#is a big change and utterly mind boggling thing for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pa1nkill3r · 3 years

Text

"Now How Come I've Only Found Out About This Now?" [G.W]

[Pairing:] George Weasley x Fem!Artist!Reader

[Summary:] So far, George Weasley knows three things about his new potions partner; So why not make it four? Or five?

[Warnings:] use of mudblood, a bit of angst, a bit of swearing, a pov change at some point in the end, idk-- fluff?? (is that a warning??)

[Word Count:] ≈2.7k

[A/N:] i used @buckystrenchcoat 's fluff plots for george weasley: 2. George finding out you can draw (kind of got carried away but oh well :D--) (ps just imagine that classes in hogwarts includes all of the houses together, thanks <3) Y/H = your house. (dk the timeline or what year george and the reader are in but i'd say between 3rd-5th year)

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

The Weasley twins were becoming reckless and apparently, Professor Snape has had enough. The constant explosions on the other side of the dungeon and the numerous attempts at drowning his hair with shampoo has eventually led him to the decision of assigning the entire class their partners.

Thus halfway into the semester, the Weasley twins are never to be seen together again... that is until the end of 2nd period where they will go back and cause mischief elsewhere.

Fred was assigned to a Slytherin girl who George couldn't figure out if she's madly in love with his brother or wants to rip out his guts. While he on the other hand was assigned with Y/N. Truthfully, he never gave much thought to her, but after their first double potions lesson as partners, he began to wonder why he never gave much thought to her.

She was smart but never overbearing, made jokes here and there, sniggered when he made even the cheesiest of puns, and is wicked attractive. Their first task was to brew a calming draught and whilst adding in a smidge more of lavender, she proposed that they should make more while the majority of the class was still struggling.

"Why in Merlin's beard are we going to make more? We can just pass this and leave class early?" He asked, bringing a smile to her lips. "Yeah, yeah, that's what you want, don't you Weasley?" She quipped, looking back up to the red-headed boy who's now readying their vials.

"Just thought that we could make some for people, like, your brother. Poor guy, reckon he's going to rip his hair out getting partnered with Tuttle." And with that, George let out a laugh, a laugh that cost Gryffindor 5 points. Though, all was well when they were the first to finish and send their little vial of calming draught into the hands of Severus Snape, garnering 5 points each and an opportunity to leave class 10 minutes early.

And that was it, that was their relationship; potions partners.

George Weasley learned 2 things that day. One, his potions partner was someone he wanted to know more, to be with more, and two, one should never put a liberal amount of peppermint in a calming draught. (Fred learned that the hard way.)

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

She was the epitome of beauty and brains. So far, that's what he knew about his potions partner. But a little incident in the corridor made two into three.

It wasn't unusual for Fred and George Weasley to skip class, especially if the class was History of Magic. And it also wasn't unusual for them to hide behind a tapestry whilst a stinky dungbomb was set in the first-floor corridor.

What was unusual though, was George not wanting to move from their hiding place, forcing Fred to also not move. "George, mate, wha-?" "SHH!"

Whatever Fred's question was supposed to be, it quickly got answered by the presence of a certain someone whose walking to the Muggle Studies classroom, his brother's potions partner perhaps? Fred grinned mischievously, nudging his brother in the abdomen, and earning a wince.

"Oi mudblood! Was that you?" They heard from a distance, heavy footsteps following the girl he's teasing his brother with. From their point of view, they could tell that the girl stopped in her tracks, sighing heavily as though this was a regular thing.

"Was that me, what?" She asked, clearly annoyed. "Was that you who did it? Or d'you just shat yourself? It smells horrid. Would make sense, as you're a filthy little mudblood."

George's blood was beginning to boil, fingers formed into a fist, knuckles white. Especially when they got to see the silhouette of the two arguing. Perfect, Winnifred Tuttle, his brother's potions partner bullying his Y/N Y/L/N. He had an urge to protect her. To avenge her. To show her how much he cared for someone who's supposed to be his potions partner.

"Was that supposed to be an insult, Tutts?" Y/N spat back, pulling George out of his trance and making Fred shut his mouth. Now he's the one staring intently. "It's honestly just sad. A 'pureblood' like you should know the difference between a dungbomb and a piece of shit. Or perhaps you're probably just that daft?"

The boys were fixated on their conversation now. A hand on their mouths, hopefully covering up their shock even if they're hiding behind a tapestry. George's heart was beating faster now.

"Me? Daft? Well, if I'm daft then why are you taking muggle studies?" Tuttle sneered, an ugly grin splattered across her face.

"Bit hypocritical, isn't it, Winnie? Bye-bye!" She turned her back away from the Slytherin now, walking into the Muggle Studies classroom, holding a few books in one hand and her middle finger in the other.

He knows three things about her now; She's bewitching, she's a whizz, and she's a muggle-born who doesn't take shit.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

A few more lessons in and one could say that Y/N and George are starting to become friendlier to each other. Acquaintances, sure, but, friendly nonetheless. But the Gryffindor wanted to live up to its name, to its values. He might've just gotten to know a bit about her but he was completely and utterly entranced.

Nothing's going to stop him now.

His right hand held his wand as he stirred the concoction in the cauldron. She, on the other hand, was cutting up the stewed mandrake. The easy silence between them was broken by none other than the lion himself.

"Hey," he called, lifting his gaze from the potion to the girl right next to him. "Hi." She said back.

"So... Today's a Friday, right?"

She looked at him, confused, recounting a particular time in which she looked at a calendar today. "Yeah, I think so."

"And we can go to Hogsmeade after classes?"

"Pretty sure you can, why?"

"Want to go on a date?"

She looked stunned which kind of hurt George's ego but as soon as the slightly parted mouth of hers became a cheerful grin, he felt a whole lot better.

"As long as you stop staring at me and not over mix our potion, then sure, I'll go out with you." She smiled, making George give a shy little grin back before attempting to put all his concentration on the brew. Mind boggled on the way she said 'our potion.'

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

Going to Muggle Studies felt utterly useless now that Y/N's been promised to go on a date right after. But having George by her side, walking her to the class just seemed to be the best part of the day.

He recounted the time when he and Fred hid behind a tapestry and told Y/N all about it, giving a hot feeling to her cheeks. They stopped by the door frame of the classroom, Professor Burbage was waiting inside, pacing around her study as George's hand slyly held Y/N's.

"I'll pick you up later?" He asked with the same shy smirk plastered on his face, cheeks pink and ears flushed. "Yeah. Thanks for walking me here. You shouldn't have." She uttered, heels rising and falling as she bounced on her toes.

"Just making sure that Tuttsy's not going to ruin your day, love." Y/N felt heat rising to her cheeks and ears, as well as an uncontrollable grin. Her heel turned to make her face the concrete walls of the castle, hands covering their face and body slightly swaying from side to side. It was ridiculous, really. Dumb. Very.

"You're adorable when you're flustered."

"Shut up, Weasley." And with that, she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, leaving him slightly startled, stunned, and very red in the face. "You're adorable when you're flustered." She quipped, walking into the Muggle Studies classroom and taking her seat.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

Muggle Studies felt oddly slow that day. Usually, it lasted an hour but today it felt like a century. Professor Burbage's talk about electricity and muggle technology went in one ear and out the other.

If you'd ask why Y/N chose a subject she already knew plenty about, her answer would be that she wanted to see things from a different perspective. But truthfully, she just knew that she'd be good at it and it'd be an easy O.

So there she was; A scrap piece of parchment laid on the wooden desk and a pen since Professor Burbage discouraged the use of quills.

Her mind wandered off the moment she sat down on her chair. Feet either bouncing up and down or stuck straight onto the floor, she wouldn't know. What she did remember was her non-dominant hand posing itself as the other one scribbled on the piece parchment.

Her fingers played with the hazy light and the ink added depth. Soon she started sketching other things; The student in front of her, a study of Professor Burbage, a head with a moderately strong jaw and beautiful, short, messy hair. A male side profile with a big nose that has a slight bump on its bridge matching a cheeky grin with dimples. Her hand posed itself once more but this time she wasn't making it look like hers, she was making it look like his. Something she's seen many times before, and guiltily stared at once, twice, more than she could recount.

She was adding in the cluster of freckles when the worst happened; "Miss Y/L/N, still with us?" Professor Burbage stood at the front of the class, standing straight, clearly thinking about her posture. "Miss Y/L/N?"

She felt an elbow nudge her arm, and that was the thing that brought her back into reality. Her head whipped itself to face her seatmate then to her Professor, giving her a funny-looking nervous grin.

"Charm would get you nowhere, Miss Y/L/N. When was the first electricity generator introduced in Britain? And where was it installed?" She has to have something in that brain of hers. It must've been taught sometime when she was in muggle school. "Err-- 1900s something, Surrey--?"

Professor Burbage meekly chuckled, "Nice try. 1881. Godalming, Surrey. A point from Y/H then, I'm sorry."

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

George was faithful and stuck to his word. Even being 5 minutes early after asking Professor Grubbly-Plank if he could go to the bathroom and have a wee, saying that the unicorns would definitely mind if he pissed on their trees.

He did not go to the bathroom but instead went straight to the Muggle Studies classroom. Leaning the side of his body onto the wall by the door. Trying his best to peer into the room and find his potions partner and soon to be his date and maybe even his. But he was getting ahead of himself.

The bell rang and he heard a loud shuffling sound of chairs being pulled back. The door was opened as students from all of the houses started pouring out and there she was. Looking beautiful as ever with her bag slung on her shoulder.

"Glad to see you're alright there, dove." He cooed, earning once again another shy smile. "Anything happened there?" He asked, pointing to the now open classroom.

"Felt way longer than usual, and I lost a house point." She said matter of factly. George chuckled, his heart filled with pride as he turned his head towards her.

"And what have you done to lose said house point?"

She smiled before reaching her hand into a pocket of her robes, pulling out a folded piece of aged parchment before handing it to the curious redhead.

"What's this? A love letter?" He bantered. "Just open it." And so he did. His nimble fingers unfolding the parchment, then he was stunned. Seeing his face drawn in ink with lines crossing over more lines was the last thing he expected. It looked like him. And it didn't look like Fred. It is him.

"I was just drawing in class but then I sort of blanked out and got a dumb question wrong." She paused, looking back up to see if the redhead was still listening. "Hello? Earth to George?"

"You drew me?" He was on a fine line of disbelief and awe. It truly looked amazing. She drew her hand at least three times before he recognized his was also there. She even got the little freckle he had on the middle of his wrist. The full body of ol' Professor Burbage brought so much of her energy and even the way her scarf wrapped around her neck was perfect.

Her cheeks were heating up again, realizing what she just did. "It's not that good. Just-- drew what I saw and, err-- whatever came to mind, I guess." Bad execution, sloppy excuse. "Okay, you've been looking at that for way too long now--"

"This looks bloody brilliant! Now how come I've only found out about this now?"

"Flattery would get you nowhere, Weasley." She joked, but he was serious.

"S'not 'flattery' if I'm stating what's true! It's amazing, you're amazing." She felt her heartbeat increase by a mile.

"Well then, I'm flattered." She said, adjusting the strap of her bag to hopefully let out some adrenaline. "And to answer your question, it'd be terrifying if I just started drawing in Snape's class. I swear that man has eyes at the back of his head. That's why this is a new discovery for you."

"Fuck, this is amazing!" He uttered.

"It's really not that good--"

"'S'really not that good' Some shit standards you have there. I'd put this in a museum!" He said loudly, extending both his arms and imagining that the piece of parchment was displayed on the Hogwarts walls. "If you don't like it then I'll keep it." George joked, expecting disapproval, which, to his shock, never came.

"Are you actually giving this to me?"

She shrugged, "I mean if you'd like a photo of you drawn by a teenage girl then be my guest." He smiled, genuinely smiled. He looked so pretty at that moment and there shouldn't be any holding back now.

"...But," She started, his gaze looked intently at her, ready to listen to whatever comes next. "There's a price."

"Between Freddie and I, we have 26 galleons and a few sickles." He said, earning a hearty laugh and a shake of her head. "Don't really think he'd like me to give all of it to you, I'm sorry. If you want I'd pay a bit then I--"

"No, George." She said, tugging lightly on his tie to gain his attention. "How about... a kiss? Perhaps?"

He grinned. His hand hovered itself across her face before landing on her cheek, thumb gracing itself on its apples, slightly squishing the skin whilst his eyes looked for any signs of discomfort; there was none.

They slowly leaned in, eyes locked on lips before their lips locked onto each other. His lips were slightly chapped but it felt like the softest thing on Earth. He smelled of cinnamon, firewood, gunpowder, and other indescribable scents, but it was nice. It was short but meaningful, gentle, even. His other hand was wrapped around her waist and once again, his thumbs were running up and down whatever part of her body it's laid on.

He learned two more things about the girl that day; she's artistic, and she felt like home.

He never thought there'd be a time in his life where he'd be thankful for Severus Snape. But life goes in unexpected ways.

"If you'd like to tip me then I'm just going to say that I love cauldron cakes." She grinned up at him as they pulled away before settling her face in his chest. George chuckled to himself before wrapping his arms completely on her waist, placing a sweet kiss on the top of her head.

"Yeah, yeah, come on." He said, pulling away to let her shake herself up as he held onto the piece of folded parchment which graced his face, giving it a small peck before putting it in his pocket, patting it three times.

"Better sign that drawing for me, Y/N. How much does an autograph cost?"

"Double the original price—?"

"And the tip?"

"And the tip."

#george weasley fanfiction #george weasley fluff #george weasley x reader #george weasley x fem!reader #george weasley x ravenclaw!reader #george weasley x hufflepuff!reader #george weasley x slytherin!reader #george weasley x gryffindor!reader #george weasley fic #george weasley #george weasley x y/n #oml this is long

628 notes · View notes

eli-kittim · 3 years

Text

Science & God’s Existence

By Author Eli Kittim

Can We Reject Paul’s Vision Based On the Fact that No One Saw It?

Given that none of Paul’s companions saw or heard the content of his visionary experience (Acts 9), on the road to Damascus, some critics have argued that it must be rejected as unreliable and inauthentic. Let’s test that hypothesis. Thoughts are common to all human beings. Are they not? However, no one can “prove” that they have thoughts. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have any. Just because others can’t see or hear your thoughts doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Obviously, a vision, by definition, is called a “vision” precisely because it is neither seen nor observed by others. So, this preoccupation with “evidence” and “scientism” has gone too far. We demand proof for things that are real but cannot be proven. According to philosopher William Lane Craig, the irony is that science can’t even prove the existence of the external world, even though it presupposes it.

No one has ever seen an electron, or the substance we call “dark matter,” yet physicists presuppose them. Up until recently we could not see, under any circumstances, ultraviolet rays, X – rays, or gamma rays. Does that mean they didn’t exist before their detection? Of course not. Recently, with the advent of better instruments and technology we are able to detect what was once invisible to the human eye. Gamma rays were first observed in 1900. Ultraviolet rays were discovered in 1801. X-rays were discovered in 1895. So, PRIOR to the 19th century, no one could see these types of electromagnetic radiation with either the naked eye or by using microscopes, telescopes, or any other available instruments. Prior to the 19th century, these phenomena could not be established. Today, however, they are established as facts. What made the difference? Technology (new instruments)!

If you could go back in time to Ancient Greece and tell people that in the future they could sit at home and have face-to-face conversations with people who are actually thousands of miles away, would they have believed you? According to the empirical model of that day, this would have been utterly impossible! It would have been considered science fiction. My point is that what we cannot see today with the naked eye might be seen or detected tomorrow by means of newer, more sophisticated technologies!

——-

Can We Use The Scientific Model to Address Metaphysical Questions?

Using empirical methods of “observation” to determine what is true and what is false is a very *simplistic* way of understanding reality in all its complexity. For example, we don’t experience 10 dimensions of reality. We only experience a 3-dimensional world, with time functioning as a 4th dimension. Yet Quantum physics tells us there are, at least, 10 dimensions to reality: https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2014-12-universe-dimensions.amp

Prior to the discoveries of primitive microscopes, in the 17th century, you couldn’t see germs, bacteria, viruses, or microorganisms with the naked eye! For all intents and purposes, these microorganisms DID NOT EXIST! It would therefore be quite wrong to assume that, because a large number of people (i.e. a consensus) cannot see it, an unobservable phenomenon must be ipso facto nonexistent.

Similarly, prophetic experiences (e.g. visions) cannot be tested by any instruments of modern technology, nor investigated by the methods of science. Because prophetic experiences are of a different kind, the assumption that they do not have objective reality is a hermeneutical mistake that leads to a false conclusion. Physical phenomena are perceived by the senses, whereas metaphysical phenomena are not perceived by the senses but rather by pure consciousness. Therefore, if we use the same criteria for metaphysical perceptions that we use for physical ones (which are derived exclusively from the senses), that would be mixing apples and oranges. The hermeneutical mistake is to use empirical observation (that only tests physical phenomena) as “a standard” for testing the truth value of metaphysical phenomena. In other words, the criteria used to measure physical phenomena are quite inappropriate and wholly inapplicable to their metaphysical counterparts.

——-

Are the “Facts” of Science the Only Truth, While All Else is Illusion?

Whoever said that scientific “facts” are *necessarily* true? On the contrary, according to Bertrand Russell and Immanuel Kant, only a priori statements are *necessarily* true (i.e. logical & mathematical propositions), which are not derived from the senses! The senses can be deceptive. That’s why every 100 years or so new “facts” are discovered that replace old ones. So what happened to the old facts? Well, they were not necessarily true in the epistemological sense. And this process keeps repeating seemingly ad infinitum. If that is the case, how then can we trust the empirical model, devote ourselves to its shrines of truth, and worship at its temples (universities)? Read the “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn, a classic book on the history of science and how scientific paradigms change over time.

——-

Cosmology, Modern Astronomy, & Philosophy Seem to Point to the Existence of God

If you studied cosmology and modern astronomy, you would be astounded by the amazing beauty, order, structure, and precision of the various movements of the planets and stars. The Big Bang Theory is the current cosmological model which asserts that the universe had a beginning. Astoundingly, the very first line of the Bible (the opening sentence, i.e. Gen. 1.1) makes the exact same assertion. The fine tuning argument demonstrates how the slightest change to any of the fundamental physical constants would have changed the course of history so that the evolution of the universe would not have proceeded in the way that it did, and life itself would not have existed. What is more, the cosmological argument demonstrates the existence of a “first cause,” which can be inferred via the concept of causation. This is not unlike Leibniz’ “principle of sufficient reason” nor unlike Parmenides’ “nothing comes from nothing” (Gk. οὐδὲν ἐξ οὐδενός; Lat. ex nihilo nihil fit)! All these arguments demonstrate that there must be a cosmic intelligence (i.e. a necessary being) that designed and sustained the universe.

We live in an incredibly complex and mysterious universe that we sometimes take for granted. Let me explain. The Earth is constantly traveling at 67,000 miles per hour and doesn’t collide with anything. Think about how fast that is. The speed of an average bullet is approximately 1,700 mph. And the Earth’s speed is 67,000 mph! That’s mind-boggling! Moreover, the Earth rotates roughly 1,000 miles per hour, yet you don’t fall off the grid, nor do you feel this gyration because of gravity. And I’m not even discussing the ontological implications of the enormous information-processing capacity of the human brain, its ability to invent concepts, its tremendous intelligence in the fields of philosophy, mathematics, and the sciences, and its modern technological innovations.

It is therefore disingenuous to reduce this incredibly complex and extraordinarily deep existence to simplistic formulas and pseudoscientific oversimplifications. As I said earlier, science cannot even “prove” the existence of the external world, much less the presence of a transcendent one. The logical positivist Ludwig Wittgenstein said that metaphysical questions are unanswerable by science. Yet atheist critics are incessantly comparing Paul’s and Jesus’ “experiences” to the scientific model, and even classifying them as deliberate literary falsehoods made to pass as facts because they don’t meet scholarly and academic parameters. The present paper has tried to show that this is a bogus argument! It does not simply question the “epistemological adequacy” of atheistic philosophies, but rather the methodological (and therefore epistemic) legitimacy of the atheist program per se.

