#and this tells me that these people were never okay with Michael/AL's relationship in the first place | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spaceskam · 5 years

Note

Could you maybe write something about Michael calling Alex, Alexander?

Sympathy For The Devil

Summary: Michael and Alex have been happily married for sometime until it’s revealed that Alex has lied about a few too many things. Can they come back from it?

warning: mentions of suicide

ao3

“Please open up.”

Michael stared at the front door of his sister’s house. She and her husband had gone on vacation but allowed him to stay because he didn’t exactly have many options. And still, despite the fact he’d gone all the way from Denver to Roswell fucking New Mexico, the one person he’d been wanting to avoid the most was right outside that door despite the fact there was a massive storm.

“I know you’re there, your car’s out front. You know, unless you’re actually a stranger and you stole my husband’s car and didn’t change the plates,” that voice said like it didn’t belong to a liar, “Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me or see me, but… Michael, you deserve to get to know me. You deserve that at the very least. So, please, just open the door.”

Michael heaved a breath and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. They’d already been rubbed raw from spending the last two weeks crying and trying not to cry and failing. He looked rough. He felt rough. He really didn’t want to open that door.

But, fuck, he really kinda did.

“Michael,” he said, “Just give me this last night. Let me try to show you that we might be able to fix this. Let me try.”

And wasn’t that just so convincing?

Slowly, Michael cracked open the door. The man on the other side looked like his husband, he smiled like his husband, he was standing like a flamingo in a shitty attempt to keep his prosthetic out of the rain puddles just like his husband, but he wasn’t his husband. His husband didn’t exist. Alex Whitman was nothing more than a character created by Captain Alexander Manes.

“Hi,” Alexander said with that stolen smile, “You look great.”

“You just can’t stop lying, can you?” Michael demanded. Alex, no, Alexander’s smile began to falter, but he put it back on because he was a liar. “How did you find me? No, why did you find me?”

“Because I refuse to let that be the way we end. I need to at least try. You deserve me to try and you deserve an explanation. You deserve everything, Michael,” Alexander insisted, “I know how we can save our marriage.”

Michael furrowed his eyebrows at that statement. Mostly because they literally weren’t legally married in the first place. Turns out you can’t file a marriage license when half of the couple doesn’t exist. But, admittedly, part of him was curious. A massive part was curious. He was desperate to know why he’d lied.

“So you stalked me?”

“I didn’t stalk you!” Alexander said, bracing himself on the doorway as he continued to balance on his leg, “I just… Googled Isobel Evans-Valenti until I found an address while sitting in my car on the shoulder of I-25.”

“So you stalked my sister, cool,” Michael sighed, his eyes focusing on Alex’s leg. He knew that his Alex hated it when it rained and he had to be outside. It was bad for his prosthetic, but, more than that, it just made the liner and sleeve gross and sloshy in the socket. And here he was, standing in a storm, soaking wet and probably extra sloshy just for a chance.

“Michael,” Alexander said like he had the right, “Everything we need to save our marriage is in this envelope.” He fished out a surprisingly dry envelope from his backpack. Michael debated what to do for a moment. “After tonight, if you still don’t want to see me again, then I’ll go and leave you alone. Just let me try.”

Michael decided that even if this was the pathological liar that ruined his life, he didn’t deserve a fucked-up metal leg. Of all the lies, he at least knew that was real.

“I want to know the truth,” Michael said, eyeing him as he slowly let the door open wider, “If I let you in, are you gonna tell me the truth?” Alexander nodded sincerely. Michael sighed as he opened the door wider, gesturing towards the inside.

Alexander smiled so bright that it felt like being stabbed.

Michael had watched his Alex take off his prosthetic leg countless times in the two years they’d been together. Hell, he’d seen him do it on their first date that had lasted five hours longer than anticipated with them both tipsy on wine and each other. It’d never bothered him, it was apart of Alex and he loved every bit of that man. However, at this moment, he couldn’t even look at him. It felt too intimate to watch a stranger do. Even if he had done on their first date.

Still, Michael got him a towel and allowed himself to watch as he dried off the leg as best he could to avoid any rust. Then he did his best to pat down the liner and the sleeve but didn’t put them back on as he stared at them with some type of worry. Michael knew he really had to wait until they dried or else some serious chaffing would happen which meant he was going to be here for a while. Michael sighed.

“Look, I’ll go get you some clothes to change into.”

“Wait,” Alexander called, “Open the envelope.”

Michael slowly did as he said and hooked his thumb under the flap. Alexander pulled out his phone, resting it on the side table and then turning to watch Michael. He paused.

“Are you recording this?” Michael asked and Alex smiled innocently, “Why?” He wasn’t sure why he asked that when he knew very well why his Alex audio recorded everything. He had given Michael a big spiel about how ‘you never know what you missed the first time around’ which had sounded charming the first time he’d heard it, but sounded like the biggest slap in the face when he had recorded their arguments. Even that wasn’t all bad. Alex had come to him a day after their first big one and said he listened to it and apologized profusely for the way he raised his voice. He said he didn’t want to be another person on the long list of people who had screamed at Micheal for unprecedented reasons.

“You never know what you might miss the first time around,” Alexander said like it was charming. Because he always said it like it was charming. Fuck, it was.

With a sigh, Michael opened the envelope and pulled out the paper. He felt a chill go down his spine as he read the title. The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.

“What is this?” he asked, his eyes flickering up to Alexander who was still trying so hard to look positive despite the fact his damp hair was matted to his forehead and he couldn’t walk and he had about 15 minutes before he started smelling like a wet dog.

“You know,” Alexander said, “Like our first date.”

“You mean my first date with Alex where every question had a made-up answer?” Michael questioned. Alex shook his head.

“Pretty much every answer was real. Who I was with you was the real me, I swear,” Alex said. Michael took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he clenched the paper in his hands. “It worked the first time, why can’t it work now?”

There were a million reasons that it couldn’t work now. The main, glaring one was the fact that Alex wasn’t a real person and they’d started out on a lie. Everything was a fucking lie. Even if he was desperate to know the truth, how was he supposed to trust him?

“I don’t trust you, Alexander, that’s why,” Michael said simply.

“Don’t call me that, call me Alex.”

“No, my husband’s name was Alex and it wasn’t short for anything. How do I know you’re not just lying about what you’re called, Alexander?” Alexander took a deep, slow breath and nodded.

“Okay, I deserve that,” he said, nodding, “Fine I’ll be Alexander today.” That felt like a punch in the gut and he quickly realized his wrong choice of words. “That’s not what I meant, I just meant‒”

“I know,” Michael said. He couldn’t hide how resigned he was. He was tired and sad and part of him just wanted to go back to last month when he was sick and laying on his husband’s bare chest and listening to him recite The fucking Odyssey by heart. Or, loosely by heart. He added some more eccentric wording. Michael’s favorite had been: “There is the heat of love, the pulsing rush longing, the lover’s whisper, your face probably‒that shit can fuck up even the straightest man.”

“If you don’t want to, we can‒”

“If I do this with you, will you leave me alone forever?” Michael asked. Alexander stared at him for a moment before he nodded. “Then I’ll answer them. Let me go get you something dry to wear so you don’t get water all over my sister’s house.”

Michael turned and left to get him clothes before Alex could respond. He stepped into the guest bedroom that he’d made his home, having trashed it with his clothes and empty tubs of ice cream and candy wrappers. He took a moment to close his eyes and calm himself down. It was going to be okay. He could do this. It was just one night where he finally got the fucking truth and then he’d be gone forever. It’s not like the questions would actually work this time. Each and every answer would just be a reminder of how he had lied and ruined two Michael’s life. How he’d put him in a position where he would have to tell all his friends and coworkers and everyone that his husband actually had been lying to him for their entire relationship and be surrounded by a neverending stream of pity. He’d ruined him.

But he could do this. Just one more night.

He grabbed a pair of sweats and a baggy shirt for Alexander to wear, making sure they weren’t anything special before he gave them to him. The last thing he wanted him to do was ruin anything else. Once he was sure he could go on without the two articles of clothing, he brought them back out to Alexander.

“Here,” Michael sighed, handing him the clothes before turning around. Alex was sort of stuck in place because he didn’t have his crutches which annoyingly made Michael feel bad. He wondered how long it would take before he stopped giving extra thought towards everything to make sure it was disability-friendly. Hell, his first thought, when he took a shower at Isobel’s, was that Alex would need a bench, but Alex wasn’t even there.

“All done!” Alex said cheerfully because for some reason he was trying to pretend like this was normal. Nothing about this was normal.

Michael turned around and felt a sting in the back of his eyes. Alexander looked too much like Alex. Hair was haphazardly dried, sticking up every which way and making him look painfully young. Michael’s clothes were already big on him, so his bigger clothes dwarfed him in a way that made Micahel just wanna cuddle up to with him. But it wasn’t his sweet Alex‒this was manipulative Captain Alexander Manes who had managed to get a fake ID and fake passport and evaded his entire military background just so no one would find out that he wasn’t Alex Whitman.

“Okay,” Michael said, collapsing on the couch. Alexander lifted himself off the chair and awkwardly hopped towards the couch, flopping down on the other end with his phone in hand.

“Before we start the questions, I want you to know that Alex Whitman was apart of me. It… It feels weird to me too, to put him to rest like this,” Alexander said. Michael rolled his eyes, keeping his gaze away from the man and instead on literally anything else.

“We’re not putting him to rest. You’re the one who made him up, he isn’t fucking real,” Michael sighed, rubbing his eyes against, “Listen, I just want the same thing I wanted when those fucking army guys came to the house two weeks ago: the truth. Why did you lie to me? Why would you make up Alex Whitman in the first place?”

Alexander was silent for a moment and when Michael dared to look at him, he had a level of guilt on his face that Michael didn’t know he was capable of. But, then again, maybe that was fake too. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“When we met, I was… not in a good place. I just wanted some type of escape. So I gave you a fake name and then when you showed up for our date with those questions because you wanted to be cute and charming, it felt like an opportunity to be someone better. If I knew I was going to fall in love with you, I never would’ve lied. I just thought it was a one-time thing. I never wanted to hurt you,” Alex promised. Michael looked up as tears brimmed his eyes all over again. This felt so stupid. Why was he still crying? He’d had two weeks to get passed the crying stage. “Alex Whitman was a good escape, even if he was imaginary.”

“He was fucking real to me, Alexander,” Michael snapped, looking at him and forcing the tears away. Alexander nodded.

“I know. I loved him too, Michael, he’s who I wanted to be so badly,” he said and Michael scoffed, “Listen, I don’t expect you to completely understand why I did what I did or even forgive me for it. I just want to be honest.”

Michael closed his eyes for a moment. Honest. He says he wants to be honest. He promises that he wants to be honest. Michael can do that.

“Okay, then let’s get this over with,” Michael said, letting out a breath as he reached for the paper with all the questions. He never thought he’d be doing this twice. “Number one, given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?”

“Fantastic question, Mr. Guerin, do you remember my answer the first time?” Alexander said, giving that big smile. It was the one where his cheekbones seemed to be downright offensive and he wanted to go all middle-aged aunt and pinch them. He didn’t.

“You said Margaret Hamilton and I was convinced you only chose her to impress me because I’m an engineer,” Michael said. He remembered being shocked that some guy that looked that pretty and who was unemployed knew who Margaret Hamilton even was. “You told me it was because you liked people who could outsmart you.”

“Which is true, one of the reasons I love you, but I also met her once and she was super cool,” Alexander said. Michael looked to him genuinely bewildered. “I went to MIT and majored in software engineering. She used to be the director or something of that division, so she visited campus and I got to meet her. See? Honesty.”

“Okay, so, what, you’re some super-secret genius?” Michael asked. Alex smiled and shook his head.

“Nah, I didn’t graduate. Got bored,” he said simply. Michael couldn’t imagine giving up that chance of a lifetime simply because he got bored. But Alexander wasn’t him. Part of him wanted to know more about his time at MIT but he didn’t feel like dragging this on.

“Alright then. Question number two, would‒”

“Hey, wait, you didn’t answer,” Alexander prodded. Michael sighed.

“I didn’t realize I was answering.”

“Of course, that’s how this works.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who lied.”

“C’mon, Michael. You said you’d do this one thing with me,” he said. Michael clenched his jaw as he stared at the question. He knew what his answer was. He just didn’t want to fucking say it.

“I’ll answer this next one.”

“Michael, come on, you can’t blow off the first question, we’re being honest tonight,” Alexander said. Michael glared at the paper. “Mikey,” Alex sang.

“I would have dinner with Captian Alexander Manes, okay?!” he snapped, turning his glare to the man beside him, “Over anyone in the entire world, over even my fucking mother who I have never met, I would choose you. Because I want to know why the fuck you lied to my face for two years, fuck, Alexander, I want to know how. How can someone keep up a lie like that for two years?”

Alex’s eyes were wide and his eyebrows were raised as if he was shocked by the answer. Michael didn’t believe he was. There was no way.

“Okay. I deserve that. Question two, would‒”

“You’re not gonna answer?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Long enough that Michael softened because Alex was beautiful and had eyes that he couldn’t fucking say no to. Cheeks he couldn’t say no to. Lips he couldn’t say no to. Michael slumped his shoulders. This was actually unfair.

“We need booze,” Alex decided after a moment, “This is kinda like a first date, right? And, for a first date, there’s a severe lacking of alcohol. I think it would take the edge off and make it a little easier.” Michael nodded. It sounded like the best idea he’d heard all week. At least wine would loosen him up a bit, make him less terrified.

“I’m sure Isobel has something,” he said. Alex held up his finger.

“No need.”

Alex got up on his knees, twisting over the back of the couch to shuffle through his bag which gave Michael a perfect view of his ass. The sweats hung low on his hips and the shirt slid up as he bent over and it was just a lot for Michael to deal with. He knew this was probably self-destructive. Spending time with the man with whom he had a bad track record of keeping his hands to himself around, recreating their first date, and struggling to not picture him naked and moaning whenever he bent over the couch like that all seemed like a really big recipe for disaster. To top it all off, he was adding alcohol. What could possibly go wrong?

When Alex flopped back down, Michael had no control over the way he let his eyes trail up his body to his face. Alexander had the decency not to tease him about it. Michael was an emotional mess, he was bound to do something stupid like yell at him and then immediately want to sleep with him. He focused on the bottle of wine.

“I stopped on the way because I figured it might come in handy,” he said. The name was something French and fancy that he couldn’t pronounce and, knowing Alex’s taste in wine, it was probably easily $50. Alexander pulled out his keys and flipped open his corkscrew keychain.

They each took sips straight from the bottle.

Once Michael had loosened up a little bit, he allowed himself to face Alexander completely.

“Question two,” Alexander asked, “Would you like to be famous? In what way?”

Michael opened his mouth to reply but was rudely interrupted by a loud crack of thunder that shook the house. He jumped like he always did when he heard a super loud noise and Alexander quickly moved to comfort him, placing his hand on top of Michael’s. He snatched it away.

Alex had been very aware of the abuse Michael suffered as a child. Loud noises were usually a warning before something much worse happened. That was just another reminder that Michael had given all his truths to a man who didn’t bother sharing his own.

��Yes. I want to publish a thesis on some invention I eventually come up with,” Michael said, shaking off the thoughts with a large gulp of wine, “You?”

“Nope, I like being no one.”

“Okay,” Michael said. It was the same answer as the first time. He didn’t know if that was comforting or not. “Before making a phone call, do you rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?”

“No, if I rehearse and still mess up, then I feel like a fuck-up, so it’s easier to not practice.”

“First time I said I did practice, but you said that and I tried it and I felt better, so no,” Michael answered. Alexander smiled with those stupid fucking lips.

“What would constitute a perfect day for you? Still a day with your family with no worries?” Alex asked and Michael nodded, unintentionally scooting closer as a loud clap of thunder shook the house again. “Mine is still that any day would be perfect as long as I was with you.”

Michael shook his head, letting it fall into his hand after propping his elbow up on the back of the couch. He remembered blushing like crazy the first time he heard that answer. It felt like a pickup line, but had seemed so sincere and had been staring at him like he was the world. “Even today? When I’m so fucking mad at you and that the only reason I’m doing this is so I can figure out why you lied to me before I never want to see you again? This is perfect?”

Alexander chewed on his bottom lip. “Maybe not the most perfect, but still perfect. You’re breathing and that feels like a good day.” Michael shook his head again.

“I don’t believe that, Alexander,” he said. Alexander groaned, leaning forward to put the wine bottle down before looking Michael in the eye.

“Why are you so deadset on the fact that Alex Whitman and Alexander Manes are so different? We’re not. Literally, every answer has been the same so far. I’m not lying or being cruel when I say that I was 100% real when I was with you. I’m still super fucking gay, I’m still really bad at spelling, I’m still really good at trivia, I still love to recite Greek literature to you when you’re not feeling well, I still love to record everything, I still get super dizzy when I drink tequila, I still sleep on the right side of the bed, I still think your cooking is better than anything in the world, and I still am a million things you know about me. You know me better than anyone and that is still true,” Alexander said. He seemed honest. It felt real. All those things seemed like impossible things to fake. Michael was just tipsy enough to nod his head in agreement. “Okay? Okay, next question.”

“When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?” Michael wondered, waiting for the answer. He was pretty sure he could guess it.

“I sang to myself on the way here and the last I sang to someone else was when you were too sick to follow The Odyssey or the Illiad,” Alex grinned. Michael smiled back. Knew it. “And you?”

“My first night here I got so drunk that I just laid on the floor and scream-sang REO Speedwagon,” he admitted and Alex easily slipped into a laugh that Michael could feel in his bones. God, that sound still felt like a gift.

“And to someone else?”

“Kyle came in to ask me to stop, so I tried to serenade him.” Alex laughed a little harder.

“You do have a killer Kevin Cronin voice,” he laughed, picking the wine bottle up again and taking a sip. He handed it to Michael who did the same. He could taste Alex on the bottle and it was hard to figure out which substance was more intoxicating. “Okay, okay, If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

“Mind,” Michael answered, “You said body last time.”

“And that’s still the same, so clearly we’re still a half sexy pair,” Alex teased and Michael couldn’t help but laugh. He blamed the wine.

“Do you have a secret hunch about how you’ll die?” Michael asked. He had half a bottle of wine in his system and Alexander felt a whole lot like Alex and Alex’s lips were looking absolutely inviting.

“I remember you saying you think your appendix would burst and you would just think you were exaggerating your pain and now that I’ve known you for two years and I’ve seen how much of a baby you get when you’re sick, I think that’s not gonna happen,” Alex chuckled, leaning forward even more. He was so fucking close. Michael nodded.

“I think it will,” he said, “You said you weren’t afraid of death.”

“Still not,” Alex hummed, tipping back the last of the bottle. He gave a sweet smile when he was done, flicking his tongue over the corner of his mouth. Maybe drinking was a bad idea. “Name three things you and your partner have in common. This is easy.”

Perfect, perfect. A perfect reminder that this isn’t Alex. Michael shook his head, fixing his wandering mind back on the anger he felt towards the man who had lied to him for two years. He faked a wedding license. “I don’t know anything about you.”

Alexander rolled his eyes. “You know me better than anyone else, Michael.”

“I knew Alex. I have no idea who you are,” Michael insisted, though his voice wasn’t as certain as it was before. This felt like a night with Alex. God, it felt like Alex. He wanted Alex.

Alexander couldn’t be him.

“Fine, I’ll name some. I can do more than three. We both have an unhealthy obsession with Firefly and watch it on repeat, we both are obscenely stubborn and refuse to admit when we’re wrong, we both have horrific handwriting, we both feel the need to tip waiters like 50% even when service sucks, we both like the same music, we both like hot chocolate when it’s hot and ice cream when it’s cold, we have a lot in common, Michael. We’re perfect,” Alex said, grinning that easy grin.

Michael could feel his heart thudding in his chest as he stared at the man who was suddenly very close. It was hard. The lines between Alex Whitman and Captain Alexander Manes were blurring in a way he didn’t want them to. One was his fun-loving husband who found every excuse to dote on him and make him blush, and the other was a pathological liar who held a list of military credentials that matched a hardened old man.

“None of my traits as Alex change when I’m Alexander. I’m still me.”

Michael would never forget how confused he was when those two guys stood on his doorstep, asking for Captain Alexander Manes. They’d been searching for him for two years, that he’d gone AWOL from his post two days earlier than he was supposed to and that they had feared something bad had happened. Michael didn’t get a chance to get any more details about that, he just remembered his head spinning and feeling sick and confused at the name he was being told. He was about to tell them that he didn’t even know anyone in the military, but he’d turned to find Alex behind him and looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“You know what my favorite thing that we have in common is?” Alexander asked, closer than he should be, “That we both fight for the right things.”

Alex had tried to explain that day, begging him to listen as Michael packed a small back and tried to get the hell out. He couldn’t spend the night in bed with a stranger. It had been hellish. He’d turned a 7-hour car drive into 10 and Isobel and Kyle still had to go get him from the border of Colorado and New Mexico he couldn’t see straight enough to drive. He had thrown his phone out the window somewhere in the desert after that, tired of seeing call after call from ’Achilles♥’.

It was getting hard, though. He was trying to separate who he is to who he was, but it felt so impossible. They looked the same, they sounded the same. If he closed his eyes and let himself go, all he heard was Alex Whitman. He couldn’t figure out if he was in love with Alex Whitman or if he was actually in love with Captain Alexander Manes. What if the difference really only was their last name?

“For what in life are you most grateful?” Michael whispered, taking in his face. The little scar on his forehead that Alex had said came from crashing his bike when he was eight, was that the same story for Alexander?

“You.”

“I need more wine,” Michael said, scrambling to his feet before he did something stupid like kiss him. Alex nodded, holding out his phone. Michael suddenly remembered that he was being recorded and took it with hesitant hands before heading to go find Isobel’s wine.

Once he was out of earshot, he held the phone to his mouth.

“I will not sleep with him, I will not sleep with him, I will not. I will not. I will not,” he repeated, raking a tough hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and focused on that moment when Alex had admitted that wasn’t his name. That had hurt so bad. “You know, I don’t understand why I even let him in here. I know him. I know how stupidly charming he is and I know how well it works on me and he gives me those sweet little ‘fuck me’ eyes and I just want… I don’t know what I want. I want to clear my head.”

Michael searched through the cabinets and eventually found a cheap-ish already opened bottle of wine that he planned to reimburse the Evans-Valentis for. He pulled the cork out haphazardly and threw back some more. He didn’t know why he kept drinking. He knew it was probably going to make him want to sleep with Alexander even more.

Maybe that’s what he wanted to happen.

“No, no, I don’t want to sleep with him. I want this night to be over so I can move on. He’s a pathological liar. I can’t trust everything he says,” Michael said, sighing harshly.

Before he could think any harder, a harsh clap of thunder sounded, shaking the house and taking away the electricity. Panic surged through Michael like it always fucking did in these stupid situations and he froze, looking down at the phone and unlocking it to give him a little bit of light. It was on 46%. Somehow, that made him more panicky.

“Michael?” Alexander called, “Are you alright? I can’t come to you, I don’t have my crutches, just follow my voice!” He yelled because he knew Michael and knew he was probably feeling uneasy and that wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he be different? This was too hard. “Follow my voice, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby, Alexander,” Michael grumbled as he used the phone to lead himself to the couch again. He sat far away from Alexander again, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Michael kept a hold on the phone and Alexander let him. He hated how thankful he felt for that. “Next question.”

“If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?” Alex asked, ignoring the fact that it was super dark. Michael cradled the wine bottle to his chest, finding Alex’s eyes the best he could.

“I could change the fact that I raised myself,” he admitted easily. It was a big one, but it’s what he said the first time. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been so stupid to trust the first super hot guy who was into him. Isobel had told him it was sketchy that Alex had no friends or family, but Alex had also just moved to Denver and it just felt right and Michael barely had any friends or family. He should’ve looked into it more. “What about you?”

Alexander didn’t answer.

“Alexander?” he asked. He didn’t feel the couch move, but he couldn’t really see him and the sudden silence was making him anxious. Then he heard him gulp, so he calmed down just a bit. “What would you change?”

“Everything.”

“Too vague.”

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Is it? I don’t really know anything about your childhood at all. All I know is that your parents died when you were…” Michael trailed off once he realized that he didn’t know that. “Wait, are your parents even dead?”

Silence.

“Oh my God!” So much for letting himself think they might be the same.

“They’re basically dead, they haven’t spoken to me in‒”

“No, that’s not basically! You told me your parents were dead! That’s a huge thing to lie about!” Michael scoffed, sitting up straight, “The next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you didn’t actually lose a leg in a motorcycle accident.”

Silence. Again.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” Michael said, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away. He didn’t want to be alone in the darkness, even if that meant he was alone with a cruel liar. “You can’t just not answer me this time, Alexander, this is, like, a serious issue. You lied about how you lost your leg and about your parents being dead.”

“Just let me think,” he answered, but Michael didn’t like that.

“No, so you can come up with another lie? Tell me the fucking truth.”

“When I was 8 years old, my mother left,” Alexander said, taking a slow breath, “And a few days after that, my father hit me for the first time because he realized I was gay. He knew before I did. He thought he could beat it out of me. So that’s what I’d change. The fact that he beat me.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael sighed, “But that doesn’t explain why you lied about everything.” Michael had been abused his whole life too. He didn’t lie about it.

“I was taught from a young age that what I wanted was wrong, that who I was was wrong. So I spent my entire life trying to pretend. I did what my dad wanted and I lied to cover up the bruises for thirteen years of my life because it was easier than dealing with him.”

“Thirteen?” Michael parroted, “You said it started when you were eight, that would’ve made you twenty-one before… Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alexander sighed, “Oh is right. I joined the Air Force because he wanted me to, but I figured out that he wanted me to because he wanted to watch me. So, I made sure I went to school so I could become an officer. I eventually got put in a special task force and I got away from him, but he was still there, you know? Just in my head. He was always in my head. I was 26 before I had my first kiss because even though I was alone with six other people most of my time and three of them were openly queer, I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. Every time I considered it, I could feel my dad hurting me to stop. Even when he couldn’t be there, he was there through letters telling me to make sure I was being a Manes Man. Manes Men do this, Manes Men don’t do that. It was hell. He controlled me in every little facet well past my childhood, so I finally cut him out of my life when I was 27. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of being in the mold he forced me into.”

“I wish you would’ve told me about that,” Michael said, trying not to be too offended when Alex had just admitted to suffering to almost 20 years of constant abuse.

“I didn’t want to admit that I was 28 years old and just coming to terms with my sexuality.”

“But I told you about all the shit that happened to me,” Michael argued, “Why didn’t you trust me with your feelings?”

“That’s not why I didn’t tell you, Michael, I didn’t want to bring it up.”

“But you should’ve! For two years, I felt like the fucked up one in this relationship and that you had to cater to me! If you would’ve just told me that you fucking understood, then everything could be different!” Michael spat out, “You ruined everything! And I still feel like a dick for getting mad at you for not recounting abuse! How fucked is that?!”

“Michael, please,” Alexander tried. Michael huffed a huge breath and took another sip of wine. He needed to calm down. He really did. But who the fuck lies about all that?

“The next question is tell me your life story in four minutes. Take longer than four if you need to, I need more than that. I need the fucking truth,” Michael insisted. He heard Alexander gulp. “I’ll calm down when you fucking tell me.”

Then he waited.

“Okay, okay, so… Like I said, I was 8 when my mom left. My dad and my older brothers went out of their way to make sure I was just like them. We all had the same haircut, had the same clothes, everything. We were miniatures of my dad, which… really fucked me up. Even when I went to college to get some semblance of freedom, I didn’t know how to be someone other than my father. And that’s hard. It’s super hard to see someone as a monster, but then you can’t bring yourself to be anyone other than exactly like them. And then I was wearing his uniform and I would look in the mirror and it was a constant battle to figure out who I was. Was I Alex, or was I Master Sergeant Jesse Manes?

“I dealt with that for years. Every time I looked at a boy who was attractive, I would have to immediately shut myself down. I wouldn’t let myself and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I convinced myself that I was straight, that I could be. But that didn’t work because I didn’t even want a girl to hold my hand without feeling awkward, so I just resigned myself to a life of celibacy. It was more than that, though, because I hated myself so much. I was hardly a person, I was just a carbon copy and I was suicidal as hell. But on some level, it must’ve been good for me because it made me ballsy.

“I didn’t allow myself pleasures or anything, so I became really good at combat and coding which you know. That’s how I even got in a special task force when I was that young. I did a year at MIT, wasn’t the biggest fan, and they put me in the task force. And, you know, like I said three of them were openly queer. It was so weird for me to be around people that were open and honest with themselves and, it took a while, but eventually, I started to see that maybe I could be too. I had my first kiss with Lieutenant Cameron Adler. He was, like, 6’7” and biceps bigger than my head, literally could’ve crushed me, but he didn’t. And when I freaked out because I liked the kiss, he was just there to help me through it. He was my first everything, my first love and all. I think that was the first time I thought I might be okay.

“Then, obviously, a few months later it went to shit. My team got bombed. No one fucking made it. Except for me, which is bullshit, right? I was so fucked in the head and had spent years of my life hating myself and who I was, and all these people who were happy and good died. I wasn’t conscious, but I was told that I was found with Cam’s body on top of me, like he was shielding me with his, like, 275lbs of muscle. They thought I was dead and, legally, I was for a few minutes, but they were able to bring me back and all I lost was a leg. I hated when they told me that. ‘Look, you made it and all you lost was your leg’ because that wasn’t all I lost. I literally lost the only family I’d ever known and now I was back under my father and I just kept sinking lower. I had so much therapy, physical and mental, and nothing really helped. Yeah, I could walk again, but my mental state was so fucked. I spent all day just thinking of ways to end my life and how I wish someone would do it for me or how I wish they just had found me later so that they wouldn’t have been able to bring me back. And I was going to do it too. I had it all planned out. I was going to take a bath and overdose and let myself just go away forever. That’s why I left my post. I had two days left before I was officially honorably discharged, but I just drove to Denver and got a hotel and planned to kill myself there.

“And then I met you.”

Michael looked at him with tears in his eyes. Fuck. “You can’t say that. You can’t say that like you’re only alive because of me. That’s basically a threat.”

“I’m not, I’m sorry,” Alexander sighed, “I’m not going to kill myself if you don’t take me back, it’s not like that. I just meant that you reminded me that I could be okay again. I’d had so many therapists insist that it gets better, but you were the first thing that showed me that, okay, maybe it does.”

“I didn’t do anything, I just bought you coffee,” Michael sniffled. He didn’t like thinking about his Alex being in that state. His Alex was always cheery and charming and beautiful.

“Yeah, I know. Look, I planned to off myself that night and I wanted to just get myself my favorite drink beforehand so at least I went out with something good. And then I forgot my wallet and that just felt like proof that I needed to end it. Like, of course, I wanted one last good thing and I managed to fuck that up.” Michael remembered the way Alex had been frantically searching for his wallet and was almost in tears when he couldn’t find it. That was the only reason he paid for him. He didn’t want to see someone cry. Then he'd gotten closer and realized the guy was hot as hell. "Then you paid for me and asked my name. I couldn't give a fake one because I already gave the barista my first name, but I could give you a fake last name so I did. I wanted one goddamn night where I wasn't a Manes Man. I didn't know that coffee would lead to talking for 6 hours straight and spending the night with you because it shouldn't have gone that way. We just fucking connected like something…"

"Cosmic?"

Alex let out a soft laugh. "Cosmic. And, by that point, it was too late to go back. So I just went with it."

"So you just let us go two years in a lie?"

Alexander moved closer, close enough that he could see his eyes. He felt more at peace than he had in awhile which really pissed off the logical section of his brain.

