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mediumstrength · 5 months

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SXF MANGA REREAD: CHAPTER 1

The conclusion of the second season has left me alone and bereft please join me as I fill the void.

We start with some bitchin spy action

oh shit

Truly the first few chapters are why I think you see so many people upset about the series settling into a slow burn family comedy. You start off with some juicy Hollywood movie shit here. Assassination! Straight off the bat! Cars careening off bridges! Great stuff.

Now, it’s time for a little quick exposition. We got two countries, they don’t like each other, they are using spies, blah blah.

SHODDY WORLDBUILDING:

In Japanese they are straight up written Eastern Country and Western Country (with “Ostania” and “Westalis”) in furigana. Tatsuya Endo, please.

There is one spy who’s the best tho

Here he is!! It’s our boy!!

He’s bamboozled that bad guy out of those silly pictures!! Time to also be mean to the dude’s daughter.

lol what a dick

A NOTE ON FASHION:

“Robert” is not as fashionable as “Loid,” the double breasted suit was already on the way out in the early 60s (The SXF vibe seems to be early 60s? Except when it isn’t?) being replaced by the single breasted suits we generally see him wearing. Edgar also is wearing a double breasted suit, but he doesn’t seem like the type to worry about fashion trends.

Loid however does seem to really care about looking sharp, and I’m proud of him for that. It’s basically his only non spy-related interest. Maybe someday he will have two interests!

Loid gives Karen a new complex, and then waltzes out of her life. Onto the next mission!

SHODDY WORDBUILDING:

Berlint 😂

On the train to Berlint, Loid learns that he has to become a fake dad for silly bullshit reasons that are vital to world peace. This silly bullshit is called Operation Strix, and it is so, so important. The most important mission ever.

I wonder if there’s some significance to the name Strix? It’s a mythological creature, but also a genus of owl. In Japanese it’s written 梟, which literally means owl, so maybe the mythological part is not intended?? I want to know more.

The early art is weird at times

ON THE SPELLING “LOID”:

I hate it.

The real estate guy asks him if he has a girl or a boy, and he says he doesn’t know yet. I feel like I should hate these jokes where Loid says something mind-blowingly suspicious, but I actually love it every time.

Anyhow! On to step two: secure a child.

Tatsuya Endo has a real talents for making just the most detestable jerks. I love to hate you, drunk shitty orphanage guy!

It’s her!! It’s Anya!! The early art is, again, a little weird here.

The absurdly hard crossword puzzle is such a good gag.

Daughter acquired!

ON THE TRANSLATION “PAPA”:

I love it. There’s no real equivalent to “chichi” in English, so they went with something that means dad, but is also a little weird and a little baby talk-y. Perfect. I watched a couple episodes of a fan sub of the anime, and they translated it as “Daddy” which is cute but is simply not weird enough. Anya is a Weird Little Girl.

Anya immediately begins helping, by acting deeply weird and suspicious. We love it.

I love that Spy Wars is just always on somehow.

Onwards! They go out and do some shopping! Anya is a lot! Loid doesn’t understand her! He goes to his local library about it, which is kind of adorable? And gives an early glimpse into a fundamental aspect of his character. With enough information, Loid can accomplish anything. He is certain of this. He has built his whole life around this concept.

LOID HAS NEVER HAD FUN IN HIS LIFE:

You are accidentally playing hide and seek with your daughter somehow, with no idea that it is even happening. Amazing.

Anyhow he finally barricades her in the fucking house lol

It’s Franky!! I love you, Franky.

He tells Loid that his new kid legally does not exist, and has been returned to the orphanage 4 times, and Loid decides not to look further into any of that. Greatest spy in the west.

Meanwhile Anya is causing problems. I love her.

Edgar is back, which doesn’t make sense because the Edgar stuff was happening in another city, but I guess Edgar is just also in Berlint now for some reason.

We get a brief flashback to Anya’s time as an Eleven-style lab rat, which is sad. What does “studying” entail? I think we will all be sad when we find out ☹️

Loid returns and we are treated to a sick. ass. fight. Loid takes a guy out with a can of tuna. He breaks a chair over a dude’s head. I think there was some commentary from Endo (maybe in Eyes Only?) about how using improvised weapons just hits harder. We know more about cans of tuna than guns or whatever. We can imagine what taking a tuna can to the face would feel like.

What a dick.

Anyhow, Loid bamboozles the same guy with the same trick a second time, bravely rescuing Anya, and now it is time for a sad flashback

Don’t cry, little german boy.

Anyhow, the world where kids don’t cry thing should be so corny, but they really pull it off somehow.

For some reason he decides to walk back into danger and beat those guys up?

When did he have time to set these traps??

Sick

Loid kicks everyone’s asses, and then, there’s Anya waiting for him, and she wants to stay with him. This is the moment. This is the moment where he realized, subconsciously, that he loves her. Consciously is still a work in progress. But like, he already cares about her so much. It’s been been like 2 days, and he’s gone from “I hate kids” to “I can’t abandon this little girl who I callously adopted to use for my own purposes”

(…This is the plot of the Despicable Me, isn’t it?)

This little scene on the streetcar warms my heart. Papa is a cool liar.

Ok, jesus christ this chapter is long. I didn’t realize that we also have getting into Eden happening the first chapter??

Anya takes the entrance exam, her cheating plan, as usual, does not really work out, but she does her best and she passes.

Loid experiences a single moment of relief and collapses 😂 The man is so powered by sheer anxiety that his body doesn’t know how to react.

Anya gets the mail, there is a little cute cuddling, and then, the kicker! We need a mama!!

Chapter rating 4/5

A little too much stuff happens in this first chapter, on reread. The streetcar scene is such a logical ending! The Eden test, and then the subsequent complication of needing 2 parents felt tacked on, almost like that should have been padded out a little and made its own chapter, but also I am eager to get to my girl Yor so 🤷‍♀️

Looking back on some of their earlier interactions, Loid has not been thinking through Strix logically from the start. This kid has no birth certificate, and she has been repeatedly returned to the orphanage like a naughty puppy for no obvious reason. She is (allegedly) 6 and she solved a crossword where one of the words was “symplectomorphism” with no adult assistance?? There are some questions he should be asking here, but instead he’s buying her posters and snacks.

He hasn’t had anything to love in so long, you guys. He’s going to love this kid with everything he has, it’s just going to be a long, long time before he understands that it’s love.

#sxf manga reread #spy x family

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ancientpersacom · 1 year

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My thoughts on G3 dolls so far!

Plus my fav ones so far for reference lol.

And looking at this pic made me realise my bias for cool coloured dolls.

Funny enough of the dolls I have so far from G3 I have more Cleo’s because as a history person I LOVE the Ancient Egypt chic of her clothes.

I think my fav body mould is Draculauras, her short and curvy look is so cute and she’s always got great hairstyles. I also love how tall Frankie is compared to her lol.

All the dolls I have are great quality, so I dunno why people were complaining?? Maybe there was a bad batch over in America or something because here in Australia I’ve had nothing but good quality dolls. I did braid some of my dolls with more textured hair to protect it just in case though. I’ve had no experiences of glue seepage or mis-prints or anything. I like that they have the middle articulation now too, makes them more pose-able.

The fashion is definitely less edgy, but I think that fits in with what alternative fashion is like nowadays. There’s so much more focus on laying and prints when you look at recent alt fashion, and not all alt fashion is head to toe black. I think it’s clear where each characters style is drawing inspiration from (lagoona is the coconut girl/ vsco girl trend, Draculaura is a witchy pastel goth, Frankie has some academia in there etc).

Things I’d like to see in upcoming dolls:

Wire in the Deuces snakes so they’re pose-able

Some lolita influence for the vampires

Even more unique body moulds for upcoming characters

SPECTRA I NEED SPECTRA BACK

Use of transparency and iridescence again

More short hair dolls

A more androgynous look for Frankie (note obviously not all enbies have to be androgynous I mean I still wear dresses from time to time. But Frankie being enby opens doors to explore gender fluid fashion on dolls)

Dolls based on the live action looks.

Honestly I don’t really have anything bad to say, I guess some of the accessories are a bit plain but it’s not like you can’t work them into a cool look. And some of the thicker shoes like sneakers are a BITCH to put on and off bc they’re so stiff. Other than that I’m actually very pleased with G3 dolls so far.

#monster high #monster high g3 #g3 monster high #monster high dolls #monster high doll #monster high fandom #monster high reboot #monster high 2022 #monster high series

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thelivingmemegod · 8 months

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Thoughts on the outfits from the Monster High live action movies (this is gonna be a long post I can already feel it)

I’m working off promo shots cuz I’m Not watching these movies my head would explode.

Toralei: she’s first cuz she’s only in the one movie.

I like most of her outfit. Her skirt feels out of place because the colors and print feel random. Nothing else like that shows in her outfit so it looks a bit…off. This could honestly just be fixed with more drafts

Frankie

Movie one:

G E T THIS PARTY CITY, HALLOWEEN SPIRIT PLASTIC CHAIN HAVING MF-ERY OUT OF HERE P L E A S E. The worst part about their outfit is that it’s so fuckin’ plain??? Like the dress is completely patternless, the chains do pull the eye down but they’re also placed so they hang over the front and not their hip which looks SUPREMELY awkward, the tie is the most eye catching thing on them and that’s bad because it pulls too much focus from their face! The stiff collar shirt, tights and shoes are just fine, I like the idea of them trying to mix these very different looks and the ripped tights pull interest to the legs after the VOID OF NOTHINGNESS THAT IS THE PINAFORE DRESS.

Movie two:

This. This is SO MUCH BETTER.

While it’s not quite to my personal taste, as an outfit this is wayyy better. The vibrant neons on a black background is pretty tried and true and it looks pretty dang good here too! Like the color choices but the placements really make it here. The neon green strips around the arms and neck don’t pull focus from their face but they do pull it down to the rest of the outfit! The weird fishnet shirt underneath (while not my favorite) works with their belts and bracelets to pull the eye down, the belt chain and zipper detailing on their cargo pants continue the trend, then you hit their platforms and the silver/white parts pull you RIGHT back up to their hair. I also love the mix of punk and prep they did here with the crop sweater vest and the cargo pants. Overall: Wonderful, wouldn’t change much about it.

Draculuara

Movie one:

Aside from how cheap it looks, I don’t hate the basics. It also doesn’t fail the interest curve like Frankie’s first outfit. The pink isn’t very well dispersed and mostly focused on the top half of her (her hair, puff sleeves, neckline and belt). I will admit they did a good job keeping her outfit and skin from clashing (in promo at least).

Then you get to the small void of her skirt. If you just take the end lace and make that the same color as her under shirt, belt or necktie you’d be so much better off. Personally I would’ve given her a few different thin petticoats in different shades of pink so that A. Her dress would look fuller and either exaggerate her A-line and break her up from Clawdeen and B. Give her movement and more variation. When she moves or sits, you’d see all the shades of pink peaking out from under her skirt.

I say different shades of pink because it would also pull in her light pink Maryjane’s (her shoes) I only think they work because of her wearing tights, otherwise they’re the same color as her skin. I personally would’ve gone with lace socks (lace tights exist I just think that would’ve been too much)

Movie two:

This outfit shows what I was talking about with her skirt from the last one. It also shows what I meant with her pink colors clashing with each other. In promo for the second movie, her frock coat (the jacket dress), hair and skin are all fighting each other. It makes her hair look faded, her skin look washed out and her frock coat look VIOLENTLY PINK.

It works on Frankie with their blue because A. It’s used way less and B. it’s a different tone from their skin.

Draculaura’s is fighting with her.

Now the underside of her dress is also why I’d use several shades of pink, cuz that just looks flat.

This one might be more of a me problem, but her shoes are violently pink but they’re the wrong *shade* of violent pink which bothers me.

I do love the pink panel and buttons on her frock coat and her heart belt. Looks like the vampire heart from Frights, Camera, Action.

Cleo isn’t in movie 2 promos for some reason so movie one only-

Party city is once again the problem.

I. Structurally it’s not bad. There’s interest throughout and it’s technically on theme. This outfit is bad because it feels misfit to the person wearing it and it looks cheap.

Her skirt looks like a bathmat, her wraps look weirdly…dirty? Like they don’t look like old wraps, they look like dirty gold silks, which she’d NEVER wear. Also why do they tie twice?? And why do the hanging ties look like a completely different material from the rest of the wrap??

Her jewlery is dull in color and looks very floaty and light all contributing to the cheap costume-y, party city look.

Her shoes are fine, they’re a different shade of blue but that doesn’t really matter here.

Another thing I think makes it look like Not-Cleo is that there’s not enough asymmetry. The wraps G1 Cleo had on her arms gave a ton of nice looking asymmetry that was added onto by bangles or purses. G1 Cleo does have looks without these and they’re more symmetrical, but they’re the exception, not the rule. She’s also just not accessorized as much as I think Cleo would be.

BIG SECTION INCOMING I HAVE FUCKING THOUGHTS BABY

CLAWDEEN WOLF:

Movie one:

What. What the FUCK is this mess. It’s so busy. So busy.

There’s no interest anywhere because it’s too damn busy. EVEN HER FUCKING SHOES ARE BUSY. The fur coat is completely and totally unnecessary in this outfit, it shouldn’t be here. Put it on something ELSE.

