something...for you?” you asked him.

He nodded. “No stipulations. No word count minimums. Just...take twenty minutes every night and write me something. Here.” He pulled out his wallet and ignored your protests as you tried to dissuade him. He held out bills you didn’t even dare look at, and when you didn’t take them, he reached further and forced them into your hand, curling his fingers around yours.

You both stopped as electricity coursed through you.  His eyes met yours, his face set in the same expression of shock as yours, but then his hand closed tighter around yours, and he managed to get you to keep the bills as he sat back.

“Twenty minutes a night. Just get something out. It doesn’t even have to be good yet, because I know it will be, eventually.”  He winked. “In a week, we’ll meet back here and see what you’ve got. Deal?”

How could you deny him that? All he wanted was...your writing.

--

This morning, after he shuts and locks the front door of his penthouse apartment, you slowly rise. With Thor gone, the place is too quiet. Creepy, almost. And with how distant he’s been every night for the past two weeks, you doubly don’t like being alone.

You think about calling Wanda and having her come over, but you remember that she still has a day job. Natasha and Bucky and Steve and Sam all still have day jobs, too. You’re the only one lucky enough to have met Thor Odinson, to have him care for you like he does.

And god damn it, up until two weeks ago, you were so sure he cared so damn much for you, even beyond your arrangement. He’d moved you into his penthouse after you’d signed the contract your lawyers had drawn up together - just for an ultimate layer of safety for you both. He’d insisted you use his home office as your own because he never used it and preferred to keep his work and home lives separate anyway. He gave you a generous allowance, essentially still paying you for your writing, and got out of it only a handful of simple things you could give him.

First glances at everything you put to paper. Thor’s an excellent editor, even though it’s not his chosen profession. He’s honest and intellectual, funny and dedicated. He loves listening to you read what you’ve written that day - or did, up until two weeks ago - and you both cherish the time you spend going over additions and line edits, suggestions and the like. You think - or thought - it thrills Thor that he gets to be the first person - the only person in the world at the moment - to see your book.

Until two weeks ago, regular sex. Your lawyers were both anxious about adding that into a legally binding contract, so the two of you had agreed on a verbal basis that, yes, sex would be good. On the table, as it were. You’d both laid out your boundaries and talked about what you liked, and you’d thought you were compatible but...something’s changed. And you don’t like it.

Exclusivity. He promised he’d never keep you from your friends and family - and you’d promised the same - but romantically and sexually, the two of you were exclusive. It’s crossed your mind - and then been erased immediately by force - that...maybe he’s been distant because he hasn’t kept up this part of the bargain.

You wonder if this was enough. Or maybe too much? He’s...different now, and you’ve gone over what happened leading up to two weeks ago a million times in your head, but nothing stands out. Not anything that might make him lose interest without, you know, consulting you about it. You’d thought there’d been something in the contracts you’d signed about full disclosure when it came to discontent within the relationship, just so that issues could be dealt with or an amicable breakup could ensue without too much pain and misery in its wake.

Then...what? What’s changed his mind so recently that he barely even talks to you, let alone asks for your writing anymore?

--

The first day you’d lived with him - not including move-in day - was full of rest, disbelief at your situation, and a whole shitton of productive writing. You had an office! An office with a view of Central Fucking Park! Thor’s chair was unquestionably comfortable, and the surround-sound speakers he’d installed provided the perfect immersive sound to get you into your writing headspace.

Around lunchtime, it’d finally hit you that, entirely by circumstance, you were a full time writer. You were one of the lucky ones - like Harper Lee or Stephen King or someone else that didn’t have to work a soul-crushing job that sucked the life out of their eyeballs. You felt unstoppable. And you decided to order food in for lunch as a treat.

When Thor got home, you ran out of the office with a manila folder full of the chapterSSSS you’d written that day. More than one. To completion. Well, unedited, but still - thousands of words on paper in one day? You were too excited to keep it to yourself, even without him asking for you to share.

His smile reached his electric blue eyes. Thor put his bag on the kitchen counter, then swept you up and carted you off to the couch along the entry wall in the office. He kept you snugly in his lap while you read out your work to him - at first a little shy, even blushing at times - but growing in confidence as you went. He interjected with a few notes every few minutes, but mostly, he just listened.

When you reached the end of the final page, his lips gently touched the skin just below your ear. Tentative, you could tell, but cute. It lit your body up with goosebumps, had you putting your folder down to look at him. You breathed the same air for a beat before you asked, in a tinier voice than you’d expected, “What’d you think?”

His smile returned. “I love it,” he said. “I have some thoughts, but I see so much potential. I really believe in it, you know?”

“You do?” you asked.

He nodded. “Of course. You know I think you’re extremely talented. Gifted. I can’t wait for more.”

You let the folder slide off his lap and onto the seat next to him before kissing him. It hadn’t been part of the plan, but wouldn’t you know, it was amazing.

There was just something about someone so openly supporting your work, loving every step of the process with you that set your insides ablaze in the best way possible.

Thor broke the kiss just to say, “Apparently, I can.”

--

He hadn’t asked to read your new chapter the night before, but when you step into the office, you find the folder on the couch instead of the desk, where you’d left it yesterday. There’s a piece of paper, torn from inside a notebook, with a list of thoughts in Thor’s hand. Everything is fair and nonjudgmental, and of course it’s helpful for the next part you know you’re going to write.

Of course it is you think. The irony isn’t lost on you.

Still in your robe and panties - you’d hoped that would’ve been enough to seduce Thor last night and set things back to how they were before...well, yes, two weeks ago - you sit at the desk, open your computer (the one you’ve had since before this whole arrangement) and stare at the blinking cursor.

You want to write. You know what’s coming next for your main character. You have Thor’s list of suggestions - lists, really, as you have a file organizer full of sheets just like the one you found a moment ago on the corner of the desk - and your brain is ready to work, but something stops you.

Your stomach feels knotty. Your chest is heavy, and your eyes won’t focus. Writing is impossible  like this, but you can’t fathom doing anything else.

You get out one word. Another. One more. A sentence.

You freeze again. That sentence sucks. It’s wrong, and it should never exist. Thor would hate it.

Would he? Even if he did, he’d never say it like that...right?

The uncertainty inside you rises, and with it, insecurity. If he can’t even listen to you read anymore, if he can’t tell you to your face what he thinks of what you’ve written...are you even good anymore? Is he avoiding you because, suddenly, he no longer believes in you?

That seems drastic, but you can’t think of anything to counter it.

You sigh because, before  Thor, you never needed validation like this. You know it’s not that you must know if you’re still a good writer, but that you want his approval. You want, specifically, to make him happy with your work again.

Groaning, you know this book will never get finished if Thor doesn’t tell you what he’s thinking. Maybe you didn’t start this project because of him, but you’d written more and more because he’d asked (and paid) you to. You’d gotten through chapter after chapter because he’d encouraged and helped you. 

Because he’d said he believed in you.

--

It was a slow, slow day. You turned off all the clocks and taped over the one on your computer with masking tape so you could focus on the page, but not knowing what the time was didn’t make the words come, and it didn’t make the day go any faster. If anything, it slowed everything down even more.

When Thor came home, he called out for you, but all you did was groan defeatedly in response. You heard him chuckle to himself, and then he was in the office with you, standing just behind the chair you were curled up in, both of you facing the mostly blank page.

