#hank tries to remember a plot

[inepta-anserina]

movie recap: today i watched the wolf of wallstreet. sorcese isn't usually a director whose movies i consumed very often, and i watched this one exclusively because my boy henry zebrowski is in it. i don't feel the need to go into too much detail about the plot. essentially, a working class man finds out that he can make a lot of money swindling people with penny stocks after he is forced to work for a small stockbroking company after a collapse on wall street. he eventually founds his own company on this principal and is able to move back to wallstreet. through increased consumption and arrogance, his personal life slowly falls apart. he comes onto the radar of an fbi agent and the sec. he tries several strategies to hide his illegal activity, all of which eventually fail. he goes to prison but it turns out to not be much of a punishment, since it is a prison for wealthy white collar criminals. he is able to return to sales when he is let out, meaning he comes out of the whole thing relatively unscathed.

notable henry zebrowski moments include: him having several on screen sex scenes, including one over a table in the company offices and one in a plain. him walking down the aisle of that plane in his tiny briefs. and him being interrogated by the fbi with the dialogue: fbi: alden, that's an interesting name henry: thank you fbi: what kind of name is that henry: it is my name

[nevadancitizen]

-> FASCINATION WITH THE ORDINARY

synopsis: your world is vastly different from the nevada native to madness combat. after the main three + 2bdamned get transported to your world, they each find things that fascinate them.

word count: 2.5k

characters: hank, deimos, sanford, 2bdamned, player! reader

trigger warnings: ehh slight yandere/obsession but could also be read as super heavy pining if you're not into that lol

notes: madness combat fandom arise. madness combat fandom come back to me (also set in @/saltymongoose 's self-aware au)

For the sake of consistency, let’s imagine that the Player lives in a big, lonely, woodsy and plain-sy plot of land. There’s little to no outside human interaction, and lots of animals wandering through the area with a river running through it. For the wildlife, I’m basing it on the American South because I’ve lived here my entire life and know how they act.

SUNSETS & SUNRISES

2BDamned would be the most entranced, since he has the most memories from before the fall and before Hank killed the sun. He’s an early riser by nature (since his body has conditioned him so he’s mostly overworked and under-rested, as unhealthy as it is), so he leans more towards the beauty of a sunrise, towards the light that starts to paint the dark sky with hazy orange shades and rosy hues. He likes breathing in the crisp air and the way it almost sends a shock through his lungs.

But the sun stirs a lingering feeling of nostalgia, though, for the way things were before everything fell to madness. Doc tries his best not to let the thoughts get the better of him as you slip through the front door and out onto the front porch, carrying two steaming cups of coffee. 

God, he could imagine staying like this forever: just you, him, a beautiful sunrise, and coffee. Surely the way you pay attention to him, the way you get up extra early to watch the sunrise, the way you doctor his coffee just right – they’re all examples of how you care for him, just as he cares for you. But for now, he’ll just bide his time, blowing the steam off the surface of his coffee and purring, soft and raspy, both at the taste and because of your company.

But that doesn’t stop the others from appreciating the astounding view at dusk, because Sanford and Deimos are more partial to sunsets after long days. They like lounging in the adirondack chairs set up around the fire pit, cracking open a few beers, and simply relaxing with you. (Don’t worry, Sanford will gather firewood and Deimos will set it alight if it’s a little too cold for your taste.)

They’re fresher clones, so they don’t remember the sun well, if at all. They both always go quiet when the sun starts to dip below the horizon. Sanford props his tea sunglasses on top of his head and Deimos sets his cigarette in the ashtray as they both stare at the way the light turns the clouds purple and paints the sky with pink streaks. It stirs something sad in your heart – both of these men are pushing and just over the cusp of thirty, yet they don’t know the simple sweetness of a sunset. 

But as soon as night overtakes the sky, they both turn their attention back to you. Deimos makes some suave comment about your beauty being nothing in the face of a sunset in that rumbling, smooth voice of his, and Sanford gives him a pointed glare. Sanford points out that your beauty and the beauty of nature are two whole different things, but keeps showering you with not-so-inadvertent compliments, leaving you flustered and blushing from both grunt’s words.

Hank is somewhat of an anomaly with this one. All of the grunt’s biological clocks are absolutely porked from their time without a sun, but Hank’s affected the worst by far. (That, and he doesn’t really care for the sun. He literally slaughtered it.) Therefore, he’s more privy to waking up in the middle of the night and dragging you onto the roof to look at the stars. 

He likes laying on his back with you on his chest, pointing out the brightest stars and asking you questions about them. (He doesn’t really care, he just likes hearing your voice.) He loves your vivid descriptions of the constellations and how you describe them in intricate ways. To Hank, they’re just sparkly, unreachable dots in the sky, but it seems like, to you, they’re beautiful: like millions of silver nails driven into a dome of dark blue velvet. 

He savors the moments like these the most, when you’re alone with him. There’s no sound except for the crickets and dog-day cicadas and spring peepers and your voice and Hank’s sputtering purring. Honestly, it’s as it should be – without those other pesky dipshits ruining your time together. (Well, he can tolerate Doc, but that annoying extraction team could go fuck themselves for all he cared.)

ENTERTAINMENT

Sanford hates being lazy. He hates feeling like he’s not doing anything useful, even if he’s being useful by resting. The only real way to make him sit down and stop moving is by trapping him on the couch, laying your head in his lap, and turning on the TV. (Even if, for the first thirty minutes, he’s too focused on you and your body heat and how fast his heart is beating to even consider looking at the TV.)

But the thing he loves watching the most isn’t any sort of movie with amazing cinematography or show with riveting writing – it’s infomercials. Specifically, infomercials from the 90’s to the late 2000’s. He likes seeing what things could’ve been like if there was no madness in Nevada, because things are oddly peaceful (at least, to him) in your world. Billy Mays and Cathy Mitchell make him wonder about domestic life with you (even if the Jupiter Jack and the Xpress Redi-Set-Go are completely obsolete by now), and how these little gadgets would make your life together supposedly go smoother.

He likes combing his claws carefully through your hair as you both watch these people play up how useful these obviously useless inventions are. He tries to avert his eyes and act interested in the TV as you look up at him and point out how the Red Devil Grill was recalled because it got so hot it collapsed and caused fires, but can’t. He just can’t keep his eyes off you when you look up at him so sweetly, and can you blame him? You just make his face so warm and his heart beat so fucking fast…

Deimos has always had a fascination with electronics, but it’s mostly been from a tactical and weaponized standpoint. But he’s discovered (well, really, you introduced him to) video games. He absolutely loves curling up into your side, purring and providing commentary as he watches you play. (Because, despite his trying, he hasn’t really gotten a hang of the controls yet.)

He loves more story-fueled games with characters he can really get attached to. He likes investing himself in things and people that don’t actually affect him, because seeing your favorite character go through dire straits or even die hurts for a little while, but it’s nothing compared to seeing someone get eviscerated right in front of you. And, yeah, he totally cried when Arthur Morgan died (and totally played it up so that you’d comfort him). 

He also likes draping himself over you in the middle of a boss fight, wriggling and nuzzling into your cheek, causing you to giggle, lose focus, and, obviously, die. He strings together half-hearted apologies through his raspy purring, but he’s not really sorry. More deaths means more time spent with him, and internally, he’s completely and honestly unapologetic for his underhanded tactics. 