Her belts feels like a slap in the face because it’s an ATTEMPT to separate the patterns of her skirt and shirt, but one is ALSO PATTERNED and one is a whole different texture. And they’re both too thin to help anyways! I hate this.

Not that making it chunkier would exactly help this awful decision. I want to delete this skirt so badly- there’s no reason for it to be patterned like this, they just WANTED TOO.

I give the move shirt a pass because she’s a lost kid and her only connection point is the moon. So okay, that’s fine. If you can explain to me why the skirt and shoes and patterned like that beyond “she’s a werewolf!” Then I’ll eat a fuckin shoe or something I just-

Movie two:

Better. Quite a bit better.

I don’t love that they got rid of the only pattern that made any sense for her character. Especially since she’s supposed to beefing with the cat girl, yet she’s wearing a cheetah print skirt. The belt is chunkier and does a way better job separating things out, it also pulls the color of her jacket’s fur trim in-I don’t like that color here, but it works.

Speaking of! Her jacket is no longer an offense to fashion, it’s much more tasteful with just a purple fur trim. As for the color…her whole outfit is honestly very cold shades of purple, and they don’t mix that well together. Mostly the skirt vs the jacket. There’s also not enough interest all out, the skirt pattern is eating it all up so your eye is just drawn to the lower middle of her body rather then her face because purple curls are blending with the jacket.

Her shoes are super inoffensive.

I hate these so bad in part because Clawdeen is supposed to be into fashion isn’t she??? (Unless they changed that) She’d know these things- so it pisses me off some-

#sky rambles #sky talks fashion #monster high live action #I h a t e it. I truly do.

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quite-actually-a-nacho · 2 years

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I tried redesigning Lagoona Blue from the 2022 Monster High live action movie

(they couldn’t even make the quirky blurb sound right. “the bestie with a bite” sounds better 🙄)

so. when I first saw the trailer for Monster High: The Movie (2022), I had trouble trying to find Lagoona. then I searched out promos and YouTube reviews, and was horrified to discover her movie design. compared to other characters—where they at least tried to make them look like their original counterparts—she looked so unlike herself I wouldn’t even begin to think it was her if you told me.

a human skin tone instead of greenish blue, barely noticeable fins—a general lack of obvious sea monster features, and the features that are there are immediately toned down by the fact she looks too human, which is completely not the point of being a sea monster. the outfit they chose for her also makes her look like an Instagram influencer? I can tell what they were going for, but they failed because they seemed to be too scared of accessorizing her more fittingly and made her sorta “normie-fied”. they probably thought going all out would be outdated and cringe or something.

I was devastated. so I took matters into my own hands—I decided I wanted to fix Lagoona Blue’s movie design. she’s one of my favorites, if not my top favorite nowadays because I really love sea monsters. there are so many different ways to design sea monsters, and they did this? lackluster, to say the least!

ta daaaa! before I break it down I feel like I need to pardon myself for being shamefully unaware of many modern fashion trends, but I tried to style her best I could to what’s sorta trendy with da kids these days.

now, if I allowed myself free range, I would’ve designed Lagoona a completely different way. but I decided to challenge myself a little—I wanted to redesign her based on the specific aesthetic the movie wanted, and tried to make it somewhat reasonable enough for a Nickelodeon musical budget.

(above: mood board of collected references, below: breakdown of how I wanted to portray Lagoona)

I’ll start with her outfit. instead of the sporty but stylish beach vibe Lagoona usually has, the movie seemed to gear towards a shiny rainbow appearance, still with a bit of sportiness. I think they want her design to evoke whimsical bubbles and pearls, which they almost achieved, but they simply did not have enough to get that across. I’ve seen several people say how she looks like she’d be the daughter of the unicorn, not a sea monster. in my redesign, I stuck to the pearly pastel mermaid aesthetic but added more things that would make the vibe a little clearer: holographic tank top, pearls and pearlescent jewelry, holo platform sandals, holo hair tie, iridescent lip gloss, pearly rhinestones on iridescent makeup, and pastel “mermaid hair”. I probably could’ve eased up on the holo, but you can tell they wanted her to be colorful. these things at least all evoke whimsical pearliness, when all she used to have were a rainbow mesh shirt, drop earrings, silvery scale short tights, metal octopus bracelet, some other kinda chunky bracelet, and see-through iridescent boots. I love a metal octopus bracelet as much as the next guy but it feels like they threw things together.

the next thing to tackle was adding back more sea monster features. I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t want to paint her skin like other characters. even Frankie got to be greenish blue. maybe they were afraid it wouldn’t fit their new aesthetic for Lagoona? they did give her some features, I’ll give them that. she has purple nails made to look like claws, back leg fins, ear fins (though I didn’t actually notice these for the longest time), and at one point in the trailer she got to show off some CGI monster teeth. but the fins are small and blended into her human skin tone, making them hard to see and honestly kind of ill-fitting. of course, I remedied much of the issues here by giving her back her bluish green color and arm fins. I don’t know if she has sea monster teeth for the whole movie or just the CGI scenes, but if she doesn’t I made sure to show off my version. I also gave her webbed fingers, but honestly I’d let those slip—I can imagine giving someone special FX webbed fingers is probably frustrating and limiting, especially on a lower budget. as a final touch, I added little patches of scales. I figure they could maybe pull this off with just makeup like this:

anyway, I guess that’s it then! I’m no fashion designer nor a costume designer, I just wished they were a little more inspired with Lagoona’s appearance (and everybody really, but I had to do my girl Lagoona a little justice). I understand if some things are unreasonable, things can be mixed and matched—like, if you don’t wanna paint her skin then maybe just the faint scales on certain areas. anything to still show that she is a sea monster, at a monster high school.

#monster high #lagoona blue #monster high movie #monster high redesign #redesign #my art

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

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Thoughts while watching Taskmaster s15e07:

- So does Greg saying there will be no points for toasters mean they’ve all brought in toasters, like the jelly situation from season 11?

- I would genuinely play Taskmaster Wac-A-Mole. I would love to. Can they add that to their purchasable merchandise? Will they have to pay Ivo royalties for the idea?

- I love how hard Ivo defends his prizes tasks. Usually with some watertight explanation that you can see he planned beforehand. Fair enough, it is popular worldwide and has Greg’s face on it now.

This will be exactly how I will sound when explaining what I think about Mae Martin, if they ever start using he/him pronouns. Fair enough, though. Prof. Brian Cox on a Pop-Tart has to be worth something.

- We’ve seen a lot of unusual sides to Frankie Boyle so far this season, his “doing a Prof. Brian Cox” side turns out to be much creepier than I’d have anticipated, if anyone had asked me what I’d expected from Frankie Boyle’s Brian Cox impression.

- I wrote the above point before seeing Greg point out the same thing:

I shall try not to screenshot the entire episode again. I’ll slow it down from here on out.

- Oh, Jenny’s was genuinely good. Like, an actual thing rather than weird novelty, and an actually cool-looking thing. And I’m not even mentioning how attractive it is when Mae tries to argue with it while managing to appear both self-conscious and indignant. Look at me not even mentioning that.

Something about the way they argue for points. I have no idea how Greg ever resists it. It’s fine, I’m doing fine.

- Surely there’s an outtake where someone makes a dick joke after Kiell says “The most brilliant thing that pops up is obviously oneself,” right?

- Pogo stick’s not bad, but space hoppers are better. Kiell’s joke about Greg being a teacher was pretty good, though.

- Again, Frankie Boyle has brought in a piece of art that has nothing to do with the prize task category. It’s such a weirdly specific idea to be Frankie’s “thing” throughout this season, and yet, very on brand.

- Sorry, I wrote the above point before the points were given out. I can now say that the real trend is Frankie Boyle bringing in prizes that are pieces of art, have nothing to do with the category, and get over-scored. Which would be a problem if he actually won the season on it, but he won’t, so it’s fine. I’d still love to see him take an episode, though.

- More eggs. I think this season’s been pretty egg-heavy, even for Taskmaster.

- I’d just like to say that I don’t know what a pulper is either, Kiell.

- Ooh, title drop from Frankie.

I still don’t know what a pulper is.

- I mean, obviously if you could remove the egg from the pulper that would be a good thing. I don’t know what it is, but I think I’d at least try walking about it to see if there’s an obvious way to open it up.

- I swear I wrote the above point before seeing this:

So... is that it? They can extract the egg if they literally just walk to the other side of it, and Frankie and Kiell haven’t bothered?

- I have finished watching Frankie and Kiell do this task and I still have no idea what’s going on. But I’m almost sure that Frankie was wrong about lack of speed being the problem, and may still have lucked into doing well by happening to stop at the right time.

- Okay, I still don’t understand.

Does he mean it’s just the first time Frankie and Kiell saw the interior? They were blind because they chose not to go look? Or did none of the others look either? And why not? Would it not have been visible to them if they’d walked around it? Because from the shots we saw, it looked like it was wide open? What is happening?

- Jenny and Mae up next, so Ivo is once again being saved for last. He’s going to have a breakdown, isn’t he?

Jenny Eclair hearing cymbals crash loudly, freaking the fuck out, and then assuming an egg made the noise: top-notch comedy, this is what the fans have paid to see.

- Right, I’m an idiot. I’ve just remembered that the task said they can’t move from their spot, so that’s why they don’t walk around the machine. I should really go back and delete the stuff I wrote above about that, so I look like less of an idiot, but I can’t really be bothered. I see now why they are blind. And I now have greater appreciation for the inherent comedy in making them just stand there spinning a wheel and listening to crashing with no idea what’s happening and no way to find out.

Having said that, any chance they can say the red dot they’re standing on is the spot, and move it? It’s a bit of a risk because Greg could decide that’s not allowed and disqualify them, but there has been precedent in previous seasons for arguing that the red thing is the spot and you’re still on the spot as long as you stay on it. And this task would be so easy to win if you could just move a bit, though they wouldn’t know that from where they are. As far as they know, trying to hop around on a red dot might just waste a lot of time and lead to nothing.

- Solid energy from Jenny Eclair here.

God, the genuine distress on their face when they heard a noise that might be an egg getting pulped. I’m not even talking about sexual attractiveness anymore (I mean, okay, I am a bit). It’s just what's so much fun to watch on this show. That’s not comedy distress, that’s just actually being very concerned that they lost focus for a moment and misjudged the pulp wheel. What more can we ask for out of a Taskmaster contestant?

- All right, I’ve watched Jenny fly too close to the sun and pulp the egg, which means Mae probably does the same since they were grouped together. But I am still getting invested in the tension as they carefully push closer to it. Come on, Mae. I believe in you. Magically sense the position of an egg.

- I might have started saying “No no no no no stop stop stop stop stop” out loud at this point:

- Ah shit. On the bright side, maybe this episode gets to be Frankie’s?

- Ivo! They didn’t save him for last because he had a breakdown! They saved him for last because he is a clever little boy who has seen previous Taskmaster seasons and knows about moving spots. Good job.

- It is a lot of fun to watch Ivo spin the wheel with abandon, and then occasionally stop and look around like he’s convinced he’s missed something. No, it’s okay, little buddy! You’ve got this!

Something about watching Ivo Graham makes me feel like a gym teacher encouraging an eight-year-old to climb a rope.

- What a smart boy. He knows how to hop around a carry eggs and spin wheels and everything. Someday he might even learn how to open his eyes.

- Fantastic. A team task and the periodic table of elements. That’s all I want out of Taskmaster.

Will anyone be surprised if I mention at this point that when I was 13, we had to memorize the names and symbols of the twenty elements that our teacher assigned us for a science test, and I chose instead to memorize the name and symbol of every element on the whole table? I haven’t done it years, but I bet could still write out a periodic table with the names and their symbols correctly placed. I can still list the original 151 Pokemon in order, that one I have checked recently. It’s important to retain all the useless information you memorized in childhood for no reason, because otherwise, how will you know who you are?

I tried to think about something to say about this screenshot so I’d have a legitimate excuse for adding to this post, instead of just including it as a way to say “look how hot Mae Martin is”, but I’ve got nothing.

- I mean, as far as “weird screenshots that you’d never expect to exist but there they are on Taskmaster” go, Frankie Boyle and Ivo Graham being handcuffed together is up there:

- So it’s basically an escape room, then? I’ve been informed by Ed Gamble that Mae Martin and Ivo Graham both like this sort of thing, unsurprisingly.

- I’m going to guess that stellar performance from the team of three was edited to look even more efficient than it really was, as a contrast to whatever we’re about to get out of Team Big IF. But still, that was impressive. Mae Martin like four steps ahead of everyone else, explaining that one of those things on the wall is going to relate to the other thing and we have to eat the candies and just get on with it. I’ve just realized how great it’ll be if Mae wins this season, specifically because I want to see them take on Sarah Kendall in Champion of Champions. Battle of the ruthlessly efficient.

- Kiell admitting that a task in which he looked bad was edited to make him look better than he really was is pretty funny. And again, this means that whatever Team Big IF do is such a mess that the editors decided it’s funnier than Kiell being upset about candies by enough to cut the latter for more of the former.

- Oh, excellent. It’s always good when a team breaks down so badly that you see them wincing in the studio just because they know their task is about to be shown. This may not, in fact, be Frankie’s episode to win.

- Ivo Graham correcting Frankie Boyle’s pronunciation of “cumin” is pretty much everything I expected to come from this team.