“I barely wrote anything today,” you said, covering your  eyes with the palm of your right hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong so don’t ask.”

“But there are words there. Read them,” he said, his command soft but true.

“I don’t wanna,” you mumbled indignantly. “They’re awful, Thor. I hate every single one of those words.”

“It’s only a few paragraphs you have to get through-”

“Ugh! Don’t remind me!” You lower your face to your knees, replacing your hand with the even less comfortable surface of your bent legs. And then you groaned like a baby,  whining because nothing you did all day would ever amount to anything.

Thor shook his head and simultaneously turned your chair to face him while he kneeled so he had to look up at you.

“Hey,” he said softly, poking at your shin. “Y/N, look at me please.”

You couldn’t deny him, but you didn’t have to lift your head completely. Just enough for you to peek down at him suspiciously.

“You wrote something today. That’s more than most people on this planet can say they’ve achieved.”

You scoffed. “Yeah right.”

“I’m being serious. Do you have any idea how in awe of your ability I am? Honestly?” When you didn’t respond at all to that, he reached out and gently rubbed your leg. “Babe, you’re an author. You create worlds and people every single day. Every day for the last few weeks you’ve written thousands of words, and that’s… Fuck, that’s more than impressive. So you had one day where you got out-” He looked at the computer screen, seemed to count, then shrugged. “Four paragraphs? So what?”

“I’m a fraud,” you muttered.

“No, you’re not. You’ve done so much work in so little time, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before today. You’re a wildly effective and competent writer, and you’re going to finish this book. But you’re also going to have slow days. Even the slow days are days you still get work done, though.”

He let you sigh, but nothing else.

“Read them to me. And take tomorrow off. I will, too.”

That got your attention. You sat up a bit, still staring at him incredulously, only for a different reason now.

“Really?”

He nodded, then pushed himself up far enough to kiss you. “Really,” he promised under his breath.

--

No matter how you replay the last three weeks, the last month, the last two months, you can’t figure out what happened. What you did. What caused the change in Thor? Was it your writing, or just...you?

If it were you, thought, you can’t fathom why he still comes in to kiss you goodbye every morning. That hasn’t changed. It’s the only thing that’s stayed the same, in fact.

And it isn’t enough to calm you. It’s nice, routine, but it’s not…

You sigh.

It’s not late night conversations - pre- and post- sex - about art, both yours and otherwise. It’s not reassurances and validation and understanding. It’s just shallow but nice little act he can put on to try and make things seem normal. It’s the least amount of effort he can put into this whole arrangement, and it’s so fucking frustrating to know that.

You decide the computer is useless. Trying to write today is useless. You shut your laptop and push away from the desk, then get up off the chair and head back into the bedroom. You’re on autopilot when you go to  the closet and pull down a suitcase, not even thinking twice before filling it up with haphazard piles of your clothes from the closet and dresser. The thing won’t even close, but you don’t care.

With what’s left of your stuff, you get dressed. You decide Central Park is too pretty to just look at today, so you dress warm and head out, automatically double checking that your keyring is in your purse before getting in the elevator.

The sky is clear, and the air is crisp. You head into the park, taking in the familiar sounds and sights. Couples stroll past you - some more intimate than others - and you feel your heart lurch into your throat.

It’s fine you tell yourself. It’s not like you and Thor ever gave each other labels. You were official on paper, sure, but you were never, like, his girlfriend.

Maybe you should’ve been keeping distance this whole time. Just a little. Just enough so that, when something like this happened, you wouldn’t be so torn up about it.

You head by Wollman Rink and stop. Memories flood your head, and you shut your eyes to keep from tearing up. You can’t help it, since you feel so much on the outside of everything right now.

When you compose yourself, you get closer to the rink. You watch as people - mostly children today - twirl and skate around the rink, and you yearn for something you fear you might not ever  have again.

--

Apparently, Thor had been talking about you with his friends. Tony Stark in particular was excited to meet you, and who ever, in this entire world, got to put that on their resumè?

Stark put together this whole double-date. Well, Tony was the one taking credit, anyway. His finacè, a lovely, gorgeous redhead named Pepper, was the mastermind behind it all. Everyone knew it.

It was especially evident when your group made it to Wollman Rink and Stark put his skates on. Pepper twirled in tight circles around him, but the Billionaire Genius stood with his hands out, knees apart, and a slightly terrified look on his face as he tried to maneuver - not very well - around the ice.

You were a little wobbly at first, but Thor never took his hand from yours. Of course he was rather good at skating - besides writing, what wasn’t Thor good at? - so he mostly just guided you around the rink, keeping you close while also sometimes taking the lead and letting you drag behind him, just for fun.

After a while, he suddenly pulled you in close to him and took you by surprise, kissing you in the middle of the rink. You melted into him as much as you could in the brisk December night, and he caught every bit you gave. Your pink noses barely registered as touching, given how cold they both were, but you knew. It was always like that with Thor.

“Hey!” you both heard Tony yell. “Stop showing off, asshole!”

Pepper immediately chastised him, stating that the children now chortling around him were too young for such language.

A little while later, the group collectively agreed to call it a night on the skating and try to find some hot chocolate somewhere. The penthouse wasn’t far, so worst case scenario, everyone clambered up to your building and you’d make hot cocoas there.

Thor and Pepper offered to return the rented skates, and while you were slipping your boots back on, Tony took a second to get kind of real with you. If you hadn’t spent the whole night watching him and Thor bickering back and forth, you wouldn’t think twice about the serious look he was giving you.

“You really like him, right?” he asked.

You nodded without hesitation. “He’s… He’s so special.” You hadn’t meant to sound dreamy, but that didn’t stop your voice from taking on an airy quality. “I’ve never met anyone like him before.”

“Good, good,” Tony said, though clearly he had more on his mind. “It’s just- I know he likes you. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. He’s been talking about your writing for almost a year nonstop and, I mean-”

“Wait,” you cut in. “A year?”

You’d only met Thor three months ago.

“We didn’t know he was talking about you, at first. He’s just raving about some poems or something. We thought he’d, you know.” He pointed to the side of his head, then let his fingers flutter away as he rolled his eyes. “He just had to find you. But you don’t have a website or anything, not even to display your social media- I’ve got a few friends I could talk to about managing all of that for you, by the way, and-”

You cleared your throat as Thor and Pepper made their way back. They were far enough away still that, when Tony gauged their distance, he had enough time to turn back and quickly tell you, “He’s in it. For you. Be careful with him, okay?”

You didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but you nodded anyway. Of course you’d be careful with Thor. You had a contract and everything. You’d been careful all along.

Something told you that wasn’t what Tony meant, though.

When you made it back to the penthouse for the night, you got into your warmest pajamas and slid into bed. Thor’d forgone a shirt, but he so did most nights. He wrapped you in his arms, warming your still cold skin on contact, and asked, “So what’d you and Tony have to talk about earlier?”

Be careful with him, okay? 

As the question rang in your head, you shook it. “He’s just looking out for you,” you mumbled, yawning through the last word. “He’s a good friend.”

“Sometimes,” Thor joked.

You managed to laugh, then snuggled in tighter. “I’m glad you have him. And me.” Your eyes shut and you stilled against Thor’s warm torso, breathing in his familiar, musky scent.

