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wordsinwinters · 4 years ago

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Then Again, Part 26 (Peter Parker x Reader)

Masterlist (with AO3 links)

Total word count: 50,293

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25,

Summary: After an intense argument and a forced-to-share-the-bed situation during their junior year decathlon trip, Peter and the Reader examine their faults and failings. As they attempt to fix their mistakes and improve their friendship, that friendship quickly begins to evolve into something else.

Slow burn fic in which all characters are included and their dynamics explored; multiple character POVs.

Betas: @girl-tips-from-satan and @fanboyswhereare-you

A/N: This isn’t my favorite chapter, but it’s been sitting in my drafts for over a year and I figured if I don’t post it now, I’ll never move on to the next. Additionally, as always, I live for feedback. 😉

Without further ado,

Then Again Part 26:

(Words: 2,825)

The bus ride will probably get boring soon, or at least as long as the girls stay asleep, but even as quiet as it is, it’s almost a perfect morning. Being early (around 6:00, I think?), there’s barely any light except street lamps and car lights, but some of the clouds on the right have caught a pretty bluish purple tinge. It reminds me of that Rainbow Fish book Aunt May used to read to me as a kid. To make it better, the morning air is chilly enough that the driver turned the heaters on low so it’s wrapped-in-a-blanket-while-it-snows warm in here. Although that also might be why, apart from general dirt and old gum, the strongest smell on the bus is salty grease— since the nearest heater is under the seat Flash spilled french fries and chicken nuggets in yesterday. It could be worse, though. I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad smell and the traffic isn’t horrible. It’s not the best, but it could definitely be louder and a lot slower. The field of flowing red tail lights ahead of us is oddly comforting, like a snail-slow pasture of mechanical color.

All in all, it’s a pretty cozy start for a dreaded five hour bus ride. It’s giving me quiet time to think. So that’s where I’m at. Or should be. I got some stuff organized in my head last night even if I keep getting distracted now. Well, it was more like a couple hours ago, since I wasn’t able to get to sleep for so long after we said goodnight. But anyway, I’m trying to focus. It’s just hard, even with both of them sleeping.

From my and Ned’s spot behind them, watching the girls’ heads gently shake and bump against each other as the bus shudders through potholes is kind of calming. They seem so peaceful from this angle, like two people who’ve never pranked me and Ned to the point we were nearly suspended, or kept us awake and annoyed by asking paradoxical hypothetical questions because they know how Ned and I will argue for days if we don’t agree on an answer, or anything else like that. It’s like finding two mischievous cats sleeping, curled up on a chair. It’s easier to appreciate them when they aren’t causing chaos. But it’s not that hard to appreciate them when they are anyway.

Though Ned and I won’t admit it when they’re fully awake, seeing their heads smack into the seat in front of them each time the bus lurched to a halt at stoplights (during the first ten minutes after they’d fallen asleep) was funnier than it should’ve been. Even knowing then that we wouldn’t mention it later didn’t stop us from exchanging silent laughs when they leaned back up, muttering unintelligible complaints before settling their heads back onto one another. For the last couple stoplights before the highway, at least, we decided to be better friends. We both stood up with one leg on the floor and one knee on our own seat so we could easily hold their foreheads back each time it happened. Again, I wouldn’t admit this out loud, even to Ned, but it’s a little bit funny that Ned was a split second slower than me, so while I kept catching MJ’s head before the stop, he half-smacked Y/N’s forehead, like a really-close-to-the-floor basketball dribble, and made a wincing face each time. A lot of times. But it did stop her from colliding with the seat, and she didn’t wake up or complain.

As nice as it is with them and almost everyone else sleeping through the dark, quiet first hour of the bus trek back to New York, I am excited for her and MJ to wake up. Whenever that is. I’ve missed them.

But anyway, I really need to focus. God. I’m not doing a great job of that this morning. Apparently. So I’m focusing now. It’s like Ned said. I need to be honest with myself.

Okay.

Alright.

No distractions.

I’m going to set myself straight now, before we get back, so I can make a game plan and be more decisive and make less mistakes. Fewer? Yeah, fewer mistakes. She’s told me that half a dozen times this since she read that grammar book last summer. But that’s not important.

If I’m being honest... I think I’ve avoided the real possibility that things could work out between us because it felt too risky. And I make some dumb, impulsive choices. So that’s saying a lot. If she said no, what’s the worst that could happen? May and Ned have been asking me that for months, and it’s been so frustrating. The answer should be obvious. The worst thing wouldn’t be the rejection, it’d be if it made her uncomfortable and she broke off our friendship. Or, even if she stuck around, if our friendship changed and I had to watch her get more and more distant, knowing it was my fault and nothing would ever go back to normal.

Those were the worst — and, I thought, most probable — possibilities. For months I’ve been certain that if anything changed, everything would, and it’d all go to shit. So I kept dodging it. And dodging her before the trip. But, then, things did change this weekend. Things are changing. We fought, and it was super shitty and awful and a total nightmare fiasco, but we made up. And she seemed almost as relieved as me when we did. Now we even have this pact about spending more time together. I know it’s officially only in the name of friendship, but something’s… different. I feel it, and I think she does too. And it doesn’t seem bad. That’s the craziest part. I mean, she even kissed me last night. On the cheek, but still. “Keep it.” Maybe May’s not ridiculous: she really might feel the same way.

I’ve been texting her this morning, actually. Aunt May. I had to admit that I’m happy she forced me to do the forehead kiss thing last night. As annoyed as I was that she and Ned ganged up on me like that, I can’t dispute the results. She kissed me! Kind of. (To be fair, she did hit my mouth a little bit even if it was an accident.) At first it made me wonder if she heard any of Ned’s shout-comments before I could turn the t.v. up to cover what he was saying. But I doubt it. Even if she felt the same way, I know her too well to think she wouldn’t freak out more and enough that it’d be noticable. Yeah, no, I’d definitely have been able to tell if she’d heard him saying things like, “Nobody’s saying you have to tell her that you googled the probability of high school sweethearts getting married that time she saved your ass on that Bronte essay, but yeah, Aunt May’s right! Just ask her to come over and either talk to her or do the hair/forehead thing!” Anyway, May’s on board with her coming over a lot this week and next week and giving us some space. So are Ned and MJ. Ned said they agreed on giving us two weeks (starting tomorrow) without them hanging out after school. And who knows, if the dance goes really well, maybe it’ll be normal for us to hang out, just us, without the whole group. Because… well, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

I’ll admit, they’re the best friends I could ever have. All three of them.

And it’s nice to have them all here now, Ned to my left and the girls in front of us. It’s even nicer to be outside of class or the city or crazy study sessions and have had a short breather from all that (despite the shitshow before we smoothed things over and could enjoy it). To be somewhere chill together. Yesterday and today probably feel even better because the last few days, or even weeks… no— months, if I’m being honest— have had me in a kind of less than happy place. But that’s over now. We’re all here and things are finally good. I just wish the girls would wake up, especially since Ned’s back on his phone. Again.

Yesterday, everybody hung out for most of the afternoon, but being in the whole decathlon group isn’t the same as just being the four of us. Or two.

Speaking of two— Ned being away during this next week or two is going to make everything so… unfiltered. New. Without his interference and being able to talk to him as often as normal, it’ll mostly just be her and me. Nobody to distract attention or blame stuff on or help me out when I’m doing something dumb (which is often). Like, for example, last night when I maybe let my excitement get the better of me and I might’ve jumped on the bed and thrown a pillow that accidentally broke the lamp on the nightstand. While I don’t really think writing that “Bill Mr. Harrington” note with the school’s address was Ned’s best idea, it helped me not care too much, enough that I didn’t do something dumber like actually tell Mr. Harrington. It might come back to bite us, though. Still, he was genuinely helpful this morning when Flash showed up too.

While we were hanging out in the girls’ room waiting for them to finish packing, there was a knock on the door. I figured it was Mr. Harrington about to yell at me and Ned for the broken lamp, so I motioned to Ned to shut up and move closer to the head of the bed we were already sitting on where, courtesy of the wall between the bedroom and bathroom, he wouldn’t be able to see us as long as he stayed by the doorway. MJ gave us an odd glance before she got up to answer it. Her annoyed, “What are you doing here?” didn’t immediately disqualify Mr. Harrington, but the sound of Flash’s voice saying, “I, uh, brought you guys some muffins,” made me tense at the first syllable.

“The free muffins they give us for breakfast?”

MJ’s dripping sarcasm nearly made me laugh even though I couldn’t see her, but Y/N turning from her suitcase and walking over to join them killed it still in my throat.

“Nope,” he said. “They’re fancy muffins from a bakery a few miles away.”

I wanted to roll my eyes out of my skull.

She may not like him, but that doesn’t mean I was wrong about him being into her. What a dumb way to impress someone. “Fancy muffins.”

“Expensive?” MJ asked. Even without seeing her face, I could tell she was giving him the squint death stare. It’s scary to have to respond to that face if you don’t know what the right answer is.

“Yes, especially with the delivery fee,” he said, sounding prepared for the question, “but they’re from a small local place, not a chain, which I figured you guys would appreciate. Actually, I think you’d like the woman who owns it, she was super grouchy and hard to convince.”

“Convince?”

“They don’t normally deliver at 5 in the morning.”

“Oh, so you thought you could just—”

“What kind did you get?”

That’s one of the things I like about Y/N. She knows how to manage tempers and when to jump in; she has Flash and MJ down to a science. In that moment, though, I wanted MJ to fire her most confrontational questions at him with no mercy.

“Well, they’re all apology muffins—” I heard MJ scoff. Exactly. She gets it. “But I got blueberry, chocolate, obviously, coffee, cranberry orange, maple, I think that one has chicken in it or something, and banana nut.”

Ned and I turned towards each other with silent smirks at the last one. It’s a dumb joke, but under normal circumstances we’d never resist—

“Cool. Since you’ve brought so many, you can come in.”

Sometimes MJ drives me up the wall. This was one of those times.

I mentally took back my agreement with her scoff.

The three of them came into the room, and for a couple seconds, Flash didn’t see us. The girls were closer to the window than they were to the wall and the bed Ned and I were sitting on, and he didn’t look behind him. Until MJ pointed us out directly.

“You can give them some too,” she said, her expression bordering on smug. “Apology muffins, right?”

Flash froze for a second. I straightened my back. Neither Ned or I said anything.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded. “Of course.”

Surprisingly, he shook his shoulders like a bug just buzzed by his head and walked over, opening a giant rectangle of a box up to us.

“Take however many you guys want.”

I stared at him, not moving. Nobody flinched. Then I realized he was tapping the side of the box with his thumb. Not in an asshole come on, hurry up way, but in an anxious way. Just as I started to reach toward the box, Y/N asked:

“Why’d you get so many of the coffee ones?”

Flash looked away at just the right second.

Did I technically cave first by reaching into the box? Yes. But did anyone see? No.

Although, I guess he technically caved by offering us the muffins in the first place. Ha. All the same, I took a blueberry one.

“They’re my dad’s favorite. I wanted to surprise him, you know? But I can’t even get a hold of.... Um, are your guys’ parents going to pick you up when we get there, or are you actually staying for school?”

“Staying.”

“All of you?”

He looked around to ask all of us, even me and Ned. We all nodded. When he looked at me, though, his eyes twitched. It’s a face I’ve gotten a lot before. He realized he said parents.

“You said these are orange cranberry?” Ned asked, pointing.

Flash nodded.

“They’re solid, though the banana nut ones are probably the best.”

As I said, under normal circumstances, like if one of the girls had said it, I would’ve laughed right then, but I’m not used to laughing around Flash. Ned, who usually follows that same rule, shook his head and grinned, if a little bit... nervously?

“Hell no!” he said, pretending to be mildly outraged. “I’m not eating banana-bust-a-nut muffins.”

A second surprise: Flash tilted his head and paused, clearly as stunned to be told a joke by Ned as the rest of us were to witness it— and laughed. So did everyone else. It was only for a few seconds, like literally three quick seconds, but for the first time for as long as I can remember, all of us were laughing with Flash. It stopped almost as soon as it started.

Tension crept back in soon so he left pretty quickly after that with an awkward, “See you guys in a few.” Thank god.

The girls finished tidying their room and going over the homework that’s due today (which we did last week since we knew we’d never get it done on the trip), before forcing me and Ned into the hallway so Mr. Harrington wouldn’t need to check our room for us and potentially find the broken lamp.

And then, pretty soon, we ended up on the warm bus, loaded in with everyone else. It seemed like everybody but Ned and I were too quiet and sleepy and squinty to be able to talk much before dozing off or staring blankly out the window or scrolling social media on their phones, the latter two options leading to the first in most cases. At this point, I think Ned, Flash, and I are the only ones still awake.

I’m going to work at tolerating him. As long as he doesn’t cross any lines with anybody from now on, I won’t bait him either. (Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of that, especially recently.) I mean, his comment about his dad was hard to miss. And even when he said it, it wasn’t a shock. Everyone in our grade at some point has had to listen to Flash’s rambling excuses for his parents ignoring or forgetting to show up for school events. Maybe being a dick is just hereditary for him. Or a family tradition.

I don’t remember how I got so off track. Where was I before? Oh yeah. Risk. Possibilities. The almost-worst case scenario that turned out not so bad. It’s been a messy weekend with plenty of re-evaluating, but the point is simple: I think I’ve got to give a few new things a try, and I’m excited to have a chance over the next couple weeks.

Next update: God only knows.

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fanfictiondreamscape · 4 years ago

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When One Wants Ice Cream

Title: When One Wants Ice Cream

Genre: maybe a little bit fluffy, but primarily comedic (hopefully - i make no promises)

Pairing: Rin Matsuoka/Haruka Nanase/Nagisa Hazuki/Makoto Tachibana x Reader (all separate)

Notes: Okay, so this was a random idea that popped into my head while going to get ice cream about a week ago. What happened before going was what inspired this was, when my mom asked me to take our dog outside, I randomly had a craving for ice cream. Instead of answering her question about taking the dog out, I just randomly said, “I want ice cream.”

The rest of the night we couldn’t stop laughing about it, and I still can’t get over it. (Seriously, typing this up was hard enough as I couldn’t type anything correctly while laughing).

So, I hope you guys enjoy a rendition of my random sense of language combined with swimmer boys!

Below the cut!