- Why is Frankie adding up the numbers?

- I believe Ivo is asking himself the same question I just wrote down, but does not have the guts to actually it out loud to Frankie Boyle’s face:

- My apologies to Ivo Graham, obviously it turns out he has no fear at all of confronting Frankie Boyle about his flawed system:

No fear at all. He’s doing absolutely fine.

- Okay, I see this is the moment they realize they still have handcuffs on, but does that really explain everything about why this hug is so weird? Was Frankie going for lifting him into the air?

- Taskmaster sometimes just feels like an experiment where they throw shit at the wall and find out which bits of it are funny. Things that just wouldn’t happen unless Taskmaster manufactured it, so without this show, we’d have no way of knowing whether those things are funny or not. Turns out that two comedians of wildly contrasting personalities frantically searching a room with plastic sheeting on the walls while handcuffed = funny.

I feel like it summarizes Ivo’s persona that he can come out of a task that went horribly wrong due to Frankie’s incompetence, and Ivo saved it by being significantly less incompetent in that particular area, and still, in the debrief, Frankie can comfortably take the high status. Love seeing Frankie have the guts to come out of that terrible a performance, and his primary comment on what happened is to call Ivo a coward.

- Jesus Christ. How hard would we have to petition the people who run Taskmaster to get them to release the unedited footage, that does exist somewhere, of Frankie Boyle and Ivo Graham being handcuffed together in a small room for 42 minutes straight?

Surely someone’s gotten on this, fanfiction-wise, right?

- Kiell regaling us with a story of stealing his classmate’s pen in school. Greg’s right, we are getting a solid picture of his childhood here.

- Oh, I like these. The tasks where they have to pick something without knowing why they’re picking it, so they have to guess what the task will be. I just imagine how I would absolutely lose my mind as I tried to consider every variable in guessing, knowing I’d be mad at myself later if I messed it up for myself, and then it’s just nice to watch people go through that and know I don’t have to.

- I thought off the bat that Frankie’s pick for the number would be the one I respect the most - I’d probably go with 50 if I were picking between 0 and 100, in case going really high or really low fucks you over horribly. But then Ivo went 42 with a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference, and okay, it’s a bit trite, a bit “thing my friends and I all recited to each other in high school to prove how cool we were for being able to reference this”, but I like it anyway. You go, Ivo. Make your Douglas Adams reference.

- I mean, I think I’d at least guess that the ingredients, noun, and adjective have something to do with each other. I haven’t seen part 2 yet, but I’m saying if I were doing part 1, I’d try to pick words that could be at least somewhat related and ingredients that could relate to them.

- Yep. Turns out I made a good call. Not sure the contestants did.

- I mean that’s what you want out of Taskmaster, isn’t it? Comedians dumping a load of food ingredients onto a plastic duck while panicking about a timer running down? That’s why they commissioned this show.

- Jenny’s grabbed a gold shoe from somewhere else, I guess she knew it was there because they must have filmed this not long after the golden shoes + bowling ball task. At first I thought it was quite a coincidence that she picked “gold” and “shoe” when she’d used that in another task, but then I realized they must have filmed this one shortly after that one and she was thinking of it when she picked her words, like how Mae and Ivo were both thinking of ducks becuase they’re all over the house.

- Well, I’ll be honest, I got to halfway through the third pre-recorded task and then I got a call from my boss about some actual work I have to do, and I really wanted to just finish the episode so I’ve watched the rest without stopping to write stuff down. It was, once again, not Frankie’s day. Nice to get Kiell on the board, though, every constant who isn’t good enough to have a shot at winning the whole season should at least have the goal of staying off the relatively short list of contestants who’ve never won an episode. Ivo repeateldy endeared himself to me throughout this episode, and may have thrown it away at the end by believing that a Canadian accent sounds like an American with a particularly high-pitched voice. Why doesn’t every single episode have a part where the contestants have to do impressions of each other? They could get lots out of that. Okay I have to go do actual things now, but this was fun, can’t believe there are already only three left.

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kaizokuou-ni-naru · 3 years

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The Voyage So Far: Water Seven

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

i’ve mentioned several times before that the davy back fight is one of my least favorite arcs, mostly because i found it very dragging and tedious when i was reading it, but there are a couple things i really like in it, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, most of them have to do with zoro. i really like his moment here with chopper, and it also showcases his ability to act as more of an authority figure to the crew, which is something that makes a substantial return after enies lobby with the matter of usopp’s return.

zoro and sanji’s match in the davy back fight is far and away my favorite part of the entire arc. it’s just really fun.

like i said, this arc isn’t a favorite of mine, but i do definitely understand why it’s important to the saga and greater story in a couple different ways. one of them is that it’s just an easy, lighthearted detour that both gives the audience a chance to breathe and the strawhats a chance to showcase just how much they love each other and work well together- which turns into a fucking sledgehammer to the skull in the next arc when that unity is directly threatened. and the other reason this arc is important...

...is because of aokiji.

aokiji’s introductory scene is a brutal showcase of absolute power, and a very clear reminder that the strawhats are still very much little fish in a very, very big pond. all of the strawhats are impacted by this to some degree- it’s how badly they get curb-stomped here that leads luffy to come up with his gears as a way of closing the huge power gap he’s just learned about.

most important, though, are robin and usopp. for robin, this is a stark reminder of the fact that the government will never stop hunting her down; for usopp, who’s less obvious, it’s the seeds of the full-blown inferiority crisis that will later explode with the news about merry. both of their arcs throughout water 7 and enies lobby, essentially the twin emotional backbones of the saga, start right here.

i really like that the other strawhats all fell asleep waiting for robin and luffy to wake up. it calls back to them doing the same when nami was sick before drum, and also it’s just so fucking sweet.

water seven is my favorite island, full stop. if i was going to live anywhere in one piece’s world, i’d want to live on water seven. it’s just so creatively designed and visually great, with the canals and the tiered city and the massive fountain in the middle. the supporting cast are still one of my favorites, and the culture feels very real and authentic. i just love water seven a lot.

i just said it but it bears repeating- the water seven supporting cast is really good. iceburg, the galley-la shipwrights, franky and his family, kokoro and chimney are all really memorable, and most of them are really likable, too- and cp9, with all their eccentricities, fit in perfectly. water seven’s cast is very interconnected, as well, and their relationships all feel very believable.

all of which, of course, only makes the later treachery hurt all the more.

the atmosphere of water seven is really, really well done. the bad starts slow, with the news that merry is unfixable, and then continues into an accelerating downwards spiral of hopelessness: usopp and luffy’s fight and usopp leaving the crew, robin’s seeming betrayal, the assassination attempt on iceburg, the city and galley-la turning on them as a result, and the agua laguna- it just gets worse and worse and worse.

and then, after they’ve been stomped down about as far as they can go and come out alive anyways, they pick themselves back up again and go to save their friend, because that’s what the strawhat pirates do.

i just really like getting to see these four going feral on the franky family, it’s one of my favorite scenes in this whole arc. in general, i tend to love the moments where luffy specifically gets properly angry, and we get a lot of them in this arc.

even though the fight between luffy and usopp is genuinely very tense and fast-paced and would probably be exciting if it were any other two characters fighting, it never really feels anything other than melancholy. i think that’s a testament to just how good oda is at setting the mood of the scene. it’s made very clear, especially through the reactions of the other characters- merry ‘crying’ is fucking heartbreaking- that this is nothing less than a tragedy.

i think it’s kind of interesting we aren’t shown franky’s face until about halfway into water seven. prior to this, we’re given pretty much only reasons to hate him, with his theft of the strawhats’ money and the franky family beating usopp to shit. but just after this point is when we start getting our first humanizing and sympathetic moments for him, starting when he gets worried and a little frantic when he hears about the attempt on iceburg’s life.

i just really, really like the way some of these water seven action sequences are depicted. they feel very tense and desperate, which matches the general mood of this part of the arc perfectly.

this panel of usopp working on merry always reminds me of the shots of the klabautermann doing the same during skypiea. i’m not sure if it’s even intentional, honestly, but it’s an extra little bit of heartbreak either way.

one piece has a lot of amazing spreads, but this might be one of my favorites for sheer impact. cp9, watching as the city they’ve lived and worked in for years burns down in a fire they set, satisfied by a job well done. it’s almost all in black and white with very little grey, which creates some fantastic contrast, and their pitch-black silhouettes against the nighttime inferno are just striking.

this entire scene between usopp and franky, as usopp works on the merry and franky gives him advice and tries to make him see its hopeless and they kind of awkwardly, accidentally bond, is probably my favorite in the whole of water seven. it was also the scene that singlehandedly made me love franky as a character.

they have a really good, really enjoyable dynamic, and at the same time the conflict between them is real and understandable, and brought about because they’re both trying to do the right thing.

tom’s workers are one of my favorite little groups of characters in the whole of one piece’s story, and they deserve more appreciation. they’re family!! a little family of broken pieces who worked together to build something really, really amazing. and they still care about each other in the present, even though they got shattered apart so badly and none of them ever really recovered.

this is a tremendously under-appreciated chopper moment. not only did he carry two full-grown men out of a fire, he even managed to get zoro’s sword and iceburg’s hamster. extremely cool of him.

this is also the exact moment the strawhats’ collective luck begins to turn: chopper saves the day, and nami learns that robin did what she did to protect them, and sanji gets aboard the sea train, and from there it’s a no-brakes train from their very lowest low straight to the triumph at enies lobby.

i love all the shenanigans sanji gets up to with the sea train, i think the whole sequence is absolutely one of his shining moments. it’s always a delight to see sanji get up to Sneaky Bastard Bullshit, and the whole thing is just so fun, which is a dearly needed breath of fresh air after how relentless this arc has been until this point.

robin’s little smile when thinking of luffy and when she joined the strawhats... :( i’ve noticed it’s a recurring trend for strawhats who try to leave the crew to flash back to when they joined as they do. usopp has it earlier this same arc just before leaving, and sanji does it in whole cake island in the sanji vs. luffy chapter.

i really like how much everyone comes together at the end of water seven leading into enies lobby. after how fractured and fraught things have been throughout the arc, both within and without the strawhat crew, it’s great to see them not only all united again for a common goal, but with a huge group of allies at their backs.

these three are SUCH a hilarious team, and i would love to see them work together again like this sometime. they’re literally just clowning on the marines all the way up the train, it’s fantastic.

factually i understand sanji’s aversion to fighting with his hands and his fighting style is very unique and cool and also meaningful to him because he learned from zeff, and also if i remember right it’s implied he learned how to swordfight from the vinsmokes which makes it very reasonable he would want absolutely nothing to do with that skillset

but speaking purely in terms of stupid idiot lizard brain i think sanji should fight with knives more

this is another of my absolute favorite spreads, and i think what makes it for me is the casual confidence- luffy tells zoro to cut the train, and zoro does, both of them with no doubts at all about zoro’s ability to do so. it really goes to show how far they’ve come from back in east blue when zoro couldn’t even cut luffy out of a metal cage.

there’s something very impactful about the fact that of all the strawhats, robin gets this speech from usopp. usopp, who’s had the worst falling-out with luffy in the series to date, is the one who tells robin: you haven’t left the crew yet, you can’t leave the crew yet, luffy is coming to get you. believe in him.

franky’s “existing is not a crime” line is one of the most memorable and iconic lines from this entire saga, and for good reason. it sums up one of the main themes of not just this arc but also the series as a whole- the very same idea will come up again for ace during marineford, and in law’s backstory as well. it’s never a crime to just exist, and people should not never be persecuted for their blood or heritage. one piece doesn’t fuck around with its theming, it really doesn’t.

to be continued next time, with enies lobby!

#the voyage so far #one piece #long post #arc: water 7 #not japanese #opmeta

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fific7 · 4 years

Text

That Swept-Back Hair

Billy Russo x Reader

@omgrachwrites 500 Follower Celebration

AU Prompt: Friends with Benefits

Summary: How will Billy Russo react when his FWB finds another lover? Bearing in mind that he’s a complete hypocrite.

Warnings: Swearing, jealousy, fluff with mentions of sex.

A/N: Loosely based on S1 Billy, it’s non-canon & set in my imaginary Punisher universe.

(My GIF)

»»———————————————　⚜　———————-————————-««

Your phone was jumping like a jack-in-the-box on your bedside table, the blue light of the screen illuminating the wall behind it every few seconds.

You rolled over with a groan, taking a moment before picking it up and looking at it. Of course it was Billy Russo, who else would it be at 1 AM on a Saturday morning?

The guy next to you in the bed also rolled over, covering his mouth as he yawned, eyes half-open.

“Everything OK, Y/N?” he asked.

“Yeah, Raf, just a needy friend.... gonna call them back, so do you mind staying hush-hush for the next few minutes?”

He yawned massively again, speaking through it, “Ahhhhrrrrr...yeah... no problem...”

You hit the ‘Favourites’ star next to Billy’s name in your contacts, hearing it start ringing.

It went to voicemail so you hung up, slid the phone onto the table and threw your head back down onto your pillow. Fucking Russo. Blows up your phone with missed calls & “Pick up!!” texts then doesn’t answer when you call back.

It rang two seconds later, just as Raf had turned towards you, opening his mouth to no doubt ask you about your ‘needy friend’. You rolled your eyes and grabbed it, but the screen went dark just as you did so.