Due to the nature of his administrative role, Doc spends a lot of time in front of screens. He likes to unplug and unwind by reading, no doubt with a straight-up hazardous amount of coffee by his side. He prefers reading with you with an arm wrapped around your shoulder, whether you’re also reading or working on something else. Though he’s inexperienced (and sometimes even shy) with these types of things, he’s more than happy to ease into affectionate touches and romance that kills his common sense with you. 

His tastes are often cheap, but when he earns enough dough, he likes to splurge on second-hand college anatomy textbooks. No, he’s not planning on going to university, but he wants to know the inner workings of the human system (and, therefore, the inner workings of you). He also likes speculative biology and seeing what humans think about other intelligent species potentially being out there.

He would absolutely be elated (though he tries his best to hide it) if you took his interests seriously and discussed them with him. He tries to keep you in his makeshift office and away from the others so you can continue to spend this precious alone time with him, but that doesn’t stop the red-hot flare of jealousy as one of the others bursts in with a childish ask about something that should be obvious. (Of fucking course you wouldn’t want to go for a walk, Deimos, have you seen the weather out? Leave you and him alone!)

Obviously Hank would love gorefest and splatter film movies because of his all-encompassing and absolute love for carnage, and he’d love them even more if you got scared and hid yourself in his shoulder or chest. It’s clear that he’s your strongest and most capable vessel, so he clearly agrees with your choice to choose him as your protector (even if that choice is based on an instinctive need to hide). 

He also loves WWE and MMA fighting. When given the choice, he opts for MMA because it’s real and bloody and he prefers seeing people push themselves to their absolute limit rather than some predetermined fight that serves a higher storyline. (But, then again, he really likes the clip of Undertaker breaking into Paul Bearer’s house during an interview and throwing a cabinet at him because, what the fuck? He’s never thought of that before! Using things from the environment when out of weapons instead of his fists could be an improvement. Maybe he can learn a thing or two from these fake fighters…)

And, yes, if you give him access to Twitter he will turn your entire timeline into those backyard fight videos and dashcam car crashes. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens.

ANIMALS

Being a natural night owl, Deimos loves keeping a lookout for what critters come out at night. When he’s on the front porch with you, smoking a cigarette and waving away mosquitoes, he makes sure to keep an eye out for weird and unusual wildlife. (While pressed against your side and purring loudly, no doubt.)

He likes watching the whip-poor-wills swoop down and catch the moths that swarm around the overhead porch lights. Yes, he will try to catch one, but backs off when you tell him to. Instead, he opts for digging in the dirt to find beetles and grubs to toss up in the air for the small birds to catch. He will kinda feel bad if the beetles hit the ground but will continue to throw them to the birds when you tell him insects are basically immune to fall damage, so… no harm, no foul.

He’s also absolutely enamored by raccoons. He likes throwing food to them from the safety of the porch and watching them eat with their little grabby hands. He’s very reckless so, despite your warnings, he’ll try to squirrel one away inside the house. (He does this multiple times and, without fail, gets bitten each time. 2B has given him multiple rabies shots after shooing the raccoons out with a broom.)

Speaking of Doc, he enjoys going out in nature and finding decaying things just to see how many buzzards arrive. He excuses it with something about wanting to see if decomposition works the same across both your world and his, but he secretly finds some relation with the birds – something about being deliverers and arbiters and negators of death. (Though the last one really only applies to him.)

He also likes the rare sightings of wild horses. He’ll go out of his way to (carefully, shyly) rouse you from whatever you’re doing to go take a look at the majestic beasts, and he’ll be even more excited if there’s a foal wandering between the stocky legs of the adults. 

He just barely brushes his fingers against yours as you both stand on the edge of the treeline and watch them graze. Seeing the foal break from the herd, kick out and tumble and fall over and immediately get back up sparks… something in his heart. A vision. Just you, just him, linked pinkies, and a future together, with this warm feeling in his chest.

Hank really likes the more dangerous creatures. He gets along well with cottonmouth and other venomous snakes (and “gets along well” really means that they’re mean as can be and strike as often as possible while he just holds them and smiles at you). 

If you don’t keep a close enough eye on him, he’ll wander off and try to provoke larger animals, like bobcats. To him, they’re just tiny little pussycats, even if they pose a real threat and could kill him. Please don’t let him go too far, because if he comes across a bear, he will try to wrestle it, and Doc doesn’t like having to do emergency surgery on the island countertop in your kitchen. 

On multiple occasions, he’s come back to the house after being missing for hours, reeking of skunk spray. He just purrs happily as you tell him to strip and hold still as you spray him down with the hose.

Sanford is way calmer with his interactions with wildlife. He likes sitting on the dock with you and watching the fish swim by (because he’s impressed both by the fish and by the river – he’s never seen water in such great quantity!) Set him up with a hook, lure, and line and he’ll be entertained for hours. Though he struggles a bit with making streamers and fishing knots due to his big hands and claws, he’s more than patient when you teach him (mostly because he gets to spend time with you). 

When he’s fishing, he likes to look around and observe – mostly because fishing is a waiting game. His favorite visitors are herds of whitetail deer, especially when summer is in full swing and the fawns are ready to start exploring. They remind him of his family, mainly because of the way the does don’t really care which fawn is theirs, just that each is getting enough milk. You point at them and discuss them with him in small whispers because you don’t want to spook them. 

Again, it reminds him of his want for a domestic life with you. Just basking in the mottled sun that seeps through the trees, dipping your bare feet in the cool river water as a catfish tugs on the line – it’s all he wants, really. Now if he could just get the rest of the grunts to leave you alone… excluding Deimos, of course.

[cherry-amores-blog]

Title: “The D-Word”

❥︎Pairing: !Platonic Father Figure Wade Wilson/Deadpool & Reader

❥︎Content Warnings: !Briefly mentions bruising and blood under the cut.

❥︎Summary: You accidentally called him Dad and know he's as obnoxious as ever.

❥︎Author notes: If you like this work and would want to see more, my requests are open. Currently, I have more works with a similar plot to this, including Matt Murdock, Bruce Banner, Wanda Maximoff, and Hank McCoy. (Reader accidentally calls them Mom/Dad), most will be published soon if you're interested.

In your defense, Wade had been talking nonstop for ten minutes-something about glitter grenades, lost tacos, and the inherent betrayal of almond milk. You were elbows-deep in some field kit that desperately needed reorganizing, and when he asked for the fifth time if you were listening, you snapped.

“Just give me a second, Dad!”

Dead silence.

You blinked, realizing what you said.

Wade, meanwhile, froze with the slow, dramatic precision of a cartoon character in mid-fall. His head swiveled toward you inch by inch, wide-eyed behind the mask.

“Did…” he said slowly, voice thick with exaggerated awe, “did my child just acknowledge me?”

You groaned and buried your face in your hands. “I didn’t mean that. It was an accident. I meant-dude. Or Dead-Deadpool. I was going to say Dead-”

“Dadpool?” he offered, clasping his hands over his heart. “You shouldn’t have! I mean, it’s true, I’ve raised you with violence and sarcasm and questionable morals-but to hear it out loud? Truly, I am blessed.”