You swore you heard him mutter something else, but were too close to sleep to know exactly what it was.

--

A child runs past you, and the caretaker excuses herself as she hurries after the kid. You step back from the rink and head further into the park, keeping your arms in tight to fight off the chill. You find a hot chocolate vendor, glad to have something warm to wrap your fingers around for a while.

You stroll through the park hoping something might inspire a spark, but mostly just wanting to distract yourself. There’s an annoying poking thought in your head that, once you go back to the penthouse with your clothes all stuffed into a - completely open - suitcase, everything will unravel. Nothing will ever be the same. It scares you, makes you seek refuge elsewhere, pushes you deeper into the recesses of public spaces. You don’t register your phone pinging once in a while, or if you do, you choose to ignore it.

Eventually, the sun starts to go down, and you know you have to return home soon. Thor will be home soon, too. And even if it’s just to say goodbye…

You can’t finish that thought. It takes you a minute to process, but you realize that it’s not just because of the writing. Like, yes, his support and encouragement has meant everything to you, but it’s...so much more than that.

He believes in you. In everything you do. He’s kind and gentle and he genuinely seems to like you. He’s been generous and fun and wonderful for six months, and you’re not ready to go on without all of that.

Your feet stop moving because your mind is reeling as you think that you don’t want to go on without him...because you love him.

Your mind tries to fight off the emotion that bubbles in you, but your heart won’t let it. You have to feel this as you come to accept it. As you recognize that you don’t want to say goodbye, you can’t let him go because he’s the best part of your life. You love Thor Odinson, and maybe you’ve known it for a while. Or felt it or whatever. The feeling doesn’t read as “new” in your body, in any case. It registers as comfortable, like a huge, warm blanket wrapping you up and keeping you safe and cozy.

I love Thor.

Your mind, ever persistent, reminds you of the last two weeks. The distance. The silent notes, in place of the intimate reading sessions. The morning kisses that seem to have taken the place of steamy makeout sessions and hot, strenuous lovemaking. The gestures that now feel empty, filling you up with hot air instead of weighty reassurance.

God, how could you be so stupid? To think that someone like Thor would love you? Tony had said it all those months ago - Thor loved your writing. He probably just tolerated all the rest. Once he figured that out for himself, he withdrew, which is why he’s been leaving you high and dry and alone for two straight weeks.

Heartbroken and determined, you head back to the penthouse. The sun has set by the time you reach the building, but you ignore your shivering and numb fingers as you board the elevator.

Now you’re angry. Not angry enough to scream or make a scene, but angry enough to force  that suitcase closed and leave. Angry enough not to leave a letter, and apparently petty enough to make Thor beg for an explanation. Maybe you just want to see if he will.

But the moment you reach the door and realize it’s already unlocked, everything fades away. Everything. You’re hollow.

You enter the apartment and pull off your coat, but don’t bother hanging it on the rack beside the door. Your plan is just to put it on again in a few minutes anyway.

Thor comes out of the bedroom looking confused and sad. His brow is knit so tightly you know he has to be in pain. He stares at you, and you see his shoulders shake, but you keep your distance.

“Y/N,” he calls, despair and loneliness creeping into his voice. The mixture does something inside of you, but you try not to notice.

And you fail. You fail because there’s only one other time he’s ever called your name like that.

--

He was off the whole night. You’d gone through your regular motions, excited as ever to read the next chapter to him to hear his thoughts, but as you came to the end of the printed section, he sighed and hummed, but didn’t say anything.

“Thor,” you said gently. “What’s up?”

“Hmm?” He caught your eye for just a moment before gazing across the living room and shaking his head. “Nothing. Just had a long day, I guess.”

He’s had long days before, though. You know from experience that, on long days, he comes home and asks if you want to go out for dinner, then immediately asks to go to bed upon returning home. He promises you can read as much or as little as you want the next day, and you both normally just...go to sleep.

This was different.

You shut your folder, put it on the coffee table in front of you, and turned so you straddled his thighs. You were wearing a dress that day, one with a wide, flowy skirt, so you had plenty of room to get comfortable. You cupped his jaw in both your hands and forced him to look at you, and without words, you communicated that you knew something more than just work was on his mind.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t lie to you.”

“Just tell me what’s wrong, babe.”

He searched your eyes for something. You figured he had to have found it, because he sighed and nodded. “I found out my brother was arrested today. It’s not his first time, either. Our father is insisting I let him learn his lesson in prison, but I can’t just let my brother rot.”

“Oh,” you said, then realized how bland and disinterested it sounded. “Oh, Thor,” you tried again, arms going all the way around his neck. You hugged him close, and he pulled you in even tighter. “I’m so sorry.”

He tried to tell you that it was alright, but clearly it wasn’t. His shaking shoulders told you that much, and his hitched breaths told you more.

You pushed on the back of his head until his forehead touched your shoulder. “Shh, it’s okay,” you whispered to him. “Get it all out, babe. I’m here. I’m with you.”

He didn’t cry. Didn’t sob. Apparently would not dare to get your dress all wet. You would’ve let him if he had, though.

When he calmed down, he kissed your shoulder once. Twice. Trailed his lips up to your neck and around your jaw, leaving a single kiss on your lips as he settled his forehead against yours. “Y/N,” he said, shaky and so unlike Thor you had to convince yourself you hadn’t imagined it. On another shaky breath, he let out a simple but meaningful, “Thank you.”

--

He looks at the bedroom doorway, sucks in a tight breath, and starts, “Were you…” He can’t finish until he’s looking at you again, though. “Were you going to leave?”

Your jaw tightens. And not even out of anger. You hate it when Thor’s like this because it’s not even like he’s being possessive or anything. He’s not trying to control you. He’s asking in this broken voice that snaps your resolve string by string until you’re nothing but frayed edges inside. And you hate it all because it means he’s just as broken as you are.

“I-” you start, but you can’t find the right words to follow it up. Yes feels wrong, and you’re not even sure it’s the truth anymore. Maybe...for just a moment… But how could you leave? How could you ever even think of walking away from all of this? All of him?

Two weeks. It’s been two weeks of silence and separation, two weeks of being in your own little world within the walls he provided and you don’t even know why.

Oh yeah. That’s how you could leave.

“Y/N,” he says again, this time more sure of the emotion in his chest and tone. “Were you packing a bag to leave me?”

You stand your ground, but try not to come off as angry even still. You’re not angry. You’re just...lonely. And alone. On your own team for the first time in six months. “Yes,” you answer.

His breathing gets heavier. You refuse to look away. He seems to calm himself a little bit, but doesn’t sound much better when he asks, “May I ask why?”

How dare he attempt to be polite right now? But, you remind yourself, it’s his nature. He’s always like this, no matter what. He can’t even be angry properly, and that makes everything even worse.

Torn between owing him an explanation and demanding one yourself, you say the only thing you can think to say that might give both of you answers.

“You stopped touching me. Stopped talking to me. You’ve barely looked at me the last two weeks, and I’m tired of being alone. I may as well go back to my shit job and crowded apartment.”

You’re just about to let the emotion, the rage and tears settle in when he pauses. Steps back a little. Just stares at you, like what you just said is preposterous. But then something in his expression clicks, a light flickering behind his eyes, and he seems to know he’s done everything you’ve accused him of.