"I was more myself as Alex Whitman than I was ever as Alexander Manes because I was with you and you pushed me to be myself. I would give the world to you, but you already gave it to me first," Alex insisted.

Gravity did that fucky thing it did when Alex got too close and Michael tipped his head forward to meet Alex's. He wanted it to be real. He really did.

But he didn't trust him.

"You'd really give me anything?" Michael whispered. Alexander nodded.

"Anything. You're my life, Michael. If I could take back the lies, I would, but I wouldn't take back finally feeling free because of you," Alexander promised, slowly moving his hand up to cup his cheek. It was slow, it was on purpose. They met for a kiss in the middle.

Their first kiss as Michael Guerin and Alexander Manes.

Michael kept it short, though a kiss after two weeks without felt like remembering to breathe. Alex didn't push it.

"Then can you give me time?" Michael asked, "I need… I need space before I can even try to trust you again."

"Then I'll give it to you. All the time in the world if you need it," Alex said, sincerity in his voice in a way that felt strange. It felt good. "You know how to find me when… if you want to see me again.”

Michael waited with a bouncing knee as Alexander skillfully lifted himself to the chair he’d originally sat in, putting on his dry liner and sleeve before the prosthetic. Michael didn’t know how long he’d been here, but clearly, it’d been long enough for that to dry. So, at least three or four hours. God, why did time never make sense when Alex was around?

When he was done, he stood and pressed a kiss to the top of Michael’s head.

“I love you,” he said because they never parted ways without saying that, even if for a moment. You never know when would be the last time you’d see someone. The only time they hadn’t was when Michael had left him. “I promise that there won’t be any more secrets between us. Ever. I’ll tell you whatever whenever.”

Michael thought about asking if he wanted to stay until the rain stopped or until the lights came back on, but the words never made it to his mouth. He thought about saying he loved him back, but that didn’t feel right either. He did love him back, but he still wasn’t sure if he only loved Alex Whitman or if he loved them both. So Alexander left without any argument.

It was cold and lonely when he was gone and Michael curled up, his head thudding as he tried not to stress too much by the darkness. It was only then that he realized he still had Alex’s phone. He quickly raced to the door, ripping it open and silently hoping that he’d still be there.

“You forgot your‒” he yelled as soon as he opened, but the driveway was empty and the rain was still coming down hard. He hoped that Alexander would make it home okay.

Michael locked the door and went straight to the guest bedroom, locking the door to that as well as he curled up in bed. He always locked his bedroom door too, it made him feel safer. Alex had assured him that it wasn’t weird at all and had even picked up the habit himself. They’d both picked up habits from each other over time.

He ended the recording on the phone after getting under the covers, staring at it. The recording was five hours long and it sparked curiosity in him even if the phone was dwindling dangerously close to 20%. He started it from the beginning.

“Okay, so I’m on the interstate right now because apparently, that’s a good idea. I was getting too antsy at home, everything still smells and looks like Michael just felt for a couple hours and that’s just too much, so left. I don’t really know where I’m going. I mean, where should I go? It’s been two weeks since my husband left me because he found out I was a big fat liar, there’s not really a fun place for people like that except for hell, right? But I’m not going to hell, I still have some life left in me and I’m working on figuring out where exactly to target that life.”

Alex’s voice rambled on and eventually, as usual, he started reciting Homer because he just did that when he couldn’t think. Michael had thought it was cute if not a little weird at first, but it had quickly become something that was comforting and hearing it, even through a recording, seemed to calm him.

“Patroclus’ death is what pushed Achilles to fight, you know? It gave him a reason. I keep thinking about Michael. I always think about Michael. Finding out I was… finding out I wasn’t exactly who he thought must’ve felt like a death. But it was Alex Whitman’s death, so my burden to bear and Michael was the victim. I’m the one who has to avenge, who has to fight. I need to find him.”

Michael dozed off the sound of him rambling his affections.

The next morning, Michael didn’t even get out of bed. The first thing he did was hook up Alex’s phone to a charger and started to look for older recordings. He had a Google Drive that seemed to hold all of them, each and every recording he’d ever made labeled with the date and it went all the way back to the day they met. Michael clicked on that one, the very first.

”I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alex’s voice was quicker than normal, anxiety clear in his tone even despite the fact he could hear the smile, “I mean, I really don’t and I don’t have anyone to talk to and it’d be pathetic to talk to myself, so I’m going to record it to make sure it’s not a fucking dream. I woke up this morning thinking that would be the last time I ever woke up and now I’m literally driving to some guy’s house to have sex. Me! Hooking up with some random guy! I don’t know what I’m even doing. He just came up to me and bought me coffee and we sat in that damn Starbucks until it closed and I’m so sure those baristas hate us, but I didn’t want it to end and I don’t think he did either because he asked me over and I’m doing it. I don’t know what happened, he just asked to sit and have his coffee with me and I had a moment where I was like ‘okay, my last memory could be either this coffee or this coffee and this cute guy and I haven’t even talked to a guy since Cam and that’s been over a year now. God, I’m so anxious, what if I’m shit in bed?

“I did do something stupid though. I gave him a fake name, but it felt good. I think that was the first time in my life that I’ve introduced myself and I haven’t been saluted or assumptions hadn’t immediately been made about me. This guy‒Michael, his name’s Michael‒looked at me like I was just Alex. I’m not a Manes Man. That’s never happened before. I like it. I can pass for an Alex Whitman, right?”

Michael would’ve scolded himself for smiling at the memories it brought back, but he was too sleep-heavy to care. He remembered that night really well. He’d been jittery with nerves too and had hoped his house wasn’t too messy when he let Alex inside. It had been his first few months as a professor at CU Denver and his house was a fucking wreck, but Alex didn’t seem to care. They sat on the floor of the living room, sipping on wine and talking for way too long. That’s when the 36 questions had come up and Michael had jokingly suggested they go through them. Alex went along and they had gotten through them without touch each other too much until question 36 required them to ask advice on any problem. Alex’s drunken problem was that he really wanted to sleep with this guy he just met but didn’t know how to approach it without seeming either really creepy or overwhelming. Michael had all but pinned him to the floor and stripped him bare. It was too good for a first night together. They fit and moved too well.

It was unheard of.

Michael scrolled down, trying to see any other date that stood out to him. He landed on the one that was from their wedding day, six months before their disaster ending, and pressed it without too much hesitation. He wanted to know.

”I keep looking at him and he looks so happy and I feel like an asshole. He deserves the world and the truth with it, and I can’t bring myself to tell him. I want to marry him today, even if we are just eloping in Vegas with a guy dressed as the priest from the Princess Bride performing the ceremony. I want to marry him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. He is the love of my life, I’ve never been more sure. God… I love him.” Alex laughed and it felt like the world got a bit brighter. “I want to scream it from the rooftops that I love him just so maybe it’ll stop feeling so overwhelming.”

He did scream it from the rooftop of their hotel. Michael remembered feeling higher than life.

“I need to tell him the truth. He needs to know who he’s marrying. I’m going to do it.”

Michael didn’t have to listen to more to know that he absolutely didn’t do it. Though, he did want to know why. The issue was that it wasn’t ever answered. It was probably fear. Fear that that overwhelming love would end. And somehow it really fucking didn’t end.

He still loved him. Alex, Alexander, whoever.

Michael went to the first one again. He didn’t really know why he did it, but starting that day he began listening to all the details that Captain Alexander Manes had recorded over the years. It was really him, the recordings being something so raw that he didn’t need to lie to. He heard the two of them giggling and kissing and being ridiculously in love for two years. He heard it all over the course of 60 hours of audio.

For the next six months straight, that’s all Michael did. He just listened to Alex over and over and over until he could recite the recordings as well as Alex could recite The Odyssey. He could laugh with them, smile with them, love them. He was falling in love all over again with the man in the recordings. He loved hearing his excitement, his love, his laugh, his rambles. He hated hearing him crying on bad days or just feeling defeated and forcing himself to push through. He listened to recordings of therapy sessions he didn’t know Alex attended, hearing him talk through his still lingering depression and PTSD. Michael had known that Alex had some problems, even if they were only shown in the dead of night when he woke up screaming, but he’d never known how bad until he listened.

And he listened and listened and listened and listened.

“I can’t believe you’re still listening to him,” Isobel said one morning, shaking her head as Michael smiled into his cup of coffee. He always smiled at this one. It was just a random April morning, but Alex had recorded himself waking Michael up to breakfast in bed and he could hear the sheets rustle and the smack of kisses that he could still feel on his chest. It made his stomach knot up.

“Why?”

“He lied to you about who he was, Michael, and you’re just letting him manipulate you from afar all over again,” she sighed. He knew she meant well and she’d had a controlling boyfriend in the past that colored her opinion on Alex’s choices. The problem was that, aside from a few sketchy things about Alex, she’d liked him. They were a lot alike and Michael loved it. “It’s been six months, it’s time to move on.”

He thought about that for a moment. It was time to move on. He was sleeping in his sister’s guest bedroom and he was doing the same thing day in and day out. He needed to do something different. Even if it wasn’t exactly what she meant.

“Yeah,” he nodded, placing the mug down. It had been six months. Six months that he spent every day listening to Alex talking and learning about him and memorizing all the aspects of Captain Alexander Manes that he didn’t know before. Every little detail.

He wanted more.

Michael went back into the guest room and pulled out his laptop. He went to his E-Mail and opened a blank new message. He pulled Alex’s E-Mail into the To bar. He put 25 Questions To Fall Back In Love With You. Everything else came easy.

’I’ve been listening to every single recording over the last few months and I’ve been getting to know Alex Manes better and better and I’m at a point where I’m eager to know more. I want to trust him. I want to trust you because I love you.

But we’re still strangers, right? Technically, I mean. And we still have 25 questions left so here’s all my answers. If you love me still, give me your answers. Truthfully. As truthful as you can.’

He answered all his questions within the next half hour and sent it without reading over it. If he proofread it then he would risk second guessing sending it in the first place. He didn’t want that. He just wanted to see Alex again and see if it felt the same. They were cosmic before, they had to be cosmic again.

Alex answered by the end of the night.

‘Not gonna lie, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw this in my inbox. I miss you. Here’s my answers.’

Michael poured over them instead of sleeping that night. Most of them were the same and expected, but a few changed. The ones that changed had Michael feeling even more eager to go home. They matched the man in the recordings.

His greatest accomplishment was hacking into Russian intelligence while getting a blowjob. His most treasured memory was their wedding day. He shared that, if they were going to continue, it was important that Michael knew that he was stubborn and would fight to the death if he knew he had the chance to keep him(the first time it’d been that he’d lost his leg). Question 36, the infamous ‘problem in need of advice’, was now a lot less dirty.

’The man I’m in love with seems to be eager to try to save our fucked marriage. I’m super excited, but we have a lot of hours between us. What do you think I should do? Should I go to him or let him come to me or should we talk via E-Mail until we’re ready to see each other face to face again?’

Michael was feeling not too unlike he’d felt when Alex had shouted his love from the rooftops or when Alex had cradled him and recited The Odyssey like it was a fairytale. It made him feel like he was melting and Alex was the mold. This shouldn’t be a thing. He shouldn’t be this happy over an E-Mail from someone who’d lied.

But he was. And he was willing to try again and fight for what felt like the right thing because that’s what Achilles did for Patroclus.

’I’ll be home by tomorrow night. I call the bed.’

#malex #malex fic #I FINALLY FINISHED #roswell new mexico #rnm #roswell new mexico fic #rnm fic #michael guerin #michael guerin fic #alex manes #alex manes fic #request

119 notes · View notes

caranfindel · 5 years

Text

Recap/review 14.19: “Jack in the Box”

THEN: Eh, you know all this. Oh, wait, here's something interesting - a reminder that Naomi was overcome by the Empty slime. Which reminds me of my theory that Naomi and/or Duma might actually be the Empty Entity. Hmmm. Oh, and also, all the Jack stuff.

NOW: There's a bunch of hunters in the bunker, drining beer and looking at pictures of Mary and her stuff on the map table. Including the picture Sam burned. Well, I'm glad it wasn't the only copy. And whatever these rings and calipers are that are always on the map table, apparently they're permanent, because they weren't removed for this little memorial display. Also, John's journal is part of the display, and I know they gave it to Mary to read, but still, it's John's. This bothers me.

So, are these surviving AU hunters? If not, that means the Winchesters have opened the bunker up to every hunter they know (and revealed its location to everyone they know), which is... not what I would have done. TFW makes an entrance (why were they not in there with their guests) and Dean thanks them for coming and makes a little speech but I'm finding it real hard to concentrate on Dean right now because LOOK AT SAM'S SHIRT. LOOK AT IT. It's CLOSE-FITTING and it's NOT PLAID and whatever awful things this episode does (and my completely unspoiled prediction is that IT WILL DO AWFUL THINGS), we at least got this.

I strongly suspect this is actually Jared's shirt.

Dean informs the gathered that they missed the pyre, sorry. And he mentions that some of them fought Michael with her in the other world so they ARE AU hunters! Or at least some of them! Well, that's good to know. Sam doesn't have to feel personally responsible for killing everyone who came over, just a handful. Including the only one who had a name, and probably that guy who called him Chief (sob), but some of them remain. Anyway. Dean gives his eulogy (and Sam's not the only worth a second look in this scene, because Dean looks pretty amazing as well) and they drink beer and then an AXE FLIES IN OUT OF NOWHERE, SLOWLY AND AWKWARDLY SPIRALING INTO A HUNTER'S HEAD. People seem surprised, but it's the mild kind of surprise you'd get if he threw his beer at somebody, not if an axe suddenly appeared embedded in his head. The thrower of the axe walks in - it's New Bobby. WELL.

Title card! Bobby informs me that it was a hatchet, not an axe, and he wants it back. (Sidebar: It literally never occurred to me to think about the difference between a hatchet and an axe until earlier this week when I was listening to a murder podcast that specified someone was killed with one, not the other.) He also tell us that the "hunter" was actually a wraith "from a nest your mom and I busted up" and SEE, GUYS? This is why you don't invite people to the bunker. Now a bunch of wraiths probably know where it is. And we know the warding is a joke. Cas thinks Mary would have appreciated a monster at her memorial. I don't think Cas knows Mary very well but whatever.

Bobby asks Sam how he and "the other one" are doing, and we watch Dean pack up Mary's belongings (including John's journal? that's going away?) and Sam says he "seems to be doing okay" which is, of course, how they operate. No one asks how Bobby's doing, even though he had a relationship with Mary too (and over the course of her life probably spent as much time with her as Sam did, when you come right down to it), but Bobby says he's not into public displays of grief anyway, and Dean is probably the same (which is true, except for when it's very very not true).

Sam suggests they drink the scotch Ketch left (and I wonder if this means Ketch came for the memorial, and left some scotch, or if he's referring to a bottle from a previous season that somehow remained through all those events that really would have called for some serious scotch-drinking) and talk about Mom. Dean points out that they have been talking about Mom and stalks out and leaves Sam sad.

Sam and Bobby and Cas settle for beer instead, and Dean walks in just as Bobby asks "what exactly happened to her, cause I'm hearing, the kid." Oh, that's interesting that they wouldn't have given him the whole story. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it makes sense that they'd keep things vague, tell everyone she "died on a hunt." Dean needs a drink, but not in the bunker. Sam tells him they need to talk about Jack, and he says "we will" and quickly makes his escape. Bobby and Cas have this funny exchange.

I liked the kid. We fought together. But there's only way this ends.

Bobby's right. We have to find Jack and help him.

What?

Hee! Cas feels Jack might not realize what he did was wrong, and Bobby astutely points out that if he didn't realize it was wrong, that's kind of a big problem, because if Kelly's influence has been burned away, that means Lucifer is all that's left. Bobby means to hunt him down. "An unstoppable monster who don't know right from wrong gets put down." Um, Bobby, let's consider the unstoppable part of that declaration. (Also, should someone point out to Bobby that Jack accidentally killed someone even back when he did have a soul? Probably not.)

Cut to Jack, who is still? again? at an abandoned warehouse or factory or something. He's remembering what he did, and wishing his mother was there to tell him what to do. Oh, she's not here, but Hallucidad is. He tells Jack that the Winchesters don't care about him, he was just a pet and a weapon, and again, it hurts knowing that this is Jack's subconscious saying these things. Jack thinks he can explain and apologize, and if that's so, Jack, then why didn't you do that when they caught you raising Mary's not-corpse? No, says Hallucifer, they hate you.

Cut to Dean, sitting outside somewhere in the dark, crying.

This is not okay. I mean, it is, but it's not.

Heaven. (yawn.) Cas again tells Duma that he wants to see Naomi, and again she denies him. It turns out Naomi is in "a very small cell" because Heaven was invaded under her watch. I didn't think they had enough spare angels around to lock one up just because they don't think she's a good leader. She might be a great follower. (Yeah, probably not.) Cas tells her he needs help looking for Jack, who has burned through his soul and is no longer being protected by the Winchesters. Hmmm, she says, this is very useful information to have. Internally. Out loud, she tells Cas she'll see what she can do, which he of course takes as an offer to help. Oh, Cas.

Bunker. Sam's working at his computer when Dean comes back. Sam's wearing a different shirt. I don't know if that means it's the next day, or just that he changed out of his nice funeral shirt. He asks Dean how he's doing, but Dean ignores that and asks what Sam's doing.

Trying to find Jack. We've gotta find him before Bobby and his crew, because if they find him first -

He's gonna kill them all.

... I don't know.

Oh, Sam, you DO know. You are obviously concerned about Bobby et al killing Jack, not the other way around. And it breaks my heart. Sam also wants to talk about Mary and the fact that they don't have to rely on faith to know Mary's in Heaven, because they personally know Heaven and angels are real. Dicks, but real. He says Mary's in a great place, with John, because again we're forgetting or denying what we know about Heaven. Dean, the eternal ray of sunshine, points out that there wasn't enough of Mary left to bring back to life even if they wanted to.

Back to Jack, who has a surprise visitor. It's Duma! Oh, cool, she's helping Cas find him, just like she said she would! Ha ha ha nope. (Sidebar: How did Duma find him, and why doesn't Cas have the same ability? Discuss.) He remembers her from his trip to Heaven that one time he died. She tells him Mary's death wasn't his fault, and he deserves redemption after his mistake, because he has "a glorious destiny." She tells him Heaven has fallen apart since God left, and no one gives them the respect they deserve, but Jack, YOU can save Heaven and make the world better and wouldn't that make Sam and Dean happy? Their first stop on the Make The World Better Tour is to turn a famous God denier into a pillar of salt. Oh, irony. (Also, he's safe from ghosts now, so. Bonus?)

Bunker. Cas is telling the Winchesters that Heaven promised to "make every effort" to find Jack. Which 1) isn't exactly what we saw happening, unless you're naive enough to think "I'll see what I can do" means "I'll make every effort", and b) even if that is what Duma said, as Dean points out, "Oh, Heaven promised? Great, well we should take that to the bank." But Cas thinks Heaven has as much reason to want to find Jack as they do. Which is true. But doesn't mean they're going to turn him over to you, Cassie.

Coincidentally, Sam has just read about Professor Pillar of Salt. "Why does that sound familiar?" Dean asks. You know, I don't know the Bible very well. If a particular event didn't show up in "Jesus Christ Superstar" or "The Ten Commandments," I'm not likely to be familiar with it. And yet I know about Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. And I've never been to Heaven or met an angel. So.

Cas explains the story and says no ordinary angel could turn a human into salt. Sam reads another story about a dishonest televangelist (yeah, I know, that's redundant) who had a crevice open in the ground under her and swallow her up, and again Dean's not familiar with the story, but this time I'm not either. But Cas knows it's from the book of Numbers. Allegedly, only Jack or Chuck himself could perform these acts.

Heaven. Duma tells Jack he's doing excellent work, and he can help bring Heaven back to its previous glory.

Sam and Dean will like that?

Words can't begin to express how Sam and Dean will feel.

Hee!

So let's talk about what's going on here. I appreciate that they're framing this as Jack trying to get back into Sam and Dean's good graces. In fact, I'm a little hopeful at this point. If Jack-who-is-being-used-by-Heaven is the Big Bad, doesn't that mean stopping the Big Bad could just mean they rescue him from Duma's manipulation? Maybe? (Yeah, I know. But a girl can dream.)

Anyway. Duma's next task for Jack is to create more angels. She tells him he can't make them out of thin air, but if a human is "predisposed" to it, he might be able to forge them into an angel. Oooooh, this opens up some chilling possibilities about who could be turned into an angel. But it turns out he's not going after anybody named Winchester. He's just sitting on the throne "where your grandfather received prayers" (and where your father sat) and listening to prayers. (Sidebar: Why hasn't Sam tried to communicate with Jack by praying to him? Discuss.)

For whatever reason, he hones in on one particular group of worshippers who are about to discuss the book of Samuel (hee!) with Pastor Ames. Jack zaps into the room, asks if they meant it when they said they wanted to go to Heaven, and shows them his wings. Sold! Pastor Ames missing that demonstration, so when he comes in and calls Jack a liar, Jack hits him with another Biblical curse: "he was eaten by worms and breathed his last." Pastor Ames falls to the ground with worms popping out of him everywhere, and Jack and his future angels disappear.

Hospital. Guys, look at the suits! Have they ever worn such narrow pants? What is going on here? Someone new in the wardrobe department?

Mama like.

Agents Kilmister, Clark, and Taylor (hee) are visiting bandaged-up Pastor Ames, who identifies a photo of Jack. They leave, and Cas recites the relevant verse and Sam says, surprised, "so you think this is another Bible thing?" AS IF THAT WASN'T WHY THEY'RE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, and as they leave, we see that Pastor Ames is not over his worm infestation after all.

Back at the bunker, Dean tells Sam that he didn't want it to come to this, but they have no choice. Come to what? What's behind the door in room 5B? It's the thing we all knew was coming - the box! (And if you didn't see it coming, the title of this episode clearly gave it away, which is why I consider titles of unaired episodes to be spoilers.) Sam, who is clearly not behind this plan in any way shape or form, points out that they don't have the ability to force Jack into the box, and he won't go in there of his own free will.

But he might. He might if he only has to stay in there long enough for us to finish the spell to fix his soul.

Spell? What spell? There is no spell.

*We* know that.

Oh, no, this is not good, and Sam already hates it.

... So, you want to lie to him.

No, I mean, I *want* Zeppelin to get back together. But what I *need*, what *we* need, is to stop Jack. Big difference. But here's the deal; we both gotta sign off on it. This might be our only shot, and if he even catches a whiff that this is a scam, he's off into the wind.

Exactly. Now, how do you think he's not gonna know something's up?

Because you're gonna be so damn sincere -

Me? Why me?

Because you've always been in his corner. You're his go-to guy. Sam, if you reach out, he'll come. If I do it, after what happened to Mom, I could lose him. I *will* lose him.

Oh no, no, no, Sam is SO not on board with this plan. Because the worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't work, and the second worst thing is that it does work. Dean is so calmly insistent, and Sam is so unhappy, and his FACE when Dean tells him HE will be sincere is just killing me, and no matter what I think about this episode or or this entire story arc, I love what the guys are doing with this scene.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding a silver lining here.

Sam sits down at the library table and begins praying to Jack, which doesn't answer my question of why they haven't already tried communicating with him that way. In fact, it makes me ask it harder. He tells him that they're family, and bad things happen in families but they want to get through it, they want to be like they were before. Jack hears Sam's prayer as he assembles his future angels. Meanwhile, Cas has barged his way into Heaven to rescue Jack, having figured out that Heaven has no mercy and angels do bad things, and Cas? How is this POSSIBLY news to you? Duma threatens to end Mary and John's happy little afterlife together (Is this confirmation that they really are sharing a Heaven, even though his name isn't on the door? Maybe. Do I accept it? Not necessarily) so Cas stabs her. Well. We're down to, what, ten angels now? He calls for Jack, but Jack's already gone, having just appeared in the bunker.

Jack tells Sam and Dean he's been working with Heaven, and "if it helps, I regret it... the accident."

Again, the guys do a beautiful job with this scene. Even if it's an awful, awful scene, they're acting the hell out of it. Sam is as anxious as he was when he was trapped in a cell with Jack the day he was born, the way his hands twitch when he gets up from the table and circles behind Dean, and then carefully places himself between Dean and Jack, and how he physically reacts when Jack steps closer, and they're both keeping their distance and moving so carefully, and then there's the way Dean is practically unblinking and is very obviously working SO HARD not to spontaneously combust, staying practically motionless and keeping his voice even, although anyone could tell he's absolutely BOILING under the surface from the look on his face and his tone of voice every time he says the accident. All of this is amazing.

But yeah, it is also an awful scene. Because Jack isn't guilty or apologetic at all. He's actually kind of smug about working with Heaven and making angels, and very condescending about regretting "the accident," and I just don't think he would be there. I think he would tell them how sorry he was, and that he tried to fix it, and basically everything he said to Hallucifer. He wouldn't say "I knew you'd understand" when they tell him they forgive him. His blind self-assurance would make sense if it came at the end of a 2- or 3-episode arc, where Duma had spent more than a day telling him how awesome he was. So while I love Sam and Dean in this scene, love them to pieces, Jack is just... ugh. Beyond OOC. Moving on. Dean tells Jack they're working on a way to fix his soul, and they want to keep him safe (from having another ACCIDENT) in the meanwhile. Sam oh-so-tentatively puts a hand on Jack's shoulder and dear GOD he is so afraid and I LOVE IT.

Again, quite a silver lining to this dark little raincloud.

They take him to the room with the magic box, which Dean claims is "actually pretty comfortable." Dean stays still and Sam fidgets and Jack says "okay" and climbs into the box. "How long before I can come out?" he asks. Sam is more and more fidgety as he says "not too long," and Dean is like stretched rubber band about to snap as he holds himself back from slamming the lid down. "Jack, we got this," Sam lies. "Okay," Jack says again, and he lies down and they didn't even put a pillow in the damn box, why does he think this is okay, why does he think they're working in his best interest if they didn't even give him a damn pillow? Dean shuts the lid and rushes to close the locks and Sam hates this, hates it so much.

Shhh. Don't even listen. Just turn the sound down and enjoy the pretty, pretty angst.

Alone in the box, Jack calls to the Winchesters, but they're already shutting the door to room 5B. They move to the kitchen to finish off Ketch's scotch and talk about the future.

So what do we do now? Just go on, with Jack locked up in there forever?

We have to.

I don't know if I can do that.

Dean ignores Sam's shaky voice and decides to talk about the scotch and sure, we all recognize this is Dean's way of coping. Pretend it's not happening, pretend it doesn't bother him. Because I have to think that, no matter how much he wants revenge against Jack, he understands that being locked in that box forever is still a horrible fate. (A fate Dean was willing to accept, but still.) Sam, meanwhile, needs to talk, just like he needed to talk about Mary.

You know, I never thought it would end like this, with Jack.

Sammy, we knew from the beginning it was a long shot with him.

Yeah. Yeah. But, long shots are kind of our thing.

So let's talk about Sam's guilt. His beautiful, beautiful guilt. Not only over tricking someone he loves into being locked up in a box forever, but for bringing Jack into their lives in the first place. And yet. Jack has always been unstoppable, hasn't he? So if Sam hadn't opened his humongous heart and taken him in, he would have been out there alone. No one teaching him how to use and control his powers, no one keeping him away from Lucifer. He would have been an unstoppable enemy instead of an unpredictable ally. Sam did the right thing, even though it ended bad. Because it was always going to end bad.

Have I mentioned that I could watch an entire episode that was just Dean drinking?

Back in room 5B, Jack's starting to panic, and still calling for Sam and Dean. They don't show up, but Hallucifer does (oh god, I want to see Sam find out he basically locked Jack in that box with Lucifer) and informs Jack he's been played.

In the kitchen, Cas arrives with the news that Duma has been manipulating Jack, and they really need to find him. The guys are all, oh, whoops, forgot to call you, he's here, locked in the box.

Jack gets glowy eyes and tries to break out of the box, but nothing happens.

Cas is horrified that the guys still plan to keep Jack in the box, even knowing his latest acts were due to being manipulated. Sam says "That's the problem. If he's that easily manipulated, he's too dangerous to be out of the box." Oh, no he doesn't. Instead, Dean says "He agreed to it." Yes, in much the same way Sam agreed to be Gadreel's vessel. You keep telling yourself that, Dean. In fact, Dean is trying to claim that deep down, Jack knows it's best. Oh, no, no you don't. Cas points out that Dean manipulated Jack as much as Duma did.

(Sidebar: I'm convinced that Sam would be able to forgive Jack. Because of his endless capacity for forgiveness, and because he sees himself as being in Jack's shoes at a different point in his life. Dean, on the other hand, would not. Because Dean is a normal human being when it comes to forgiveness, and because Dean puts loyalty to family above everything else.)

Box. Jack tries harder. Lucifer laughs. The box glows.

Kitchen. The arguing is interrupted by an earth-shattering kaboom. Things fall off shelves. The red emergency lights and klaxon come on. TFW leaps up and runs to room 5B. The room is a smoke-filled wreck and a figure with glowing gold eyes is walking out of the red-tinged smoke. "Jack," Sam gasps.

Duh duh duuuuuhhhh! Next week, Cas makes Dean write I knew a nephilim was more powerful than its angel parent but I assumed the box would be stronger than Jack anyway 100 times on the blackboard.

Okay, the bad happened, as we all figured it would. But let's talk about the good. Jack's not locked in the box forever. That's a relief - it would have been a very unsatisfactory conclusion. And the guys looked extraordinary. And there was so much emotion, both the tightly-controlled type, and the worn-on-his-sleeve type, and I love them both. Honestly, considering what happened in this one, and who wrote it, it was a lot better than I expected. A lot better than it could have been. (Will I go read your reactions now and see that every single one of you disagrees with me? Quite possibly.)

Next week is the next-to-last "Carry On Wayward Son."

Please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

#spn #tv recaps #recap #14.19 #spoilers

19 notes · View notes

emeraldnebula · 6 years

Text

In light my recent posts about the idea of creating a brand-new superhero love interest for Superman (the real one, not the impostor parading about in “Rebirth”), I thought it might be fair to share with you some old message board posts from the official DC Comics message boards, circa 2001-2005. This was back when the Superman fandom hadn’t atrophied to the point where only the regressive nutcases were running the show, so there were still some voices of sanity active at the time.

Even 13-17 years ago, DC’s arrogance, inability to accept criticism over their failures, and insistence of stagnation was a major sticking point, and it led to lot of debates over what needed to be updated about Superman to keep it alive, what was absolutely essential, and what needed to be kicked to the curb. I copied and pasted a lot of these conversations into Microsoft Word (I knew nothing of screen-capping at the time), so there’s some choice posts that, I think, are even more relevant than ever in light of “Rebirth” being a failure in every respect.

