#yes stan is a hypocrite about driving safety

[anistarrose]

Hey if you write an actual fic for the taz a/gravity falls crossover from the post you made a while back I would read the frick out of that

(in reference to this post) Hey, that’s great to hear! It’s definitely a very low priority for me right now, but I definitely want to do more with it someday because I have IDEAS for how the fourth hunt would turn out >:)

But in the meantime, here’s a snippet of a GF x Amnesty fic I wrote a while ago! It actually predates that post, and as a result, the timelines don’t entirely line up, but it’s what I’ve got on hand atm.

***

We see the foothill-dotted terrain that surrounds the outskirts of Kepler, a narrow highway winding haphazardly between the pines. The scene is serene and the road is empty as the sun sinks below the horizon, and the sky fades from orange to purple to a deep navy blue. Constellations twinkle into view, radiant and captivating in the absence of light pollution, and the forest seems to relax, letting out a long exhale of relief that anyone who didn’t know better would likely mistake for a gentle nighttime breeze.

Then a car tears through the night, engine roaring and headlights blazing. The driver’s knuckles are white as the grips the steering wheel — not with fear, but with excitement and anticipation. He takes a hairpin turn at more miles per hour than either the road or the car is built for, and the adrenaline rush manifests as a thrilled smile and a deep, hearty laugh. 

Next to him, riding shotgun, his twin brother’s face is identical, but twisted into a grimace instead of a grin. Uncomfortably, he fidgets with a faintly beeping device in his hand, the blue-green glow of its screen reflecting off his glasses, and then sets it down in his lap, groaning.

“You make a big stink about me not wearing my seatbelt, only to drive like a fuckin’ adrenaline junkie?” Stan asks. “Hypocritical much?”

Ford chuckles. “On the contrary, actually. I wanted you to wear your seatbelt so I could drive like an adrenaline junkie, as you put it.”

“Aren’t we planning to spend the next couple weeks fighting cryptids and shit? Can’t you get your adrenaline fix in then, when there’s actually something I can do to save your reckless ass other than scream look out for the tree! and get my face busted up by an airbag?”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to just walk up to Bigfoot and sucker punch them. This is a research mission first and foremost, and I don’t plan on throwing down with any cryptids unless they attack me first… which may very well happen, given some of the incidents reported in Kepler over the last couple decades.”

“Incidents, huh? You mean like that whole damn waterpark that got annihilated?”

“Exactly — actually, that might be one of the more benign events. The past few decades, there has been an extraordinary abundance of sinkholes and other minor natural disasters, of unsolved missing persons cases and suspicious deaths that were never officially ruled as murders, but…”

He slapped his head. “Oh, and the Bigfoot sightings! Can’t forget the Bigfoot sightings, especially in recent years!”

“Sounds like home away from home, then.”

“You want to know the strangest part? Back when I got my grant in ‘75 and was choosing where to research the supernatural, there was no sign of anything supernatural in this neck of West Virginia — not a single red thumbtack on the map on my wall! These incidents are a relatively new phenomenon, likely not dating back any further than the late 80’s!”

[south-park-meta]

Bunny w/ Mamihlapinatapei if you like that, otherwise Style?

I don't like Bunny tbh but it's fine, there aren't many pairings I hate too much to try writing! (I included Style too though because I'm a simple person).

Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.

"I know now that you won't remember, the next time you see it. I just need you to believe me, before we...start anything."

"I believe you," Butters says immediately. He considers, then says, "Y'know, I think we all die a little. It's the comin' back that matters."