Before you know what you’re doing, you’ve decided you’re not done, though.

“I thought I did something, Thor. I thought you were just too nice to tell me what it was, so you got quiet and distant in the hopes that I would just...leave.” As you say it, you know how ridiculous it sounds. It’s a thought process better suited to the inside of your brain. But you’re still going. “What else was I supposed to do? You weren’t asking for my new chapters, you were barely even looking at me. And I was just supposed to take the hint? Well, hint taken.”

His eyes fell to the floor in shame. You stepped lightly toward him, stopping with just enough room that your shoulder just barely grazed his arm.

“If I knew what I did, I would’ve fixed it, Thor. I would’ve tried. But I had no clues-”

“You didn’t do anything,” he whispers.

You can’t move then, except watch him sigh and shake his head.

“You’re not the cause of my misbehavior, Y/N. Not directly.”

Not for the first time, you wonder if he really does have another woman. But you know him, and you know him well enough to know he’d never break that promise of exclusivity. You’re not confident in much about your arrangement right now, but that is one thing you know for sure, without any doubts.

Which only leaves you to believe that maybe he wants to break the promise and just won’t out of a sense of duty or something. Like he’s just sticking with it because you won’t let him out of the deal.

None of it makes any sense, and you know it’ll make you sound like a crazy jealous demon if you say it out loud. So you don’t.

And that’s enough encouragement for Thor to look at you again, all of the world’s weight alive and heavy in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. The sound is so familiar, you nearly lean into him for comfort.

--

He stilled inside of you, the both of you suddenly quiet and tense. This...wasn’t supposed to happen. You only met the man a week ago, and today was only the second time you’d seen him in person.

But after he’d read your work from the week before, you’d talked. About everything. You told him way too many embarrassing stories about your childhood and he told you all about the private schools he got expelled from because he’d been a hellion of a young boy. You could still see the spark of mischief in his eyes if you looked hard enough, and you found that, yeah, you really kind of liked it.

You’d asked him to come up to your apartment. It was empty at the moment, since all of your roommates had lives and jobs, too. You’d just wanted to keep talking, but maybe in a place where it didn’t matter how loudly you laughed at his stories or how boisterous he became in response to yours.

He was charming. Gorgeous. So nice. Too nice, really. He paid for refills of coffee, then followed your lead to your apartment.

Things had started in the kitchen, but then you’d gotten hungry, so he ordered in Thai. You’d brought him into the bedroom so you could watch a movie and eat without the forced space a couch might offer. He was warm and easy to feel comfortable around.

When the movie ended, you talked some more. About the movie, about what you were going to write next. Everything.

And then you leaned up on your knees and kissed him. One thing led to another, and then he was fucking you better than you’d been fucked in a long, long time. Maybe ever. He was generous in all things, it seemed.

It was only when you both came down from your highs that you, collectively, seemed to remember that he’d paid you to write for him. Sex seemed complicated and taboo in conjunction, and that thought made you feel hollow, despite only minutes ago feeling like you could lift the world on your back and carry it easily.

Minutes passed and you said nothing. He didn’t say anything, either.

But then he did. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, slow and genuine.

You felt your chest tighten at the thought that he regretted what you’d done together. It made no sense, given how you kind of regretted it, too, but you knew it wasn’t the feeling of it all that you regretted. The act, sure, under the circumstances.

But the success of the trial? Absolutely not.

You shook your head. “No, no, don’t be. It’s okay.”

“Your silence indicates otherwise.”

“Well yours did, too.” You sighed and tried to explain what was going on in your head, and when he finally met your eyes, you knew the truth of the whole matter: You didn’t regret a thing. Not really.

“Like I said, don’t be sorry,” you told him, finally managing a small smile.

It was enough to encourage him to kiss you again, and your stomach erupted in a kaleidoscope of butterflies. If kissing him like this felt so right every time, you never wanted to do anything else.

--

This time, you have no reason to tell him not to be sorry. This isn’t a mistake, and your silence isn’t your own fault.

His electric blues are deep and dark, and they scream at you not to let go. “I’m sorry,” he says again, the last word breaking on the end of a breath. “Please...please don’t leave.”

Your brow furrows, more confused than anything else. “Why not?” you ask, trying your best not to sound mad because, truly, his plea intrigues you more than sparks anger. You were so sure, until that moment, that he’d simply been meaning to find a good way to ask you to leave.

But now… That’s not even a possibility.

He surprises you by bringing a hand out, begging for your touch. On instinct, mostly, you respond, your fingers sliding right into his palm like they were made to fit together perfectly.

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

You nod. There are no other answers. You trust Thor, and you know, somewhere inside, that he never really meant to play with your feelings. Whatever he’s trying to show you now will fix everything. You have to believe it, or else you’ll really, truly break.

“Say it.”

“I trust you.”

He relaxes enough that you notice, then pulls you along into the bedroom. He asks you to sit on the edge of the bed, then picks up a long envelope from his nightstand.

“I should’ve been more attentive here, but I was doing my best not to ruin a surprise,” Thor says, handing you the envelope. When all you do is stare up at him, he nods at the package in his hands, and waits patiently.

You take it. Open it. Inside is your contract. Every page. You stare up at him, brows furrowed deeper in confusion. “What?” you ask.

“I’ve been discussing this with both of our lawyers this week. And the week before that, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say to the lawyers. But...this is big and I was nervous, and I knew I should’ve said something to you, but I-” He stops, clears his throat, and looks away from you. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

You slide the contract back into the envelope, then put it on the bed. “What surprise?” you ask.

“I was going to have the contract terminated.”

The same dread from earlier fills you, until you remember that he wouldn’t have pulled you in  here to explain everything if all he was going to do was kick you out. He wouldn’t ask you to stay, in that case. You try to control your reaction, which ends up meaning that you don’t really react at all, except to ask him, “Why?”

“I want us to be real,” he says plainly, forcing himself to meet your gaze. It’s not too long before he’s lowering himself into a kneeling position in front of you, grasping for your hand again. “I don’t want there to be any obligations. If any legally binding contract is going to exist between us, I want it to be nothing short of a marriage license. The last two weeks have been excruciating, and I know that’s all my own doing, and I’m sorry I put you through that, but please believe me when I say that I love you, Y/N. I love you, and I was trying to do anything I could to end the artifice and make this real.”

“Make...us…” You trail off, mind running at a million light years. Too fast for you to process. Things don’t compute correctly, like when your fingers type faster than your brain can think of words, and all you end up saying is, “You...you love me?”

Thor nods. “I do. I love you so much, and all I wanted was a chance for us to make things work on our own terms, without expectations. Without mutual gains with monetary value.”

You start asking him silly questions, because they’re all you can think to bring up. “So you don’t hate my book? You’re not disgusted by me? You want more of me?”

He confirms with double negatives and a positive. “Of course I want more, Y/N. I’d have to be living under a rock not to.”

“Did you say you wanted to marry me?” you ask him, only just now starting to catch up.

He laughs, nods, and pushes himself up so you’re level. “Without a shadow of a doubt. We already live together. We’ve been together for half a year, and I love you. We don’t have to rush- whenever you’re comfortable, just say the word and-”

But there are no words. Only actions.

You can’t find it inside yourself to hold the last two weeks against him anymore. All that insecurity has washed away with a few simple affirmations - but God Damn are they effective.