——-

38 notes · View notes

fa-headhoncho · 4 years

Text

Unlike The Rest: Part 2

George Weasley x Reader (eventually)

Prompt: The school year has finally begun and things already seem to be going wrong.

Word Count: 2555

Reader: Female

Warning: Let me know what I could work on and what you would like to see in this series. I expect this to be a longer one and I have a lot of ideas for the future but I’m stuck on some filler chapters. So, please let me know.

Masterlist Series Masterlist

======

The carriage ride up to the castle was very uncomfortable, to say the least. Cedric tried to get you to talk but once his friends started talking, they made you feel out of place. His friends talked about all the wild adventures they had this summer and reminisced about years past together. All stuff that didn’t include or relate to you.

The only time Cedric’s friends seemed to have an interest in you when they spoke about Quidditch merely because you were a chaser on the team. And when you did talk, they just ignored you or rolled their eyes. You just wished you could do first year all over again and reintroduce yourself to everyone.

Nonetheless, you did appreciate Cedric for trying to help you make new friends but you’d rather keep to yourself. Making friends is hard when all people see is your last name.

Walking into the Great Hall with the group, you gaze up at the tall ceiling. It’s bewitched to emulate the sky outside. Every year you are welcomed by it. You believe it helps with the new year jitters and the claustrophobia of hundreds of children in one room.

You start to trail behind Cedric and his friends, taking it all in. This is your home. The floating candles, the professors sitting at the front of the room, the natural warmth of the castle just screams belonging. A large smile appears on your face once again, something that only this place can bring.

This year you are determined to focus on your studies… specifically Care of Magical Creatures. You’ve been reading all summer to get ahead in that class. Being a Malfoy, people don’t see your family as the caring or gentle type. They’ve proven that. Which, unfortunately, Care of Magical Creatures is all about. But, unlike the rest of the Malfoys, Hagrid has said you have a special talent when it comes to caring for creatures. You are gentle and caring. Hence the reason why you were put into Hufflepuff. So, you want to prove to everyone else, and your family, that a Malfoy can have a heart.

“Daydreaming yet again, Yeti?” Cedric’s chuckle interrupts your thoughts. He noticed you straying away from the group and saw you just standing there, staring up at the sky. This didn’t surprise him, you’ve always seemed to be in your own world or gathered up in thoughts.

You shake your head fondly at the nickname. It originated one day when he was trying to cheer you up after he found you crying in the hallway. You had failed your team at the last Quidditch match, falling off your broom and knocking Cedric off along the way. Ultimately costing the winning catch that secured the team a tremendous lead in the rankings.

The team collectively decided that they didn’t need you anymore so they never told when practices were. The backlash from your house was horrid too. People who taunted you in the hallways or blamed the fact that “Malfoy needed to have all the attention”. Hufflepuff has always been known as the kinder house but oh were they brutal.

It all led up to your break down in Charms when someone told you that maybe jinxing yourself to the broom might be helpful. Cedric, as big-hearted as he is, followed you out and comforted you. At first, you thought it was a sick joke, going off on him. In return he just called you a Yeti, comparing the fact that no one could ever get close enough to see the real way you live. Plus the fact that you were madly aggressive on the pitch. You knew that you made a friend after that.

“I was just thinking.” You confess, falling into step beside him as you make your way to the Hufflepuff table.

“That’s never good.”

“Oh, shut it, Diggory.” You laugh, giving his arm a slight slap. “I’m just excited about this year… Hagrid told me about all the new creatures Professor Kettleburn has in store for us.”

“Well, that is good then.” He corrects himself, taking a seat next to one of the beaters on the team. “I’m glad you’re excited about something. I know you talked about how nervous you were about Draco coming this year in your letters.”

You sigh, in the few letters you and Cedric shared during the summer, you’d confide in him about what’s been going at home; The newfound hope in Draco to carry on the Malfoy name with pride and loyalty. How they'd just left you in your room all summer to survive on your own while they made sure Draco had everything he needed to do so. It made you feel like shit. At first, when summer began, you thought things were getting better at home when you were welcomed with kind arms. Unfortunately, it was cut short when the realization of Draco’s first year was in a few months.

“Hey,” Cedric, once again, cuts your thoughts off. By this point he knows when you’re spiraling in your own head. “maybe it won’t be so bad after all.”

Right on cue, the first years all file in. Either looking lost or excited, it brings back memories of your first year. Remembering being so terrified of all the older kids staring as you walked past them. Wondering how Draco would fall in, you try looking for him. He wasn’t hard to find since in the front of the crowd, a devious smirk on his face as always. He knows what house he’s going to be in and he’s probably been boasting about it all the way here. It’s been drilled into his brain that he belongs in Slytherin, the house of the most powerful and legendary wizards. Which, according to your parents, Hufflepuff doesn’t have the means to accomplish.

Draco then takes a glance at said table. Seeing you looking out of place as ever and he rolls his eyes at it. Turning back to his friends and whispering something to them while pointing. They erupt into laughter and you frown slightly.

“Well, I don’t think your brother could be as bad as you were.” Malcolm Preece, another chaser on the team, decides to open his big mouth. He’s a fifth-year and he always has something to say. You grab the nearest thing and throw it at him, he dodges it. “Aye, I said were.” He defends himself and then casually goes back to his own conversation.

You bite your tongue and shoot daggers into the side of his head.

“Oh, I’ve missed you, (Y/N).” Cedric wraps an arm around your shoulders and gives you a small hug.

=====

“...this has to be a joke, Ced.” You whisper to him while Professor Quirrell goes on about the spell you’ll be learning this week. “How will this be useful in the eye of a duel?” You rhetorically ask him. “There’s no way this git is qualified to work here.”

“Oh, don’t be so harsh, (Y/N).” Cedric scolds as Quirrell commands the students to review their notes, “I’m sure he’s more than proven himself to Dumbledore to be here.”

“It’s a bloody tickling curse!” You stress, utterly dumbfounded on why you would be learning this. “In the midst of a battle, I don’t think my murderer would think of making me laugh to death.”

He just shakes his head at you, a small laugh escaping his lips at the image of it.

“It would be a good way to go.” Fred Weasley, the brute of all jokes himself, cuts in. Obviously, you weren’t whispering quiet enough. “Wouldn’t it be, Georgie?” He turns to his twin sitting beside him.

“I think so, Freddie.” He immediately agrees, you roll your eyes at the two. You know where this is going.

“Here we go,” You mumble.

“Imagine it,” George puts his hands in front of himself, widely gesturing with his quill. “Going toe to toe in battle, shouting wild curses at each other, wands waving, spells casting, and then, out of nowhere—” He suddenly stops, pointing his quill at you.

“Rictusempra!” The other one continues, “And, boom! You’re on the ground within seconds, laughing like a complete mad man. Utterly painless.” Some of your classmates laugh at them, you shake your head at the show. “A bliss way to die.” They both stare dreamingly into nothing, a small smile on both of their faces.

“You both are morons.” You deadpan, George just smirks while Fred has an exasperated look on his face.

“Morons?” He gasps, “Then, how would you like to die then, Malfoy?” He probes, his eyebrow hitched up. “A slow, painful death at the hands of a Dementor?” A few laugh.

“Preferably, yes.”

=====

You try to keep up with the fast steps of the Deputy Headmistress. Almost tripping over your robe as she speeds down the corridors, her own robes whizzing behind her. The fact that McGonagall is even accompanying you in a class switch makes your mind boggle since your head of house is Sprout.

“But, Professor, I don’t want to change subjects.” You beg, “It must be a mistake, I chose to take Muggle Studies this year, what happened?”

“Your father, Miss Malfoy.” She suddenly stops, you almost bump into her. “He demands you transfer into a different subject that doesn’t ‘deteriorate the brain’.” She quotes, “And I have to deal with it because Professor Sprout refuses to read his letters after the terrible scriptures he sent her over the last two years. I’ve got enough on my plate with my own students to be worried about hers.”

Your mouth drops, of course, he would’ve. You knew your father was mad about your house placement but you never thought he would go as far as to berated your head of house. At Hogwarts, your house is supposed to be your family no matter what and your father disrespecting your head was utterly disgusting.

“You shouldn’t be surprised, Miss Malfoy.” She continues to speak, obviously furious. “You knew this would happen when you signed up for the elective last year.”

You knew this would happen when you involuntarily signed up to be a Malfoy.

You frown, knowing she’s right about the whole thing. You thought your parents were too focused on Draco to even think about you and your classes this year. Hell, they’ve been too focused on him to even acknowledge your existence during the summer so why did they care about your classes.

“I truly do apologize, Professor McGonagall.” You look down at your shoes, too nervous to look her in her eyes. “I didn’t realize my father was doing that… nor would he interfere with my schooling. I just…” You let out a long sigh. “I just thought the class would be interesting and a bit different, is all, compared to what I’ve learned about muggles at home.”

The woman’s face immediately softens. She knew that getting sorted into Hufflepuff was going to be an issue from the moment the hat shouted it. You were clearly unhappy and confused, mumbling curse words at the hat as you made your way to the Hufflepuff table. The Malfoys have been Slytherins since she was in her own school days so when she heard the hat say something otherwise, she knew something would come out of it.

Your father had insisted it was a mistake in every letter he sent to Dumbledore talking about how the hat was a fake and it must've been a ploy against the Malfoy name. But Dumbledore was just as persistent with backing the hat and it’s house assigning criteria.

“It is out of my control, Miss Malfoy.” McGonagall puts a comforting hand on your shoulder. “As an underage wizard, you do not have a say in the matter. We must listen to your guardians.”

“I understand, Professor.”

=====

The scent of musty floral perfume hits you like bricks as you walk into the room. Following McGonagall between the risers, you hold your books tighter to your chest. You look around once you get into the “stage” area of the classroom. The curtains are drawn, giving the room a somber vibe. The different levels hold a bit too many tables for the number of students actually attending the class. Taking a glance at the students, some are either sleeping or staring at you, glad for the interruption.

“Professor Trelawney,” McGonagall interrupts the short woman gazing into a crystal ball. Her large eyes immediately snap to the two of you. “I have a transfer from Muggle Studies.”

The eccentric witch gets up and looks over to you, the whole classes’ eyes follow her. “Ahhh,” She sighs, pointing a finger. “I knew you would end up here, (Y/N) Malfoy.” She gives a knowing smile, Professor McGonagall just rolls her eyes while she continues to go on about what she saw in the ball about a visitor here to stay.

“Well, I have other things to attend to regarding my Quidditch team if you would kindly show Miss Malfoy to her seat,” McGonagall commands with a firm nod.

“Of course, of course!” She excitedly affirms, putting a hand to your back and guiding you towards the front of the strange classroom. You give the Charms Professor pleading eyes as she leaves the room but she just ignores you and continues on her way.

“Now,” She turns you both to the whole class. “Who would like to do the honor of having Miss Malfoy as a partner? I sense she will be a great help in this class,” She asks, everyone sits in silence. There are a few students without partners but they’d rather be alone than be with you.

“Well, a little unpopular we are, I see,” Trelawney mumbles to no one in particular, you immediately look down at your feet. “How ‘bout you find your own seat, love?”

You go straight to the back and take the first seat in the row, not daring to look at anyone on the way up.

“Oh, what type of wicked witch did I cross to get a curse like this?” The familiar disgust of one of the Weasley boys hits your ears. Your head snaps to him, trying to quickly identify which twin you would be spending the year with.

“Hush it, George.” You sneer, not in the mood for his shit. “Or are you Fred?” You squint, the dim candlelight not helping distinguish which. “No, Fred is much more clever with his insults.”

George just rolls his eyes at you, “He might have the brains but I’ve got the looks.” He leans back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head and his feet on the table. “Don’t you agree, Malfie?” He eggs, a smirk on his face.

You let out a scoff. “You both look like gnomes stacked on each other under a robe… Especially with that carrot top of a head of yours.” You push his feet off the table, setting your books where they were. The shove sends his balance off and he falls back onto the floor.

“Well, you were right about Fred having the brains, huh?” You stare down at him. The redhead sticks his tongue out at you like a five-year-old. “This is going to be a long year.” You mumble under your breath.

#george weasley x reader #george weasley imagine #george weasley #harry potter #george weasley x malfoy!reader #george weasley imagines #weasley twins #weasley #harry potter imagines #malfoy!reader #george weasley x (Y/N)#george weasley x you #hogwarts #fandomsarchive #draco malfoy x sister!reader #unlike the rest

245 notes · View notes

orsuliya · 3 years

Note

Many are saying, that there is no passion betweenAwu and XQ. That from the beginning they both behave like old couple that have been together for 50 years. Calm, respect and domestic bliss. No craziness, no passionate words and deeds, no nothing. And I feel so sad that their crazy passionate all consuming love is not obvious to everybody. I've been married for 12 years now and my hubby still treats me like I'm made of glass. There is no craziness, but the calm I feel in mt heart... It is invaluable. For me their love is the perfect one. And I honestly haven't seen anything so perfect on the screen before.

Many need to check their glasses prescriptions, because that passion is right there and small it ain’t, that’s for sure. I thumb my nose, oh ye doubting Thomases, at this alleged lack of passionate words or deeds. Don’t know about you, good people, but for me the Re-do Wedding itself maxes out the scale; as far as grand gestures go that one is just perfect: very grand indeed, utterly shameless, more than a little schmoopy and, at the end of the day, surprisingly useful. Do I even need to comment on all those timely rescues? For all that Awu is not exactly a damsel in distress, she sure has been a subject of a lot of those. I hear that dramatic rescues are supposed to rate among the most romantic things a male lead can do, was my info faulty...? And it’s not like that’s one-sided since Awu runs into danger without hesitation, declaring that should anything happen to her husband or father, Song Huaien will need to carry her own cold, stiff body back home. As far as passionate romantic declarations go...!

Also, let be me disgustingly prosaic for a moment: for all that nobody gets naked onscreen (well, other that Mi’er), it is rather obvious that Awu and Xiao Qi get it on. A lot. In probably rather adventurous ways. I mean, they see absolutely no problem with promising each other various... things. While in public. In the middle of the Imperial Palace. Where anybody can hear them - and they probably do! - but is there even a hint of genuine, non-playful bashfulness to be found in their demeanor? The answer is a big, fat NO.

At the end of the day, their relationship - as is yours, you Unbelievably Lucky Nonnie - is the eternal fire of the hearth and the steady heartbeat of the home. A love like that doesn’t throw us at the mercy of waves and storms, but anchors us to home, wherever that home might be. For all the things simple and domestic to withstand the withering effects of time and everyday adversities, there must be a great burning love hidden in that hearth; hidden does not mean non-existent, but rather treasured and carefully guarded.

Okay, that is getting a tad too sentimental even for me, back to more prosaic considerations! The reason why this particular drama doesn’t seem to resonate with a good portion of younger audiences is rather simple. Bloody Mouse from Hell. Okay, not only Disney, western pop-culture as a whole. See, we’ve been taught that all conflicts and sweeping declarations of passion come before the marriage or even before the first grand kiss. After that there’s only the Happily Ever After, a concept as mind-boggling as it is suspicious. Yes, I know that Disney has been stepping away from their straighforward romance formula recently, but I am a true millenial, I have a constitutonal right to point some very pointy fingers at dear old Walt. All the work gets done before the final declaration of feelings and it’s smooth sailing from then on. Any male who makes an effort is guaranteed to be rewarded with a female; the only healthy exception being Gaston, who, when you think about it, is the scariest villain of them all (and there is good reason for that). Moms die in mysterious ways and females supporting females is a thing that happens from time to time... but is by no means guaranteed. Oh, and if you are not a walking talking perfection with one, maximum two funny quirks, there’s no place for you among the heroines. Those are the lessons I learned in my childhood. Didn’t stick, let me tell you. Wait a bloody moment, Zitan totally watched himself some Disney!

Now, let’s look at what happens in a considerable portion of mainstream adult programming. What happens is that if a couple gets together in the first season finale (which is early all the same), there is little chance of them being left to simply... be, unless they get relegated to background characters. Happily Ever Afters are booooring. Fine, I say, maybe they are. You need CONFLICT. And that’s fair! But there is no reason why you can’t spice things up using external factors; have this couple form a united front against a common danger and there’s your conflict! Yeah, no. Internal conflict and especially romantic one is much easier and cheaper. I am not saying it’s all bad - couples naturally go through such obstacles - but there comes a point where you have to ask this question: why the hell are they still together when they would never be able to trust each other again? Forgiveness only stretches so far and does not mean a totally blank slate. This is not, by any means, an invitation to start fridging female characters! I see what you’re doing, you bastards!

Thankfully things are changing. Not always and not always in the right direction. Disney in particular is doing something... weird with its main canon or was Mulan a one-off hiccup of terrifying proportions? Female-empowering that wreck was certainly not. Unless they meant Special Females, who are not like Other Females... okay, not the point right now.

The point is that Awu and Xiao Qi are married by episode 8 and in love by episode 14. Which is right where the end of the first season would be. And then... nothing. They are in love and form a rock-solid front against external enemies. The only real change in their relationship is that they grow stronger, first individually and then together.

It gets worse! We, the viewers, get a metric tonne of false leads of the kind, which we have been taught will inevitably lead to at least four episodes of conflict. So where are our four episodes of dealing with Xiao Qi’s household and uppity maids? Do as Wangfei says, that’s what we get. Where’s Xiao Qi’s burning jealousy over Zitan? I would prefer you not to go, but do as you wish, that’s the extent of it. By all known rules, he should start looking at Awu with suspicion once he guesses that Song Huaien is infatuated with her or at least take Huaien to task. There’s... absolutely nothing? This whole affair with Screecher? What do you mean you can simply ask your husband what happened and then trust his answer?! That’s not how it works! Get thee away to Turnip’s house for a couple of episodes at the least! And don’t even start me on the great performance of the Yuzhang Acting Company! There is a reason why people were loathe to recognize it as a performance and nothing but!

The Rebel Princess keeps purposefully missing those obvious cues for conflict and thus the viewer, used to much, much higher emotional amplitudes, simply nods off on this relationship. But that’s not on the drama, that’s on our erstwhile trainers.

#ask and answer #the rebel princess #okay sorry for the rant #and the preaching #but I simply had to #and don't ever start me on Mulan live-action Disney thingy UGH

23 notes · View notes

kelyon · 3 years

Text

Golden Rings 17: A Name

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

Mrs. Gold revisits her past

Read on AO3

Mrs. Gold looked on in mute horror as Hunter Duke dumped more hot sauce on his triple bacon hamburger. He’d asked Ruby to give him three meat patties with no bun and steamed broccoli instead of fries. When Mrs. Gold had questioned that lunch choice, he had explained his new diet to her.

At length.

Hunter had always been the kind of boy who thought meat and spicy food were substitutes for a personality. He’d been the star athlete at Storybrooke High, taking home championships in football and wrestling. He’d been popular with everyone--except for the one girl he’d arbitrarily decided was the hottest girl in school. That girl, the valedictorian, hadn’t given the quarterback the time of day. Not until she lost her scholarship and suddenly dating the son of a lawyer sounded like the way to the best future she would ever get.

“They do the burgers way too overdone here,” Hunter said with his mouth full. “You don’t get enough protein if it isn’t bloody.”