Some of these posts will be anonymous, as I no longer remember who exactly posted what. But some posters were fairly notable fan personalities, such as comic book blogger Bizarro Mark Engblom, a fan from the Silver Age days:

“ I wouldn't lose much sleep if Perry and Jimmy went the way of the dodo bird. I think they worked better in the age when newspapers were actually a vital element of our society, but they're now (at best) a quaint anachronism. An optional feature of our lives, rather than the necessity it was in past eras. Lois? The current interpretation of Lois is an annoying shrike, but I would think she would need to be around in some capacity. What that is, I have no idea. As it stands, she occupies a much more prominent role that I would ever give her. The real trick seems to be separating the “essentials” from what I like to call “furniture.” Essentials: Krypton explodes, Jor-El and Lara send their baby Kal-El (the baby's age never mattered much to me) to Earth, found and raised by the Kents as Clark Kent in Smallville. Grows up to become Superman. Furniture: Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, various Fortresses, super-pets, kryptonite, villains, blah, blah, blah. Of course, just as in my home I'm more fond of some pieces of furniture than others, it's still just furniture and, ultimately, expendable. From my perspective, there is precious little that absolutely must remain in order for it to still be Superman. Whenever the Superman experience starts to become more about rearranging the same old furniture than advancing the narrative into new territory (or, to beat the analogy to death, “buying some new furniture”), you know the franchise is stuck in a rut.“

An anonymous fan, quoting previous poster Cooky La Moo:

“You know, I kind of like the idea of The Daily Planet, Perry and Jimmy BEING an anachronism. Perry as an old-school newsman standing like Canute against the tide of time. The Daily Planet doesn't HAVE to be a great metropolitan newspaper, it could be seen as a somewhat eccentric throwback to a simpler age, sneered at by other media types, but respected when it can pull in stories like the debut of Superman. Maybe it could become “old-fashioned” in the same way that people see Clark's character itself as being “old-fashioned.” Or, like Cooky said, make the Planet a news agency. Or a web-based news site. How are magazines like Time doing? Are they being superseded like newspapers? Of course, is it necessary for Clark to be a reporter? With 24-hour news media, he doesn't need to be at a newspaper to get access to news stories. Could he be a teacher? Perry a principal, Jimmy a student teacher? Or some other profession? I've always thought that Perry, Lois and Jimmy should form something of an artificial family of some sort, so I think the characters should stay, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get other jobs. You know the thing that annoys me? The fact that we sit here discussing issues like this when DC just doesn't seem bothered. What's going on?”

Two posts by DC forum regular Kilgore Trout:

“ The strict adherence to “continuity” is what got us to the point we’re at now. It has become impossible to just tell a story WITHOUT going through 16 years of “continuity” to make sure you’re not stepping into a pile of shit that someone left laying there 10 years ago. To me, continuity means this: Strange visitor from another planet [which is destroyed—along with his family—in a horrific cataclysm] rocketed to earth as a child. Raised by kindly older couple in the heartland of America. Has powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Works for a great metropolitan newspaper. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, fights a never-ending battle for Truth Justice et al…. Everything else is superfluous. Superman should exist inside AND outside of the DCU. The age of anal-retentiveness needs to end. The books are completely stifled under the weight of 16 years of step-by-step continuity. This isn’t the life story or autobiography of a real person. Superman’s story used to be BIG and GRAND. It wasn’t mired in small details and the mundane goings-on of normal folks. The “Hi, honey! I’m home!” approach isn’t working anymore and it’s why I am looking forward to Birthright and the promise it holds.“

“ Here's a simple solution... AFTER they revamp the current Moderateman and change him BACK to Superman, they can actually explain the Lois and Clark relationship in a way that would finally make sense. Here’s how: YES, Superman IS the OLDEST and most RESPECTED Superhero in the DCU BECAUSE of his MANY YEARS of service to and for humanity. And that would require that he's been around for over 60-some odd years, so here's my thought: Lois Lane is a woman that Superman USED TO have a thing with. She aged. He barely did. She is NOW about 60 and is his oldest friend and confidant. Nothing more and nothing less. The end. No marriage and no messy divorce. Just good friends and still an important part of the mythos.”

Responses to the above, from anonymous posters:

“ Kilgore Trout, I’m sorry but, huh?!? what do you mean exactly? Are you talking for TPTB up at DC to just reboot the titles to have it so that now in Post-Post-Crisis, both Kal and Lois have aged but within Kal's case though, the higher-ups have made it so that he has retained his youthfulness in his physical appearance, and so that Lois is now a grandma in the new DCU too? Yeah, I suppose that if done right it could work in the end. It would sure give another gal a shot at becoming his lover (Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan, Wonder Woman, etc.).”

“ Do we NEED Lois and Clark to be lovers? Okay, sure we do at the moment, assuming there's no reboot on the horizon. But if things started again, do we NEED a Lois/Clark ‘ship? Yes, I know. They've been an item forever. Their names are linked together in the public consciousness, but...what if, in another universe, Clark and Lana ended up together? Or Clark and Chloe? What if—Shock! Horror!—Lois and Clark were just good friends, maybe even best friends, but platonic friends nonetheless? I know that the secret identity causing trouble for Clark's relationships is an important part of the mythos, but can that be played out in another form other than a love triangle? Could it work with friends like Jimmy and Perry if their roles were beefed up? Thinking about it, that sort of situation perhaps works best in a romantic relationship, but that relationship doesn't have to be with Lois. I know, I know. Lois is an important character. I think a lot of the problems are down to poor characterization and a lack of vision for the supporting cast. But sometimes, and especially in conversations like this, it’s worth throwing out ideas and thoughts and seeing if any of them stick, even if they're not how things have been in the past. We hear a lot about redefining Superman, but of all the aspects of the mythos, Clark's character is perhaps one of the things that doesn't NEED changing. Maybe Lois’ role IS something that could change…. (Is there a devil's advocate smiley?)”

Post by Elroy the Cat, specifically citing the Lois/Clark marriage as a death knell:

“ The more fundamental problem with Lois in current continuity is not whether she's married to Superman or not. It’s whether readers can understand what the fuck Clark sees in her, because Lois is either annoying or more annoying, depending on the writer who's handling her. She's a difficult character, apparently, for male writers to pull off successfully. And that's a problem, because you can [and already do] have readers going, “This man could have ANY woman he wants! Why this troll?” It's distracting, and no one has thought to explore whether or not it speaks of a deficiency in Clark that he should seek to be loved by someone as clearly flawed as Lois is. Great story there…but then you'd have to have a real writer to write it. Having said that, the marriage as an idea is only as good as its usefulness to the greater story. Presently, it’s about as useful to the greater “journey” of the character of Superman as shoes are to fish. And therein lies the problem. Bottom line: the marriage is the nail that makes an eventual total reboot of this version of Superman inevitable.“

Another anonymous post in response to infamous forum troll Michael “ManoftheAtom” Sacal, pretty much backing up Bizarro Mark Engblom’s previous argument:

“To me, all Superman needs to be is… An infant rocketed to earth from a dying planet. Raised by the Kents. A reporter. And THAT’S IT!! I don't understand what these “established guidelines” are, exactly. So you guys are saying that if Superman is rebooted 1000 times, he always has to live the same exact life in each and every one of them??”

Excerpt from another anonymous post, again in respose to Kilgore Trout vis-a-vis DC’s pet failed decisions:

“I could not have said it better [following a laundry list of bad ideas DC implemented]. Actually the addition of each of these things was usually a part of a good story. But retaining them after the story as part of the Superman legend has created this disaster that I describe as clutter. Besides, kids who are getting their driver's licenses today (and probably giving up comics) were not even born at the time of the Crisis. It is time to relaunch, have another Crisis, or simply designate everything since the last Crisis as having occurred on some alternate earth (like the GA's Earth 2 or the SA). Then start writing comics for the next generation. Superman could discover Kryptonite again. He could be a bachelor and play the field. He could marry Lana instead of Lois (and that would not require a divorce)—in this brave new world maybe he had been a Superboy before becoming a Superman. He might have a cousin, fly in space, or travel in time. Or maybe not. But there would be room to do new things without having to screw up everything that has gotten him to where he is today.”

Again, some of these suggestions are from longtime fans whose readership stretched back decades. And even as far back as the early 2000s, there were those pondering if perhaps the Superman franchise needed a drastic makeover. I can’t imagine those sentiments are any less now in the wake of DC’s regressive tactics.

#superman #reboot #revamp #fan suggestions #blast from the past #still relevant

16 notes · View notes

vaguepositivity · 6 years

Text

MCU GEN FIC RECS

by @100-demons

as we were, no longer, not be at all

Author Summary: Some days, Sam shakes his shoes upside down before he puts them on, feeling imaginary scorpions scrape against the tips of his fingers and the aching grit of desert sand seared into the backs of his eyes.

by @51st

Raw Footage

Author Summary: “Clint Barton has sent me a photograph of his glory,” Thor said, and handed Natasha his phone. Quirking an eyebrow, she glanced at it. “This is a courting custom?”

by @actualmenacebuckybarnes

& Found

Author Summary: Bucky sighs deeply. “Okay, okay. We’re lost.”

Liho's Human

Author Summary: It took Liho three months to train the exceptionally difficult human. But then again, she’d always been one for a challenge.

Never Been

Author Summary: He means to exit the shop now that the threat has cleared, but then he sees the section of Captain America merchandise. There are DVDs, books full of sepia photographs and retro propaganda posters with Captain America’s smiling face. There’s a minute when his heart seizes up, just like it had in the exhibit, and his body feels swollen and aching with some strange new feeling. Then it fades, leaving behind the infuriating sensation of an unspent sneeze, a word at the tip of the tongue. He is trying so hard to remember but all he gets is static.

not allowed to fall apart

Author Summary: Twice, Natasha slams her own shoulder out of its joint so she can squeeze out of a pair of handcuffs.Three times, Natasha slashes open her wrist cutting free from some binding. Glass on duct tape, razor blade on wire, exacto-knife on nylon rope.Once, Natasha crushes her elbow trying to break out of a ziptie. To be fair, she’s heavily drugged and off-balance because of a broken heel.Times change. Restraints change.Natasha knows the feeling of a trapped animal, gnawing off its own limb to escape.

by amcw177

Fishing Job

Author Summary: Michael gets some help and an unexpected offer.

The Undercover Boogie

Author Summary: In which Coulson’s argumentation on behalf of the human race proves highly effective and gains S.H.I.E.L.D. a new agent with an interesting concept of covert operations. Naturally, things go awry pretty fast. Written for this prompt @ avengerkink on LJ.

The Transformation Twist

Author Summary: When Loki shows up at Coulson's door, deprived of his powers, Coulson can no longer keep Loki's side job as a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative a secret. The race to find out what the hell happened begins. Meanwhile, it would be great to figure out how to stop the slowest alien incursion in human history, too. Just because it's slow doesn't mean it isn't going to wreck the whole damn place. - A sequel to 'The Undercover Boogie'.

Unreasonable Attachment

Author Summary: A spell goes sideways, Thor gets turned into a puppy, Coulson has no choice, and Loki gets to fix things.

by @amusewithaview

All in a Day's Work

Author Summary: The first thing Darcy thought when she found out they were moving in to Stark Mansion was, “OHMYGODWHAT.”The first thing Darcy thought upon actually meeting all of the Avengers was, “My god, how did these people save the world? Oh my god, how are we all still living not under alien rule?!” ...and then she had to go lie down for a while (on her brand new bed in her brand new room in the refurbished Stark Mansion) and process her life.

Amok Thunder

Author Summary: Original Prompt/Location: http://norsekink.livejournal.com/3231.html?thread=4884895#t4884895I just realized JARVIS (the movie version with Paul Bettany's really snarky voice) is Iron Man's Heimdall.They both see everything or nearly everything. Including some stuff they'd really, really wish they could unsee/delete.They both give somewhat snarky advice to Our Heroes, who then go on to blatantly disregard such advice and get themselves into terrible, horrible situations.So... I'd love to see Heimdall and JARVIS bonding, so to say, over their shared annoyance of having to watch everybody get themselves into trouble despite their warnings.Not to mention having to stand around stoically watching the Avengers et al fuck in every possible pairing combination, location and position ever devised (and you just know Tony loves an audience).

containing multitudes (quintessentiality)

Author Summary: “You must use your magic,” her grandfather had told her seriously.“Or else I’ll lose it?” she’d asked, wit faster than propriety could handle.“No, you’ll never lose it,” her grandfather had told her. “But magic wants to be used and if you don’t give it something to do, it’ll find a purpose.”She’d shrugged him off and scampered off to find her cousins. Looking back, years later, she could recognize that her grandfather hadn’t been disapproving - no, he’d been worried. But by then it was too late: some roads, once walked down, could not be backtracked.Darcy wasn’t sure she’d want to even if she could.

Have Daemon, Will Travel

Author Summary: Stories (some oneshots, some longer projects) that use the "daemon" concept from Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series. Expect the full spectrum from true crossover to fusion.

My Bubble is More Like a Brick Wall

Author Summary: For a brief moment, she fantasized about tackling him, going for the throat and ripping it out with her teeth. The element of surprise would be on her side, she could probably take down at least a few of the jackboot thugs before the rest overwhelmed her. If it went to court and trial, she had a good chance of getting off – Alpha dominance battles were like that, and nobody could argue that he hadn’t violated her territory.

Stats and the Single Sentinel

Author Summary: Darcy was around five the first time she saw the over-sized cat. She remembers that it had very pointy ears and a little beard. She remembers that it was huddled, shaking, against the wall. She remembers its eyes, a funny gold-amber color, and she remembers the shriek her mother let out when she saw the two of them curled up together.She doesn’t remember the trip to the DSG, for testing.It’s funny what kids’ minds latch onto as important.

by @andhumanslovedstories

Everyone Wants to Be Her or Do Her

Author Summary: Written for the Avengers kink meme: "Agent Hill is badass. The fact that she's beautiful is entirely beside the point. It's like the cherry on the BAMF sundae. Many of the women of SHIELD have a girl-crush on her. The younger female agents often forget they're SHIELD agents (and adults) around her."After the end of a long, long week, SHIELD Agent Jaqui Romera just wants to get drunk with her friend and talk about how much she wants to have sex with her superior officer. Is that too much to ask?

Five People Clint Barton Killed, and One He Spared

Author Summary: "Your ledger is dripping, it’s gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?" Starting at age 13 and working his way up. How Clint earned his own ledger.

History Lessons

Author Summary: As Melinda’s face hit the concrete floor, at the exact moment that her nose shattered, she thought to herself, And this is why we don’t let old friends into our secret base. These days, old friends were a SHIELD agent’s worst enemy.

Performance Review

Author Summary: "Two years of working with her and Nick’s still not that fond of Agent Romanov. Had Barton asked him—though why Barton would start now after ten plus years of doing whatever the hell he felt like—Nick would have told him the only logical answer: Hell no was he bringing that woman back alive. Barton’s job was to eliminate the killer spy. Not adopt her. You don't get cuddly with a creature like the Black Widow."Nick Fury's got a new job for Natasha and calls her into his office for a casual conversation. At SHIELD, casual conversations are a game of spy versus spy.

The Crownless King

Author Summary: Frigga and Loki's relationship in five scenes, from the very beginning to days before the tipping point.

The Soft Star-Shine at Night

Author Summary: Written for the Avengers kinkmeme: "Tony is having a nightmare. A really, really bad nightmare. So bad, he starts calling out for Yinsen in his sleep. Yinsen answers."Yinsen did not sleep or eat or tire. He crossed the span of the globe in a night. He haunted the shadows of his childhood home and saw it true for the first time. He spirited across warzones and helped the angels untangle the dead from their bodies. Even war was beautiful now, in the way that a polluted sky makes the sunset all the richer. At night, he visited cities and watched the symphony of dreams above the towering glass and metal.

The Sparseness and the Sentiment

Author Summary: "Maria Hill slept five hours a night. Never more. Occasionally less. That was her optimal amount of sleep, enough to refresh her and no more. Maria had not reached her position by courting inefficiency." Maria Hill's relationships before and after the film.

The Value of Strength

Author Summary: Written for the Avengers kinkmeme: "So Steven Rogers, Mr. Good Ol' US of A, Captain America? He's evil like pure unadultered evil. He can hide it well and he does care about certain people(his mother, Bucky, teammates who earn his trust etc) but that aside? He couldn't care less about people and if he could get away with it burn them into ash."He wakes and they tell him he’s a hero. He wakes and they fall over themselves to please him. There’s a statue of him in Arlington Cemetery that’s guarded twenty-four hours a day. They love him. They all love him.

The World These Days

Author Summary: Three short vignettes of SHIELD agents reacting to the revelation that their agency isn't at all what they thought it was. One: Three friends discuss how the hell you're suppose to get your next job with "Nazi-adjacent agency" on your resume. Two: Some people are experienced at tragedy. Three: Sharon Carter thinks it's just amazing how quickly the upheaval of your entire world will put your crush for your aunt's old boyfriend on the back-burner.

by @avamclean

normal(ish) life

Author Summary: Buffy comes down with a not so slight case of the transtemporal.

Odinsdottir

Author Summary: She died—this was the way she died. (Series of shorts.)

by @cacchieressa

14 Tracks

Author Summary: 14 tracks from Steve’s iPod and how they got on there. This is actually more like 14 loosely connected ficlets attached to a playlist that was chosen more to suit each character’s possible musical taste (and my music collection) than how the songs actually go together. It’s an outgrowth of a story that I’m not actually writing, but which led to me wondering about what is on Steve’s iPod beyond a preponderance of swing and divas. It is, in the truest of senses, song fic, so, uh, yeah. That happened.

64 Colors

Author Summary: Darcy’s life is weird, but she kind of likes it.

Inherited Characteristics

Author Summary: It's 1986, the Sox are going to the World Series, and sixteen-year-old Tony Stark has just gotten himself arrested for trying to sell nukes to the bad guys.

In the Shadow of Two Gunmen

Author Summary: After the fall of the Soviet Union, Department X was dissolved and their inventory was liquidated. The League of Assassins acquired certain assets.

Shibboleth

Author Summary: "Nightwing?" Clint scoffs. "That guy's not real."

stop clicking your red heels and wishing for home

Author Summary: Four times Steve wished he could go home and one time he realized he was already there.

The Bonds That We Save

Author Summary: In which Peggy Carter meets Etta Candy.

we travel without seatbelts on

Author Summary: In which Bucky Barnes discovers that Steve Rogers is not the only tiny blonde firebrand who felt betrayed by SHIELD.

by Closer

Role Model

Author Summary: "When things got fucked up, I asked what Captain America would do, and I did that. I didn't ever think the reason I did half of the insane things I've done would show up alive."

Six Times The Avengers Stopped An Alien Invasion

Author Summary: Sure, the Avengers are strong, but they’re also not stupid. When aliens invade, they usually have a plan.

Source Code

Author Summary: Steve finds himself in the unenviable position of having to either prove he’s himself or listen to the news media continue to speculate that he’s a robot, a clone, or a lunatic.

Turning Point

Author Summary: Steve and Tony live each other's memories only for a moment, but the fallout lasts longer.

by @copperbadge

At Tilde

Author Summary: Matilda turns hacker, impresses Tony Stark, and fails to be swayed by Charles Xavier.

Audio Commentary Track With Steve Rogers

Author Summary: Summary: Steve didn’t know you could go to college to study movies.

Black AmEx

Author Summary: Bruce isn’t sure he wants to use a credit card Tony gave him. Steve isn’t sure he even knows how.

Exclusive

Author Summary: Heroes In Manhattan: From Captain America’s Hidden Talents To The Truth About The Hulk, We Debunk The Myths And Expose The Daily Lives Of The Avengers.

Film Studies, or, Four Films About Captain America and One By Him

Author Summary: Steve Rogers is no stranger to the silver screen.

The Foodieverse

Author Summary: Steve Rogers just wanted to sell good, nourishing, cheap food from his food truck. Now the crazy fusion chefs from TOBRU are calling him a hipster, the avant garde restaurant “Shield” across the street has declared war on chains, and…well, then there’s Thor, who thinks Steve’s habit of licking food is weird.

Handler

Author Summary: There are some staff changes going on at SHIELD.

Kings of Industry

Author Summary: Tony Stark showed up in Steve Rogers’ hospital room with a get-well bouquet and an offer for Sam Wilson – from King T'Challa of Wakanda.

Longform

Author Summary: The Fugitive’s History: A Search For A Man Out Of Time. (How I Found Bucky Barnes And Barely Lived To Tell About It.) Note: Sequel to Exclusive.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Robot

Author Summary: Dummy discovers self-expression through sculpture.

The Photograph

Author Summary: Steve had body-modesty trained out of him in boot camp, and apparently his attitude is infectious.

Robot Trip

Author Summary: Tony is driving from Malibu to Manhattan with a robot in the back seat and Captain America riding escort at Pepper’s behest. What could possibly go wrong?

See You In Homeroom

Author Summary: Rhodey wants heat-seeking bullets, Steve wants to go for a run, Natasha wants french toast, and Tony just wants to be prom queen.

Selfie With Granddad

Author Summary: After the invasion, Natasha’s granddad shows up.

Someday My Prince Will Open A Transdimensional Portal

Author Summary: T. Stark Lokason, gentleman adventurer, meets Isobel Barton, who sees right through him (and likes it).

The Son Of Man

Author Summary: JARVIS did not want to be a real boy. He was quite happy being a building.

Trickster

Author Summary: It occurs to Loki that the man who keeps the hounds has even less to fear than the hounds themselves.

by @copperbadge and sanura

Star Spangled Man

Author Summary: This one night Steve's out at a bar where a woman is doing an unplugged set, just her and a guitar, which should be kind of hokey but she's really good. For her last song she says, "My grandfather had this song on a record, and he used to play it for me as a kid," and then she opens with something that sounds awfully familiar. Copperbadge's singer-songwriter OC Meg Bodoun played in a bar, and I was so struck by the scene that I rearranged the lyrics and the tune to Alan Menken's masterpiece of WWII USO nostalgia according to his specifications. I had to do it. I don't even play guitar, but I have a capo and a mic. My second-ever venture into fandom creation.

by @defractum

Phil Coulson is not a crazy cat lady

Author Summary: An AU where the Avengers are not a superhero team, but rather a group of cats that Phil Coulson owns and brings in to the SHIELD offices.

by @destronomics

erase and rewind

Author Summary: “Can you spare a few minutes to actually, you know, run your company?” She’s looking directly at the camera, holding up a sheaf of papers in one hand, wiping at the side of her mouth with the other.

Of Pressure

Author Summary: (vignette) "Like I'm an exception to a rule." The sip she takes may be more like gulp, and it's certainly half of whatever he had poured her and he thinks maybe he should start to worry. "It's sexist, Tony."

take the money and run

Author Summary: “I said I’d drive you.” But Steve starts walking anyway, which is fine, because Bucky has a car, and can easily keep pace with a 17-year-old stubborn asthmatic, no sweat, “Get in the damn car, Steve.”

the sea makes your eyes strange

Author Summary: Today it's two AM in a Polish hostel, between an old Soviet-era embassy and a cafeteria open 24 hours with free wi-fi and plenty of napkins to steal when your mark got red on you while bleeding out in the alley three blocks away

by @dizzy-redhead

'Cause I'm In Charge

Author Summary: Captain America is incommunicado chasing after The Winter Soldier, and public confidence is taking a nose-dive. Hill and Coulson are forced to take Desperate Measures.

by dustbear

the memory keeper

Author Summary: “Former military?” Phil asks.“Yes. Navy. Hospital Corps.”“Nurse?” he asks, realizing that he’s made a mistake the moment the words leave his mouth.She scowls. “No,” and doesn’t clarify further.So, Recruit Phil Coulson and Recruit Maria Hill do not get off on the right foot.Later, he finds out that she’s First Lieutenant Maria Hill, recruited from the Navy, and she is one of the most badass reconnaissance diver medics that ever was, the youngest person to qualify and serve with her specialized search and rescue unit, has a list of commendations as long as his arm, and he is suitably impressed.She finds out that Phil Coulson is a former Army Ranger, and she doesn’t give a shit.

by @emsealimb

Ghost in the Machine

Author Summary: The thing that most people don’t think about is this: if you remake the world to be nothing more than brimstone and fire, the people will rebel against their maker; nobody wants to live in Hell. If you remake the world as Utopia, somebody will question its perfection; there is always a skeptic. Loki has a lot of practice remaking this world. Natasha has had even more making herself.

Through the Forest and the Trees

Author Summary: One night in a forest, in the middle of their journey to find their beloved Master. a.k.a. Avengers/Brave Little Toaster fusion fic because why the hell not?

by @enigma731

Right Between the Eyes

Author Summary: When Dottie Underwood suddenly appears in the twenty-first century, Peggy turns to the best contact she has: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s very own Black Widow.

Something Strange

Author Summary: “Heimdall detected a disturbance,” says Thor, “in the mystic energy that lies beneath this city. I’ve been tasked with investigating the threat. It seems the best way to do that is through--infiltration of some Midgardian organization. In light of the recent tensions.” That last sounds vaguely reproachful.Clint blinks, letting this news sink in. “Wait. So what you’re saying is that you need to go undercover. And you want Nat to help you?”Ghosts in New York City would be a perfectly good reason to assemble the Avengers. Too bad that team doesn't exist anymore.

by enigmaticblue

Child's Play

Author Summary: Everybody is afraid of the Hulk--until no one is. As usual, it's Loki's fault.

That Kind of Lonely

Author Summary: They all deal with the fallout in their own way.

by @fartherfaster

The Darktown Poker Club

Author Summary: Nick, Alec, Natasha, and a deck of cards. - An introspective look at the relationship between Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, and what it means to be liars and friends. - Inspired by the poem The Darktown Poker Club.

The Neighbour

Author Summary: americachavez: Marvel give me a short about Sharon’s undercover time as a nurse/Steve’s neighbor and that one time she had to fight off ninjas from Steve’s apartment while he was like, making dinner and sitting alone reading Obama’s biography. stardustandstrawberries: With the music turned up really loudly because he’s a gentleman and he thought the noises were her having sex. - “You vetted my neighbour,” he sighs, “and you read my mail.” The last bit, though, is mostly teasing.“I didn’t vet her,” the agent responds a little testily, “and I’m the only one who weeds the creepers out of your literal and digital mailboxes. Be thankful.” - The wall that separates Steve's apartment from his neighbour Sharon's is very thin. He learns to cope.

The Pit Stop

Author Summary: iputabirdonmyhead: Can the mid credits sequence to Age of Ultron just be Jane and Darcy on a road trip to Jane’s science conferences. They’re out of cell phone range or their phone batteries are dead, they’re bickering about directions, Darcy has a giant map unfolded in the car, everything is a mess. They stop at a gas station to get directions and freeze, staring up at the TV as it plays news footage of everything going on in New York and all the Ultron destruction. Cut back to credits. stardustandstrawberries: They’ve been staring at the TV for fifteen minutes when a pile of coats and poster tubes on the backseat shifts and Betty Ross wakes up wondering why the car’s not moving. - tumblr asked for a theoretical AoU post-credits scene involving Jane, Darcy, and Betty. my hand slipped. - “Avengers Assemble!” shouts Betty, with gusto.

by Frea_O

Counterfeit and Counterpart

Author Summary: Five times Maria Hill doesn’t understand Natasha Romanoff, and why she might be better off that way.

The Bechdel Test

Author Summary: Tony has concerns for his female teammates. Very important ones.

by fringedweller

Big Damn(Terrified)Heroes

Author Summary: Prompt was Clint, Natasha, big damn heroes. I have possibly reinterpreted this in a way that the prompter did not intend. Just a silly little crack fic. No ships, except possibly Black Widow/awesomeness.

by @galaxystew

Amateur Theatrics

Author Summary: In which Thor’s primary problem-solving method (a mighty blow from Mjolnir) fails to have the desired effect on a magical artifact, and his secondary method (a mightier blow from Mjolnir) proves to be actively disastrous.

Can't Keep A Good Man Down

Author Summary: In which Phil Coulson finds death to be less well-organized than he had expected.

Control Issues

Author Summary: An archer, a rage monster, and the Norse god of mischief wake up in a field. (Spoils Avengers.)

Darkness, Flooded in Light

Author Summary: “When much is taken, something is returned.” - Terry Pratchett, NationLoki falls. Injured and unable to access his magic, he must struggle to restore himself physically and mentally before the Bifrost is repaired and Asgard comes to find him. That would be difficult enough, but one of Asgard’s deepest secrets has followed him...

Dynasty

Author Summary: It’s not strictly accurate to say that Coulson was born to be an agent of SHIELD, but you could probably get away with saying he was raised for it.

Few So Generous

Author Summary: After Odin falls into the Odinsleep, Frigga takes up her husband’s spear and the rule of Asgard.

Fracture At The Point Of Impact

Author Summary: There was only so much of him left, anyway.

Five Stories Tim Fell Into And One He Chose For Himself

Author Summary: Because Tim Drake would be a superhero fanboy in any universe.

One Eye For Wisdom

Author Summary: Even in the ravings of a madman there can be found a glimmer of truth. (Spoilers for Avengers.)

On The Care and Feeding of Superheroes, by Pepper Potts and Alvin Draper

Author Summary: Tony is a smart man, and whatever his critics might say (those haters) he does his research. When he becomes a superhero, and after Rick’s Comic Book Emporium has delivered all the necessary research materials, it becomes immediately apparent that he needs to make some serious changes. (Crossover with DC, but takes place predominantly in the Iron Man universe.)

by @hardboiledmeggs

when the world is free

Author Summary: At the age of twenty-one, Peggy Carter enlists in the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

by @icarus_chained

Balm for the Soul

Author Summary: A tiny prompt ficlet. Tony cannot, for the life of him, make a decent piece of toast. Bruce ... finds this far more amusing than he should

Emergence

Author Summary: Sequel to A Future Shining. There is nothing so terrifying as the creation of a new life. JARVIS, Tony and the family in the run-up to the emergence of a new AI.

A Future Shining

Author Summary: It took Tony a while to notice. To see the increasingly massive sections of memory space that someone had blocked off in JARVIS’ systems, the processing power being diverted to something that … that Tony couldn’t breach. Tony, and JARVIS, and a conversation Tony never, ever thought he’d be having.

Harbour

Author Summary: A tiny Clint & Natasha ficlet, set immediately following Avengers. Life and hopes and debts and things that are not love.

Live Wire

Author Summary: Tony Stark, and the making of things.

Of Course You Realise, This Means War

Author Summary: Nick looked at the six terrified ten-year olds, and recognised the Avengers.Small de-aging fic, written for a prompt. See notes for warnings, yes?

Richard of York

Author Summary: JARVIS, Tony and Bruce, and the conceptual linkages of trust and fear. Last in the Deus Ex series. JARVIS POV.

Space Electric

Author Summary: "The SHIELD interceptor spaceship Avenger is under final attack. Aboard her, sitting in his cell, the war criminal Tony Stark gets ready for the confrontation, and the revelation, that he knows is about to come."

Things We Believe

Author Summary: There are things Rhodey believes in, and then there are things he has faith in. And one of them is that Tony Stark is an idiot, and needs all the help he can get.Tony & Rhodey, and the aftermath of Avengers (and Tony's confrontation with Steve on the Helicarrier).

by @igrockspock

A Very Promising Partnership (The Bullets and Business Suits Remix)

Author Summary: The early days of Maria’s employment at Stark Industries aren’t entirely smooth, but she and Pepper agree on a few common goals, like practicing marksmanship, wearing fabulous clothes, and banding together to defeat Hydra.

Broken Glass and Crumpled Bills

Author Summary: When Claire's parents taught her to stand up for people, they probably didn't imagine she'd develop a secret career stitching up vigilantes.

The Zombie Ninja Apocalypse Survivors Club

Author Summary: Misty thinks her new bionic arm might be evil.

by Imbecamiel

Failure, Success

Author Summary: The Winter Soldier was once sent to kill Agent Peggy Carter. He failed.

Strike

Author Summary: Sometimes the road to recovery involves bowling. Conveniently, so does the one to the Grand Canyon.