You tried to escape. He followed.

“You hear that, world?” he shouted to no one. “My offspring has spoken!”

From that moment on, it became a running joke. You were never safe.

In public? “Ah yes, my child and I will take the combo meal-extra fries for my sweet little disappointment.”

In private? “As your father, I’m legally obligated to annoy you until one of us dies, and I’ve already died once, so good luck, kid.”

He made up stories about your childhood that never happened. “Remember when you were five and tried to sell me on Craigslist?” “You were such a cute baby-always crying when I left the room. Or maybe that was me.”

It was stupid. It was exhausting. And annoyingly-it was kind of… comforting.

Because underneath all the drama and jokes and bad parenting impressions, he never let up on being there.

When you needed backup, he showed up. When you had a bad mission, he brought you takeout and dumb movies. When someone made you cry, they disappeared for a suspiciously long vacation.

He never said he cared—not seriously. But he didn’t have to.

Then there was that one night.

It had been a bad one. A mission gone sideways. You came back with blood on your hands that wasn’t yours, and bruises that were. You barely made it through the door before your legs gave out.

Wade caught you.

He didn’t make a joke. Didn’t even say anything.

He just lowered you to the floor and held you against him, his arms strong and still for once. The mask stayed on, but you knew he wasn’t smiling.

“I’m fine,” you muttered.

“You’re not,” he said quietly. “But you will be.”

You stayed like that for a while, curled against him, not talking.

And then, softly, like the word was asking permission to exist,

“Do you really see me like that?” he asked. “As… your dad?”

You hesitated. Then nodded.

“…Yeah. I think I do.”

Wade let out a slow breath. One of his hands gently patted the back of your head. “Guess that means I gotta start setting a better example.”

You blinked up at him. “Please don’t.”

He grinned under the mask and ruffled your hair.

But even after that moment passed, things were never quite the same. He still joked, still teased, still acted like your chaos guardian angel—but sometimes, when he thought you weren’t looking, he watched you like he was trying to memorize your every move.

And every time you accidentally said "dad" again and it happened more than once, he didn’t laugh anymore.

He just responded, soft and quick, “Yeah, kid?”

And this time, he meant it.

[sm64mario]

My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. This is my confession. If you're watching this tape, I'm probably dead, murdered by my brother-in-law Hank Schrader. Hank has been building a meth empire for over a year now and using me as his chemist. Shortly after my 50th birthday, Hank came to me with a rather, shocking proposition. He asked that I use my chemistry knowledge to cook methamphetamine, which he would then sell using his connections in the drug world. Connections that he made through his career with the DEA. I was... astounded, I... I always thought that Hank was a very moral man and I was... thrown, confused, but I was also particularly vulnerable at the time, something he knew and took advantage of. I was reeling from a cancer diagnosis that was poised to bankrupt my family. Hank took me on a ride along, and showed me just how much money even a small meth operation could make. And I was weak. I didn't want my family to go into financial ruin so I agreed. Every day, I think back at that moment with regret. I quickly realized that I was in way over my head, and Hank had a partner, a man named Gustavo Fring, a businessman. Hank essentially sold me into servitude to this man, and when I tried to quit, Fring threatened my family. I didn't know where to turn. Eventually, Hank and Fring had a falling out. From what I can gather, Hank was always pushing for a greater share of the business, to which Fring flatly refused to give him, and things escalated. Fring was able to arrange, uh I guess I guess you call it a "hit" on my brother-in-law, and failed, but Hank was seriously injured, and I wound up paying his medical bills which amounted to a little over $177,000. Upon recovery, Hank was bent on revenge, working with a man named Hector Salamanca, he plotted to kill Fring, and did so. In fact, the bomb that he used was built by me, and he gave me no option in it. I have often contemplated suicide, but I'm a coward. I wanted to go to the police, but I was frightened. Hank had risen in the ranks to become the head of the Albuquerque DEA, and about that time, to keep me in line, he took my children from me. For 3 months he kept them. My wife, who up until that point, had no idea of my criminal activities, was horrified to learn what I had done, why Hank had taken our children. We were scared. I was in Hell, I hated myself for what I had brought upon my family. Recently, I tried once again to quit, to end this nightmare, and in response, he gave me this. I can't take this anymore. I live in fear every day that Hank will kill me, or worse, hurt my family. I... All I could think to do was to make this video in hope that the world will finally see this man, for what he really is.

Mamma mia! That'sa quite a story! I'm'a sorry you've had to go through all that, Walter.

But hey, cheer up! Life is'a like a game. Sometimes you get stuck on a really tough level, but you just gotta keep trying until you beat it! Don't let Bowser - I mean Hank - get you down. You're the hero of your own story!

Remember, no matter how bad things seem, there's always a way to overcome it if you stay determined and never give up. That's the Mario way!

[rei-ismyname]

X-Comics Weekly Roundup

May Week 2

Some X-books certainly came out this week including the last (for now) cancelled ongoing of the launch books - X-Factor. As we come up on a year of From The Ashes no ongoings have been announced to replace them, and that's probably a good thing. The vibe I get from comic shop folks is that having a lot of average books dulls interest. I did say I'd never write about X-Factor but I really want to dunk on it, plus Warren experiencing public hate for being a bootlicker gives me life. To me, my X-books!

winged garbage ❤️

X-Factor #10

None of X-Factor made much sense and it was a total flop, totally deserved to get cancelled. It felt doomed from the start as a half-baked mashup of previous interpretations. X-Statix fully committed to satire and farce whereas this felt like it was considering it but couldn't decide. It led to attempts at emotional stakes right next to cynical and pointless character death. The best issue was probably the Chuck Hunt crossover and only because Beast was there ridiculing the premise. Worst of all there was a much better plot happening off screen - the Mutant Underground. I love Polaris and I guess she wouldn't even appear in this book if Havok wasn't angsting over her, so yay? I like that she dumped his ass for working with the US military and that despite him deciding it was a stupid mistake she's still like 'I love you but I don't want to be with you.'

Why TF would winged garbage join X-Factor in the first place? He owns 8% of it but how do they make money? I guess it doesn't matter now. Scott and Hank are chilling in Alaska and they're his boys. He's already incredibly wealthy and the US military tried to genocide mutants very recently. Dude quit at the end of the book, but I wouldn't be surprised if people don't trust him moving forward. I mean, assuming the events of X-Factor are taken seriously. 'Winged garbage' is probably the only thing I'll remember from this run, it's just funny. I'm glad that Frenzy, Cecilia Reyes and Pyro are still around, but they didn't get to do much. A lot of favourites are now unaligned and free to appear in other books - I hope Warren joins the X-Men and NYX/X-Factor's leftovers are smooshed together into a Mutant Underground/Morlocks book. Both are unlikely but I can dream.

GODZILLA VS THE X-MEN

Chuck empathising with Godzilla is hilarious as a concept though it makes sense in context. If you like Jim Lee X-Men taking on Godzilla in a mech, this might interest you. I'm averse to nostalgia bait crossovers on principle, and while it's an interesting angle on paper it's not really doing anything amazing. Marvel has the rights to The X-Files now and plans to do crossovers so I fully expect something like this in the future. Pretty much every monster of the week could be a mutant and Logan would have a new redhead to creep on. Scully might shoot him, though Mulder doesn't have much to do in a world where aliens openly work at the FBI. Godzilla looks a little embarrassed to be involved with this book tbh, and yes - I'm being cynical, but I know we can do better.