You hit redial, it rang out, went to voicemail. “Fuck!” you ground out between your teeth.

Your head had touched your pillow again for about 5 minutes, when there was a staccato series of knocks on your apartment door.

You shot up in bed, quivering - ah hell, it couldn’t be, could it? Really?

Raf had dozed back off in the meantime & didn’t even stir when the knocks rang out sharply in the quiet apartment. Not much of a guard dog, you thought, quickly throwing on your discarded PJs.

You padded barefoot over to the front door, confirming via the peephole that Billy Russo was indeed outside in the hallway, leaning on your doorframe so he could place one eye right to it. You spotted an eyebrow wiggle as you made eye contact. Oh holy hell!

You straightened your shoulders, took the chain off and unlocked the door, swinging it open.

“Billy!” you said quietly, with a small smile, “What brings you here?” You hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for about three weeks. Not that that was anything new.

He moved gracefully past you like the panther he was, even though you’d been trying to subtly block him from coming in. He was dressed in one of his sharp suits, so you guessed he’d been at one of the never-ending stream of events he attended.

Your mouth drew into a line. Whoever he’d gone there with must have bucked the trend and bailed on him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have turned up at your place when, in his mind, the night was still young.

He turned towards you, placing both hands on your hips as he did so, pulling you up against his muscled chest.

“Now, Y/N, why do you think I’m here, holding my best girl in my arms?” the New York accented voice purred in your ear.

He leant in and kissed you hungrily, deepening the kiss immediately to a passionate one.

You pulled away, escaping his grasp. His eyes widened in surprise, a small frown making its way onto his brow. A few locks of his dark hair had fallen forward onto his brow and he swept them back up with his fingers, a reflexive gesture for him.

“I tried to call you back,” you mumbled, “I’ve... uh... got a friend staying with me at the moment.”

He shot his trademark smirk at you. “Hey, that’s OK. We can be quiet for once, yeah?” Grinning now.

In true romcom fashion, Raf picked that moment to come wandering into the lounge, clad only in his boxers, both hands ruffling through his short hair.

Billy’s mouth dropped open. He made a quick recovery, though. Gestured with a thumb.

“So... this your ‘friend’?”

He looked Raf up and down. He was a 6 feet 3 firefighter with the FDNY, and to put it mildly, he was ripped.

He topped Billy by a couple of inches, and by a few pounds. Billy scowled at him.

Raf eyed up Billy too, turning to you and asking, “This your ‘needy friend’ you were talkin’ ‘bout, Y/N?”

Oh crap.

Billy’s scowl turned to a furious glare, aimed right at you. “Needy?!! Ah, fuck this, Y/N! I think we all know who’s needy around here.”

Your mouth rounded into an offended O, but before you could reply, Billy was out the door and it slammed loudly behind him.

Great - now all your neighbours were gonna be mad at you too.

»»———————————————-　⚜　-———-———————————-««

You had then spent an uncomfortable half hour over a coffee with Raf, explaining the dynamics of your non-relationship with Billy.

“Now,” he’d said, brow furrowed, “let me get this straight. He’s part of your friend group, you see him every so often at a bar or at one of their places - but never his. He sees tons of other women but turns up here for booty calls whenever his busy schedule allows?”

He shook his head. “He’s using you, Y/N. What a selfish prick.”

You bristled, “Look, we go back quite a ways. Since he was in the Marines. I knew Frank first as we were neighbours when we were kids, and I eventually met Billy through him. He’s Frankie’s best friend, they’re Marine brothers.”

“And how long have you been ‘friends with benefits’?”

You muttered your response. “Sorry, what was that you said?” he asked.

“Three years,” you repeated reluctantly.

“Damn.” he said. “And what am I, exactly? Filler for whenever fuckboy isn’t calling?”

“No! Raf, you’re a really nice guy, and I love spending time with you.”

He stood up, heading to the bedroom. “Look, I’m gonna go. I need a few days to try and get my head round your fucked-up relationship with the suit-wearing Marine.”

He’d left shortly afterwards, saying he’d call. You weren’t sure that he would.

You met up with Karen for lunch later that day. You’d been co-workers first off, then had become good friends. She was currently dating Frank, your childhood friend.

You were so glad that he was back out socialising, in a small way, after losing his wife and kids in a brutal gang clash just over a year before. They and several others had been what the papers described, rather callously, as “collateral damage” while minding their own business in the public park the gun fight took place in.

Frank had understandably closed himself off to a large extent as he grieved and after a decent interval, you’d tried your best to draw him back out in a gentle way. You’d decided to indulge in a bit of Matchmaking Lite, and had invited Karen along to a night out with the rest of your friends. You knew Frank would be there and as you’d hoped, they hit it off right away.

You spilled what had happened the night before to her, grateful for a shoulder to cry on. She looked and sounded sympathetic, but you knew she wasn’t a big fan of your arrangement with Billy. She again voiced her astonishment that you still had it going on with him.

“Karen, without making you vomit by sharing too many details, Billy is just the absolute best in bed. He’s got the stamina of an ox. Several oxes, in fact.” You just knew your eyes had a faraway look in them.

Her mouth pursed in a ‘moux’ of distaste. “But still, Y/N, he’s just so damn selfish about it! It’s all on his terms.”

“You know he’s got commitment issues.”

She choked on her espresso martini. “Ya don’t say!!”

“It’s complicated.”

“Look, honey, I’m gonna be straight with you. It is anything but complicated. He spends 90% of his time at Anvil, 9.9% with other gals, and guess who gets the remaining measly 0.1%, the crumbs from his table?” She pointed her finger straight at you. “Coconut for the lady over there!”

You sat in silence for several minutes, turning over in your mind what Raf, and now Karen, had said to you. Eventually you nodded slowly. “You know what, Kar, you’re totally right. I just let the great sex blind me to all the rest of his fucking bullshit.”

Time to cut Billy loose.

Not that you ever had him tied down in the first place. If you were being brutally honest.

And you weren’t sure whether he’d even bother showing up at your place ever again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The next day being Sunday meant that some serious ‘Me Time’ was in order.

Sitting on the sofa, you stared off into space, thinking about the two men in your life. You huffed to yourself; you hadn’t heard from either of them so far, and that was probably for the best. You could do without being stuck in the middle of some kind of testosterone-fuelled conflict between the two of them.

Then you laughed out loud at yourself. Who were you kidding? You’d probably never see either of them again! You stood up, stretching out your shoulder and neck muscles. Time for a bit of self-pampering.

You had a long relaxing bath, gave yourself a leisurely mani-pedi, ordered in some pizza, and began to go through some layouts for work the next day.

You were a digital content editor at the newspaper both you & Karen worked for. It was okay as jobs went, but it didn’t set your world on fire. However, what did excite you was that the newspaper’s parent publishing house was about to launch a travel magazine, and you’d applied for a transfer.

What really made butterflies pop up into your stomach, though, was the fact that the magazine’s content editors would also be contributing instead of just collating. You’d already had an interview with the Editor in Chief, and should be hearing back within the next few days.

If someone else got that position you’d applied for, you’d just have to shove them out of your third floor office window at the very first opportunity.

While you were thinking of potentially becoming a murderer, there was a familiar pattern of raps at your door. Your heart sank straight through your boots.

You knew it was Billy before you opened the door. It sounded ridiculous but he had a certain way of knocking. Peremptory, demanding, with military precision.

He stood outside your door, tensed up and rigid, with a carefully blank look on his face.

“You alone?” he barked, by way of greeting.

You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at him. “Why, hello Billy. How are you? I’m fine, Y/N, how are you? Yeah, I’m great.”

He glared right back. “I asked if you were alone.”

“That’s highly unlikely, Billy, seeing as how I’m so needy!”

He huffed and marched inside straight to the sofa, sitting down and leaning his arms on his spread-apart thighs. He clasped his hands together, letting them dangle loosely between his knees.

“You said I was needy first.” Sulky face.

“Hey, are we back in school or something?”

He looked up at you, dark eyes staring into yours intensely. “Why d’you get with another guy, Y/N?”

Straight to the point, then. OK, you were going to return the favour.

“What, I’m not allowed to have a life? D’you think I’m going to just sit around, waiting to gratefully receive 5 minutes of your attention every few weeks? Like some kind of fucktoy, to be picked up and dropped at will? Seriously?”

He clenched his fingers until the joints went white. “I thought you were happy with the way things are between us!!?... our... our arrangement. You’re important to me. And you know I care about you!” Not meeting your eyes at this last comment.

“Huh!!!” You leant against your kitchen island, you weren’t going to get into Billy’s orbit. Too risky.

“So important that you spend all your time at work, while bedding half of Manhattan? Leaving me with the crumbs from your table, as someone put it recently.”

He shot up from the sofa, fury in his eyes. “Who fuckin’ said that?!”

You shrugged, “It’s not important. What is important is that our arrangement, as you call it, is over. Since you put it in such business-like terms, think of it as a contract which has been terminated.”

Billy stalked across the room until he was an inch away from you, eyes boring into yours. “No.”

You laughed in disbelief, eyebrows arching. “You think that just cos you say ‘No’ it’s not gonna happen? Because no-one ever says no to Billy Russo, is that it?”

He grabbed you, lips finding yours in a ferocious kiss. One hand crept up the nape of your neck, his fingers running through your hair, while the other hand pulled your hips to his. He had an impressive erection. You gasped as you felt the pressure of it against you, but pushed him away, escaping to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Just go, Billy. Please.”

He stared at you, wide-eyed, those dark pools of his looking suspiciously glossy. Was he...? No way.

Billy turned on his heel and slammed out of your apartment. Again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Billy knocked his beer bottle off the table with his elbow, as he leant forward to drunkenly wave a finger in his friend’s face. Luckily, it fell onto the grassy verge below, rather than the decked patio they were sitting on in Frank’s back garden.

Frank grabbed his finger. “Russo!!! Chill out, man.”

“She tol’ me... t’go, Frankie, I was kissin’ her an’ she jus’ said Go!” slurred Billy. Frank squeezed his eyes shut at the whiny tone then looked back at him.

“Bill! We all warned you she wouldn’t put up with your bullshit forever. You should’ve known this was comin’ bud.”

“Bu’ I... I... love her,” he blurted, then stared at Frank, eyes wide, part horrified, part terrified.

“Got a strange way of showin’ it, Bill. Picking other women over her, until you decide it’s time to hook up. Surprised she’s stood for it so long!”

Billy swayed slightly in his garden chair, just staring back at him, nodding repetitively like a bobble head every so often.

“I gotta get her back, Frankie.”

“Whooo,” Frank huffed out a big breath, “well, ya always did like to choose the impossible missions, Russo.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were beginning to understand what having a stalker was like.

When you left work the following day, the first person you spotted on the sidewalk outside your office building was Billy Russo.

You hesitated, shocked, then nodded and said quietly, “Hi Billy,” before continuing your short walk to the subway.

He fell into step alongside you. “M’gonna show you just how much I care about you,” you heard, then he was gone. Just gone, into the crowd of commuters around you.

That was just the beginning. Every morning, one single rose of the palest pearly pink would be delivered to your office, laying in a swirl of black chiffon within a silver gift box.

Texts would drop into your phone at unexpected hours. “Please forgive me. Let me back into your life. I love you, Y/N.”

The first time you saw those words, you nearly dropped your phone. What the....?

Gourmet meals and bottles of rosé prosecco would be delivered to your door, precisely 30 minutes after you’d get home. Was he watching you or something? A little shiver ran up your spine. He was still a sniper, after all.

You would catch glimpses of Billy when you left the office, and outside your apartment. Without a shadow of a doubt, he meant you to see him, he would never be so visible on a real surveillance job. But he didn’t ever approach you.

Then you got your dream job. You, Karen and a bunch of your colleagues went to your regular bar after work for a quick celebration. There was a toast proposed to your new job at one point, and one of your male colleagues grabbed you in a friendly bear hug after they’d all shouted “Cheers!”

You were looking past his arm as he hugged you, and found yourself staring into Billy Russo’s dark eyes. Casually dressed, he was leaning on a high table near the door, a beer in front of him.

Billy lazily pushed back from his table, strode over to you, swiped you out of the guy’s arms, wrapped his own arms round you and planted a kiss on your temple, with a nonchalant, “Hi, sweetheart.”

Karen, who had heard all about your last encounter with Billy, looked thunderstruck. You’d be getting interrogated later, that was for sure.

He, meanwhile, landed another kiss right next to your lips and said, “See you later at home,” giving you a quick squeeze before walking off.

Your female colleagues meanwhile were swooning over Billy, one of them commenting that she wasn’t surprised you’d kept so damn quiet about your hot boyfriend. You gave Karen a meaningful look and just smiled back at them all, neither confirming nor denying anything.

However the feeling of Billy’s body against yours, the delicious smell of him, his lips on your skin, had set your heart racing at a dangerous speed. You really did try to push those thoughts aside.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Flopping down onto your sofa when you got home, you laid your head back on it and thought about that evening. As expected, Karen had questioned you ruthlessly as you left the bar together, like the perceptive investigative reporter she was.