The Joke

Author Summary: Steve’s not usually oblivious - far from it, in fact. But he does have his moments. Like when he didn’t realize that the team was actually serious when they talked about Mjolnir being a magical weapon that only Thor could lift. (Inspired by a head-canon prompt, in light of the comics-canon fact that Steve is actually capable of wielding Mjolnir. Full text of prompt is in the beginning notes.)

by @ink-splotch

bringing the war home

Author Summary: Sharon Carter expected to pull a gun in the line of duty. She didn’t expect to pull it here. SHIELD was her holy ground. The Winter Soldier did not waste bullets, time, or death. Natasha told herself that and fingered her scar. Maria knew better than to invest herself in the metal bones of this place. The helicarrier's engines roared like a thudding heart. The control room windows were vast. She stood at the helm there, at Fury's shoulder, in streaming daylight and in the peaceful dark of a moonless night pinpricked with stars somewhere high over the Atlantic...

on the wrong side of the sea (of the wardrobe)

Author Summary: It was the accent caught Peggy's attention— a London lilt, not too posh, rounded a bit by some time in the country. And, more than that: a woman’s voice.Peggy was not adrift in the SHIELD hallways, this old boy’s club full of young soldiers. She was not lost, not intimidated— but she was lonely."Excuse me, ma’am," Peggy called and the woman turned around. She had a single run in her nylons and a smirk of perfect lipstick. Her badge read "Pevensie.""I have a spare pair if you want to change," said Peggy."Does this place even have bathrooms for women?" A curved eyebrow rose as Pevensie asked. Peggy liked her immediately."Not in this wing," said Peggy. "Come on, we’ll kick the boys out of theirs."

someone to catch you when you fall

Author Summary: Tony has faith in the man, in the man and the monster both. He has respect for Bruce, both his smarts and his control—this is Tony Stark, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, who’s never been able to control himself, lived half his life in a self-destructive spiral—in a lot of ways, Tony’s monster is much more noble than his man. Tony respects this man and his giant green rage monster, because Tony’s got one, too, and he’s nowhere as good at keeping it inside.

by @intosnarkness

As Little Fuss

Author Summary: Or, the Five Times Tony Stark Threw Money at a Problem, and the Five Times His Team Repaid Him.

At Least I Spelled Your Name Right

Author Summary: Darcy was tired of Jane being in the lab all the time, so she conspired to Go Out and Get Jane Drunk. She did not, however, make any plans regarding the guy in purple spandex. That was someone else's fault. And no one could blame her for the super heroes. She hadn't even been conscious for that part.

bomb shelters under your skin

Author Summary: Clint’s marriage is over, so he takes the assignment no one else will: killing the Black Widow.

Don't Fade On Me

Author Summary: It's hard making new connections, learning to be the person you need to be. Wanda and Natasha aren't the most likely of friends, but they're making it work.

featherstep

Author Summary: Natasha has always heard the voices of the animals around her, but when a bird tells her to trust the strange man pointing an arrow at her head, she does.

Made Somehow

Author Summary: 20 years before Tony Stark was Iron Man, before Steve Rogers was found in the ice or Bruce Banner had his accident, a few men got together and built a little peacekeeping force they called SHIELD. What SHIELD stood for, exactly, was up in the air, as was everything that came next.(A Nick Fury Origin Story)

not words but meanings

Author Summary: James Rhodes loves Tony Stark dearly, and he has to learn to deal with the fact that, while Tony loves him back, Tony has some new friends, and new plans, and they don't always involve Rhodey.This is not Tony/Rhodey; there is Tony/Pepper in the background. This is a friendship-centric fic.

One Single Yesterday

Author Summary: SHIELD tasks Darcy Lewis with educating Steve Rogers about the pop culture of the last three decades. Probably this was a bad idea.

One to Be Trusted

Author Summary: After he lost the battle in Midgard, Loki was taken home in chains. And if the Aesir couldn't heal him with magic, then they would do it with time.

Pop-Tart, or, the Untitled HookerFic Coda

Author Summary: Kate asks Clint if he's ever been in love.

(sleep wake hope and then)

Author Summary: Steve Rogers wants to go back to art school. But more than that, he wants to figure out what his legacy is, and what he's doing here. (It can be read a pre-slash Steve/Tony, but that might be a bit of a stretch.)

Steven Rogers and The Search For Freedom, written and illustrated by Clint Barton, age 32

Author Summary: "Steve Rogers got a cat he named FREEDOM and when it got lost he made all the Avengers drop what they were doing and LOOK FOR FREEDOM so he wouldn’t make woobie faces at them." A story told in pictures and weirdness. Crack.

The Uses of Sorrow

Author Summary: Just as he's beginning to feel like he might belong with these people, Bruce overhears Thor offer to heal Tony.

Yesterday, Upon the Stair

Author Summary: When she was little Natasha had an imaginary friend. But like all little girls, she learned to forget him as she grew up. So imagine her surprise when one day she comes face to face with her old friendAnd he's pointing an arrow at her heart Barton was sent to kill me. he made a different call.

by irnan

and if there’s life we’ll see it

Author Summary: Steve is instantly taken with this idea of having the picture of the person calling you flash on your screen when they ring your cell.

brand new day

Author Summary: Ten things that are different about Bucky and Steve, and one that’s still the same.

come across the desert

Author Summary: Natasha, experiments in friendship.

fellowship

Author Summary: Five short conversations Natasha Romanov has had about her teammates.

may the fourth

Author Summary: So there’s this project Tony has been working on since he was ten years old which is only marginally less awesome than the specs for the TARDIS he totally could have built if Fury would’ve just let him had the Tesseract for a couple hours longer.

project adulthood

Author Summary: “I’ve been thinking,” said Bruce quietly. “The day HQ was attacked. Tony and I were at that R&D meeting we usually skip.” “Yes,” said Steve. “Nat said that.” “Well,” said Bruce. “Usually, on a Friday, when we skip the R&D meeting, we arrive at HQ around the time that bomb went off.”

run to the sea

Author Summary: They’re wound together in a spider’s web of coincidence and chance meetings, of work passed on and friends in common.

safe

Author Summary: Bruce learns to shoot, Tony is Tony, and Steve continues to number "protecting the people he (loves) cares about" among his greatest talents.

scarring

Author Summary: Steve doesn't scar. It's a serum thing: his skin heals perfect, every time.This means he doesn't get callouses, either. Upon occasion, that can be... painful.

use somebody

Author Summary: Will you work with Tony Stark? asks Coulson. He’s an alcoholic, he’s unstable, he’s traumatised, God only knows. You’ve read Natasha’s psych report. He’s a pain in my ass, and I don’t like it that I like him. Will you work with him?

write me no more letters

Author Summary: The day Annika Reiter turned thirty-one she shot her mother’s killer in a New York sidestreet not far from Grand Central station and thought of it as a birthday present to herself.

by @janetsvandyne

Cranberry

Author Summary: From age twelve to age seventeen, Darcy Lewis and her mother would spend her birthday together, just the two of them, and go out for ‘mother daughter days.’ The single stipulation? Darcy always got to buy a tube of lipstick. 12 years later, Darcy mentioned to Jane that she hasn’t worn or purchased lipstick in seven years.Written for the "Lipstick" prompt for Darcy Lewis Fic Week, day 1.

If you believe in me, I'll still believe

Author Summary: Six weeks after what she fondly refers to as 'The Pop-Tart Eating Alien Incident,' Jane comes to Darcy bad news. Not just regular bad news, but the "oh fuck, now what the fuck do I fucking do" kind of bad news that you usually only hear about in movies or books about women who triumph despite the odds being stacked innumerably against them. Hell, this is like "Harry, you need to face Voldemort, but you can't have a wand or anything" kind of bad.

by jumpfall

come on friends, get up now

Author Summary: It won't be easy and it won't be pretty, they don't say. You're going to hurt faster than you heal and lose more than you win. The Avengers have one thing in common. They all sign on. [Movie spoilers.]

i was born to make amends

Author Summary: "Mr. Stark, I just wanted to congratulate you on the excellent work you've been doing with the Yinsen Foundation."

Tapdancing on Tightropes

Author Summary: Either way, Steve's secured the upcoming long weekend for a team barbeque. He hadn't phrased it quite that way, but Tony knows better. Barton's still trying to redeem himself, Natasha goes for her holster when Bruce's voice rises, Bruce apologizes to every building he passes, Steve's had exactly one conversation with SHIELD since the battle, and Thor's dicked off to Asgard.A solid cheeseburger makes lots of things better. (It did for him, at least.)

by kerravon

Burning Candles

Author Summary: For an Avengerkink Prompt A few months have passed since the Avengers fought the Chitauri, and the team is coming together, except for Tony, who seems to be coming apart. At first, Steve assumes that he’s just being irresponsible and annoying, but then JARVIS clues him in.

by @kellifer-k

Frankie Says Relax

Author Summary: Where Darcy gets a day job.

by @laporcupina

Asunder

Author Summary: Natasha chooses her side in the Civil War as pragmatically as ever, with her eyes on the long game. Clint has no such luxury because the stakes are too high for there to be any choice at all.

Blues in the Groove

Author Summary: Bucky Barnes is in from the cold and ready to take the first steps toward resuming his life. He has all of his memories, but Steve isn't the only Avenger eager to have someone around who remembers their past.A tale in which there are embarrassing Captain America stories, occasional realizations, swing-dancing SHIELD commanders, missions gone awry, culinary adventures, uncomfortable revelations, trips to Queens, bromances, romances, repeated threats of arson, and the couch is a metaphor.

BOHICA

Author Summary: Clint Barton, in transition.

CA:TWS missing scenes

Author Summary:

1) CA:TWS missing scene: Maria Hill & Nick Fury 2) CA:TWS post-movie scene: Natasha in flight 3) CA:TWS sorta-missing scene: Where in the world is Tony Stark? 4) CA:TWS sorta post-movie scene: Tony (and Rhodey) and the possible ghost of James Barnes. 5) CA:TWS sorta-missing scene: Where in the world is Clint Barton?

Creation Myth

Author Summary: Smoke, mirrors, and the true birth of the Howling Commandos.

Cum Laude

Author Summary: Steve navigates the sometimes choppy seas of being a celebrity in the twenty-first century and finds the time (and the courage) to fulfill a twentieth century promise and return to school.

Escape Velocity

Author Summary: In which Sam gets his wings, Steve trades on the legacy of Captain America, Natasha dusts off an old outfit, and the utter insanity that is government bureaucracy ends up saving the day despite itself.

Excerpts from Interview #2 with SHIELD prisoner #2935734H

Author Summary: Session note: The prisoner has revealed that he was part of the 'asset management team' controlling the HYDRA operator known as the Winter Soldier [possibly SGT J. B. Barnes, US Army, MIA 5 September 1944, declared KIA 12 December 1944]. Further questioning suggested after follow-ups on provided information complete.[Clearance: TOP SECRET/SI-MORAY 5342/HCS-7766/NO TRANSMIT]

Fermata

Author Summary: Natasha Romanova and Nick Fury: two wounded warriors and their wars, past and present.

Freezer Burn Series

Author Summary: Steve Rogers: soldier, artist, foodie, friend, heart of the Avengers, and a guy whose past keeps creeping into his present and dictating his future. A series of stories about him and the people he has chosen to build his life around. A comics-MCU mashup that is MCU-compliant through all of the Phase One movies then gets a little Brubakerish because the alternative was to get a lot Jossed. All stories can be read independently of the others. You’ll miss a few references but lose nothing of the plots.

Inherited Characteristics

Author Summary: It’s 1986, the Sox are going to the World Series, and sixteen-year-old Tony Stark has just gotten himself arrested for trying to sell nukes to the bad guys.

Lacuna

Author Summary: The five stages of grief are meaningless in the moment.

Landsmen

Author Summary: Project Rebirth existed before Steve came into the picture. And the soundtrack for it was mostly in Yiddish.

MCU Meta: the directory

Author Summary: Bits of meta, mostly about Captain America and HYDRA, previously posted in other forums but now collected here.

1) Steve is blushing, but no virgin.

2) The military record of Sergeant James 'Bucky' Barnes.

3) The Winter Soldier probably didn't kill the Starks. 4) HYDRA: the ultimate rebranding 5) There's a significant time gap between Bucky Barnes's death and Steve Rogers's. 6) RMA and the MCU: a blasterless history 7) Sam Wilson and the RL requirements for being a USAF pararescueman 8) Civil War speculative meta: the magic bullet 9) Much more than Steve's height and weight is public knowledge.

MCU: The odds and ends drawer

Author Summary: A collection of very short works that don’t merit separate entries.Captain Marvel in the MCU, kindasorta Civil War, kindasorta Leverage/MCU crossover start

Powerful

Author Summary: Steve loses the advantages of the super-soldier serum. This is not a tragedy.

Preserved Series

Author Summary: After the rescue of the 107th, Steve Rogers cashes in all of his favors and makes what deals he can to get Bucky a medical discharge from the Army, sending him home to Brooklyn and far from enemies and curious scientists both. But Steve’s war goes on until it ends badly, in an exploding plane over the Black Sea. Captain America is presumed dead, his shield recovered and returned to a grieving America while his body remains undiscovered. Seven years later, a new danger is threatening to unbalance the already-roiling Cold War, a Soviet assassin let loose from behind the Iron Curtain. Peggy Carter isn’t sure she wants to believe that the assassin is a super-soldier because of what it could mean, but she does know that whoever it is, she’ll have to break her promise to keep Bucky Barnes far from danger.

Recursive Series

Author Summary: In the wake of the HYDRA revelations, Steve Rogers finds himself both a pawn of the rebuilding SHIELD hierarchy and the leader of a newly-independent Avengers. He’s got masters he can’t run from, teammates he can’t let down, and a best friend who is turning his newly remembered past to ashes. But when a blast from a mysterious device seemingly sends him back to 1944, Steve has to decide if he should he change his past and risk ruining his future by fixing his greatest mistake.

Regret to Inform

Author Summary: Steve and the Barneses, his family according to his heart and the official documents of the United States Army.

Remedial

Author Summary: re·me·di·al adjective 1. affording remedy; tending to remedy something. 2. intended to correct or improve one's skill in a specified field: remedial math.Steve always knew Bucky was a quick study, so his progress after he comes in from the cold is a 'when' and not an 'if.' The Avengers are a help, except when they're not. But even when they're not, they sort of are.

Renovation

Author Summary: In which Wanda uses her powers for good and Bucky starts sorting through his past, both metaphorically and kinda literally.

Reprise

Author Summary: Nick showed up at nine and Peggy knew it was bad news because he showed up without dessert. (Sometimes the secrets kept between spymasters was that one of them had a sweet tooth and it wasn't her.) She still made tea because, despite more than sixty years in America, the British approach to trouble was still her default."We've found Captain Rogers."

Resonance

Author Summary: Tony's reasons for helping Bucky Barnes can be entirely attributable to general do-gooderism and a love of science. (Because he really, really hates it when people rub his personal growth in his face.)

Sleepers of Ephesus

Author Summary: Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes, soldiers always.

The Velveteen Spider

Author Summary: Natasha Romanova thinks that accepting Nick Fury's offer to join SHIELD is the end of her old life and the beginning of her new one. In hindsight, she had no idea of what that really meant.

Tribe

Author Summary: He gestured to the room around him. “We build a community in rooms like this so that there is a place to talk and a place to listen and a place to heal. So that we can be reminded that we’re not broken, just a little different. That we went through a trauma and it will get better. And so that we know that we’re not alone. That is why I suggested you come hang out.”

True Faith and Allegiance

Author Summary: "Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?" means something else in the Twenty-First Century. Bucky Barnes has the same answer. Sam Wilson, former Avenger and current fugitive, appreciates that on many levels, including the ones he's sure he's missing.

We Were Soldiers

Author Summary: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, the planning of a pre-D-Day mission, and the cost of a salute.

by @legete

Optional

Author Summary: In one's home, clothes are optional. Housemates, however, may disagree.

by @leupagus

For These I Watch Tonight

Author Summary: This is not a story about a cow.

by lilsmartass

Cupid Stark

Author Summary: For this prompt on the kinkmeme: Clint/Natasha Tony is slightly horrified the two assassins aren't banging, so he makes it his business to set them up, because living with two such attractive assassins that aren't having sex is downright sinful. They are his Barbie and Action Man dolls to smush together and make kissy noises with, dammit! Clint and Natasha are equal parts embarrassed and amused by all of this, and decide to play up to it for Tony's sake. Shenanigans ensue..

First Impressions and Second Chances Series

Author Summary: The Avengers are over protective of one another, we all know that. But when misunderstandings lead to flawed beliefs of who a person is, and when others are judged for misguided actions carried out without thinking, it’s hard to know who to protect and defend.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Author Summary: Everyone’s afraid of something. Five times Natasha saved the Avengers from spiders and one time they saved her.

With A Whimper

Author Summary: Summary: Written for my Avengers fest challenge/prompt/assignment/thingy for sadness1986; angst, reads like hurt/comfort but the comfort part is the hurt, dark, pre Iron Man, Obadiah Stane works his way into Tony’s life.

by @lithiumdoll

Culture and Other Balls of Twine

Author Summary: “Okay, I realize this could appear to be poorly conceived - to those of limited vision - but what you have to understand is, I’ve actually just had the greatest, most outstanding idea ever.” Tony’s eyes searched heavenward and then he nodded soberly. “Yes, I believe history will consider this my triumph.”

by Lunik

Bro-hood and Other Drugs

Author Summary: Plenty of people get themselves blackout drunk and wake up with an unexpected husband. It’s embarrassing but it happens. Natasha is trying to figure out how she could have woken up with an unexpected brother

Loki's Brood

Author Summary: Nick Fury circles the realm Midgard with his coils. Phil Coulson has seen enough of chains for one lifetime. Darcy Lewis is taking a break from Helheim. But there's still the matter of their brother Sleipnir...

The Boy Who Waited

Author Summary: In a world without stars, the Last Centurion loses the Pandorica, loses his charge and loses his mind.SHIELD takes a chance on hiring a mysterious amnesiac man, and Agent Coulson finds that Rory Williams is the best damn secretary he's ever had.

The legend of Mittens

Author Summary: The story of how an abandoned kitten in an alleyway derailed an impending alien invasion and changed the course of the Midgard-Chitauri war. And looked damn cute doing it.Also, the story of Nick Fury's Worst Headache Ever (tm).

Trickster, trickster

Author Summary: It is important, for tricksters more than most, to have a group of like minded people around to understand us at our worst. And to catch us when we fall.

by Marcus Rowland

Five Mistakes Loki Made (and One Time He Got Things Right)

Author Summary: Uatu, the Watcher, takes a look at Loki's invasion, and wonders what else might have happened.What If... Loki had done things differently. Five more ways things could have gone wrong, and one he might have succeeded. Avengers / multiple crossovers. All characters belong to their respective creators, there is no intent to infringe copyright.Seven hundred-word Drabbles, multiple crossovers.

Hammer Time

Author Summary: When the going gets tough, the tough get hammering. 100-word Buffy / Avengers / Galaxy Quest crossover Drabble.

Mandatory Evaluation

Author Summary: Natasha needs to drop off a few files; she isn't expecting to have to sing for her supper...This is set in the early stages of Iron Man 2, after Pepper Potts becomes CEO of Stark Industries but before the trip to Monaco, well after the last episode of Angel, at no particular point in NCIS LA continuity.

Who Are You Gonna Call?

Author Summary: Death isn't necessarily the end of the story. Total crack-fic for The Avengers 2012, Avengers / Ghostbusters / Multiple crossover, warning - canon death and bad language. Now with director's commentary!

by @mhalachai

A Widow's Tale

Author Summary: Their secrets have secrets. Steve's starting to figure this out.

After The Gloaming

Author Summary: Given the very long, very bad day she’s just had, Pepper isn’t sure how much longer she’s going to be able to hold it together.

Hel’s Bones

Author Summary: Magic pulled Frigga back from the realm of the dead, but not even Loki’s children can shield her from the consequences of long-ago actions coming back to haunt her.

by @nicasiosilang

awake in the dark

Author Summary: Loki, small and sharp, singular, Loki knew.

Coronation

Author Summary: Frigg holds the needle and thread high for the court to see. Golden light hits it and flashes hot white into her eyes. The assembled throw up a cheer. They are family. They raised this creature too.

Posthuman

Author Summary: Do you intend for the Iron Man to feed the hungry? End war and disease? Eliminate social inequality and poverty?" The guy smiles like he's just been very funny. Tony leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"I do. I sincerely do."

The devil riding your back

Author Summary: There's something in his chest.

Transhuman

Author Summary: This is something he needed to do. The process is an end. Every second wasted, life or minute lost to inefficiency, the process will take them back. Vaguely follows the story Posthuman. An attempt at putting the Extremis process into Marvel's movieverse.

by @nonasuch

the hip and the dead

Author Summary: When she asks about the other tenants in the building, the realtor just throws up his hands and says, “Look, I don’t know. They’re artsy types, if they live around here. You know. Hipsters.”

The Personal (Assistant) Is Political

Author Summary: “That’s an awfully tall pedestal to put a fellow on,” Steve says. “Betcha it gets pretty windy up there.”

Sentimental Value

Author Summary: Saturday dawned clear and bright, hot but not humid enough to be sticky: perfect yard sale weather.

by @nwhepcat

Avengers vs. Worst. Christmas. Ever.

Author Summary: Clint is having a rough time this Christmas. Turns out, he's not the only one.

Five Awkward Conversations Involving Steve Rogers

Author Summary: Conversations in this century were like the traffic in Midtown: fast and nerve-wracking and potentially deadly. (Takes place between Steve’s awakening and a few months beyond “The Avengers.”)

The New Yorkers' Guide to Beating Back the Big Fucking Evil

Author Summary: Two days after Coulson's memorial, Clint isn't doing so well. Rating for language, but you probably figured that one out. Title inspired by Adam Gnade's The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad (Pioneers Press), which is a thoroughly awesome thing.

Reanimation of the Corpse Soldier

Author Summary: Barnes finds a kindred spirit in the most unexpected place. So. This is headcanon that manifested shortly after I finished the fabulous Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. This isn't a crossover with characters from her trilogy, but a story about Bucky reading the novels.You don't need to have read the series to understand the story. There aren't really spoilers for the books, either. Some references may seem spoilery, but due to the narrative structure of Ancillary Justice (the first book), these things are revealed very early on.Warnings for after effects of mind wipe and mind control, memory loss, emotional fallout, PTSD, nightmares.And finally, many thanks to my betas, herself_nyc and oracne.

Serenade

Author Summary: Bucky sings a little song.

by @nwhepcat and @fieldtoolarge

But the Sea Does Not Change

Author Summary: The Winter Soldier goes to the Smithsonian to search for something of the man who would save an enemy. This is not the only thing he finds.

by @pepperpottsblogs

Darcy Lewis: VP of the Bucky Barnes Defense Squad

Author Summary: In which Darcy uses her considerable research skills to take care of the Avengers, help take down Hydra, and successfully bring in the Winter Soldier--with JARVIS's help, of course.

Repose

Author Summary: "Although Darcy wasn’t actually part cat, most of the Tower’s residents were well aware that she was prone to napping anywhere at any time, especially in the warm patches of sunlight from the Tower’s many windows. Anyone who shared a couch with Darcy on movie nights knew that she would fall asleep with her head on their shoulder or lap."Or--Darcy is notorious for falling asleep on her friends.

by @perclexed

Not More Fucking Elves

Author Summary: The Nine Realms may converge for the first time in five thousand years, but it’s not the only important thing happening that day in Greenwich.Robbie Lewis thinks this is probably not what Tolkien had in mind. But it bloody well might be.See end for additional notes, warnings, and a link to a Lewis overview if you are not familiar with the fandom.

by pollyrepeat

225 days under grass

Author Summary: After Loki, Coulson wears his suits like armour.

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7)

Author Summary: The most annoying parts of being de-aged (and then re-aged) are your friends.

Early Years AU

Author Summary: “Barton has clearly imprinted on you,” Fury starts, and keeps talking right over Phil’s knee-jerk, horrified, “He has not,” to seal Phil’s doom by saying, “so I’ve decided that you’re going to take primary responsibility for him from now on.”“Oh, god,” Phil says, faintly, before he can stop himself.// Otherwise known as, SHIELD: The Early Years.

He hit the heights at breakneck speed

Author Summary: In which Natasha gives the thumbs-up to Tony Stark and the Iron Man suit, the Avengers Initiative starts a little differently, and Tony finds himself spending a lot of time with assassins and/or spies.[Note for users with spotty internet: there is a large-ish sfw image at the beginning.]

hey, remember that time when

Author Summary: In which Cap makes new friends, becomes an accidental Internet troll, swaps a lot of stories, and gives Bucky Barnes a hug.

by pollyrepeat & jonesandashes

All destinations approximate

Author Summary: “Jarvis, please refrain from killing me. I’m coming in to look at you.”

well, let the drum beat drop

Author Summary: Pepper leaves, and there’s no more pizza, and Thor’s already talked about Jane, and Tony suspects all of them realize, abruptly and simultaneously, that they actually have no idea what to do now. He is, in fact, pretty certain that they’re just a few minutes away from someone deciding to say something about the weather. It’s probably going to be him.

by psocoptera

Cooking With Leftovers

Author Summary: Akela Amador, after. Michael Peterson receives some visitors.

Five Secrets Maria Hill Would Like To Pretend She’s Keeping From The Rest Of SHIELD

Author Summary: Fury is a lying liar, Coulson is a good coworker, except when he’s not, and Maria never meant to work for SHIELD. Maria/Helicarrier or possibly slightly Maria/Natasha if you squint. Spoilers for the movie. Movieverse only, I have no knowledge of the comics.

Five SHIELD Agents Who Don't Look For New Jobs

Author Summary: Not everyone needs or wants new employment.

by @quigonejinn

Accountable

Author Summary: This universe branches late in the game. Tony Stark and the universe where he builds the Iron Man Mark II for Jim.

Flight.

Author Summary: When Tony Stark is five years old, he rides on a helicopter for the first time.

Genius

Author Summary: Tony Stark isn't the only genius on the ground.

Morning

Author Summary: Go back a little: the girl and Obadiah and Tony are in the elevator, and the girl is, as expected, all over Obadiah.

Parents

Author Summary: Tony Stark and dreams of parent-type figures.

Rescue

Author Summary: Steve Rogers has asked, six or seven or eighteen hundred times, for Bucky Barnes to stop coming to his rescue like that.

Six Universes

Author Summary: Six stories about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Six universes where Steve Rogers went into an orphanage

The Good Stuff

Author Summary: "This is where I get out," he says.

Three Facts About Tony Stark and Politics (and One About Women)

Author Summary: Fact 0: Tony Stark did not vote for Obama.

Twenty-Four

Author Summary: Cold War Peggy, Steve, and Bucky in all kinds of combinations, present and not present.

Two things that happened and one that didn't: Coulson and Romanov

Author Summary: Here is the thing that didn't happen: Pepper is in a place that looks, for all the world, like the lobby of a small, not-too-fancy government agency that handles something obscure and really boring and involving a lot of paperwork.

by @rageprufrock

Howling Commandos HQ

Author Summary: To: PC ([email protected]) From: Buck ([email protected]) Subject: Report! Date: May 10, 2012Phil — where the hell are you, man? Let us know if you're all right, or if there's anything we can do to help. HQ's freaking the fuck out.

by @rainnecassidy

Balefire

Author Summary: Joey was an ordinary, if overworked, grad student doing her schoolwork and raising her nephew. It wasn’t her fault Captain America moved in upstairs. And it definitely wasn’t her fault when she accidentally started feeding burritos and tres leches to the guy called James who started staying in that apartment while Cap was away. So okay, maybe it WAS her fault when she started throwing fire at the military guys who came after him. James was a nice guy, after all, and a vet; he didn’t need this crap.

I Get By, I Get High

Author Summary: Just a growing bond between a girl and her favorite AI. Er, android.

The Secret Life of Darcy Lewis

Author Summary: Everybody needs a little time out of their regular reality once in awhile. (Inspired by The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber.)

Turncoat

Author Summary: Clint gets a mission he just can't complete.

by @roboticonography & @blackestglass

Object Permanence

Author Summary: Steve's sudden interest in tattoos is actually not all that sudden.[Podfic AND story text within!]

Worthy Is In The Heart Of The Wielder

Author Summary: The knowledge of when to lay power aside is as important as the knowledge of when to take it up.

by @rowantreewrites

Calling of the Stars

Author Summary: After the Battle of New York, as they'd been calling it, Tony Stark was not doing ok. His time on the other side of the portal haunted him, shadowed his steps and crept into his nightmares, even with the team around to pull him out of his own head. So, when he wakes up in an abandoned space station holding a strange silver sphere and no memory of how he got there, possibly hundreds of lightyears away from earth, he is not happy.

Free Your Soul, Pay The Toll

Author Summary: The price of killing a loved one is a Horcrux, an object filled with half a soul. They are not the road to immortality, and they are not a gift. Tony Stark has three.

Infinity Stones are Powerful

Author Summary: Manhattan is different now.

Little Boy (Inside My Chest)

Author Summary: Curious, Tony stopped, tipped his head, as Fury keyed in a password to the computer. Fury nodded to the monitor, and Tony nearly dropped the suitcase. “Holy mother of Tesla someone fucking cloned me.” He said, stepped forwards, squinted at the screen as his gut protested the fact that he was watching himself sit on a bed in a standard-issue SHIELD dorm room, younger and clean-shaven and wearing what Tony knew had been one of the spare shirts he kept on the base just in case, except it was at least a size too big, and damn, had he really been that skinny when he was a kid? He’s gotten mad at anyone, mostly Rhodey’s mom, who suggested that he eat more, put some meat on his bones, but if this is what he’d looked like?Well. That was one hell of something to deal with at two in the morning.

Maria's Legacy

Author Summary: Tony had a small family. That was accepted as fact, and most people didint even count half the people who were in it. But, what if that was wrong?

Memory (Is a Vital Process)

Author Summary: Death: The permanent ending of one or more vital processes.AKA the angsty as all hell amnesia fic that absolutely no one asked for. Enjoy.

(Not So) Immortal

Author Summary: An impossible situation. A horrible choice. A sacrifice that must be made, one way or another."What he saw nearly stopped his breath cold in his chest, because there was Tony, sitting slumped and unconscious against the biggest bomb he’d ever seen, as supervillains, some old enemies and some Steve had only ever heard of, Loki, and MODOK at the forefront, stood across the room, while Doom himself stood right next to Tony."

Star!Tony

Author Summary: A collection of fics in the Star!Tony universe. Not canon-compliant past The Avengers (2012).

Starry Skies and Rhubarb Pies

Author Summary: Or, In which Tony Stark is dead, and he’s happy that way.

You don't need wings to fly (you need a whole lot more)

Author Summary: My take on wingfic, more specifically, how something like the arc reactor would affect a winged human's ability to fly.

by sabinelagrande

All That You Know

Author Summary: After Loki's gone, the cracks begin to show.

Humane

Author Summary: It was supposed to be better for him.MAJOR SPOILERS for the film.

by sabinelagrande & @erindizmo

[Podfic] The Adventures of Captain America and Phil, by Phil Coulson, Age 7 (The Read-Along With Me! Version)

Author Summary: A gripping tale of action, adventure, and tremendous bravery, available for the first time as a read-along book!

by sanura

Thor’s Epic

Author Summary: This is a retelling of the story of The Avengers from Thor’s POV, in iambic pentameter. I know. It’s Sam’s fault. Well. I meant to start at the battle, since that’s all that Thor told at the dinner table in Copperbadge’s Exclusive, but the two lines he gave there, the first two lines, implied Thor started from the beginning. So I started from those two lines (tweaked slightly to fall into pentameter scansion), and went to the end of The Avengers.

Thor's Second Epic, or: Grocery Run

Author Summary: 500 lines of iambic pentameter in which Thor goes to the grocery store. I don't know. Blame Sam.

by @sarcasticfina

Darcy Stark

Author Summary: Tony might not have been playing a direct role in his daughter's life, but he always looked out for her.

daughter dearest

Author Summary: A collection of short stories involving Darcy as the daughter of an Avenger.