Mrs. Gold shrugged and took a bite of her own burger. It needed more pickles, but it was still amazing. Toasted bun, crisp lettuce, a patty that was juicy but not messy. She hadn’t had a Granny’s burger in forever. When she was a kid, her parents had taken her out for burgers every Friday night after their shop closed. Mom would bring her own supply of extra-zesty mustard and Dad…

She set her bun on her plate. On those idyllic, bygone Friday nights, her father would spend the whole meal grumbling about money and expenses and couldn’t they have eaten at home? Mom had always told him to stop worrying and enjoy the moment. It was the end of another week and they were together, happy and healthy. She’d calmed him down and kept him focused, every time there was a crisis.

Until they faced the biggest crisis of their lives.

Mrs. Gold blinked out of her thoughts. For some reason, Hunter was still talking. Maybe it looked like she was listening. She’d gotten good at that when they had dated. Now that she was listening for real, she tried to catch up.

“I keep telling my dad he needs to just change the sign. ‘Duke & Duke & Duke’ has a great ring to it, right? Or he could for ‘Duke & Sons.’ I don’t mind sharing the spotlight with Steven. Or he could leave the sign as it is and retire! ‘Duke & Duke’ is classic, everyone knows we’re the best bankruptcy lawyers in town. Just let my brother be the first Duke and I’ll be second Duke and we’ll take this firm into the future! But Dad keeps brushing me off for some reason.”

Mrs. Gold took a sip of iced tea and desperately wished it was something stronger. “Did you… go to law school?”

She had the oddest feeling that she couldn’t remember how long they had been out of high school. All she knew for sure was that Hunter had enrolled at Storybrooke Community College--and she hadn’t. It was possible that he had gotten his bachelor’s. As Hunter was fond of saying, “Cs get degrees.” But SCC didn’t have a graduate program. Had he taken more classes on the internet? Or correspondence courses? It boggled her mind to think of Hunter of all people had gotten a law degree during the years she’d been Mr. Gold’s stupid slut.

“Well actually,” he explained, “you don’t need to go to law school to take the bar exam. I’ve got a bachelor’s in poli-sci and I’ve been around lawyers all my life. My dad knows everyone at the state bar. He’ll pull some strings and I’ll be all set.”

Mrs. Gold stabbed her straw at the ice cubes in her glass. It was so fucking unfair. Hunter was an idiot child who had never worked for anything in his life. His father--Richard “Big Dick” Duke--had bought him a Humvee when he turned sixteen, a speedboat when he graduated high school, and a college education just because no son of his wasn’t going to go to college. Now he would give his son the bar exam and a ready job and everything he would need for a future, without Hunter ever having to grow up past the maturity level of a toddler.

She’d lost her virginity to this boy. One summer night after senior year, in the back seat of that gas-guzzling monstrosity. They’d been dating for a while and Hunter had been perfectly content with her amateurish attempts at blowing him. But for her, the novelty had begun to wear off. So she’d suggested that he “put it in” instead. It was mostly a way for him to get his rocks off while she could just lie back and think of something more interesting.

Her memories of that night were dark and cramped and disappointing. She kept her shoes and her bra on the whole time. When Hunter was done, she had been more confused than anything else. This is what people made such a big deal about? Wasn’t sex supposed to be better than that?

It wasn’t until later, with Mr. Gold, that she had understood what people were talking about in romance novels.

But now that things were so strained with her husband, she found herself thinking back to the only other sexual partner she’d ever had. Looking at Hunter now, she had to remind herself of how bad things had been that summer, when he had been a welcome distraction. Hunter hadn’t wanted to talk about doctors’ appointments or shop inventory or arguing with financial aid departments--every fight a losing battle. All he wanted to do was drink, screw around, and have fun, and he welcomed her along for the ride.

I thought he would help us. I was wrong. He wasn’t what I needed.

Mrs. Gold shook the thought out of her head. The thought was true, but she recognized it as not being her own, so she talked over it.

“Have you been hanging out with any of the old gang? Sean or Jesse or anyone?”

It had been exciting to be included with the rich kids, to feel like she belonged in the world of the young and the reckless--people who didn’t have to worry about things because their parents would always be around to bail them out. They could do whatever they wanted because the world belonged to them.

Hunter shrugged. “Jesse’s an idiot, so no change there. But Sean’s been such a pussy ever since Ashley had her baby.”

Ashely Boyd had been in that group with her. Rich boys liked running around with poor girls because they were easier to impress than the rich girls. New Town young ladies also had parents who bought them cars for their sixteenth birthdays. They didn’t need to rely on spoiled boys to pay their way every time they went out, so they didn’t have to go along with whatever stupidity the boys came up with. Mrs. Gold had taken a lot of risks just so Hunter would keep thinking she was interesting.

But Ashley had loved Sean for more than his money and toys. All she ever wanted was for him to love her back and stay with her. Once, Mrs. Gold had thought Ashley was stupid for pining so hard after a boy who would never commit. But now she had a little more sympathy.

“What happened with Sean?”

“Mr. Herman kicked him out, cut him off. Now he’s living at Ashley’s place, working his ass off at the fish factory.”

“The cannery,” Mrs. Gold corrected quietly. Fish King Canned Foods was always hiring. It was always looking for people who could stand waist-deep in ice and fish guts for twelve hour shifts, operating machinery that could cut through a human hand as easily as it did a whole herring. Her cousin Andrew had gotten a job right out of high school. Her Uncle Peter had worked there for twenty years before he died.

“Like I said, he’s a total pussy now. All he does is work and hang out with Ashley, work and take care of the baby, work and sleep. You know he asked her to marry him a couple days ago? Utterly whipped.”

“Wow,” she said.

She had never respected Sean Herman, so it was weird to think of him actually growing up. People didn’t usually change around Storybrooke. But now the spoiled party boy was taking responsibility for his child and the woman who loved him. He had given up his own wealth and family status because he loved a penniless girl from Old Town.

It was impressive.

She finished her burger while Hunter started another monologue, this time about all the fat, lazy, poor people who came to his father’s office to declare bankruptcy. Forget being a lawyer, he should go into talk radio.

“I did ask you to lunch for a reason.” She grabbed her chance to talk while he was taking a breath.

“Oh yeah?” Hunter wiped hot sauce off his face with the back of his hand. “What’s up?”

“You know a lot of people,” Mrs. Gold said. “I was wondering if you might know somebody that I don’t.”

He slurped up the dregs of his diet soda. “Yeah? Who?”

Mrs. Gold gripped the edge of the table and desperately hoped he wouldn’t notice how hard it was for her to say this. The gold of her wedding ring was dull on this cloudy afternoon. “I… just have a name right now. I think it’s a woman named Belle.”

She could see the wheels in his head turning as he thought. “Belle? Hmm. I don’t know.”

“She’s probably young. Maybe our age. Maybe younger. Or older? Maybe she’s one of your mom’s friends or something?”

A woman as old as Karen Duke would still be younger than Mr. Gold. Maybe he was looking for more maturity now. In the days since she found out about Belle, Mrs. Gold had been racking her brain to try to imagine what kind of person she was. She was only moderately sure that Belle even was a woman. If Mr. Gold wanted this Belle person more than he wanted his own wife, she was probably the opposite of her in some crucial way.

Hunter made a face and scratched the back of his head. “Nah, I got nothing. Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Mrs. Gold looked down at her empty plate. “I’m not surprised.”

Seeing that they were both done with their food, Ruby came up to the table. “Now is this gonna be one check or two?”

It was almost funny how quickly Hunter looked to Mrs. Gold. He panicked at the thought of paying for his own lunch. Daddy must not be giving him an allowance anymore.

“You invited me,” he said, almost chiding her with the reminder of how things worked.

“Yeah, that was my first mistake.” Mrs. Gold took the check from Ruby and pulled out her purse.

A fifty would be enough to pay for two hamburgers and Ruby’s discretion. Not that Mrs. Gold was being particularly sneaky, arranging lunch with her ex-boyfriend at the most popular restaurant in town. But that didn’t matter either. She could take Hunter to the pawn shop and bang him in front of the cash register and Mr. Gold wouldn’t give a fuck.

And neither would she.

****

Wandering listlessly up and down Main Street, Mrs. Gold tried to keep warm. The clouds were dark and heavy with more snow. The sidewalks were shoveled, but there was always a residue of dirty slush. It was the time of year when trash kept showing up in the streets, no matter how many anti-littering signs Mayor Mills put up.

Mrs. Gold’s suede boots were more fashionable than sturdy. The same could be said for her coat, scarf, and hat. The cold seeped through her flimsy layers, until she was nothing but numb and damp, until it was hard to breathe, until she was so desperate to be warm again she resolved to go into the next open store, no matter which one it was.

Sugar’n’Spice was always warm and it always smelled good. Mara Trudine burned a different scented candle every day the shop was open. Today the candle was cinnamon and cloves. The whole place smelled like cider.

Mrs. Gold entered as quietly as she could. She hadn’t been in the store since before Christmas. And she had never walked through that door without strutting proudly, loudly announcing her intentions to buy whatever lingerie it would take to drive Mr. Gold wild.

Was Mr. Gold even capable of going wild for her anymore? Or did the sight of her just turn his stomach? He thought she was trash, she disgusted him, he didn’t want her and he never would again.

Ducking behind a rack of silky robes, Mrs. Gold took a breath to calm herself down. It was a bad habit she’d developed lately, thinking of the worst-case scenario just to make herself feel something. Her mind kept poking and prodding at her pain, pulling out her darkest fears and putting them front and center. She could push it away if she concentrated. If she tried to act normal, she could almost feel normal. Sometimes.

“Oh hey.” Mara had spotted her from the sales counter in the back of the shop. “Mrs. Gold, I didn’t see you come in.”

Steeling herself, Mrs. Gold walked out from behind the robes. “That’s me.” She tried to smile.

Mara stayed where she was. Bits of fabric were spread out over the counter. It looked like she was sewing something.

Mrs. Gold’s heart skipped a beat. The fabric was a shiny yellow-gold. Sometimes, when Mr. Gold was really pleased with her, he liked her to wear that color. Without thinking about what she was doing, she began to walk towards the counter.

“What are you working on?”

Mara looked up from her needle. Even after all these years, she had the same face she’d had as a kid--sharp brown eyes, adorably crooked smile, freckles all over her round cheeks. She looked so innocent. You’d never think she made a living off of unmentionables.

“Custom order,” she said proudly. “I’ve been trying to get tailor-made lingerie off the ground for as long as I can remember. Got my first order in October and more have been coming in.” She held up the fabric and Mrs. Gold saw a pair of panties that would go up to a person’s rib cage.

“Somebody wants that?”

Mara’s excitement dimmed in the face of Mrs. Gold’s skepticism, but she did her best to explain. “It’s shapewear,” she said. “See the reinforced panels? The idea is to smooth out tummy rolls and make a more flattering silhouette.”

Mrs. Gold looked over at the rack of Spanx. “Don’t you already sell that?”

“Yeah, but the stuff I make is sturdier than the mass-produced product. Better for people with non-standard bodies. And prettier too. Nothing over there comes in straw yellow.”

It was true. Most of the stuff in that section was nude or black. Mrs. Gold knew a thing or two about wearing corsets, but she had never actually needed one. She had thought Mr. Gold liked her to be skinny.

“That is a pretty color,” she said. “Who’s it for?”

Mara looked at her dubiously. “I can’t talk about a client, it’s confidential.”

“How are you planning on getting more orders without word of mouth?”

“Well, normally word of mouth comes from customers talking about the product, not a creator talking about their customers.”

Falling into old habits, Mrs. Gold tilted her head back as her voice went up an octave. “I know, but it’s just such a pretty shade of gold, I was wondering if someone special might have ordered it...?”

She let the question hang. Mara just frowned and shook her head.

“Come on, you’re smarter than that.” She held up the garment again. “This is for a plus-sized woman. Two of you could fit in here without straining the elastic. Mr. Gold didn’t order this for you.”

Without thinking, she leaned over the counter and got in her friend’s face. “Did he order it for someone else?”

Mara’s eyes went wide. Her mouth transformed into a tiny little O of surprise. Mrs. Gold pulled away and kept her eyes on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Gold said. “That was out of line.”

“Wow,” Mara said softly. “I, uh, I’d heard that something had happened. But I didn’t know it was that bad. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” She turned around, pretended to look at something lacy until the urge to scream had passed. When she glanced at Mara, her brown eyes were trained on her.

“It’s not from him,” she said simply. “I’ll even tell you that my client paid with a credit card, so it was definitely her own money.”

Or maybe Mr. Gold was just covering his tracks. But at least he hadn’t called in the order himself. At least he wasn’t flaunting his disregard for her.

“Does he… Have you ever heard from him? Is he buying anybody lingerie?”

Mara shook her head. “I only see him on Rent Day.”

With nothing left to lose, she asked her old friend the same question she’d asked her ex-boyfriend. “Do you know anybody named Belle?”

Mara blinked. “I don’t… think so. The name sounds familiar, but I’m probably thinking of a character from a book or a movie. It’s not the sort of name you hear around Storybrooke.”

“No,” Mrs. Gold agreed.

“But I’ll keep my ears open, if you want.”

Mrs. Gold raised her eyebrows. “What about client confidentiality?”

“Well, whoever Belle is, she’s definitely not a client. And until Mr. Gold pays me himself, neither is he.”

You’re a good friend.

This time, Mrs. Gold didn’t swat at the thought that intruded into her head. She let it rest over her brain like a blanket. She let the thought warm her up.

She leaned against the counter and watched Mara work. The shapewear was fully constructed, and she was embroidering stalks of straw in a pattern along the sides. It was really pretty. The sort of thing that would give a girl a boost in confidence and excitement about her own body, her own clothes. Mrs. Gold remembered how fancy she’d felt the first time she wore something as simple as a bra and panties that were the same color. That sort of energy could get people through interviews or contract negotiations, any time you needed to feel powerful. Mara was helping people here, she was good at it, and it seemed to make her happy.

“So, business is good?”

“Yeah, it’s picking up. Valentine’s Day was a madhouse, but you know how that goes.”

Mrs. Gold nodded. Lingerie could be as popular as flowers when it came to last-minute gifts that men always thought would be cheaper than they were.

“Did you spend the day with anyone?”

Mara scrunched her nose. “I’m working too hard for that. Besides, I don’t meet a lot of single men in this business.”

She was able to snicker at the joke, and she was able to mean it. “Yeah, I guess not.”

They were quiet together for a minute, then Mrs. Gold asked a more personal question: “How’s your mom?”

Mara looked up from her embroidery for a second, but then went back to work. “She’s fine. I think she’s bored, now that the preschool is only open for half-days. She keeps asking me to move in with her.”

“I take it you don’t want to?”

A halfhearted shrug. “I don’t have a good reason not to. It would make sense, we could split the bills and keep each other company. But there is also something really nice about living by yourself. Even if it’s just a one bedroom apartment on top of your store.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Mrs. Gold drummed her fingers against the counter. She had gone from living with her father to living with Mr. Gold. The night after their anniversary had been the first time she had slept in any building by herself.

But she understood what Mara meant. When you lived with your parents, it was hard to feel like an adult. To make matters worse, Irma Trudine--Mara’s mother--had been a preschool teacher for as long as anyone could remember. She tended to treat everyone she talked to like they were a four-year-old whining for more juice and crackers.

Mama’s closest friend.

Now the voice was annoying her again. It was true that Irma and Mom had been good friends. That was why she had grown up with Mara as much as she had grown up with her cousin Janine. The three girls were inseparable, just like their mothers had been.

Until…

Mrs. Gold sighed. She was warmer now. She should probably buy something before she moved along.

“Do you have anything comfy around here?”

“What, like no underwire?”

“No, like pajamas, I guess. Or loungewear? I think I need to get a pair of sweatpants.”

Mara grinned. “The last time I saw you wear sweatpants, they had dinosaurs on them.”

“And they were fucking awesome.”

She had gotten those pants for her eighth birthday and worn them until the knees gave out. Even after that, Mom had cut them up for shorts and she’d worn them for another six months. If she could find sweatpants that had dinosaurs on them now, she wouldn’t think the mere act of wearing sweatpants was a sign of the end of her life.

But Sugar’n’Spice only had pajama sets with flowers on them--or hearts, but Mrs. Gold couldn’t bring herself to buy anything that looked like love. It was enough to buy comfort, something that would make it a little easier to be in her own skin.

Mara rang her up and gracefully accepted the extra fifty Mrs. Gold handed her.

“How about I call this a down payment on a custom order for you?”

Taking her bag, Mrs. Gold shrugged. “I don’t think Mr. Gold will want me in lingerie for a long time.”

“I didn’t say it was for Mr. Gold, I said it was for you.” Mara looked her steadily in the eye. “Come back some time and we can talk about what you need. Okay?”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it. “Yeah,” she said at last. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Good.”

****

The day wasn’t over. Mr. Gold was still in his shop. She could go there for a few hours of awkward silence. Or she could go back to the house, for a few hours of lonely silence. Then he would come home and make dinner. They would eat together and make stilted small talk. And then she would go to her bedroom, and he would go to his.

That was their life now.

He said he wanted her to stay. He said he wanted to take care of her. He said he loved somebody else.

It didn’t make sense. It was wrong. They were supposed to be together. Being near him, but not being with him, trying to act like everything was fine, trying to act like he didn’t matter to her as much as she obviously didn’t matter to him…

It was tearing her apart.

So she walked. Like a circling shark, she kept moving so she wouldn’t drown. She was trapped. Storybrooke was a small town, there were only so many places you could go in one day. And she had lots of days ahead of her. Mrs. Gold had the image of the rest of her life, stretching out to the horizon. She would have to keep walking, she would never be able to rest. She would never have a home again.

She was in Old Town now. The flower shop was behind her. Aunt Teri’s yellow and purple house was on this street. How many times had she walked the route between those two places? Her whole childhood, her whole life until she married Mr. Gold and moved into his house. She used to belong in this neighborhood.

Was there a way she could belong here again?

Turning at the plastic sign that said Hair Today! she went to the side door of the yellow house and knocked. Then she stepped away from the door and waited for an answer. She held herself against the cold.

Janine came up from the basement salon. Her mouth opened when she saw Mrs. Gold.

“Oh hi,” she said. “Mrs. Gold, you don’t… usually knock.”

“Yeah, I’m usually a bitch to you and I’m sorry.” She hadn’t meant to start that way, but she couldn’t avoid the truth anymore.

Janine’s eyebrows raised and her sky-blue eyes--a family trait--went wide. “O...kay,” she said slowly. Stepping outside, she shut the door behind her. The cold made her keep her arms crossed over her chest. “What’s going on?”

“I…” She didn’t know what to say. She had started, but what was the next step? “Things suck, right now, for me. And I kind of suck too. And I realized…”

What had she realized? That no one in her family would help her in an emergency? That she had built her whole identity around one relationship and without that she had nothing? That she had spent years intentionally, maliciously, pushing away all the people that had loved her in exchange for a man who only paid her? That all of those things were really fucking shitty? None of that was a realization. Mrs. Gold had always known what her life was. But she was just now starting to care.

“I realized I’m sorry,” she said. “For as long as I’ve been with Mr. Gold, I’ve been so caught up in him and it made me a worse person. And I want to be better.” She looked at Janine. “You deserve a better cousin.”

Janine sighed, her breath visible in the twilight. “So the honeymoon is finally over, huh? Are you tired of him or is he tired of you?”

Mrs. Gold pressed her lips together. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. At the same time, she didn’t begrudge her cousin the snark.

“He’s tired of me,” she admitted softly. “And I’m kind of tired of me too.”

Now Janine looked more sympathetic. “What happened?”

“You didn’t hear? I thought everyone in Storybrooke knew by now.”

“Yeah, no, I’ve heard a lot of rumors. But I’m asking you what happened. What’s the truth?”

“He loves someone else.” The words slipped from her mouth like a burden off her shoulders. “Some Belle person. And like, like he loves her, Janine. More than he ever loved me.”