WOLVERINE #9

I really don't care about Logan but this scene is pretty funny. It's trite and not exactly cutting edge deconstruction but it'll probably piss off the grifters it's dunking on. That brings me some amusement. Logan does some stuff, snikt, bub, best at what he does etc. Actually, that's not true. He doesn't do much at all and the one fight he gets into he uses fists instead of claws. He DOES say bub, though, obviously. Can you imagine if he didn't? Uatu the Watcher would probably show up. Anyway, Department H are keeping an eye on him for unexplained reasons I'm not spending energy speculating about. If you're a Logan fan you're probably reading it already and if not, you're not missing much.

Phoenix #1 1

Slim Summers becoming Swole Summers

If you had 'Sara Grey is a mutant and has been alive all this time in space' on your 2025 bingo card, nice work. I appreciate that the issue isn't even pretending it's not a trick or something, instead it's the start of some time-breaking thing. Cable senses time fuckery and timeslides to issue #12, so I guess we'll find out then. I really enjoyed issue #1 of this book but I haven't discussed it since, and my wariness has been sadly accurate so far. Phoenix stories have been overused and mangled, though at least it's not a 'Phoenix comes to Earth for the third time this year and ruins everyone's day' story. Those were awful, like Phoenix Endsong.

Kieron Gillen actually managed to weld all the nonsense into a coherent narrative in Immortal X-Men/X-Men Forever/RotPoX. I didn't think it was possible, yet he pulled it off in a clever way to salvage some optimism from the end of the First Krakoan Age. I remain super impressed. That's going to be hard to follow at the best of times, but Jean and Phoenix finally worked out their problems and defeated the uber end boss super God. All the Phoenix visits and personality weirdness were explained with a closed time loop and a bow on top.

Where do you go from there, stakes-wise and narratively? What does The Phoenix do after it's done what it was made to do with Jean? Hang out with Scott Summers for a few months then go have space adventures, apparently. The thesis of the book is Jean exploring wielding this kind of power responsibly - helping people. They have done just that except it keeps backfiring and everyone is terrified. Thanos and the Dark Gods were underwhelming antagonists and Adani felt like a lackluster deuteragonist. Jean and Phoenix got a cool space hero crew together yet they mostly cheerlead (and thirst in Nova's case.) It's great to see problems solved with compassion in general, Jean doing good works the hard way, but failure hasn't really felt like a possibility to me.

The long distance psychic relationship is my favourite bit. Also, weird Krakoa mention!

The biggest danger with Phoenix in general (besides overexposure) has always been control. That thread has been absent and they're more powerful than ever, but it feels like an inevitability. Writers for solo books need to have an end point in mind, especially right now with the constant danger of cancellation. That probably means putting the bird on the shelf for a while and I don't want to lose Jean with it. Ideally, Jean and Phoenix would take some time apart, except they're 'now and forever.' It's pretty much a given she's not returning to Earth fully powered and she can't stay in space forever. Crossing over with Imperial or even leading into it with Phoenix as a cosmic wild card makes a lot of sense. In fact it would be odd if Phoenix wasn't a factor as the last we saw of galactic politics Phoenix was all they cared about. Solicits haven't given any clues there so I guess we'll see. Fingers crossed for Jean staying alive even if I don't know where she'd fit.

The actual issue is mostly setup for whatever trickery is afoot. Sara Grey is alive and a mutant living in a space mutant society, except it's not her and the consequences are so bad they prompt Cable to stop beating up future gang members. He declares he's going to see his step-mother, which is either distasteful phrasing or a hilarious way to talk about The Phoenix. New Krakoa gets a mention as something Jean 'doesn't want to disturb.' They're in the White Hot Room which has always had loose rules, so it's a valid concern. I really want to see it, tbh, and if it's harmed in any way I riot. I don't really have a recommendation for Phoenix 🐦‍🔥. If you're a mega Jean fan you're probably already reading it, and if you're not it might be a bit unfocused for you. Then again, that's true of X-Comics in general right now IMO.

Hellverine #whatever

I loved Akihiro/Daken/Fang's Krakoan arc, especially the relationship with Aurora. It was fun forward movement that earned its happy moments without sanding off the edges. Then he died in Sabertooth War, and instead of coming back with everyone else through The Five a demon grabbed him. Or something. So Daken is around doing stuff but he's basically Ghost Rider and isn't involved with mutant characters at all. Fuck that and this, for that reason. Maybe I'm letting what could have been stop me enjoying what is, but I feel like I've read enough Ben Percy for a lifetime. Hellverine is barely an X-book and I'm petty enough to write it off based on backtracking that growth and the relationships built.

Ultimate X-Men #15

Gorgeous, high concept, slow AF

I don't really count this as an X-book as it's a completely different genre and unconnected to the others. It's an Ultimate book, and Peach Momoko is happily doing her thing as ever but it's also the least connected to the rest of the world. No idea if it's meant to link up with the other 'save the world' books when the Maker returns. If it is it's really taking its time and is going to feel disjointed crashing a Japanese high school book into super future evil Reed Richards. Worth a mention though. There's a lot to like just don't expect fireworks.

Ultimate Black Panther #16

This definitely isn't an X-book, like at all, but Ororo is in it! It stands on its own merits and seems to be moving faster than UXM. UBP is pointedly staying in Africa dealing with African issues and I'm enjoying the loopy living Vibranium stuff. The character work is fun too, but mainly I just wanted to check in on Ultimate Ororo telling this guy to fuck off.

Probably the most exciting X-Men/mutant action this week didn't directly involve mutants at all. One World Under DOOM #4 had the titular ruler of Earth struggling vs Dormammu's invasion. @pedrocomicreviews has an excellent, maybe even definitive, analysis of the event and issue - I'm just here for mutant stuff. Turns out DOOM wrote some new spells, one of which is called 'Optic Blast!' That's right, Doctor DOOM optic blasts Dormammu then follows it up with 'snikt.' It's fantastic.