I was late (but I arrived)

Author Summary: As far as complicated goes, Darcy’s life takes a sharp turn down a road called ‘completely fucked.’

we’ll never die (we’re like diamonds in the sky)

Author Summary: As opposites go, sickly, skinny Jane Foster and snarky bombshell Darcy Lewis are at the top of the list. But when Darcy saves Jane from a bully, they find common ground and are fused at the hip ever since. Together, they take on the world, until war comes knocking and they answer. [AU where Jane becomes Captain America, and Darcy becomes the Winter Soldier]Based on this prompt.

you can't play (on broken strings)

Author Summary: Once upon a time, she was a fully operational human being. Or as close to one as she has ever gotten.

by @scifigrl47

Far Better Things Ahead

Author Summary: IM3 SPOILERS!My Bot Oriented post-IM3 fic

by screamlet

aunt’s aren’t gentleman

Author Summary: “First things first,” Tony says. “I loved A Knight’s Tale.“

The Annual Stark Family Fourth of July Celebration

Author Summary: The Stark family does the Fourth of July. (Or: Tony grows up by Fourths.)

by @shu-of-the-wind

frost and fire

Author Summary: Bader spends most of his time curled up by her feet while Peggy's at her desk, because she knows it makes the men uncomfortable to see him. He’s larger than most grey wolves, and the long scar along his cheek makes him look more risky, somehow. People still persist in calling him a dog—if they talk about him at all—but they can’t escape the fact that her daemon is more bruised and battered and just plain dangerous than the rest of them combined.

we know the words (but it's not enough)

Author Summary: "Apparently," Jack says, his head pounding, "they've imprinted. Like baby ducks.""Children do that," says Father Lantom. "Or so I'm told."[Or, Darcy gets dragged to New York by her mother before she even hits kindergarten, and things both change and stay the same. Really, Matt's just happy there's someone his age who gets excited about words like sesquipedalian.]

by silvernatasha

The Cupbearer

Author Summary: Clint Barton, son of Apollo, is pretty sure he's too old for demigod quests. Even small ones.

by @sunspill

gunshot residue

Author Summary: Natasha is a badass even when shot. Teamfic gen.Written for the meme.

kahua pa'ani

Author Summary: When Pepper is twelve she tries on her mother's shoes.

slap down back around

Author Summary: Written for the meme. Prompt: attempted suicide and hc with the dialogue "exhaustion is the new suicide?" Bruce&Natasha gen.TRIGGER WARNING: repeated attempted suicide, depression

tethers

Author Summary: Kinkmeme Prompt:Tony is convinced that he is still being tortured, dying in a cave in Afghanistan. He is sure that everything that has happened since then is just one big delusion his mind has created so that he doesn't have to deal with reality. Iron Man, the Avengers, Super soldiers and demi gods and genius, gentle scientists who turn into giant green rage monsters. All seems pretty improbable to Tony. Just the sort of thing that a broken mind would come up with.

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel

Angel Adrift

Author Summary: Darcy Lewis finds a giant tree in the New Mexico desert, and discovers that she is the archangel Michael.(Crossover between Marvel films and Supernatural.)

Do-Over Series

Author Summary: Loki Odinsson died in a tragic accident. Darcy Lewis was born several centuries later. These two facts are not unrelated. (Or, how Loki was reincarnated as a badass poli-sci student who was interning at the right place at the right time.)

Driven Bananas

Author Summary: It's 2012, everyone Steve knows is dead, and all the bananas are gone.

Father Figures

Author Summary: Heimdall would never have brought a Jotunn child into Asgard to be raised as his own son, but if he had, he would have done a far better job of it than the Allfather. Or the one where Heimdall becomes Loki's substitute father figure in the face of Odin's A+ parenting.

Four Christmases

Author Summary: Twelve year old Darcy Lewis doesn't believe in a lot of things. Santa Claus is one of them. She might believe in the strange green-eyed man who claims to be her father, though.

leave the sinking ship behind

Author Summary: He wakes when the cryostasis system fails, defrosting slowly in an underground bunker running on emergency power. There is still frost on his eyelashes when he wakes, shivering and disoriented, and his skin is icy cold.[Spoilers for Captain America: Winter Soldier]

Legacies

Author Summary: "So why’d Zola’s serum work on you, anyway?”“Because I’m part-vampire,” Bucky said with a straight face.

Loki, Lilo & Stitch

Author Summary: Loki falls from the Bifrost, and lands in Lilo's garden. Chaos ensues.

Not Quite Fraternisation (The Longest Cold War)

Author Summary: Her name isn’t really Darcy, of course: her true name is something much older and a damn lot more powerful.Norse gods weren't the only supernatural beings in New Mexico when Thor was there.

Of Time Lords and Magic

Author Summary: The thing was, there was a war.Darcy’s not too sure of the details �� she was only tiny at the time – but she remembers that it was a war her people were losing. She can still vaguely remember the thunder of active weaponry, the anxious, frightened way that everyone went about their business, and the hushed conversations that took place when her parents thought she was asleep.Darcy was only a small child when her parents left her in another universe, on another planet, and told her that they would come back for her when it was safe.They never came back.

Red in tooth and claw

Author Summary: Were-velociraptors and a BAMF Maria Hill.

Secret Agent Man

Author Summary: It started off as Sitwell’s idea of a joke.

TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel's Asexuality Fics

Author Summary: This is a collection of all my fics that deal with asexuality, asexual characters, or asexual relationships.

Take It Off

Author Summary: Tony used to think that the 1940s were repressed. Steve’s repertoire of racy songs makes him reconsider.

This Is How We Roll

Author Summary: Darcy and Tony were half-siblings, which was why they were spending so much time together. Unfortunately, the other Avengers were not aware of that fact, which was probably why they assumed that Darcy and Tony were having an affair.

Wayward Son of the Nightside

Author Summary: The signs were all there, if anyone had simply noticed.

by teand

It's No Way to Make a Living

Author Summary: "...who had turn into animal totem in the next time we get hit by magic pool?"

by @themonkeycabal

Run ‘Verse

Author Summary: Darcy’s not quite sure what she’ll do with another dad.

by theorytale

Fight or Flyte

Author Summary: From a prompt at norsekink: Give me Loki seeking Tony out during battles just to finally have someone worthwhile to banter/flyte with.Which is all well and good until Tony breaks his arm.

The Several Heirs of Loki Odinson, Prince of the Realm of Asgard

Author Summary: Prompt: Loki's greatest con is passing off random monsters as members of the royal family. The reason Odin keeps banishing them is because he's totally on to him.It starts, as it so often does, as a harmless prank, but it rapidly takes on a life of its own.

by @tielan

And Baby Makes Eight

Author Summary: The curious tale of how the Avengers adopted Maria Hill and her daughter.

A Question Of Loyalty

Author Summary: Who is Maria Hill loyal to? (The answer is worth fifteen years, and takes some time to explain.)

Care And Feeding Of Your SHIELD Agent

Author Summary: Operation 'Feed Hill' is a go. Or the relationship between Maria Hill and food, with regards to the Avengers Initiative.

Fine Distinctions

Author Summary: They're not normal; they're SHIELD. A friendship spanning ten years, of growth and outgrowing, of unexpected twists and turns and dark horses, and of industrial building parts.

Give A Girl A Moment And She'll Take You For All You've Got

Author Summary: Coulson had once made the observation that Darcy Lewis’ ability to beg, bribe, or bully people into her plans was almost a superpower in and of itself.Considering she was walking down a tattered Tribeca street with four women she either barely knew or didn’t socialise with for drinks on a Friday night, Maria could well believe it.

Hidden In Plain Sight

Author Summary: Nobody notices a woman who walks one step behind a man.

Keep Calm And...

Author Summary: In the wake of chaos and war, someone has to re-establish normality.Women's work is never glamourous.

Known By Its Flight

Author Summary: SHIELD does not make weapons of its women – or, as Barton has observed with greater accuracy, SHIELD does not make weapons like Natasha out of their women. That doesn't mean a woman can't choose to make a weapon of herself.

Necessity (The Lion Taming Remix)

Author Summary: Five times Maria Hill had to deal with naked Avengers, and one time the Avengers had to deal with a naked Maria Hill.

Paid In Advance

Author Summary: Maria signed up to work for Stark Industries without ever asking about her salary.

There Is No In-Between (the Fight The Good Fight remix)

Author Summary: We’d rather have you with us, than against us, Peggy Carter told her after Madripoor. At the time, Maria thought it foolish flattery – appreciated it, sure, but it was a sweetener, not the truth. Then again, she’s now Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, so it seems the former Director was right.

by @twistedingenue

you have not seen everything

Author Summary: Tony gets a second chance to watch his daughter grow up, at least temporarily.

by @unpretty

Magical Girl Avengers

Author Summary: this is hella old you guys why are you still reading it please have mercy on my weary soul ｡：ﾟ(｡ﾉω＼｡)ﾟ･｡

by @veliseraptor

Life In Reverse

Author Summary: Home is where you make it. Or, the AU where Loki falls to Earth after Thor, wanders around trying to work out what to do with himself, and somehow ends up working for SHIELD. (Mostly because supervillains are so plebian.)

The Villain Wrangler

Author Summary: The Make-a-Wish Foundation expects requests from kids to meet their favorite superhero. This might be the first one from a kid who wants to meet a supervillain.

by @vmohlere

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail

Author Summary: The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

by @waldorph

only cute until...

Author Summary: The Avengers have been de-aged. Phil's not really sure how this is his life.

Rahmbo

Author Summary: Sometimes they forget: she’s a political science major.

You Can Hear It In the Silence

Author Summary: When CAPTAIN AMERICA walks into the precinct, Jake staples his finger and doesn't realize it for like, six hours. He can only be happy that Scully and Hitchcock leave every day they can at 4:48pm so that they couldn’t bring shame upon the family.

by @wordsformurder

Anatomy

Author Summary: A dissection of heroes.

day I go to war

Author Summary: "Do you believe in happy endings?""No."

Home

Author Summary: In which Darcy battles hope and normalcy just to get home.(Wishlist, Day 18) For meinongian/vague_positivity, who prompted me with a link to post. The bare bones: imagine a child character pulled into another world, to save that world, Narnia style, only to then be sent 'home', also Narnia style. Only instead of accepting their fate, or being happy to be home, they spend their life trying to find a way back, because that other world, that was home. With Darcy being cast as the main character. (I can't find the link, whoops.)Usually, I hate long A/Ns, but I feel I need to explain this story a little. The prompt is amazing. The concept is brilliant and it deserved pages upon pages of world building, OCs, plot, details, emotional upheaval and payoff. I couldn't deliver that, so I stuck with a glimpse into that world, with a tone and style I hope does Darcy's state justice. I am so sorry I couldn't do more than that.

How to steal the Galaxy

Author Summary: Tumblr prompt: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY AS OUTER-SPACE 'LEVERAGE'

I made myself when I was young

Author Summary: In which neither Peggy nor Susan like the cold.

no spoonful of sugar

Author Summary: I fought the war (but the war won)

Peter Pan

Author Summary: Growing up, coming down, moving on. - Interconnected glimpses.

pockets full of stones

Author Summary: This is a trick.

terms of endearment

Author Summary: In which Bruce is a little confused and Tony is Bambi. Borderline crack.

this is my kingdom come

Author Summary: Martha Jones walks the earth. Loki Odinson... doesn't.

Tony Stark's Collectibles

Author Summary: Someone said 'Friends!AU'. This is the self-indulgent mess that happened next.

Trust Me

Author Summary: It all comes down to trust.(Or: The house always wins. 'The house' being 'Tony Goddamn Stark'.)

we were emergencies

Author Summary: Buffy Summers and Natasha Romanov keep meeting. Eventually, they stop questioning it.

Workaround

Author Summary: In which Tony cooks, Steve watches, JARVIS is... erm, helpful, and Buffy is the other woman. Or something.

by @wordsformurder and @reena-jenkins

Clint's Grand Easter Adventure (Without Eggs)

Author Summary: Natasha Romanov designs the world's worst Easter Egg Hunt.ORWhat else was happening, while Tasha and Bucky were tearing SHIELDRA a new one.

I hated you the least

Author Summary: Reena_Jenkins said: Buffy and Faith as daughters of Thanos. I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

by @xparrot

Majority Rule

Author Summary: Tony learns something that changes his perspective on the Asgardians of his acquaintance.

#mcu fic recs #mcu gen fic recs #mcu genfic recs #mcu

6 notes · View notes

gvbejvmes · 3 years

Text

Drabble: Johnny the Vampire Slayer

Title: Johnny the Vampire Slayer Alternate Title: Johnny the Vampire Layer Rating: PG-13 Genre: BtVS AU Relationships: Gabriel James/Jonathan Michaels, Gabriel James & Georgiana James Spoilers: A reimaging of season 1 of Buffy with parts of season 2 thrown in Trigger warnings: General vampire blood and gore. The general age difference between a vampire and the Slayer, but no underage. Notes: Will I write more in this particular AU? You betcha.

1632

A loud laugh erupted from Gabriel as he threw an arm around his brother. The tavern was packed with patrons and Gabriel and Elijah were probably the loudest two in the entire establishment. They’d just gotten back from a successful hunting trip and their excitement was contagious. There’s a large group around them listening to the outlandish story Gabriel was telling. At some point he’d acquired a large breasted woman who was perched on his knee as he spoke. The attention was addicting and Gabriel found himself adding more and more to the story while his brother kept refilling his glass of ale.

“I gotta take a piss.” He all but pushed the woman off his lap before stumbling outside into the cold night air. He’d just finished pissing and was tucking himself back into his breeches when he heard: “Gabriel Anthony, is that you?” And that voice? He fucking knew that voice, but it couldn’t be possible. She’d died a fortnight prior to the hunting trip. He’d buried her body himself.

It took everything in him not to turn around. He wasn’t foolish. He’d been raised on tales of the little people, and banshees. If someone dead was talking to you, it wasn’t a good idea to turn around. You weren’t going to like what you see.

“Gabriel Anthony, I’ve been lookin’ for you. Ain’t you gonna give your baby sister a kiss hello? I haven’t seen you for a month. The least you can do is turn around and look at me.” And the voice. It sounded just like Georgiana, but it couldn’t be her; it couldn’t.

A laced glove settled onto his shoulder, and he couldn’t help but to lean into her touch. He’d missed her, but even as drunk as he was, it couldn’t be her. Still, when she pushed at his shoulder to turn him around, he let himself be turned. “Look at you, Gabriel Anthony. You’re the picture of a perfect mess. Drunk as a skunk, too, I presume.” And it was Georgiana’s voice. Her face. Her mannerisms. Everything about her was his sister - except for her eyes. There was something off about her eyes. Usually so warm and full of life, they looked as dead as she was supposed to be.

“I have to go now, Georgiana.” Gabriel said before stumbling out of the grasp of the creature that looked like his sister. “Elijah’s waitin’ for me inside, and if I don’t keep an eye on him he’ll wind up buying some lady’s company. He needs me ta look after him.”

Georgiana grabbed his hand. “He don’t need you, Gabriel Anthony. I need you though.” She promised, and before Gabriel could do or say anything else, her fangs sunk into his neck.

1910

A laugh bubbled up from Briel’s lips as he crawled across the bed to where his wife lay, blonde hair splayed against the pillow. They’d only been in Romania a couple of weeks, but Briiel was in love with the country. He knew they couldn’t stay in town for too much longer, but that didn’t stop Briel from wanting to stay. The people were welcoming, the wine was strong, and the people tasted delicious. It was everything a vampire could ask for.

“You shoulda gone out with us, Nancy. We danced with the locals, and there was an orgy. Then we killed everyone. You would have loved it.” He nuzzled at the bite mark he’d bestowed upon her nearly fifty years prior. “Why’d you have to stay in and play with the bellboy anyway?” He asked in a whine.

His wife laughed as she ran sharp nails through his hair. “You’re too easily amused, Briel.” She chastised, pushing him away from her. “Can you dispose of his body? I’m tired now.”

Before he could say anything, the door to their room swung upon. “Briel, we have to go.” Georgiana looked wild-eyed. “Derrick is collecting the carriage. Don’t take anything. We have to leave right now.”

It was instinct to listen to his sister. They’d been joined at the hip for over 300 years. If his sister said it was time to go, it was time to go. He was already pulling his boots back on to leave when Nancy’s voice echoed through the room. “No. We’re staying.”

And Briel froze. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to his wife and sister fighting, but it was the first time they had fought over something that could be considered life or death.

“What do you mean, no?” And Georgiana was furious he could see it in her face. “I’m the matriarch of this family. When I say leave, we leave.”

Nancy slinked out of the bed, naked as the day she was born. “And I’m Briel’s wife. If I say we’re staying, then we’re staying.” She drawled out.

It was going to dissolve into a physical altercation, Briel could feel it in his bones. “Georgiana, go.” He instructed. “Nancy and I will leave later. Just go.”

His sister looked torn, but if she had to choose between saving her life and saving her brother, he knew she would choose herself. That’s what happens when you didn’t have a soul. “You know the plan, Briel. You know how to find us again.” And with a quick kiss to his forehead, his sister was gone.

Not even an hour later, their room was swarmed by the leftover members of the clan he, Georgie, and Derrick had visited. Everything happened so quickly. One minute he was in bed with Nancy and the next she was nothing but ash next to him. Then there was Romanian being spoken and when all the smoke cleared Briel was still undead, but… he had a soul. A very human soul in the body of someone who had killed so many for so long. It was the fitting punishment for the monster who had killed the clan leader’s daughter.

1992

Most days Gabriel didn’t leave his house. He spent his days sleeping, and his nights painting or reading. Sometimes he went out, but feeding wasn’t as fun as it had been when he had no soul. Sure, there were vampire worshipers he could feed off, but letting someone know what he was? After Romania, he didn’t like people knowing that he was a vampire.

So, yeah. He didn’t tend to go out, but he didn’t need to go out. Somehow he’d accidentally befriended a teenaged Latino boy who ran errands for him. Occasionally he got Gabriel out of the house, but most days, he just brought the animal blood from his brother’s butcher shop or art supplies that Gabriel asked for. He supposed they were friends - as strange as that sounded.

“Yo, Gabe. You still sleeping?” Cesar’s voice echoed through the large house. “I know it’s only three, but I also know you’ve gotten sucked into daytime TV lately.”

He couldn’t help but to grin at the teen as he slunk into the kitchen. “You’re just bitter you already missed General Hospital.” He pointed out, causing the boy to jump.

“Don’t do that!” He whined. “I got stuff from the shop, including that gross cereal you like to mix into your blood. I also picked up more cat food for your damn cats. I thought cats were supposed to stay away from dead things.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Just because it happened in a movie doesn’t mean it’s real life.” He remembers the day they met clearly. It had been the day his older sister, the Slayer at the time, had died protecting Cesar. And Gabriel, well, he’d been in the area at the time and he’d in turn rescued Cesar and brought the body back to the family. After that, the family made sure Gabriel was taken care of since according to them, he was the only vampire worth saving. The only problem was that the family still kept in touch with Rocio’s Watcher.

“You smell like Andrew.” He knew Cesar hated when he did that, but sometimes that was the only way to get him to talk.

“A new slayer was called.” He admitted as he hopped up on the counter, watching as Gabe moved around the kitchen making them tea. “The one that replaced Rocio didn’t last long.” He tugged at the hem of his sleeve. “What do you know about a prophecy-”

He didn’t let him finish. “About a vampire with a soul and the male slayer? How their love will keep the Hell Mouth from opening and prevent the apocalypse?” He couldn’t help but to roll his eyes. “It’s a load of bullshit. Slayers are always female.”

Cesar was quiet for a very long moment. “The new Slayer’s name is Jonathan.”

The tea kettle fell from Gabriel’s hands with a loud crash.

He likes watching him. Not in a creepy way, more in a general way. He likes the way Johnny moves. How he’s methodical. He plans out his attacks before dispatching vampires. Gabriel has seen Slayers before, and he’s different. It’s not like he’s dancing. He doesn’t toy with his victims. It’s more like he plots out what he’s going to do five moves before he does it. There’s something about it that’s mesmerizing.

Gabriel packed up and moved from Los Angeles to New York because of a prophecy. And yet, he never planned to actually speak to Johnny. His plan was to stay in the shadows. If Johnny needed help, he’d help him, but he never actually wanted to be seen. Their fates may have been tied together, but he wasn’t about to let a prophecy rule his life. And then Johnny miscalculated.

One minute the teenager had the upper hand, and the next it looked like he was going to be somebody’s dinner. He’s on the ground within seconds, staking Johnny’s would be killer before he even had time to think about it. “Are you okay?” He asked as he pulled Johnny to his feet.

“I definitely had him.” The blue-eyed teen announced as he pulled away from Gabriel.

A smile twisted onto Gabriel’s face as he leaned against the wall of the alley they were currently in, and took out a cigarette. “Oh, I’m sure you did.” He drawled out as he lit up and took a drag. “But it doesn’t hurt to have a friend.”

Johnny looked like he was trying to figure him out. “Thanks for the assist, but I don’t need anymore friends.” He called out before leaving Gabriel alone in the alley.

“That’s what you think.”

The next time he talks to him, they’re in a cemetery. And Johnny’s outnumbered. Once again, his body reacts before his brain can sort things through. He’s back-to-back with the Slayer as a group of vampires surround them. “If you were trying to test whether or not I’m a figment of your imagination, hey guess what, you passed.” He all but hissed out.

He knew Johnny had to be rolling his eyes. “Yes, because I planned to be ambushed.” And though he can still feel Johnny’s tension, it isn’t quite as strong as it had been before he appeared. “Good thing you’re stalking me.”

Gabriel was bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the first vampire to attack. “You call it stalking; I call it being your guardian angel.” He sassed back. “At the rate you’re going, you need one.”

It was quiet, but he knew the Slayer was calculating their odds. “Let’s split it even. You take those five. I’ll take these eight.” And then - they were off.

A part of him couldn’t help but to be reminded of his sister. She was the last person he’d tag-teamed killing with. It had been decades since the last time he saw her. She wasn’t a fan of his soul, and he wasn’t a fan of her murdering hundreds for sport. Still, they had worked together well, but he and Johnny? They worked together better.

It was silent as they moved about each other, taking out the vampires surrounding them - helping to cover the other. A part of Gabriel almost felt like they were reading each other’s minds, but he knew better. They just worked together well.

By the time they were done, they were both breathing heavy - Johnny because he needed to and Gabriel because his lungs were filled with vampire dust that he needed to get out of his dead lungs. “Who are you?” Johnny finally managed out.

“I told you.” Gabe coughed up more ash. “I’m your guardian angel.”

The teenager was staring at him. “You’re not human.” It wasn’t a question.

“Nope.” Gabe made sure to pop the ‘p.’ “I have a soul though; you can hurt my feelings.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Why are you following me?” He asked, sounding defensive.

“Boredom? Because no one should go hunting alone?” Gabriel suggested with a light shrug.

The Slayer didn’t seem convinced. “And does my guardian angel have a name?”

He smirked. “Nope.”

“You’re a VAMPIRE?” Johnny is swinging at him, and Gabriel is blocking each punch as they come his way. If he really wanted to hurt him, he’d have a stake out. No, this is one pissed off teenage boy. He wants to hit him because he knows Gabriel can take it. “Briel. Part of the Scourge of Europe.”

He couldn’t help the wince as he continued blocking Johnny’s punches. “No one has called me Briel in 70 years.” Gabriel all but hissed out as he pinned Johnny against the wall. “And you never asked. You knew I wasn’t human, but you didn’t ask.”

There was a sense of trust. Prophecy be damned, he knew in his soul that Johnny wouldn’t stake him. Even as pissed off as he currently was, he wasn’t going to stake him. That was the only reason why he let Johnny reverse their positions and pin him against the wall.

“You purposely didn’t tell me what you were. You had to act all mysterious and leave me guessing.” And he was so close to him. His lips were right there. He only needed to move and they’d be touching, but… he was an old man and Johnny was just so young compared to him - barely even legal. Regardless, when Johnny leaned in, he didn’t stop him until…

“Get the fuck away from my brother, Slayer.” He’s not sure who was more surprised - Johnny or himself.

Gabriel slipped out of Johnny’s grasp and towards the creature that once upon a time had been his sister. “Georgie?” And she was with a group of ten vampires. Glancing over his shoulder, Johnny looked confused, but Gabriel could tell he was already calculating their odds. He had a habit of that.

His sister’s lips curled up. “Briel.” She greeted with a curt nod. “Come along. The Master wants to see you.” Now, that was a name he hadn’t heard in awhile. The Master was the vampire who had made Georgie into the monster she became. And if Gabe had to bet the prophecy had to be about him. He had to be the one trying to end the world.

He turned and looked back at Johnny. “Be seeing you.” It was the last time Gabe would see him alive.

He’s too late. The prophecy was already happening, and Gabriel was too late. Leaving with Georgie had been a trap. He was locked away while The Master lured Johnny into a trap. There were only two options - let Johnny die or kill his captors. He never once thought he’d have to stake his own sister. And yet… he did it for him -- for Johnny. Except… he was too late.

When he gets to the place the Master had lured Johnny to, he’s laying face down in a pool of water. He doesn’t know where the Master is, but he knows two things for sure. The first was that the Master was definitely gone, and the second was that Johnny no longer had a heartbeat. “Fuck that.” He was in the pool of water pulling Johnny out before he could even think about what he was doing.

Sure, he wasn’t exactly a living creature, but he had the basic functions. And it wasn’t like he’d ever needed to do mouth to mouth before, but he theoretically knew how it worked. Once Johnny was on the ground, he pushed his head back and pressed his lips against his. He wasn’t even sure if he was even doing it correctly until Johnny pushed him away.

With a sigh of relief, Gabriel sat back on his haunches as Johnny turned his head to the side and coughed up the water. He was alive again. Thank fuck. He was alive.

For the first time in his unlife, Gabriel was actually happy for the damn fucking prophecy. He pulled Johnny against him, and they sat that in the old crypt.

“I have to kill him.” Johnny rasped out.

Gabriel nodded. “We will.” He promised. “But for now, just sit here and hold my hand.”

And there were things to do. The Master needed to be taken care of. Johnny was supposed to be at his Prom and yet... the Slayer and his vampire sat in a crypt holding hands until his Watcher arrived.

#drabble #BTVS AU #pairing: Gabe/Johnny #relationship: Gabe & Georgie

0 notes

visionssofgideon · 7 years

Text

In-depth Reflection on Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Spoilers)

FUCKING SPECTACULAR, EH!

After so much waiting, watching new promos and trailers everyday, I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle today! The sequel to my favorite movie of all time! And BOY, I have so many thoughts. I am going to try to go as in-depth as I can, and as much in order as I can but BEWARE this is nearly a shit post with me pouring all of my feelings into it and will have random points all over the place, but mainly is me trying to process everything, this is A LOT (it’s 3k) and basically a summary of the movie

SPOILER ALERT!!! OBVIOUSLY LOL okAY LET’S GO

They started off the fucking MOVIE with Take me Home, Country Roads on a bagpipe FUCK

FUCK YEAH EGGSY UNWIN! GARY UNWIN! MY MAN! MY DUDE! MY SON! YOU LOOK SO FINE IN THAT SUIT, YOU LOOK JUST LIKE YOUR DECEASED HUSBAND shit too soon

IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A MINUTE CHARLIE GET THE FUCK OUT IDC HOW YOU SURVIVED GO AWAY also ALL THESE CARS OH FUCK IS THIS ALL POPPY! Anyways Yes yes yes EPIC drifting cab scene! Eggsy has grown so much yeah boy you kick his ass! I love this drifting cab scene, they built a custom cab that could drift how amazing is that! But oh nooo, ugh Charlie’s stupid arm made the poisonous blade kill the driver :(

Eggsy can hold his breath because he was training for the marines but also throwback to his training when he was the only one that was smart enough to see the two-way mirror! The police were like yOu wOt m8 @ Eggsy but iT’S OKAY there’s a secret Kingsman entrance under the lake! By the way HI MERLIN I LOVE YOU YOU SCOTTISH MAN but Eggsy you are a BRAVE man for jumping into shit! On a side not, the hand just hacked into Kingsman holy shite

HI TILDE agh prefer Eggsy with the love of his life, Harry Hart, but you DAMN brave for wanting to kiss a shit-covered Eggsy! Also HI JB YOU’VE GROWN SO MUCH! But wait, EGGSY MOVED INTO HARRY’S HOUSE! Just like the fanfics said! That makes me so happy

Cool transition from a bag of pot to Cambodia! Poppy is FUCKING CRAZY, actual psychopath, I mean cannibalistic burgers, delicious! Those dogs are cool, more realistic than other movies, but rip people who are put through the shredder! Ngl that burger looks pretty good

AW TILDE TRYING TO TEACH EGGSY MANNERS BUT FUCK HERE IS THE DELETED HARTWIN BREAKFAST SCENE FROM TSS! THE MYTHICAL BREAKFAST SCENE IS REAL! Eggsy paying close attention to his lover Harry Hart is

The fact that Eggsy has to hold back tears when simply thinking of Harry is so :( And he even asks Mr. Pickles, because he remembers Harry’s love for him. Eggsy Unwin was in love with Harry Hart, okay.

“Galahad, late again” HAHA just like Harry used to be! Hi off-brand Michael Caine-looking Arthur! ROXY MORTON IS MY GIRLFRIEND HI I LOVE YOU OKAY I KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN BUT I LOVE YOU! She looks so fly, so does Eggsy and Merlin! Also bye @Charlie I can’t believe he survived armless and now works for the craziest person ever!

Honestly rip this guy who just got the golden circle tat and is eating his friend in the form of a burger which btw looks pretty good! Welcome to hell!

Oh nice, the dinner scene! Eggsy is such a gentleman but he actually loves Tilde? He’s actually doing this wow and it’s all because Roxy Morton aka my gf is helping him out! Of course he doesn’t know about spanish painter Frida Kahlo! Roxy ugh ur da best from galahad, and roxy asking best friend or best agent? Both ;) AGH also NICE Eggsy started his own wall like Harry’s of the menial news! UGH Eggsy’s friend is so dumb what is he DOING! AHHHH HAND GRENADE and Eggsy cursing 100x in front of Tilde’s parents

NO NO NO BOMBING EGGSY’S PLACE! Everything is gone ALL OF HARRY’S STUFF! NO JB NONO EGGSY’S FRIEND! WHAT THE WHERE DID THESE MISSILES COME FROM oh fucking POPPY

Roxy knew, she knew, she even tried to escape but… Roxy Morton! MATTHEW VAUGHN I am utterly disgusted and disheartened! Roxy had so much potential, and remaining in a platonic relationship with Eggsy, their friendship was amazing! She was a brilliant agent, not to mention um the only female!? DENIAL! DENIAL! Roxy survived, she tried escaping, so she survived! WE WILL SEE ROXY MORTON IN THE THIRD KINGSMAN MOVIE OKAY

Arthur is dead, all the Kingsman including Percival are dead… Poppy is absolutely crazy, and is giving Charlie a new arm! God, from the trailer, the crazy slingshot arm! Agh no no no this won’t be good…

Eggsy, all alone, in despair. And here go Merlin and Eggsy blaming each other, for possible betrayal! And god Eggsy, Eggsy telling it like it is, everybody is dead, JB, Roxy, his friend, everybody… but Merlin told him to not shed a tear, to hold in emotion, as if he has done this before.

Thus, the doomsday protocol ensues- shopping, drinking. Statesman whiskey! Drinking to everybody! Drink to Scottland! Haha, nice try @ drunk!Merlin! But drunk Eggsy slurring his words and Merlin being an absolute mess and crying is just…. Somebody please get Merlin Kentucky fried chicken, please

HAHA that part of Merlin breaking in, opening the barrel! Hello CHANNING TATUM! Agent Teqila HAHA okay! That fighting was great, wow like being an American for once! WOW please don’t set their balls on fire, that would not be good! HAHA Yeah Tequila, go fuck yourself!