Rin Matsuoka

we are all aware that this boy would die for you

seriously, certified best boyfriend #1

but that also means that he isn’t afraid to make fun of you when you do or say something weird

which made this moment leagues funnier than it initially seemed

earlier, he had come into the living area of the apartment you two shared with a question

he seemed upbeat, but you were severely drained due to schoolwork aftermath and work stress

unlike him, you worked in a clothing store as a manager

it was v e r y stressful

and sometimes, you just need some comfort food

“hey, babe, what should we do on your day off?”

he was excited, that’s for sure - it’s the first night you’ve had a day off in a while, and he wanted to go out on a date with you.

but he wasn’t expecting your answer to be so...random.

“i want ice cream.”

he paused, smiled, and bust out laughing.

“w-what did you just say?”

you weren’t 100% aware of what you said, but that made it all the more funny

“i want ice cream, rin.”

he continued laughing while you continued to fully realize what you said.

“like right- right now?”

“yes, i have a craving for ice cream right now.”

he eventually calmed down enough to get out more than giggles.

“well, you wanna go? we can walk up there, but you gotta hurry, babe.”

you were up off the couch in less than a second.

“already on it!’

you both walked up there with your hands connected, smiling and laughing at the most recent occurrence.

and for the trouble, you paid for the ice cream under the circumstance that rin pays it next them.

in general, though, the statement became a small inside joke between the two of you

(seriously. kou, haru, sasuke, you name it - when you pulled this out in front of them and busted out laughing right after, they were so confused.)

(contrary to rin, though, you had to take a photo of every time their reactions came - you have an album dedicated to it and you post the images to tease them)

Haruka Nanase

haru is soft despite what he comes off as

but he still has his moments of randomness.

and this was one of them.

you two were walking next to each other, side-by-side on your way to the park.

you were hungry, he was hungry, and you didn’t want fish for the umpteenth time in a row.

and he knew this, as he really does love you and wants to expand his tastes for the future you two have planned.

so when you decided to ask a question in regards to what to eat, his answer shocked you just the slightest.

“hey, haru, what do you want to eat?”

“i want ice cream.”

you giggled the second you heard his response to your inquiry, watching as he turned to you

though he kept a straight face, you could see the confusion in your eyes

which just made you laugh harder

you two had to stop and he had to hold you up as you nearly collapsed from laughing too hard

“what’s so funny?”

you were still laughing.

“you- you- ohmygod- you’ve never said anything like that before!”

poor boy was still confused

seriously confused

it kind of hurt, if he were to be honest

but he couldn’t help but smile at your expression

or your laugh

or just you in general

and you saw it as you were calming down from your laughing high

“we can get some ice cream, haru. that was just odd coming from you.”

he was confused again.

“i like it, though. it’s sweet.”

he returned to his mellow expression, still stoic and his eyes soft

his hand was held out as you stood up, and you both continued your walk to the ice cream shop from there

now, from time after time, you tease him about his smile

(and you may have asked his friends how to get him to smile and/or laugh)

(to which they told you to tickle him when you could)

(and now he’s on guard constantly)

(look what you’ve become)

Nagisa Hazuki

boi is upbeat

like-

very upbeat

and this translates to college life as well.

so he makes the boring days so much better when they hit a terribly low point.

and while you didn’t deal with these types of days very much, the heat was starting to get to you.

nagisa was still bouncing around and trying to find something to do

even suggesting some crappy board games

you didn’t even bring anything up until you felt your stomach grumble.

“hey, nagisa, are you hungry?”

he jumped up from his cross-legged seat on the floor and yelled his response

“i want ice cream!”

you couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at the reaction, as you were in the mood for something cold to counteract the scorching heat

he had to pull you up from your position on the couch, but you were down for ice cream

which was also reflected in the way you two walked to your favorite ice cream shop.

he had you by the hand, you were dragging your feet behind you, and he had decided to mess with you from time to time

of course, those moments were out-of-the-blue in your zombie like state, but they were fun

people had even watched as you squealed when he’d tickle you or hug your torso like his life depended on it.

still adorable to the bystanders.

either way, the fun was continued from that point on.

you both got your ice cream, he got his, and you both sat on a nearby bench beside each other

you were happy it was under the shade, he was happy that you both got ice cream

you both enjoyed the fact that this was practically an impromptu date, as well.

at one point, some of his ice cream melted off onto the grass beneath your feet

he pouted, you laughed

and patted his head.

he blushed, and you got your revenge :)

he still enjoyed it, though :)

(he got you back when you both got home by sending you into a tickle frenzy)

(pillows were involved and he still won)

(he’s vicious when he wants to be)

due to the both of you enjoying the experience so much, you’d both be 100% down to do something like this again

which translates to ‘who’s gonna say it first?’

and those impulse dates usually end in one of you getting tickled when you get home.

so yeah, fun times

(if you wanna include the time that you managed to knock your head in against the wall from one of his pillow hits)

(you hit him back hard enough to make him tumble off the couch arm and onto the floor, though)

(but, you know, just couple things i guess-)

Makoto Tachibana

yet another swimmer boi that would 100% die for you

certified best boyfriend #2, everybody!

no seriously

this is the type of guy you want to take home to meet your parents/parental figures

and he will then manage to inadvertently make them fall in love with him within five minutes

but one of the reasons he is so loved by them is his care and patience.

which is why he was worried for you at the moment

you were staring blankly at a wall in your house, despite the sound of the tv playing a screaming match in a show

he noticed, of course, and he was lost

“are you doing okay, s/o?”

you rarely did this, and it usually meant that something weird would be coming out of your mouth within the next-

“i want ice cream.”

there it is.

he laughed a little at the statement, and when you were able to fully process it, you did the same thing.

his lasted for about 5 seconds while yours lasted around 10

good times, as he got to see your smile for another time tonight.

(you’re adorable. he is soft for you. like, more so than usual)

so he was worried for nothing, thank god.

but he still didn’t know what to do about it as the shops were all closing down soon.

so he decided to check the convenience stores

a few were open!

so, at around 9:30 at night, you two were walking out to get one

it wasn’t very long, but as you two were holding hands tightly

(and swinging them. again, the sight was adorable)

(god, that was so cheesy, holy shit-)

it went by faster.

upon entering your choice of store, the cashier just peeked up from their trashy magazine

makoto was driven to find the ice cream for you as he was getting a little scared,

but you were driven to annoy the cashier upon the nonchalant interaction that just occurred.

yes, you definitely did want ice cream, but you also wanted this.

you were reaching for a two liter of soda near the machine, and luckily for makoto, he stopped you

he could see the gears turning in your head.

don’t tell me he can not and would not stop you.

(it was dark, he was scared - leave him be)

he had stopped you from causing trouble multiple times in your endeavor to get late night ice cream

thank god, cause you both knew that you’d most likely get kicked out if that were to happen.

either way, you both had your cheap ice cream after a few minutes

and the rest of the night was spent peacefully at your place, watching cheesy movies

and of course, scaring the crap out of makoto with a horror movie to provide an excuse to cuddle him when you both went to sleep

(your tsundere jumped out)

(also #savemakoto)

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Scooby Doo (2002) Review: The Most Punchable Fred Jones of All Time

It’s one last hurrah for Halloween as I take a look at the often derided 2002 Scooby Doo Movie! See what happens when you combine future superstar director James Gunn with .. the guy who thought directing the Smurf’s movie and Big’s Mama’s House were good ideas. Oh and with a splash of the guy who wrote the loveable family film Cheaper by the Dozen and the utterly loathed Percy Jackson film. It’s as messy as you’d expect with that.. but is it BAD? good, so bad it’s good, just sorta okay? Come with me as I try to find out under the cut with a full review.

I’ve always loved Scooby Doo. I grew up with the guy, watching reruns of the non-scrappy classic series from Where Are You to the Scooby Doo Movies, the three Superstar 10 movies (Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf), or the at the time brand new What’s New Scooby Doo. And later in life i’d absolutely adore Mystery Incorporated.. minus the whole Shaggy, Scooby Velma love triangle, but i’ll likely cover that at some point or sooner, you can comission reviews from me for 5 bucks each, 5 dollars off group orders if you really want to make me suffer through that that bad. But getting off self promotion point is I loved and still love the franchise. While I”ve yet to see “Scooby Doo and Guess Who”, though given there’s Weird Al, Kristan Schaal and Urkel episodes you can be sure i’m going to eventually, and Scoob was VERY ehhh even if Dick Dastardly was awesome. But despite my history with the great dane much like with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite my rich history with the franchise I haven’t dove in yet and with a friend who could use a nice halloween suprise and loves scooby doo, I figured now was the time to take a look at it. And since i’d been wanting to take a look at it again anyway, and decided going big wasn’t a bad way to start, i’m taking a look at the 2002 Scooby Doo movie. I saw this flim first run in a drive in, and saw the sequel the same way and loved it as a kid, and fondly remember checking out the Sountrack Preview page back before youtube existed to make checking out soundtracks easier. It was a simplier time. And even rewatching it later with my nieces, I found myself liking it. And the thing was almost every time this film comes up it’s with a turned up nose. The CGI, the confused audience, the deciding to cast Freddy Prinze Junior.. all terrible decisions that overshadow the film, when it’s not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not TERRIBLE either. So what is it then? Well i’ll tells ya. Let’s start with

PRODUCTION: Wait James Gunn Wrote This?

At the turn of the millneium Scooby Doo was back on top. After waning popularity during the Scrappy era, the advent of the warner affilated Cartoon Network meant a whole new generation of kids (raises hand) got to experince Scooby Doo for the first time. This new audeince lead to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, the first of the franchises 80 or so DTV movies that will continue on long after the earth dies, and brought back the franchise after it’s long slumber. Scooby Doo went from dead to as popular as he was in his hey day again. Naturally Warner wanted to cash in and thus this movie was born. Originally the film was supposed to be a more adult project, a send up of the franchise with more sex jokes and what not than made the final cut according to writer James Gunn. Yes, the same James Gunn who wrote and directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and whose currently saving the suicide squad. It was one of Gunn’s earlier films but just from when he’s talked about it, you can tell he genuinely cared about the project. Along for the ride with our future Guardian was his co-writer, Craig Titely, who i’m convinced only came in to do punch ups as the guy has only written three other movies. One of them was being one of MANY writers on Cheaper by the Dozen and thus likely not doing much of note with that, and the other.. is being the only writer on Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief’s movie adaptation.. aka the movie the fanbase and general audiences rejected in droves yet SOMEHOW got a sequel. Which is somehow still worse than his other film, one that asks “was the moon landing a hoax?” Spoilers, it wasn’t. Point is this isn’t a resume that screams co creator and more screams “Guy brought in to kid freindly this up”. More on that in a minute. The director is another less than reassuring face: Raja Gosnell, whose credits BEFORE this film were Home Alone 3, Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s house.. so already he dosen’t have the best track record but somehow got worse because AFTER this film and it’s sequel he directed both live action Smurfs Movies and the universally hated Show Dogs, aka the film that thought dog rape was funny. The fact this film isn’t out and out terrible is a miracle.

Even more so because naturally, as Studios tend to do they interfered: The film was supposed to be more adult, cracking jokes about common things fans of the series growing up thought like Velma is Gay or Shaggy’s a stoner, and having both be fully true. But wanting to appeal to kids, Warner gradually lightned it, hence Craig, and Raja clearly having no shame gladly took it instead of you know.. standing his ground. So Velma has a love intrest thrown in and her kiss with Daphne is gone, while Shaggy’s toke smoking was lowered to subtext.. because either of those things is bad apparently? I dunno the 2000′s were fucked.

Point is THAT’S why these films are so tonally confused and why I don’t hold it agains the film now I know: It wasn’t James Gunn or even, as dumb as he is, Raja Gosnell’s fault that the film had some tones clashing when the studio was demanding it, instead of you know, thinking this through at all and realizing more kids cared about Scooby Doo than they would’ve josie and the pussy cats instead of bringing it up DURING production, when most of the adult stuff was in there. It’s also why the sequel has no real adult stuff, though it’s STILL damn good, but i’ll get to that some other day.

The film was also shot at an actual theme park in australia. Neat.

So yeah the film’s humor kind of ping pongs between knowing adult winks and kids stuff. We get Scooby dressing like a grandma in the same film shaggy enhales his demon possed love intrests breath like weed. The jokes themselves on average are pretty good: Some of my faviorites include the grandma scene, everything rowan atkinson does, Velma getting drunk off her ass, and the instructional video bit which is easily my favorite bit of the episode and one of my faviorite scooby doo jokes period:

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This is even FUNNIER to me on rewatch, as we now know this is an instructional video for demons.. and that Scrappy clearly had enough problems with his demon horde to have to pay for this thing. It tis glorious. However there also are also a few that HAVE NOT aged well, are very creepy at best and disgusting sexual assault at worst with Daphne getting her ass grabbed by the Luna Ghost at the start being treated as a joke and Fred oggling Daphne’s body when he’s in it being treated as a ha ha and not...

So yeah the humor’s USUALLY good, but the slipups are noticable and do bring things down a bit when they come by. So the humor is decent if mixed and the production’s a nightmare, how’s the plot? The Plot: Scoob, We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

I won’t be as through as usual because this is a 90 minute movie, I’m running behind as is and it’s 20 years old,

We start with your standard mystery inc case with the Luna Goose, aka Old Man Incel who resented Pamela Anderson for not boning him. But Fred hogging the glory during the resulting News Cast leads the gang to start fighting over lingering tensions: Velma is tired of Fred hogging all the credit when she does most of the legwork solving things, Daphne is tired of being kidnapped and being mistreated by Velma and Freddy who laugh at the idea of her doing more, and Fred..

We’ll get to him later. Shaggy is the only one wanting to stick together, but no one’s having it and the group breaks apart and Matthew LIllard REALLY sells Shaggy’s heartbreak over his friends all abandoning him well.