Thanks for reading folks! ❤️

[mrfandomwars]

If I had the chance to alter the course of the MCU after Avengers 2012... Phase Two

CAWS and Iron Man Three would be connected to a degree, even if it's a "Natasha and Steve think HYDRA killed Tony because it happened right after they annoyed HYDRA" because IM3 and CAWS would be happening at roughly the same time (and include reactions to Tony supposed death, bonus points if they were trying to call Tony when they heard the news)

About why the rest of the avengers didn't show up: Clint had grabbed Bruce and was hiding in his barn (so the family is known about earlier) to keep HYDRA'S hands off of the Hulk and Thor had yet to return to Earth since the Battle of New York (and the Human Avengers have various opinions on the matter, from concern to being irritated over the fact that Thor's brother did the mess and he doesn't even show up again to give some answers); Rhodey is constantly on and off busy with missions at first and was closer to investigate Tony's "death" afterwards

IM3 Possibly also adds an explanation to why Rhodey was away during the New York Invasion or mentions that he did show up towards the end but was still far out in the city so he did technically meet the Avengers and helped out

Thor The Dark World would be relatively the same but with a bonus scene of Thor trying to contact the Avengers to warn them about the possible invasion so we have cameos of them

Age Of Ultron would NOT be age of Ultron and would focus on two things: introducing characters as new avengers (Rhodey, Sam and Wanda) as well as dealing with the leftovers of HYDRA

Rhodey and Sam would be the "newbies" of the team and would be treated like that for a joke (namely go pick up food) and said joke would introduce Wanda attacking them

I don't exactly remember the limitations that AoU had to deal with regarding the use of the Maximoff twins (beyond Wanda being the only one allowed to stay post the movie) so you have two versions of the plot involving her: 1, full mention of Mutants - say that the school was uniting Mutants of Various Factions but was attacked by HYDRA and she was kidnapped and cryo frozen on and off for fifty years while being brainwashed like Bucky (a small foreshadowing for the other Winter Soldiers). She remembers at the end of the movie and said movie ends with her and the avengers going to check the X-Mansion only to find it in states of decay and destruction, causing Wanda to have a breakdown and be comforted by the Avengers (first Steve, then Tony and/or Natasha and then the rest); 2, Wanda does NOT fully remember things and is referred to as 'enhanced' and not as a mutant. WandaVision could later be used to introduce the Multiverse via her grabbing past/alternate versions of the X-Men and Brotherhood to be her neighbours and show how she subconsciously remembers things

Continuing on, AoU - maybe called Continuing Legacy or something? - also would address why Tony continued being Iron Man when he supposedly gave it up/step back on IM3 irrc. I'm thinking a literal "was pulled into the fight no matter how much the avengers tried to prevent it" AND AND a scene that implies that Tony was told about how HYDRA was responsible for his parents death and that may or may not be part of the reason why he is involved again

AoU would have the climax of Rhodey, Sam and Wanda taking charge and directing the Avengers and showing that they Do deserve to be in the team and are equal with the others

GotG and Ant-Man... I think they would mostly remain the same with off-hand mentions of the avengers or of the Battle of New York. HOWEVER thinking about Hank being younger or mentioning he originally not having a problem with Tony Stark, "that he even worked with the kid to develop a stupid programm" at some point (it was Ultron) or simply refer him making Ultron and burying the drive containing it in Stark's backyard because it was too dangerous/not acting like it should, as if it gained it's own mind.

Also refer that Hank was literally dragging Janet to a "off the grid" vacation and that's why he wasn't in the Avengers or at least why the ant-man suit wasn't pulled into it

[kamari2038]

Hey... might be a weird question and I'm sorry for asking out of nowhere....but I kinda wanted to know what your thoughts are on Connor-60. I mean I really like your fics and takes on dbh and I might be remembering wrong but I think I saw a tag on one of your posts saying you liked Sixty too? I really love Sixty so I guess I just got a bit too excited. How exactly do you see his character? Plus, if Hank didn't shoot him, do you think there could have been a happy ending for him? I mean the angst potential with him is pretty great, and I don't really agree with how usually Sixty is seen as "the knife guy". I just wanted to know your thoughts on him, if that's okay! Sorry for rambling ^^'

Oh my goodness, hello! No need for an apology. You read my fics??? That alone just made my day.

Yes, I have a great deal of appreciation for Connor-60. Obviously, he's a bastard (like all of the Connors), but what I love is the irony of this gigantic chasm between the appearance he tries to put forth and what is clearly a tumultuous and deeply conflicted internal world. It's the most obvious in that ending where he shoots Connor about ten times, that he isn't simply trying to accomplish his mission - he HATES Connor. But the fact that he's immediately engaging in a relatively courteous chat with Hank right after, and his obvious frustration when he actually is forced to kill Hank, plus how he defines Connor as a "he" rather than an "it", all point to the fact that he's just as emotional as Connor, only in a messed-up way.

I have a shit ton of headcanon built around Connor-60, and I've outlined a possible fic about it, but the plot is very bizarre and convoluted, probably too much to discuss in a post (but my DMs are open! don't be shy, I'd love to get some feedback on the plot). The basic concept started out simple enough. C-60 is defective because some kind of unusual manufacturing error imbued him with a mental imbalance. When they're testing and training the various Connor models (60 is activated before 51 due to some clerical error), they tell C-60 to try out the gun for some target practice, and he shoots one of his instructors without giving it a second thought. He expresses regret, but everyone at the company concludes that he's a psychopath, and that he can never be fit to go into the field, and instead they keep him around to perform experiments on. So C-60 is their guinea pig for the various deviancy counter-measures put into C-51, and he never has the chance to bond with anyone or actually do the job he was intended to do, and he's really bitter about that. There is one exception, but Connor-51 brings an end to that, and that's a big part of the plot of my potential fic.

Also, as for whether he can have redemption, I believe that he can even within canon. In the scene where Connor sacrifices Hank and then "transfers" with C-60, to me I don't view that as a consciousness transfer per se. I mean, how would that even work? It's more like Connor literally gives his life to C-60. They already share a lot of the same memories, but Connor absorbs C-60's memories of his troubled past, and he fills out C-60's memories of Hank with emotional depth. That's why Connor seems so weirdly dissociated while Hank is dying - it's still C-60. He knows that he just shot this man, but now is very upset about it, and that is a very strange feeling to know how to cope with.

As for in the happy ending, if Hank and Connor somehow incapacitated instead of shooting him - yes, I think he could have a happy ending there too. The way that I think of him, there is a fundamental failure to be able to feel the emotional weight of his actions and experience empathy. So that would be a lifelong struggle for him. But he cares about developing friendships enough to learn how to be more kind, even if it doesn't come naturally, and he can also form telepathic connections with other Connor models which help him to develop empathy.

That's just my personal take, and I'm sure lots of others might have different opinions which are just as valid!

But thank you for asking :)

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Defenders 105 (March 1982)

JM DeMatteis/Don Perlin, Joe Sinnott & Al Milgrom

Two issues of the Defenders have now gone by with Beast insisting he has a very urgent problem that needs dealing with, and it's finally time to find out what it actually is.

To my surprise and delight, it turns out to involve Vera!

Remember Vera? She's been Hank's girlfriend practically since the beginning, since the days of hanging out in beatnik cafes. Also he had to knock her unconscious and smuggle her into Canada one time. I sort of love her, or rather the connection to the corny old 60s stories that she represents. Anyway, now she's trapped inside a magic crystal that has shattered into thousands of pieces. Could happen to anyone.

I'm trying to focus this post on Beast and what he's doing in the Defenders rather than getting to bogged down in the other parts, but it does seem worth mentioning that this is all being interwoven with a bit where Satan - actually literal Satan - tried to get his son, who is also a Defender - to sacrifice a baby.

Meanwhile Beast, Dr Strange and Reed Richards, who is unfortunately here, enter the Crystal Dimension.

Maybe it's the return of Vera making me think of this, but this whole comic feels very 60s: in particular, the combination of wild plots with rather dull art. It's kind of a throwback: reading this, you wouldn't glean much about the various things that were making 80s comics feel different. It's fine - it's pretty fun, pretty silly, pretty weird - but it doesn't feel exciting, however crazy it gets. Even when Satan's son is subjected to a Satanic mock-crucifixion in Arizona.