WAIT BUT, HARRY HART IS ALIVE! HARRY HART, SHAVING, BEAUTIFUL MALE SPECIMAN, HARRY HART! HARRY FUCKING HART! EGGSY UNWIN’S SOULMATE! He is alive, and beautiful as ever! Yes Eggsy, we understand, “Fuck me” as in you love Harry Hart we get it! Eggsy and Merlin yelling, but alas, a two-way mirror! YAY GINGER ALE TO THE RESCUE LOVE YOU HALLE BERRY MY QUEEN

Harry looks all smiley! All happy! But he doesn’t know… I predicted this, his amnesia :( Please remember bby! Eggsy is all frustrated, but look at Harry focusing on his butterflies! YES YES THE STATESMAN IN KENTUCKY SAVED HARRY wow cool technology for being American, I would like to thank Ginger! Unfortunately, Harry reverted to his old self. Before kingsman or army, he was a lover of butterflies. Wow. Before being in the army, a kingsman agent, he was a lepidopterist

ELTON JOHN, THE BEST PART OF THIS MOVIE POSSIBLY! Telling it to Poppy as it should be!

HAHA hello champ! Yay jeff bridges! What a man, he seems so chill, I want to have a conversation with him! Champ>>>>>Arthur. Will never get over the fact that the Kingsman are knights of the round table, galahad, lancelot, percival… the statesman are fckuing alcoholic beverages how American sigh,,,,, also Whiskey, hi pedro pascal!

Harry Hart reading his dear book about butterflies! No, they’re putting him through training again to jog his memory! But poor Harry is struggling no no my bby please stop! Btw Colin Firth is the best actor ever okay thanks! Agh this scene is breaking my heart :(((( Harry’s trying to hard to remember, Merlin is trying so much, but Harry’s just here soaking wet :(((

AW JB 2.0 thanks @tilde aw okay people get people they love dogs to help them…. Keep that in mind for later for what I KNOW is coming up!

Lol mini condom and penis joke bc haha America sucks! Look Charlie’s gf who Eggsy will have to get to for their mucus membrane because the trackers needs to be… Haha Whiskey “tinder-what?” me!

BLUE VEIN shit… tequila come on mate! So sugar is 10000x worse than any drug rip :( Elton John is great I love him! Poppy is crazy pt. 2, those dogs are scary, please no! Hey, Elton is friend hell yeah!

Ahhh, can I just say, even though I don’t want Eggsy with Tilde, he is such a decent man to tell her what he is going to do! Despite knowing she’s going to be mad! NO PROPOSAL PLEASE but still, Eggsy Unwin is a good man that is all I have to say! Started from the bottom (literally) now we’re here! Lol @Tilde he actually loves Harry Hart! Anyways, time to travel through the vagina! Matthew Sexist Vaughn everybody! LOL @Merlin being uncomfortable and Ginger being total 100% chill, they are perfect for each other! i ship

HI HARRY! Oh god is this the maggot butterfly scene? YES IT IS! oh fuck fuck fuck. Okay can I say, Harry Hart is so smiley, he loves talking about butterflies. THIS SCENE GOD yes Harry pin Eggsy against the wall! Btw my FAVORITE thing is when Harry says “Perhaps you mean larvae” and smiles. Such a sweet smile! And the smiles are sad at the same time, because he doesn’t know who Eggsy is! And now Eggsy is sad drinking, trying not to think about the old Harry, trying to deal with the whole Tilde situation. God, the scenes between Harry and Eggsy are making me so elated with both joy and sorrow, because Hartwin. BUT THE PUPPY! Eggsy looked up pet store and

OH MY GOD MR. PICKLES 2.0! FAVORITE SCENE EVER! Ahhh Harry smiling, or rather Colin smiling at the pupper, the most precious thing! Young, non-agent Harry Hart is innocent and will love and cherish a puppy. BUT EGGSY, stop torturing him! Eggsy is trying so hard to jog Harry’s memory, but it’s so sad! Also, Colin Firth’s acting in this scene, is just fantastic! Absolutely amazing, to see the contrast! Young Harry Hart or CGId Colin Firth is the sweetest thing, to see his love Mr. Pickles. Because truly, Mr. Pickles was Harry Hart’s pressure point. Saying that Harry would never hurt a puppy, it was a blank, and HARRY IS BACK! Harry Hart, the agent, the man who knew he was an agent, but also a man. A man with feelings, with love, with innocence! No more Eggy, hello Eggsy, your husband! GOSH, THE HUG! Eggsy Unwin on his tippy toes hugging his soulmate Harry Hart and the puppy he got him! YES, remember how Tilde got Eggsy a puppy to help him because she loved him. If you love somebody and get them a puppy, then you know that Eggsy Unwin is deeply in love with Harry Hart. I truly think this is it. Hartwin confirmed #nice

BAR NICE yay Harry is back! Still can’t believe! OH GOD Eggsy holding back tears seeing his eye, but Harry completely and undoubtedly ROCKING those eyepatch-glasses like he was meant to! Okay, who is this redneck guy calling Harry the f-word. Please, Harry Hart may be the gayest man alive (in TSS with Dean’s guy saying that there’s “another rent boy around the corner” triggering Harry just like the f-word did, as well as his smirk in TSS when saying “my black jewish boyfriend” HAHA) but this is just rude. And Harry can’t aim because his depth perception is 100x worse than before now :( Stop punching Harry my bby! #StopHurtingHarryHart2k17! Manners DO Maketh Man, but Harry still needs to relearn! Well Whiskey going to whip them into shape, Diana Prince 2.0? That’s a REALLY GOOD FIGHT SCENE! Wow Southerners are not like what I expected! I hope Harry gets better soon

UGH Poppy is crazy pt. 3! This disease is crazy, but there is Elton John to save the day! ELTON YOU DA MAN! Anyways, yikes! DANCING HHAHA, Tequila could bust some dank moves! Anyways the world is going crazy, but what else is new? OH the US president is a dick… Trump, is that you? Low-key about Trump even though this finished filming before he became president! See, the president here is what I think of when I think of Southerners.

Okay so they’re going to Italy! And Eggsy is not going without Harry! Aw, look at my sons who are so in love with each other! Nice outfits boy! Aw, Harry can’t do too much field work because he’s still recuperating :( He couldn’t aim his watch thing, but a bang will do! BTW Colin actually knows Italian, so this is perfect! HAHA River! Lol I hate @Charlie but SHIT his gf got caught hahahah yikes… Oh no Harry is hallucinating again! And here come a crazy ride, which Pedro and Taron actually felt because Matthew Vaughn wants to make everything as realistic as possible! Because Matthew Vaughn is the devil!! Okay this is hella intense for not being a fight scene but also funny because of them yelling! Lol they stopped because of Eggsy pulling the parachute (tb to TSS) but it’s an American flag wow how American! And the old man said that was the best shit he’s had in a while, so I guessed it all worked out!

Okay cabin scene, Eggsy greets his bf again yay but THERE ARE SHOOTERS SHIT also nice @whiskey really cool fight scene and DIANA PRINCE 2.0! Okay Harry just shot Whiskey and oh no Eggsy don’t blame yourself! It’s not your fault, really it’s not! But don’t yell at Harry, he just saved your life with that cologne lmao… Okay I don’t like Eggsy being mad at Harry :( OH SHIT WUDDUP CHARLIE JUST BLEW UP HIS GF yikes sucks. Btw Merlin and Ginger working together is amazing, they are a new ship!

The president sucks pt. 2 (again, Trump?) Wow this human in cage thing is crazy, dystopian shit, actual yikes! Not to mention everybody has the “dancing disease” lmao! Look, merlehad! Haha so apparently Harry should know Merlin’s favorite singer but he doesn”t rip

Thought the lawyer was Merlin ngl

Ugh Eggsy is sad, Harry make him feel better! MARTINIS! Oh shit, this is going to be emotional. Eggsy talking about Tilde to Harry, but Harry loves him. And god, talking about when he was shot by Valentine. Not thinking of anything, anybody, because he never loved anybody… Brings me back to when he wanted to go back to his mother while he still had amnesia, who most likely passed away :( Please Harry Hart, I know you love Eggsy. Somebody love him. He says love is “worth living for”, and he lived for Eggsy.. WHAT IF HE thought of Eggsy when he was dying, but he didn’t say anything here because Eggsy had just told him that he has a gf SHIT SHIT SHIT no no please hartwin no

Aw sorry Whiskey :( He lost his gf, but now he is vengeful… wow okay this is a lot

MERLIN IN A KINGSMAN SUIT! YES MERLIN, I LOVE YOU, YES YES YOU LOOK SO FINE! And the machete is his haha! Wow a baseball and bat, so American.

And so we are here, Cambodia, and SHIT LAND MINE. No no no no, this is where it happens. WHY DOESN’T THE FROZEN THING HAVE MORE THAN 1 USE what kind of faulty fucking kingsman/statesman shit is that if it only has 1 use WHY DIDN’T YOU CARRY MORE MERLIN WHY YOU’RE SO STUPID NO SORRY YOU’RE NOT STUPID ILY BUT WHY :(((( Merlin sacrificing himself for Harry and Eggsy, because he is fully devoted to Kingsman. Eggsy trying to hold back emotion, but Harry and Merlin fully knowing what being a Kingsman is. “No time for emotion” FUCK

OH GOD.TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS! Merlin singing in his scottish accent, yelling out like he was meant to. God, why. Merlin, such a brilliant man, WHY. And he’s distracting Poppy’s men to save Eggsy and Harry! Okay, DENIAL! NO. Did you HEAR that last note?! Merlin braced himself and closed his eyes, but he might’ve not died! Merlin, Hamish, survived! His legs may have been blown off, but we will see him in the third movie, legless or not! I refuse to believe Merlin is dead.

Elton John as low-key performer/drag queen is my FAVORITE! It’s Wednesday FUCK YEAH! Oh, Eggsy and Harry look so vengeful, and they are perfect fighting together! Absolutely amazing! Eggsy taking Harry’s blind side is amazing, and their fighting impeccable. THE BITCH IS BACK ON THE MOVIE THEATER, YES INDEED! ELTON JOHN JUST HIT A MAN I LOVE HIM! Harry Hart, Eggsy Unwin, spy husbands fighting side by side!

Okay, bye @ dogs! ! WOW ELTON JOHN IS A FRIEND YES HAHA, okay low-key thought Elton John was going to say “If you save the world, we can do it in the asshole” to be Harry’s Tilde but he said “you can get backstage passes” which is the same thing OKAY GOD ELTON JOHN X HARRY HART NEW SHIP?? YES YAY wow he blew a kiss to him I’m dead this is so gay I love it harry hart fucked elton john

Charlie can go die okay thanks bye. Okay the one arm thing is dumb, Eggsy you have an advantage use both arms lol, anyways YES FOR MERLIN, REMEMBER MERLIN EGGSY!

Okay last fights. Poppy is crazy pt. final! Julianne Moore’s acting is AMAZING, really great! But um, viva las vegans? That’s dumb. Okay anyways OH SHIT BOI WHISKEY Harry Hart knew it! FINAL FIGHT SCENE and this is amazing! Absolutely amazing fight scene of spy husbands vs. Wonder Woman 2.0! Whiskey lost somebody because of drug addicts, man wow Kingsman really focuses on real issues, like the environment and drug addiction, but the villains are some crazy people!

Okay, Harry Hart is absolutely amazing, and he can fight amazingly now! Also, Colin Firth doing most of his stunts is AMAZING! Still can’t get the fact that Eggsy fit through the lasso! This is like the church scene in TSS and I love it! Epic fighting scenes with gore x rock music is A+!

YAY WORLD SAVED! Everybody is back! And the president sucks, so YAY FEMALE PRESIDENT! I think this is @ the American govt. and Trump LOL wow I love this movie.

SCOTLAND WINE BY KINGSMAN FUCK… Rest in peace Merlin :(

YES, GINGER IS FIELD AGENT! Okay besides the Roxy thing and tracker going inside vagine thing, this is a feminist movie! Female president, female statesman agent! FUCK YEAH!

Harry Hart and Eggsy Unwin, once again together… but Eggsy is getting married which, let’s not think about. MIRROR SCENE PARALLEL TO TSS AHH I want Harry Hart and Eggsy Unwin to love each other, to cherish each other, even if Eggsy doesn’t know “what the fuck is going on.” Alas, denial is key.

FINALLLY WE SEE EGGSY’S MUM WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WHOLE “come live with me” fiasco from TSS HMM ALSO WHERE IS DAISY @ Matthew Vaughn you owe us

Colin Firth’s monologue as Harry Hart made me realize, that I love Kingsman and will never get over it. It is only the beginning, and I can’t wait for more. This had so much emotion, despite it being so intense. RIP Kingsman agents, JB, Roxy, Merlin. Harry Hart, I love you. Hartwin, I will NEVER give up on you.

Oh boi Tequila is kingsman???? damn okay nice hat boi

FUCK

I’m going to cry at 2 am while singing Take Me Home, Country Roads (update: I DID CRY AT 2 AM)

F U C K !

If you read until the end, you are a TRUE Kingsman fan and true mutual/reader. Nice to know there are others out there who are just as crazy as me, but what can you do when you have such an amazing movie!

157 notes · View notes

thorne93 · 7 years

Text

Just My Luck (Part 5)

Prompt: Imagine accidentally walking into the men’s bathroom and seeing this fine specimen (James McAvoy)

Word Count: 1300+

Warnings: Language, fight

Notes: Collab fic with my girl @cocosierra94!!! Internal thoughts are in Italics, texts are in bold

Tags: @marvel-imagines-yes-please @nilalovessadness @tacohead13 @captain-fuckinglevi @bohemianrhapsody @amarvelouswritings @cocosierra94 @essie1876 @magpiegirl80 @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @harleyquinnandscarletwitch @iamwarrenspeace @marvel-imagines-yes-please @superwholocked527 @myparadise19982sand @missinstantgratification