Two years later though, with Shaggy and Scooby naturally getting stoned and eating large quantities of food on the beach, have made peace with retirement, and have apparently had to duck tons of people coming to them to solve mysteries since they aren’t about that. The latest in that line is a man representing Emile Mondovarius, the owner of Spooky Island, a vast island resort and theme park. Naturally since it has spooky in the name the boys want nothing but Mondovarius does what honestly every previous guy coming to them should’ve done: offers them an all you can eat buffet. Since they’ve done more traumatizing for Dog Treats, they agree and it soon turns out the entire gang was invited, though none of them but Shaggy and Scooby are happy to see each other. I will say one of my complaints about the film is it never tackles the emotions behind the breakup: while the teams slowly repairs there are never any outright apologizes or scenes of them recociling or scenes of Shaggy chewing them out for abandoning him due to their spat. It just skips over the emotional bits to either wave a joke for the kiddies around or scream

Really the jokes aren’t bad, the film just has trouble with actual emotion or depth that could’ve been there and tries for it once in a while, but dosen’t really do anything with it. The gang splitting up’s a good concept, and at this point on Scooby Doo on Zombie Island had really used it, and that was one where they were clearly still close friends and were still in touch they just quit mystery solving for a while till Zombie Island happened. Mystery Incorpreated would finally give this story justice later: Instead of over a petty ego squabble, the gang broke up over underlying tensions: The revelations about Fred’s dad caused him to go try and find himself, Velma alienated herself by hiding things from them, and Shaggy was shipped off to Military School and Scooby doggy prison camp... thankfully the last two didn’t last and Scooby rescued Shaggy with a tank but the tension DIDN’T go away: While the gang mostly reunited, Velma took time to forgive them and also tried bringing in the friend/girlfriend she’d made in the meantime only for her friends to isolate her and throw her out while Daphne took her time to return due to being hurt by fred. It’s complex and good stuff versus here where it’s just “WE’RE APART BECAUSE WE HATES EACH OTHER. And now we’re NOT”. It’s just a waste of a good concept and i’ m glad the franchise got around to doing it right.

But my gripes aside our heroes head to the resort and meet Mondevarious, who admits outright to having tricked then and with confronted with the gang being broken up, makes it clear he knews. “That’s the thing about broken things.. you can put them back together.”

And so he did. He needs the Gang’s help as he’s worried about the island and something going wrong there: The teens are leaving polite, well behaved. and clearly not themselves as one reacts to an old friend by neck lifting him and tossing him aside. Something’s deeply wrong here and the gang’s intrest is piqued enough to stay though everyone but Shaggy is determined to solve it themselves out of ego. Mondvarius is played by Rowan Atkinson and while I watched the bean movie as a kid this is where I fell in love with the guy, with later watches of Blackadder confirming that in my college years. Rowan just brings a fun dorky energy to the character and a nice earnestness too but when he later takes a turn for the bad, he does that well too. Atkinson is HIGHLY underated in my opinon and easily the MVP of this film’s supporting cast. So the investigation begins, and we get our supsects: The first we met on the plane, Mary Jane, a kind blonde played by Isla Fisher who got the job becasue Gosnel, in a rare good decision, saw how talented she was and while still picking Sara Michele Gellar for Daphne, made sure she had a part. She’s a nice sweet girl who Shaggy falls for and Scooby’s annoyed by it.. though unlike earlier the film beats mystery inc easily here as it’s a more understandable conflict and dosen’t act like Dog Issues is a thing people says. Again i’ll get to that clusterfuck of an arc some day. The other two are N’Goo Tuna, a shady worker at the park who spouts off the legends of the island. In a nice twist, he’s NOT the vilian, as is obvious but is his right hand man. He also has his own right hand and muscle in Zarkos a cool looking Luchador and N’Goo’s muscle. Also N’Goo may be one of the worst names in Scooby Doo History, and that includes Dabba Doo. But the legend claims the island was once owned by demons who want revenge since the resort took the island from him.

The other is probably my faviorite non Rowan Atkinson character, Voodoo Maestro, played by Miguel Nunez. He’s basically just a guy who lives on the fringes of the island and also hates the resort and tries using voodoo curses. He’s honestly a delight from his attempt to sacrifice a chicken (An already dead one at that), to his general hammy and annoyed at dealing with these teenagers demeanor. NAturally he has nothing to do with this but he’s still a fun addition and I wish he was in more scnenes than the two he gets. But with what they’ve gathered the gang all end up at a spooky castle attraction, with Scooby and Shaggy of course being bribed by daphne while Velma and Fred show up indpeendntly and end up finding the weird training video from earlier but all get caught when the traps are activiated> There’s also a farting contest which.. eh not funny to me but i’ve seen so much worse i’m not even remotely upset. But then the traps trigger though during the chaos Fred and Velma are forced to work together and finally start doing so, and Daphne finds a clue: A mysterious pyramid known as the damon righus and finally gets some, if not nearly enough, credit. So the gang is back together.. even if it’s a tenative peace, the high from solving this and relay to their boss the suspects, including him, though Fred assures Mondovarius it’s just because he’s spooky and rowan’s character’s delight over that is fucking glorious. So the gang enjoys some down time at the local bar, with Fred and Daphne doing their own look ins, Scooby and Shaggy eating and encountring mary again and Velma getting hit on by a dude while looking over the ritus, revealing it’s some sort of soul sucking aparatus, and going into their history... which is really just an excuse to bring Scrappy in who in this universe, is a horny egotistical little shit whose abandoned as a result. ANd before anyone boos he’s not a puppy here, he’s got.. dog dwarfisim.. which while .. how does that even work... means he’s a grown ass man and deserved this. We also get drunk velma and Linda Caredenlli is a delight

The night gets interupted by terrible cgi monsters, the aformentioned emon who soul suck most of the college kids present and also get fred and velma who both find out these are very much real. We also get the best song on the soundtrack, man with a hex. It slaps. But it makes good chase music as with Mondvarious, Fred and Velma captured, the rest of the gang and mary escape. The next morning we get a surreal as hell scene as everyone’s partying, Fred’s talking in slang and Velma with clevage, thank you, is chatting up.. Sugar Ray? For those younger of you they were a band at the time. They were a big thing. Not half bad but faded away. They looked as 2000′s as hell though. WHy Smash Mouth gets all the memes and not them is beyond me. Look at lead singer Mark McGrath!It’s like the early 2000′s gained sentience and took a human form. But the gang is quickly forced to run from sugar ray, though they get Daphne in a deleted scene. Why it was deleted I dunno. Point is Shaggy, Scooby and Mary are all alone.. oh and Mary’s possessed. Shaggy and Scooby argue over it because Shaggy just thinks Scooby is jealous and while he is .. why would he lie about this? He’s as cowardly as you are. But Scooby falls through the floor, and Shaggy is now going solo but luckily finds his friends souls, and eveyrone elses in a massive cool looking vat and frees them all. Velma, when the demon leaves her and confronts her, finds out sunlight kills the demons and saves Daphne from hers... only to find Fred in her body. Daphne is naturally horrified and we do get a great bodyswapping scene.

Our heroes reconvince on the beach where htey find the Maestro who explains what’s going on to a point, with the gang’s clues filling in the blanks: The ritus, which they stole back earlier, is used for a ritual that will allow the Demons to rule over the earth for “a thousand years of darkness” but it requires a pure soul to work. Cue our big bad talking Scooby into being their willing sacrifice since Scooby dooes not understand what a sacrifice is. Shaggy naturally rallies the group to go save him after their understandably worried since they usually dealt with weirdos in costumes and not the apocalypse.. well okay Velma and Fred aren’t, Daphne dealt with this kind of thing once a week back in Sunnydale. So they set up a plan to destroy all the demons at once by unleashing the soul bath, setting them all loose and then using a spooky disco ball from one of the attractions rigged up over the ritual area to shine the light in. It’s classic scooby doo.

Things naturally go wrong as while Shaggy goes to rescue scooby and makes up with him, he’s caught, so are fred and velma and they have to scramble, while Daphne looses a fight with the luchador up top while trying to let the light in to finish the trap. Meanwhile Shaggy saves Scooby’s soul just as Mondovarious sucks it out by shoving the guy.. revealing him to be a robot! DUN DUN DUN. And inside is Scrappy.. which you all probably knew already but try to act suprise who wanted to conquer the world as revenge for the gang abandoning him and because again, in this universe he’s kind of an asshole. He absorbs the souls gathered so far and merges with the damon ritus, because we’re operating on video game rules now apparently, so final boss time. But we get a great climax as Scrappy chases scooby, Daphne goes buffy on Zarkos ass , and as a result he shatters the glass and lets the light in releasing the disco ball the kill the demons.. man I love that I get to type things like that. Scooby removes the ritus and defeats his nephew and the day is saved. Velma hooks up with random guy, Daphne and Fred get together, I die inside a little and Shaggy and Mary Jane bond. At the press Fred does his good deed for the movie by letting Velma explain things and get the spotlight and the group have firmly reunited. THE END. Overall it’s a solid plot, that works well, comes together in the end and was well put together, it’s more the filling that causes it to tilt back and forth a bit, but overlal outside of the issue I mentioned it’s a good scooby doo plot. While some have pointed out it is similar to zombie island, a case reuniting the gang, the person who brought them there wanting to sacrifice them, or just scooby here, monsters being real, it works because everything else is so different. But since there’s more to break down and it’s easier to give it it’s own section let’s look at...

THE CHARACTERS: NOT HALF BAD, FRED CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF.

So we’re down to character.. and since there’s a blonde, preeening, selfish, arrogant, sleazy, sexist, obnoxious, loud mouthed, useless elephant in the room, let’s start with Fred. And to quote it’s always sunny....

Yeah so that fury of a thousand crashing waves (Cracks Knuckles): Fred is the worst part of this movie, the worst version of the character across the entire franchise that i’ve seen with the sincre doubt that there is ANY version worse than this. Everything I said above is true and THEN some. He is one of the most unlikable characters i’ve seen in a film that wasn’t INTENDED to be. There’s just NOTHING to like about him. Nothing. He treats his “Friends” like garbage, all four of them: He basically ignores shaggy and scooby at best and treats them as if they were nothing. For Velma he’s your classic power abusing douche who pushes her to the side and often steals the credit for things she did. He’s still a good mystery solver, but he acts like he does all the work to the press and takes all the credit when Velma works as hard as he does if not harder. And worst of all is Daphne, who he basically either treats like some moron who gets kidnapped due to incompetence and not because creepy old dudes want to feel her up, which given the intro is VERY likely the reason she’s the resident victim of the group, and not like a person, or like a pair of boobs and legs he wants to bang or feel up creepily while he’s in her body. For fuck’s sake his reaction to finding out he’s in her body is a creepy and smug “I can see myself naaaakeddd” If that dosen’t make you want to smack him get off my blog. And they get together in the end!

Who who wanted that. I genuinely want the presumibly original ending where Daphne and Velma hook up and Fred falls off a pier and is never seen again. The acting does not help. While the other four gang members are expertly cast Fred was given to Freddy Prinze Junior, who made a career out of playing arrogant dicks who are somehow the main character so I can’t fault the casting but I can fault that he can’t delver any line without that smug air of trying to be cool douche and it’s at it’s worst with Fred since Fred’s already written as the biggest creepiest douche in the world and Freddy somehow makes it WORSE. He also has zero chemstiry with Daphne, which would be weird given he and Sarah Michelle Gellar had dated for 2 years at this point and as of this writing have been together for 20 overall and have two wonderful kids together... but given how badly written Fred is here, I can’t blame either of them. And i’m sure FPJ is a swell guy, loves his kids loves his wife seems like a really plesant guy, nothing against him as a person, but at least at this point in his career he wasn’t very good. And I am actually planning on trying to seek out one of his later works in his career to see if he’s gotten better in recent years, and willing to give him the benifit of a doubt that he probably has. I just don’t like him here, and while the script does most of the work he only makes it worse.And works before this (Pup Named Scooby Doo) and after this (Mystery Incorperated) would prove you can give fred a personality that’s not dick tip, so fuck this character, fuck the writing.. and I hope Freddy is having a happy halloween with his loving wife and children, seriously I meant it I have nothing against him as a person. A terrible actor can still be a WONDERFUL guy.

Now that’s thankfully put to bed, let’s pivot over to Shaggy, whose easily the best of the cast. Matthew Lillard looks the part pefectly, has the right combination of heart and goofus and has some great comedic timing. Granted Scream had already proven the guy’s got genuine talent, but still he’s great here and is currently playing Shaggy in most films and productions, except Scoob which.. was far from it’s only mistake but easily the biggest. There’s not much else to say: the guy IS Shaggy and is the only person whose taken up the roll to equal Kasey Casem in it. As for how he’s written.. he’s basically the same and apart from one line of him wanting to leave everyone to their deaths, which feels like it was added later, he’s written really well and is easily the most likeable of the group.

Scooby is alright. Not the best version but funny and charming enough when he needs to be and while I hated the CGI at one point.. it’s honestly not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but time has actually been very good to it both in how it’s held up and in the fact we’ve gotten SO MUCH WORSE with so much better techlogies. I mean.. Cats exists.. Marmaduke Exists.. the Bill Murray Garfield exists. This was offputting at the time but now it’s just okay. But character wise he’s good and again not much diffrent.

Velma is the second best casting of the movie. Played by Linda Cardenelli, who i’ve harbored a crush on for a good few decades now and admire mostly for her talent and charm, Linda kills the roll and easily slips into it as easily as Matt did, and while not picking it up full time like he did, still did it a few times afterword and played hot dog water in mystery incorperated, so she did finally get to play a Lesbian Velma it just took a while. And while Velma being gay is kind of sterotyping, it would’ve been nice to have been kept in instead of edited out for bullshit reasons. But overal her character is decent: While she ALSO bullies and belittles daphne like fred, unlike fred it comes less from just being a douche and more from insecurity. As her scene at the bar makes clear she feels undervalued like the other, like the nerd who the cool kids LET hang out with them instead of part of the team. While it dosen’t make her treatment of Daphne OKAY, it makes Velma understandable. We also get Velma Clevage which.. okay not sure if the world needed that but whatever. Point is it’s throughly likeable portryal that I wish got some character growth. Finally out of the main 5 there’s Daphne, whose alright. Not as good as the other two, as it feels they lean a bit too heavily on her having taken self defense and wanting ot be tougher, but Sarah Michelle Gellar gives her a ton of charm and likeablity that her husband’s character sadly lacks. There’s just a fun, adorable energy to daph that ends up coupling with her buffy style badassery at the end and Sarah plays both beautifully. The script didn’t give her a ton to work with, though that’s the same for all four of htem, but Sarah really made the character work and made her somewhat memorable despite not being as good as Linda or Matthew. Basically not the best, but still a comfortable third ahead of scooby doo and jackass jones.