You crash your lips against his, arms winding around him as tightly as you can make them go. He pulls you to him, fitting snugly between your knees as he deepens the kiss, rolling his tongue over your lips, asking for an invitation.

A little levity of the night settles back into your brain then, and you gently pull back instead of letting him ravish you. For now. You give him a serious look, but you can’t stop smiling through it.

“Don’t ever go quiet like that again, Thor. I was so scared and alone, I never want to feel that way again.”

He nods. Light from the hallway shines on his face, and you see tear streaks have stained his cheeks. Your thumbs come around and wipe them away, and he smiles so prettily at you that you almost cry, too.

“I promise. I’m so sorry, Y/N. I promise, I’ll always tell you what I’m up to.”

He kisses all over your face, repeating himself between points of contact, swearing to any God who’ll listen that this will work. That he loves you, that he’s sorry, and then-

“I love you too, you know,” you get out. 

And the whole thing starts all over again.

[calpalirwin]

I Hate California

Summary: Blake Harris’ symbol of why he hates California ends up at his work.

A/N: I’ve been in a bit of a writer’s funk, so @frontmanash suggested I write something more on the outside of my comfort fluffy writing zone. So, we have her (and Dylan Brady’s I Hate California) to thank for this masterpiece.

Content: Just angst.

Word Count: 2.2k

And away, and away we go!

__

I braced my hands on my knees, breathing hard. Despite the scorching heat that made me feel like all the water in the world wouldn’t be enough to quench my thirst, and the scratches on my legs from our hike, I couldn’t help but smile over at the boy who stood on the edge of the world, his arms stretched out wide. The view was impeccable, like he had promised, but him and I had differing opinions on what that view was. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he breathed, his eyes shining like melted gold in the sun.

“Very,” I grinned. “You’d fit in good here, babe.”

“You think?!” he asked, his voice full of excitement and hope.

“Yeah, had you more pegged as a Seattle type, though,” I teased.

His laugh rang out around us, a loud boyish sound that warmed me up more than the California sun could ever hope to do on its own. “Very funny, babe. But LA is where the music scene is now. It’s where everything is.”

“It’s not where I am,” I whispered in his ear, wrapping my arms around his waist, resting my chin on his shoulder.

He laughed again, too enchanted with the daydream playing his head to properly digest my words. “Neither am I. But I could be.”

“I.” My heart cracked, a small fissure forming. Not “we.”

~~~

5 Years Later

My throat tightened and tears sprang to my eyes. So Ashton had finally done it. The last domino in a long line of my world crashing down. An ending I had seen from the beginning. Something that was still just a hopeful daydream when we had last seen each other. When we had set into motion the end to our thunderous finish.

And now the radio station I worked at was having them as our guests. I hated how every time I closed my eyes everything replayed like a movie scene.

To those who passed by us, we looked like mad men, our shouts echoing off the buildings as we screamed at each other, his soft brown curls frizzing at the edges in the London rain. The final sob stuck in my chest as the reality we had tried for so long to deny set in around us. No matter how happy we were together, or how well we fit together, I knew he was happier in his life without me. And as selfishly as I wanted to keep him, to keep screaming until our voices grew hoarse and we collapsed one last time in each other’s arms, I understood that I had to let him go. To free him to keep living his life in London, or to move to Los Angeles, a city I knew held a place in his heart that I had been trying in vain to fill with myself.

I hated how badly I still hurt from a loss I knew was coming. And I absolutely despised California.

~~~

“And here in the studio with D and B in the Afternoon, it’s Sydney's success story, 5SOS!” Danica Schmidt, my co-host introduced, getting the interview going. “Happy to have you boys.”

“Happy to be here,” they answered, shaking our hands before taking the offered seats, adjusting their headphones as they did so.

It wasn’t lost on me how Ashton’s fingers brushed against mine when we moved away from each other, prolonging the contact, nor how his soft gaze stayed on me as he took his seat. A better man would have been ashamed at the smug satisfaction that coursed through me when I broke contact to busy myself with the notes for our interview and his smile faltered.

I let the practiced professionalism that came with doing a million interviews just like this one propel me through the last hour of our show, matching Danica’s positive energy for the sake of not sounding as dead on air as I actually felt. The more Danica and I rolled out the stats of 5SOS’ success, and listened to Ashton reassure us that him and the boys were really excited to be living their dreams, the more I wanted to vomit all over the studio and his expensive shoes.

After the small entirety of hell on Earth, I got to say, “Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you again, 5SOS, for coming in for a chat.”

“Yes, lovely to see you boys and catch up. Best of luck to ya,” Danica smiled.

“Thanks for having us,” they chorused.

“That’s it for D and B in the Afternoon, I’m Danica Schmidt,” Danica started our outro.

“And I’m Blake Harris.”