@thejulesworld

~~~~~~~~~

“I'm guessing James is back in London today?” Rachel asked you cautiously, she could tell you were a bit frazzled by his departure.

“Yeah….And before you even ask, I'm okay,” you said, smiling a little, just to reassure your friend and possibly even yourself of your well being.

It had been a wonderful couple of weeks that you and James had spent together and you knew he had to go back to work, but it didn't make the pain any different to watch him leave for the airport.

“So are things getting pretty serious between you two? I mean I know it's only been a few months since you two met, but I mean... come on, I haven't seen you smile this much since you got your first camera.”

“Oh shut up.” You playfully pushed her, smiling down to the ground. “I…. do think it's getting serious. Ugh, Rachel! I get all nervous around him, he makes me laugh, respects me, makes me feel safe, he makes me feel--”

“Love… Y/n, you're in love.”

“I'm …Rachel what do I do?!” you asked in a panic. Love scared the shit out of you. After Michael, you didn’t want anything to do with relationships or love. Love lead to hate.

“Enjoy it! It's a good feeling, especially when it's real.”

“Well should I tell him? When? What should I even say?”

“First of all, duh! Don’t worry, I'll help you.. but you'll need to take a week off.”

You frowned at your best friend. “What, a week? Why?”

“Because here.” She handed you a plain white envelope.

“Rachel, what is this? This better not be your funny way of firing m--” You stopped as soon as you saw the contents of the envelope. “This is a ticket to Spain. Why am I going to Spain?”

“James called me asking if I would be interested in going to Spain, but I told him you'd probably enjoy it more than me.” She laughed as she wrinkled her nose at you as she sat on your desk.

You sat with the ticket in your hand, stunned.

“Spain. But...but..but I have work!” you spluttered, your head spinning.

Rachel grinned and responded, “And now you don't. Since you've been working for me the most you've ever taken off was two days to go see your family. It's time you used vacation for its true purpose!”

“What's that?” you asked innocently.

“To have fun! You do remember how to do that, right?”

“Rachel...I don't know. A foreign country with a man I just started dating. Is it too soon?”

“Well, what do you think? Are things moving too fast?”

You blushed and responded meekly, “Well no.”

“Then go. What's the worst that'll happen? You have a good time with a great looking guy?”

“I guess you're right.”

“Come on. It'll be fun. We’ll go shopping after work for some things.”

“Shopping? I've got clothing.”

“No, you have clothes for work and clothes for being a hermit. You don't have clothes for shaking your money maker on a beach”

“Rachel!” you chastised, blushing.

“What? It's true. You need some sexy numbers.”

You sighed with humor.

-------

After work, Rachel and you went to some high end shops in Soho. She picked out some things that were entirely too revealing. A leather mini skirt, a white shirt that tied around the waist, a loose maxi dress with spaghetti straps, and a few skimpy bikinis. You were trying everything on and showing her.

“Come out! Come on!” Rachel urged as she browsed mindlessly for herself.

“No!” you shouted back. “I can't do this. I look stupid.”

“No, you don't! Come on!”

You sighed and came out, covering yourself with your arms. You were in one of the skimpy bikinis with a wrap around sheer skirt.

“Rachel, this is too much!”

“No it's perfect! Now all you have to do is a little strip tease,” she cooed as she danced around you.

“I most certainly will not!” you said adamantly, blushing.

“Well if you don't tease him at least wear this stuff.”

“Why? Why do you care so much?”

“Because I'm living through you and you need to slut it up for me. If not for me, do it for James.”

“But so far he likes me in my over sized shirt and jeans self.”

“And now he'll get to see what you're hiding under all that, sweetie.”

“You really think he'll like it?” you wondered, chancing a peek at your reflection. You did look somewhat good. But good enough for James? Maybe not.

“I know so. Good rule of thumb, if you feel comfortable, you're doing it wrong. Cleavage out, butt up, legs shaved.”

She slapped your ass and you yelped.

“Now. Grab that and I'll let you wear my black bikini. Next, we need lingerie.”

“Lingerie?” you said in a small voice.

---------

The next week came quicker than you expected. You had decided not to tell James you were coming, telling him you were sick. Instead, you made plans with his personal assistant to surprise him. She arranged for a car to pick you up at the airport and take you to the hotel he was staying at. Suitcase in tote, you headed up to the penthouse suite.

You could hear him in the room talking to his personal assistant, “ ...I just feel bad I'm not there taking care of her. Maybe I should just leave tomorrow to go see her.”

Your heart did a somersault at his thoughtfulness, there was also a hint of guilt because he was worrying for nothing. To quiet the beating of your heart, you knocked on the door, and announced, “Room service!”

James was probably frowning, stating, “I didn't order room ser--”

He opened the door, beholding the sight of you before him. His eyes went wide and he seemed shocked into speechlessness.

“Surprise!” you said with a wide grin and a laugh.

“Y/n! You're here!” He swiftly moved to embrace you. He wrapped you in a tight hug before finally telling his assistant that he didn’t need her any more and hanging up. “Y/N--You--you’re---how did you get here?”

“I thought you were smart,” you said sarcastically with a grin. “The plane ticket?”

“Right! I’m sorry. I forgot, I’ve been so worried about you...and apparently for nothing!” he reprimanded, shaking you a little. “Well come inside!” He ushered you in. “I have the whole week planned! There is so much I want you to see and do!”

“Well good,” you said with a laugh. “I’ve never been to Spain so...You’ll have to be my tour guide.”

“I bet I’m the most handsome tour guide you’ve ever had,” he said in a low voice as he slowly leaned in to kiss you.

You nodded your head side to side. “Eh, maybe top five,” you joked. In a more serious tone, you admitted, “I missed you, a lot.”

“I missed you too.”

----------------------------

The next couple of days were incredible! The architecture was stunning. The perfect place to photograph. James was patient with you while you stopped to snap pictures of people, places, animals, the sky, nature, cars. Literally everything caught your eye. He took you to the beach two days in a row and at first you were incredibly insecure, until he continued to hold you, play with you, splash you in the water, and you caught him admiring you a handful of times and your worry started to melt away a little bit.

Tonight, he said he had a special surprise for you. He lead you through the warm streets just as evening was starting to a sort of club. It was a restaurant but most people went for the dancing.

“Come on, Y/N,” he urged as he grabbed your hand.

“What? No! No! James, I can’t dance!”

“Nonsense, just let the music move your body. I know how to lead.”

“But--”

“Have I steered you wrong yet?” he asked seriously, those sparkling blue eyes piercing yours.

“Well...no…”

“Then come.”

You nodded as you obliged. He lead you in the middle of several bodies, already warm and sweating from dancing all night in the heat.

This was, unsurprisingly, out of your comfort zone. It wasn't like you were a terrible dancer, you could keep up with the rhythm fairly well, you just weren't used to dancing with other people around. Especially not A list actor people.

“He’s handsome, a great cook, a great dancer.. what's not to love.”

“Y/n, stop thinking so much, love! Just focus on the music. What is the beat telling you to do?” He glided his hand down to your hips and guided them from side to side, swaying to the beat. You closed your eyes and listen to the Spanish melody playing around you.

“Despacito

Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito

Deja que te diga cosas al oído

Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo”

In that heated moment, your body knew exactly what to do. He lead your every sensually slow movement. Dancing closer and closer, you could feel him breathing in your neck slowly, driving you insane.

“I love this song,” you spoke with a soft rasp in your voice.

“Why is that?” he practically growled in your ear.

“It's about a man wanting to enjoy every second of being with his woman...slowly.”

“Is that so?” he purred before he turned you so that your legs were positioned between each others. His hands still on your waist as he guided your hips, so that they were swaying with every movement. Before you knew it, the people around you had slipped away, as if you were the only people in the room. Naturally, you began slightly grinding on his leg as his hands dug into your hips, gripping you even harder, making your arousal spike.

You looked at him, eyes glazed with ecstasy. “He wants to remember every detail of her body… slowly.”

“I definitely understand how he feels.”

You could feel just how well he understood as he pressed himself against you. You tried not to, but you let out a small whimper. You bit your lip trying to get a hold of yourself.

“Why don't we get out of here and go back to the room?” he whispered in your ear, nipping at it slightly, rendering you speechless.

All you could do was nod as your mouth went dry.

Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the music, maybe it was the way everyone was sensually moving around you, maybe it was the mystique and adventure of a new and foreign land. Whatever it was - you wanted James, now.

Immediately, he grabbed your hand and you two nearly ran through the streets like children on a quest. Laughter erupted from your mouths, until, James pulled you aside in an alleyway, a few blocks from your hotel.

“James, our hotel--” you started but he interrupted.

“I know, but I need you now. I can’t wait any longer,” he nearly growled, desperation in his voice as both hands went to cup your face before his lips crashed onto yours in a furious frenzy of passion. He backed you up against a stucco structure, your backside feeling the building behind you as he pressed into you.

Uncontrolled by you, a gasp and moan escaped your mouth as he kissed your neck, trailing down to your collarbone. Your hands wrapped around his back, your fingers digging into the blades.

In a swift, unforeseen motion, he grabbed your thighs and hoisted you so your thighs wrapped around him and your dress fell to the side.

“Are you alright with this?” he questioned, want and permission making his pupils balloon out.

“Mhm,” you said as you nodded, slightly grinding against his groin.

“Alright then,” he agreed before going back to work on you….

------------

Morning came and your body felt as if you got a new skin. A night with James was surely one to remember. Especially when he made magical moments happen in an alley and three times back at the hotel room.

James suggested going down to the beach and you happily said yes. You could finally put on the infamous black bikini that Rachel had worn on numerous occasions that won over at least a dozen men each time. You could’ve sworn it had magical power. And now that James had seen you naked, you weren’t nearly as nervous being in it.

You put on the sexy little number, wrapped a beach wrap around you so you could surprise James when you got to the beach, and you two headed out, hand in hand.

Once you got down there, you both realized you needed towels. James said he’d be right back to fetch some from a small shop right on the beach. He gave you a chaste kiss and raced off. As soon as he was gone, you dropped your beach wrap, hoping that when James got back, the lacey black ensemble would send him reeling.

“Want some help with that?” a random voice asked as you looked up into the bright sun, not a cloud in the sky.

“I’m sorry?” you said once your eyes focused. It was a tan man with long black hair, a close shaved black beard, and muscles you usually only see on the cover of sports magazines.

“I said, would you like some help? Applying the sunscreen?” he asked again, his voice having a bit of an accent. You figured he was probably a local.

“Oh, yeah, sure! Thanks! Could you get my back?”

“Absolutely.”

He knelt down and handled the sunscreen, meanwhile, your boyfriend was watching another man rub all over you in the skimpiest thing he’d ever seen you wear.

“I love your bikini,” he noted.

“Thank you, it’s my friend’s. She’s letting me borrow it while I’m on vacation.”

“Oh, are you here with anyone?”

“She’s here with me,” James voice said as he stood over you two.

“Oh, hey there,” the stranger greeted as he got up.

“Hi, thank you for taking care of my girlfriend but I’ll be assisting her now.”

“Fine by me. Have yourselves a lovely day,” he said as he walked off. James stared after his form.

“Thanks for getting the towels,” you said sweetly as he fanned one out and sat on it.

“Yeah,” he noted, not his usual sparky self.

“Would you like me to get your back with the sunscreen?” you offered.

“No, no thanks.”

“Well...would you like to go in the water?”

“I’m fine right here,” he quipped.

“Okay...Well, I’d like to cool off,” you noted as you stood up. “Do you like my bathing suit?”

“It’s alright I suppose. It certainly got that local’s attention…”

“What’s with you?” you asked, wondering where the sour mood came from.

“Nothing, just-- go enjoy the water, love.” Agitation filled the space between you two.

You scoffed at his poor attempt of trying hide his emotions, “Okay well when you're ready to be an adult and talk about what's bothering you, you know where to find me.”

You couldn't understand why he was being so moody. You were determined not to let it bother you, “He said it was nothing, so don't think about it! Just relax.”

The more you tried to put it out of your mind, the more you thought about how suddenly his mood had changed. What exactly caused the atmosphere to go from being warm and inviting to cold and distant? You looked back at James only to find, he wasn't there.

---------------------------

You found yourself staring at the empty beach chair in disbelief.

“Are you freaking kidding me?!” you thought.

In one swift, furious second you were striding up the beach to grab your belongings and head to the room.

Thankfully you managed to remember the spare room key, you opened the door to find him on the couch flipping through the tv channels.

“Back so soon?”

“Cut the crap, James, why the hell did you leave me down there?”

“I told you I didn't feel like swimming.”

“Okay but you were fine when we left, so what changed? And don't bullshit me either!”

He paused for a brief moment, debating on whether or not to be completely honest with you.

Taking in a deep breath, he spoke calmly, “I didn't appreciate the way that guy had his hands on you.”

It took you just a second to gather your wits. Wondering if you misheard him, you said, “Are you serious?! He was just being nice!”

“No, he wasn't! I saw the way he and his friends were watching you, the same way I was watching you. Which I can assure you was not in a friendly way!”

“So this is about you being jealous?!”

“No! Y/n, this is about you being too naive to see when a guy is trying to hit on you!”

You were floored by the anger in his voice. The words were like a swarm of hornets attacking your heart. Tears brimmed your eyes threatening to fall.

“Look, I didn't mean it like that, I just---”

“No, James, I know what you meant. Don't worry, my naivety and I will be out of your way from now on. I'll just get my stuff and go back home.” You b-lined it to bedroom, locking the door behind you.

“Y/n, please, don't leave. I'm sorry.” Hearing the pain in his voice pushed you to your breaking point. Those tears gave way. He could hear you quietly crying, trying to comfort yourself. You didn't know it, but hearing your sobs, knowing he caused the hurt, pushed him to his breaking point. He couldn't bear to watch you leave. He grabbed his phone and stepped out on the balcony.

In a flurry of anger and hurt, you threw your belongings into your suitcase in a somewhat manageable manner, grabbed your bags, and heaved a sigh. You asked yourself if you were really going to leave. You decided that if he stopped you on the way out, you would reconsider, if he didn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be.

You stepped out of the bedroom and glanced around for him. You saw him on the balcony faced partially away from you, but if he just turned slightly, he would see your pain stricken form in front of him. He was on a phone call. You waited, you waited longer than you wanted to, but he apparently seemed too preoccupied to deal with it than to come after you.

With that, you silently turned, opened the hotel door, and left for the airport.

-------------------------

“Rachel,” you sobbed as she opened the door.

“Y/N? You’re supposed to be in Spain! What are you doing here?”

An answer couldn’t come though as you fell into her arms.

“Oh, honey, what happened?”

“He--he…”

“Did he hurt you?” she demanded in an angry tone. “Did he take advantage of you?”

You shook your head. “No, no, nothing like that.”

“Well, tell me,” she informed as she walked you over to the couch.

“He...he called me naive. A guy on the beach was helping me put sunscreen on and he got jealous and we had a fight.”

“I see.”

“So...I just left.”

“You’re not naive, Y/N.”

“I don’t know, maybe I am. I mean, I thought me and James could work. But how could we? He’s a celebrity with tons of gorgeous, smarter, funnier women that he could have. I’m just...a nobody. I’m an assistant, an errand girl.”

“Stop that,” Rachel commanded in a chastising tone. “Out of all of the women he could be with, he chose you.There just might be women that are smarter or prettier than you….”

“Rachel, you aren't really making me feel better,” you interrupted her.

“Let me finish. Yes, there might be women that are smarter or prettier than you, but none of them are you. None of them have a heart made of pure gold like you do. You would give up EVERYTHING for the people you love and even a little bit for people you don't know. So no, you aren't naive. You choose to see the good in everyone. However, when people try and take advantage of that kindness, it makes us, the people who love you, wanna rip them to shreds!”

You sniffled, smiling a bit at her.

“Thank you. I just...I think I got in over my head with him…”

“Well, he’s handsome and Scottish, no one can blame you,” she eased as she tucked hair out of your face.

You smiled again and she went to the restroom, by the time she got back, you had fallen asleep on the couch. Between your emotions and the jet lag, you were happy to let sleep take over.

She covered you up and turned out the light. Being kinda tired herself she headed to her room.

“15 missed calls? Jeez who's been blowing up my phone?”

She clicked on the notification and noted 5 of the 15 were from James. Figuring the rest of calls could be dealt with tomorrow, she called him back.

“Hello?”

“James… why is your girlfriend here with me crying and you're in Spain?” she demanded immediately. There were no times for pleasantries.

“ I -- I messed everything up. I shouldn't have said anything! She hates me Rachel, and I'm sure she'll never want to see me again.”

“I'm sure you're over exaggerating a bit. Is she upset? Yes, but that doesn't mean she hates you. Just give her a day to cool down. Trust me by the time you get your ass here to New York, she'll be fine.”

“I don't know, you didn't see the way she looked at me Rachel, I've broken her heart.”

“James McAvoy, you listen to me and you listen good! I've known this girl my entire life. I've seen her get through some hard times and good ones too. I will tell you this is the first time I have ever seen her look at someone the way she looks at you, speak about someone the way she speaks of you and dammit, she has NEVER EVER said she's been in love with anyone before you. Now, do you love Y/N?”

“Y-yes. Of course, more than anything!”

“If you love her like you say you do then get your Scottish ass on the next flight out of Spain and to New York now! Prove to her you love her no matter what! Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma'am...Thank you, Rachel.”

“Yea yea, hook me up with Fassbender and we'll call it even, haha!”

“Deal, heheh, talk to you later.””

---------------

The next morning, you woke up a little stiff. Rachel already had coffee and toast ready.

“Mornin, sunshine!” she greeted.

“Hey,” you softly said. “I think I’m gonna head home.”

“What? Why?”

“I just kind of want to be alone, and I need to start unpacking.”

“Hmm, alright. Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can take a vacation day.”

“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll be fine. I just need to be in my own bed, ya know?”

“Fair enough. Call me if you need anything at all.”

“You know I will,” you promised.

The ride home on the subway and walking seemed exhausting. Once you finally got home though, you threw the suitcases down, promising to unpack later in the day, but for now, you just wanted sleep.

You went to your bed, got undressed to t-shirt and underwear, and crawled in. You were just about to drift back to sleep when a knock at the door came. For a split second, you thought about ignoring it. Maybe it was James, if not, you didn’t care to speak to whoever it was. But, then you realized you needed to be an adult like you told him to be and face this problem. So you got up and went to the door.

“James--” you started as you opened the door.

“So the Scottish prick isn’t here, huh?”

#just my luck #james mcavoy #james mcavoy fic #james mcavoy x reader

106 notes · View notes

gokinjeespot · 6 years

Text

off the rack #1234

Monday, October 29, 2018

The inaugural Capital Comic Book Convention yesterday at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Ottawa was a success as far as Jee-Riz Comics & Appraisals was concerned. We covered expenses and went home with a bit of extra for all the hard work that my partner Chris put into gathering and pricing stock and setting up our booth in the dealer's room. My old body is sore from all the moving but I've got two weeks to recover before the next Capital Trade Show at the Jim Durrell Arena on November 11.

The highlight of the con for me was talking with my pen pal Ryan from Kingston who I wished could have been able to attend. His fiancé was there and got him on the phone for me and I gave him a very brief report on how things were going. It was busy and noisy at the time so I might have said some things that were odd or confusing. Sorry about that Ryan. I also had a long discussion about the joy of comic books with an older collector named Steve. We went on and on about appreciating the art form. There was a moment of connection when we were talking about Barry Smith's art in Conan: Red Nails and he mentioned the panel where Conan spears the dinosaur. We could both picture that panel in our heads and knew exactly what each was talking about. That kind of enthusiasm and camaraderie never gets old. Steve made me even happier when he bought one of our old DC Digests. I hope he returns to buy the one reprinting the classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow story that Neal Adams drew. He remembered reading that when it hit the racks back in the early 1970s.

I only managed to score four comic books off the racks to read and review after subscription service copies were pulled. I had to read Die! Die! Die! #4 and Silencer #10 before the store opened so I could put them on the racks to be sold. I'm sorry I can't write more reviews, but on the other hand it's less unpaid work for me. I would love to be able to just read comic books and not have to think of anything to say about them afterwards. I got a chance to do that during my shift last Wednesday. Heather did a bit of moving in Comet Comic's new space and had some racks and a table set up when I got to work. I moved the subscription service boxes downstairs and racked all the comics that were sitting in boxes so that they were displayed for sale. It's comfy and quiet down in the basement of Black Squirrel Books and I had time between our customers coming in to pick up their subscriptions. I was surrounded by bookshelves full of books but chose to read comics to pass the time. I didn't expand my horizons much since I didn't want to read anything new that was ongoing. Since Marvel had a plethora of number ones that came out in the last month that were on the racks I read those. I originally passed on starting Spider-Geddon so I read #0 and #1. They were just as I thought they were going to be. The evil Inheritors have been resurrected and are on the hunt again for Spider-Folks throughout the multiverse. Too many universes and too many Spider-Folks to keep track of and the only one I really cared about was Miles Morales. He only had a cameo and they're already using the comics to shill for the next Spider-Man movie. Ugh.

I also read a bunch of the new What If? comic books. The first one I read reminded me that Uatu the Watcher was dead because the guy introducing the story was good old Nick Fury on the moon. This guy took over watching over the Earth in one of the Secret Wars I think. Either that or it was another mega crossover Crisis. This was in "What If Flash Thompson became Spider-Man?". Flash was a jerk and he learns that with great power dot, dot, dot. It was okay. I also read "What If Peter Parker Became The Punisher?". Let's put it this way; Peter Parker is no Frank Castle. The others were worth reading but all of them weren't as fun as I remember the old What If?s being. What turned out to be fun was "Black Panther vs. Deadpool #1" and that is as it should be with Wade Wilson being his stupid self against the very serious King of Wakanda.

I probably would have written reviews on all of the comics that I read but I didn't have my laptop with me. I won't be schlepping it to work until we're all set up downstairs and I have somewhere I can sit and write. It's weird that I want to pass on my thoughts about all the comics that I read. I think it's because of my obsessive compulsive need to keep doing reviews since I started writing these things. I'm addicted to giving people my opinions. Hello, my name is Kin and I'm an over sharer.

Exorsisters #1 - Ian Boothby (writer) Gisele Lagace (art) Peter Pantazis (colours) Taylor Esposito (letters). Kate and Cate Harrow are twin sisters who retrieve souls from hell for a price. I really like the art because it looks as good as Dan DeCarlo's Archie comics but with a lot more detail. You'll see that the sisters aren't really twins in the conventional sense and that should keep you reading. Plus they fight demons but are not as taboo as Warrior Nun Areala.

Die! Die! Die! #4 - Robert Kirkman & Scott M. Gimple (writers) Chris Burnham (art) Nathan Fairbairn (colours) Rus Wooton (letters). I love this hyper violent story about 4 identical brothers who are highly trained assassins. George is a douche bag who killed his brother Paul and tried to impersonate him. Paul's girlfriend Jennifer saw through the ruse and this issue starts off with a wicked fight scene as Jennifer avenges her boyfriend's death. I love the art in this and the humour too. I'll never eat rhubarb pie again. The other brother John just wants to be left alone but he is about to be visited by a whole lot of commandoes sent to kill him. I can't wait to see how those killers Die! Die! Die! next issue.

Silencer #10 - Dan Abnett (writer) Patch Zircher (art) Mike Spicer (colours) Tom Napolitano (letters). Hell-iday Road part 3. They jumped the gun with the cover showing Talia trying to kill Honor. Spoiler alert: Silencer and Quietus's alliance fails to kill Talia al Ghul. Oh, and their Freaky Friday adventure ends. I didn't like the art in this issue as much as I used to and I find the burden of Honor's husband and son to be tedious. I'm going silent on this book now.

Action Comics #1004 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Ryan Sook (pencils) Wade von Grawbadger (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Josh Reed (letters). Invisible Mafia part 4. So why am I still reading this book but have stopped reading Superman? First of all the art is really good. Then there's the heartfelt relationship between Superman and Lois Lane. It's highlighted very well in this issue. The first page shows the screen of Lois's laptop and I read what was written on it and I think it sums up what the Man of Steel means to Brian Bendis. He has distilled Superman down to the essences of Truth, Justice and the American Way. I'll accept that for now and will keep on reading.

Books of Magic #1 - Kat Howard (writer) Tom Fowler (illustrator) Jordan Boyd (colours) Todd Klein (letters). Tom told me he was going to be drawing this Sandman Universe title months ago but I had to keep the news secret and it was agony to do so. I am happy now to share with you my delight at seeing the book hit the racks. Tom was in high school when he first walked into Silver Snail Ottawa and showed me his sketchbook. I was amazed at how good his art was. I was particularly struck by his use of colour. When he told me that he hoped to have a career drawing comic books I knew that he would succeed and he's proven time and again how good he is at telling a story using sequential art. My favourite character to come out of Sandman is Timothy Hunter and I read all of the first Books of Magic series. This new one is starting off excellently and is very new reader friendly. Tim first appeared in 1990 and I always thought that Harry Potter was a rip off of Neil Gaiman's boy magician when I started reading J.K. Rowling's books in 1997. I am happy to say the TomKat did a great job of bringing Tim back.

0 notes

tube-thoughts-blog · 6 years

Text

Vol. 14

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

--- MTV's 120 Minutes w/ Alan Hunter:

*Alan has to be pulled out of his dressing room listening to George Jones (Sure, George is way too manly for Alan)

*The pinnacle of man towered over by skyscrapers in a very 20th century modern art ad for athletic 80s yuppies who drink milk. Yuppies listen to Phil Collins on evening MTV, not late night 120 minutes alternative bands.

*Wrigley's gum w/ nutrasweet for sweater wearing 80s families to chew on long bike rides.

*Awesomely 80s retro ad for a Casio keyboard drum that has a dorky guy walking around the type of alley Michael Jackson would dance in until he meets a sexy looking keyboard player who would fit right in with Prince's band at the time.

*TSOL "Colors": Another edgy new wave The Cult-esque sounding music video featuring cowboys. What was up with these bands & cowboys? Depeche Mode did it too. Decent.

*Walk in the West "Lonely Boy": Another edgy cowboy themed video? This time with the alt version of Cougar Mellon? This is more bluesy & has some of those awesome 80s video editing techniques with the band superimposed over shots of driving through rural America. Decent.

*The Descendents "Kids On Coffee": Very 80s punk/hardcore aesthetics featuring mugs of coffee & pictures of Molly Ringwald for some reason. Decent.

*Some new alternative records for the week are gone over by Alan. A few hip hop show up. Not sure if these were quirky hip hop acts or if hip hop was still considered a niche.

*Nickelodeon tips from Dennis. Nick still aired the Menace at this point. Now the black & white, non-trying-to-be-a-Teeny-Bopper-Pop-Star-themed show would give tween brats a seizure.

*Hey, "hoppin' & bobbin'" 80s family, sign up for HBO & cable. You'll get a free phone alarm clock too. Huh? Phone alarm clock? Whose dumb idea was that invention? People will never sleep beside their phones & use them for alarms *wink*

*Vomitous preview for a Joan London talk show about being a great mom & Mother's day on the Lifetime Network. Now, Joan stars in a commercial about putting her dear old mom in a nursing home to get rid of her. Ha!

*A generic new wave pop band "The Hooters" in an MTV bumper & performing & bowing, in front of a concert crowd, as a god awful song by them with the lyrics "Day by day" plays.

*Another cartoon graphics bumper for MTV featuring a jackpot machine scroll. More imagination went in to all these old bumpers than has gone into actual MTV programmingin the last almost two decades since the early 2000s.

*Joe Piscopo in a Miller Lite beer ad playing an over the top 80s wrestler, named Python Piscopo, taking over a seedy dive bar

*"Captain EO" a strangely forgotten Disney theme park music video / movie attraction produced by George Lucas & starring Michel Jackson. Looks good if you like MJ's 80s videos & Star Wars.

*James "So Many Ways": An Aussie sounding new wave singer is dancing, around a field of amber grains, like a spastic. Something new wave singers were known for doing. Dancing like a spastic. Nice, soaring, Bono-esque vocals. More than decent via video cliches.

*The Housemartins "Happy Hour": Quirky U.K. band in a pub partying themed video w/ California Raisins style animation. Terrific.

*Get a KODAK Supralife battery & be able to play air guitar longer beside your giant 80s ghetto blaster boombox. Awesome.

*"Did You know?" ad w/ 1-800 number for ordering a Yugo compact car. Pretty cheap too for a new car under 4,000. Not sure how much a new car cost in the 80s, but it would be hard to get a used car w/out 100,000 plus miles on the motor for anywhere near that amount today.

*Pringles Sour Cream & Onion dip chips has the Royal Family going goofy for the flavor.

*The low fi "do it yourself" aesthetics of videos by bands like Gene Loves Jezebel are something corporate produced videos can't re-capture.

*Gene Loves Jezebel "Heartache": Okay, I might have spoke too soon. The band had signed with Geffen records by the point of this video & the earlier clip doesn't apply. This video is slick w/ better camerawork, but the band's music still manages to shine thru. ---- Decent.

*The Bolshoi "A Way": This Brit band takes over some nice mum's quaint home to film aspooky little number for I.R.S. records 80s R.E.M.'s label

*"The Long Ryders" a hopeful "band" (not sure if real), in a Miller Beer ad, perform theircorny bar band rock & roll in a bar in Hollywood near Tower Records.

*Another stereotypical 80s dorky teen (the kind in every 80s teen movie) plays a CASIO keyboard in his totally 80s bedroom for his bored out of its mind hound-dog w/ big ears

*A 50s via the 80s "Leave it to Beaver" type nerd talks in the mirror about Cracker Jacks & then shares them with his sweetheart.

*Wrap up Hollywood hit movies like "The Karate Kid" & "The Al Jolson Story" (complete w/ him in facepalmingly funny black face) for only $29.95

*Soft & Dri ladies deodorant helps a cute black chick get ready for her tv news debut

*MTV's "Make My Video" contest for a chance to make a video for Madonna. Wow! 80s Madonna was iconic, I'll have to admit. Right up there with all the other 80s icons. Pretty to boot. Also included, in winning, is a surplus of Twix candy bars & a Levis wardrobe. I'd like to see some of the terrible entries from the contest.

*Bang "Summertime" an MTV Basement tapes winner: This NYC street video featuring a garage band that looks like KISS minus makeup feels like it would belong more on regular MTV or Headbangers Ball. --- Fair.

*Cactus World News "The Bridge": A big, soaring U2 sounding band plays for a concert festival. --- Decent.

*Alan insults Cactus World News & blames it on a music article. I admire the bite that MTV wouldn't show today in insulting an artist on their network. They'd be considered a product that would be above criticism today, if they still had vj's or music videos. Still, Alan is the wrong person to be hosting this show, as MTV would soon figure out.

*The Go-Betweens "Head Full Of Steam": Video w/ a band that has a prissy looking leadsinger & Cure video style aesthetics. Nice crooning. -- Decent.

*80s mallrat teens tired of waiting forever for zits to go away get Clearasil & then beat it on their mopad or skateboard to the local foodcourt to gawk at each other while screwing up their skin even more with chocolate milkshakes & greasy pizza slices. The winner: corporate America. The loser: hormonal teens & their scraping to get by parents.

*Toni volumizer makes any 80s chick look like a high fashion sex kitten.

*"Heartbeat of America is today's Chevrolet"... This was a time when picturesque Americana actually might have meant something before global trade sent automotive jobs overseas.These quirky Americans & American made autos have vanished. Replaced by crumbling urban landscapes (Detroit), jobless & depressed people, along with foreign made products & autos.

*Sammy Hagar era Halen takes over MTV for a week. Would have been more fun w/ Diamond Dave. Can't imagine any band taking over MTV anymore much less one like Van Halen.

*The Wind "Good News, Bad News": A funny semi-acoustic duo music act performs for their neighbors in block party black & white video. Close to decent.

*A Brit rock (nobody that I recognize) ex-junkie for a "No Drugs & Alcohol" sober music making experience 1 - 800 recovery number. Being sober is probably why his music career is so forgettable.

*James Brown for MTV. James Brown popular in the 60s & here still recognized on MTV in the late 80s. Current MTV doesn't recognize music much less music legends.

*Cryin' Out Loud "Live It Up": "I ain't no Marxist" a lyrical band w/ "a message." Fair.

*Awesome post-apocalyptic arena combat ad for a "Lazer Tag" toy. "Stadium not included ."Ha. Someone must have complained that their backyard wasn't as fantasy like as this ad.

*"VCR Theater," every night at 2am on The Movie Channel, helps rock lovin' chicks, who sleep with their electric guitar, record a flick. Why the rock & roll theme was included, in the ad, must have been because the ad was MTV specific. Otherwise, it makes no sense.

*Penn & Teller have "blood & fire" as they guest host MTV. "Born to be wild" badasses.

*A rock & roll hotel in "Playin' For Keeps" rated PG13. 80s PG, which GoodBadFlicks.com would tell you might equal a little R rated sex & nudity & language w/ the comedy. I had forgotten this 80s movie. Might be a forgotten gem, might be well a forgotten dud.

*Christy Brinkley for taking a shower & using Prell shampoo. I, like Chevy Chase, am all for getting a little wet w/ the very sexy 80s model Christy Brinkley.

*More bad jokes & bad silver jackets from Alan.

*Timbuk 3 "Future's So Bright, Gotta Wear Shades": A minor classic. terrific.

*Christmas "Big Plans": Clever points for the band name. Clever & quirky video featuring mailroom drudgery. The band escapes into a fantasy world filled with cliche 80s cheesy & weird video editing techniques. Close to terrific.

*Alan's head is now a talking head in an 80s tv set. Silver 80s tv sets w/ either a rabbit's ears antenna or a dial cable box are more art & make me feel more happy than a 60 inch flat screen wall hanging home movie theater experience to watch crappy 20 tens era reality shows on. Those old tvs played awesome UHF local tv stations & awesome at the time cable channels.

*Every day Joes drink Miller beer after they get off work from their blue collar jobs. It's the "American Way" of getting liver disease & addiction & emotional / relationship problems when you're "Born & raised in the U.S.& A."

*"Top Gun, the number one soundtrack" w/ music from Kenny Loggins, Berlyn, & Loverboy. Coming to a yuppie moron's car stereo near you! (unfortunately)

*"Dippity Do" hair styling gel for futuristic 80s weirdos.

*MTV was hip in the 80s, I might not say this enough, & for clarity on how "cool" it actually was... it had guys sticking their fists up chicken butts & wiggling said fist, while their bald heads were covered in whip or shaving cream. Why? Why not?

*The Rainmakers "Let My People Go-Go": Funky, bluesy, quirky, top hat wearing band rocks the house (literallY) while their horn section blows it up out in some rural decay while walking around w/ the bulldog from Little Rascals. Decent.

*Billy Chinmock "Somewhere in the Night": tape cut out, so who knows, didn't look like it was gonna be great for an alt video what w/ its aesthetics of a high style 80s babe walking down a foggy back alley. zero.

I think at this point in 1980's 120 minute alt rock history, they had mistaken alot of the popular bluesy rock of the time for alt rock & mixed it in w/ the Brit new wave. It didn't mesh together well. I guess none of the music on 120 minutes history ever truly did through the changing time periods & trends. At least it existed for a while & was something a bit different.

*Limited Warranty "Hit You": 120 Minutes has definitely gone off, at this point, but the tape has another video for me. It's a new wave pretty boy group. In the style of A-Ha "Take on Me." It's nothing terrible for what it is. Pretty catchy like most of that kind of music was. Decent, I guess.

close to 2 for Alan, close to 3 for MTV, 2 1/2 for videos, 2 1/2 for ads

--------------------------------------

Geraldo Rivera: Exposing Satan's Underground *"This is a horror that will give children bad dreams." We're not talking about Satan,no, it's Geraldo's mustache. Jokes & utter stupidity aside... Seriously, after all his 80s & 90s tabloid garbage "news" hysteria, it's unbelievable that Geraldo still has a career in journalism.* zero stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: Ouija Boards & Near Death Experiences *The mind can be deceived through cheap games & brain power-outs.* close to 3 stars

--- DinosaurDracula.com presents Creepy Commercials Countdown:

*Sunkist Spooky Fruit (1989): Eat enough gummy fruit flavored snacks & wake up, from a candy coma, in a cemetery filled w/ animated trees, lounge about skeletons, & purple people eaters from the stars.* 2 stars

*Easter Seals Halloween Coupons w/ Vincent Price (1990): "Halloween doesn't have to be spooky." It's blasphemy for a lame organization to get one of the most symbolically spooky actors of all time to say this. "It should be warm & friendly." Even if it's meant to be ironic & Vincent Price sure reads it that way, it sucks. I want Halloween to be like Halloween 3, and end horribly. Well, at least in my imagination. Candy & fright. Not "safe" coupons.* 1 star

*Coors Light Beer w/ Elvira (1991): If I were an Addams family style disembodied hand & I met Elvira, I would do more than try to hand her a beer. I would crawl down the front of her very open black dress & never come out. Also, I wouldn't mind being at a Halloween party stuck behind Elvira in one of those two person horse costumes.* 3 stars

*Spooky Goop Halloween Make-Up (1988): Be the coolest & weirdest kid on the block going from cheap ghoul face paint to full on Fulci's Zombi grotesque skin.* 3 stars

*The People's Court Frankenstein Promo (1988): Village idiots will kill over daytime trash tv. Dr. Frankenstein & his monster (son?) would have been great guests on Jerry Springer.* close to 3 stars

----------------------------

Public Access: "My Name Is John Daker" *A mumbling piano lady, of some Methodist church according to her, & a mumbling male singer who couldn't be more stiff. They attempt a song about "The Lord" only for it to devolve into jaunty number about the moon hitting one's eye like a big-ah pizza pie.* either 1 star or 3 stars terrible becoming terrific

--- Red Letter Media presents Best of the Worst: Shakma, Python II, and Beaks the Movie

*Shakma: A crazy baboon on the loose while its victims live action role play in a college animal testing lab.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 (for primate slasher premise cuteness)

*Python II: One of those crappy CGI snake genre flicks. A genre that would be further made worse by SYFY & Asylum later on in the 2000s. The python looks startling, in its scenes, but I do not know if that's just all the taco soup, that I ate earlier, talking or what.* 1 1/2 stars

*Beaks the Movie: The VHS box cover says "unintentionally funny." See, hipsters, our VHS ancestors were self aware too. So, this is pretty much an Italian exploitation version of Hitchcock's "The Birds" complete w/ that Eye-Talian auteur creative cliche of animal cruelty. Such a dumb premise taken to its heights of ridiculousness, but M. Night would try it with "The Happening" & there's the "wants to be so bad so bad it's good" but isn't "Birdemic 1 & 2." Not really all that fun, except to Red Letter's Rich.* 1 star

According to Red Letter Media, Beaks is best (by default) Shakma is divisive & Python 2 was supposed to get destroyed by beach birds but they don't like birdseed covered VHS tapes

-------------------------------

Classic Comedy Central: Buddy Scott trio in the elevator *An office worker ant is trapped in his coffin falling a hundred plus floors to hell. He cheers up when a lounge act sing to him the message that he's "heading to the top." Penn Jillette (then voice of Comedy Central) says to "Think positive."* 2 1/2 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*You Gotta Be Kidding Me: The customer is always a pain in the rear of the golf shorts.* 1 star