As for the rest of the cast, Rowan Attkinson i’ve covered and is utterly fantastic as is the Voodoo Maestro, and both should get hteir own hbo max spinoff together. The minons.. stupid name and luchadoor are decent enough, nothign special but they have presence and do the job of goon well. And Mary Jane is alright.. the joke is WAY too on the nose to be funny and she’s mostly just there to be sweet, but she’s harmless. Not good but not bad. So finally we have our big bad, Scrappy. And i’m.. mixed about this. On one hand, Scott Innes, who it turns out is also from Missouri good on you dude!, does a terrific job and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t don messick as Scrappy and he plays him as evil great. On the other.. it’s just kinda goofy. Out of all the tips of hte hat to scooby stuff this feels the most over the top. Scrappy was hated, including by james gunn.. so he’s the bad guy. It’s just a bit on the nose, and the twist is pretty easily teligraphed since Scrappy suspciously is mentioned in one scene so him showing up at all is pretty easy to see coming. It’s not terible but it’s not great. His demon minons also just suck.. the designs are wonky and their cgi, unlike scooby and scrappy’s, is just REALLY bad and dated, and even as a kid I never liked them.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Scooby Doo is a decent but messy movie. The clashing tones, dated humor and godawful version of fred drag it down at times, and it’s very clear this had a lot of hands in the pot. But.. I still enjoy it. It’s not the best scooby ever, tha’ts mystery incorpeated, but it has great atmosphere, some good ideas, an utterly spectacular with one exception cast, and some really funny jokes. I genuinely feel the film is overhated when it’s a unique, weird and wonderful slice of Scooby. For better or worse there’s no other Scooby doo property quite like it, and that’s what makes it so fun. And it has enough good performances and jokes to smooth out the edges. It’s not the best, it’s a mess.. but sometimes a mess is fun and I like this flim for being a fun mess I can enjoy with my nieces and talk about to all of you. And sometimes that’s all you need. Thank you for reading this. If you like this you can comission your own review: 5 bucks for a tv episode, 15 for a movie, 10 for an hour long special, and 5 dollars off when you order more than one episode of a show at a time. Just send me a direct message or ask on here and we’ll get started. Until then you can check out my backlog of reviews, check this space every monday for ducktales reviews, and VOTE DAMMIT VOTE. Until we meet again it’s been a pleasure. Play us out Atomic Fireballs, it’s been a wonderful halloween.

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#scooby doo #james gunn #shaggy rogers #fred jones #velma dinkely #daphne blake #rowan atkinson #sarah michelle gellar #freddy prinze jr #linda cardellini #matthew lillard

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escapingreality1992 · 5 years ago

Text

Corn Maze Fun

On a cool, crisp afternoon in the compound, I sat in my room with one of my best friends, Carol Danvers. We were talking about going out for dinner when Tony popped his head inside the open doorway.

"Family meeting, five minutes. Oh and Arabella, Strange is in attendance," he alerted us.

"Really? You call a family meeting and invite Stephen? Not much of a family meeting is it? Did Thor invite Loki?" I joked, earning a frown from him.

"I can't get over the fact that you're on a first name basis with the wizard,"

"I'll take your answer as a yes. Stephen isn't too bad. He's nice to me anyway,"

"Oh, come on. You do realize the guy can be an asshole sometimes right?"

"There once was a time when you acted the same way. Give him some time. I'm positive he'll come around one day," I said.

"We'll be down in a minute. I need to discuss something with Arabella real quick," Carol interrupted us before we got into a nasty argument. Tony opened his mouth to make another statement but something about Carol's expression made him close it and disappear from sight. Once Tony was out of earshot, she turned her attention on me.

"What?" I questioned.

"We've got to talk about this crush of yours," she stated, making me cringe.

"I don't have a crush on Stephen. Everyone thinks I do but-,"

"Why are you crushing on Thor? Have you seen him lately?" Carol blurted out, a disapproving expression scrawled over her features. I narrowed my eyes at her, anger flaring up inside.

"You disapprove of it because why? Because he's chubby? You know looks have never mattered to me right? Besides he's adorable. I love Viking Thor," I snapped.

"Ara, I love you but surely there are better options than him. Even Strange would be a significant improvement. And you look cute when you're around-,"

"We're late to the meeting," I stated, cutting her off. I got off the bed and walked out into the hallway. Carol let out an exasperated sigh, giving up at the idea of convincing me I was nuts to like Thor. Sure, he had let himself go, but he hadn't changed much in personality. In fact he'd gotten funnier, more relaxed than before. We descended the steps to the lounge and I gracefully glided over to Stephen, who was sitting on one of the couches; I placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. He chuckled and stood to give me a quick hug. I returned it, releasing him a moment later and made my way to approach Thor. He truly became my favorite person in the world.

"Mind if I sit here?" I asked him, gesturing to his lap. I noticed Loki rolling his eyes and shot him a wink, waiting on Thor to answer me.

"I don't mind at all. Come, sit. Drink," he replied, holding up a beer stein filled to the brim with a bright golden ale; as tempting as it looked, I knew better. Asgardian ale took its toll on me and I no longer could tolerate its taste; it made me sick and I woke with the worst hangover I've had in my lifetime.

"No thanks. I'll take my seat though," I said, lowering myself onto his spread legs, throwing my own over the armrest, careful not to spill his beer. My back pressed into his arm and our attention turned onto Tony when he began the meeting.

"We've been invited to attend a corn maze tomorrow morning at 11 by Horror Candies, an organization that specializes in fall activities not limited to just horror shows. It sounds fun but it's adult-themed meaning alcohol will be served. We're to go in groups of five and I've assigned everyone to a specific one and in what order we go in," he announced. How intriguing. Perfect for fall though, I thought. I watched as some in the room frowned, others grinned, deeming it easy.

"There are rules. No magic, no powers or mischief," Tony continued, looking directly at Loki with utterance of the last rule. I stifled a laugh watching Loki feign surprise at the mention of it.

"Wonderful! A grand idea indeed!" Thor boomed, a ginormous grin plastered on his face.

"Drinks are served at the end of the maze. There is to be no drinking during or before the event. They're afraid of disorderly conduct of the people attending. Plus, they don't want to be liable for any accidents or injuries," Steve explained, reading from a piece of paper, my guess being the invitation for the event. Thor's smile faded from his lips, forming into somewhat of a pout.

"Don't look so glum. It'll be fun," I told him.

"Yeah, anything to get out of the compound for a few hours. At least it's not a mission this time," Natasha agreed.

"How many people to a group?" Stephen asked, making Tony continue the discussion.

"Five. I've invited a few others. They're planning on meeting us there. The groups are as follows. First group, Rhodey, Wanda, Vision, Clint and me. Second group, Thor, Lang, Sam, Strange and Bruce. Third group, Danvers, my lovely Pepper, Hope Van Dyne, Hill and Arabella. Last group, Barnes, T'Challa, Reindeer Games, Nat and Cap," he told us.

"Weird combinations of people," I commented.

"Eh, different people with a unique set of skills between them," Carol commented, shrugging her shoulders.

"Right. We'll meet down here at 7 a.m. and fly out to Roanoke, Virginia. We'll meet the rest of the crew there. Group up, do the maze and have a celebration after," Steve informed us. Most of us groaned, Thor and I included. We weren't early morning people but at least we'd get some reward out of it. Dispersing after being dismissed, Carol and I, joined by Stephen went out to grab dinner at a local sushi restaurant, washing it down with beer and returned home where I spent most of the evening playing on my phone and watching YouTube videos.

The Next Morning

My alarm blared at exactly 6 a.m. waking me from my deep sleep. I set it exceedingly early in order to take a shower and still have enough time to get dressed to meet everyone downstairs. I yelped at the cold water, it being necessary to help wake me up fully and be alert should I need to concentrate later. Cleaning rather quickly, I got out, checking the temperature in Roanoke. I dressed accordingly, putting on an outfit I didn't mind getting dirty. I exited my room, first grabbing a novel and stuffing my earbuds in my pocket for the two hour flight. I met my friends downstairs, Steve, Nat, Carol, and Tony having got up earlier than I did. Damn the 5 a.m. people. As more people filed in, Stephen arriving by portal, we started discussing the itinerary of the day's event. Scott, Hope, and T'Challa were expected to arrive a few minutes after us, followed by Hill who had demanded to travel alone. We were meeting the hosts, Sally and Jack, and have picture then we could do the maze, which only lasted an hour supposedly; each group would go in half an hour after each other.

"Ara, go get your boyfriend," Natasha told me when Thor still hadn't come down at the meeting time.

"He's not my boyfriend," I commented, heat spreading across my face.

"Not yet. Just go get him will you? We're running behind," Carol stated. The heat grew hotter and I ran down the hallway to the room at the end of the hall. I knocked and called out his name, receiving no answer. Twisting the door knob, I discovered it unlocked and let myself in.

"Thor? Are you ready? We've got...Oh my god! T-Thor! Put some clothes on!" I stated, abruptly shielding my eyes when I slammed into him and his nude body. A new heat flushed my cheeks and I turned, averting my eyesight to the plush, carpeted floor.

"Arabella! Sorry! I didn't hear you knock," he said.

"J-Just put something on and let's go. Preferably something with pants," I told him, ashamed of glancing back at him. I heard a ruffle of clothes and felt the tap of his hand against my shoulder when he was decent. We walked out of his room and I hoped embarrassment at what I encountered had faded from my face as we entered the lounge.

"Finally! Time to go," Tony exclaimed. I caught the concerned looks of Carol and Stephen, both mouthing the words 'Are you okay?' my way. I nodded and caught up with Carol linking arms.

"You sure?" she whispered, her breath soft as a feather brushing against my skin.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I whispered back. We made it to the airport and climbed aboard, Loki and I both making tea, settling into our books for the flight. Halfway through Thor, approached me and took the empty seat next to me.

"I am sorry for what occurred earlier. You weren't meant to see me in that way," he apologized. My face burned in embarrassment and shame.

"Don't worry about it. I should've been more forceful with my knock,"

"Ara.."

"I don't want to talk about it. Please, Thor. Drop it,"

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I-,"

"I'm not embarrassed. Can you drop it and leave me alone," I snapped and looked at him. Instant regret flooded my mind at his expression.

"I am sorry. Truly. I know you must find me repulsive. I'll leave you to your novel," he commented, hurt clouding his blue eyes. He got up and returned to his prior seat up front beside Bruce. Nice, Arabella. You hurt his feelings, I thought. I attempted to resume my book but his words lingered in my head for the rest of the flight and I made a note to apologize later.

Corn Maze

Since we got a late start, we arrived after the others and had a quick introduction with the hosts. We took the picture and then grouped off, Rhodey's team entering first. The area where we at was gorgeous. They had a tent beginning to be set up where drinks and food would be served. Music blared from speakers all around the maze giving it a party-like atmosphere. The maze itself was huge and reminded me of the one in Goblet of Fire except with corn and less creepy. While waiting on our turn, I tried to talk to Thor, to apologize for my outburst on the plane.

"Thor? Listen I-,"

"Look, it's my turn. Hope you have fun," he cut me off, following the rest of his group into the maze.

"Dammit," I mumbled. When it came time for my group, Carol took her place on my left, Hope on my right.

"Having a lover's spat?" Carol asked as we turned a corner and kept going along the path.

"We are not dating. I doubt we ever will. Especially since I snapped at him on the plane,"

"Yeah, I heard. What did he do? Flatten you?"

"Stop making fun of his weight. He...ranintomenaked," I answered, saying the last part quickly.

"What?" Hope asked.

"He ran into me naked. I knocked but he didn't answer. Naturally, I went in and he was in the midst of getting dressed. We collided into each other. He happened to be nude as we did so," I ground out, my face on fire. The girls around me busted out laughing.

"Shut up..." I grumbled.

"This way. So, you were embarrassed. How big was it?" Pepper stated, trying to refrain from laughing again. My skin felt so hot, I thought I'd combust.

"I...didn't notice. I turned around too fast to really see,"

"What I don't understand it...well, why do you like Thor so much? I mean he really let himself go," Maria commented.

"Give him a break. He's been through a lot. He lost his parents, Jane dumped him and then he thought Loki died for real again and half of his people abandoned him. Besides, he's very sweet and down-to-earth, you know. He's still Thor but chubbier," I answered, pulling them around another turn.

"Hey! I think I'm lost!" Thor's loud voice echoed through the maze.

"It doesn't bother you?" Hope questioned. I shook my head and soon we were out of the maze.

"Didn't he go with Strange and Bruce? Shouldn't they have...hey, there they are," Carol noted, gesturing over to the other groups that went in before us.

"Thor's not with them," I stated.

"Guys! Where did everyone go?" Thor yelled from inside the maze.

"What happened? Wasn't he with you?" I asked, concern growing in my mind.

"Yeah, but he took a left when he should have gone straight. He kept walking ahead of us. We tried getting him to come back but he seemed distracted," Bruce answered.

"Fuck! So, he's really lost then?" I said. I started pacing, worried my outburst might have messed him up. The last group joined us and they walked over to the tent with the bar that got set up when we arrived.

"Are you coming?" Stephen asked me. I shook my head, worried about Thor.

"He's going to be okay. He'll find his way out. There's probably more exits," Stephen attempted to reassure me, rubbing my shoulders in a comforting motion.

"You don't understand. I snapped at him on the plane. Told him to leave me alone. He thought I found him repulsive," I told him, my voice quaking with a mixture of fear, concern and, more importantly, guilt.

"Hello? I'm lost. Guys, I'm really starting to panic here," Thor called out again.

"Arabella! Strange! Grab a drink. What's wrong?" Tony said, walking over to us followed by Carol, Steve, Bucky and Maria.

"She's worried that she made Thor sad. She said she snapped at him earlier. Maybe somehow convinced him she didn't like him," Carol commented. I shot her a glare and looked to the sky. The sun began to set, the day getting darker by the minute.

"Help! I can't find my way out!" Thor's voice boomed over the loud music, over the crowd of people partying.

"Why doesn't he just fly out?" Tony asked.

"No flying remember. He didn't bring the hammer or Stormbreaker either to try to stick to the rules," I stated, leaving Stephen's grasp to walk into the maze so I could find Thor.