Talking as you walked to the subway, you’d given her every detail of all the deliveries, glimpses of him and texts you’d received in the last few days. Karen had stopped walking, looking at you in surprise. “Y/N, why didn’t you tell me about all of this before now? Hell, Frank told me he had some crazy plan to win you back, but I never really thought...” her voice trailed off.

“Is it working?” she asked next. “Mmmm, yes and no, to be honest,” you said. “Don’t let it!” she said firmly, “This is what he should have been doing all along, instead of treating you like a total afterthought.”

You nodded, “Can’t argue with ya on that,” you agreed. “Is he going to turn up at your place, d’you think?” she asked. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” you laughed, “I think that was Billy giving me a heads-up.”

So as you’d been 90% expecting, the familiar knock at the door came about 15 minutes after you’d got back. You got up and after checking the peephole, sighed and opened it. “Hi, Billy.”

This was like déjà vu. Billy brushed past you and sat himself down on the sofa, in the same pose as the last time. Head down, hair falling forward and hiding his eyes from you. This time, you bit the bullet and sat at the opposite end, leaning against the armrest so you were facing him.

“Well, Billy.... leaving aside the stalkerish overtones, I guess I should thank you for the roses, gourmet meals and prosecco.”

He swung his head towards you, eyes wide. “They were just to get your attention. Frankie told me it’s what I shoulda been doin’ anyway, all along.”

You nodded, “Yeah, he’s not wrong.”

Billy heaved out a big sigh, head dropping. “I know I’ve been a complete shit to you, Y/N. Took you for granted.” He met your eyes again, “Truth is, I was fallin’ in love with you, and I really didn’t know how to handle it. I thought it was... just sex to you, so I... I was a coward and tried to ignore it, and acted like I didn’t give a shit about you. I just couldn’t have you kick me to the curb if I told you how I felt.”

You were genuinely shocked - Billy had never talked about his feelings before. You’d accepted this in the past, telling yourself it was due to his upbringing in the system.

“So you meant what you said in your daily texts, then?”

He nodded, still looking straight at you, “Yeah...I meant it, I do love you, Y/N.” Then he quickly looked down again.

Before you could stop yourself, you’d leant along the sofa and your fingers were pushing that silky hair off his forehead. He looked up at you, taking hold of your wrist and kissing your pulse point softly. You stood up, saying “C’mere, you,” and took hold of his hand, pulling him up along with you.

He put his arms round you, burying his face into your hair and just holding you. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled. You laughed, “What?! Even though you hadn’t seen me for weeks before the night you landed on my doorstep?!”

“I know, I know, you don’t need to remind me I’ve been a complete prick. I’ll be honest, I think it took me seein’ you with that guy, and him actin’ like you were his, to give me that kick up the ass I needed.” The dark eyes looked down at you, and he sniffed, “He still around?” You shook your head.

“Nah. I think he thought I was completely insane for still being with you.”

Billy laughed, “Maybe he’s right....” he looked at you, serious again. “You willin’ to give me another chance, Y/N? I promise you I’ll do it right this time. The whole dating thing, asking you to be my girlfriend after three dates, all that stuff... everything.”

“Everything? Like, what if I say no sex to start with? And no running off to other women to scratch that itch? You’ll swear to all that? Really?!”

“I swear to you, on my Ka-Bar.”

“Wow,” you said, knowing that the knife was never out of Billy’s possession. It was an integral part of him. Maybe he was serious after all.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

A small kiss on your cheek woke you the next morning. Those eyes, those dark liquid pools, stared into yours, while a thumb ran over your cheek. “Mornin’, sweetheart,” smiling down at you. Reaching up, you ran your fingers into his hair, moving it off his forehead. “Morning, sweetheart,” you echoed, smiling back.

You and Billy had shared a bed but nothing else, except hugs and hand-holding. You were in your PJ’s - well, camisole top with matching shorts - and all Billy had on were his boxer briefs. You couldn’t deny you’d had thoughts of just leaping on him during the night... let’s face it, he was one hot dude. And he knew how to ‘look after’ a woman in bed, as he himself put it.

But no, you were determined he was gonna have to work for it, just like he promised he would. So you’d had to show some self-discipline, well, a lot of it, actually. He’d passed the first test - he’d actually stayed all night. Usually he was gone before the morning light stole through the curtains.

Now, he kissed your bare shoulder and leapt out of bed, like he was back in the Marines. He stood still for a moment, sideways next to the bed, having a leisurely full body stretch. Billy knew full well you’d be totally enjoying the view. A little tease from him to remind you what you were missing.

The sunlight, which stole through a small gap between your curtains in the otherwise dim room, picked out the sculpted muscles on his back & torso. Then he turned slightly more, ensuring you wouldn’t miss seeing the hard-on he was currently sporting. You shook your head, with a slight smile on your lips. The cocky big bastard.

“Where you off to, Billy?” you asked, thinking to yourself, if he’s headed to Anvil, he can fucking shove his second cha......

“I’m gonna make my beautiful almost-girlfriend a cup of good Italian coffee.”

You smiled at his departing back as he disappeared out of the bedroom. “Oh, Billy?”

His voice drifted back through from the kitchen, “Yeah, darlin’?”

“Can I please get some toast with that, too?”

“Sure, sweetheart.”

You stretched luxuriously, nestling your head into your pillows.

Looked like you were going to find out what having a panther on a leash was like.

#ben barnes #billy russo #billy russo fanfic #billy russo imagine #billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfiction #that swept back hair

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f0rever15elf · 3 years

Note

Hello! I hope the holidays treated you well! I haven’t dropped anything in your inbox in a while. I appreciate how lovely your responses are to them. If you have time, I have another one for you. You know how sometimes you meet people who just unsettle you? Like there is something off about them? How would the guys react in this situation if you come home scared or upset? I watched a little too much true crime docs this weekend and had a hard time sleeping. Thank you!

Hello dear! They did, I had a very good time! And I hope the same to you! I’m so glad you enjoy the responses, and I hope I can continue that trend!

Head Canon Masterlist

When You Come Home Shaken from and Encounter with Someone:

Whiskey: He’s immediately on high alert. “Darlin’? What happened? Are you hurt?” When you convince him that you’re not hurt, just shaken up, the questioning still continues. “Who was it? Did you know them? What did they look like? Did they follow you home?” When you’ve answered all your questions, and he’s certain you’re not hurt, that’s when he finally relaxes, pulling you against him and he doesn’t let go for a long, long time. It’s a tighter hug than you’re normally use to, and is that a little bit of trembling you feel? He hates the idea of anyone potentially hurting you, he can’t live that nightmare again, so for the next...long time, whenever you go out, he’s right there with you. If he can’t be, he makes sure one of the other agents can accompany you as well.

Javi: He’s used to creeps following him around in Colombia. When you’re in the DEA and end up in bed with Los Pepes, it’s bound to happen that you end up with a tail from time to time. When it’s you that they end up following...well...that ain’t gonna fly. Immediately when you come home shaken up, he’s got you wrapped in his arms as he murmurs sweet nothings to you, telling you how he’s going to keep you safe no matter what. He’s already devising a game plan in his head, parsing out what he can do to improve your safety as much as he can, knowing that he won’t always be around to protect you due to the nature of his work. Once you’ve calmed down and relaxed, he starts gently asking questions, trying to get an idea of who it is that followed you and startled you. After that night, he’s going to insist you come with him to work more often when you can. At least there he can keep an eye on you more, putting you both at ease.

Frankie: Frankie’s training kicks in here, and he stays super calm as he tries to calm you down. He double checks the front yard, making sure no one followed you all the way home before coming back inside and making a show of locking the front door. After that, he’s grabbing blankets to wrap around you, pulling you against him to soothe and comfort you. He’s not letting you go until he’s certain you’re alright. Once you convince him you’re ok, he’s going to be waiting on you hand and foot. A nice shower or bath to help wash everything away? He’ll add the bubbles you like too. Want something comforting to eat? He’s in the kitchen in a heart beat making whatever you’d like. Shoulders hurt from the tension? You bet your sweet behind he’s got you in front of him as he massages out the knots. Anything you need, just ask for and he’ll give it to you. Later that night, when he thinks you’re asleep, he pulls his hand gun out of the night stand, checking it over before he sets it within reach. Just as a precaution.

Ezra: Oh he’s heated, but he doesn’t let you see it. His little gemstone needs comfort so that is what they shall get. His reaction would be different depending on where you are. If y’all are out prospecting where the danger is very, very real, he won’t be sleeping for a few days, on high alert to make sure no individuals of ill repute have followed you back to your pod. He’ll also be making regular treks out to check the immediate area for any dangers. In between, he’s got you cradled to him as best he can with his one arm, telling you sweet stories in the lovely drawl to take your attention off your fear. If you’re home, his immediate reaction is to double check all the locks before taking your hand to lead you back to the bedroom where his thrower is before cuddling up with you in the bed where he can comfort you. There, he’ll tell you stories until you finally doze off to sleep against him. He doesn’t get much sleep that night, worrying about you, and for the next few days he’s hesitant to have you going out on your own anywhere.

Oberyn: Another who is absolutely furious. His is far more visible that Ezra, however. You know he’s fueled by a deep seated rage, and is known for outbursts at the drop of a hat, especially when someone he cares for his harmed or threatened. He’s going to check you over to make sure that physically you’re okay, then shower you with kisses and words of affection as he leads you to bed where he’s going to leave you with Ellaria to comfort you and ensure you’re safe before he heads out to find the one who unsettled you so. When he finally returns, it’s with the promise that you’ll never need to worry about him again, the problem has been settled. He doesn’t explain further, and you don’t ask, rather content to just sit in the comfort the prince provides you, knowing you’re safe in his arms.

Din: He’s quiet, more so than normal when you show up trembling and afraid. The Galaxy is not a nice place. It’s not safe, and he knows this, but he figured this planet would be safe enough to let you wander through the market on your own. He’s going to take you up to the cockpit and sit you in his chair before going and grabbing a blanket to wrap around you, asking what happened. Did anyone hurt you? Steal from you? Threaten you? He’s methodical in his questions, asking just enough to be able to recognize who his new, impromptu target is. When he feels like he’s calmed you down enough for the moment, he’ll rest the forehead of his helmet against your own forehead before leaving you with Grogu to go and “take care of something.” He comes back not too much later. He doesn’t say where he went or what he did as he hangs up the pulse rifle before coming back to you in the cockpit, handing you some sweet treat from the market before heading to the next destination.

Pero: How dare anyone scare you to the point where you come home so shaken. Someone will need to be taught a lesson. But he tends to you first, making sure you’re fed and comforted. Pero is a man of few words, but the things he says to comfort you, while succinct, are very sweet. Some are in English, while other are in Spanish. He knows you like the way his Spanish sounds, so he hopes that it helps to soothe you while he holds you in front of the fire. When you’re finally calmed and fed, he presses a kiss to the top of your head before standing and walking to where he keeps his swords. “Just to prove a point, preciosa,” he says when he sees the concern in your eyes. “I won’t hurt anyone. Much.” And then he’s gone, returning not long after with a satisfied look on his face. “It’s taken care of,” is all he says, before joining you by the fire again. it’s a few weeks before he lets you go off on your own again.

Max: He can smell that asshole on you, and it makes him so angry. The way you’re heart is racing, the way he can smell the adrenaline coursing through your veins. This will not do. He’s going to check you over for physical injuries before taking you to the bathroom and running you a bath with your favorite bath bomb or bubbles. He’ll leave a glass of your favorite wine and a parting kiss to your head before offering a quick “I’ll be right back.” In a blink, he’s gone. When he comes back just as the water is getting cold, he’s got a pizza in his hands and a very chipper smile on his face. He makes a cozy little blanket nest in front of the TV, insisting on a movie night with you to help you relax. Of course, he’s going to be all over you, and it borders on possessive. You notice he’s warmer than usual, indicative of a recent feeding, and you don’t need to be a top tier detective to realize that he went out for more than just the pizza after he ran your bath for you. Oh well, best not to think about it.

Maxwell: To be honest, out of all of the guys, Maxwell shows the most outright fear when you tell him what happened while you tremble in his arms. Especially if this happens after the events of the stone and he has very few resources to help protect you. Guilt is gonna eat at him for that, but he doesn’t let you know that. When you get home at first, he’s going to fret over you, much like a mother hen. “Are you hurt? Where? Did they touch you? Did they follow you? What do you need?” He’s going to spend the night pampering you and taking care of you, trying to keep you calm and reassuring himself along that way that you’re alright. The next day, he’s going to hand you a canister of pepper spray to keep with you. it’s not much, but it’ll help provide you both with a little peace of mind. He also considers making you his secretary for while he’s going around to meetings in an attempt to fix his reputation. At least that way he always knows where you are.

Marcus: FBI boyfriend is going to be the sweetest, most tender of people after this happens. You come home and he methodically checks you over for any injuries before spending the night doting on you, holding you, feeding you, comforting you in any way you could possibly want. He doesn’t bring up the events the whole night, focusing on keeping you calm and comfortable in an attempt to keep off any bad dreams this may cause. The next day, he insist you come with him to the office to get a report started, just as a precaution, even if you think it might be overkill. He really just wants you safe is all, and it’s honestly really sweet. After the event, he’s texting and calling you all the time to check on you and make sure you’re ok. it’s as much a comfort for you as it is for him.