Kenny's always been good at reading people. Stan's good at it, too. It's one of the defense mechanisms that they've picked up together but separately. Kenny learned it as part of conflict resolution; it's important to read the mood at home, to decide if he and his siblings should leave the room or if it'd be better to just flick on the TV. If he had to guess, he'd say that Stan got good at reading people at home, too. Neither Stan nor Shelly have ever been hit by their parents-- Kenny doesn't think they were spanked as kids, never mind gotten in a fist fight the way Kevin did sometimes with his dad. But violence isn't the only thing that does it. Stan knows if someone's safe to drive with or if they're going to weave between lanes. He knows the exact way to play babysitter to draw someone back from a nutty scheme. He knows how to mold himself to seem like less trouble to make things easier, when it matters.

Their experiences are different but the same, when it comes to picking up those little hints of a person. The cues that most people don't have reason to learn.

Kenny notices the shift, when Stan and Kyle fall in love with each other. He's always figured they'd end up together, once they figured their own shit out. Over junior year the way they look at each other changes-- not overnight, but not slowly, either, like it's shifting with the seasons. He actually thinks they're together when Stan starts talking about prom.

Except then Stan asks if he wants to skip it to play video games.

Kenny furrows his brows. "Is this a 'Poor Kenny' thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Kenny says. Then he stops for a moment to consider which way to take it. His guess is that Stan's feeling sorry for him, because prom's kind of expensive if you do it right. Even doing it a little wrong is more expensive than what Kenny has. It's a hard thing to traverse, though, because if he's honest he likes it when his friends recognize the difference in what they all have to spend. The pop he's drinking is one Stan bought him. But there's a difference in wanting to tag along to McDonald's and maybe, every now and then, letting his friends order a happy meal for him, and wanting his friends to skip out on milestone moments just to play video games. "How come you and Kyle aren't going together?"

"We could," Stan agrees, holding his bottle of Fanta by the neck and spinning it in a lazy circle. Kenny knows he gets the glass ones instead of plastic because it makes him think of beer bottles. It's hard to tell if that scratches an itch or tickles at it. "But we'd just be hanging around, anyway. Same shit, different place."

"Or you could, you know, dance?"

Stan stops spinning his bottle. "With Kyle?" he asks.

He sounds so baffled that Kenny's actually almost surprised they don't need an extra step of 'With who?'

Which makes Kenny baffled, too. "Why not with Kyle?"

"Because we're not dating?"

"Is that a question?" Kenny asks. And before Stan can answer he says, "I thought you were. Finally." It seems like something they'd forget to tell him just because they've been half-dating for so long.He still can't stop himself from making snide comments when they box him out now and again, but when it comes to this--he hadn't even been offended, thinking they'd forgotten.

"Well. We're not."

"So ask him."

"Why would I do that?"

"Why the fuck wouldn't you do that?" Kenny demands. "I love you, Stan, but you're really stupid sometimes."

"Hey," Stan says, but he doesn't sound very offended.

"I know you love him."

"Okay," Stan says, "I love him."

Kenny waits a beat, but Stan doesn't keep going, which is a little maddening. "And he loves you."

"Not like that."

"Yes like that."

Kenny can tell he's not telling Stan anything he doesn't already know, the way he frowns and looks away.

"Why don't you ask Butters, then?" Stan snaps, peevish, looking at his feet. "If you're so smart. He'd go with you."

"Because," Kenny says.

Stan huffs through his nose and opens his eyes a little wider in a way that says, See? And man, maybe Kenny's a hypocrite, but Stan is a smug hypocrite, which is definitely more annoying.

"Fuck you," Kenny says.

"Fuck you, too," Stan says. They sit in silence for a moment and Stan takes another drink of Fanta. Another moment of silence and he says, "You should ask him, though, for real."

Maybe Kenny should, for real. Stan still doesn't like Butters much after all these years--Butters doesn't like Stan much, either-- so Kenny knows it's nothing Stan would suggest if he didn't think it was something that would make Kenny happier. "If I do, you have to talk to Kyle."

"Sure thing, Ken," Stan says. He's still got smug in his tone, like he's agreeing because he knows this is a bet he won't lose.