“And we’re 5SOS, and this is our hit single off our newest album, Youngblood. Be sure to pick up a copy.”

~~~

“Blake, wait up!” Ashton called out to me, his footsteps heavy as he half-jogged down the hallway to catch up to me. I kept walking. “Seriously, B?”

“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked, pausing and turning to look at him. I hated how I only came up to his chin, and how badly that made me want to rest under it like I used to. I forced my own chin upwards to look at the irritation written across his face. Again, smug satisfaction washed over me and I didn’t have it in me to feel ashamed for it. As happy as I was for him that he was happy, I hated that it was at my expense. I hated that he had never been mine to keep; that I had lost him before he ever really had a chance to be mine to start with. And I hated the fact that there would always be a piece of me that still loved him and probably always would. So to know I could still get under his skin the way he would always be under mine felt good, even if it did feel dirty.

Those pretty eyes that haunted my dreams rolled and his tongue clicked in his cheek, stemming his agitation. “That's how it’s gonna be, huh?”

“That’s how what’s gonna be, Ashton? You coming back into my life for a radio show, and then breezing right back out of it to do the next spectacular thing on the list of spectacular things Ashton Irwin can do without Blake Harris holding him back?”

“I- I didn’t know it was your radio show. If I had I-”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Of course ya didn’t…” I muttered. Why would he? Why would I be anything beyond a brief sentence in his life story? Why was I stupid enough to think I could have been more to him; the way he had been more to me?

“Blake Harris, pity party of 1, your table’s ready.”

“Yep. Good to see you too, Ashton.” I willed my feet to turn and move me further down the hall, putting him behind me.

I made it to my car before he caught up, his hand slamming down on my roof. “Damn you!” he cursed.

“What?” I was too exhausted to match his level of anger, and even if I wasn’t, I didn’t have it in me to fight a battle with him I had lost years ago. When I started my job at the radio station, I had been aware of the risk I was taking. I was aware that this moment right here could be happening, much like it was. I had rehearsed speeches, and played out scenarios almost as often as I had relived my actual moments with him. But now? All my attacks died on my tongue. I didn’t want him to admit that he was hurting the way that I was. I didn’t want him to hurt at all.

“You’re just going to push me away again?” The question caught me off-guard. In all my mind’s scenarios I never imagined him sounding so broken.

“I never pushed you away, Ashton. You can’t push something away you never had to begin with.”

“That’s because you never gave me a chance to be yours! You held me at arm’s length, remember?!”

My blood boiled and even though I hadn’t wanted to, I was fighting back. “You never wanted to be mine! You’ve always been in love with places, Ashton, not people!”

“What is so wrong about me wanting a life for myself?!”

“Nothing! God, Ashton, can’t you see that’s why I let go?! I knew I wasn’t enough for you, but I was selfish enough to try anyway!”

“You should have tried harder!”

“Why?! So it can hurt me more to see you happy in LA?!”

“Who said I was happy?!”

His question stunned me. If he wasn’t happy, then what had all this hurt been for? “Are you?”

“Yes…”

“Good. I love that you’re happy. I love that you have the life you always wanted for yourself.”

“But that didn’t mean I didn’t want you, too. God, Blake, you didn’t give me a fair chance, and we both know it. To you, we were doomed from the start, and you never bothered to check if it was true.”

“That’s not true…”

“Yes it is!” His fight was back, but heartwrenchingly so.

“No, it’s not!” I hurled back the schoolyard defense. “You were in love with LA, and what it could give you!”

“I was in love with you, too!”

“No you weren’t! You said “I” not “we,” Ashton! I was there! I remember!”

“You’re seriously going to take one part of one conversation over our entire relationship?!”

“It wasn’t just one part of one conversation, Ashton! It was every conversation! Whenever you talked about your plans, I was never in them!”

“I didn’t think you wanted to!”

“That right there was the problem! You didn’t think, Ashton! You never did!”

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything?! Why did you expect me to read your mind?! Why couldn’t you just let me in?!”

“Because you deserve LA! You deserve everything it’s given you and then some! You deserve everything that makes you happiest and I wasn’t it! I was never going to be what made you happy!”

“That wasn’t your decision to make for me, B! It’s my life, don’t you think I should get final say on who’s in it?!”

“You did get final say, Ashton! You went to LA , and left me with the memories! And I love that you love it, Ash, I really do. But I hate it. I hate that it has your heart in a way I never could. I hate that it keeps you warmer than my arms did. I hate California!”

“Then hate California, Blake! Go ahead and keep telling yourself the same bullshit lie about how you lost me to a place! A place! Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?! You’re a person, Blake! You were never in competition with LA, just your own doubts.”

“My own doubts that you proved right at every turn, Ashton! You never missed me. Not the way I missed you.”

“And how do you know that?! How do you know that I didn’t miss you back then?! That I still don’t miss you now?! That I haven’t been playing scenarios of conversations just like this, only in those scenarios we don’t say a word, we just… fall back into place like we’re supposed to?”

“Because this isn’t some fantasy with a happy ending! Because this is reality! Because you’re fuckin happy, Ashton! God damn it! You’re happy. Without me.”

“I could’ve been happier with you, Blake!”

“Or you could’ve been fuckin miserable!”

“Yeah, well I’m already pretty fuckin miserable, so I guess you were right. Huh?! Is that what you want to hear?! That I’m miserable without you?! That even though I’m happy with my life I still feel empty because there’s a you-shaped hole in it?! Huh?! Is that what you want?! For me to scream out some declaration that reassures every doubt you ever had about us, and erases every stab of pain you ever felt?! The magical phrase of “I love you” that fixes years of silence and shit?! Because I’ll say it Blake! If that’s what it takes, I swear I’ll say it!”

“I want you to mean it! I want you to love me with the same devotion you love LA! That you would chase down everything to be with me! Damn it, Ash! I want to be chosen! And I want the person choosing me to mean it with every part of their being!”

“I did! I did mean it! I did choose you! You just never chose me back because you didn’t believe in what we were!”

“Did. Past tense...”

“I tried Blake... God damn it, I tried, but being with you was like dating a brick wall.”

“Yeah. Some fight you put up...”

“Whatever. If it’s easier for you to have me be the villain in your story, fine. Whatever makes you happy, Blake.”

“It wasn’t my happiness I cared about. Maybe if it was then this would be a different conversation.”

“Yeah, well… live and learn. G’bye Blake.” He hesitated briefly, his fingers giving a drumming tap on the roof of my car. Then, he was walking across the parking lot, and away from me. And I hated that I couldn’t hate him the way I hated myself and that damn state.

__

Tag List

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[popculturebuffet]

Reviewcaps: Mega Man: Fully Charged (BOOM!) #1

After 5 long years the Blue Bomber returns to comics and to the Fully Charged Universe! Things get a lot more grim as Aki grapples with a new robot army under actual robots, his buried past, and the fact Mega Mini is still around for some reason. Cracked skulls and dead cells under the cut. 

So i’m a huge mega man fan. I haven’t really talked about video games here because this is my first video game adaptation, but yeah, I love em and Capcom’s vast and awesome franchise of robots and humanoids in blue, and in one case red, is one of my faviorites. From children blowing up tons of robots from a balding man who dosen’t get the hint already, to the pacifist soldier forced to fight in a war against robot whales, buffalo, mammoths, and other bizzare robot animals, to his best friend who has amnesia for some reason fighting more robot animals because capcom ran out, to his human sucessors wearing him like a hat, to some guy who turns out to be a war machine I haven’t played yet because I haven’t gotten the chance to and is the only part of the franchise I haven’t, to another universe where he’s the ai versoin of a dead child whose now a teenager mentally, to that ai’s sucessor a shy child whose dad was kidnapped by a space monster and fuses reguarly with a much cooler space monster. What i’m saying Is I deeply love this franchise, this franchise is complicated iwth all the branches, and it’s also full of lovely nonsense. 

So naturally with that many versions and a decades long history Mega Man’s had a healthy life in one of my other faviorite meddieums: Comics. Over in his home country of Japan Mega Man’s had tons of Manga: The biggest and one of the few to make it here is Mega Man Megamix, a bunch of stories that, after the first two adapted the first two games in their own rough way, took place after each of the various games, and is pretty damn good. Others off the top of my head include a Mega Man x adaptation where X dates a mermaid, a weird mega man zero adaptation, and a longrunning adaptation of Mega Man Battle Network, all ones I need to read. 