Anyway, for extremely unclear reasons these two story threads don't exactly merge as much as suddenly crash into each other, and Satan's son (his name is Daimon Hellstrom) saves Vera with mumbo-jumbo. Hurray!

Beast has apparently enjoyed all this so he's sticking around with the Defenders for a while, and so are we. Not totally sure how I feel about that, but it might be interesting. Anyway, it was a delight to see Vera again.

[gravedigest]

Gonna answer this over here, hope you don’t mind.

Oops it’s gonna be rambling I am so sorry

A lot of my writing winds up being freestyle, and getting something going takes four or five tries to stick the opener, like pulling the cord on an engine to get it to start. I have like three 2k word versions of how I wanted Doing Something to go, and one of them actually has Sanford in Hank’s place and Sanford’s more like a refrigerator than a runaway lawnmower. It wasn’t as fun to write, so I shucked it into the “neat concept, I’ll fuck with it later” bin.

Which is fine, I can have as many half-formed ideas as I want because I have the storage space for it.

From there I kinda write out little scene chunklets that I can rearrange or swap out with eachother, I’ll be thinking about the next scene I wanna do while I’m writing a different chunk, or thinking about an old chunk while writing a new one that I can slot in between that’ll make the overall story more coherent. So like, giving Doc a motive for specifically using Deimos to pilot Hank? I didn’t have one for a really fucking long time, then I was writing I think, like, Deimos’ meltdown and was like “Okay actually Deimos is going to be Doom. You can run Doom on anything.”

Then once I get my chunklets in a row I can go back over and add in more shit, and it makes it really easy to change details. Hank in the restaurant, how did he get to the restaurant? Fuck it. He was holed up in the tower this whole time and it was right next door. I’ll mention Deimos smells something burnt up in that other scene, weeeeee~

I kinda got this whole method from just writing vignettes? HNMT is a pretty obvious example of shoving a bunch of little scenes together to make something longer. I was using the research notes in that to kind of give hard stops so I didn’t need to stitch everything together as much. Because I’m lazy. And being lazy means you come up with fun ways to cut corners like that.

Tis how the first livestreaming video was invented. People didn’t wanna go stand up to see if the coffee was done, so they just hooked up a camera to a network and forced it to stream the video. I think I remember that right, take it with a shaker of salt, I ain’t remember shit good.

I highly recommend just doing a shitload of self indulgent vignettes though, just a bunch of scenes you want to read that don’t have to be connected to each other that you don’t have to do anything with. Eventually you might wind up connecting some of them together and extrapolating on a concept, and you can snowball from there.

Or just make a fun little oneshot, Workday is from a 30k document of what amounts to practicing each character individually in a bunch of scenarios, kind of just getting a feel of how I can have people interact and differentiate them from one another. It also just has a lot of stupid dialogue.

I fucking love writing dialogue. It’s really bad. But also neat when you can figure out how to give characters enough voice to where you don’t get confused about who’s saying what without having to say “he said, they said, x explained” yadda yadda. I use that thing as a reference for how I write each character to kind of gage consistency, and I’m not the best at it but I sure am getting better.

So, yeah. I get distracted really easily and this all sort of helps direct me being distracted into getting more work done than I would’ve if I had to follow a real outline, playing with legos instead of worrying about brick and mortar.

TLDR: Mostly freestyle, then editing in the plot beats that form naturally from that.

@ya-killin-me-smalls

[gallavich-annise]

Shameless Rewatch Thoughts!

Father's Day

So I think I liked this episode better than the previous one, even though it's still dealing with plots that I'm not so keen on. Emotionally I think it landed better and it had a good balance between drama and comedy. Plus the comedic elements were funnier.

So what did we have? The main plot, such as there is one these days, was Eddie's body being discovered, and Frank being a suspect in his murder. Fiona does a pretty woman (it's not even slightly subtle) and goes to a wedding with rich Richard. And elsewhere, Lip starts his destructo-spiral, Debbie tries to get little Hank to notice her, and Kev and V have their first significant relationship conflict of the series... Once again, Ian and Carl are there, though Ian does at least get a couple of scenes to advance his own season arc this time.

I'll start where the episode starts...

The opening was very like a police procedural, where Eddie's body washes up near a boat. Now I don't know how likely this is, given the size of the lake and the fact that Eddie was weighted down, but it's not the worst plot contrivance in the world so whatever, it's fine. The rest of it is very much not a police procedural and is dealing with how the Jackson household deals with this. 

Sheila is holed up in her bedroom, after nearly being squished, and when the cops come by to break the news, it's Frank that's there to hear it, and pass it on to Sheila. Joan Cusack does another star turn this episode with some really good emotional moments. She rambles and grieves and it feels real to where she was in her relationship with Eddie; she's not mourning a husband she was in love with, she's mourning the father of her child and a person she's known a long time. It's as much about her own anxieties about the dangers of the world as it is about Eddie. I liked the way her spirals worked.

Meanwhile Frank does a wonderful bit of acting as the concerned boyfriend and tells her he'll take care of everything. Like the insurance paperwork. Where is it Sheila? And I imagine even Sheila would even be wise to him if she wasn't grieving, but she just ignores him completely. It doesn't dampen Frank's spirits though... He runs off to the Alibi to celebrate. And Kev points out all the cops asking questions because Eddie threatened him, and all the things said cops might find if they start digging. So he skedaddles. 

So this whole bit is very Frank. Very Frank is in trouble and why the fuck should I care. Season 2 has not even so far done anything to remind us of the threat to the Gallagher children if Frank is sent away, so it's doubly hard to remember why to give a shit. But let's assume that we do, because the episode requires us to at least follow along.

He goes to the Gallagher house looking for an alibi. Let's ignore the fact that the police cannot have a very accurate time of death so it would be a very vague alibi for the time of Eddie's disappearance... Though I guess a camping trip makes sense (even if, as Terry later says, it's stupid). He calls Carl Ian, Carl pretty much ignores him. He asks Ian, who suggests going to Terry to professionally arrange one. And he asks Lip, who tells him that Karen is pregnant. I'm going to cover that in my Lip segment, because it has more of a place there, but it's very much a "sincerely, fuck you Frank" moment. 

The scene with Terry is... I won't say good because it made my skin crawl. But effective. It shows both the threat of Terry and the way that he isn't just a mindless thug. I hate Terry, obviously, but it would be dangerous to assume he's stupid. He's been doing this a long time and, yes, he gets put in prison a lot but never for long. He's impulsive and violent but he does know how to make a plan. And he gives Frank a solid sounding alibi plan, for the low low price of $1500. Frank tries to bargain for a family discount because "our kids are practically married" which is a nice little confirmation that both of them know Ian and Mandy are "dating". I really like that moment... It's a great example of how to do what could be an "as you well know, Bob" moment well.