And it's still kind of annoying, mostly for the 'Ken' that Stan rarely uses except to be condescending, but only for about half a second. Stan can get up his own ass sometimes around Kenny for the same reason Kenny knows he can be petty, bitchy, around Stan. Kenny knows he can't claim a spot at the Super Best Friends table, but they've been regular best friends since they were three. They know each other's entire humanities, even the ugly bits. It's good sometimes, to have a place for the ugly.

They shoot the shit a while longer and then part ways. Stan takes both their empty bottles to recycle them.

Kenny goes over to Butters' house afterwards. He tells himself it's for Stan and Kyle's sake, or at least to force Stan to admit he doesn't have the guts, but he knows well enough he's using them as an excuse. He knocks on the door and waits.

"Kenny!" Butters greets him, bright-eyed. It's really hard to take someone looking at him like that. Like he's the only good thing in all of South Park.

"Hi," Kenny says. "Can I come in?"

"I'll come out," Butters says. "Your shoes are kinda muddy. Y'know my parents would throw a fit."

Kenny doesn't look down at his shoes. It's true, and he doesn't really mind Butters saying so. Even if he does think he could wipe his shoes clean enough.

They take a walk down to Stark's pond. Butters takes his hand halfway there. Kenny slows his pace to make sure it lasts a little longer just in case Butters wants to skip rocks. He doesn't let go, though, once they get there. They sit there holding hands and looking at the water.

"I need to tell you something. Then I need to ask you something," Kenny tells the water.

"Mm, all right," Butters says. His tone stays pitched up, chipper, but Kenny can hear the anxiety stretched underneath, like a safety net waiting to catch someone's fall. "Shoot."

"Well," Kenny says, deciding to back track a bit, because he doesn't like that anxiety. There are too many kids in South Park that have it sitting dormant under their voices, and he likes it least of all on Butters. "I want to ask you to prom. But I need to tell you something first."

The tension slides out at that and Butters smiles wide. "You're doing it all backwards, then, ain't'cha?"

"I do a lot of things backwards," Kenny says, "But you'll go with me? If I ask."

"Sure, I will!"

That doesn't surprise him, for the same reason he knows Stan won't be surprised if he asks Kyle-- or Kyle, if he asks Stan. "I need to tell you," Kenny starts again, "That I die a lot."

Butters tips his head. He looks at Kenny, eyes asking him to continue.

"I know it sounds crazy," Kenny says, "But you've seen me die. You've all seen me die. I used to die every day. And then I came back, and you'd all forget." He pauses as he stares at the lake. There are concessions he's learned he has to make, since the frustrated years of his childhood spent killing himself over and over again, intentionally and not. "I know now that you won't remember, the next time you see it. I just need you to believe me, before we...start anything."

"I believe you," Butters says immediately. He considers, then says, "Y'know, I think we all die a little. It's the comin' back that matters."

"Yeah?" Kenny knows Butters doesn't mean the physical, the way he does, but he also knows that Butters knows he does mean the physical.

"Yeah. I feel it, when part of me dies. Why, there's been times-- there's been times I figure enough of it's gone and died, that I ought to just end it all!" He's not just talking about Reality, and Kenny knows that, too. He's talking about the bits and pieces that have been killed by his parents, by the other students, by South Park as a whole. "But you come back to life. And if you work real hard at it, you come back stronger than before. It gets better...You said it doesn't happen every day anymore, didn't'cha?"

Kenny nods his head. He's a little surprised, that Butters had caught that with his saying it 'used to' be every day.

"Well, maybe someday it won't be happening at all, anymore. Maybe you're coming back stronger and stronger and it won't keep getting you. Not until it's supposed to."

"I'd like that," Kenny says, smiling.

"I'd like to go to prom with you," Butters says.

Kenny nods very fast. He wants, at that moment, more than just prom. He wants every life and every death with Butters. He wants them to go, hand-in-hand the way they are now, and face as many deaths and revivals as they have left in them, together.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Why I don’t like the current direction for J. Jonah Jameson

Let me start by saying I love Jonah’s character a lot so I’m not trying to make him out to be a bad character in this.