“Oof,” Janine let out a long breath. “Oh honey, that’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

Until now, Janine had been standing in the doorway, and Mrs. Gold had been in the driveway, with about five feet between them. Janine stepped out first, one arm open in invitation. The two cousins met in the middle. They didn’t hug, exactly, but they huddled together for warmth and comfort.

“Do you need to stay with us?” Janine asked. “We never did anything with Andrew’s room after--”

“No,” she shook her head. Mr. Gold asked her to stay with him, and even that had to be better than sleeping in her dead cousin’s bedroom. “I’m fine, I… He’s taking care of me.”

“What, like alimony?”

“No, we’re not… I’m not leaving him.”

Janine pulled away. “But you said he loved someone else.”

She nodded. “He does, but he doesn’t want the marriage to be over.”

There was a moment of silence while Janine’s face twisted in anger and disbelief. Then she burst out: “Oh screw him! Does he really get to decide that? That man is cheating on you and you don’t even get the satisfaction of walking away? Come on!”

Mrs. Gold couldn’t look her in the face. “It’s not as simple as that,” she said. “I--I married him, I need him, I…” The next words were small and soft: “I don’t want the marriage to be over either.”

Closing her eyes, Janine pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I mean, the sanctity of marriage is great and all, but Mr. Gold has been nothing but bad to you for so long. And now you have a reason to get out, but you’re not taking it? Why?”

“Because this is different,” she said the words before she knew what they meant. “He’s different than he was when we got married. There’s something… good about him now. Something kind and gentle. Something that wasn’t there before.”

Janine rolled her eyes. “So now you have feelings for the monster?”

“He’s not a monster now. Maybe he was before--I can see that more clearly now. But now the only thing he’s doing wrong is… not wanting me. And it hurts, but it’s not an evil thing.”

He’s my husband and I love him. Can you understand that?

Shifting her weight back and forth, Janine kept her arms over her chest. “And he’s not… hurting you anymore?”

She shook her head. “Not even in a way I like.”

“Gross,” Janine said, matter-of-factly. “I mean, good for you that it used to be something you liked, but it is very gross for me to think about. Too much information is a very real thing.”

Both of them snickered at that. The years of lingering tension eased a little more.

“Can you at least stay for dinner? We’re having Spaghetti-Os a la Chloe.”

“Chloe’s cooking?” How old was she now?

“It was her idea. Under careful supervision, she is going to dump a can of Spaghetti-Os into a pot and warm it up. Mom might even let her into the spice cabinet for some basil.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.” She shuffled her feet. “But I should get going. I still eat with Mr. Gold. It’s… weird.”

“I bet.” Janine put her hands in the pockets of her work smock. “Listen, I… I’m sorry. All this time… I could have been a better cousin too. We--I think the general idea was that… we were waiting for you to meet us halfway.”

“I get that,” she said. “And I never came close to halfway. Not with anybody.”

“Well, you did today. And I’m glad. We missed you.”

Nodding, she tried to keep the tears out of her eyes. All this time, she could have had her family. If she had just eased up on being Mrs. Gold, she could have been the same girl everyone had loved.

“I’m trying to make things better now, you know?”

Janine nodded. “I know.” They were quiet for a minute, then she asked. “Have you talked to your dad lately?”

“Not yet,” she shook her head. “Not him or Uncle Manny. I… I kinda thought I’d start easy.”

Janine half-smiled, half-winced. “Manny will be happy to see you. You’re the only niece he’s got.”

She snorted. “I’m the only daughter my dad has and that didn’t make anything any easier.”

“He loves you, Lacey,” Janine said. It was the first time Mrs. Gold had heard her first name in as long as she could remember. “We all do.”

#golden rings #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #ouat #you like ocs? I've got so many ocs

8 notes · View notes

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 3 years

Text

Is It Really THAT Bad?

Cats has been a divisive show ever since it opened in 1981. Some people hate it for being a plotless spectacle that focuses more on the visuals than on music and story, while others love it for those same reasons, as well as for being utterly campy and fun. I’m firmly in the latter category, to the point I can’t really comprehend the opposition to the film. Stuff like the jab at this film in The Critic or the mockery of it in Hey Arnold just seem weird to me; what is it about this fun, silly musical about cats that makes people’s blood boil so much?

Perhaps all these people saw into the future where the film was released.

Cats had a long, troubled history getting from stage to screen. In the 90s, Amblimation was set to make an animated version of the movie, set during the Blitz of WWII. Unfortunately, the inability of writers to find a way to turn this episodic showcase of random singing cats into a cohesive narrative combined with the failure of Amblimations films caused the project to dissolve, leaving behind nothing but some really cool concept art.

But see, this perfectly demonstrates the problem with adapting Cats: the musical is a spectacle, a showcase, it’s all about the dancing, costumes, and the songs. It doesn’t have a story to speak of, instead contenting itself with showing us a bunch of different cats and having them sing about themselves for a bit before moving on to the next cat. Sure, there’s a bit of continuity and whatnot, but this really isn’t the sort of show that’s trying to deliver a deep narrative. It just wants you to have a good time, nothing more, nothing less.

No one told any of this to Tom Hooper, apparently. This director of the grounded, gritty, realistic adaptation of Les Mis was tapped to utilize this same style in a musical about magical singing cats, all while not even knowing what catnip is or how animation works. Hooper was apparently constantly butting heads with the VFX team due to his lack of understanding of how animating works. He tried to get the team to watch videos of cats performaing the stuff he wanted and forced them to give 90 hour work weeks, cementing Tom Hooprt as one of the biggest douchebags imaginable. On top of all this, the guy tried to weave this plotless showcase of felines into a cohesive narrative, and tapped a bunch of talent of various degrees of questionability to play parts. And what was the result?

An absolute disaster. The film was savaged by critics, with most positives being that the film was so bad it’s good. The film (of course) won a bunch of Razzies, and was the subject of mockery and memes before, after, and during its run in theaters. Hell, as soon as the trailer dropped, the film was mocked to death. Not helping was the rushed VFX which, again, was due to the team being under pressure from a draconian idiot who had no idea what he was doing. The film received an unprecedented bug fix, so to speak, in the form of an updated version with slightly better VFX that was shipped to theaters after the initial negative reaction. This obviously did nothing to help the movie’s reputation, of course. Hell, even in my initial review, I wasn’t super keen on the film. Most damning of all, though, was Andrew Lloyd Webber himself calling the film ridiculous, and even said "The problem with the film was that Tom Hooper decided that he didn’t want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show."

But after ruminating on it, and after watching the film once more, I’ve decided to ask the usual question: Is it really that bad? It’s weird to ask this about a film that’s so new; I usually wait for hindsight to kick in, and look at older films considered bad. But even now, Cats is building up a reputation as a campy cult classic, with such figures as Martin “LittleKuriboh” Billamy watching the film with alarming frequency. And after reading the nightmarish behind the scenes and considering everything… yeah, I think this film deserves a re-evaluation.

This is going to be a little different, though: I’m sort of going to go through the film part by part, since this film has an interesting issue where, generally speaking, the first half is where the worst problems are, and the second half is where things start to pick up. So let’s get the bad out of the way first, then move onto the good.

THE BAD

So, I’m actually not going to pick on the VFX too much, and not just because of the horrible treatment of the VFX artists. In all honesty, the weird human/cat people, while not even remotely as cool as the insane costumes of the stage show, eventually stop being super distracting and kind of just become something you accept. Like, I’m not gonna pretend like this work is amazing, but I dunno, I think it gets harped on too much. There is some stuff that stands out as noticeably bad, though, and we’ll get to that.

A consistent problem with the film that I can’t even try to defend is the problem with the scaling. It’s seriously hard to tell how big these cats are supposed to be in relation to anything else. They honestly seem to change size from scene to scene. It’s seriously weird and baffling and there’s never any way to get a good sense of scale. Even when the cats are alongside mice and roaches, it just boggles the mind what size anything is actually supposed to be.

Mr. Mistoffelees, one of the most flamboyant and enjoyable characters of the stage show, is one of the biggest character issues with the film. Gone is the tricky, confident magician who prances and dances, and here is a meek, sniveling twerp who can barely do anything without tripping over himself. This is because the actor who plays him had a terrible audition that left him miserable due to a lack of singing and dance background. So, rather than find someone who could, you know, sing and dance, they decided to rewrite Mr. Mistoffelees into comic relief, which is just an insulting slap in the face. The cherry on top of course is how they straightwash the character and excise his homoerotic tension with Rum Tum Tugger, instead making him completely and totally straight and giving him a thing for Victoria. Out of everyone in the entire film, they did Mr. Mistoffelees the dirtiest.

Now, let’s get onto the actual “plot.” The film actually starts out fairly well, with some cool shots, good dancing, and some setup for Macavity, whose intro has a neat little nod to the fact he’s based on Moriarty. The issues don’t really start showing up until we reach the first of the Jellicle choices… Jennyanydots.

Jennyanydots is portrayed by Rebel Wilson, which is the first issue. Rebel Wilson is probably one of the worst actresses ever. She is just a horrendously, relentlessly unfunny human being, and she brings that exact quality to her role here. For her song, the vocal talent is secondary to the cringeworthy comedy Wilson puts on display. And yet, somehow, Wilson isn’t the worst part of the scene. No, that would be the horrendous CGI human-faced mice and roaches, which look like they came out of a PS3 game.

This horrendous spectacle is followed up with the appearance of Rum Tum Tugger, portrayed by Jason Derulo. I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I do think Derulo has the necessary egotistical celebrity swagger to play Rum Tum Tugger (especially when you consider he responded to negative criticisms of the film by calling the movie “one of the greatest pieces of art ever made”) and his design is actually one of the better ones in the film, but on the other hand, his singing and the musical choice for his song are not very impressive and really just doesn’t work all too well. It’s at least something of a step up from Rebel Wilson and her CGI abominations, but that’s not really saying much, is it?

Next up we have Bustopher Jones, played by James Corden and, if I’m being totally honest… he’s not quite as awful as he could be. Corden is basically the male equivalent to Rebel Wilson, but at least while he’s singing he manages to be somewhat amusing, whimsical, and enjoyable even. The problem comes when he throws in jokes, including one where he claims to be self-conscious about his weight… a joke that occurs in the middle of his song where he is bragging about how fat he is. Talk about sending mixed messages. I wish I didn’t have to be so harsh on Bustopher, but sadly he is bogged down by really bad shtick.

Bustopher Jones also highlights a problem with the cats in this first half. These minor roles – Jennyanydots, Rum Tum Tugger, and Bustopher Jones – are all being played by relatively big celebrities, and as such they’re going to want a lot of time to sing. As a result, songs that were ensemble numbers on stage become more one-man songs here, with Bustopher Jones being the most egregious example, turning this positive fat character into a walking James Corden fat joke as he sings his own praises rather than having his praises sung.

Following him up we have Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who are usually fun characters with a fun little pseudo-villain song, but alas, they manage to screw that up by using a slow, jazzy version of the song originally used in earlier London productions rather than the more up-tempo version from later productions, making the song sound awkward and forgettable. Topping it all off is the bargain bin Mr. M popping in at the end for some wacky shenanigans, but at this point, the movie takes a turn towards…

THE GOOD

So as soon as Dame Judi Dench shows up as Old Deuteronomy, the film gets a sort of inverse of what happened at the start. Where the film starts somewhat awkward and promising, it slowly gets stupider and stupider when Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, and James Corden botch their scenes in the ways described above. Here, things start a bit shaky and unsure, but Dench is a sign things are about to pick up. What makes her so enjoyable is how, despite how utterly silly things are, she treats her role with the dignity and gravitas of something out of Shakespeare. The only thing as good as an actor in a silly movie like this going full-on ham and cheese is an actor treating their role dead serious and injecting it with such class and dignity you can’t help but enjoy it. Thankfully, Dench isn’t the only person to take her role seriously.

Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella technically appears briefly in the earlier portions of the film, but here we get to hear her belt out “Memory,” and by god does she do a fantastic job. The raw emotion and passion she injects into Grizabella is phenomenal, and it’s even more powerful when it comes back for its reprise in the finale. Victoria gets a sort of response song to “Memory,” called “Beautiful Ghosts,” and it’s a decent song in its own right, but you can tell it was a more modern composition and it just doesn’t gel super well with the rest of the songs. Still, all this is good stuff, and the “Memory”/”Beautiful Ghosts” scene is a nice, refreshing bit of emotion after the incredibly weird and silly extended dance number that is the Jellicle Ball.

youtube

The movie doesn’t stop pulling punches; shortly after Grizabella we are given Gus the theater cat, an elderly actor whose number is all about reminiscing of the old days of theater and his many stellar roles from days gone by. Naturally, the only actor who could possibly perform this role properly is Sir Ian McKellan. I am completely unironic when I say this: This is to McKellan what Patrick Stewart’s performance of Xavier in Logan is. This sounds ridiculous, but think of it: Gus is an aging thespian, clearly a bit senile and desiring to be reborn because he has reached the end of the line, and McKellan fills him with this genuine, incredibly honest performance that really makes you feel emotional. It’s powerful. It feels so personal and resonant, like McKellan has inserted some of his own feelings into his performance, which may very well be the case. Oh, and after his song Macavity kidnaps him with a big autograph book and apparates away while saying his name, which gets me every time.

youtube

And now, my friends, the lord and savior arrives: Skimbleshanks.

This is, hands down, the best scene in the entire film. Everything comes together here: the music is absolutely fantastic, the dancing is choreographed extremely well, and it’s clear that everyone involved is having a blast. This is a concentrated essence of what Cats should be, and it’s really a shame Hooper didn’t understand that this is the energy needed for the entire production. The most crucial element, of course, is Steven McRae, who not only has a lovely singing voice and looks dapper as all hell in his red suspenders, but is a tap dancing maniac. This man has feet of fire, and his tapping adds a whole new layer of fun to the song. Overall, this is a perfect scene, and probably one of my favorite scenes in any film ever. For a brief four minutes, everything about this film works. I literally have no idea why this cat wants to be reincarnated, he is straight balling in this life.

youtube

But the hits don’t stop! Right after this song, Taylor Swift descends from the ceiling, and we get “Macavity.” In the stage productions, this is a song sung by Bombalurina to describe how nasty Macavity is, since she’s traditionally a good cat; here, she’s reimagined as a villain, and so this song is basically her acting as Macavity’s hype man, singing his dastardly praises, and best of all, Macavity joins in at the end! I’m certainly not a Taylor Swift fan, but she really kills it here, and definitely makes this one of the best songs in the movie with her hilariously forced accent and insane energy. It’s just a shame that from here on out Macavity ditches his villainous pimp coat and is now a nude Idris Elba, but I suppose this is equivalent exchange for Skimbleshanks being so amazing.

youtube

While not as incredible as the previous two songs and not quite as good as the stage version due to the removal of the latent homoeroticism, Mr. Mistoffelees’s song is actually okay. It’s nice that he gets to sing his own praises here, but it’s just nothing compared to the stage version, even if it has a fun little finale and it actually is genuinely heartwarming when Old Deuteronomy returns and sings along. It’s a sweet moment that almost makes up for how much Mr. M has sucked the whole movie. Oh, also, all of the Jellicle choices Macavity kidnapped fight back against their captor Growltiger, with Skimbleshanks aggressively tapdancing at him and Gus using his acting skills to make him fall into the Thames. This is so goofy that it wraps back around to being awesome.

The movie winds down in the goofiest way possible after the gorgeous reprise of “Memory,” with Macavity being caught on a big sculpture and apparently running out of magic, leaving him stranded like a regular cat. Then we get one final fourth-wall breaking song where Judi Dench directly addresses the camera that has the music swell up to the point where it seems like the song is ending numerous times without actually ending, and each time is funnier than the last. Really, what better way could you end such a silly film than with this?

Now, a general thing that’s great about the film is the choreography. The dancing in the movie is spectacular. I don’t really have a bad thing to say about it. And, in a broad sense, the music is good too, even if the singers aren’t always perfect, the backing tracks are great, and there’s a lot of fun in the tracks in the latter half of the movie. McRae and Taylor Swift’s contributions in particular are great, and Hudson’s version of “Memory” is incredibly powerful, as is McKellan’s take on Gus’ song.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

No.

Look, it’s hard to be like “Wow this is a fantastic masterpiece of film” or anything like that, because the movie has blatant and evident problems. But this is literally the reason I made this review series; I’m asking if the movie is really as bad as people say, and in this case, no, there’s too much genuinely enjoyable in the film for me to say it’s deserving of several Razzies and a spot on the Bottom 100 of IMDB that places it above Master of Disguise and The Emoji Movie. Like, seriously? This is worse than the 90 minute commercial starring the abusive dick who called a bomb threat on his girlfriend? Hell, this movie is rated worse than Artemis Fowl, which is definitely a contender for the worst film ever made (and amusingly enough also features Judi Dench in it). Artemis Fowl has next to no redeeming qualities in it, and it certainly doesn’t have Skimbleshanks, whereas Cats has several fun scenes and also has Skimbleshanks.

I definitely think there’s more of an argument for this film being so bad it’s good or camp at best, but it’s definitely more enjoyable than you’d think it would be. If you can learn to live with the weird CGI, it’s a fun, goofy romp that you might find yourself feeling for at times. After my second watch, I have to say… I’ve started to unironically enjoy this movie. It might even be one of my favorites of all time. I can’t even deny that it has a lot of stuff I don’t like, and it falls flat in a lot of ways the 1998 film soars, and it screwed up some of my favorite characters… but there are so many moments where the fun and heart of Cats shines through brighter than it has any right to, and all the failures of Hooper and Universal seem distant for a just a few minutes.

So yeah, is this movie good all around? No way. But is it fun, does it have value, and is there more redeeming qualities than the critics let on? Oh yes there is.

#Is it really that bad #IIRTB #review #movie review #Cats #Cats 2019 #Andrew Lloyd Webber #musical #so bad it's good #Tom Hooper #Judi Dench #Rebel Wilson #James Corden #Jason Derulo #Taylor Swift #Idris Elba #Sir Ian McKellan #Steven McRae

21 notes · View notes

nobodyfamousposts · 5 years

Text

Felix July - Crossover AU (Felix Culpa/?)

@felixmonth

@imthepunchlord

There was something off.

It started when he first encountered Marinette that morning. She had deviated from her standard outfit in favor of pink overalls. They were what many would consider “cute”, but it was a sudden change from her usual.

“Hello, Felix!” She chirped when she saw him.

“Good morning, Marinette.”

She seemed in a rather jovial mood, given how she brightened upon seeing him. It was a nice change from how frazzled she had appeared when they last parted.

“You seem to be doing better.” He told her.

She smiled nervously. “I just...worked out some things.”

Felix hoped that those things she worked out included standing up to her classmates and telling them to buzz off. But given the way she wouldn’t make eye contact with him, he realized that was rather unlikely.

It had been some sort of drama with Rossi, because of course it was. There hadn’t been a day where Rossi wasn’t at the center of some sort of drama—usually something she herself started.

The latest upset in this case had been in regards to a school dance that Marinette as the Class Representative had helped to get set up. She had done a good majority of the work to put it all together, advocating with the school administration to allow it and allocate a certain amount of funds. Researching and contracting a venue for a set date and time. Music, decorations, catering, everything. She had done it all and without going over the set budget. Everything was looking to be just fine!

And then Rossi had to open her big mouth.

There had been some over the top excuse involved, he was sure. But Felix had long since stopped paying attention to anything the witch would spout. He just knew that she couldn’t go on the set day because...something something puppies in Africa or somesuch. She bemoaned missing out on this big event and next thing he knew, everyone else had been cooing over Lila and trying to offer reassurances that of course their Class Representative could get the whole thing rescheduled JUST for her.