"Wait! Arabella! You can't go in there alone. We don't even know which path he took and we can't have two Avengers lost in the maze. Look..." Steve protested, releasing a huge sigh. "I brought the hammer. So just ask him to call out for it," he stated.

"Fly out, you idiot!" Tony yelled.

"I can't! It's against the rules!" Thor shouted.

"Screw the rules! You're lost! Call out for the hammer! Fly out!" Tony shouted back, facepalming himself.

"Oh, right!" A few moments of silence filled the air despite the music blaring from the speakers around us and the people talking nearby and then the silver hammer lifted and flew into the maze. Rows of corn splintered, creating a path, disappearing deep into the maze. We watched as Thor rose above the stalks, hovering high for a few seconds before being lowered, his feet brushing the top of the corn husks. Most of us struggled not to laugh, failing as he continued flying towards us, his feet still brushing the top of the husks; his weight evidently a factor of this. He landed before the group, blue eyes twinkling, cheeks flushed red from the cool temperature and the flight back to us.

"Good job big guy. Go grab yourself a drink," Carol told him, patting his shoulder.

"Yes. I must celebrate this glorious night," He walked past us, not even glancing my way; it hurt me and I tried not let anyone see the tears springing to my eyes.

"See, he's fine. You need to get a drink yourself. Relax, have fun," Stephen told me. I nodded and headed into the direction of the bar, waiting on the bartender to come to me.

"What will it be sweetheart?" she asked me, when it came to be my turn.

"She'll take a bloody Mary, extra spicy," Thor's voice ordered before I had a chance to open my mouth. He walked up beside me, beer in hand.

"Coming right up," the bartender said, walking away to mix it up.

"You know me too well," I told him, leaning forward on the bar counter as he leaned his back on it.

"All those years and you've never noticed how much I've liked you," he confessed.

"What about Jane? Surely, you must've liked her if you dated her,"

"Jane is different. She's smart and beautiful in her own way. She's nothing compared to you. I thought that after we broke up, you might consider...but then my father died and then Asgard burned, more chaos happening shortly after that. It really messed up my mind," he told me, looking out at our friends who were talking among each other.

"Then that," I gestured to his stomach. "Happened. I guess we've both been through a lot," I commented, getting my drink and proceeding to thank the bartender.

"Repulsive, I know. You made that clear this morning," he mumbled.

"No. I don't find you repulsive at all. You're still you. That's what matters most. I'm sorry I snapped at you. You were right. I was embarrassed from walking in on you," I stated, toying with my straw. He set down his mug as he turned his body to face me. Our eyes locked and his lips were on mine before I even registered his movements. His hands came to cup the back of my skull, my own reaching up to keep them there. The kiss was soft and gentle; sweet like maple syrup, even though he had been drinking beer. His thick beard scratched my skin, tickling my lips when we took a breath only to go back in for one more. I pressed closer, my fingers crawling to latch in his long Viking style hair, his arms wrapped around my waist, gripping the fabric of my hoodie. We broke apart, foreheads touching, breathing hard.

"So does this mean you accept my apology?" I asked. He chuckled and placed a kiss on the top of my head, pulling my body into his side and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

"Yes and much more. It confirms you like me as much as I like you. Let's go join our friends. I'm sure they'd enjoy our company," he replied. We walked down, hugging each other much to the surprise of our friends. Carol gave me a thumbs up and we continued celebrating until it was time to return home.

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darpok · 7 years ago

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Blog Post: On Fan Fiction and Other Storytelling Traditions

When I was twelve or thirteen years old, and even our family finally had DSL internet, I discovered the joys of fan fiction. In case you haven’t been living under the same rock as I have, allow me to explain. “Fan fiction” refers to stories written by enthusiasts of a particular book, TV show, or other creative work. While most “fics” – as my friends and I would call them – take place within the particular universe of the original story, others take known characters and put them in an entirely new setting. (That’s how 50 Shades of Grey was born.) There’s also fan fiction that doesn’t deliberately draw on any work but revolves around real, famous people in imagined situations. (See Graham Norton and Daniel Radcliffe discuss this type on the former’s show.)

The stories that interested me ranged from shorter “one shots” to multi-chapter epics, but most were placed in the Harry Potter universe and nearly all were tales of romance – if you could call it that.

The pairings I read about (and often ‘shipped’ – a verb that comes from the ‘ship’ in ‘relationship’ and means “hoped would bang”) – whether true to canon (i.e. the original books), such as Lily and James Potter, or wildly inventive, such as Hermione and a Tom Riddle to whom she has traveled back in time – usually engaged in the kind of love/hate banter that sends real couples to therapy. The pair would glare at and insult each other (often employing strangely American turns of phrase for a pair of ostensible Brits), their apparent mutual disgust hiding a deeper attraction. For my friends and I, it was riveting stuff.

While I was mainly a Lily/James shipper myself, you can’t talk about Harry Potter fan fiction and not mention Dramione. The fan-invented romance between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger was a tale of forbidden passion, a defiance of Hogwarts housing norms and the mandates of Potter canon itself. Draco did need to be less of a whiny loser to be a deserving match for Hermione, but this could be arranged without too much trouble. In the fan fiction world, Draco was dark and brooding, and he didn’t bring his dad up in conversation quite as often as in the books. Hermione was clever and empathetic, and although she was rarely depicted with less than Yule Ball-level beauty, her looks were not her main characteristic.

Sometimes fan fiction Draco and Hermione fell for each other while at Hogwarts. In other fics, they met again under changed circumstances years after the fall of Voldemort. Then there were the AU fics in which a brilliant young paralegal named Hermione Granger begins work at the firm where successful lawyer Draco Malfoy practices. You get the idea.

Photoshop creations starring Tom Felton and Emma Watson (no credit belongs to me). The purple one in particular has stayed in my memory for years, and brings on a familiar feeling of excitement at all the great content to peruse in the world. It was the banner for a website that allowed fans to nominate and vote for their favorite Dramione fics.

A particularly sexy iteration of the Draco/Hermione story was called Water by kissherdraco. In it, Draco and Hermione are Head Boy and Girl at Hogwarts. Of course, this means that they must live sequestered in their own dormitory, with its own entrance, common room and adjoining bathroom that ensure they see each other in a state of partial undress when the story demands it.

Water was held by many to be the pinnacle of the genre. It had lust and angst in equal measure, executed with a liberal dose of swear words and aggression. Moreover, Water took the common flaws of the Dramione world’s characters and actually explored them, allowing character to drive plot. In the story, Draco is brooding and cruel as ever, but these traits are linked to vicious abuse at the hands of Lucius. This backstory is not seen as an excuse for Draco’s behavior and he is forced to grow and change as the story progresses (although not quite enough, tbh).

I never finished the story, perhaps because my young brain was alarmed by all the hate-sex, but I revisited it with curiosity for this piece. Here is a relatively benign excerpt from the text, although please skip if you’d rather avoid themes of physical dominance:

“You’re crying,” growled Draco, leaning in and flicking his tongue onto her cheek. He tasted salt.

She struggled then, and he brought his hands to her shoulders to hold her still. “Don’t, Granger,” he warned. “I fucking need this. I can’t fucking…” He trailed off.

He never would have noticed before. Not like he did now, at least. Her lips were wet. They were red and moist and magnificently ripened for him. So full of blood. Hot, heated, sullied blood. He couldn’t take his eyes off them.

Other fics situated romance within a larger plot about the politics of the wizarding world. Prelude to Destiny by AnotherDreamer took place in the Marauder era (i.e. the time of Harry’s parents) and focused on the coming-of-age of Lily Evans and her role in the battle against evil. It begins, “Two cultures and a thousand miles from you, there is a castle on a hill…”

Another fave began life under the title Ancient and Most Noble and is now called Druella Black’s Guide to Womanhood. It is about the diverging lives of the three Black sisters — Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa — in the early years of Voldemort’s power. The sisters confront the crumbling of the their easy closeness as they make different choices in a changing world.

”It’ll be a laugh, you’ll see,” Bellatrix whispered into her ear, her breath sweet and thick from wine. They were curled in the cool grass, tangled in the layers upon layers of lace and satin that were their dress robes; it had taken them an hour to get them on right and just ten minutes to unsettle them. Andromeda’s head was spinning: from the liquor, from the heat, from far too much dancing. “It’ll all be just like this,” Bella was murmuring, her lips brushing against her ear. Stars whirled by overhead, maybe close enough to touch. Close enough to try.

“Always just like this.”

—

Andromeda swore as she stepped off the train. From inside the nicely cool travel car, summer had looked so charming, green and bright and gloriously school-free…

I was most interested in these fics, the ones that revolved around the generations before Harry’s. There was something compelling about the knowledge of forthcoming tragedy for many of the characters…Plucked away from the happy ending of the books, these fics became an exploration of why life is meaningful even in its flawed and finite scope.

I look back on my fan fiction experiences as belonging to a beautiful time when the internet was less like Janet from The Good Place* (if Janet were selling everything she knew about us to profit-hungry corporations and belligerent, militarized governments), and more like a library you went to when you felt like checking out a book. Nobody knew what I ate and where I went every minute of the day, because I didn’t put that stuff online, nor did I (to my knowledge) carry a tracking device with me when I went downstairs to play with my friends. At 5 pm, our moms would have to call each friend’s landline to reach us and remind us to stop home for our daily glass of milk or what-have-you.

*Janet is a humanoid presence in the afterlife who holds all knowledge in the universe and can create objects out of the void.

Fan fiction was a commerce-free creative space – devoid of ad revenue and the quick accumulation of likes. Since there was neither money nor social capital to be gained, everyone who participated did so out of pure interest. One did have the hope of raking in reviews from other community members, but these were about more than validation; reviews allowed people to have conversations about a shared passion and often included constructive criticism along with praise. There was little need for bitterness – if a fic was well-written, everybody won, since it meant they got to read it.

Below are some examples from the reviews section of Prelude to Destiny. It’s certainly no Twitter.

Written by rach on chapter #13. (March 28th 2009, 5am) Hey,

So I’ve read your whole story before, and now I’m reading it again, because I saw it spotlighted on the site. And this chapter is amazing. I love the end…I’ve never (well, before I read this the first time) compared Lily to Mrs Crouch. But it’s so true. They both gave their lives for their sons and…this chapter is phenomenal. Just thought I’d let you know

Rach

Written by Smith on chapter #26. (April 29th 2008, 11am)

…If I am to find any fault in the story, then I should say that Remus was rather dull. Not that it was completely out of character, but I imagine him being funnier and also good Lily’s friend. Their friendship is mentioned by Lupin in the third film and, I should think, in the book as well, though I don’t have a copy right now and thus can’t provide a quote. Pity, that. [Given my extensive knowledge of canon, I can tell you that the reviewer is mistaken on this last point.]

Thank you very much for writing this story. Reading it was an enjoyable experience that I might repeat in the future. You’re brilliant, to put it short.

Author Response: Thanks for the review!Yeah, Remus was a bit dull. Actually, I didn’t intend for Lily to be friends with any of the marauders besides James. I just wanted them out of the way. But I know what you mean. After Sirius entered the story, Remus was even duller in comparison. Plus, I wanted to make Peter seem like he fit in, and Remus just fell by the wayside, you know?I’m enjoying writing Gertrude again after taking over a story from my friend who used my characters. Anyway, thanks again!Miranda

For me, too, fandom was a more than a casual hobby. Since I was only allowed an hour of internet use a day, I would spend the time copying and pasting chapter after chapter of fan fiction onto Microsoft Word, allowing me to read all I wanted later. (As you might imagine, Water was not stored on the family computer.) I remember scouring for new fics on fanfiction.net and clicking through page after page of fan art on deviantart.com (both of which retain their early-2000s layouts, unlike Mugglenet or JK Rowling’s official site), very differently from how I scroll through Instagram today. I admired works of fandom the way one appreciates springtime’s first flower, or the décor of a friend’s bedroom – I admired the stamp of individuality they bore and that inspired me to create something myself, to express my joys and sorrows, to be a part of the world.

RIP old websites

When I did put Harry Potter-inspired art out there, somewhere around age fourteen, it was of course in the form of fan fiction, writing being my weapon of choice. I wrote two one-shot pieces, one funny and the other sad — or such were my intentions, though perhaps the results were inverted. While some friends wrote longer stories, I never felt talented or inspired enough to commit, which is a typical self-doubting move of the kind I am trying to leave behind. (I now plan to write no matter how untalented and uninspired I may be.)

One piece was about a character of my own invention, a Slytherin guy with the requisite pure-blood, Dark magic-loving family, and a perky, ponytailed Huffelpuff girl on whom he develops an obsessive crush. It was intended to be a BBC-inspired mockery of the character, taking all the gloomy sexiness of the Dramione universe and making it ridiculous. It was also a thorough exploration of really wanting to make out with somebody sitting in the same classroom as you, not that I’d know anything about that myself.

The other short story was a sincere ode to the books and an exploration of some of their core questions on death and loss. It followed Harry in an imagined scene that takes place (SPOILER ALERT lol) after Dumbledore’s death in the Half-Blood Prince. Harry is climbing the steps to the Owlery with a package in his hand, thinking over his relationship with Dumbledore. As I wrote, I found that I absolutely had to include excerpts from a fairly unexpected source, a chapter in the first and most overlooked of the Harry Potter books. The chapter is “The Mirror of Erised,” whose titular object reveals to the onlooker their deepest desire.

“Professor Dumbledore. Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”

“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” Harry stared. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful.

In my story, Harry gazes out at the Forbidden Forest for a little while, wondering who Dumbledore had been behind the mask of calm wisdom and pondering the burden of those left alive and grieving. Harry then ties the package he’s been holding to Hedwig’s arm and sends her off, chuckling a little through tears. In the last line it is revealed that – OMG – he has just sent off a pair of thick, woolen SOCKS. To DUMBLEDORE. Even though Dumbledore is DEAD. Isn’t that profound?