 I know a lot of people like it and regard going back on it as regression but hear me out.

 I do not know that Jonah hating Spider-Man is necessarily better or worse than what we have now.

 My objections are that how we got to this point and Jonah’s general attitude is....really nonsensical.

 Frankly one of the worst things a storyteller can do is write characters out of character. Sure there can be small missteps which can be forgiven, but in this case Spider-Man unmasking to Jonah and his genera reaction to learning that truth is simply not how these characters would ever act in the context of that situation. And we know this because in case you have forgotten...we’ve been here before.

 Once upon a time before Jonah ever knew Peter was Spider-Man we could only honestly speculate on how he would react.

 However anyone believed or theorised he might take that news, there was little-no stories that really gave you a hard idea about that. There was no precedence at all or anything that could maybe give us a clue to how he’d react.

 And the big question at the heart of how he might react was whether Jonah’s hatred for Spider-Man was more powerful than any affection he held for Peter Parker.

 In 2006-2007 as part of the Civil War event we got the answer to that question and therefore got precedence for how Jonah would react to learning Peter’s secret.

 And the answer was quite clear, Jonah’s hatred for Spidey WAS stronger than his affection for Peter. Your personal headcanons prior to that story do not matter, it was established as part of actual canon Spider-Man stories that this was how Jonah felt and reacted.

 There could be some leeway if Jonah’s reaction was wildly out of character, like if there were older stories heavily defining him in such a way that his reaction didn’t add up.

 But the thing was...most older stories supported how he reacted. His reaction DID make sense.

 I’m not saying it would have been unbelievable for Jonah to have been in some way sympathetic towards Peter, but frankly it was just much more likely that Jonah’s hatred of Spidey would win out.

 If we take a look at Jonah’s history with Spider-Man it isn’t the case that over time he could be viewed as almost obsessed with him and having something of a vendetta against him. He simply WAS obsessed with him and DID have a vendetta, he had a great big Spider-Man blindspot and mental trigger that rarely ever allowed him to NOT get angry about Spider-Man and NOT slander him or contort the truth against him.

 This isn’t the by-product of lazy and repetitive writing over many decades either. This is simply Jonah’s ACTUAL character. He was like that in the 1960s when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were writing him! they even went to far as to provide a basic motivation for WHY Jonah felt as he did: jealousy.  Even if you wanted to say that was just zany 1960s writing that wasn’t all that realistic and as nuanced as later standards, the fact is Jonah was consistent in that portrayal in the 1970s and the 1980s. In the 1980s even when acclaimed and beloved Spider-Man writers like Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco and Peter David wrote Jameson, giving him more layers, making him more sympathetic and a core of human decency, he STILL had a great big Spider-Man hate boner.

 In the 1960s for absolutely no justifiable reason he began a smear campaign against Spider-Man ruining his show business career and that was his intention. He funded the creation of super villains and spider slayers (who endangered public safety, which Jonah never seemed to consider beforehand) and continued doing so well into the 1980s. He didn’t even publicly own up to creating Scorpion until the 1980s when he was being blackmailed into keeping it quiet. Jameson funded the second Mysterio to dress up like a known criminal, drive Spider-Man out of his mind and skipped town when Mysterio was jailed to avoid any consequences. And throughout his career he near consistently smeared Spider-Man’s name deliberately engaging in libellous distortions of the truth to paint him in as negative a light as possible.

 Jonah CLEARLY had serious mental issues with Spider-Man. And no one just gets over that as quickly (if at all) meaning Jonah’s reaction in Civil War made a lot of sense and his reaction Zdarsky’s run outright unbelievable for how humans simply act.