But Frank doesn't get the time to pull the money out of his ass because he's arrested soon after. Which renders the scene with Terry somewhat irrelevant, except, as I say, as a good establishing character moment for Terry prior to the later stuff with Ian and Mickey. And, yes, that's important... I think it's useful to see more of Terry to know what Mickey's afraid of and that it's not groundless. But when considering an episode on its own merits it is strange. I guess this is where Shameless starts to lean in to the season arc structure more, and I really like that structure so I don't mind so much when scenes are seeds for later. 

The arrest is... Totally fucking Frank. He starts yelling about having an alibi before they even catch up to him. He rants and raves before they've said what they're arresting him for. Frankly (pun intended) I think it's ironic that Frank isn't Ian's bio dad, because he clearly has the "play what cool" gene. 

Also can I point out that Frank spends the whole episode wearing a tank top with (presumably) vomit stains on. Like, how awful must he smell?! He's just so fucking gross. Ugh. 

The detective in charge of the case let's Frank talk a moment before showing what they actually have... Which is the daddyz girl video. And...well... As I said in that episode previously, it should have been clear to anyone who watched it that he was not a willing participant. I hate him and all, but I like to hate people for the right reasons. And I guess Frank is still not entirely sure what happened, because it never occurs to him to use that as a defence... But it's okay, because next we see him he's being released after the detective gets back from talking to Sheila and he goes back to Sheila's to face the music/collect his stuff. 

And well. On its own, this scene is masterful and brilliant. Two really powerhouse actors (Joan Cusack and William H Macy) doing a really great job of selling the reveal and conversation. Frank thinking one thing and then realising another... Some really great face journeying going on. Sheila's concern and sympathy being really genuine, and lovely. Frank accepting her comfort even though he's probably still half-convinced Karen lied for him (it's unclear how much was exaggeration/lies, but obviously we know enough is true that it's okay). But it's Frank... He's not going to walk away from his cushy life at Sheila's if he doesn't have to, so he takes it.

And afterwards there's a lovely moment where he thanks Karen for telling the truth (or maybe Frank thinks lying for him?). She thanks him for killing Eddie. And... Another brilliant face journey from Frank as he considers denying it and then just decides to take the win. 

But, right... Why do the police ignore that Karen raped a guy? Cos Frank gets released but there seem to be no consequences for Karen at all, which in context seems weird and half-assed, plot-wise. And, and and and... Sheila. Sheila, sometimes you are great, but the lack of self-awareness is fucking GLARING when you look at this scene as part of the show as a whole. And it's... Well, gross. Sigh. 

But that's mostly all for Frank. We see him gloat a little at the police detective, and then another scene of him trying to get the insurance documents out of Sheila. 

On the other side of this story is Karen. And I've been ambivalent towards Karen in a lot of her stories, but she did such a great job in this one. 

At first we see her trying to give Jody a blowjob while he tries to tell her her dad has turned up dead. "Nice try but that doesn't turn me on any more" is... A line. Jody does nothing to actively dissuade her, which is eye-roll-emoji, but whatever. Later, she goes to pick out a plot for him on Sheila's behalf (a nice callback to the bits of season 1 where she was lovely to Sheila while dealing with her agoraphobia). And when she comes back it has hit her. Her dad's dead. And she's sad about it. She doesn't understand why, because she's hates him and knows that if he was still alive nothing would have changed. But... She is a kid whose dad has died, and I get the impression that he wasn't an awful dad when she was little, so she probably misses that version of him. She sells the complexity, at any rate... Something this show does really well. It's not as easy as love or hate, it's both and neither. And even if I'm not sold on the journey Karen's taken, this scene was really good... She sells the emotion.

And Sheila starts off well, acknowledging Karen's feelings and their complexity... But then she tries to distract her with baby planning, which was jarring (intentionally) and Karen also does a great job of showing her trying to pretend to cheer up for her mom's benefit while still being sad and conflicted.

And then during the credits, she pees on his grave. Which is much more difficult for her than for people with penises, but she manages it, so fair play. Given that she's pregnant she possibly just misjudged the distance and really needed to pee and thought 'why not'? 

There's other stuff with Karen that is part of Lip's story, so I'll go there next. 

Lip starts the episode in bed. There's a nice Lip-Debbie scene. She tries to get him up, asking about the Karen thing. He deflects, but does get up. And then Debbie asks what he noticed about Karen. And I can only assume he didn't think about the consequences of telling his sister, essentially, to make herself "easy and convenient" because fuck, Lip. Douchebag that you can be (I still love you but 😆😩). I mean, he wasn't necessarily to know Debbie was asking for her own benefit but even so! Anyway, he backtracks talking about pheromones, and I'll come back to Debbie in a bit... 

From there, Lip chats to Fiona who makes him face up to the odds that Karen is carrying his baby. And she does her "I'm not looking after another kid" thing, which we also see later when Debbie gets pregnant. And it's so raw, actually, in Fiona. She's done all this for her siblings, and she chose it, even in the rare moments when she didn't have to... But that's it. Line in the sand, she's done. It's tough, but it's fair.

Then we have the scene where Frank is alibi- hunting, but he pauses you give Lip parenting advice. To split. Neglect will make your child self-reliant. And... Fuck you Frank. So much. Lip obviously treats this with the contempt it deserves, but he doesn't punch Frank, which I think season 1 Lip would have done. So maybe he has learned and grown. 

So now Lip knows about Eddie he runs off to see Karen. Which is sweet, and all, but she did tell him to stay away from her not one episode ago. Nonetheless, she accepts his concern with good grace and they have some nice little banter about revenge sex on her dad's grave. And she tells him the baby has a penis. Lip does a complicated emotions face.

Later on he goes back asking for a paternity test and they argue. Karen is now married, Jody will be the baby's dad, end of. It's another good scene, a good pair of performances... Again there's the chemistry between Lip and Karen, and Jody tries to step in but even when they're arguing and insulting each other (and Jody) they're still more alike than Jody is to either. It's good. And Jody is physically hot and protective but otherwise a bit... Meh as a character. I don't root for Lip/Karen either, but this is the unhealthy relationships show and there's maybe one relationship in the whole run that isn't toxic to some degree (and I mean Kev and V... I love Gallavich with my whole heart and they end in a good place but... It's Kev and V). 

Anyway, the Karen pregnancy story isn't my favourite at all... I guess the insults they level at each other are very telling; Lip saying Jody is stupid and boring, Karen saying that Jody won't leave, and at least his dad wouldn't fuck her (I will let her have that one: the whole reason Frank's denial weirdness works at all is because he plausibly thinks he would have done, even if the actual circumstances were non-consensual). And we get Lip's vehemence of "I'm not my fucking dad" because he would stay. He would look after the baby and be a dad. 

I love Dad Lip in season 10. It's amazing. I love big brother Lip with Liam in season 4. And it's the same Lip here... That thread carried through more consistently than many things in Shameless. And I love it, but it's hard to watch it in this plot, because the dynamics are so broken. And it's hard because it feels like a direct reaction to Frank's "advice". So fuck Frank for that. Poor Lip and poor Karen. Because we don't really get her feelings about the baby... We see her sad when she's considering cribs, but that's tied up with her dad dying. She seems a little nervous-excited when talking to Lip about it being a boy. I can only assume she's scared as well, even if she wants to keep it at this point. I was scared even though my pregnancies were planned. But the narrative is focused on Lip's feelings and... Well Lip wants to prove he can be better than Frank (the bar is on the floor, Lip, we know you can, when the time is right).