Two years later, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, and to my complete surprise, it delved deep into some of the questions about Dumbledore that had tumbled out of me, stream-of-consciousness-like, in the story I wrote. The text even includes part of the above excerpt from “The Mirror of Erised”. At the outset of Deathly Hallows, Harry learns that Dumbledore’s childhood was a difficult one, the true details of which remain murky and contested by his admirers and critics. Harry regrets never having asked Dumbledore about his past, but recalls that, after all, the one personal question he had asked Dumbledore was not answered honestly…

While writing my story, I had imagined Harry’s pain and longing to know Dumbledore better. Because fan fiction allowed me to externalize my interpretation of the text, the questions in my mind took on concrete form. Their answers, when the next book presented them, became all the more striking and emotionally impactful. It was as though I had written a letter to the series of books that had shaped me and received, in a way, a gentle but meaningful response.

In 2004, JK Rowling released a statement about the phenomenon of fan fiction. She was flattered by fans’ desire to write about her characters, and her only caveats were that fan fiction should remain suitable for children (unfortunately that ship had already sailed, and Water was truly the least of it), as well as a non-commercial activity so that fans’ creative pursuits would remain unexploited. Other authors have not been as accepting, and have asked for fan fiction based on their work to be removed from popular websites. After all, in our current world, a story is classified as property. A sentence, a verse, a character’s name, can belong to someone the same way as the furniture in their house and the dollar figure in their bank account.

In the long history of storytelling, however, ownership is a relatively recent idea. Bear with me while I make an analogy – in pre-industrial Britain, every town had a commons, an area of land where anyone could gather firewood, take their cattle to graze, or hunt and fish to supplement a year of poor harvest. Storytelling has historically functioned as a kind of commons of ideas, one that anyone could pull from when the time came to tell a tale. Want to warn your kid against going near a well? Tell them about the hungry demon that lives in it. Were you hired to entertain a crowd at a wedding? Maybe you dust off an old poem about a prince and princess who meet one evening in the forest but spend years apart, not knowing each others’ true identity until it turns out they were betrothed all along.

Nobody invented well-dwelling monsters or estranged lovers for the first time – they simply existed in a shared cultural space, available when needed (or when it was particularly enjoyable to use them), ready to be shaped into something new and old at the same time. Even today, no one questions the use of familiar tropes in books and movies; we know that all storytelling involves a certain amount of borrowing and repetition, and we deem this acceptable as long as the storyteller has put an adequately original spin on the themes they utilize. The legal line is drawn once you get to the particulars – character names, or sentences and dialogue. These must be brand spanking new if you want to avoid a lawsuit and getting dropped by your publishers. (Does anyone else remember How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life?)

But for thousands of years, people told and re-told stories of beloved and familiar characters, not just unnamed archetypes – characters like Odysseus and Arjuna, Gilgamesh and King Arthur. The Sanskrit Mahabharata (Maha-BHA-rata) an epicly long, genre-defying story from South Asia, especially challenges the idea of a single, canonical text (much like other ancient story traditions from the subcontinent). It was told so many times by so many people that modern-day folks are not always able to agree on what the Mahabharata even is. The story is like a vast ocean — recognizable to all, but appears different depending on where you happen to be standing.

In the 20th century, some scholars collected Mahabharata manuscripts from all over the subcontinent, extracted the most commonly occurring parts to form a text, and detailed the many variations of each verse in footnotes that turned out longer than the text itself. No one can quite agree whether to treat this resulting (multi-volume) “Critical Edition” as the essential Sanskrit Mahabharata tradition, or as some kind of strange, post-colonial Mahabharata scrapbook. All this so that whenever somebody wrote an essay about the story, there was a single text, pieced together as it was, to use as a point of reference. (My Bachelor’s thesis was one of the lesser works of this scholarly genre.)

The plot of the Mahabharata goes like this: The five Pandava brothers, namely the prone-to-gambling leader Yudhishthira, morally-conflicted archer Arjuna, lovable beefcake Bhima, and something-to-do-with-horses twins Nakula and Sachdeva, along with their badass wife Draupadi, are exiled from their kingdom and forced into a year of disguise after a rigged dice game that Yudhishthira loses, and in which Draupadi is stripped and humiliated before a hall full of men. Eventually the Pandavas regain what they lost through a bloody war that leaves both sides devastated and questioning the point of all this conflict. The End.

Does my summary reflect my biases a little bit? For somebody else, the Pandavas might be perfect heroes, Draupadi a whiny ungrateful shrew who won’t stop yelling at them. To me, she is the moral backbone of the Pandavas, unafraid to call for what she feels is right even as everyone around her takes the coward’s way out of trouble.

Interpretations of Draupadi from various traditions

But it’s not just me who has a take on the story: the Mahabharata itself reflects a range of interacting and conflicting views, which might indicate that people from various backgrounds heard it and were able, in some way, to influence it. For example, although the text generally upholds hierarchies of caste and gender, it also pulls at the listener’s heartstrings with stories of characters who must confront these oppressive norms.

There’s Amba, who is stolen from her future-husband at her wedding and rejected by him when she manages to return; she later chooses to be re-born as a man in order to kill her kidnapper in battle. There’s Ekalavya, the talented archer from a forest tribe who trains with the Pandavas in youth and asks to prove his devotion to his archery guru any way he can; the guru, who favors the upper-caste prince Arjuna, asks Ekalavya to cut off his right thumb. There’s Kunti, who finds herself pregnant after an illicit affair with a god and places her baby, Karna, in a river; Karna is adopted by a lower-caste charioteer couple and goes on to fight against Kunti’s legitimate sons in the great battle that destroys the universe. And there’s Satyavati, whose husband/baby daddy pretends not to recognize her in front of his kingly court but gets completely schooled on how not to be an asshole.

“You know very well [who I am], your majesty; why do you say that you don’t, lying like a common man? Your heart knows the truth, and knows your lie. A man who does something wrong thinks, ‘No one knows me,’ but the gods know. If you do not do what I ask, your head will burst into a hundred pieces.” She discoursed at length on the reasons why a man should honor his wife, quoting the dharma texts.

(from The Ring of Truth: And Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry by Wendy Doniger)

Perhaps, among the traveling bards and indulgent grandmas who told the Mahabharata over centuries, there were some who identified or empathized with the pain of oppression and through whom otherwise-marginalized voices could ring out into the millennia.

The many Mahabharatas, along with the many conversations inside the Mahabharata, illustrate how the human imagination is prolific and messy, not content with merely absorbing information but impelled to remake, to take inspiration, to create, create, create. Isn’t that what happens when we read? We see the world we are reading about in our own way. We make up something in our own head as we go along, and that’s where the entertainment lies. The book itself is but a wonderful tool.

Perhaps if I had a right-wing patron who paid me to tell stories, I would tell the Mahabharata a little differently from how I do here, focusing on how the Pandavas were self-made men or how the ethnic minorities they killed were thieving encroachers. Or if I were telling the story to children, I might leave out anything particularly frightening. In the telling of a story, the will and whims of the teller have influence, as do those of the listener (or reader) and the financial benefactor (or publishing house).

What remains inevitable, however, is that rarely is a story told the same way twice. Even in our post-printing press, post-internet world, where stories are replicated identically again and again, we continue to dissect, analyze, and change them, whether it be through everyday conversations, online forums, or the prestige lens of a critic’s review. (A perfect example is the adaptation of works from one medium into another, be it from literature to film or from film to theater.) Sometimes the authors themselves continue to tweak and interpret their work – Virginia Wolf was known to make changes to her books prior to reprinting, and we all know that JK Rowling can’t leave the Potter universe well enough alone (love you Jo!).

For me, fan fiction is a grand storytelling and textual tradition not entirely unlike the Mahabharata. Fan fiction not only illustrates the malleable, generative nature of stories, it also provides a rare space, in our capitalist global economy, for storytelling to be that malleable, generative thing it has always been. It allows for democratic engagement in the storytelling traditions of our time, free from the boxes of profit and ownership. It lets us expand the possibilities of our collective imagination. Importantly, it allows voices from the margins into the story, where our canonical texts routinely fail us.

I’m also thankful to fan fiction for being a rare space, outside overpriced college English classes, where literary discussion can thrive. When I say discussion, I don’t mean mere binary criticism – like book reviews, or the Goodreads star rating-aggregates that help determine book sales. I mean questions about how a text makes you feel, what it reflects or critiques about our world, the things that literary characters, beloved and abhorred, may teach us about our shared humanity and flawed choices. And yes, some of these conversations involve Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy as co-Heads of Hogwarts, using the same bathroom.

Are you a reader or writer of fan fiction? Have you you dabbled in fan art? Or do you engage in a non-online form of fandom, like a book club? Please share!

Thanks for reading.

#fan fiction #writing #storytelling #early internet #dramione #mugglenet #mahabharata #harry potter #feminism #romance #indian history #draupadi #longform #long post

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themeatlife · 6 years ago

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Avengers: Endgame, the Legacy of the Avengers, and the Future of Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

#DontSpoilTheEndgame is over on Monday, so I’ll discuss Avengers: Endgame - the movie itself and the larger impact it has on the legacy of the Avengers and the MCU.

Avengers: Endgame - A Review

To begin, it’s kind of hard to judge the film on its own. Even more so than its predecessor Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame is largely dependent on the previous films. So the impact of it is less so on someone that’s only seen a handful of the Marvel movies than for someone who has invested time seeing the now 22-film catalog. With that being said, for those who have seen most or all of the other movies, wow. It is both extremely entertaining and extremely gratifying. If you are an MCU fan, Endgame was made especially for you.

Now, SPOILERS AHEAD!

I’m not going to explore all the plot points (because there is a LOT of plot), I want to hit on some of the major ones though.

Much of the first two hours of the film (this thing has a three hour run time) is spent in the melancholy post-Snapture. The opening scene is Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye with his family as they disappear from Thanos’ snap. Just in case you forgot the stakes that were established in Infinity War, well this will certainly remind you. We see our heroes trying to deal with loss and trying to move on in the aftermath. I like this touch. Throughout the MCU, the writers and directors have always tried to a least have a sort of psychological realism, always visiting not only the epic battles but the emotional aftermath. To reenforce this, next we see Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Karen Gillan’s Nebula stranded in space running out of resources to get to Earth (much of this featured heavily in the trailer). It looks hopeless until Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel rescues them and reunites them with the surviving Avengers at Avengers HQ in upstate New York. She doesn’t really have much of a role in the film outside of this and the some of the final sequences.

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After hunting down and killing Thanos in the first 20 minutes of the film (Thor goes for the head this time), time jumps to five years later. Earth’s mightiest heroes go on what Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man calls a “time heist,” a quest to use the quantum realm go to the past to collect the Infinity Stones. Ant-Man’s return from the quantum realm having only aged 5 hours rather than 5 years spurs this. Not to change the past and prevent Josh Brolin’s Thanos from the Snapture, but to bring everyone back that was lost by the Snap, mainly because Stark now has a family with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts and a little daughter he doesn’t want to lose.

The time heist features three teams: Iron Man, Ant-Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, and Mark Ruffalo’s now hybrid Bruce Banner/Hulk going back to 2012 during the Battle of New York in the first Avengers movie to retrieve the Space, Mind, and Time Stones. Chris Hemsworth’s now broken and depressed and overweight Thor and Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon going back to Asgard in 2013 during the events of Thor: The Dark World to retrieve the Reality Stone. And Don Cheadle’s War Machine, Nebula, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye/Ronin, and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow going back to Morag/Vormir in 2014 during the time of the first Guardians of the Galaxy with War Machine and Nebula tracking down the Power Stone and Hawkeye and Black Widow tracking down the Soul Stone. Highlights from these ventures include Captain America fighting his 2012 self, Thor interacting with his mother on the day of her death, and Hawkeye and Black Widow’s dramatic fight for who will sacrifice their life so the other can get the Soul Stone. We also get a bonus time jump back to 1970 with Iron Man and Captain America. (My gosh, so much plot here, and that’s not even all of it. No wonder this thing is three hours long.)

While I won’t dive too deeply on what happens, what this part of the movie effectively does is show just how far back the arc of the original six (Stark, Rogers, Thor, Banner, Barton, and Romanoff) goes and how far they have come. We also get to see how focused 2014 Thanos was at achieving his Snapture goal even back then. And it’s a good excuse for Marvel to revisit some of the places they have been, kind of like a Greatest Hits album (although I wouldn’t consider The Dark World one of those hits, I would consider it a flex by Disney/Marvel to make one of their lesser movies that important in the long term story).

And then the last hour of the film is all kinds of crazy action, and the results are satisfying and enjoyable. 2014 Thanos gets onto the Avengers plan and sends 2014 Nebula to replace 2023 Nebula to go back to the future (OH I forgot to mention there were a lot of Back to the Future and other time travel movie jokes). So 2014 Nebula opens up the quantum realm portal to 2014 Thanos. That Thanos takes out the Avengers HQ right after the Hulk snaps his finger with the new Stark-made Infinity Gauntlet. There is then a showdown between Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man against Thanos, after which sets up an epic splash-page like final battle between Thanos’ Chitari army and the recently resurrected rest of the Avengers crew. Highlights in this part include a psyched Thor when Captain America not only lifts up Thor’s hammer Mjolnir but summons it and wields it’s power and a touching brief reunion between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Iron Man. The battle ends with Tony Stark swiping the Infinity Gauntlet back from Thanos and snapping Thanos and his army out of existence.

This concludes the Tony Stark character arc, for the snap was too much to bare and ultimately kills him. But not before Peter Parker and an Iron-suited Pepper Potts say their goodbyes (Potts with the emotional “now you can rest” line). There is a somber funeral sequence with all the major Marvel characters that are still alive making an appearance, along with a big surprise.

After the funeral, we also see the conclusion of the Steve Rogers story arc. Hulk sends Rogers back in time to return the Infinity Stones back from where they grabbed them. He doesn’t return when Hulk tries to summon him back but Anthony Mackie’s Falcon and Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier notice someone sitting on a bench in the distance. It’s old Steve Rogers, who ended up settling down in the past after returning the stones. He hands off the Captain America shield to Sam.

The movie ends with Steve Rogers sometime in the 1940’s in a new house finally having that dance with Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter.

Rather than a credits scene, the opening of the credits showcases each Marvel hero over the years with the actor who played them and ends the sequence with the original six Avengers with the actors’ signatures displayed on screen. Cool way to salute the actors in some of the major roles over the years.