 Systemically throughout all his Spider-Man hate campaigns, for all the affection he might have had for Peter he really wasn’t the best of friends he could have been to him. Even though he was a kid, even though he knew his uncle was dead and his aunt was old and sickly Jonah routinely continued to underpay Peter, insult him and scream his head off at him. True, he did this with almost everyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that he still did this. In the 1960s he put on a show of kindness towards Peter and his aunt at his graduation specifically to convince Peter to stay with the Bugle so he wouldn’t lose any money.

 Yes later on in say the 1990s he secretly paid for Peter’s legal defence during the Clone Saga and offered him a staff job at the Bugle. But none of that renders his negative reaction in Civil War unbelievable. Like I said it was just a case of did he care more about Peter than he hated Spider-Man and we learned that no he didn’t. This is corroborated in Brand New Day.

 During the former, Jonah got Peter blacklisted from being a photographer after Peter doctored some photos to exonerate Jonah of a crime he didn’t commit. Now it was very OOC for Peter to do that in the first place, but Jonah’s reaction wasn’t. Jonah was furious with Peter faking photos of Spider-Man and Electro being one and the same in the 1960s he intended to fire Peter and in spite of his youth intended to actually SUE him (further supporting his reaction in Civil War). Jonah very publicly humiliated and screwed over Peter, destroying Peter’s primary/only source of income. And he did this whilst knowing Peter had limited income and technically via marriage being Peter’s relative. He didn’t try to help Peter after the fact either. Indirectly due to Jonah Peter got a job at HORIZON labs but that was ONLY because Marla recognized his talent and helped get his foot in the door. Jonah after Marla’s death tried to shut down HORIZON labs and thereby by extension destroy another of Peter’s jobs. For Jonah his grief over Marla’s death along with his hypocritical journalistic ethics were MORE important than any affection he held for Peter Parker. They were absolutely not closer after their parental figures got married. IIRC Jonah even blamed Peter for his father’s death but correct me if I have got that wrong.

 But lets return to Civil War.

 During Civil War, Jonah slandered Peter in the presses and sued him. He didn’t care that this was his friend, a young man he’s known most of his life, who’s been through much pain and tragedy who as Spider-Man has saved his life repeatedly along with his family members, friends and staff. He was angry at being humiliated by him and felt betrayed, but amidst all this he first and foremost saw him as that menace Spider-Man who got one over on him, not as the decent kid he knew who must not actually be the menace he thought he was.

 As if suing him was not bad enough, Jonah went further. He sought out Peter’s old girlfriend Deb Whitman when she was out of work and her mother was seriously ill and exploited her by providing an author to write a biased, twisted account of her relationship with Peter Parker/Spider-Man in order to further tear him down in the public eye.

 When his close friend Joe Robertson called Jonah out for continuing to punch down on the now fugitive Peter Parker when his aunt was in the hospital, Jonah fired him.

 Furthermore in Peter David’s final issue of Friendly Nieghborhood Spider-Man Peter and Jonah confront one another in the wake of Peter’s identity going public. Peter allows Jonah to hit him as much as he likes to get his anger out and insults him to get him to react. Jonah repeatedly punched Peter in the face! Now sure, he did admit that it was easier to hate Spider-Man when he didn’t know he was Peter, but that wasn’t him saying he DIDN’T hate him. Again...he hit him repeatedly in the face.

And on top of that the issue ends with Jonah

a)    Admitting that he was only dropping his lawsuit and smear campaign because he realized Peter on some level wanted to be punished for his mistakes and Jonah didn’t like being used

b)    Admitting that he doesn’t mind tearing down and humiliating Peter/Spider-Man so long as Peter doesn’t help him to do it

c)    Literally saying and I quote: “I really hate that F.N. Spider-Man.”

 Pretty clear cut ain’t it.

 Jonah’s hate for Spider-Man>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Jonah’s affection for Peter.