#hcs #max phillips #maxwell lord #marcus pike #javier pena #oberyn martell #din djrain #pero tovar #ezra #agent whiskey #frankie morales #tw: food #tw: harassment #Anonymous

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keanureevesisbae · 3 years

Text

january masterlist

all of the january one shots i posted this week are compiled here, but are also on my main masterlist (just not put together like this). if there isn’t a link attached to the one shot, that’s because i’m gonna post it later this week. i might add some more ideas 💕💕💕

Here is a link to my main masterlist

Adelaide Park and Henry Cavill

Fluffy A-Z with Henry and Adelaide

When in Amsterdam - Henry decides to surprise Adelaide with a trip to Amsterdam

Me? Jealous? - Henry usually isn’t the jealous type, however, he is weirdly jealous when Adelaide sees her former Remembering High School co-star Jeff Richards.

Olivia Tran and Henry Cavill

The Twins - Heather and Chloe Tran-Cavill are born and Henry goes to see Frankie for a new tattoo.

NSFW alphabet with Henry and Olivia

The World of TikTok - With five ladies around him who are up to date with the latest trends, Henry falls victim to TikTok challenges.

Hard Drive, Over Drive - Henry finds an old hard drive. Thinking it is his, he plugs it into his computer to see what’s on there. However, it turns out, it’s not his.

The Make-Up Box - When his granddaughters have obtained a make-up box, Henry can’t seem to say no.

Sandy Choi and Henry Cavill

Busted - Henry and Sandy have been craving each other the entire day, however Lacey and Jackson catch them in the act...

Mario Kart - Henry gets his ass beaten in Mario Kart by his newest co-star Tom Holland, but thankfully he has a beautiful wife who can help with his revenge.

Flower shower - After a successful editorial shoot, Henry decides to surprise his new wife on a little picnic.

Mr. and Mrs. Mario Kart - Henry and Sandy just got married and have a very fitting theme for their wedding day.

Amelia Jung and Henry Cavill

Chapter 12 of the fic ‘Coach Cavill’

Darcie Angel and John Wick

Skincare times - The Wick family has a special night time routine

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sapphicscholar · 3 years

Text

2020 Fic Year-in-Review!

It has been ... a year (both for global/national and personal reasons). I did less writing than I had planned to. Didn’t finish those WIPs like I promised myself I would. But! I worked my butt off to be there 110% for my students, and I still managed to write words and new fics! (According to AO3, I came in just under 200,000 words written/posted this year, which is more than I expected and a nice little boost.)

With the whole “5 fics you’re proudest of” end-of-year meme going around (thanks for the heads up about it @chainofclovers!) and having been tagged at some point in a fic-in-review thing whose questions I’ve lost, I want to focus on being happy with some of the things I did! So, without further ado, 5 fics in chronological order of posting that I’m proud of!

1. Swipe Right for Soulmates - Supercat, T

In general, I really dislike soulmate AUs, and that’s putting it lightly. I’ve read a handful I adore; I’ve tried to write through my issues with the trope a few times; and this is perhaps my favorite of my attempts at playing with it! I got to do a few fun things with genre in this rival-CEO fic and write Cat and Kara into a rivals-to-friends-to-lovers arc, which I don’t think we get too often with this pairing. Anyway, it was fun and felt different, and it still makes me smile!

2. Your fav is in fandom series - one Supercat, M; one Sanvers, T

These two one-shots are meant as a kind of cracky love letter to fandom and the kinds of relational practices it can foster at its best. It came to be in the early weeks of the pandemic and lockdown in the US when, utterly unable to sleep one night (all the nights?!?), I turned to my wife at 1am and asked: “So...which one of the Supergirl characters would be the fandom asshole?” Originally there was meant to be a third fic feat. Lucy/Alura (Majorly Judging You) with my personal headcanon that Lucy organizes the big annual events like fic exchanges and ship weeks and that Alura takes the whole “thank your mods!” A/Ns very seriously, messaging Lucy each and every day of an event with personalized thank you notes that lead to a friendship, then more.

3. If you give an alien a syllabus... - General Danvers, G

Another love letter--this time to community colleges and the wonderful people who staff and attend them. This fic felt vital when I was writing it (there was a lot of stuff going on at my own university and many across the country that I was putting my job on the line to fight), and it was meant as a gift for a close friend who teaches at a local community college at a time when we couldn’t see each other in person. Even though I’ve only ever written a couple General Danvers fics, I quite enjoy fics about them (they were some of the earliest ones I ever read in the Supergirl tag!), and it’s always a lovely fandom to visit!

4. you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else - Supercat, E

Despite being the only angsty thing I’ve written in quarantine when most of my fics have trended toward the cracky or the weird, I actually really enjoyed this smutty, feelings-heavy, years-later/post-breakup Supercat fic! I know that fic often shows some of the best of what life and love can be (which is awesome, even if I’m partial to messy characters who don’t do well with or think of themselves as deserving or wanting a neat happily ever after trajectory), but this felt a little gritty in ways that I personally like. It’s the aftermath of two complicated women coming together and shattering, showcasing all the messy emotions that remain when they start the process of picking those pieces back up and finding a new way to put them back together. Hilariously, I went into it envisioning something with a similar premise but lighter--essentially what would be a part 2 to this fic if I ever wrote it. It was meant to be about Cat and Kara after this initial moment of coming back together for the first time in years, seeing them sneak around almost like teenagers as they tried to keep this precious thing to themselves while they rekindled it and figured out what it could be away from the judgment of everyone who was there when they fell apart the first time.

5. Writing Retreats Are For Lovers - Supercat, M

Another AU! Well, Cat’s pretty much canon Cat, but featuring ABD PhD candidate Kara who meets her at a writing retreat as she tries to get the dissertation written and Cat finally gets a writing coach to help her through the worst case of writers’ block she’s had in years. It hit close to the heart and was very, very fun to write! I always have fun getting to bring characters into new settings to see what about them is integral to who they are and what is context-dependent, much like I’m intrigued by the different (and very similar!) ways relationship dynamics play out, especially early on, when the characters are in new settings and/or roles.

Honorable Mention: Queen of All Mediums - Supecat, G

It’s weird and quirky and a first foray into writing a historical AU based on a period I know so much--like, too much--about to start figuring out how to strike that balance between “what do people need to know for your fic?” vs. “what do you want people to know but honestly it won’t hurt their experience of the story if they don’t?” I have a very long nineteenth-century authors period piece all outlined, which I’ve debated trying to make original fiction or a Supercat fic. I don’t know where it’ll go, if anywhere, but it was nice getting to dip my toes into the historical romance genre here, even if it’s just a tiny little one-shot about spiritualism with a sprinkling of nineteenth-century class and gender politics in the US.

Theres a lot I could say about trends in my fic writing this year (so little angst! largely AU! no new WIPs!), but I won’t bore you all with my theories about why x or why not y. I wasn’t surprised by most of what I found looking through what I wrote, though I was shocked to find that I wrote only Supergirl pairings this year--a variety of pairings (only some of which appear on this list), but still. My writing and reading didn’t match up at all, and my random fic outlines and drafty drafts also include a much broader variety (some seeds of what was, at one point, to become a multi-chapter Grace/Frankie fic that I think I’ll need to ease into with a couple one-shots; several fully sketched out SwanQueen fics from binge-watching the whole series for the first time during the pandemic and having SO MANY thoughts about both the show’s promising notes and its many disappointments, as well as the fandom’s fabulous works; and a handful of notes about Dead to Me that are honestly closer to meta than fics proper anyway).

Honestly I’d love to see other people doing this! Consider yourself tagged, and feel free to tag me in your responses--I’d love to hear all about what writing you’re proud of!

#fic year in review #fanfic #fic meta #personal post #i have so many more thoughts #don't give an academic an open text box ever

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en-theheights · 4 years

Text

All the problems with HSMTMTS:

I keep getting asked question on what happened in the fandom, and what is going on against all of the s*xual assault allegations against J*shua and T*m. This is going to be the post where I lay out all that I know of and inform the tumblr fandom on it because not all of you are on Twitter, and Tumblr is literally the heaven amongst fandoms. After this post, I’m DONE talking about this show and being apart of this toxic group. Along with talking about the s*xual assault allegations, I will also be addressing the issues during the BLM movement and other crap that not only the cast and crew have been a part of, but also the fandom itself. Let’s dig in.

Sidenote: I really don’t want any hate, I’m just trying to be open with you guys and inform you all. Also, I’m doing my best to remember everything, so if there is something that you want to know more on then please just message me personally cause I’m seriously SICK of discussing it publicly.

Not eveything in the fandom is due to JUST the cast and crew. This fandom is FULL of very toxic and creepy people.

A few months ago, someone (a grown women) who was overly obsessed with Olivia hacked into her grandfather’s account to turn it into a fan page to get undercover information on Olivia, as well as getting information on where Olivia lived. This grown women has also done some other seriously inappropriate things. If you want to learn more about the sketchy things that this women has done than you can go to Twitter and look it up.

There are always ship wars in fandoms, but this one takes it WAY too seriously. I’ve seen people get attack on their looks just for being a part of a ship. The ones that are heavily abusive are Rina vs Rini, Seblos vs CJ, and redlyn vs Redky. It has cause people to leave the fandom due to how bad the attacking got. On Tumblr, everyone’s pretty open about ships, but on twitter it is a literal battle field.

Disgraceful people still continue to ship the actors instead of the characters. J*livia and J*fia is what I’m going to talk more closely about. (First, josh is a grown adult and both Sofia and Olivia are minors, please unfollow me if you don’t see anything wrong with that). Sofia had to delete a few of her tik toks after one with Joshua went viral and people wouldn’t stop shipping her and him in her comments. Like one video she did, the caption was “I want a boyfriend” and people assumed they were dating and wouldn’t stop tagging him in her videos. As for Olivia, people have been shipping them since the beginning of the show. Fan accounts on all platforms have dedicated their time to this. I don’t necessarily remember if Sofia or Olivia came out saying that they were uncomfortable when they got shipped with their cast mates, but it started causing drifts between the actors because of this and Joshua wasn’t featured in any of Sofia’s videos after that and Olivia didn’t post as much as she use to with him. It goes to show that shipping actors makes things awkward and strained within their personal relationships. DONT DO THIS!

A person stating that they were friend’s with Olivia came out to expose Joshua of being a bad boyfriend after she tells everyone that Olivia and Joshua has been secretly dating during the press tour of HSMTMTS. There was clever evidence that showed they were dating and the girl came out with multiple receipts, and even went so far as to go on Instagram live to speak on the matter. But she then came out stating that it was false and she only wanted some attention. Apparently she was a j*livia stan. I can’t find anything on twitter about it anymore, since I’m pretty sure eveything was deleted. This can ruin people’s careers and I don’t know why anyone could think it’s okay.

There are genuinely a lot of creepy adults that roam around in the HSM fandom. On twitter, there would be grown adults writing in detail how the kissing scene between Joshua and Olivia made them feel. People continue to post the gif of Nini and Ricky kissing and write out why it’s so important to them. People have taken that kissing scene and literally turned it into nasty and inappropriate sm*t on AO3 and Wattpad. Note once again that these characters are minors and it’s NEVER okay to write inappropriate stories about children. Grown adults need to be held accountable for their actions if this is how they’re acting.

Some parts of the fandom genuinely hate on both Sofia and Olivia for literally nothing. Just jealousy between their ships, and because of it, they think it’s okay to to personally attack the actresses on their looks and where they are in there careers. People continuously pin Olivia and Sofia against each other, like for example people bashing Olivia for not being as successful as Sofia, or Sofia being bashed because she doesn’t have the same singing career as Olivia. It’s once again, DISGUSTING!

This one is more about Disney and then not doing their part. Disney cut out the majority of Seblos’ scenes, which caused a lot of turmoil within the fandom and why Seblos felt unattached and awkward while they were together in all of their scenes after the dance episode. People called out Disney and said they they shouldn’t have put Seblos in if they weren’t going to go full out with it.

Onto the cast and the crew:

Kate (miss Jenn) got a lot of hate for exposing that Frankie (Carlos) and Joe(Seb) are in an actual real life relationship without asking them for their consent to tell the world. Don’t know whether they had spoken about them being in a relationship or not, but Kate didn’t speak on it after that either.

A video came out a few days ago of the cast taking cast pictures during their tour, and Mark (Mr. Mazzara) was standing beside Sofia in which it looks like his hand was rubbing Sofia’s lower back, and she seemed uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s a stretch or not because the video is super blurry and it’s hard to kind of see their faces, but you can clearly see his hand go behind her back. Personally for me, I didn’t notice anything too alarming, but you’d have to see for youself. I won’t be posting that and instead you can dm me personally and I’ll send you the link to the video.

A past comment of Joshua’s was exposed in which he is saying the F slur. #joshuabassettisoverparty was trending world wide on Twitter, with people wanting him off the show. He has apologized for it since then, but not many ever forgave him and it was just really his young girl audience that came to his defense, even though it wasn’t their apology to forgive. People that only stan him because he is a cute cis white male didn’t see the problem in what he had said, and kept saying that he was young and that it’s not a reason for us to hate on him, but he was only 17 when he said that, and it’s no excuse. Personally to me, his apology was super bland and he didn’t address it personally on his Twitter, but instead replied to a post saying he’d do better. Here’s what he had said:

Here is his apology on this:

Joshua also went on a live in which he said “boys, gals, or whatever” People accused him of being transphobic and enbyphobic. Others think that his words were being blown out of proportion. Here is that video:

I found it to be very ridiculous and rude that he doesn’t follow anybody on twitter or tik tok. On a live video, Julia said something about him not following her, and he just says that he doesn’t follow anybody and she shouldn’t take it personally. Honestly not that big of a deal, but it’s still shows pitifullness and arrogancy. Don’t know what his contract looks like with whatever agency he’s with, but maybe they’re just strict on that, but idk.