Except that the event was only a couple weeks away and Marinette had already set up everything. She had already made the arrangements, paid the various groups and agencies involved, and had been starting on flyers for the official announcement to the rest of the school when this mess ‘suddenly happened’. Which Felix was sure had nothing to do with the fact that they were all supposed to go to a movie as a group that weekend and trying to fix this would leave Marinette unable to attend. Surely.

To her credit, Marinette tried to point out the issues without coming right out and telling them how downright unreasonable it was to insist on rescheduling a school-wide dance for the sake of one person they weren’t even sure wouldn’t be able to go. The venue and catering agency weren’t going to reschedule this late and the payments she had already made would not be refunded. It was questionable if they would even have another opening available given the numbers of parties and weddings and other functions they had to arrange for.

Even Bourgeois pointed out how illogical the entire thing was—in her own special way of “Ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!” As the daughter of a hotel owner, it stood to reason that she of all people would know the intricacies of event planning and coordination. He would almost be impressed at her speaking up on the matter if it weren’t for the fact she was only doing so because she had already arranged her whole day to prepare for the dance; including time at a spa, hair styling, and makeup. Still, at least she tried to speak up, even if it was only for her own personal benefit.

The classmates just didn’t get it. Marinette was amazing! If anyone could get the school’s approval and recoordinate things, she could. He would admire their faith in her. He really would. Except that it came with this unrealistic expectation that their ‘Everyday Ladybug’ should somehow magically fix everything without realizing just what ‘everything’ entailed.

Which meant she would have to locate a new venue and catering. Which would require more money. Money they no longer had because it had been used already to set everything up before this sudden demand to reschedule.

Oh, but that’s okay! They could do a fundraiser, they reasoned. And of course by “they”, they meant “Marinette”, because they were all busy with other things they actually wanted to do. Ignoring that she would have to get permission from the school to set up a fundraiser and explain what it was for on top of try to explain WHY she wanted to suddenly uproot the carefully planned dance event they already had set.

And of course to add to the insanity of the matter, they decided the fundraiser should be a bake sale. Which of course would also fall to Marinette to not only manage but provide all of the goods for. Even better that since she’s the daughter of the bakers, surely she could get the pastries for free! Ignoring, of course, that this meant her family would be working at a loss for the ingredients used and the time it took to make them. To suggest they shouldn’t even be paid for the task? As though it were somehow obligatory? Felix could tell Marinette was getting frustrated. He couldn’t blame her, as the sheer selfishness and lack of consideration was mind-boggling.

When Marinette tried to object, the class took offense that she wouldn’t do this ‘little favor’ for them. All while ignoring, of course, that none of it can be considered by any means ‘little’. From making the arrangements with the school, to locating and contracting the venue, to purchasing and making the decorations, to catering, to just everything else. Oh, and of course since Marinette was an up and coming fashion designer, she wouldn’t mind making a dress for Rossi as well.

“Oh Marinette. You wouldn’t mind, would you? I know we don’t always get along, but I know you’re the best when it comes to fashion!” She seemed to wilt on herself at that. “Oh, but you must be so busy, and we aren’t really friends. It would be so selfish of me to ask...”

And of course everyone fell for it hook, line, and sinker as they reassured Lila on Marinette’s behalf without even seeing if she was okay with it, then started to push Marinette to do THAT on top of everything else.

He was proud of her for trying to stand her ground, but he knew it would be a lost cause as soon as Cesaire pulled her away to talk to her ‘privately’. Read: make Marinette feel guilty and push her into taking on more of a burden than she really should have to. Out of concern, he had passed by where they were talking and overheard some of the less than friendly whispers from Cesaire about Marinette needing to try to be a friend, make peace with Rossi, and not let her jealousy over Adrien get the better of her before Marinette finally had enough and walked away.

Felix couldn’t blame her. And the look on Cesaire’s face would have been particularly amusing if he weren’t feeling so irate himself on Marinette’s behalf.

They were teenagers. Selfish. Egotistical. He could understand that to an extent. But the problem here was that Marinette already had enough to worry about. And her classmates seemed to fail to realize that she had a life and things to focus on that weren’t Agreste or Rossi. She had other projects, other goals, other aspirations and tasks that didn’t involve any of them. And none of them had even tried to ask if she was okay before volunteering her.

That’s what happened when you were nice, he reasoned. It’s not even out of any maliciousness from others that they want more, just expectation because she had always given in to them in the past.

He had hoped that after everything, Marinette would have refused to cater to their whims or change anything. He was sure that Bustier, Damocles, and even the rest of the school that already knew about the date set would be willing to back her on that.

He was still hoping now, even as she stood before him the next morning, biting her lip in uncertainty. She stared at him intently. He wasn’t sure why. It almost looked as though she wanted to ask him for something.

“If you need something from me, you know you can ask.” He told her gently, trying to be supportive. As much as he wasn’t the ‘touch-feely’ kind of person, he had a talent for reading people.

And Marinette really looked like she could use someone to talk to.

She looked away.

“I think...I’m gonna go see Luka before school.”

He nodded, not at all offended as she turned away. If it helped her to feel better, it didn’t matter who she talked to—just as long as she spoke with someone about it. And Couffaine had a gift for empathy.

So Felix was appeased that she was at least getting some help and proceeded on his way.

The second indicator that something was off was when he reached the school. He was heading down the hallway from the Library when he encountered Marinette again. But this time, she was dressed quite differently, with a jacket that appeared almost like a suit and her hair pulled up into a bun. As he approached, he noticed she was putting up posters.

He looked over the stack she had set aside and found to his vexation that they were for a bake sale.

“Marinette, you know you don’t have to go through with this.”

“Of course I do. How else will people know about the fundraiser?” She replied, not looking away from the poster she was trying to align perfectly.

“You shouldn’t even be doing the bake sale! Or rescheduling the dance! If Rossi can’t make it, it’s really for the best.”

She hmmed to herself and flattened the poster against the wall.

He slammed his own hand over the poster in frustration, forcing her to look at him.

“You crinkled it.” She chastized him.

He really didn’t care. “You don’t owe them anything, especially after how they spoke to you yesterday.”

“I’m the Class Representative. I have to do what the class wants.”

“No, you don’t.” He insisted. “You’re allowed to delegate tasks. If they want to do this so badly, they should be helping out. If they don’t want to contribute to this, then is clearly isn’t that important.”

There was a pause as her eyes met his and he hoped—really hoped that he had gotten through to her.

She looked away from him and back to the poster.

“I need to focus.”

There was nothing he could do for it right now, he realized. That certainly didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try talking to the school administration in hopes they would put their foot down on the matter. At least that way no one could say Marinette didn’t try.

“I hope to see you in class.” He stated as he walked past her, too quick and too angry to fully make out her muttered reply.

“...you’ll see a me there.”

It was when he entered the classroom to find Césaire in an argument that it finally clicked—and he could kick himself for not realizing sooner.

Agreste was uselessly trying to stop the conflict while Césaire looked about ready to blow her top—nothing new there with either of them. But the one she appeared ready to go off on was Marinette. A yet again differently-dressed Marinette who was wearing a hoodie and bearing a disposition that would be more at home on his face than her own.

“Césaire! Agreste!” He snapped, making the two in question jump. “Get away from there. Right now.”

The reporter glared down at him, working herself up into a rant. “Oh, of course YOU would—“

“Césaire.” He growled through gritted teeth. “Step away from the akuma.”

#ml au #felix july #felix month #felix culpa #felix agreste #ml felix #marinette dupain cheng #lila sucks #akuma marinette #akumanette #crossover #ml crossover #manynette #featuring saltinette #saltinette #made with punchlord's permission #ml fic

2K notes · View notes

taestfully · 5 years

Text

Ethereal

Pairing: Jungkook x reader (fem!reader)

Genre: fluff

Words: 1,126

Warnings: none

Summary: Jungkook had never met someone so pure, so utterly perfect as the little girl wrapped in his arms.

Request: @slowlyanddrogynouskryptonite said: Can i request a scenario with Taehyung, Yoongi, Jungkook or Jimin that the boys (they are very emotional) went to he’s house to visit his wife or girlfriend and his new born child. She is so tired (because of the recently birth) and he would be so protective and be complete in love with his family! Please make that the child is sleeping in his neck or somthing.

A/N: This is so soft and cute. This put me in my feels😭💕. There needs to be more daddy!jungkook okay

Jungkook never quite understood it.

He didn’t grasp a hold of what people meant when they said a person’s whole world could be both turned completely upside down and made right all at the same time by just one little innocent baby. They said he’d know what they meant once it happened to him, once he held in his arms a little bundle of joy of his own. He always laughed at that. Him? A dad? He wasn’t so sure if he’d ever experience that…at least not anytime in the near future.

The thought of a child made Jungkook worry. He was still young himself, still full of potential and opportunities for a big life. He had so many more adventures to embark on, so many more things to achieve in his idol career. He was still mapping out his own journey. To be responsible for another human being was mind-boggling to him. There was also the fact of his hectic lifestyle. He had hardly any time for himself, much less a dependent, helpless infant.

You always told him he’d be an amazing dad. The times spent late at night in the midst of each other’s presence while you talked until you fell asleep were when you’d tell him this. You liked to talk of the future. You liked to look beyond what was expected to happen. You enjoyed talking about the things you wanted in the future. Jungkook thought it crazy you wanted a child with him, but found it endearing all the same. And in truth he wanted that. He wanted to see a little you or him running around the house. But he was nervous. Was he ready? Was he ready for what a child entailed? Was he ready to take on a child while juggling the chaos of idol life?

Whether or not he was ready didn’t matter the moment you took his hand in yours, looked at him with worry and nervousness in your eyes, and uttered the most life changing words: I’m pregnant.

✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞

Jungkook had wondered when he’d wake up from this dream, this alternate reality he had been thrown into. Surely, he’d wake up soon enough to find himself in his bed, with you lying next to him not pregnant.

But then days turned to weeks. Weeks turned into months. And soon your abdomen grew, the tell-tale sign that there was in fact a baby, his baby, inside your womb and that this was not a dream he could wake from.

He’d never imagined how hectic nine months could be nor how swiftly they could pass. Jungkook was convinced someone had a remote to his life and had pressed the fast forward button because one moment he was arguing with you about a name for your baby and the next he was in the back seat of a car with you panting and sweaty as you rushed to the hospital.

What he’d heard those people say about the world being flipped upside down was completely true. Jungkook understood it then as you were laboring to bring your baby into the world. He realized that this was the most altering experience he’d ever face as the nurses settled a healthy baby girl unto your chest. Jungkook’s life as he knew it was changed. He didn’t know how he was going to manage. He was nervous, scared, fearful. He wasn’t sure he deserved to be the father of this innocent little human being. There was so many things running through his mind.

But then he held her, the little baby girl that he hadn’t planned for. The little girl that single-handedly rerouted the course of his life.

All the worry ceased to exist as he held his daughter. At the weight of her in his arms, Jungkook felt his world be made complete.

Jungkook had never met someone so pure, so utterly perfect as the little girl wrapped in his arms.

✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞✧༺♥༻∞

“Shhh,” Jungkook cooed, bouncing his arms slightly to calm the newborn baby girl in his arms. “You’ll wake your mother, sweetheart.” At the sound of his voice, her fussing stopped. He watched the way her eyes rolled before they closed in sleep. He smiled. She was absolutely the most amazing thing to ever exist.

Jungkook looked over his shoulder at you, softly smiling at the sight of you fast asleep, still tired from the physical exertion you’d endured during labor even after being back home from the hospital. He turned back to look at the infant in his arms and then out the window, sighing happily. He enjoyed the silence of the night while holding his daughter for a while until he heard your sleepy voice from behind him.

You smiled at the sight of Jungkook with your baby girl in his arms. “I can’t believe it, Jungkook.” You watched the way he startled slightly at the unexpected sound of your voice. You giggled.

“(Y/n) …” Jungkook sighed. “Why are you awake? You should be resting.”

You offered him a shrug. The past few days of motherhood had included a lot of restlessness. You felt a subconscious pull to check on your daughter, the need strong enough to rouse you from sleep. “I don’t know. But I’m glad I woke up. You look cute like that with our little girl.” Jungkook blushed. There was a moment that passed before you said anything again. “It’s strange.”

Jungkook looked at you and grinned, understanding what you meant.

“We’re parents, Jungkook.”

“Yeah, we are. It’s hard to believe even though I’m literally holding our child right now.” Jungkook chuckled.

You looked at him thoughtfully, noticing the way he held her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. The sight made love swell up in your chest. “You look good as a dad,” you said softly.

Jungkook blushed again as he shook his head. His eyes gazed at his daughter and he lifted a finger to caress her soft, plump cheek. “I feel like we’re in another world. Like how is this our life?”

You shook your head before yawning. “I don’t know, but I’m glad it is.”

“Me too. I wouldn’t trade this for the world.” The baby girl began to rustle in Jungkook’s arms, and you sat up to take her into your arms so you could tend to her, but he stopped you. “Rest, baby. I’ve got this.”

Jungkook calmed her back to sleep, kissing her head in adoration. “Sweet dreams, sweet girl.”

Jungkook knew what it meant for his world to fall apart yet be restored all at once. Those people were right. He was holding a bundle of joy of his own and he understood. He understood it completely.

#Jungkook fanfiction #bts fanfiction #jungkook imagines #btswritersguild #kpopwonderlandtag #jeon jungkook #bts #bts army #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #park jimin #kim taehyung #bts fluff #jungkook fluff

174 notes · View notes

ngame989 · 5 years

Text

“Change” - TGG SVTFOE Fanfic Collection Ch. 3

Writing: @ngame989

Art: @toxicpsychox (make sure to follow him for bonus pics from the story!)

Editing: @bmc-nightfury, @seddm

Alternate fic links - FFnet, AO3

Summary: Star, Marco, Tom, and Janna celebrate Earthni's first Halloween and get a taste of what life's like for the rest of its inhabitants.

Comic Page

Masterpost

See below for the text, hope you enjoy! Sorry for the delay, we’ll be back in a few days with the comic page!

Flying was one of the most exhilarating feelings for Marco Diaz. He flung his arms out to the side, letting the wind ripple around and through his hair, his face, and the open front of his hoodie. With a world this beautiful and vast, who even needs the hoodie, anyway? It’s just weighing him down, preventing him from truly feeling as free as he knows he can be. He shifted positions, dramatically discarding the hoodie and feeling the crisp autumn air on his upper body through only the thin grey t-shirt. Suddenly it struck him: how exactly was he flying without Nach-

“Pfffthbtbt, Marco, what the heck?!? You got hoodie stuck in my teeth!”

Marco tried to glance at the familiar voice that interrupted his thoughts, but he was blinded by the sun gleaming in the purple sky. His arms instinctively were brought up to shield his vision. Wait, Marco realized, hadn’t he been holding on to something? Panic set in, both at the feeling of losing something important and at not even being able to recall what it was. It was uncanny, the moments he’d just experienced felt as vague and distant as anything he’d experienced in the Neverzone...

The view of the stunning Earthni landscape beneath him was obscured by a massive dangling ribbon in front of him, disrupting his contemplation. It was utterly tantalizing, almost demanding his attention. He shifted positions, reaching forward as far as he could to catch it, tugging the ribbon to his body and wrapping himself up in it, nestling deeper into his fabric cocoon and feeling briefly at ease. Wait, where exactly was he again? Something felt off, but the unnerving thought dissipated entirely once more at the soft touch on his head. Two large fingers tousled his hair to and fro, giving him a sense of contentment he didn’t know was possible. A glance skyward revealed the face of a giant Star Butterfly towering over him with a soft smile as she pet his head in the safety of a pocket sewn into her narwhal dress. Did that dress even have a pocket? And how was he here? Why was Star so big? As his mind sluggishly tried to work out what wasn’t gelling about the whole situation, his gaze followed their ribbon higher and higher until it finally reached the red balloon guiding them through the sky.

“OK, Marco, payback time!” she shouted with glee, flicking her head and whipping a tuft of flowing golden hair directly into his face.

“Bleh, Star, your hair… ptooey, Star, your hair is in my mouth… Get it out… Star? Star! Star!”

…

His eyes snapped open, senses on high alert, rapidly regaining his full cognitive faculties. He felt a light sheet draped on top of him; he was in bed, in his pajamas, with no hoodie or jeans in sight. Something large was still wrapped in his arms, but this time there was a warmth and softness that invited him to snuggle in deeper. The last thing he noticed is that his face was still completely buried in blonde tresses, and it all clicked.

“Thanks Roy, these goblin dogs zzz are absolutely zzz deliiiiiicioooouuus zzzzzzzzz”

“Star...”

“Why yes, I would like to try strawberry-flavored zzzzzzz”

“Staaaaaaar… wake up. It’s almost...” He tried and failed to peek around the veritable curtain in his face. “I don’t actually know what time it is, but we should still get up, today’s the day!”

“Totally, totally, totally, just 5 more minutes, Marco… 5 more hours…”

Marco sighed and lifted his head, freeing his face from the hairific onslaught and sighing into the crook of her neck. The leftover hint of strawberry shampoo danced through his nose, infatuating him as he pulled Star closer and felt the silky fabric of her gown softly graze his hands. She laughed and cast aside her favorite teal pillow with a heart she had been holding, gripping his arms instead, both enjoying each other’s company and affection - a fairly common occurrence these days.

Three months of this kind of paradise. Well, close to it, anyway; that first night on Earthni had been a one-off incident at the time, but it still hadn’t been long until unintentional movie marathon naps became slightly less unintentional and eventually moved to the comfort of one of their beds altogether, allowing them to spend nights in each other’s arms and sleep in at their leisure. And why not? They had all the time in the world. Marco was technically done with high school, and Star certainly wasn’t that upset that there wasn’t a fully integrated school system for Earthni quite yet. Besides, formalized education wasn’t much of a thing on Mewni anyway, and she wasn’t a “foreign exchange student” bound by Echo Creek’s norms anymore in this new world of theirs. They’d answered a few questions to the public about the Cleaving and spent a bit of time in the limelight, of course, but otherwise they were finally free of the burdens that had been on their shoulders for most of the time they’d known each other. It was the summer vacation they’d longed for, even though the season had passed them by long ago.

Suddenly, a knock at his door interrupted their bliss. “Star, Marco! Lunch is almost ready!” Angie sing-songed through his door. That woke both of them up - not because his mother had caught them innocently canoodling the night away, as that boat had sailed a while ago with a fairly predictable acceptance (though not without some teasing), but because lunch? How long had they slept in? Star bumped into Marco’s forehead when she bolted upright, startling him so much that he backed up off the bed into a heap on the floor.

“Marco! Gosh, Marco, I’m sorry-”

“M’okay,” he groaned, letting her help him uncrumple his body and stand up straight. They scrambled around the room to gather the discarded boxes of Sugar Seeds from the night before and shared their usual quick good morning kiss before splitting off to get ready for the big day ahead of them. Ten minutes later, Star emerged from her room with one of her older dresses, sky blue with two belts minus the fuzzy leg warmers, and skipped over to the stairs to slide down the railing into the dining room where Marco was already seated. Angie brought turkey sandwiches on the table.

“Good morning, you two. Sleep well?”

“We were up waaaay too late marathoning the new season of Fiesta de la Noche. I think it was the Sugar Seeds, please never buy the ‘Oops! All Corn Syrup!’ flavor again.” Marco winced at the lingering stomach pain.

“It’s sugar made from corn, why would you ever think I wouldn’t buy it?” Star scolded, adding some table sugar from the shaker the Diazes had repurposed for Star (leading to a few accidentally ruined dinners in the first week) to the fruit salad on the plate.

He playfully rolled his eyes and dug into his meal. “So, mom, where’s dad?” he mumbled out between bites.

“BOO!” No one even flinched at Rafael’s entrance from the back door.

Marco groaned. “Dad, are you trying to scare everyone again this year?”