Even Brazil had a Mega Man Manga... which I need to cover too.. less because it’s actually good or notable, and more because it’s BATSHIT INSANE, and you can read about it here. But the cliffs notes: Roll is an adult woman who goes around naked half hte time and is the most importnat character, X is master roshi with all the restraint and panty snatching that implies, and ther’es a character that one writer tried to have kill everyone and take over the comic.. yes really. I go most of this .l from that page but it’s documented on various wikis that this did actually happen. Just.. why. All of it.  Meanwhile in the US.. we didn’t get that many. No nintendo power adaptations despite being a huge franchise, no horrible malibu comics like street fighter got. There was one attempt by Dreamwave comics in the early 2000′s a series that only lasted 5 issues, and had mega man trying to go to school and some intresting if loose takes ont he franchise.. but the company bottomed out due to horirble mismanagment soon after and mega man sat ont he shelf for a while until the early 2010′s. At a time when Capcom had given up on the franchise, which has thankfully changed dramatically with the release of 11 and the various mega collections, they still gave the liscence to Archie comics, who, wanting some more of that sweet money they were getting off of sonic, gladly took the lisence and gave it to  Sonic Scribe and easily the best one the comic had during it’s long run, Ian Flynn, who set about adapting mega man from day 1, while incorperating nods and call forwards to the various other versions of the blue bomber, and adding his own nice touches. What i’ve read is really damn good and it’s a shame it got cut off right before the adaptation for mega man 4. I’m only being so brief as .. I intend to cover it like i’ve been saying. I love the character, Flynn’s comic was one of the best versions of him bar none, and I could use more comics content on here too. It’s a win win, smiles all around.  But yeah sadly Archie lost intrest in doing non-Archie stuff, with the Archie Horror Line proving a sucess and a reboot on the horizon. While I do LOVE Archie Comics, this edotiral decision still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and left fans without any mega man till 11 came out and any comics till this year, when the rights apparently lapsed and Boom! Studios, home of such great comics as the mighty morphing power rangers ongoing and JOhn Allison’s wonderful Giant Days, swept it up. Hopefully Boom! will reprint the archie comics eventually, but until then they decided to do a softish reboot of another version of the franchise, another one that like Archie had been given a raw deal.. but unlike Archie had issues: Mega Man; Fully Charged

While most of you probably know this as a refrsher Mega Man: Fully Charged was a cartoon from a few years back, a CGI adatpation of the games in an attempt to get in on that market by Ben 10 and Generator Rex maestro’s Man of Action. Like the Dreamwave comics it followed Mega Man, now Aki LIght as he went to school, did school stuff, and also fought rouge robots after school with secret powers he unlocked before the pilot and were never elaborated on in show.  The show kept Dr. Light, Mega Man’s creator and dad, and his dog Rush who while at first looking nothing like the games was later upgraded to resemble his game counterpart more from what i’ve heard and what’s present in this comic. Replacing Mega’s sister Roll, as his real name was Rock because the Mega Man staff loved musical puns, was Suna.. whos basically the same character but human and with an entirely diffrent design.  The show also, for whatever fucking reason, added... Mega Mini.. a tiny robot with a brooklyn accent who lived inside Aki, Mega Man’s regular name in this series which i’m fine with as while I do lik ehim going by Rock, I get that’s not really a name. Mini also manages his powers, makes stupid jokes and makes me pray for death but death won’t come. As you can tell I hate the little bugger from the handful of episodes i’ve watched. Rounding out our main heroes is Aki’s best friend Bert Wily, whose likely related to the canon wily and is your standard dorky best friend, but his roll as an inventor does come in handy since Mega hasn’t told his dad he’s a superhero, though it’s revealed in the end that he knows.. I did do my homework, even if i’ve only seen a handful of the series. More on that in a minute.  Opposing Mega Man were various robots from the games, adapted with varying degrees of design, from the good. 

To the okay if a bit weird. 

To the how the fuck is this airman. This is airman

Really good basic design. This is what fully charged calls airman, 

Why.. why not just make him Wind Man. He looks more like Wind Man.. why did ... I can bitch about this later when I cover the series, which, yes AGAIN I intend to. BUt seriously he has an awesome looking fan for a face. How do you screw that up. 

Behind the robot masters was Sgt. Night. See in a nice twist, and one of the things I like about the series, the world of Fully Charaged already had the kind of robot on human war that would plauge the main mega man timeline for centuries in the backstory, with LIght and Night being vetrans. Night being a racisit moron, wanted to keep robots apart and set up a false flag operation do do so as Commander Night. He however.. wasn’t a compelling vilian and apparnetly dosen’t really get better, not having any depth to his operations or actoins and his basic plan turns out to be, thank you research, to wipe all robots minds to be subservient.. he’s just.. bland compared to wily who while not complex in his motives, he just wants to take over the world, still has style and in some cases,real thought to his plans. Sure the vast majority are “blame it on someone else” but in a LOT of those cases, there’s still thorught and effort put into who he’s blaming to take doubt away from him. IN universe at least.  Helping night, is Namagem... yes Mega Man..spelled backwards and this series protoman, but hte character suprisingly DOES sound intresting... he just has one of the worst names in human history. Like my god, in god we trust why not just use proto man. the Character is basically proto man, with the interesting backstory of night kidnapping him, and apparently the series gets loads better once he arrives, so i’m not going to be too hard on the name, as the writers were likely stuck with it.    But as i’ve made apparent.. I haven’t watched much of the series. I do want to watch it all and i’m aware the second half is much better, but when trying to binge watch it at a friends house I only got about halfway through season 1, and then just forgot to keep going. And the series does have good pieces: a compelling background of a brutal war, mysteries to unlock, and a steady supply of new villians via the games long history and the series own original, and honestly intresting sounding and looking, robot masters... but it stapled all this to a “cocky hero fights vilians” every week setup we’ve seen a million times and didn’t grab me, but the intresting worldbuildnig and original bits do have me wanting to give it another try so look forward to that.  And with all the intresting bits i was truly invested to see a comic make more out of this part of the franchise,a nd was utterly excited, as it could be what the series could’ve been with less hampering by the various parties involved, as fully charged felt like it had a lot of executive madates slapped on. So free of those and free to be whatever it wants with Joe Kelly advising, what has fully charged become? let’s take a look. 

We Open 6 months after the series with the comic helpfully catching us via news broadcast.. and the art being moody with washed out colors the tone having done a 180. Seriously it is kind of weird for this unvierse to go from early generator rex, a dark backstory with a bizzarely cheery tone to full on Blade Runner or to put it in mega man terms, The Megas. Seriously the breif bit of silicon city we see , the constant rain as a mysteroius figure whose revealed at the end of the next page to be Namagem.. I expect that a pretty hologram in a raincoat is going to pop up next to him any moment... what I can pick which blade runner I want to refrence. Shoo. 

Anyways a broadcast debate between a human reporter and her robot coanchor , ron roburgundy as I will call him, fills us in on exposition, while Mega Man himself narrators like this is a noir.. again i’m half expecting harrison ford to show up. Aki muses about how the city, HIS CITY, almost fell.. oh god is frank miller writing this? Are we going to get a middle schooler talking about how much he wants to make love to a city because no one wants that.  Anyways, we get expostion, both for anyone who hadn’t watched the series to give us the cliff notes, and to also catch up returning fans on what they missed. I like it, despite not having watched fully charged to the end, or known exactly what happened until research, this fills it in nicely: At the end of season 1, as I explained earlier Night was arrested, and is thankfully not a part of it nor is his foghorn leghorn attempt at a southren accent. However the remaning Robot Masters are still rioting and a new army of them has started a legit revolution, vandalizing the good guild, which still has that name for some reason despite the tone shift, who are about as compitent as the name implies. Here’s file footage of them fighting Pharoah Man. 