People hate on Matt (EJ) for being republican. He hasn’t done anything problematic or said anything out of offense, so for me he’s good. UPDATE: Turns out, Matt is friends with Benjamin Lawson Adams, a convicted pedophile. Here’s a brief statement in what happened:

He worked for the Weinstein company, so no surprise there. His arrest happened in May 2016, and his license was suspended to practice Law in July of 2018. If Matt knew what was best for him, he would stop having any and all associations with this dude.

That’s all I can think of on situations not regarding the s*xual assault allegations or the BLM movement. But there’s probably so much I’m missing. I’m going to make a part 2, cause the next half is too long to post here as well. I’ll label it #exposinghsmtmts so others are able to see it.

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bitchin-beskar · 4 years

Text

Folklore

Rating: T (mentions of a funeral, and (1) undeserved b*tch slap)

Word Count: 1.2k

A/N: Wow, chapter three already! I’m not sure I’ve ever posted three chapters before three days in a row, maybe it’ll be a new trend. Anyways, this chapter is based on the last great american dynasty, which I looooove! It’s such a catchy song, and I loved writing this chapter! I hope you guys like it, and be prepared, cause the next chapter is based on exile, and I think we all know what that means! (angst. it means angst. I’m gonna cry so much.)

Tags: @mxndoscyarika, @theocatkov, @perropascal

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!

the last great american dynasty

His mother tried to ban you from the funeral. She failed, but gossip travels fast in your little town, and soon, everyone was whispering about how your fiancé’s family must hate you to try and ban you from his funeral.

If you were being honest, they weren’t wrong. Your future mother-in-law had never liked you, calling you names–gold-digging bitch was her favorite–behind your back, and your future father-in-law was a smarmy old man who you’d caught staring at your chest once too many times. Despite them, you’d loved your fiancé. Really, you had.

It had stunned you when you’d gotten the call. You were home, working on dinner, and when your cell rang, and Charlie’s name and face had popped up, you’d answered without a second thought, only to drop the phone in shock when the voice on the other end told you that he’d collapsed at work, and was en route to the hospital. You’d rushed there straight away, but by the time you’d arrived, more bad news awaited you.

“Please, my fiancé, Charles Pennington, he was just brought in, I got a call, how is he?”

Before the nurse at the reception desk can tell you anything, you hear your name being called. You turn, and there stands a man in scrubs, and you can immediately tell from the look on his face that it’s not good news.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry, but your fiancé didn’t make it.”

You hear the words, but don’t quite process what he’s saying. “B–But, but Charlie wasn’t sick, I–I, I don’t understand–”

The doctor cuts you off, a sympathetic look on his face. “It was a brain aneurysm. There was nothing we could do, he passed away almost immediately. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

You don’t really remember much of what happened after that. You know that you must have called Charlie’s parents to inform them, but you don’t remember most of the conversation. You were in a daze, moving sluggishly, as though the air had the consistency of syrup. None of it felt real. You had the unsettling feeling as though you weren’t in control of your body, as though you were watching someone else pull the strings. The one event that does stand out with startling clarity is when Mrs. Pennington slapped you across the face in the middle of the hospital waiting room. It was as if her slap had jolted you back into awareness, albeit a bit painfully.

You watched, a little dazed, as two orderlies rushed forward to physically hold her back, but nothing could hold back the vitriol spewing from her lips. She was cursing your name, calling you a murderer and a killer, blaming you for her precious baby’s death. You knew that some of the hospital staff would just see it as a grief-stricken mother, striking out at the world for her pain, but you also knew that some wouldn’t.

So, you weren’t exactly surprised when the police got involved. Neither of the officers who questioned you seemed to believe the rumors, but the Pennington family was exceedingly wealthy, so when the heir to the family fortune died unexpectedly, and rather young too, people began to wonder. Your family had been upper middle class, at best, despite your mother’s best efforts. Many people wondered why the Pennington heir would want to marry someone… beneath him.

You’d heard practically every rumor under the sun, ranging from reasonable to downright insane. Seriously, one woman thought you’d hypnotized Charlie to get him to marry you. You hadn’t done anything underhanded at all, though. You weren’t even trying to get his attention, but when Charlie had asked you out, you hadn’t said no. You’d been so desperate to forget–

No.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to block out the memories. But in spite of your efforts, they came flooding in, flashing behind your eyes like an old film reel.

You’d been so in love with Frankie, it had physically made you sick to leave him. You hated yourself for it, but you’d been unable to watch his downward spiral. You’d moved, trying to start a new life, and when you’d met Charlie–a man who was the complete and utter opposite of Frankie, coincidentally of course–you’d practically jumped at the chance for a new life. And you’d been happy.

Or maybe you’d become so good at lying you’d convinced yourself that you were happy. Why else would you be here, standing in the bathroom of the church, trying to figure out why you weren’t crying at your fiancé’s funeral.

It wasn’t like you weren’t sad, because you were. You’d been engaged to marry Charlie, and you wouldn’t have accepted his proposal if you didn’t love him. But now that he was gone, it was as though your feelings had died with him. You weren’t relieved, but you couldn’t deny that you felt lighter now that you wouldn’t become Mrs. Charles Pennington in a few weeks.

You could lie to yourself, and say that it was because of his–quite frankly horrid–parents. Or you could say that it was because you just weren’t ready to get married yet. But you knew that neither of those reasons were the truth.

The truth was, you were still in love with Frankie. No matter how much you tried to deny it, you knew it was true. You’d tried to forget him with everything you had, but it hadn’t worked. Little things reminded you of Francisco Morales everywhere you went.

Sitting in a bar, you could feel the gentle pressure of his hand on your thigh. Driving down the highway, you found yourself reaching out as though to hold his hand over the console in your car. You never ate frozen yogurt anymore, and you had to shove your favorite sweatshirt into the back of your closet because it was Frankie’s sweatshirt and you couldn’t look at it without crying.

You stared at your reflection in the mirror, and you were disgusted. You’d become everything your mother and father ever wanted, and you hated it. You’d been ready to settle down and become a housewife, which you’d sworn you’d never do. You’d been trying so hard to cut Frankie out of your life that you’d lost yourself in the process.

Plastering a neutral expression on your face, and left the bathroom to mingle and accept condolences when offered, for as long as was polite. You pointedly ignored Mr. and Mrs. Pennington, keeping your head high, even as thinly-veiled insults and barbs were thrown your way.

But, as soon as you were able, you left. You left the funeral home, the house, everything. You took only what was yours, and hopped on the road, hoping that maybe, you’d find a chance to find yourself again.

***

“Who knows, if I never showed up, what could’ve been.

There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen.

I had a marvelous time ruining everything.”

#Folklore #Taylor Swift #the last great american dynasty #inspiration #fics #Frankie x reader #reader fic #Francisco Morales #Reader #no use of Y/N #sad #kind of angsty #but hopeful?#song fics #album inspired series

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miloscat · 3 years

Text

[Review] Conker: Live & Reloaded (XB)

Let’s see just how well this misguided remake/expansion holds up. This will be a long one!

Conker’s Bad Fur Day is my favourite N64 game. It’s cinematic and ambitious, technically impressive, has scads of gameplay variety with fun settings and setpieces, and when I first played it I was just the right age for the humour to land very well for me. A scant four years later Rare remade it for the Xbox after their acquisition by Microsoft, replacing the original multiplayer modes with a new online mode that would be the focus of the project, with classes and objectives and such.

First, an assessment of the single-player campaign. On a revisit I can see the common criticisms hold some water: the 3D platformer gameplay is a bit shaky at times, certain gameplay segments are just plain wonky and unfair, and some of the humour doesn’t hold up. It’s got all the best poorly-aged jokes: reference humour, gross-out/shock humour, and poking fun at conventions of the now dormant 3D collectathon platformer genre. I also am more sensitive these days to things like the sexual assault and homophobia undertones to the cogs, or Conker doing awful things for lols. Having said that, there’s plenty that I still find amusing, and outside of a few aggravatingly difficult sequences (surf punks, the mansion key hunt, the submarine attack, the beach escape) I do still appreciate the range of things you do in the game.

As for the remake, I’m not sure it can be called an improvement by any metric. Sure, there’s some minor additions. There’s a new surgeon Tediz miniboss, the new haunted baby doll enemy, and the opening to Spooky has been given a Gothic village retheme along with an added—though unremarked on—costume for Conker during this chapter based on the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing flop. Other changes are if anything detrimental. The electrocution and Berri’s shooting cutscenes have been extended, thus undermining the joke/emotional impact. The original game used the trope of censoring certain swear words to makes lines more funny; the remake adds more censorship for some reason, in one case (the Rock Solid bouncer scene) ruining the joke, and Chucky Poo’s Lament is just worse with fart noises covering the cursing.

The most egregious change, and one lampshaded in the tutorial, is the replacement of the frying pan (an instant and satisfying interaction) with a baseball bat which must be equipped, changing the control and camera to the behind-the-back combat style, and then swung with timed inputs to defeat the many added armoured goblings and dolls carelessly dumped all throughout the game world. This flat out makes the game less fun to play through.

On top of this, all the music has been rerecorded (with apologies to Robin Beanland, I didn’t really notice apart from instances where it had to be changed, such as in Franky’s boss fight where the intensely frenetic banjo lead was drastically reduced as a concession to the requirement to actually play it in real life), and the graphics totally redone. Bad Fur Day made excellent use of textures, but with detail cranked up, the sixth generation muddiness, and a frankly overdone fur effect, something is lost. I’m not a fan of the character redesigns either; sure Birdy has a new hat, but I didn’t particularly want to see Conker’s hands, and the Tediz are no longer sinister stuffed bears but weird biological monster bears with uniforms. On top of all this you notice regular dropped details; a swapped texture makes for nonsensical dialogue in the Batula cutscene, and characters have lost some emotive animations. Plus, the new translucent scrolling speech bubbles are undeniably worse.

I could mention the understandable loading screens (at least they’re quick), the mistimed lip sync (possibly exacerbated by my tech setup), or the removal of cheats (not a big deal), but enough remake bashing. To be fair, the swimming controls have been improved and the air meter mercifully extended, making Bats Tower more palatable. And some sequences have been shortened to—I suppose—lessen gameplay tedium (although removing the electric eel entirely is an odd choice). But let’s cover the multiplayer. Losing the varied modes from the original is a heavy blow, as I remember many a fun evening spent in Beach, War, or Raptor, along with the cutscenes setting up each mode.

The new headline feature of this release is the Live mode. The new Xbox Live service allowing online multiplayer was integrated, although it’s all gone now. Chasing the hot trends of the time, it’s a set of class-based team missions, with the Squirrel High Command vs. the Tediz in a variety of scenarios, mostly boiling down to progressing through capture points or capture the flag. Each class is quite specialised and I’m not sure how balanced it is, plus there’s proto-achievements and unlocks behind substantial milestones none of which I got close to reaching (I don’t think I could get most of them anyway, not being “Live”).

The maps are structured around a “Chapter X” campaign in which the Tediz and the weasel antagonist from BFD Ze Professor (here given a new and highly offensive double-barrelled slur name) are initially fighting the SHC in the Second World War-inspired past of the Old War, before using a time machine, opening up a sci-fi theme for the Future War. These are mainly just aesthetic changes, but it’s a fun idea and lets them explore Seavor’s beloved wartime theming a bit more while also bringing in plenty of references to Star Wars, Alien, Dune, and Halo; mostly visual.

Unfortunately the plot is a bit incoherent, rushed through narration (unusually provided by professional American voice actor Fred Tatasciore rather than a Rare staffer doing a raspy or regional voice like the rest of the game) over admittedly nice-looking cutscenes. They also muddle the timeline significantly, seemingly ignoring the BFD events... and then the Tediz’ ultimate goal is to revive the hibernating Panther King, when the purpose of their creation was to usurp him in the first place! It expands on the Conker universe but in a way that makes the world feel smaller and more confusing. It’s weird, and also Conker doesn’t appear at all.

On top of this, I found the multiplayer experience itself frustrating. To unlock the full Chapter X, you need to play the first three maps on easy, then you can go through the whole six. But I couldn’t pass the first one on normal difficulty! The “Dumbots” seemed to have so much health and impeccable aim, while the action was so chaotic, obscured by intrusive UI, floating usernames, and smoke and other effects with loads of characters milling around, not to mention the confusing map layouts, the friendly fire, the instant respawns, and the spawncamping. Luckily I could play the maps themselves in solo mode with cutscenes and adjustable AI and options.