“Haha, no, Marco. Last year I thought, ‘Why go for scary when nothing could ever top a hungering spirit almost devouring your loved ones, sending you into a manic frenzy?’ But then a lightbulb struck me on the head: I can simply bring joy and happiness instead of reopening the wounds of the most traumatic night of my life, haha!” Marco vacantly boggled at his father for a few silent moments, trying and failing to find any possible words in response, but there was no need as Rafael spoke up again. “Oh, and River is helping too!”

As if on cue, Star’s dad barreled through the back door dripping sweat. “I’m a riot with the youngsters, this will be a blast! Rafael, my good man, thank you so much for inviting me to participate in your culture’s festivities. Now how far would you like the catapult to fire the children?”

Rafael nervously chuckled as he lead River out the back door; the families got along swimmingly, but it was clear that neither had fully adjusted to every idiosyncrasy of the other. Marco and Star, having just finished the last of their lunches, followed out the back door and gaped at the spectacle. A giant corn maze occupied at least half of the massive property the Diazes now occupied, catapults of varying sizes had been built with landing pads, a few carnival-looking booths stocked with buckets of candy were set up with games Marco didn’t even recognize, and it was all topped off with decorative ghouls and skeletons scattered all around. The teens’ eyes bugged out of their heads as they processed the scene. How the heck did they sleep through the assembly of all of this? An instantly recognizable revving sound approached from the side; Marco’s eyes lit up as he ran over and gave his favorite dragon-cycle a big hug.

“Oh, Boo-Boo, good to see you!” he cooed, affectionately stroking her scaly head while she purred. A few weeks ago, she spotted him by chance in Monstertown while they were helping Eclipsa finish up some new housing, and after a tearful reunion the Diazes (who were a bit apprehensive upon finally learning what a dragon-cycle actually was) had built a stable in their backyard for her. She came and went as she pleased, but was more than happy to ride with Marco like they always had, occasionally with Star in tow.

Rafael approached and tentatively patted her on the head once, which caused her to defensively nuzzle into Marco. “By the way, Nachos asked if she could help us tonight with the Halloween chicanery and maybe give the kids some little joyrides… if that is OK with you.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet of you, girl!” Marco cooed. River hollered excitedly at Star and Rafael to show them his latest contraption, leaving Marco alone with his companion. His warm gaze turned steely in an instant as he knelt to the ground, looking directly into pink reptilian pupils of his dearest dragon-cycle.

“Thanks for doing this for me, Nachos, I owe you one. Remember the plan, OK? Keep an eye on them and keep everyone in one piece. You have my number if anything goes wrong, right?” She matched his serious demeanor and nodded sternly, at which he softened and kissed her on the forehead before scratching that spot on her neck that she always enjoyed. “I can always count on you, girl.” He stood up quickly to prevent any suspicion when he heard Star chatting to their dads as they approached the house once more.

“OK, dad, try not to have too much fun tonight. Last Halloween I was here, everyone almost got eaten.”

“No promises, sweetie!”

Star waved goodbye with a cheery grin before turning to Marco, eyes widening while maintaining the grin for an exaggeratedly concerned effect. Marco snickered and took her hand, heading back inside the house for their next mission. With all the shenanigans going on tonight, everyone decided it was best for Mariposa to not be in the house, so Star had volunteered to take her with them tonight, which meant she’d need a costume. The pair split apart to gather their supplies for the task. Star took a quick peek into the nursery and found Marco’s angel of a baby sister fast asleep in her crib, fortunately not disturbed by all the happenings around the house. Star went into Marco’s room and cleared off the floor for them to work, mere seconds before a big ball of purple fluff barged through the door.

“Can you believe that girl at the fabric store?” the bundle scoffed, revealing itself to be Marco after unceremoniously dumping piles of fabric and sewing supplies on the ground. “How can you not tell the difference between lavender and heliotrope? It’s so obvious! Even with the swatches from Turdina I’m still not sure if these are the right colors, and I will not settle for anything less than perfection for my little Turdinita-”

“OK, Marco,” Star huffed out. Like everything he did, it was still cute when he entered diva mode, but it was still near the top of the annoyance list. She rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him downwards and pecking him on the lips - mostly to shut him up - before putting a finger on his chest and pushing him onto his bottom in front of her. “Let’s get this done, OK? I know that you and Tom are gonna take, like, an hour on the makeup for your costumes.”

“Our trial run clocked in at 44 minutes sharp,” he retorted with a smirk, laying the sewing pattern out to start arranging the fabric. Minutes turned to hours as they toiled away, carefully picking out the colors and textures from the vast selection of cloth Marco had procured. Star was no slouch at the craft - she had decorated Marco’s cape by hand, after all - but every time she glanced over at Marco pouring his entire self into every thread and sequin, she couldn’t help but smile.

Marco carefully balanced a pin between his teeth, holding it up to make sure the design was coming together, then put it down to see Star dreamily staring at him. “Uh, Star? Is something up?”

“N-nothing,” she stammered in response, preparing the accessories for the finishing touches.

“Hey, I just realized… you still haven’t even told me what your costume is yet!” He handed the fabric over to her to begin cleaning up the massive mess of scrap around his person.

“I did tell you it’s a surprise, and I’m sticking to that! You and Tom went all gung-ho on the whole ‘bullfighting’ thing from the beginning. A girl’s gotta have her secrets, Diaz!”

“OK, OK,” he held up his hands in surrender, “I’m sure it will be amazing. Anyway, how does the dress look?”

Star scooted over beside him and held up the frilly purple outfit in front of them, flipping it over and around to get the full view. “Looks like a job well done to me!”

Marco’s eyes glistened at the sight. This whole thing had been his idea, wanting to make his baby sister’s first Halloween something special even if she wouldn’t remember it (there would be ample photographic evidence, his parents would make sure of that). But in some way it was also his way of commemorating his old life and what they’d left behind. Although Star had perhaps been the most dramatically affected by the Cleaving, losing the magic she’d known all her life, he had his own friends and adventures across the multiverse too. Earthni was special in its own unique way, and he certainly wouldn’t trade it for anything, but he didn’t want to forget the parts of his life he’d left behind. Shutting his eyelids and taking a deep breath and feeling a bit of moisture squeeze out, he wrapped an arm around Star, pulling her into his side. “Thanks for helping me with this, you didn’t have to-”

“Marco, you know I’d do anything for Mariposa. And it’s fun just spending time making stuff together!”

“We are pretty good at this, aren’t we?”

“Eh, I’d give it a passing grade.” Marco and Star jumped to their feet striking a tag team battle pose in the direction of the unforeseen intruder... and found Janna sitting on Marco’s bed, surfing something on her phone which was rested on Star’s pillow without so much as looking at them in acknowledgment.

“Janna!?” Marco asked incredulously. “Wait, shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I told them I was half-demon after the whole Severing Stone thing and they ate that riiiight up, so I’m exempt from human school now.” He could do nothing but blink in disbelief. “Anyway, on my way over I saw your dads with both their shirts off for some reason and I really didn’t feel like dealing with that so I just snuck in through the window. Oh, and I brought Meteora, too.”

“Wait, what? Where is she then?”

“On your head.”

Marco looked up and saw Meteora clinging to the ceiling before staring directly down at him and dive bombing, taking them both to the floor and giggling at his expense. Star helped him up and took the baby from him, calming her relatively easily by virtue of not being Marco Diaz.

“OK, but Eclipsa didn’t tell us about this! Why do you even have her?”

“Look, guys, it’s not a huge deal. She needed some help this morning and your parents told her you two were ‘busy’,” she said, holding up the pillow in one hand with the air quotes, “so she called me instead. Some monsters were, I dunno, worried about Halloween a bit or something and Eclipsa was dealing with that but still wanted Meteora to go trick or treating.”

“So you’re saying that Eclipsa wants Mariposa to bring her back a lot of chocolate.”

“Bingo.”

Star pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “OK, fine, whatever. What’s this about being worried about Halloween?”

Janna shrugged her shoulders impassionately. “The whole schtick of Halloween is using the idea of monsters to try and scare people, and they’re a bunch of monsters who don’t want to be seen as scary.” She stood up and tossed her phone up and down a few times before slotting it into her pocket and finally addressing Star and Marco directly. “Whole thing’s a load of crud if you ask me, I’m totally down with monstery quirks. Plus you wouldn’t have to worry about costumes! Like, look at the munchkin there, she’s got pointed ears and a tail. It’s already better than anything I ever went trick-or-treating in.”

Meteora briefly stirred, as if picking up on the talk about her, and Star motioned everyone to the door with her head. The trio moved into the nursery quietly to put Meteora in the guest crib they kept around for her frequent visits, then went downstairs to continue their conversation.

“I mean… it can’t be that big of a deal, right? Costume parties were a thing on Mewni, too, and not everyone who showed up was a Mewman. I doubt it will be perfect, but everyone’s been getting along pretty well so far!” Star said with some emphatic hand-waving.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Marco responded. Admittedly, Marco wasn’t entirely sure. The residents of Echo Creek were generally pretty accepting, in his own experience, but it was never a certainty. Tensions could linger for a while unseen, and one could never know exactly when they’d boil over. But being with Star had taught him a lot about trying to see the best in the world, and he found himself able to share the overall feeling of optimism.

“Plus, I don’t think any kids are gonna climb all the stairs to the Temple,” Janna chimed in from the couch.

“That too,” Marco replied without looking away from Star. “It’s our first big holiday together, and- and I just want this night to be about us having a blast with all our friends and getting a whole truckload of candy!” he yelled triumphantly, taking Star’s hand. Her shining ocean pools focused entirely on him and blazed with the same determination he had.

“I’d tell you two to get a room, but...”

Marco’s eyes went wide as he blushed, causing Star to finally end their moment of emotional vulnerability with a contagious laugh (and light blush of her own) that Marco quickly joined. Once it subsided, Star took Marco’s other hand in hers. “Yeah, you’re right. Hopefully nothing too unexpected hap-”

The front door violent opened with a burst of flame and smoke entering through. Marco shrieked and leapt in fright, being caught and cradled by Star. What could possibly have done such a thing?

“Hey guys, how’s it hanging?”

Oh. That’s what. “Hey Tom,” Marco sighed out, hopping down from Star’s arms as the smoke cleared from his dramatic entrance and Tom closed the door behind him.

“Am I, uh, interrupting something?”

“Marco got freaked out when you burst open the door,” Janna ever-so-helpfully provided.

Tom raised an eyebrow at Marco judgmentally. “You’ve lived with Star for years, come on, dude.”

“I’m not on guard for it when she’s directly next to me!” he cried defensively with his voice cracking, extending his arms in her direction to punctuate his statement. “Anyway, Tom, you ready for the big night?”

“You know I am,” the half-demon responded, meeting Marco in the center of the room for a high-five. “Alright, we should get costumes ready. We’ll be in Marco’s room if you need us.” As they ascended the stairs, Marco caught Janna making some sort of comment about to Star about “stealing your man” - he shouldn’t have expected much different. As soon as they got into his room, he went into his closet to gather all their costume pieces as Tom shut the door. “I can’t believe you humans basically have a giant costume party once a year where everyone gets candy. I could probably, like, just walk around like normal and it would still count. That’s too cool.”

Marco sat them both down on his bed and began to wipe his face off. “Eh, it’s pretty tame usually. Two years ago, Star and Janna summoned a ghost that ate everyone and my dad had to wrestle it to get everyone back. The inside of his belly smelled like licorice, it was awful. But it was an interesting Halloween.”

“Hungry Larry?” Marco assented while beginning the first layer of foundation. Tom laughed and held Marco’s arms at bay while he regained his composure. “Not a demon curse, but I’m familiar. Of course it was those two. OK, man, you can’t tell me funny stories like that, we’ve gotta get this done and we don’t need any distractions.” Marco nodded, always happy to see someone share his dedication to the craft. Foundation, then outlines, then filling in with white… the process stretched on for minutes as the basic design became evident. He sat back to observe it from multiple angles. While Marco switched brushes to begin the detailing, Tom spoke up once more. “I’ll be honest, man, I was kinda surprised about this. Figured you and Star would do a couple costume or something.”

“This idea was too good to pass up, though. Plus, I thought it’d be cool to do something like this with you! I mean, you are one of my best friends,” Marco rubbed the back of his neck, realizing too late that he had had a bit of white face paint on his hand.

“Well, it’s super cool, so thanks.”

Once Marco put the finishing touches on, he held up a mirror for Tom. The reflection showed his face transformed into a skull with ornate patterns everywhere. When Marco had come up with the idea for bullfighting costumes, Tom had been pretty disturbed by the fact that the bulls were killed. Marco had to admit it was pretty cruel, but after learning about Día de los Muertos, Tom suggested an Underworld-themed bullfight (where the bulls were already dead). Tom offered a fist-bump which Marco proudly accepted, and then the two switched places to begin the process all over again.

As Tom reached over to grab the makeup, his eyes lingered on the pillow with a heart at the head of Marco’s bed. His eyes darted back and forth between the pillow, all three eyes widening. Marco followed his train of thought and- oh no. “Tom, it’s not what you think-”

Tom raised his hands defensively. “Dude, I won’t judge.”

Marco sighed. What did he do to deserve this all in one day? “It’s not like that- OK, it’s not like that that, just… yeah.”

Minutes ticked on in silence while the steps were redone on Marco’s own face. Foundation, white paint, highlights… It was only when Tom got to the final ornate decals that Tom spoke back up again after sketching the outline on Marco’s face. “For the record, I know we haven’t really talked about it much but when I told you I was cool with you two getting together, I wasn’t just bottling stuff up or anything, OK? Yeah, breakups suck, but I’m pretty sure after a day or so my mom was taking it harder than me,” he chuckled with a toothy grin. “I know we haven’t, like, talked about it much since then, but you two are perfect for each other. I’m happy that you’re happy, dude, and more importantly I’m happy with myself too.” Words stopped once more as Tom focused to finish the pattern, showing Marco his own face in the mirror much to his delight. Everything came together flawlessly, and even faster than they’d anticipated. Marco breathed a sigh of relief at still managing to accomplish everything they needed to before trick-or-treating officially began. Part of that relief, he had to admit, was due to Tom’s words as well. Of course he didn’t think Tom resented him or anything, but knowing that they weren’t just “cool” but completely free of any potential past baggage felt like a weight off his shoulders. Marco leaned in and gave Tom a one-armed hug, clapping him on the back. “I take it you’re happy with the makeup job?” Tom joked.

“Well, your contouring is flawless. But it was mostly for the other stuff.”

“Anytime, man,” Tom responded, punching his shoulder lightly with a smile.

“Alright, costume time.”

***

“Star, seriously, do I have to do this?”

“Trick-or-treating starts in a few minutes, so too late nooo-oow!” Star sing-songed, bouncing over to the top of the stairs. “Are you boys down there?”

“Yeah,” she heard both Tom and Marco reply from the living room downstairs.

“Alright, Janna, it’s showtime!” Star grabbed her hesitant friend by the wrist and practically dragged her down the stairs. “Introduciiiiiiiing… Starberry!” She twirled in place once for effect, showing off her full body strawberry suit complete with themed headband and boots, then pulled Janna out from behind her, who had her hand on her forehead. “And Janna Banana!” She’d begrudgingly put on the main banana costume but had vehemently declined to wear the rest of the ensemble Star had picked out for her, sticking with her normal outfit instead, which Star was willing to accept.

Marco and Tom stared wide-eyed for a moment, turning to each other, then the girls, then to each other again, then back to the girls, mouths agape.

“How… what… wuh…” they both stammered incoherently, before bursting into raucous laughter, holding onto each other just to stay standing.

“God this is stupid,” Janna grumbled under her breath.

Star waited until they were done before explaining herself. “OK, so remember that night at D&D where Janna bet me I couldn’t beat the cyclops horde and I did?”

“You were only able to do that because you, and I quote, ‘rolled for cuteness check’ so they’d adopt you instead and Ferguson allowed it for some reason.”

“Well, maybe it’s because my character is incredibly cute!”

“Your character is just an elvish Marco.”

“Exactly. Anyway, since you guys were already doing your own thing for Halloween, I thought Janna and I would, too! Fruit Friends!” Star shrilled, hugging Janna and wiggling her back and forth.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

“Well, you both look great,” Marco giggled, walking over and flicking the strawberries on Star’s headband. “Where did you get this?”

“Dad helped me make it. He’s surprisingly good at arts and crafts. You two look pretty nice yourself.”

“Thanks. Tom wouldn’t wear the rest of the costume, though, but it’s still OK.”

“I’m not wearing a full body fursuit, Marco. But I can definitely do that thing bulls do in cartoons,” he coolly smirked, before blowing a puff of smoke with a bit of flame from his nostrils. Tom had a large nose ring and a bushy tip on top of his tail, but otherwise was wearing a pretty standard dark jacket on top of a maroon button-up shirt with dark slacks.

Star turned back to her boyfriend, looking his flashy getup up and down. “You look pretty nice yourself, Diaz,” she crooned playfully. “Although you missed out on the opportunity to be Mango Diaz for the night, bub.” The skull-themed makeup was absolutely divine, as she expected from the boys - they were frankly better at it than her. The ornate gold decorations all over the jacket and high-waisted pants looked sharp on top of the red base, and she was never one to complain about a nice white dress shirt and black tie, either. “Heh, I don’t want to mess up the makeup but-”

Marco cut her off with a brief kiss, taking her by pleasant surprise, and when her eyes fluttered back open he gave her a half-lidded stare and a smug grin. “Don’t worry, we used sealer.”

Janna moaned at the couple and slumped onto the couch. “Let’s just go get candy already.”

“Are you kids leaving soon?” Rafael poked him head out from the kitchen, making a comical “oh” face upon seeing all the costumes. “Darling, come look at how wonderful these costumes are!”

Angie quickly joined with the babies in tow, oohing and aahing over all the outfits. “Let’s get a quick picture before you leave, shall we?” The babies crawled over to the teens as they struck a pose for the camera. Her best friends - well, besides Ponyhead, who had blown them off for a special edition of her show tonight - all together having fun on holidays? It was exactly the life she’d been wanting for herself for a while. Stump Day was the last time they’d done anything like that, and even then it was riddled with strife and tension, but it filled her with a genuine warmth to know this would be the norm now. Or maybe that was just the not-that-breathable costume. Tom let out a yelp when Mariposa tugged on his tail, clapping in glee at the response.

“Guess that’s our signal to go,” he said in a strained voice, scooping up Mariposa and handing her to Marco who had just put on his baby carrier before she could pull at the nose ring. Meteora, meanwhile, seemed content to nest in the leaves of her strawberry outfit. They all grabbed their bags and headed out the door.

The night started off fairly uneventful; they collected candy going door to door, and most of the Echo Creek residents were quite impressed by the costumes and especially by Tom’s pyrotechnics. They passed a few monster families wandering around - her favorite was a centipede-looking monster that had an elaborate assembly of dolls mounted onto her body to make it look like a bunch of humans in a conga line. Once they had stopped at every house in the immediate neighborhood, their bags were fairly full already, so they decided to take some time and go explore looking for decorations for a while before stuffing their bags to capacity too early. The group headed towards some of the more blended areas of the merged town (still colloquially referred to as Echo Creek by most of the population) to see how all the different groups were celebrating the spooky festivities. Star and Marco were walking hand-in-hand with the babies in their care, just taking in the sights and enjoying the company, while Tom and Janna were chatting beside Marco.

“Janna, I’m telling you, that isn’t a real thing!”

“C’mon now Tom, I have three different necronomicons that reference it.”

“Grandpa Relicor goes on for hours about curses at every single family dinner and he’s never mentioned anything that could turn a human inside out.”

“Maybe he’s keeping it for himself. Did you ever think of that?”