Other than a couple of time travel issues (time travel is ALWAYS tricky to pull off in movies and television and maybe some other time I’ll go over those), the storyline works very well. I dug the balance it struck between the emotional weight, action, and humor. It was smart to have a lot of small moments early in the film where it focuses the interaction between characters. And it was a lot funnier than I expected it to be. The film as a whole is emotionally gratifying and clearly wraps up this chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But as I said earlier, it is at max effectiveness if you’ve already invested the time in the characters’ previous stories, in particular the original six. If you know the original six’s stories in particular, you will thoroughly enjoy this movie.

I’ll save my ranking the Infinity Saga movies for after Spider-Man: Far From Home (Marvel President Kevin Feige calls the latest Spider-Man the final installment in the Infinity Saga). You can expect that Endgame would rank very highly in my ranking.

The Legacy of the Avengers

What is the biggest impact the Avengers and Marvel’s Infinity Saga have had on pop culture?

It is crazy to think that when Iron Man came out back in May of 2008 when Marvel Studios was using Paramount to distribute, it was considered a risk. Robert Downey Jr had yet to make his comeback complete (Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes a year later marked his return full return to stardom). Iron Man was a few months before The Dark Knight came out and garnered critical acclaim and helped legitimize the comic book-based genre. And the MCU was in its infancy, no one thought it would become the bohemeth it is now.

Marvel Studios, whether intentional or accidental, helped mold and was molded by the changing methods of which people were consuming their visual entertainment. The early 2000’s saw the advent of binge-watching television, where serial series like Alias, 24, and Lost saw people prefer to consume episodes in bulk. Once Netflix got their streaming service going, the idea of binge-watching caught on everywhere. Television ratings waned as people watched things more on their time on devices other than an actual TV. People only tuned in to things when they are originally broadcast if they were billed as an event, like a series finale (or in Game of Thrones’ case a final season) or a live event like the Super Bowl. Similarly, film started becoming more event-based. Blockbusters had to be built up as an event to go to in order for films to be successful, more so now than any other film era. And in making an event out of their films, Marvel serialized their MCU movies like a season of Lost - individual episodes focused on a character or set of characters with the overarching story in the background until culminating in the season finale, or in Marvel’s case an Avengers movie.

So the biggest impact the MCU has had is shaping other movie studios approach to movie releases. After 2012’s The Avengers, many tried the serialized team-up event concept to varying degrees of failure. Universal flopped trying to launch a shared monsters universe with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy reboot in 2017. Warner Brothers has a semi-successful MonsterVerse going with Godzilla and King Kong. We’ll see how that progresses with the new Godzilla movie this summer. Warner Brothers also has the mostly failed DC Extended Universe. Starting strong with 2013’s Man of Steel but limping thereafter with lackluster installments in 2016’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and 2017’s Justice League, DC/Warner Bros has seen more success with the mostly standalone attempts Wonder Woman in 2017, Aquaman in 2018, and Shazam in 2019. DC’s current strategy is kind of confusing though, with some plans to continue the DCEU, and other plans to do more standalone work.

So the fact that Marvel’s shared universe set of movies has worked and has been the only one to work so successfully is an anamoly and an achievement. Marvel was allowed to build its world over time, a luxury that was afforded to them by Paramount from 2008-2011 and by Disney when they were acquired in 2012. The first two phases of the MCU spanned ten films from 2008-2015, building a foundation for what the franchise is today. That type of patience has not been lended to DC in particular, something that ended up looking and feeling rushed and resulted in a less successful and less satisfying result in the DCEU.

The Marvel approach has changed not just the method of outside studios release strategies but also in releases within their Disney family. For studios to make money on these films, they have to culminate in an event to get people to the theater. Fewer and fewer indie films turn into financial successes, at least at the theater. So event movies galore are on the horizon at Disney. Disney proper has “live-action” remakes of classics animated classics Aladdin and Lion King coming out this summer. Pixar has Toy Story 4 set for a summer release as well, even though the third installment was originally thought to be the conclusion of the story. Lucasfilm has what has been announced to be the finale of the Skywalker saga in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming out this winter. Each of those marketed as an event, whether it be a nostalgic event, an unexpected continuation, or a conclusion of a story.

Up Next for the Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

While Marvel Studios has changed the movie industry and pop culture, it is hard to say what the next step for the MCU is. We know of a few things coming though.

With the announcement of Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, coming in November, there were MCU projects also announced to debut on the service. Loki, Falcon/Winter Soldier, and Wanda/Vision will all get series on Disney+. There will also be an interesting What If series where they were explore what if scenarios of some of your favorite Marvel characters.

The MCU’s film future is less set. We know that Spider-Man: Far From Home (co-release with Sony Pictures) comes out in July and is set in the immediate events after Endgame. After that, we know a few projects are in production but no definitive release dates have been set. Projects include a Black Widow flashback, origin stories for The Eternals and Shang-Chi, and sequels for Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther as well as talks of sequels for Ant-Man and Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Thor (although I think the route for the Thor character should be to join the Guardians).

And then there is 21st Century Fox. Disney acquired the entertainment wing of Fox proper earlier this year (I was scared of Apple taking over the world, but Disney is closer to doing so). Fox owned the movie rights to all the Marvel properties included in the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Fox’s run of X-Men movies presumably concludes this summer with Dark Phoenix. Since Marvel Studios now owns the movie rights to what has been traditionally two of the more popular Marvel brands, one would think some sort of reboot and integration into the MCU would be coming in this next chapter.

I’ll end on this. The Avengers Infinity Saga, the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, and Game of Thrones are all pop culture epics that will be ending their current chapters this year. It is hard to imagine the changing entertainment world will ever have subjects as impactful as these given the number of formats available and the vast number of entertainment options now available. Those three epics, especially the oldest being Star Wars, caught pop culture at a time when people would watch and experience the same thing. Soon, the event-centered entertainment world will grow smaller with less people gathering to experience and watch the same thing. Or maybe I’m wrong and every generation finds a way to galvanize to have that shared experience (Gone With The Wind, the original Star Wars, Titanic in the film world all being previous examples). I hope for the latter, but I can’t help but feel that the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame will be one of the last of its kind: an event that everyone wants to share and experience together.

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evenstevensranked · 8 years ago

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#38: Season 1, Episode 17 - “Get A Job”

In order to afford a Sludgie (a.k.a slushie) machine for his room, Louis opens his own Doggy Daycare. But like most things Louis attempts, it quickly becomes difficult for him to handle. Meanwhile, Steve and Donnie bond over destroying a birdhouse.

This one opens with Louis trying to butter Steve up in preparation to drop the “Buy me a Sludgie machine” bomb. Which is definitely supposed to be a “Slushie” or “Slush Puppie” machine, but I’m assuming those words are copyrighted. Louis decorates the entire house for Father’s Day… even though it ain’t father’s day. “But, every day is father’s day, Dad… when you have the perfect dad, Dad!” Louis cannot genuinely think that this could work. After prefacing the Sludgie question with a dramatic story about how the machine is going to be thrown out of a store that’s closing unless Louis rescues the inanimate object from the potential clutches of an evil child — Steve drops a bomb of his own: “Get a job.” Oh, boy. Why are those words so… terrifying? Even today as a 24-year-old adult, those 3 words send a shiver down my spine. They scream “you’re getting older, get over it” to me. I don’t know. Louis and old-fashioned work isn’t exactly a match made in heaven, though. So you already know he’s gonna spin the job angle into something ridiculous.

Louis is wearing an “I ♥ DAD” shirt to really sell it!

Steve suggests that Louis should ask Ren for help, since she just so happens to be running a youth career planning center from her room. Of course she is. Something I really like about the scene where Louis asks her for a job, is the names of the other kids already there waiting. Ren refers to them by their last names, and they’re all names of writers/crew members!! “Dearborn” - The show’s creator, Matt Dearborn. “Cunningham” - One of the writers for this episode, Sarah Jane Cunningham. And “Kaiser” another writer for a different episode, Brooke Kaiser. This is so cute to me. It’s not the only time the writers have done something like this either. This only further supports my idea that one of the writers must’ve lived down the street from Del’s Pizzeria. These kids have zero lines though, and it’s kinda funny and obvious that Disney didn’t wanna pay people more than they had to. Ren talks to the kids and they just... smile... as a response, lol. It’s awkward. She gives the Cunningham girl a job at a movie theater concession stand and tells her “Here’s a tip... Extra salt on the popcorn = they’ll buy more drinks.” This has always stuck with me. How slimy.

So, Louis busts in asking for a “teen job thingy” (perfect!) and I freaking love when Ren questions Louis about his career goals. He’s so sarcastic in the most deadpan way. He says he wants to ride a motorcycle in the globe of doom in Vegas, is “hoping to move to Donnie’s room” in five years time, and refers to some guy at a donut shop with a claw hand as the public figure he most respects. I love Louis. Then we get a montage of Louis failing at every job Ren gives him. This is actually something that’s a little off about this episode, and I never noticed it until my series re-watch for this project. There’s, like.. 5 montages in this episode. I have to admit that’s a little overkill. To an extent, this almost doesn’t even feel like an episode. That many montages means there’s hardly any actual dialogue. It’s weird.

Anyway, one of the jobs Louis fails at is “Mass Mail Marketing” a.k.a licking envelops. They decided to use this annoying CGI tongue for the scene, which I hate and always have hated. It’s not the only time they use the CGI tongue either, tragically. Like I’ve said before, stuff like that just comes across as something thrown in for a cheap laugh. I’ve literally never thought it was funny. In fact, I usually cringe a bit when they pull stuff like this. Sigh.

Um, this actually looks a little... off-color. Ew.

Louis returns to Ren asking for another job as long as it doesn’t involve licking. She finds one for him, but quickly takes it back saying “...but that involves some light licking...” WHAT THE HELL kind of jobs does she have in this database of hers?! Louis goes on to fail at being a paper boy and a restaurant mascot. That’s three strikes, so he’s dead to Ren now. Louis goes to a local park, all depressed and emo over being a failure — when suddenly a stray dog sits with him. He has a heart-to-heart with the dog saying “I’m just not one of those job people you hear so much about.” I relate to this on an emotionally deep level. Within a minute, he gets the idea to start "Louis' Doggy Daycare" to hang out with dogs all day and make quick money. There’s a short montage of Louis hanging up fliers and I feel like Shia thought it was hilarious. I mean… Look at the photo on the flier, lol.

His shirt says “I ♥ DOGS” Amazing. Not to mention, that dog is actually… smiling. The fact that Shia even posed for that photo is iconic, lol. He seems to be genuinely laughing about it here, which is great.

Louis’ first client, Mrs. Walters, shows up with her little pooch named “Poopsy.” I love this so much. My mom and I quote this lady all the time when we talk to our own little dog. She speaks in such a strangely deep baby voice with all these dips and inflections. We always say “My little pOOOoPSEHHHH!” in her voice, lol. I can’t even explain it. She drops Poopsy off and says “Bye-bye, my preciousss!” but Louis cuts her off by saying “Please. Call me Louis.” I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!

Ren is impressed that Louis seems to’ve thought this through and is babysitting a dog. Until she sees that he’s babysitting, like.. 25 dogs.

Ren: Louis, are you crazy?!

Louis: Crazy for canines.

There’s a slightly annoyingly obvious pop culture reference to the famous “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings here. It’s whatever. Fine, I guess. But, it just feels like an easy idea to go with.

Now the dogs get antsy and Louis has to take them for a walk. I swear to GOD!!!! This is one of the funniest moments in the whole series. It’s so simple and stupid but I somehow die laughing every time. The dogs are too much for Louis to handle, so he eventually falls and gets dragged by the dogs. Except Louis becomes an OBVIOUS dummy, which is the point, and it’s hilarious to me.

Look at this. Just LOOK!!! The longer it loops, the funnier it gets. The fact that tiny dogs are dragging him so strongly makes it even better.

When they get back from their walk, Louis puts on The Adventures of Milo and Otis for the dogs to watch.. which is another real life reference. But tell me why all I could think of is the Jonas Brothers episode of Hannah Montana where Miley and Lily disguise themselves as... Milo and Otis...

Around here is where we really dive into Steve and Donnie’s subplot. Which I actually think has some really strong moments. Both of these characters, especially Donnie, are so underrated. The two find the shambles of an old birdhouse dubbed “Feather-Feather Land” that they started building when Donnie was little, but never finished. They decide to start working on it again and end up completely butting heads about everything all day. Donnie thinks he’s reading the instructions for the birdhouse, but he’s actually reading the instructions for the garage door opener.. which is great. (“Didn’t you find it odd that a birdhouse would have a remote control?!”) They continue to pettily argue over every little thing. One of my favorite moments is when Donnie yells at Steve “You’re making me nervous hovering over me like that!!” To which Steve responds “I’m not hovering… I’m overseeing. At a close distance.” I use this all the time, omg. My other favorite bit is when the mood starts to become less tense and more lighthearted between them. Steve put a “vacancy” sign on the house and Donnie says “What’s with the vacancy sign, Dad? …BIRDS CAN’T READ!” It cracks me up every time. Basically, one thing leads to another and they decide to completely destroy the birdhouse for fun. It’s pretty great.

The sound of destruction coming from the basement causes the dogs to run absolutely wild. This is another montage. It ends with Poopsy completely covered in toilet paper in Ren’s room which I think is super adorable and too cute not to include here.

Louis eventually gets all of the dogs under control conveniently right before all of their owners arrive. This scene is too much. The owners show up one by one to pick up their dogs, and they’re all one-dimensional looking stereotypes??? It’s so ridiculous, lol.

One’s a punk, one’s a hippie, and that last guy is a construction worker you guys! Just in case you couldn’t tell by the fact he’s WEARING HIS HARD HAT LIKE A FASHION STATEMENT.

Louis is all proud of himself once every dog is gone and he’s raked in all the moolah. Except, all the dogs aren’t gone. Mrs. Walters shows up looking for Poopsy. Turns out lil Poopsy is missing in the house somewhere. Louis dramatically puts on a crying act and asks Ren for help with tracking the dog down. Sad violin plays and he starts talking about how Ren was always right… He is a failure. “I’m gonna be in circuses known as The Boy Who Can’t Do Anything. Step right up!! …just don't expect much.” - I love this line sooo much and the way Shia delivers it all fake-sad. Oh my god. This leads us to yet another montage of Louis distracting Mrs. Walters while Ren runs around looking for Poopsy. Obviously, they find him (yes, Poopsy is a boy) and everything’s fine. Yay!