Anyways Dr. Light is going to negotiate peace and as I mentoned earlier nams is watching with a glare on his face. And yeah I .. I can’t keep calling him Namagem. That name is just bad and whoever came up with it is one of the biggest morons in marketing history as is whoever decided to force the poor creative team to use it. However while he is Protoman in ways.. it just dosen’t fit. The two were made together in this unvierse, maybe we’ll see as this comic fills in the blanks, and furthermore he’s a bit of protoman and bass.. and since protobass sounds stupid, and blues dosen’t work without the theme naming.. i’m going with Breakman, protoman’s disgusie from 3. With the heavy scaring, broken past and general state of him it just.. fits and HOPEFULLY the comic will give him a full on rename. If it does i’ll go with that but for now I just want to keep from slamming my head into a keyboard every time I have to type out NAMAGEM... excuse me. 

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That’s better. Okay so moving on from my new headache, we cut to the desert where the good guild, which is somehow even worse than Breakman’s actual name, are escorting light to a bunker in the desert, where the robots outside tell light to leave the good guild inside. Just as well he’d be better protected with a paper mache sword anda  note telling them to go away. 

Naturally, not long inside the robot masters leader forces light to bow and handcuffs him, before revealing himself. 

Skull Man. Who looks really badass in this thought, the skulls themed scrap throne, his regal posture and his speeches about how he feels that the only way things will be right, and settled is not by the fragile peace silicon city has but by humans beneath his rather sizable boots. And honestly.. he was a good choice for the main robot antagonist: Skull Man’s always had a cool look to him and most versions of him have been pretty cool, and the Megas gave him one hell of a theme song. If you haven’t heard of htem the Megas are an indie rock band that do reworkings of the various songs from mega man games, at the time of this recording a full album for 2, two full albums for 3, an ep for 1, and scattered other songs since the second 3 album, with plans to do their next full album on mega man x. Each of the stage themes for the robot masters is from the prosepctive of one of them and are really damn good and I’d recommend thema nd skullman’s.. really fits him here. take a listen. 

But yeah Skull Man feels like a good choice for a menacing revolutionary, as well as a former combat robot as he himself was apparently in the hard wars. He honestly reminds me a lot of more than meets the eye megatron in flashbacks.. just good stuff. But being in the wars, he’s naturally not too fond of repetant vetran light and plans to kill him as an example. Light however.. isn’t an idiot.. a good man who seeks to do his best, who came in good faith.. but just in case he put some sort of device under his skin and presses it, signaling his son to come save his ass. And thus he does come ...

And one of skullman’s minons mistakes him for a bomb.. which light clarifies i’ts a BLUE BOMBER. To skullman’s credit his response is to just order them to go full throttle showing no panic as Mega Man makes his entrance. 

Light thanks him by.. asking what took him so long.. when his son, whose a middle schooler mind you, had to fight through a bunch of armed assholes to get in here most likely. Mini shows up to my annoyance.. though credit where it’s do his zinger of what took so long “some birds, a plane, some guy in a cape” is actually.. really funny. I question why they kept him at ALL, but hey, at least he’s less grating and isn’t around long.. more on that in a minute. 

A really well drawn action scene insues.. while the expressions vary for this comic, I will give the fight scnee, I will give the artist credit for having fluid motion and nice pops of color, most things are kind of blendy into the background other than major character but the color pops where it should.. not exactly my style but it works okay. In a nice change of his character though, Aki offers to spare the various robots there of a fight and possible death, as while he already attacked them it was in self defense.  And while it is a 180 from the show.. it’s not only a welcome change as it’s closer to the games canon and a more intersting personality.. it also still works. Aki went through a LOT at the end of season 1: while he did win, he found out he had a brother, his dad knew who he was but was never honest with him about it and also likely knows where his power came from but hasn’t told him, and has had to deal with 6 months worth of rioting where he’s unsure what side he’s on, machine like he is or man like his family. He’s trying to find the right ballance; be the hero his city needs.. but be the man he needs to be, one who will spare his enemies and won’t fight unless he needs to, for the good fo everyone, His friends, his family, everyone in the city who deserves to sleep soundly. And he’s also starting to wonder, via narration of course, if he’s a hero.. or even a kid.. or a weapon> Which again while a bit of a shift from the series again makes sense: he’s a middle school aged boy who started this jsut fighting random assholes and some idiot racist who was transparently evil and had selfish goals.. now he’s fighting against a revolution who MIGHT have a point. While Silcion city seemd fine and equal.. there wer eplenty of idiot swilling to listen to night. As the real world has proven over the last few months, just because things have gotten better, dosen’t mean that things are 100% or that prejudice is just gone. He’s a 12 year old asked to take a stand in a messy conflict that lead to war in the past with his father offering no answers and growing colder. While I thought his angst was  bit overblown on first reading the more I think about it the more it fits. 

Anyways Mega makes short work of the skull squad after they refuse to back down, but while Mega Man’s ready to ghost.. Skull Man’s not done and drills into mega man’s head... and reveals something. Flashbacks. 

But yeah, Skull Man’s either implanted or restored some memory of Aki fighting in the hard wars.. right alongside dr. light.. with a drill because science. DR. Light then gets REALLY badass, breaking out of the robot restraining him’s grip before fucking UPERCUTTING Skull Man.. jesus christ, Dr.Light clearly traded his empathy for miraclo pills holy balls.  Rush helps him escape and take Aki with him but skull man’s confident, he lost the battle but won Mega’s mind.  On the way home Mega Man tells dr.light what he saw and isn’t sure if it’s the past the future or something else but Dr.Light assures him..

Even though his eyes give away he’s clearly hiding something. Also I haven’t mentioned it yet but Dr.Light looks like santa in this sisue, red shirt, blue pants, big white beard. Just.. why though. Just put him in a suit or something. Also Mini crawls out of Mega’s head and passes out due to the memory restoration.. a nice way to write him out while still giving it weight since while the audience is presumibly cheering his long overdue demise, he is aki’s friend.. why I have no idea but he is.  Back at the lighthouse, the light’s home and home base, which is admitely a really good alternate name for light labs and a better one in my opinon. Light brushes off Suna, telling her to go to bed and avoiding telling her anything. Yeahhh.. while it could be the pressure of the situation I really dont’ like dr.light’s characterization before. Fully Charged, outside of the whole secret identity thing which at least was expalined as Aki not knowing if his dad would let him continue as mega man if he knew, though it extended clearly past the point he was clearly supporting mega man’s actions so I dunno. But he was a compationste scientest, deeply ashamed of his past in the war and wanting to make peace, he was done really well and peformed well by gary chalk. Here? He’s a dick who clearly did something terrible in the past and treats his kids like crap. It’s okay to be suspcious of him given the flashback but he’s given us no reason to like him or want to hear his side eventually, and hopefully that changes. 

Suna talks to Aki who tells her what happened and both side give out good arguments; Suna points out she reallyc an’t trust what some creepy asshole put in his head, as Skull Man could just want to brainwash him.. but Aki counters easily and quietly: How’s he supposed to know what’s real if his dad won’t tell him anything? He took months to tell Aki he knew about his alter ego, and even before his id came out avoided talking about the hard war, which hasn’t changed. He vows to find out though, and Suna naturally is helpful, pointing out there’s more people to ask and since she actually pays attention in school she knwos just who.. Dr. Wily. Yup he’s finally here. dun dun dun. We then close as Breakman watches and tells his brother he can’t stop what’s started. And we’re out.  Mega Final Thoughts: This was a decent issue, doing a fair job of bringing in new readers, and the art was decent and matched the tone.. which If elt was a bit too bleak at times. Better than say a Zack Snyder film at least, but still a bit too close to that form of edgelord for my case. That said it opens up some intresting mysteries and has me at least willing to give it another shot next month and was a solid opener, which while not having the best charcterzation for dr light, vastly improved Aki and Suna’s while giving us a far more intersting villian in Skull Man. If this holds, we’ll see. But until then I plan to cover more mega man comics, as well as my continued weekly coverage of amphibia. Until I see you again, stay safe, wear a mask and later days