“I’m sorry that I don’t think about turning humans inside out all that often! Look, we can just head to his library sometime and- wait, hold on. Star, isn’t this where we got kidnapped that one time?”

Star snapped out of her daze and looked around; they were in the old monster village! Star had been so busy during the last stretch of her time on Mewni that she hadn’t even gotten to visit it once some of the monster families came back, and Buff Frog had come over to visit them a few times on Earthni but she hadn’t been sure exactly where his home was. She motioned for the group to follow her while she looked for the right hut… There! They walked up to the door and knocked.

“Go away! We do not want any!”

“Buff Frog, it’s me!”

The door flung open and Star was immediately swept up into a giant bear hug. “Star Butterfly, my little sweet potato! It has been so long! Come in, all of you. What brings you to my home, and why are dressed like weird red plant with many eyes?”

“It’s Halloween, we’re trick-or-treating!”

“What is this ‘Halloween’ of which you speak?”

This caught Star off-guard. It had been posted all over town and in the newspapers, hadn’t it? After all, there were plenty of monsters she’d seen celebrating tonight already.

“Um, well, it’s an Earth holiday where people put on costumes and walk around to other people’s houses, and those other people give them candy!”

“Ah, so that explains mysterious children at door all night. I hide in home. Many not seem happy when I am not giving them things. This also why tadpoles go with friends wearing peculiar clothing. I understand all now.”

“Out of curiosity, Buff Frog, why didn’t you know?”

“I am needing help to read fancy Earth papers, text too small for eyes. Children try to show me this ‘internal net’ of yours for video, but I do not like. They teenagers now, do not talk to old man about life,” he sighed mournfully. “Is OK. We begin Halloween now. Who want swamp grass? Is favorite treat, but I happily give to my good friends.”

“Thanks Buff Frog, but uh, I think we’re good,” Marco said, making a quick face of disgust.

“Whatwuzzat?” Tom mumbled through a mouthful of swamp grass while eagerly taking more from Buff Frog into his bag.

Another knock came to Buff Frog’s door. His face lit up in joy. “This must be trick-or-treat! I try your custom now.” He went over to the door and opened it, arms spread wide with a gigantic smile on his face. “Happy Halloween! I am so glad to have fresh-faced child at door and be part of holiday cheer. What your costume supposed to-”

“Ugh, whatever. You have any candy or what?” Star sharply turned her attention in that direction at the familiar voice.

“Jeremy?” Marco cried out, his voice cracking.

Star and Marco poked their heads around the side of Buff Frog at the familiar voice. Jeremy Birnbaum, in the shrill, diminutive flesh. Of the many people Star had met during her time on Earth, he was one of the few that she would’ve been perfectly fine with never seeing again, and she knew Marco hated him far more than she did. He was wearing a karate outfit with his name embroidered in multiple places on the fabric.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Marco Diaz. What are you doing out in a dump like this? Oh, wait, that makes perfect sense!” he cackled.

“Don’t listen to him, Buff Frog,” Marco shouted, still fixing his angry gaze on the child. “He’s just a sad, mean little turd.”

“Look, Marco, I get it. You did one big thing and had your 15 minutes of fame and you think you’re hot stuff. But all you really did was make this town even lamer and bring a bunch of weirdo losers here. Whatever, I’m out of here. By the way, those wing things on your head are wimpy, old man. Anyway, later, nerds.”

As he was walking away, he antagonized a few groups of monster teenagers that were wandering around. Star’s face felt like it was on fire. She started charging out the door to give the twerp a piece of her mind, but a large hand gripped her shoulders and held her back.

“Star… is not worth it.”

“Yeah,” Tom added, hands in his pockets. “For the record, I’ve seen a lot of demons with wings way wimpier than yours.” Buff Frog laughed sadly.

Star clenched her fists in and out, knowing they were right. After taking a deep breath, she plopped down onto the floor, resting her cheeks on her hands and sighing. Since the Cleaving, it seemed like everyone had been getting along so well, and problems had been out of sight for so long that she’d gotten complacent. Even after the subject came up earlier today, she really hadn’t believed that anything bad would happen. Had she just been delusional for assuming that things were really better? Could more of this happen? Would more of this happen? She’d done everything in her power, including giving up that very power, to fix the problems and prejudices she saw in society. On some level, she knew she shouldn’t be too bothered by this - it was just Jeremy, after all - but it was just sinking in how far away they still were from the world she wanted to see.

After another minute stewing in her negative emotions, two large hands hefted her back to her feet, and she found herself staring directly into big yellow eyes at a distance where she could see every individual wrinkle under them. “Star, is OK. Those like mean boy exist, but it not so bad. I am used to it. Is better than Mewni. No one try to shove us off cliff yet,” he laughed. “Besides, mean boy not wrong. This place is dump. Children not do chores. Teenagers. Now go, I am not needing you being sad. Get candy with friends and adorable babies,” he said sternly.

“OK. Well, tell Katrina and all the others that we said hi,” Star hesitantly spoke. He was right, she supposed, but something about it still wasn’t sitting right with her. Marco took her hand with the smile he always gave her when trying to ease her worries and the group headed for the door.

“Star, karate boy, take good care of each other. Friends and babies too. You are both like tadpole to me. All will work out, da.”

The group said their goodbyes and headed out. “You feeling alright?” Marco inquired after they’d made their way out of the monster village, .

“I- yeah, I’m fine. Just stinks to see something like that after a while of things being really good.”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I know a house that gives out homemade candy bars made from Sugar Seeds. Ferguson ate four of them one year and was sick for two weeks. Wanna go?”

Star was grateful for the change in subject, and turned to see his soothing chocolate gaze roving her face. He was always right at her side knowing how to lift her spirits, whether it be out of the deepest depths or from the mountaintops into the clouds. Maybe it was just best to push the issue out of her mind for n-

“I hate to interrupt the moment,” Tom stuck his head between them, forcing them to split apart to not get smacked by his horns, “but you might want to check this out.” He pointed a block in front of them to a group of kids frantically scrambling away from something with purpose, looking back over their shoulders every few seconds. Star and Marco locked eyes briefly once more and ran over towards them with the others just behind. Interestingly, Star noted, there were humans, Mewmans, and monsters alike in the group. The moment they drew near, one of the kids just pointed around a large building nearby without a word before continuing their mad dash.

Even Janna seemed interested now, raising an eyebrow along with the others before jogging towards the source of the commotion. They rounded the corner and were greeted with…

“Ludo’s castle?” Star and Marco said simultaneously. “Ludo’s here?”

“They’re still doing that thing?” Tom mouthed to Janna in the periphery of Star’s vision.

Now that she thought about it, there was a dim recollection of Ludo’s voice in her mind from the fateful day of the Cleaving, but her entire being had been so focused on the portal that it had barely registered at the time. How they hadn’t stumbled upon it in the past few months, though, was beyond her. OK, maybe it had something to do with them spending their first few dragon-cycle joyrides focused more on each other than what was below them, but in her defense, how was she supposed to focus on anything else with Marco in his adorkably handsome rough-and-tumble rider outfit? A non-heart-shaped spot of pink tinged her cheeks, and she shook off the thought by striding towards the castle, with Marco jerking forward as a result.

Janna’s eyes lit up at the eerie glow of the torches and the medieval trellises all along the walls. “Finally, my kind of Halloween.” She leaped forward to ring the doorbell.

Before anyone could react, a large net descended on them, capturing them and hoisting them up into the air. They all instinctively tried to break it, and found it impossibly strong. The door opened and they were hoisted into the and carried inside. Star tried to get her bearings but struggled to adjust her position given the bulky fruit costume. Eventually they were set back down in a large room. Star was finally able to crane her head enough to see the back of a large stone throne with two giant horns.

A shrill, familiar cackle erupted from the occupant of the throne. Suspicions confirmed, at least. “Hello, children. You have been trapped in my clutches! By the power invested in me on this Hallow’s Ween, I declare you… trick-and-treated!” Everyone remained still for a second, holding their breath to see what Ludo would do next. “Trick-and-treated!” he called out again. His voice dropped to a whisper, but Ludo was bad at whispering. “Dennis, that’s when you turn the chair!”

“Oh, right, sorry big brother!”

The stone throne swiveled around to reveal Ludo in the same clown costume Star remembered from the seance years ago. Spider and Bird, who Star now realized had been the ones to trap and carry them, emerged from the shadows to flank the sides of the throne. Right as the net dropped, Star felt her costume get pelted with something light. She picked up a small bag that had landed next to her face; it was labeled “Gold’N Crispz”.

“Ludo, what are you doing?” she finally called out.

“Wait, Star Butterfly? Is that really you? Help them up, help them up quickly now!” Spider, Bird, and a tall Kappa Star didn’t recognize helped Marco and Tom up first, who in turn assisted with Star and Janna. Ludo ran over and leaped up into a confused Marco’s arms, giving him a big hug and doing the same to Star a moment later. “I’ve missed you both so much!”

“We, um, missed you too, Ludo?” Marco unsurely stammered out.

“Oh, Marco, you’re alive! I thought you were actually a skeleton for a moment there!”

Star cleared her throat to get his attention once more. “So, uh, Ludo… we saw some kids running away screaming from here before.”

“Trick-and-treating hasn’t been going so well, they all call me ‘ugly hairy clown’ and flee. Ah well, more chips for me! But help yourselves, you two!”

“Uh, Star?” Tom spoke up. “Where’s Meteora?” Wait, what? She was gone? Star had felt her pulling on the leaves just a few minutes ago. She glanced over to Mariposa, who was still strapped into Marco’s carrier comfortably, seemingly unaffected by recent events. She groaned in frustration; the night had already had enough problems, why did this have to happen?

“There!” Marco shouted, pointing to the half-monster baby who had started crawling all along the gloomy walls of the castle. She rounded a corner out of sight.

“I got this,” Janna said. “This is my kind of place.” She jogged as fast as her costume would let her into the corridor Meteora disappeared into.

“I have zero clue who any of you are,” Tom added, pointing finger guns at Ludo and his friends, “but you guys seem like you have some catching up to do, so I’m just gonna go too.” He followed after Janna, tailed by the taller Kappa who Star presumed was Dennis who was breathlessly shouting warnings about various things in the castle.

“Well, your friends seem fun!” Ludo spouted out, bouncing on his feet. He led them into a room decorated like a lounge and jumped up onto one of the armchairs, motioning Star and Marco to do the same. “Come, sit! Would you care for another game of cha-rahds?” He gasped suddenly, pointing at Marco’s chest with a comically excited grin. “You two had a baby! That’s so nice! What’s her naaaaaame?”

Star and Marco’s faces both flushed. “She’s not ours, she’s my sister!”

“Potato, tomato,” he waved his hand at them dismissively. “I’m so happy for you both!”

“Anyyyyway,” Star drawled, eager to change the subject, “You rebuilt your castle, huh? It looks…” She spotted some sludge dripping down one of the walls nearby. “...nice!”

“Yes, it’s been quite an emotional journey this past year. I floated through space for a while - I think I hallucinated you with six arms at one point!” Star raised a finger and began to open her mouth, but Marco quickly grabbed pushed it back down. He probably had the right idea. “Then I lived a dreadful life with mother and father for a while, and then my wonderful little brother who I love so very much helped me see that I didn’t need them anymore by dunking a basketball, and we ended back up here! I guess that’s about it.”

“That’s… uh, glad to hear you’re doing well?” Star asked hesitantly. It was nice to see him not constantly attacking them or plotting to steal from them, but he was still an incredibly strange creature that Star could never quite get a read on. “How’s Earthni been treating you?”

“What’s an Earthni?” He blinked a few times, still innocently grinning.

“Earth and Mewni fused a few months ago,” Star dumbfoundedly responded.

“So that’s why the sky went all pretty and purpley, and why that milkshake stand I always went to right after I failed at getting your wand appeared right next to us. Speaking of which, how is that wand of yours?” He leaned forward in his seat expectantly.

“It’s, um, gone,” Marco said.

Ludo’s brow furrowed. “Well why don’t you go find it?”

“He means gone gone.” Star added. “We destroyed its source.”

“Whaaaaaaat? So no more magic at all? No more wand?” His beady pupils suddenly contracted to tiny dots in the center of his bulbous yellow eyeballs, voice dropping to a whisper. “...no more wand. No more wand. No more wand! I’m free, I’m- I’m free!” He stood up on the chair, jumping up and down and spinning around looking the happiest they’d ever seen him. “My brain, it doesn’t stop scheming and plotting for ways to steal the wand. It’s been lingering in the back of my mind for so long, but I don’t want it there. This is such a relief!”

Star felt a pang of sympathy for her ex-enemy. His mind was largely still an enigma, but he was struggling to put a past he wasn’t proud of behind him in his own way - something she was quite familiar with. She popped open a bag of chips and inspected them carefully, still a bit concerned about whatever food Ludo might deem worthy of giving out. Much to her surprise, they were actually just standard potato chips - fairly good ones, at that, and she was pretty hungry, having been too preoccupied to even dig in to her candy haul so far. Ludo remained in his happy reverie, babbling to himself while she munched and crunched down all the chips. Was that really all there were in it? Stupid packaging. She rustled the bag a bit, hearing it echo through the room. How could a bag be so loud? When the noise persisted, she realized it was actually footsteps. The three stood up and found Tom, Janna, and Dennis, all with scratches and scrapes and scuffs on their skin and clothing, panting heavily with Meteora fast asleep sucking her thumb in Tom’s arms.

“That baby is a nightmare!” Dennis squeaked out, his nasally voice only accentuated by his breathlessness. “She fought off Spider and Bird-”

“Yes, yes, we’ve all had a lovely evening, Dennis. But get this: the wand is gone! I’m free! Star, Marco, it’s been wonderful to see you again, we must catch up more some other time! Quickly, we must go tell Fudo and Tudo and Kudo and Zudo and Menudo and-”

Star, Marco, and the others had managed to make it the whole way off the castle property and out of earshot before Ludo was done with his list of names.

“Sooooo… what happened to-”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Janna tersely stated, as if the experience had made her a changed person. “Let’s just go take Meteora back home.” She took a step forward and winced

Tom snapped his fingers and a pillar of flame erupted in the street behind them, fading away seconds later to reveal his souped up Underworld carriage. “I can’t portal everywhere anymore but I can at least do that. Hop in.”

“What a gentleman,” Janna grumbled, tossing herself face-first onto the long plush seats within.

Star looked at the carriage, then looked up to Marco and knew they were on the same page as usual. They weren’t quite ready for Halloween to end yet. “We’ll make our own way back.”

“Suit yourself,” Tom shrugged, following Janna into the carriage before taking off for the night.

Marco’s hand found Star’s once more as they started to meander back in the general direction of home. “Well, that was an unexpected visit.”

“Yeah… glad to see Ludo’s doing well, though. It kinda gives me hope for Earthni, y’know?”

“Hmm?”

Star gazed up at the last vestiges of the sun in the sky. The sunsets on Earthni were becoming a constant positive in her life, always reminding her of the best the world had to offer. Of Marco, of peace, of the promise of a happy life ahead of them. “If Ludo, the guy who spent basically every waking second of his life for my entire first year here trying to steal my wand, can dig deep down and learn and grow from it… maybe we don’t just have to accept that some people are going to be mean idiots. It’s never gonna be perfect, but maybe there’s at least some hope that anyone can change.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Except Jeremy. He might be one of the hopeless ones,” she joked, jabbing an elbow into Marco’s side causing them both to giggle profusely. “Weeeeeell, we should probably get home soon. This little angel is on a one-way trip to Snoozeville.” She gave a feather-light boop to Mariposa’s nose.

“...should we still stop for those Sugar Seed bars?”

She sighed in contentment and leaned against his arm. “You know me too well, Diaz.”

#starco #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #tgg svtfoe #fanfic

170 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 5 years

Text

It completely and utterly boggles my mind whenever anyone accuses Alan of being anything other than (emotionally) soft and loving.

I once jokingly applied the “burned cinnamon roll, been through Hell and back, slightly charred” descriptor to Alan, but it’s true. Alan keeps a certain amount of distance between himself and others (except Lizardon, and later on Ash), mostly for their own safety, but though he’s quiet and intense when it comes to getting stronger (which he does legitimately and also primarily for the protection of others), he cares so much. Everything about his character is wrapped up in how much he cares, and how much he wants to protect others. Setting aside how soft he is with Lizardon:

The entire reason why Alan enters Lysandre’s service in the first place is because Lysandre says that they’ll use the mega evolution energy for peaceful purposes that will benefit the world. The entire reason why Alan cuts himself off from Sycamore is because Lysandre---a man who, remember, is implied to have stalked Alan, and then goes on to manipulate him, and then goes on to treat him in such a way that Alan is the isolated and somewhat closed off person we meet at the start of The Strongest Mega Evolution---told him that Sycamore would be in danger if Alan talked about any of what they were doing with him. Lysandre made Alan fear for Sycamore’s safety, and considering it’s also pretty strongly implied that Sycamore is Alan’s (unofficially?) adoptive parent, that’s obviously a pretty big deal to him!

Alan doesn’t want Manon tagging along with him for several reasons, but he takes time out of what he’s doing to help her catch a pokémon, and to make sure she makes it to the PokéCenter safely so she can heal her newly caught Flabébé. He’s obviously stressed when Lysandre shows up, but he still takes time out of listening to Lysandre to go help Manon when she gets herself stuck in the bramble again, and later injures himself diving to protect her from one of Rayquaza’s blasts. He risks his life without one second of hesitation to go out on the ice in the middle of a primal legendary fight to save Lizardon, and almost dies for it. After all that, he realizes that the things he gets into are in no way suitable for a ten-year-old with no battling experience to be involved in, so he tries to keep Manon at bay to keep her safe, and throws himself into training even though he injured his left shoulder twice in the span of one day and likely got a concussion thanks to Primal Groundon throwing Primal Kyogre at him. He feels so guilty over hurting Manon’s feelings that it transfers into guilt over Hari-san’s coma, which he then throws everything into trying to fix, and he steps in without even knowing the full situation to protect Ash from Team Rocket’s attack and rescue Pikachu when Team Rocket tried stealing Pikachu at the crack of dawn. He immediately rushes into action when he sees the roots attacking the city, and though he understandably has something of an emotional breakdown when he realizes that the actions he specifically took to help and protect people led to Lysandre’s genocide attempt, once Ash manages to snap him out of it, Alan once again risks life and limb to fight back against Lysandre, save Hari-san, and save the world. After, he still feels guilty for what he did, to the point of depression so bad the entire conversation between him and Ash in the garden is coded as a suicide talk, and even then, he’s still thinking about what he should do, because to Alan, simply resting and recovering isn’t good enough.

Alan cares so much. He cares with his entire being. The love he has for Lizardon is seen in every single scene they have together. In the first special, he tells Siebold that the bond between him and Lizardon “will overcome reason.” In the fourth special, when Malva presses him about why his pokémon partner has to be Lizardon, he says that they have “walked the same path together, and aimed for the same goal together,” and that he believes in Lizardon, to which Lizardon agrees. As he’s remembering the humans most precious to him in the fourth special, he remembers both Sycamore and Manon and thinks about how much he wants to protect them. And we see through all of his actions that his desire to protect others and fight against injustice can extend to complete strangers as well, as seen when he jumped into action without a second thought to protect Ash and save Pikachu in their first meeting.

Alan is quiet. He’s not exuberant or super emotional like Ash and other non-traumatized central characters on the show, save for in those instances when he’s battling Ash and gets really fired up about it. It’s implied he has been with Lysandre for years, and given how depressed Alan is even at the start of the specials, in contrast to how cheerful and excited he is in the flashbacks of said specials, it’s not at all hard to see what being in Lysandre’s service has done to him. But that has not changed the core of him, that’s not changed who he really is. All it’s really changed is his presentation, particularly since we see (especially in instances like The Strongest Mega Evolution: Act II, when Lysandre first shows up) that in Lysandre’s presence, Alan tends to not really speak until spoken to.