Louis ends up spending his money on a churro machine instead, lol. I never knew what churros were before this show, and Ren’s description of “deep fried dough dipped in sugar” always makes me craaaaave churros. To this day, I still haven’t had one. I never understood how the machine works though. It doesn’t look like the kind of thing that MAKES the churros… rather, just holds them and keeps them hot. So, does Louis make them and then store them in the case??? Who knows.

Another “I ♥ ____” tshirt! That might be one too many, lol. Although, it’s probably meant to highlight Louis’ fickleness. One minute, he loves his dad. The next, he loves dogs. Now? Forget the dogs and the man who gave him life -- churros own his heart.

So yeah! That’s the episode. This one honestly goes by lightning fast, and I think that’s because of the montages. I’ve always really enjoyed this one, though. From the Poopsy lady, to the Louis dummy, to birds not being able to read vacancy signs... I like it a lot.

Thanks for reading! :) This review was actually really fun to write, haha. Chime in via Disqus belowww.

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#rank #even stevens #season 1 #louis stevens #louis plot #shia labeouf #ren stevens #donnie stevens #steve stevens #comedy #disney channel #old school #old disney #review #tv review #tv shows

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mystory-is · 7 years ago

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I'm kind of scared of letting you read this because I don't know how you'll react or what you'll think, but that's the thing. I should be able to say what I feel without being afraid that you will judge, hate, or leave me.

Most of the time, I brush off what you say, and I forget the words and actions that hurt me so much just a few hours ago. Remember, in the beginning, when you said you couldn’t be angry with me? I’ve been like that for 4 years.

If I ever bring you up in conversation, it’s usually to compliment you and point out your strengths. But, you seem to bring me up only when you have something bad to say.

You are extremely quick to assume and judge me. You are quick to say things to me that you know will hurt me. You are quick to point out my weaknesses and flaws, and you like to rub them in my face till you have nothing left to say.

Also, you are definitely not the best friend you once were. You used to listen to me vent and talk, but barely anymore. You get bored and tired of listening in general. I can’t ever turn to you when I need support. You are basically not a source of support for me although you should be one of my, if not the most, strongest supports.

I have felt so many times that I’m worthless and that I deserve all your shit.

You think you’re so mature, polite, generous, kind, etc. Yes, you are all of that, but only to strangers. You are incredibly rude, cocky, self centered, and self righteous. That last one. That might be the worst one. You believe what you think is always right, that what you know is always right, that what you want is more important than what others may want, etc. It’s very frustrating when I talk to you sometimes because you are stubborn as hell, and are adamant that everything I say is “bullshit”.

Now, to explain to you the reality of how society and the world works:

In regards to our past job that we both left: Note: I will refer to boss as K and assistant as V.

1. Main reason I left is because K tried to ruin our relationship by creating false allegations about you, and because she tried to “scare” me into thinking that she had control over me by, again, making up a story about how a criminal lawyer was angry (and therefore might take action) that I had done something wrong (which K actually directed me to do).

2. From the very beginning, starting with the interview, K lied to me. She told me lies about the job, about how many people were already working there, about who I would be working with, etc. She also had a habit of talking about things in an exaggerated or dishonest way.

3. Although she lied all the time, I didn’t actually realize that she was lying to me. And, even when I did realize she was lying, I was so “brainwashed” that I didn’t care that she had deceived me all that time.

4. What I mean by brainwashing: Starting in the interview, K had only amazing things to say about me. She complimented me excessively, and made me feel valuable and desirable to her workplace. Even throughout the time I worked there, she was always praising me, telling me I was a perfect fit for this job, she tried to help me get a higher license, took me out to eat (where she would literally tell me that she was bribing me to become her business partner instead of becoming a counselor), etc. Since I have had low self-esteem and have always undervalued myself, I became entranced by her positive nature towards me. I gave her all my trust and really looked up to her. Even though I logically saw many things that were wrong along the way, I ignored everything because I held her to such a high standard.

5. Towards the end of my time there, K realized that she wasn’t fully in control of me as she had hoped. She realized that I would rather be with you and listen to you than do what she told me to do, which was to break up with you and focus solely on this job (to become a powerful woman with lots of money - what K said, not me). She realized that I didn’t believe the shit story she told me about how you were “cheating” on me, and was being unethical and unprofessional at your work setting. Right after this incident (my talk with K) happened, I told her I needed that week off to sort out my thoughts and feelings surrounding everything that happened (our fight, and K lying to me deliberately in the hopes that I would break up with you). Even then, she texted me saying, “You’re a strong woman”. She was constantly and always emphasizing that I could be independent, that I don’t need you, and that I should be her business partner to become rich like her. She’s right about one thing: I don’t need you. But, I also told her this: I want you.

6. As time went on, she realized we were together (She realized because I called her on a Friday about us working together on Saturday since we could keep it professional), and she knew that I didn’t believe her bullshit story. She started acting awkward and distant. She knew that I had caught her in a lie. She started responding less every day to texts and phone calls, and she kept saying she was busy, when in the past, she almost always had time to talk to me.

7. After that, she came up with another bullshit story about how a client’s mom was angry at me because I had made her change her schedule a few times.

This is what happened: One day, it was raining like fuck, like literally all of my clothes and shoes would have been soaked and dripping with water. I know this because my mom went out before me, and she was soaked from being out for a few seconds. I wasn’t going to go to leave my house like that at around 8:50am, and go on to my three sessions, and come home at around 8PM with wet/damp clothes, socks, and shoes. I messaged the mom that I couldn’t make it today because of all the rain. She said that was fine. About ten minutes later, the rain subsided a little. I decided I should just go (and have my mom drive me since I would be late), so I texted the mom again and said that I would actually go. She said okay again. I got there 15 minutes later than my usual time.

Now on to why she was angry with me. She told K that since I told her that I can’t go, but then said I could go after several minutes, and then arrived late, she couldn’t leave the house until I came. BULLSHIT. She was NEVER there when I went to the house - even when I was 15 minutes early at times. Also, grandma and/or grandpa is ALWAYS home. Of all days, K is saying that mom allegedly said that she had to wait at home until I came. Well, when I got there that day, she wasn’t even there. So, again, I call bullshit.

So, here is the funnier part: K says that I couldn’t have been that late, and takes out my session notes (which I gave her a couple of days ago at that point). She sees that the time is written as 45 minutes earlier than the time I had actually arrived that day, and according to her story, she quickly put it away and told mom that she had taken out someone else’s notes. Mhmmmmmm. Sure.

At the RBT meeting, she tells me to stay behind and says in a dramatic ass voice and with a dramatic ass face that I fucked something up. Then, she tells me I wrote my session time incorrectly. She explains the story, and I tell her to show it to me because I don’t believe that I would have lied about my hours. Ah, to my disbelief, the time was, in fact, written horribly incorrectly. It should have said 0945 and not 0900. WTF??? I told her maybe I made a mistake, but I have no idea what could have happened. I’m a little red in the face at this point, and stuttering because I can’t find the right words to describe my shock. I say bye to her, but not in the most polite way because of all the shit that happened prior, and also because she didn’t invite ONLY YOU to the fucking meeting.

You and I go to IHOP after the meeting, and it suddenly dawns on me that she had told me to write 0900 for all of that client’s sessions. Mind you, when she told me to lie about my hours, she also included a story about how she had to take a loan out for her PhD studies. Since she’s my boss, she’s older (cultural thing), she’s seemingly having financial troubles, and because I also know that 30 more minutes adds up over time ($), I comply. BIG MISTAKE. I call her straight away. No answer. I text her like three times reminding her of how she had told me to write 0900 and not 0930, and so that day, even though I got there 0945, I habitually wrote 0900 like she had told me to do. NO ANSWER. Actually, she never replied to me about that because either she thought I was stupid as fuck and completely wouldn’t remember that she had told me to write that, or SHE was stupid as fuck and forgot that she had to me to lie on my hours.

Now is when I start freaking out because I realize I should have told her, nah, I’m gonna write my real hours, and because I suddenly remember that the client’s mom, who is apparently angry at me, is a criminal lawyer.

By the way, that client’s mom abruptly ended all services at the end of August. K didn’t tell us what happened for a month because she said she didn’t know either. In September, after that RBT meeting, K told me the whole error in session note hours in a way that insinuated that the mom canceled services because she was angry that I had lied about my hours. Okay, so the mom canceled services at the end of August when she found out my hours were written falsely in September. Everything makes sense, huh. i still don’t know what the fucking truth is about whether the mom really was upset about anything, whether K showed mom my session notes and false hours, and if K was trying to scare me about committing insurance fraud.

8. After that Saturday that we worked together, I told her I would like to work with D again at the day care. She says that V will work, so I will work with A. I say okay. After that week, A’s schedule is changing and I can’t work with him anymore. I tell K I will work with D one more time on Saturday (which I’m still allowed to do since nobody wants to work there on Saturday), and then that’s it. K messages me to go back to D at the day care the following week, and I tell her I’d rather not work with him. I mean, wtf, you told me the prior week that I can’t work with him because V is. At this point, I feel annoyed by her fucking around with me. And, so after a few more days, I just message her that I’m done. She texts me back saying she’s sad because I was one of her favorite providers. Sure. And, she says that they’re a company now, and that we should talk. Okay? Obviously, at this point, she was shocked that I suddenly told her I was quitting, and she was trying to persuade me to stay by saying that she had a company and will probably be able to do W-2 or W-4, maybe give benefits, vacations, etc. But, she never reaches out to talk with me because now, she’s taken some time to think things over and realized that she doesn’t mind if I leave. I mean, I’m not under her control anymore like a brainwashed puppet, so I’m not as useful and valuable to her as I used to be. Apparently, according to what K told a teacher after she told her you and I quit on bad terms, she’s only going to hire non-Koreans from now on. Good luck with that. LOL

9. k constantly tried to devalue you. Yea, you fucked up a few times professionally. But, when you started actually working, you did a fucking fantastic job that I was actually embarrassed about my job performance. However, she kept saying “he’s okay” with this “meh” kind of face and tone of voice even though she said a few times that V said you were good. Honestly, V is pretty bad, so why K thinks V’s opinion matters is beyond me. She said at the RBT meeting that your client is normal, and not actually an ASD patient. There we go again, she was basically inferring that whatever improvements the client made was not from your efforts, but (she actually said this part) because he was normal, and was going to get better over time (in terms of his hyper behavior). K kept ignoring your text message that you needed more programs to do with your client, which btw is the main purpose for our sessions, but she never responded, and only on the last two days or so, she showed up at your sessions, and did some different programs with your client. You also told me that she was disruptive at times because she would keep talking to you (like about how she makes money off ebay) and not letting you work. I understand that part because there were plenty of times that she used to talk like crazy to me and not work when she came to my sessions, too.

10. K told me that I was humble and seemed like I didn’t have much to offer when she first met me, but then she knew that I would have a tremendous amount to offer. She explained this in hand gesture, too, btw, by making a big circle with her hands. Then, she told me that YOU came in all cocky and like you have so much to offer, but in reality, you had so little to offer. Her words, not mine. She also said that you used harsh words with your client: “What’s wrong with you?” She said that those words and the way you said it were the true representation of who you really were. She said you were fake to people, and seem so nice, but in reality, you weren’t. (She’s kind of right though. You are fake as fuck.) But, I don’t agree when she says that you said those words rudely to your client. I actually questioned her on that the moment she brought it up. I asked her if maybe you said something a little different or if maybe those words were something that maybe you were saying to me on Saturday, but she said V heard you saying it at the day care, too. Btw, she said dad heard you saying that on the first Sat you were there, and THAT’S why he didn’t want you there. BUT, the funny thing is, the dad TOLD me why he didn’t like you: He admitted that he just hates guy’s voices, and it seemed that you were yelling out of anger to his son. I assured him that you actually liked your client very much, and that if you were yelling that day, it’s only because K and I kept telling you to speak much louder and firmly. And, I do NOT remember you saying those words, and even if you did, you would never have said it in a mean way because honestly, it was kind of gross, how gentle you were being with the kid. No wonder we kept telling you to basically yell, and wow, that was the reason the dad didn’t like you. It’s ironic, isn’t it?

Do you kind of get the big picture now?

I shared some of what happened to me, and the other RBT shared some things, as well. Was my intention to talk shit? No. Of course, I did have to expose some of the shit that K and V did, but only because I needed some support, comfort, and perspective. I even told the RBT that I wasn’t trying to make K look like a bad person, but that I just feel tremendously disappointed and shocked at her and also myself that she deceived me and used me, and that I was brainwashed and manipulated by her. I only talked to her because in the very beginning, she said some things that I didn’t agree with at the time, but realized was true. She didn’t fall for K like I did. I feel bad for K. I’m not saying this in a mean way. I mean that she’s done wrong to me, but there must be something going on in her personal life or something that has happened in the past that has made her treat people this way. However, if this is the way she just is, that’s a reason to pity her, as well. Overall, I’m just kind of creeped out that I was manipulated for that whole time without realizing it, and she brainwashed me so well that I was completely on her side about everything, and looked up to her as a mentor.

Well, since you don’t have time or the heart to listen to me, I wrote this whole shit so maybe one day, you could read it, and see where I’m coming from instead of questioning my personality and judging me for gossiping.

P.S. My sister is getting married tomorrow. It’s a very big day. I’m a little envious and I feel worthless and sad that I’m still where I am right now. As my boyfriend, I wish you weren’t the one to remind me of how much of a failure I am, but would stand by my side and just enjoy a wedding and a celebration. I’m not sure why you, of all people, are the one to always bring me down, and make me feel worse than I already do. You have this pattern and habit of… avoiding things. You say you’re gonna break up with me basically every other time we have an argument or fight, and you’ve said a couple times already that you’re not gonna go to the wedding. It’s kind of disgusting the shit that you play. Just don’t come if you don’t want to. I’d rather not be in a bad mood at my sister’s wedding. Life is still a joke to you. You don’t say shit like, “I’m not going to the wedding” or “I’m not going to work” just because you’re pist off. I do question at times, when I’m actually clearheaded and not head over heels in love with you, if you are the one. I could forgive you a thousand times, and I could be hurt by the shit you say and do a thousand times. But, I’m sure one day, I might just want to run away from it all. I’m not sure if a boyfriend should be a person that I’m sometimes afraid of, that I can’t freely speak my mind to, and that makes me frequently feel worthless more than I feel loved.

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