*They're Coming For Your Kids!: "For the cost of two Cokes," & one soul, they'll become manipulative salespeople of religious literature on their school campuses.* 1 or 3 stars

*The Net: "From astrology to gardening & punk rock."* close to 3 stars

*Telephone Song!: Be correct when you dial collect. Tween girls discover the power of the telephone. They all do.* 2 1/2 stars

*Rock Music & the Occult: "God isn't interested in impressing teenagers." Hence the reason that Satan's rock music is so successful.* 3 stars

----------------------------

"B Videos 101 Vol. 1" *"Perfect, no one suspects" that Andy Griffith is a bar brawling deviant, that Redd Foxx is from a galaxy far far away, or that Papa Smurf likes to have his salad tossed.* 2 1/2 stars & zero stars for the doo doo Jackson Pollock porno finale

--- Phone Losers:

*Security Cam Pranks - The Kitchen Couple: An outrageous & short lived invasion of boring breakfast table privacy.* either zero or close to 2 1/2 stars

*Home Security Prank Call - Peace of Mind: Every hour on the hour reassurance is bothersome & as comforting as forced prayer.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Rich Neighborhood Prank Calls: We've been going through your trash, & we don't like what we find.* 2 1/2 stars

*Tenants from Hell - Archaeological Dig Site: Before you hear it on the news, we want to let you know about the giant skeletons & the buried alien technology that we found.* close to 3 stars

-----------------------

Beavis & Butthead: It's So Cold in the D *"This is hard to dance to." Detroit has fallen on such hard times, the very danceable to hip hop sounds more like a funeral song.*

2 1/2 stars w/ riffing

1 star w/out

5 Dollar Wrestling: Death Match Dance Party *"Blood in the roller-rink."* 2 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*How To Have Cybersex on the Internet: "those who have mastered the art of one handed typing."* close to 3 stars

*It Only Takes A Second: "to be safe" or die in a hilariously horrible accident.*

3 stars

*Mr. Nasty - Insult VHS Tape: Mr. Nasty is such a bad insult comedian, he makes Andrew Dice Clay look like Jeffry Ross who looks like Nazi propaganda of a Jew on marijuana.* 1 star

*What Does God Say About Worldliness: "It's better to go to a funeral than to go to a party." Maybe so, but it's not as much fun. So this failed comedian, turned touring for money evangelist, says one can have a fine stable of horses, cars, or women... but HaHa, it's a one way ticket to H-E-L-L. The evangelical sort of brags about having a stable of finely bred horses, by the way. His audience looked like they were at a funeral. No smiles, no laughs, no horses, just misery. I thought they called it the gospel (good news).* 1 star

*Something's Happening: Watching the mucus sizzle. The "stuff that's killing the world" (mucus) of a old man / mucus conspiracy theorist. (What did I just watch?!)* Uh? stars?

------------------------------

--- Monstervision w/ Joe Bob Briggs: Coma

*Joe Bob has on his gloriously un-politically correct rebel flag western shirt (Joe Bob is just too un-PC for current tv) & he does a funny editorial on the world's obsession with wrapping the everyday garbage products we produce & consume up with so much other wrapping that there's no real garbage anymore just the plastic we used to hold all the crap we consumed.

*TNT had such a hard on for E.R. coming to TNT, Joe Bob says that's the reason the first flick is E.R. creator Michael Crichton's "Coma"

*Drive In totals: 77 dead bodies... 8 breasts 2 living 6 dead (censored)... Brain slicing kidney weighing.. vegetable handling.. organ donating.. plastic covered peni (Devious look on Joe Bob's face as he says this).. death by electrocution... gratuitous New England antiquing... fire extinguisher fu.. cadaver fu..

*Huggies ad w/ a baby parachuting out of a plane thru fluffy clouds. Don't diapers sell themselves? Babies are cute, sure, but is this to convince new parents of that fact & to make the awful reality of changing shitty diapers not have them wanting to put their brat up for adoption?

*Dennis Miller for dollar collect calls & being a smug asshole. Only good thing that he ever did was Weekend Update on SNL, & Norm was better at it. Fallon & Tina not my choice...Colin Quinn pretty okay...

*Fisher Price Rescue Mission toddler action figures ad... Huh? This isn't Saturday morning cartoon commercial breaks? This is after 11pm TNT. Why the ads for kids & their parents?

*A dog dreams about bacon in the classic "Beggin Strips" commercial. I think this would not be politically correct now either. Dogs can't eat bacon because their owners have to feed them liberal nazi approved gluten free & non-processed healthy meat dog food. Surely no bacon, a little chicken (no hormones) & they'd just love to take meat away from dogs & make them vegans. They don't go that far yet, but PETA probably does with their pets.

*Leann Rimes (sp?) croons the classic country song "Blue" while images of picturesque Maine play in a Red Lobster commercial. Nice combo.

*An ad about the type of toothbrush (Oral B) a dentist uses, & so should you. Dentists also have free access to all the high tech dental cleaning & surgery tools in their office, so why does it matter that they use a certain toothbrush at home? It doesn't.

*WCW's "The Giant" has nostrils so big that he could inhale most normal size people. Check him out on TNT's WCW Monday Nitro.

*Ikea turns a subway train into a kitschy living space for the daily grind passengers. Ikea furniture also is the decor of one of the sub levels of Hell.

*Joe Bob reads from the "trashy" novel version of Coma while he sips from his Budweiser covered in a TNT logo coozy.

*Another of the countless "never need another" "get back to your outdoor life" allergy rx ads. I wonder if evolved alien civilizations, out there in the stars, still deal w/ allergy problems on their planets filled w/ lush plant life...

*Firestone helps a young college age guy & his dog get back out on the road of life in his beat up convertible. "Saved money too." Sure, mechanics aren't rip off artists.

*Visit the TNT website for NBA news, a Babylon 5 chatroom (you were a legit nerd if you were on a chat site like this in the 90s, not a hipster nerd), even a Monstervision page

*$1.99 Disney toys in Happy Meals has a future out of the closet broadway kid putting on a living room show, along w/ his sister, for his parents who are too cheap to buy real toys or cook an actual healthy dinner for their kids. Harsh, but whatever.

*Kevin Nealon, another Weekend Update SNL alumni, sells out to a collect call ad.

*Antz, one of the early CGI Pixar style movies. Has some of the charm, if I'm remembering correctly, of those CGI cartoon movies for kids, not as obnoxious as most, but the animation hasn't aged well (imo).

*Monks avoid breaking their vow of silence by chewing "Beano" before eating gassy salads at dinner. First semi clever & funny & not despisable ad of the night.

*Digitally restored, & w/ dvd style extras, episodes of Star Trek coming to 1990s Sci Fi channel hosted by Shatner.

*Joe Bob has an I.V. drip ran into his beer to keep with the medical theme.

*Joe Bob makes a joke about Dustin Hoffman being a midget who has to wear platform pimp shoes. ha

*Two patronizing ads to talk about. One w/ a less manly man who needs to get a mid sized Sonoma pick up truck like a "real man." Another about a old maid going to Tru Value to pick up (not truck) a can of paint to match her cat's furball.

*Eggo's new microwave pancakes (I'm sure they're edible?) make a dad believe he's a short order breakfast cook at a greasy spoon diner. One where truckers show up in a family's kitchen in the morning. If truckers are showing up in your kitchen, uninvited, it's not for griddle cakes. It's cause you're gettin' raped.

*Wanna check out what whitebread 90s peoples looked like, view this "So easy to use, no wonder it's #1" America Online 1 800 number commercial

*"Come see the softer side of SEARS" Short story, every time I used to go to the mall ,I somehow ended up entering thru the SEARS appliance section. So, first I was greeted by refrigerators, washers, dryers, color tvs (Dire Straits, wink). The softer side, the SEARS clothing section, was way off in another part of the mall. Some tucked away corner. By the time that I was there, mall anxiety was really getting to me. I wanted to Tom Savini "Dawn of the Dead" special fx kill a few mall motherfuckers. Not really. I'm more timid & just wanted to run back out the way I came thru all the appliances.

*Joe Bob talks about Rip Torn being a good ole Texas boy & having starred in an episode of I Love Lucy. Joe Bob doesn't really like Lucy (me either) but feels like he's seen every episode (me too for some reason).

*Joe Bob blames Nick at Nite for classic tv osmosis, & says we're better off watching "hick at nite." I definitely digged TNT's Monstervision & 100 % Weird, but there were a few late nite Nick at Nite shows worth watching like F-Troop & Dobie Gillis among others

*"Get back to the groovy 60s" w/ flower power & free love? No. McDonald's Big-Macs & fries instead. The secret sauce is almost as good as sex & for 49 cents, the same price a burger was in 1969, I'm in. Don't take the brown acid or Grimace will really freak you out, mannnn!

*Kinkos guido competitors think it's better to have comedy than color printing. Not a bad ad going off one viewing & not having it ran into the ground like tv ads' fate goes.

*"Smile you got French's Smile you got fun." French's mustard. Smile you got heartburn. Smile you got a nasty yellow stain on your white t-shirt. Points for the dog, in the ad, w/ a whole hotdog held sideways in his mouth w/out swallowing. That had to have lasted all of 2 seconds. Dogs swallow everything whole in seconds.

*Cute commercial w/ live bears dressed up like a mama bear & her school aged children little bears. She dresses them up in backpacks & sends them off into the woods to go to school. She packs a lunch of rice krispie treats in wrappers. Bears & people food don't mix. The bears probably destroyed the set to eat all the sticky candy & mauled a few school children once they got to school.

*Motorola phones & pagers give NYC hipster yuppies "wings." It's a fashion model / actress who attended suit & gown parties while also keeping it real w/ her across town jeans & t-shirt boyfriend. Not sure how many regular folks had a cell phone at this point. Pagers were pretty popular yet ghetto.

*Campbells tries to give moms the delusion that their teenage sons will leave the bedroom & the Playstation long enough to have a family meal in the kitchen.

*Hip Hop tapdance meets RiverDance meets the Salsa dance in a TOPS appliance ad. Why they needed to spice up an appliance store grand opening is just a sign of the popularity of River Dance crap at this point in the 90s.

*TimeWarner cable, it's like a bagel penetrated by the Empire State building. No, really, that's the image they put on the screen. Not sexual subliminal at all, wink wink. Either that or they're saying, "Fuck you, New York, pay your overpriced TimeWarner cable bill, 'cause we got our figurative giant dick up your ass!"

*Joe Bob claims to have been kicked out of a convent of nuns. Fox in the hen-house.

*I think it's important to view these old (not too old) ads, because the sinister hand appears, & is more visible given the historical context. It shows that sinister hand has always been around trying to make the world outside the hamster wheel seem prettier than it really is.

*Wear Target clothes & look like a model photographed in stunning black & white photography Yep.

*Tony Danza is the boss of fifty percent off collect calls. These collect calls ads were the pathetic celebrity precursor to things like Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice & Dancing w/ the Stars.

*Preview for James Garner in a TNT original movie along with Kathleen Turner. Ted Turner had a real hard on for old actors like Garner.

*A Geico car insurance fairy ad. Geico were already torturing people at this point? Hmmm.

*Another Geico ad w/ a business guy bumming a ride on the back of a chicken truck w/ feathers flying in his mouth & all over the place. Quirky, but still Geico, & they've worn out their welcome long ago.

*Joe Bob & Reno the Mail Girl discuss Bill Clinton lowering the standards of America's women w/ his flawed Southern charm & looks.

*"Words instead of letters" to the tune of "Sweet nuthins" on Motorola Wings pagers. The era of text messages has begun. Interesting ad for historical purposes.

*A pretty lady leans out of the darkness, turns on a light, & says "Do you see the tar stains on my teeth or smell the tobacco on my breath?" Well, no I don't have smell-o-vision & whatever happened to Targon mouthwash? Smokers just don't give a shit anymore. The rising price of smoking (health, money, & legally) has worn smokers down.

*Clairol hair color. Coloring one's hair can make that person feel like a "natural wo-man."

*Joe Bob thinks that the TNT censors are out to blur comatose boobs because they mistakenly think the sight of them will make people wanna screw nekkid corpses.

*Joe Bob ridicules the plot holes & foolishness involving bumbling security guards & a heroine who is clued in but clueless.

*Coma: A sleuthing surgeon almost sinks trying to stop a corrupt hospital conspiracy of organ harvesting for profit & having a social climbing coworker boyfriend (Michael Douglas) who doesn't, til almost her end, believe her conspiracy.*

running from 2 to 2 1/2 stars for Coma, 3 for Joe Bob, & 1 1/2 for the ads

--------------------------------

The Young Turks: Fox News's War On... Sharks *Clear the waters, sharks, people are number 1.* 2 stars (edit years later: I used to occasionally get news from the turds at Turks. how dumb.)

Public Access: "Live TV Prank Calls To Pro-911 Communist Public Access Host" (youtube) *Bluff & guff.* either 1/2 or 1 star

James Randi & Psychic Crime Solving *Police don't officially use psychics but often rely on their illogical detective work.* either 1/2 (what'd you expect? other than sensational lies by the psychic. which this time didn't happen. therefore dull reading.) or 3 stars

==== The Comfort Zone w/ Ray Comfort:

"Ray Comfort's New Homosexuality Movie" ("Audacity" ha...)

*"People were begging" this Aussie sounding evangelical, Kirk Cameron's buddy, the guy who debated, along with Kirk, atheists.

They were begging him to make a movie about gay ole homosexuality in the non-happy sin sense.

He's also infamous for a video where he talks about evolution & creation using a banana as an example.*

runs from 1 to close to 2 stars

(He's rather polite & there's not a lot of hate towards gays as usual w/ these things.)

(edit, years later:

when you're a shitlib supporter of gay rights, you put them up on a pedestal.

not realizing how truly degenerate they are.

this is way before I saw pics of what really goes on at pride parades.

where oral & anal sex takes place on the street along w/ half naked men in leather & clown outfits performing spankings & bondage acts.

many times, other non-gay themselves equal rights, for queers, supporters (like i was) would bring their families (including children) there to support these pride marches. that's a folly that should open more eyes. not sure it does when one is that blinded w/ the mindset of "don't judge" & "love is love"... ugh... smh in disgust & shame

here I was poking fun at a dumb evangelical (man of faith in a faithless world. an easy target.) & his banana folly

while thinking anyone else was intolerant or ignorant for holding onto tradition in the face of such odd & socially dysfunctional behavior.

forgive me.)

================================================================================

Conan on TBS: James Bobo Fay Got His Hands On Sasquatch Semen *Bobo is willing to "take one for the team" of bigfoot hunters. In the name of pseudo-science & love.* 2 1/2 stars

Kenny vs. Spenny: Who Is Cooler? *Kenny overdosing on black tar heroin or Spenny, Kenny's caring nurse, dressed up like a "Greek rapist" (Johnny Depp)? The obvious loser gets locked in a cold meat locker.* close to 3 stars

"Fan Made Dominos Pizza Commercial featuring a fake The Undertaker" *Okay, so it's the Summer of 1992? It's a few months before the World Wrestling Federation pay per view wrestling show "Summerslam." Beware though The Undertaker has been missing for months. That's not the strange part, no, the strange part is that The Naked Gun's Leslie Nielsen had been out searching for him in vignettes. Dominos pizza was the sponsor. Here, some real nerds borrow a vhs camcorder, their Dominos delivery gremlin of a car, & a nighttime cemetery to film one of their friends dressed up like their hero, The Under-taker, lurking behind a tree while, in said graveyard, ordering pizza through the power of the darkside? Not exactly sure, but he got them to deliver w/out paying for the pizza & only leaving an autographed picture of himself as a tip.* 3 stars for absurd effort

Look Around You: Food *Vegetable orchestra for the Feast of Saint Frankenstein. Featuring a piping hot casserole made out of recycled & dehydrated food that pushes the fat right out of the skin. Or you could stay home & celebrate your birthday with a delivery medicinal-pizza.* close to 3

"New Orleans Airwaves - The Mystery Morgus Episode" *Serialized & shot on grainy film, circa 1960s, mad science lab hijinks w/ all the gloriously ghoulish trappings.* more than 2 1/2 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*Christian Star Wars: It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for an Imperial lazer beam to penetrate the soul of a believer.* 3 stars

*Anybody Can Make Chili Dogs: Knock on a stranger's door & share the message of love topped w/ a variety of condiments to mask the bland taste of grinded pig's anus packaged in a tube form.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Machine Gun Magic: "They're not for everyone." Just those who can't get enough of that tat-a-tat-tat action.* 1 star

*Police Scanner: The suspect appears to be an obese house-cat.*

either 1/2 a star or fair

*Why Wait For Heaven: The babyboom generation were really susceptible to cult thought & behavior.*

either 1 or 2 1/2 stars (eye opener, I'm now a mindless believer)

-------------------------------------

Manimal: Night of the Beast *Simple bear necessities of wildnerness life trying to be corrupted & turned into a casino resort for the mafia. Robert Englund (not quite Freddy just yet) vs. Manimal. There's a destructive claw, in the movie, but it's not Freddy's. It's Manimal in a ridiculous looking bear suit.* 2 1/2 stars

Men Without Hats - Safety Dance (Literal Version) *"Whack a midget's ass."* 2 1/2 stars for literal 3 stars for original

Angry Video Game Nerd: Seaman for Dreamcast *It has Leonard Nimoy. It eats time & knowledge. It says / does "fuck." It's not logical... or is it? (Cue creepy sci fi music)* 3 stars

The Young Turks: Man Breaks Leg Attempting To Rape Horse *Sadly "it wasn't his first "rodeo"..."* 1 star

Hannibal: Fromage *Lures & lutes. Hannibal gets into a kung fu showdown w/ a fellow serial killer.*

3 stars

Penn & Teller Bullshit!: PETA & Eat This! *Ethical? No. Infact, insanely evil. Emaciated? Yes. ------ Stop expecting results. Start exacting change. Avoid batshit crazy activists at all cost. They'd starve us all.* 3 stars

---- Memory Hole:

*I'm Obese Song: Just tryna tell you people that I'm messed up.* 3 stars

*Meatsack Worshipers: It puts the cow tongue on its skin or else it won't ever get Fritos again.* close to 3 stars

*Salad Tossers: Hidden Valley's behind closed doors food fetishes.* 2 1/2 stars

*Satan's Dinner Prayer: Dig in, hooves first.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Dance Til U Puke: Achy Breaky Rappers never die. They cry "unbutton my fly."* 3 stars

---------------------

"Munchies" (1987) *Roger Corman produced Gremlins ripoff starring Harvey Korman as a polyester sleazeball bumbling villain. Exists in a quirky America similar to Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks."* running from 2 down to 1 1/2 stars

---- Reel Wild Cinema w/ Sandra Bernhard : Supernatural Sirens

*Creepy Mexican 1940s Universal Horror looking horror short called "Curse of the Crying Woman." Pretty darn creppy, and much more depraved than Universal Horror.

*Sandra wants to slap a bitch (The Crying Woman) & then go get a massage (ha)

*Sandra says not to mess with the hearts of Texas witches or sell your soul to Hollywood

*"The Naked Witch" a story about Bruce Campbell's hipster twenty something year old uncle riding the backroads of Texas, in the 1960s, accidentally bringing back to life buried & vengeful femme fatales. while all the time narrating to himself about it.

*Sandra drops some info about the director of "Naked Witch" filming another flick called "Naughty Dallas" in a strip club owned by Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin Jack Ruby

*Comedian Dana Gould joins Sandra to talk about capes, masks, & restraining orders.

*Sandra gives a hilarious history lesson on Mexican imports including pain killers, ponchos, various other things from Tijuana, & most of all El Santo horror/sci fi movies

*"Samson vs. The Vampire Women"... Watch as El Santo gets "monkey flipped," then puts a werewolf in a "camel clutch" wrestling submission hold. I love typing that sentence.

*1950s retro ad where a woman shows off her Playtex magic plastic bra as she turns completely invisible, except for her underwear, in a grocery store of all places.

*Dana talks w/ Sandra about his friendship w/ Ed Wood's starlet Vampira (sp?). Great story about how she met a rollerskating Bela Lugosi on Hollywood Boulevard. Ha. awesome.

*"The Girl in the Cage"... a 1960s kooky nudie short minus the nudity. We can watch the kitschy siren paw at her bamboo prison, but no nudity. 'Cause even though we're all adults & this is late night, the Puritans who wouldn't ever watch this, & the kids, whose parents ought to have them in bed by late night tv time, might get offended. Nice jungle girl strip tease, none the less.

*Buy a Viva Santo t-shirt from this 1 800 number ad. Do it before Hot Topic puts it up at their store & makes it not cool to wear anymore. Shortly after, they did.

*Grindhouse coming attractions commercials for "The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman"... "Devil Woman" a cobra charming she bitch flick from Asia.... "Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico" a Frankenstein sexploitation feature....

*No surprise to find out, via the credits, that the show's "Film Doctor" is none other than the director of "Basket Case" & "Frankenhooker"

3 stars for the shorts & 3 stars for Sandra

----------------------------------

--- Crematia's Horrorscopes (old school tv horror host):

*Aries "A man w/ a glass eye will try to catch yours as his rolls under a table"... Not a bad way to meet. "Meet cutes" make me wanna puke. Glass eyes usually make me want to puke, too, This however I like.

*Taurus "A gardener will ask you to propagate. Don't do it. Ask him to fix the latch." If you have to be told not to screw your gardener, you need more than your horrorscope read. Gardeners don't look the way sexless middle aged women imagine them to be. No six-pack & tan. Only a mustache w/ bread crumbs in it. "Fix the latch." He's not a gynecology expert, either, I'm sure. If you can afford a gardener, you can afford a trip to the vagina doctor. We're already asking enough work, at slave wages, from our illegal help.

*Gemini "Cockroaches will stage a counter-revolution in your kitchen." Wouldn't that make the cockroaches already the oppressive regime in one's house if that were so?... No hiding when the lights come on. It's the humans crawling around in the dark trying to throw molotov cocktails in order to get access to the cereal cabinet or the fridge. Are they gonna booby trap cans of roach spray so that it will explode in the human's hands? That sounds more revolutionary than counter-revolutionary.

*Cancer "You'll be given a gift that requires batteries." This had to be tame in order to be on basic tv. But is a sex toy joke being worked in here? Not funny & probably not.

*Leo "A poultry farmer will ask you to do foul things, but you'll chicken out." Okay, maybe I was wrong about the last one not being about a sex toy. This is getting pretty grotesque. "Chickening out" hints at being interested in the first place. I don't know too many women or men who'd have to turn over in their heads the notion of doing foul things w/ a guy who more than likely smells of chicken feces even after bathing. Someone might be in to that. Someone w/out a gag reflex (I don't mean that in an oral sex sense).

*Virgo "A woman will view your clothing w/ disdain & offer you club soda." Bad joke.

*Libra "You'll attend a party that reminds you of a bowl of cereal full of fruits, nuts, & dates." First, you need some fruits & nuts to spice up a party. Aren't dates dried up fruit? Who'd want a dried up date? Not the fruit but an actual romantic interest... Who'd be at a party thinking about cereal? besides a really high stoner who couldn't wait to get back to their apt & watch cartoons....

*Scorpio "You'll be invited to the neighbors for a matzo ball but you won't know what to wear." If you're that culturally ignorant, then wear some of your Nazi memorabilia attire.

*Sagittarius "A grammarian will make rude comments about your dangling participle" that's pretty clever, I guess. unless your sexual partner is the grammarian.

*Capricorn "A fisherman will invite you to dinner. Go just for the halibut." Stay to look at his small dinghy. Surprised that she didn't say that too.

*Aquarius "A foreigner will misinterpret your body language & take you up on an offer." What's w/ all the references to stumbling into a bad sexual situation? People who follow the nonsense of the zodiac must be really paranoid about rape.

*Pisces "A phrenologist will ask to look at your wife's bumps." He's a doctor of small bumps. He's not a plastic surgeon wanting to give your wife bigger boobs.

Crematia has a dirty mind.

2 1/2 stars

---------------------------

GoodBadFlicks.com : "Bad Channels" *Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" radio airwaves alien panic meets early 1990s rock & roll cheese plus Full Moon Horror productions animatronics special fx work. Starring quirky & energetic MTV vj Martha Quinn.* close to 3 stars for the review

Idiot Box starring Alex Winter: Episode 1 *Raw animal urges & accounting.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Clerks TV Show Pilot (Disney) 1995 *So sanitized, Silent Bob would have Tourettes trying to sit through it. Jim Breuer would fit in pretty well w/ Jason Mewes.* close to 2 stars

The Daily Show w/ Craig Kilborn: 1996 Bill Clinton & Bob Dole Presidential Debate Coverage *Kilborn struggles to connect w/ the studio audience (I believe there was one & it wasn't just the crew laughing. Or maybe it was. Often quiet.. only minimal laughing noise). The correspondents of the Daily Show invade their first of many major political events. You could tell that the major news journalists didn't really know how to react to it. Nothing interesting to report from the snoozer debate. News of Sammy Hagar fired from Van Halen. A funny bit called "Tesh History" that I forgot about & remember liking back in the day. Craig interviews old school entertainers Joe Balogna & his wife Renee Taylor.* 2 stars

Nickelodeon Arcade (featuring the stars of Nick's Salute Your Shorts) *Donkey Lips & Buttlick (the redheaded scumbag pal of Edward Furlong in Terminator 2) go to a gameshow arcade ran by a quirky black dude in a colorfully loud shirt. The type of arcade that moms imagine. Ones w/ a green screen like on the weather channel & where kids wear bike helmets plus elbow & knee pads just to be safe.* 2 1/2 stars (fond childhood memory)

Reading Rainbow: The Salamander Room (1994) *LeVar visits a NYC zoo rainforest enclosure. Much love to Lynne Thigpen who was the voice of reading the story. An unsung hero of the show. Also, there's a reason the theme song is stuck in many an adult's head years & years after never hearing the song again. Good reason that is.* 3 stars

James Randi debunks an aura reader (youtube) *The aura reader had to pick out the auras or actually sillhouettes of strangers behind a thin white sheet. 2 out of 5 ain't bad, given it's all a game of chance & aura reading is bullshit. But, if I were the aura reader, I would claim that the 1920s style barbershop quartet top hats threw off their chakras.* 2 stars

---- TV Carnage:

*Seamless: On Dr. Phil, today a murder confession, tomorrow the tale of a clutterbug.* 3 stars

*The Bottom Line Is Nice Hair! No Matter How You Get It!: "There's a new you waiting" & he has teased bangs but no bald spot.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Your Inner Piece: If you are wise, you won't let a white guy wanna be yoga master (yogi) put you into all kinds of awkward stretching positions that resemble sex positions.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Women Look Amazing When They Fight: Noogies & short shorts. I miss America's Roman gladiatorial days of sexist lady athletics.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sylvia Dogs Do Rule Heaven: Saint Peter has a St. Bernard.* 2 stars

----------------------

Beavis & Butthead: Don't Call Me Dude - Scatterbrain *If you don't know the dude, it's rude.* 2 stars w/ riffing close to 2 stars w/out

Uncharted Zone: Gemma Cretella - Thesis Antithesis Synthesis *Pretentiously wordy hipster techno music white rapper.* 1 1/2 stars

Robocop: Zone Five *This series continues to borrow heavy from Batman & Frank Miller. There's a drug hitting the streets of Old Detroit that's similar to The Joker's laughing gas. The bureaucrats have turned a section of the most crime ridden part of the city over to vigilantes who secretly are the criminals supplying the drug. There's a psychiatrist agreeing w/ the criminals & he's a lot like Dr. Crane in Batman Begins. Robocop's son almost gets corrupted by the vigilantes, similar to a lot of Robin stories.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Rifftrax versus 70's Commercials from CBS's presentation of the Star Wars Holiday Special *"Always look for the union label" & the "extreme melodrama."* 3 stars w/ riffing 2 1/2 stars w/out

Occult Demon Cassette presents "Never Be A Victim" (1990s Stranger Danger) *Be alert, aware, & filled w/ awful anxiety. Has friendly Irish-Canadian police officer Jim scared the shit out of you, w/ his helpful hints about the horrific, yet or not?* either 1 or 2 stars

"Madman" (1982) w/ commentary from cast & crew *Trends don't always have to be a bad thing. Following in the footsteps of Friday the 13th & Halloween, some young, determined filmmakers scrounge together enough resources to take a camp legend & turn it into another great entry into the early days of the 80s slasher genre.* 3 plus stars w/ commentary 3 stars w/out

American Gothic: Inhumanitas *To living we owe respect. To the dead we owe the truth. To the devil, Lucas Buck, a crooked lawyer owes money & also a corrupted preacher owes his soul.* close to 3 stars or 1 1/2 stars for the horrible CGI / unintentionally funny scene of a poor, old, black man's head on the body of the angel sister pretending to be a waitress.

"Warlock Moon" w/ audio commentary from Joe Bob Briggs *According to Joe Bob, San Francisco & Austin indie filmmakers may have traded ideas about turning the classic children's fable "Hansel & Gretel" into a horror flick. He suspects much marijuana was smoked in the process (ha). San Francisco produced this one, Warlock Moon, which Joe Bob says should have went by its other, much better title "Blood Spa." The Austin connection makes it very similar to & almost a sister film of "Saw" (Texas Chain, that is).*

3 stars w/ commentary & 2 stars w/out

The Higgins Boys & Gruber: Skinny Wizard *Tired of spending your weekend either jamming out to metal in your kitchen/den/living room combo or going to the mall w/ your devil worshiping friend Thad? Straighten up, thanks to The Parents Coalition for Good Tunes.* 2 1/2 stars

Jerry Springer: "I'm In Love With A Gay Vampire" *You'd think that it'd be a drain, but they're great emotional & spiritual support in a relationship or affair.* 1 star

Duran Duran: Rio (Literal Video Version) *"Sweet air saxophone dude, dude, dude, dude..."*

running from 2 to close to 2 1/2 starsw/ literal & close to 2 1/2 stars for actual

"Dirty Shary" ---xxx--- (1985) *She's got a 44. No, not a handgun. A 44 double d breast size & she's using it to somehow help take down a white slavery sex ring.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Cheaters: Anesthesiologist Finds Cougar Wife Cheating *Menopause shouldn't mean a skanky girls nite out addict should pause gettin' some from douchebag hunks just 'cause her hubbie specializes in dulling sensitivity.* zero stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell *"Leaves behind the "great" smell of brute." Joel also leaves behind a great legacy, fleeing in an escape pod after this awful movie. This movie is more anti-drug idiotic than Reefer Madness. Joe Don runs around being a supposed to be loveable drunk, but isn't, always chugging a six pack & shooting first or causing someone else's violent demise, even at one point an innocent helicopter cop partner. However, he's on his moral high horse in forced comedic interactions w/ his high class escort girlfriend who he's always shoving around & hauling off to jail for a small amount of marijuana. Hypocritical. That's on top of the rest shit movie smeared in 70s era country western trucker lowlife swagger Americana b.s. (not just in the also awful soundtrack & not in any cool way).*

more than 2 stars w/ Joel's last MST3K riff & 1 star w/out

5 Dollar Wresling: Storm Maverick, Your Next 5 Dollar Wrestling Superstar *He body slams his pillow, even though it's also his amigo, on his grandma's living room floor.* close to 3 stars

--- TBS Commercials May 12, 1988 (Part 3 on Youtube) ran during the Superstation Movie Presentation of "The Savage Bees":

*The announcer lady talks about how Thursday at 8:00pm prime time, TBS will be showing The Dirty Dozen w/ Lee Marvin & Ernest Borgnine. That shows the huge difference in old school TBS & modern "Very Funny" TBS. The Dirty Dozen is very manly whereas TBS's modern primetime lineup of "Big Bang Theory" is very unmanly.

*Preview for Frank Sinatra as a guest on Larry King Live on sister network CNN.

*80s mallrat tween girls dance about because Lee 'Press On Nails' have just been made for smaller hands.

*Partly animated Murine earwax removal system commercial. My grandparents were of the Depression/WW2 generation. By the late 80s, they were already retired & living comfortably. Products & ads like this remind me so much of their medicine cabinet. TBS reminds me of them, as well. Old war movies, westerns, & Americana sitcoms / dramas.

*A New York Giants linebacker, in full gear, in his locker room spraying athletes foot cure spray on his toes. The brand is NP-27, & the can couldn't have a more generic yellow & red color scheme design or bland logo. Probably why the product didn't last...

*Sleepinal to help 80s adults fall asleep fast. The milquetoast ad man for Sleepinal puts me to sleep just looking at & hearing speak.

*Quirky promo for prehistoric time travel feature "The Land that Time Forgot" on Grandpa Munster's Super Scary Saturday on the Superstation.

*Remember those old Time Life music compilation commercials? The ones where some forgotten entertainer would stand alone in a studio & sing a few lines from each of their hit songs? Well, here's one for "Get the Very Best of Ray Stevens" & Ray is at his best (worst?) as he sings his tunes while dressed up in costumes fitting each silly song. Whitetrash variety

*"Munster, Go Home" promo coming on Saturday afternoon on the Superstation.

Ah, I so miss old school TBS Superstation

A very biased for nostalgia reasons 3 stars

------------------------------------------------------

Extended Play on Tech TV 10/12/2001? *Extended Play was such a better name than X Play. X for xtreme, I guess, sounds like something a group of smarmy ad people sat around & did focus groups to come up with a "cool" title. Adam Sessler a thick head of spiky Billy Idol hair too. There's also no nerd sex object Morgan Webb to lust over. Talk with a visionary computer gaming studio ,Xulu, who wanted to have a realistic space travel simulator. Sad news that the already dead, at the time, Sega Dreamcast wouldn't be getting Shenmue 2, & instead X Box would. Preview for the classic, cute, & addictive "Super Monkey Ball."* 2 stars

Cracked.com : Why 28 Days Later is Secretly About Sex *Everything in this running zombies(? infected?) flick is a metaphor over frustration about humans' urges surrounding fucking.* either 1 star or 3

Brass Eye: Science *Some people say that heavy electricity isn't real. Those people aren't idiots or celebrities looking to be cool standing up for a cause they pretend to understand.* more than 2 1/2 stars

Forbidden Transmission 2: Cultural Fallout *Let's all smoke pot, dat damn fried chicken, do fag stuff. Shucky ducky, quack quack. Grab a slut & pee in her butt* 3 stars

Max Headroom: Baby Grobags *Planned Parenthood presents Baby Grobags from the makers of Hot Pockets. These bundles of joy are smarter than a 5th grader & an adult.* 2 1/2 stars

--- Cinema Insomnia w/ Mr. Lobo: Bigfoot, Mysterious Monster

*Retro 1970s ad for Mattel's Creepy Crawlers 'Thingmaker 2' from an era when little girls wore granny sized eye glasses. Awesome.

*Some 1960s era Go-Go dancing w/ upskirt shots of nice legs in pantyhose & white jungle babes.

*Mr. Lobo wants the viewer to suspend disbelief for the "Godfather of Grunge" Bigfoot

*1950s sci fi film star Peter Graves comes on camera, very grim, to tell the viewers of the film about its earnestness in documenting the truth about Bigfoot (snicker) & to warn them of the horror (let the exploitation begin).

*Vintage trailer for King Kong vs. Godzilla. In it, an American scientist talks about how King Kong's brain is bigger. Go America, boo Japan! Our monster is smarter. But did we not kidnap Kong from Skull Island in the Pacific? Shhh! He's a Yankee, now!

*Lobo & Graves both talk about the Loch Ness monster. Of course, Lobo does it more tongue in cheek. Loch Ness vs. Bigfoot... about as close as we could actually come to King Kong vs. Godzilla. That is if all the crazies are right & reality isn't.

*Parody of those old soft rock romance cd ads that would play on t.v. This one is for cult sci fi character Krankor. For only 9 payments of $9.99 own Candles, Krankor, & You. It will make you want to hug your significant other on a sunset beach while the waves gently break on your feet. Ah... romantic.

*Nice bumpers for Cinema Insomnia using old cartoons. One has a giant, angry motor oil can chasing a cute something or other...

*Lobo is keeping up w/ the latest crypto weirdo through UFO magazines & such.

*Graves tries to pass off modern lizards' ties to ancient times, including the funny little running on two legs lizard complete w/ wacky sound effects, to prove the possibility of Sasquatch... He's no Darwin.

*1950s ad for Gravy Train dog food "Makes it's own gravy" & "looks like beef stew" if you believe Johnny, the hound's owner. Go ahead, Johnny, take a bite. You know you wanna.

*"This could be your terror!" "This could be your city!" so it says in a vintage trailerf or Rodan. The early days of the atomic age had people actually wondering if that were true or not. Or at least shelling out a nickel or dime to see monster carnage.

*American history lesson on Sasquatch. He ("they") migrated from Asia. Oh, no, don't tell Donald Trump. Also, a Brit team, in the 1800s, possibly captured a young one & named it "Jacko." Hmm... a young, repressed weird boylike creature named "Jacko"... Why am I reminded of a chimp named "Bubbles" & a pursuit of The Elephant Man's bones...

*Lobo is having stomach problems out in a park restroom on his hunt for Bigfoot. He'll find another big, hairy manlike creature instead. The North American Gay Bear fetishist.

*Gigantis, the Fire Monster trailer. Bigfoot as an excuse for all the kaiju krazy

*Graves tries to argue the importance of oral statements on Bigfoot to a scientist. The scientist doesn't buy it. He wants hard scientific evidence. Graves brings up the fact that the courts relied on such testimony. Thank science for physical scientific evidence coming into play more now in the courts. It's not 100 percent perfect, yet, but it's far better than a jury believing the same person, in a real trial of importance, who had earlier given a sworn report on their encounter w/ a mythical creature.

*An adult Bigfoot believer recounts his time out camping w/ his Boy Scout troop when Bigfoot was caught sniffing their underwear late one night. This caused the boys to squeal like a Girl Scout. This only proves that Bigfoot belongs not in the list of known species but instead on that of sex offenders.

*Chilly Dilly "The Personality Pickle" a cartoon pickle spokesperson who looks like Jimminy Cricket. A portable pickle snack. Snacks have come a long long way. Picklemania ran wild.

*Lobo visits w/ the director of "Bloodthirst, the Legend of the Chupacabra." American woodsmen are afraid of Bigfoot & Mexican desertmen(?) fear "Goat Sucker."

*Trailer for the above mentioned flick. Looks very low budget & shot on video. Also like a vampire flick instead of a monster flick. The director explained that he believed the Chupacabra was actually another Mexican/South American legend called the Mocha or something Vampire. He admits fans & critics hated his Chupacabra re-imagining & I can easily see why. It sucks.

*Chocolate Toddy dairy bar snack in a can. It's 1950s white people approved. Mooooooo! The poor dairy bar worker guy. What a lame uniform.

*Suburban Sportsman is odd & I don't know what to make of it. A sort of travelogue of Area 51 conspiracy theorist visiting the base, looking at dead sheep corpses, & then going out on the salt desert to use their high powered pistols to shoot lizards for lunch.

*Again, Cinema Insomnia makes good use of stock footage for their bumpers. Comforting midnight jazz & a moon filmed for some long ago tropical flick now shown in timelapse sliding across the night's horizon. Doing late night tv, right.

*Escape from the Planet of the Apes trailer. When the apes arrived here via space ship to the astonishment of the U.S. army. The Ancient Aliens tv show guy w/ the crazy hair... He looks like a Tim Burton concept sketch for his Apes failure of a movie.

*Graves visits a psychic detective w/ a Bigfoot plaster cast hidden in a suitcase. The quack guesses correctly. If it weren't obvious that Graves was fucking w/ the viewer, before, it should be now.

*Lobo tries to hypnotize a waitress into revealing whether or not she served Bigfoot a cup of Joe as one of her countless customers over the years.

*Trailer for the awesome looking stop motion 50s giant monster flick "The Black Scorpion."

*Lame & long winded joke interview w/ a 5th grade teacher about Bigfoot being his former student. Only gets funny w/ a short part about Bigfoot hitting puberty & being smelly.

*1940s looking safety film clip about numbskulls taking risks & turning into grotesque looking figures wearing scary as shit masks from that time period. I think the masks were supposed to make them look like comical fools, but to the modern eye it's ole timey uncanny valley horrifying.

*Lobo sits on a nice pier interviewing Bigfoot's awkward prom date who seems to never have gotten over that night. She claims Bigfoot had a tiny penis.

*Lobo talks w/ Bigfoot's former roommate in college. The hipster playing the part makes sure the shot is framed w/ a Buffy cast photo magazine, a Doctor Who laser disc or vinyl album, & his Superfriends cartoon t-shirt.

*A bunch of hippy investigators went out in the woods w/ tranquilizer guns & cameras to find evidence to force the scientific community to "take a more active role in the hunt for Bigfoot" according to Graves. Also according to Graves, they only came back w/ a handful of fecal matter & hair. Sounds about right. Hippies + or - Bigfoot = Hair + Shit.

either fair or folly for Peter Graves pseudo documentary, 3 stars for Cinema Insomnia's ads & bumpers, more than 2 1/2 stars Lobo, close to fair for the guests

-------------------------------------------------------

Chiller Theater Presents: Doctor Moreau's Happy Pills (youtube) *If only they'd invent a solution to everyday ills.* close to 2 1/2 stars

"Marc Maron Predicts the Future" (youtube) *Doomed, bored, & further restricted. Marc nailed it.* close to 3 stars

Rich Hall: Supermarket Sniglets --1983-- (youtube) *Made up words that should be in the dictionary. An early urban dictionary, but more cleverly absurd & stomachable & not awful slang related.* close to 3 stars

Bill Maher's "Religulous" *Take it on faith & do it because you've always done it, dammit.*

more than 2 1/2 stars

0 notes