 So when we find ourselves at this point in time where Jonah finds out Peter is Spider-Man and IIRC pretty much immediately reacts by becoming an ally and confidant to Peter, viewing him first and foremost as his friend Peter Parker and not the menace he believed Spider-Man to be, he is very aggressively NOT in character. He is very aggressively NOT acting the way his established characetrization dictates he would act in that situation.

 This stuff isn’t a minor little back up story, it was a big part of TWO concurrent ongoing event stories (Civil War-Back in Black). You can’t ignore this stuff.

 There are those who would say that Jonah’s situation in Zdarsky’s run is different so his different reaction is justified. The problem with this is that you can’t just handwave any given difference in context as justifying any different reaction, they have to add up.

 So would Jonah when his wife is dead, when he’s lost the Bugle, lost his major public respect, lost his father, lost his adoptive daughter and straight up admits that his hatred for Peter is ALL he has in his life REALLY react more positively and sympathetically to learning Peter is Spider-Man than he did when his fortunes were the exact opposite of all of that.*

 Absolutely not! That is wholly unrealistic.

 If all he has in his life IS his outright pathological hatred for Spider-Man then suddenly finding out Spider-Man is the guy he partially blames for the death of his father, didn’t like that much, ripped off for years and whom he cared so little for he took away his source of work even though he HELPED Jonah, would never ever make Jonah DROP his hatred.

 If Jonah reacted the way he did in Civil War when his life was going well then he’d react WORSE nowdays when it’s going worse!

 Then we come to Peter revealing his identity in the first place.

 This is aggressively stupid and even more out of character than Jonah’s opposite reaction during Civil War.

 Given Jonah’s pathological crusade against Peter, given how Jonah blacklisted him, tried to further destroy him during Civil War, JJJ’s funding robots and super villains and just everything he knows about Jonah, its both irresponsibly risky to his loved ones and wholly unrealistic for Peter to EVER reveal his secret to Jonah.

 Consider ALL the people Peter knows who have proven themselves more friendly, trustworthy and over all loyal to him whom he DIDN’T reveal his identity to.

 Flash Thompson

Betty Brant

Aunt Anna

Joe Robertson

Felicia Hardy (before she went psycho in Slott’s run)

Oh and you know AUNT MAY!

 ALL of those people had proven their friendship and loyalty to Peter when they used to know his identity and for some of them even before that.

 But he didn’t, and in some cases, has continued to keep them all in the dark...but he told Jonah?!

 That’s incredibly out of character and nuclear levels illogical. It makes even less sense than you know...Jonah not remembering that he USED to know Peter’s identity. Remember how Slott established that unmasking in front of someone would immediately restore their memories from before the Mindwipe? Well guess what, Zdarsky et al just IGNORED that for Jonah because that’s just wonderful writing right there.

 I get that Jonah going back to not knowing would be a regression. I get that this new direction is new and fresh because it’s never been done before.

 But the thing is regression isn’t always a bad thing and something new and fresh isn’t always a good thing.

 In the Clone Saga Peter had developed into a grimdark mentally broken anti hero which was something never done before. It was executed competently in so far as it was realistic, made sense and had a lot of thematic and psychological layers to it. And it was new, shiny and fresh!. But is anyone really going to argue that regressing him back to being the mentally stable more optimistic Spider-Man was a BAD thing?

 No.

 I’m not saying regressing Jonah back to not knowing would be a good thing, but I am saying his characterization after he found out was a bad thing because this is not who he is. If another story tried to better explain and justify it in some way, maybe.

 But frankly I find the entire idea that Jonah would so quickly pull a 180 on his decades long attitude to Spider-Man frankly BS.

   *What is worse is that the story itself outright ignores the fact that Jonah HASN’T lost everything in his life, he still has his pride and joy his son John. For years Jonah persevered thanks to and for his son John, with implications that it was because of his son John being overlooked that he hated Spider-Man in the first place. So Jonah hasn’t even lost everything as he claims!

Also Jonah hated Spider-Man back when the only relative he had was his son!