So to see people say that he’s cold, that he’s emotionless, that he’s hard, that he’s comparable to characters like Paul---it boggles my mind at best and infuriates me at worst. It makes me think that whoever says this never bothered to watch The Strongest Mega Evolution, and also never bothered to pay attention to his character in any other instances. With the exception of striving to battle Ash at the League, everything Alan ever did was for the sake of protecting others. And even though, though his surface motivation for battling Ash at the League was because battling and spending time with Ash made him happy and helped distract him from the misery spiral his life had been for so long for just a little while, it was also about proving to himself that he did have the strength to protect those he cared about, as we were reminded by Alan’s internal monologue near the end of the match. Even then, protecting others was still on Alan’s mind. He still wanted to use the strength he had to protect. That, as Alan tells Lysandre on Prism Tower, is what having strength is actually about.

Characters---and people, for that matter---don’t need to be effervescent in order to be warm, or soft. And just because someone has been through trauma and shows signs of that doesn’t mean that they’ve lost that core. Alan is protective, he’s loving, he’s gentle, he’s respectful of others and their boundaries even when they’re his platonic soulmate (see the above gif where Alan pets Lizardon after the League win; watch closely and you’ll see him hesitate and wait for Lizardon to lean forward before he pets, making sure that he has Lizardon’s permission first). He’s so good, and everything a Pokémon protagonist should be, and anyone who says or even implies otherwise is just flat out wrong.

#pokemon #pokeani #trainer alan #trainer alain #meta #i could use more cited examples than just the gifs but #i'm incensed so i just want this out here NOW #also like - he cares so much for Lizardon that he actually keeps healing items on him #we see during the gauntlet in TSME 4 that he has berries and (i think super) potions for injuries #because it's not GOOD enough to just have the Centers #he wants Lizardon healed here and now #like he loves and protects SO MUCH and he spends most of his life with ONE partner #how could anyone ever suggest OTHERWISE

35 notes · View notes

oosteven-universe · 4 years

Text

Archie Comics 80th Anniversary Presents: Archie and the New Crusaders #1

Archie Comics 80th Anniversary Presents: Archie and the New Crusaders #1 Archie Comics 2020 Digital Exclusive Featuring the Talents of: Ian Flynn, Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bob Smith, Jim Amash, Glenn Whitmore Jack Morelli, Chuck Dixon, Ken Hooper, Rick Bryant, Thomas Mason John Workman, Dean Haspiel and Allen Passalaqua Archie Comics is proud to present a special line of digital-exclusive comics celebrating the deep assortment of fan-favourite characters and iconic concepts from Archie's 80 years of comics. From the most famous faces that grace the screens on Riverdale each week to deep cut characters from Archie's illustrious history, as well as celebrations of our most influential creators, this series has something for each and every Archie fan! The Mighty Crusaders were a team of superheroes created by Archie Comics in the Golden Age of comics. After many iterations, the team returned to comics with fresh new faces. The New Crusaders follows the sons and daughters of the original Mighty Crusaders as they acquire their own powers and attempt to become superheroes. So here we are with another Archie Digital-Exclusive and I have to say that I think not only are they smart to put out new content in a perfect social distancing way but by putting these stories together they are also introducing all the different facets that inhabit the Archie world. Now a few of these are completely new to me and I have to say opening up with this story was pure genius. I absolutely love seeing how Archie goes from fanboy to hero and how the whole viewpoint changes in everyone. The writing is brilliant and then the interiors just put it all over the top. This is the epitome of what storytelling is supposed to be about, to do, and make the reader feel. While I am not a fan of anthology series titles, they seem to just get me hooked and end and that leaves me feeling frustrated. Archie however breaks all the rules. Each story is so utterly complete and told with a beginning and ending that yes could possibly be continued but it doesn't have to be. This is what I never knew short stories could be until I started reading them here. Even better is the fact that each one is part of a shared history and whether they are mentioned in one another or not is no longer relevant because you just feel it. The fact that each one regardless if it's an Archie or a Crusaders story fits beautifully into this book. This is what makes them as much the house of ideas as anyone else trying to claim it. Big, big fan of the interiors and that's something that sometimes boggles my mind because I used to steer clear of all-ages work. Here I find the nuances and the way that the varying weights and techniques that are utilised to bring us the attention to detail are incredibly marvellous. Also these folks have a way of making women beautiful and sexy without resorting to what we now refer to as the “Britney” look. Plus it doesn't matter how many various creators are involved in the work we see because somehow everyone understands how these character are supposed to look. It's crazy to think that the Archie style with some subtle variations in style can be so definable. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show these amazing eyes for storytelling. The way backgrounds are incorporated and how we see depth perception, scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the book. Of course the colour work is utterly marvellous as well and it wouldn't surprise me if Glenn in his infinite skill and wisdom did the work on the entire thing. This is the kind of book that I want to read on a rainy day or when feeling down and blue. This is the kind of book I wish I had nieces and nephews to share with, talk about and bond through. There is something extraordinary about an Archie book that defies the laws of logic and reason and it's why we're celebrating it's 80th Anniversary.

#comic books #comics reviews #archie comics

1 note · View note

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

Text

Spider-Man: Life Story #4 Thoughts

*graons*

Positives out of the way.

Bagley’s art+Bagley’s rendition of Morlun+the armoured looks of some of Tony’s squad.

Okay now onto the negatives.

I think I might’ve figured out what the REAL premise of Life Story is.

‘What if Spider-Man didn’t have the illusion of change and therefore everything was terrible so readers will now just accept the illusion of change forever’.

Seriously that makes the most sense at this point.

The illusion of change isn’t there and so everyone ages and everything falls to shit.

Spider-Man gets divorced, his child dies, his brother dies, etc.

But if that wasn’t the point then Zdarsky continues to make Life Story a total clown show.

He is consistent in only the following regards.

a) Events from Spider-Man history happen randomly differently from how they happened in canon even though that wasn’t how the series was advertised to us

b) Superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the real world except not really, it’s basically as realistic as Zdarsky wants it to be because fuck world building and consistency I guess

c) Real life history is toxically inconsistent within the context of a world of heroes where things are different

d) The story is inconsistent even in and of itself

e) Peter Parker is an irresponsible, dumb asshole

f) Various elements of the story have no intersection with one another. Remember how Flash died in Vietnam and this had...nothing to do with Miles Warren cloning Gwen????

Lets kick off with two things that can be looked at as bad points of the story but arguably forgivable...arguably.

So firstly...Morlun is in this story and then dies!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm...Wasn’t there not one but TWO massive Spider-Man event crossovers (one as recent as LAST YEAR) which firmly establish that there is in fact just one version of Morlun in the entire Multiverse? This story is royally contradicting that. Now in fairness...that was always bullshit because we have had What Ifs and other alternate universe stories before Spider-Verse clearly depicting more than one Morlun in the multiverse.

Secondly...Civil War....fucking Civil War.

I loathe and despise the original Civil War storyline from 2006. You guys have no idea how much I honestly wish that story never existed.

A big part of that is how it wrecks the verisimilitude of the Marvel universe before and after it. Civil War was unsustainable as a status quo shift long term for the Marvel Universe and it made no sense given it’s established history. It took the realism of superheroes too far and consequently forced writers and readers to wilfully ignore it after it was done so things could go back to normal. If you do a Civil War style story it needs to either be set in an AU or end your universe and that’s it. A change of pace simply cannot work without wrecking everything.

So seeing it again is gross buuuuuuuuut, given Life Story’s mission statement of taking things more realistically and being an AU itself it actually fits better in this story than in 616 Spider-Man. The same can be said of Spider-Man’s identity being unmasked although this too wrecks the idea that this is Spider-Man aging in real time. If it was about that then the ramifications of the unmasking wouldn’t stick around any more than they did in 616, because that had nothing to do with a sliding timeline or whatever.

However the idea of Civil War fitting better in Life Story because it’s more realistic is utterly destroyed when you consider that in this universe where superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the world, where the military has Tony Stark level weaponry, where intangible nuclear missiles are a thing...9/11 still happened...

...I’m going to repeat that.

In a world where there has been near Star Trek level technology since the 1960s...a handful of terrorists with conventional weapons (not even the most high tech weapons and technology available in the real world in 2001!) are able to fool airport security, hijack some planes and destroy the Twin Towers...in New York city...where ALL THE SUPERHEROES LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look...in the Marvel or DC universes 9/11 happened. You can choose to interpret the 9/11 Spider-Man issue as canon or not canon, but it is a fact Spider-Man lives in a world where the 9/11 disaster happened. He didn’t stop it, the Avengers didn’t stop it, the Fantastic Four didn’t stop it.

Even though they definitely could have. Collectively all the superheroes of New York have weapons, technology and resources which would’ve enabled them to have intelligence on the hijackings, possibly before they even happened, probably during the hijackings and definitely as the planes were incoming. And they sure as hell had the ability to avert the disaster.

Are you telling me Al Quaeda could trick or stall or fend off the Avengers! Get the fuck out of here no they couldn’t.

The reason that 9/11 still canonically happened in the Marvel universe is simple. The Marvel universe’s realism doesn’t stretch so far as contorting the real world into something unrecognizable to the world of today. The Marvel universe has always been our world but superheroes are there. Their realistic social, political, economic and philosophical impact though isn’t. It’s why Christianity is still the dominant religion in Marvel’s America even though Thor is a thing. 9/11 being such a globally changing event means that the Marvel universe needed to retain it occurring in order to continue to reflect a relatable world to the readers.

More poignantly, just how during WWII superheroes didn’t simply end the conflict by flying into Germany and killing Hitler, to have had superheroes realistically avert 9/11 as they could have would’ve been deeply insulting and disrespectful to the real life witnesses and victims of the tragedy and their loved ones.

Zdarsky didn’t have that constraint though. He could’ve imposed it on his story had he wanted but just as with so much of the real world history his grossly mishandles (a reminder everything after issue #3 is bullshit because the world should’ve been consumed in nuclear Armageddon) he cherry picks what will and won’t be affected by superheroes existing and whether their effects will be realistically and logical or if they’ll be...whatever he randomly wants.

Case in point superheroes existing means nuclear missiles are intangible now, but superheroes existing doesn’t mean airport security is any different from what it was in 2001!

*head desk*

The ONLY way 9/11 happens in this Marvel universe is if like HYDRA did it instead of Al Quaeda or if the latter had backing from super villains.

But just like with all the altered real world history Zdarsky doesn’t explain anything. He’s lazy as a world builder. Thus we’re left to presume 9/11 happened as it did in the real world even though Tony Stark has already created technology that ended the Cold War by America beating Russia’s ass.

I mean for fuck’s sake, GALACTUS has invaded Earth and New York specifically, you telling me Tony or Reed or Hank Pym or someone hasn’t created at least some sort of alarm system to alert them to incoming threats. WTF was Doctor Strange doing!

Let’s stick to Tony for the moment. So in this issue...he’s the villain. He’s been on the wrong side ever since issue #1 really. This is another case of something bad that is arguably defendable.

See back in Civil War if you were reading Spider-Man you experienced a Tale of Two Tony’s (not my turn of phrase by the way I stole that).

You didn’t need to read Spider-Man to follow the main Civil War book but if you were reading Spider-Man you did need to read the main CW book to follow the story as pivotal events happened in the latter that were then followed up upon in the former. The most famous example would be Spider-Man unmasking which was only built up to in ASM but actually depicted in Civil War #2. However another more relevant example would be how when Spidey decided to switch sides Tony attacked him in ASM and was clearly painted as outright villainous, but then the action continued into the main Civil War book where Tony was written more conflicted and sympathetic, before the action cut back to ASM where he was very much a villain. The characterization wasn’t consistent at all, and the Spider books were not alone in this. Sue Richards’ break up with Reed happened very differently in the pages of Fantastic Four than they did in Civil War.

This is relevant to Life Story because the Tony in this book is very much the Tony of ASM era Civil War, the villain on the side of the law and the fact that Zdarsky planted the seeds for this back in issue #1 is I will admit commendable. Too bad it took until issue #4 for him and Peter to interact but whatever. I also confess that seeing the polar opposite of the Iron Dad relationship gives me life at the moment.

However given how Zdarsky’s convoluted M.O. with this book seems to be to reflect a wider real time aging Marvel Universe and not just Spider-Man’s story this characterization is fundamentally broken. Because Iron Man...was totally out of character in Civil War. Even in the main series where he was written more sympathetic he was out of character and in ASM it was truly ridiculous. So Zdarsky is again being inconsistent and terrible at characterization. He’s even being awful in how the story tries to remix elements from the 2000s era Spider-Man regarding Tony (and other stuff we’ll get to).

If you are going to factor in Peter’s unmasking and Iron Man into this story shouldn’t the once friendly relationship they had or his Avengers membership play a factor? I mean Spidey being an Avenger was such a huge deal in the 2000s that when Marvel made variant covers for his 50th anniversary showcasing something from every decade of Spidey his being an Avenger was used to represent the 2000s.

Getting back to the Civil War elements though, something mind boggling is that Iron Fist is on the pro-registration side when he was very much NOT in the real Civil War event. Making this matter worse is his best friend Luke Cage being on the anti-registration side. Even without giving anyone any lines Zdarsky srews up characterization. Compounding this is Iron Man’s claims that young heroes fell in line with the registration act...what?

Let’s ignore how bowing to the government isn’t typically what teens like to do...you telling me that the opinions of most teenage heroes was to sign up with the government? Bullshit, even in the original story their views were more mixed. There is also the implication that somehow...9/11 was the thing that prompted the SHRA...hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow??????????????????????????????

Finally Tony tells Peter he could be arrested for not registering with the government that he was a hero because...his spider sense is like insider trading.

I need to explain how stupid this is.

To begin with the SHRA wasn’t enforced when Peter was running Parker Industries so he was literally not breaking the law. If a law is passed that wearing a watch is illegal you can’t go to prison because prior to that law’s passage you wore a watch.

Secondly...no....no the Spider Sense is really not like insider trading at all. Let’s presume it could warn him about dangerous business deals...that’s not insider trading at all, that’s literally Peter having better business instincts than everyone else. That’s not cheating or illegal it’s just having a natural advantage over other people.

Thirdly...Captain America is leading a resistance group....again.

This is the dumbest damn idea in the original Civil War story and for some reason even though Zdarsky wants this series to be ‘more realistic’ he replicates that stupidity.

Captain America’s plan in the original Civil War boiled down to going on the run, recruiting other superheroes, attacking the registered heroes and then....somehow this would repeal a law designed to keep heroes in check.

Let’s say that this is a more realistic world and the Registration act is totally reasonable. Putting aside how framing it as a bad thing does not then make any damn sense, Captain America’s method for fixing the problem is utterly nonsensical, especially for a guy who could be president by merely running for office. He’s Captain America for God’s sake he’d win and could repeal the law from within!

The final problem with this plotline in the issue is how it really has NOTHING to do with the other plotline, and how t weirdly hijacks the issue and becomes the main plotline when initially the book presented something else as the main thrust of the story; not the first time Zdarsky has basically superglued two plotlines together even though they have little-nothing to do with one another

That thing of course was Morlun. This opens up a whole other can of stupid we need to talk about.

So first of all Morlun shows up in 2006 not 2001, further fucking up the idea this is Spider-Man aging in real time. Morlun DID appear in a 2006 story of course, the Other, but that was his return not his debut. Why is Morlun debuting 5 years later than he should be? Because Zdarsky wants to include the most famous villain who debuted in the 2000s but actually wants to make the story about Civil War which did happen in 2006 that’s why.

Speaking of Morlun, I might be wrong here but...a fucking tree? That’s how he dies? I’m not even complaining he doesn’t come back in a clone body, I’m talking strictly about how a tree stabs him like he’s Mystique in Dark Phoenix. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m preeeetty sure he could survive that unless Life Story’s Morlun is pathetically weaker than his mainstream counterpart.*

More egregiously is Peter’s handling of Morlun. He explains Ezekiel showed up to warn him about Morlun’s coming.

In the original story these two events happened close together, Morlun appeared shortly after Ezekiel’s warning. Let’s say we let Zdarsky slide on the timeframe and even the fact that Morlun actually was looking for Ezekiel not Peter...why did Peter do nothing about this warning.

In the original story Ezekiel offers Peter a bunker to hide out in. Presumably he did the same in Life Story. But instead of taking advantage of this or warning Ben Reilly or his potentially spider empowered children Peter...ignores him?

WHY?!

Peter didn’t disbelieve Ezekiel, he just rejected his offer of sanctuary because he had responsibilities to live up to. In this story Peter has even bigger responsibilities and a family potentially at risk and he just...did nothing?

And low and behold his elderly wife and daughter have to flee for their lives whilst he dicks around in New York and his brother and son straight up DIE.

That’s 3/3 relatives named Ben who are dead because he was a selfish dickhead!

And before we dive into Peter’s character I just want to take a moment and lament how piss poorly Mary Jane has been treated this whole story.

Issue #1: She is little more than a background character

Issue #2: She is totally out of character, and just drunkenly yells unreasonably at Peter then gets unreasonably yelled at by him

Issue #3: She gets shit on by Peter, inadvertently Aunt May and is left being pregnant and giving birth to twins with a senile old health hazard for company, then gets yelled at for suggesting getting her health, then is tasked with going out alone in a dark and stormy night to potentially kill her super powered husband

Issue #4: She shows up at the end and just welcomes him back as her husband and the father of her kids no questions asked apparently

Issue #5: We continue to never get a word about how she feels about their general lives, of Peter and her reconciliation, of their children. She just waits and worries in front of the TV or runs away from Morlun. How the Hell does her daughter get more agency in this one issue than she has pretty much this whole series?

Anyway back to Peter....yeah this is not Peter Parker.

You know how Peter Parker is all about with great power there comes great responsibility....well Life Story Peter Parker totally isn’t.

He abandons his company, employees and superhero duties to an untrained, underprepared, equally old clone of himself who has to quickly learn how to pretend to be him, how to run a company and fight more experienced super villains whilst fending off a corporate takeover by the secretary of defence for the United States of America. And then he gets murdered by an indestructible (except to wood) mystic vampire that Peter neglected to mention to him.

Ben Reilly DIED directly because Peter was an idiot.

And selfish, don’t forget that. He moved his family out into the woods in a secluded area so that he wouldn’t interact with too many people and thus not feel the need to intervene. Let’s ignore how he was able to resist this urge in Spider-Girl for a moment. You are telling me Peter Parker abandoned his great responsibility by finding basically doing the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and yelling “lalalalalala If I can’t see or hear anyone in trouble I can’t be responsible for not helping them lalalala”

FUCK OFF ZDARSKY!

This is toxically against the entire premise of the character at this point and getting older wouldn’t change that. Apparently all it took to snap him out of this funk was Ben Reilly dying and a pep talk from his friggin teenage daughter!

All in all this is another beautifully drawn shit show of an issue in a string of beautifully drawn shit show issues.

*Oh and let’s not forget that Morlun just...knows where the fuck Peter lives. That isn’t one of his powers. He needs to make contact with his target in order to track them down anywhere they go. He can’t just generally sniff them out. It doesn’t even make sense if he was tracking his kids.

Not to mention this story claims you can hurt Morlun when he’s feeding. But that’s not his weakness. Radiation is something he’s vulnerable to. If you can just kill him or the Inheritors by attacking when they are feeding then Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon wouldn’t have been as dangerous it’s not that difficult to kill them.

#Spider-Man #chip zdarsky #mark bagley #Peter Parker #Ben Reilly #Iron Man #Tony Stark #Morlun #Ezekiel Sims #Civil War #Civil War 2006 #Marvel Civil War #avengers #Captain America

17 notes · View notes