I found some classes much more satisfying than others. I tried to like the Long Ranger and the slow Demolisher, but found it difficult to be accurate. The awkward range of the Thermophile and the Sky Jockey’s rarely effective vehicles made them uncommon choices. I had most success with the simple Grunt, or the melee-range Sneeker (the SHC variant of which is sadly the sole playable female in the whole thing). You can pick up upgrade tokens during gameplay to expand the toolset of each class, which range from necessary to situational. But ultimately it’s a crapshoot, as I rarely felt that my intentions led to clear results.

Live & Reloaded is such a mess. The Reloaded BFD is full of odd decisions and baffling drawbacks, while the Live portion feels undercooked. I’d have preferred a greater focus on either one; a remake is unnecessary, especially only four years on, but a new single-player adventure would have been ace. And a multiplayer mode in this universe with its own story mode could be cool if it was better balanced and had more to it than just eight maps. As a source of some slight scrapings of new Conker content I appreciated it to some extent, but I can’t help being let down. I guess it’s true what they say... the grass is always greener. And you don’t really know what it is you have, until it’s gone... gone. Gone.

Yes, that ending is still genuinely emotionally affecting.

#review #conker #conker live and reloaded #Rare Ltd #xbox

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scribbledghost · 4 years

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I don’t know why I though of this but could you imagine trying to teach the boys how to use tick Tok 😂 like I could see them looking at their s/o like they’ve lost their mind 😂🤣

Note: just for reference, I have never used Tik Tok so I couldn’t tell you how it works either so I’m gonna try my best here 😂😂😂

Agent Whiskey:

Whiskey absolutely, 100% does not get it. He’ll get this squinty “what the fuck am I looking at” face the entire time you’re explaining to him what it is and how people use it. He just.... he’s completely lost. Even if you try to get him to make one with you, he still won’t understand what’s going on or why.

Javier Peña:

You would be better off trying to explain Tik Tok to an 87-year old man. Javier just does not get it and he’s too stubborn to even try to. It’s funny seeing some of his reactions to videos that you make where you manage to catch him in them somehow though.

Din Djarin:

He does not understand one bit, but he’ll try to. He’ll fail miserably, but he’ll try. Probably pronounces meme as “may-May” or something and does not understand what a meme even is so he’ll just call random things memes in hopes that he’ll get it right at some point.

Catfish/Frankie Morales:

He’s confused, but he’s got the spirit. He’ll listen intently to what you’re telling him, even though a good chunk of it is gonna just go straight over his head. He could be convinced to make a couple of videos with you too if the meme format you’re using is easy enough to understand.

Ezra:

He already knows what it is. Don’t bother asking him how he knows, because he won’t tell you, but he does. He knows all the trends, all the memes, everything. How does he even keep up with it so well being in the middle of nowhere out in space? You’ll never know.

Oberyn Martell:

Oberyn immediately wants to know more. He wants to keep up with the latest trends, know what exactly is going on in that sphere. Probably not above making his own videos, though they turn out significantly more explicit than most others on the platform. It’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten banned yet.

Maxwell Lord:

Maxwell is gonna look at you like you’ve got three heads the entire time you’re showing him what it is and how you use it. Good luck getting him to ever make a video with you, unless you slyly record him without his knowledge. Which you absolutely should.

#agent whiskey #javier peña #din djarin #catfish #frankie morales #ezra #oberyn martell #maxwell lord #ghost scribbles

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f4liveblogarchives · 3 years

Text

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #239

Thur Dec 17 2020 [10:52 PM] Umbramatic: :O [10:52 PM] Wack'd: I'm gonna guess Batman. You'd never expect that

[10:53 PM] Umbramatic: its the spanish inquisition [10:54 PM] Wack'd: So this mystery guest is a woman with short black hair, having come to see the Four all the way from Arizona on a matter of life or death. She also mentions in thought balloons that

"It's been so long--so many years since we last saw each other. I wonder if he ever thinks of me--of us."

[10:55 PM] Bocaj: I don't think I know of anyone with black hair [10:55 PM] Wack'd: Lucky for her, especially given it's the dead of night, the Four's little corner of the Baxter now has a receptionist. Uh. Kinda.

[10:57 PM] Wack'd: Reed meanwhile has been up for three days straight trying to fix the current Ben related-fuckup. He blamed himself, of course. Sue tries to reassure him that Ben probably doesn't hold him accountable [10:58 PM] Wack'd: Huh!

[10:58 PM] Wack'd: You know what? Fair dues. I did not see this coming. [10:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Doctors Hate Her! [10:59 PM] Bocaj: I always thought of Aunt Petunia not appearing until later [10:59 PM] Bocaj: In my mind she was sort of a the ghost for a while in the sense of sir not appearing [10:59 PM] Wack'd: I mean hey, twenty years is a hell of a while. [10:59 PM] maxwellelvis: As an aside, from what I remember of Ben's wedding, it looks like Aunt Petunia started aging in real time as if the Four had gotten their powers NOW as in 1982 [11:00 PM] Wack'd: "Doctors Hate Her!" Funny you say that max because Ben describes Petunia as a "genuine country doctor." [11:00 PM] maxwellelvis: Ha! [11:01 PM] Wack'd: So Petunia meets the gang. Sue mentions she was expecting someone older, which Petunia takes in stride [11:02 PM] Wack'd: It turns out Petunia married into the family. She, uh. Well. [11:02 PM] Wack'd: Ben's Uncle Jake got into an auto accident, which killed his wife. Petunia, then a student nurse, became his medical student, and then his wife. [11:02 PM] Wack'd: That...sure is a course of events! [11:03 PM] Bocaj: 😬 [11:03 PM] Bocaj: That feels like it fits into a trend with Byrne [11:03 PM] Wack'd: Doesn't it just. (Though I will again point out he is not responsible for Sue having been creepily young when she and Reed hooked up. That's Lee.) [11:04 PM] maxwellelvis: I can see why Slott decided to retcon Aunt Petunia into the grandmotherly type for the wedding. [11:04 PM] Bocaj: Oh now I know where MCU Aunt May has absorbed life force from [11:04 PM] Wack'd: So the "life or death" matter involves her home out in Arizona with Jake. The whole town is in danger of being "frightened to death." [11:05 PM] maxwellelvis: So call Mystery Incoporated [11:05 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh wait, this is 1982, Mystery Inc.'s broken up. [11:06 PM] Wack'd: So. Uh. This is Uncle Jake.

[11:06 PM] Wack'd: And this is Aunt Petunia.

[11:07 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, she'd have to have a few more gray hairs than that if she's known Ben since he was a boy, I think. [11:07 PM] Wack'd: She does not seem to have. [11:08 PM] Wack'd: So the Four arrive in Benson, Arizona, and the narration informs us that Ben had been the only one who approved of Jake marrying Petunia, and. [11:09 PM] maxwellelvis: That's what all the instances of Ben invoking her name had led me to believe. [11:09 PM] Wack'd: Look I want to take for granted this is messed up and move on but the damn book seems dead set against me doing this. [11:10 PM] maxwellelvis: Well, anyways, I guess that means we've hit the OTHER side of John Byrne's run. [11:10 PM] maxwellelvis: Aspect, perhaps [11:10 PM] Wack'd: Sue mentions we don't know much about Ben's past. Ben says his mom and died died when he was a teen and Jake raised him. [11:10 PM] Wack'd: (We don't really know much of Reed's past at this point, though I am given to understand this will also change in the near future.) [11:11 PM] maxwellelvis: This part is just Byrne telling Steve Gerber he can fuck off. [11:11 PM] Wack'd: Gerber, I assume, would instruct Bryne to get in line. [11:12 PM] Wack'd: Racism? Anyone want some racism? Anyone think what this story could really use, right about now, is some racism?

[11:13 PM] Bocaj: Eesh [11:13 PM] maxwellelvis: (Gerber I think was one of the first writers to use the "Ben grew up on Yancy St." backstory) [11:14 PM] maxwellelvis: (Unless he didn't write that issue of Marvel Two-In-One, in which case it would probably be Roy Thomas that Byrne was dismissing here) [11:16 PM] maxwellelvis: (I would look this up, but I physically cannot get to my Essential 2-in-1 collection atm) [11:16 PM] Wack'd: So Ruth's child assistant(?) Wendy is upset that Ruth, rather than just appreciating the arrowhead, started a whole excavation. She has fond memories of this place because when her mom was sick they'd come to the site and collect rocks and whatnot. [11:16 PM] Wack'd: So that's not ominous.

[11:17 PM] Wack'd: We skip forward to that night, where two of Ruth's more non-child students are doing some late-night archeology. A mist comes at them and then BAM! Scared to death! [11:18 PM] Wack'd: MEANWHILE IN THE HIMALAYAS [11:19 PM] maxwellelvis: I was putting something in the oven, thinking "Oh man, it better not be the Miracle Man again" and then we cut to the Himalayas [11:19 PM] Wack'd: Quicksilver has been fighting some kind of war, apparently, while Crystal--suffering complications from a half-mutant half-Inhuman pregnancy--is being treated by whoever this guy is.

[11:20 PM] Wack'd: Pietro here is apparently the only guy in all of Attilan who's not come down with some sort of mysterious disease. [11:20 PM] maxwellelvis: He looks like the Leader, if the Leader was slowly turning into a raisin. [11:20 PM] Wack'd: And Attilan is being destroyed, leaving Pietro as their only hope. [11:21 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh yeah, he just looks like the PICTURE of health here, don't he [11:21 PM] Umbramatic: gfrtvtigyhhuihjio;opkp [11:21 PM] Bocaj: The funny thing is that mutant and inhuman genes apparently cancel out [11:22 PM] Bocaj: Or Crystal and Pietro won the silliest genetic lottery [11:22 PM] Wack'd: Back in Arizona, Reed is having no luck cracking the case, while Frankie and Wendy get some bonding time in

[11:23 PM] Wack'd: So, uh. Because this story just did not have enough going on, it turns out Wendy's dad is beating her. [11:23 PM] Umbramatic: oh [11:24 PM] Wack'd: Frankie tries to intervene but Wendy begs her to back off, so she figures there's nothing to be done and leaves. [11:24 PM] Bocaj: Comic are you sure you're up to this content [11:25 PM] Wack'd: I feel like Reed should be caught a bit more flatfooted by someone he looks up to intellectually telling him he can't fix things with guesswork.

[11:26 PM] Wack'd: Sue and Ben want to take action of some kind but Reed points out that, uh, they can't really punch their way out of this one. [11:27 PM] maxwellelvis: I'd make more scooby-doo jokes, but John Byrne deciding to put a Very Special Episode in here has kind of made that feel... not so fun anymore. [11:28 PM] Wack'd: That night, Wendy sneaks out of her house to go talk to the mists. Turns out that’s who her wonderful friends are. [11:30 PM] Wack'd: I think she wants to beg them for mercy? The narration boxes get kinda cryptic. Anyway if that's what she's done, it reeeaaally doesn't work.

[11:30 PM] Wack'd: "What was that about not being able to fight our way out?" [11:32 PM] Bocaj: I think Slott revisited some of this [11:32 PM] Bocaj: I vaguely remember mists and gremlins when Franklin and Valeria were staying with aunt petunia post wedding [11:33 PM] Bocaj: But as it was the same story where Sue made Doom naked on a live broadcast the details escape me [11:33 PM] Wack'd: So on top of these weird things the entire town is now also set on fire and also in a giant windstorm. The Four put out the fires but the damage is done and most of the town decides to evacuate. [11:33 PM] Umbramatic: oh yes that one [11:35 PM] Wack'd: what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK

[11:36 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh of COURSE Byrne has Reed sympathize with an abusive parent. [11:37 PM] Wack'd: Okay so for starters, because this is the thing I'm the least mad about, everything about this resolution is fucking nonsense. We know basically nothing about any of the other people who got "frightened to death" and so as the readers had no ability to draw upon our own knowledge of their morality or why they might not be able to handle seeing visions of their worst selves. [11:37 PM] Wack'd: From there we get to the fact that, for all the ways Ruth and Reed protested earlier, this is a massive pile of assumptions with absolutely no backing in fact or evidence. [11:37 PM] Umbramatic: geez [11:38 PM] Wack'd: Speaking of Ruth, she said that the arrowhead was crucial, and Ben speculated that may be the excavation released the spirits and they needed to be re-buried. They don't out right say it, but this may as well be a "ancient Indian burial ground" plot. [11:39 PM] Umbramatic: yeesh [11:39 PM] Wack'd: And from there we get, yes, Reed saying that their job is not to judge people, therefore they can't do anything about an abusive parent. Which is frankly just moral cowardice and also really gross. [11:40 PM] maxwellelvis: And also a grim portent of things to come in this era. [11:41 PM] Wack'd: And so the story ends, with. I think the implication is that Wendy asked her "friends" to take care of her dad for her? Which is okay, I guess, but doesn't really fix the way everybody else reacts to this.

[11:42 PM] Wack'd: The story is also just plain all over the place. There's absolutely no reason for the characters who get the Four involved in the plot to be Ben's Aunt Petunia--except-- [11:42 PM] Wack'd: Oh. The whole town got judged. [11:43 PM] Wack'd: Did John Bryne really just write a plot where a bunch of cosmic arbiters of justice basically give the okay to marrying your student [11:43 PM] maxwellelvis: RED FLAG [11:44 PM] Wack'd: This a lot, huh. [11:45 PM] Wack'd: Well, maybe whatever Inhumans nonsense is going on will help clear my head.

#1982 #John Bryne #The Main Book

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