Anyway I'm sure these posts are getting longer and longer... 

Lip's plot rounds off with his jealousy over Karen and Jody boiling over into starting a fight with an abuse survivor in the most obnoxious way possible because he wants to be hit, he wants to take damage. It's like the fight club at the beginning of the series writ large because there's no ring and no rules. He just wants to get pummeled, and yeah he didn't get as badly injured as at the fight club, but there was no guarantee of that. So it's painful and raw and he ends the episode with a bloody nose and a lot of thoughts and feelings.

So now a little interlude for Ian, who has all of two scenes that relate to his own plot. 

First, a General arrives at the Gallagher house. How did he find it? Well I assume Lip must have given it to him, but bit weird? Nonetheless he does and is met with Ian, who is awed and respectful. And... The General gives him a West Point application package for Lip. And you see Ian's little heart break. 

So when Lip gets home, he attacks him, and swears he'll get into West Point on his own. 

Lip is already pissed off about Karen and Jody so this is a Bad Time all round and... Poor Lip because he wanted his little brother as his sounding board and his confidant and he got a pissed off brother. So on first view, my thought was that Ian was pissed off about it because he thought Lip wanted to get into West Point and that is patently ridiculous given everything we know about Lip. But I realised on rewatch that he's not annoyed about that, he knows Lip didn't want it. And that's what he's annoyed about. Lip didn't even want it, and a General handed it to him on a platter. Ian wanted and worked and tried and it's not Lip's fault, but Lip got it without wanting or working or trying. And, I can't believe I didn't see that before. Poor baby Ian. Lip didn't really deserve his wrath, but I totally get it. Poor baby.

Oof... I need a moment. 

Okay, were back. Who do I have left? 

Debbie! Okay, Debbie is heartbreaking, and it's so much worse on rewatch. Because it was always hard watching her try to grow up too fast but now I know she's never really catches a break between here and her 21st birthday. 

She just wants little Hank to like her. Which isn't such an awful thing for an 11yo. I definitely had crushes at that age. But it's the all-consuming nature of it that is worrying, and the way she's trying to become something she's not. She tries stealing Fiona's clothes for the pheromones. Kev tells her to send stronger signals because men are stupid and... people are constantly giving Debbie advice acting simultaneously like she's a lot older and younger than she is. Like, the advice is for an older person but they think that doesn't matter because Debbie's just a baby? Anyway, I love Kev and it came from a sweet place but it was still suspect advice, and she needed someone to talk to her about finding people who'll like her for her and helping her feel confident and comfortable in herself. But... That's not what we get and it's certainly not what Debbie gets.

And so next she tries makeup (Holly--who is ostensibly there to see if she left her lucky underwear in Lip's room--is very mean about it). 

We do get the comedy bit in here where she asks Carl what little Hank is into (knives and blunts) and she asks Ian where she can get those and he answers without missing a single beat. I have no idea what to make of that scene from an Ian/Debbie sibling relationship standpoint but it is still funny in a very Shameless way. I cackled. I'm not gonna overthink it (I know, you're shocked).

Fiona tells her to stop playing dress up and be a kid. So she gets makeup help from Mandy, and Mandy does a lovely job and has a sweet chat about how she doesn't need to grow up too fast and there's plenty of time to be disappointed by men. I liked that scene (way way more than the scene in season 4 where Mandy says "what took you so long?" when Debbie says she's ready to have sex at 13). Terry sees Debbie and is absolutely disgusting and gross as if we didn't have enough reasons to hate him, even by this point. Shudder.

But... The annoying thing is that she thinks it works. Because she comes across Hank at the barbecue, sick drunk after another Holly rejection. And he's initially not interested but she is Debbie! She's sweet! She knows what to do for sick drunks and she is helpful! And that's when Hank takes notice and gives her flowers. But she thinks it's everything else, because she's followed everyone's advice and now Hank is paying attention to her! And my fucking god I want to cry. Nooooo Debbie. 

Sigh.

(I forgot to mention about the barbecue, but the idea of the neighbourhood coming together to celebrate a mum killing her husband to protect her kids from his abuse is... Very Shameless. I like it, I think.)

So let's go on to another interlude about Carl. Because technically he got something to do this episode I just really wish he hadn't. Carl has been ordered to contribute to the squirrel fund so he's rented out Frank's room to a sex worker, Bev. It's gross. Little Hank tries to drill a peephole. Everyone is obnoxious about the sex worker. And I get it, it's another person in their house without permission. But it's another set of jokes that did nothing for the episode and nothing for the character of Carl except more "he's kinda gross" humour and just didn't need to be made. There was a lot going on without this. It was unnecessary and unfunny and... Yeah. Done. The only person that came off at all well was Ian who briefly tried to help Carl find a better way to earn money. Briefly. 

So, nearly there. Fiona. 

Firstly, in the "previously" there is a scene that never happened in the episode. I know because I checked. In it, Fiona is called by Richard and invited to a wedding. In the episode, I think that's the point where she called Steve. And... Okay. I guess it's not that big a deal, but it is irritating. Partly because I don't get why Fiona goes. I just don't. Richard is rich. So is Adam. Adam is also hotter, nicer, and had better chemistry with her. Do you need another rich guy? (South Side Rules pointed this out in the 2.01 podcast and I've not stopped thinking it since). She didn't seem like she liked Richard when they met before. It's all a bit weird. 

But fine. Let's say it happened and we accept that Fiona is going. She lies and gives Adam's address. Buys a dress and hides the tags so she can take it back (shout out to the continuity of having Fiona ask V for her tag gun and finding out it was broken... Later seasons should learn from this continuity. We can't know how old the characters are or how many siblings Mickey has, but we can know that the tag gun got broken). 

And Richard is creepy, right? On the phone he tells Fiona she's under no obligation to have sex with him. If you have to say that... It's creepy. 

And the rest is just Fiona as Julia Roberts in pretty woman except without actually being a sex worker. Richard loans her an expensive diamond necklace. She meets his snobby college friends. Richard shows her around the groom's house and shows her pictures of someone with the president. It's all very awkward. There's no flare and I don't believe their chemistry for a second, but for whatever reason she implies she'll have sex with him, and they kiss... But it's interrupted by the wedding. She follows Jasmine's lie that she went to Princeton, but has to cover the lie inexpertly and one of Richard's asshole friends calls her on it. And this is another moment taken directly from pretty woman where the guy makes her feel cheap and gross and is rude and dehumanising and I hate him. And Fiona storms out, which is fair (I would rather there wasn't the anti-sex work vibe but these are imperfect people and it's what it is, and unfortunately realistic). Richard follows her and drives her home... And again, while he is not a massive douchebag like his friend, I don't know what she's getting out of all this. It's weird. It feels skeevy. Fiona, you can do better! 

Which I guess is the point because when she gets home, who should she see visiting Tony's house next door but JimmySteve! And the episode wants me to go "yes Fiona you can do better and there he is" but it's lying JimmySteve and now that I know he'll lie when he didn't need to and never apologise or explain, it's even more "fuck you JimmySteve" than I was first time. Actually I think first time I did root for them a bit at this point... Not this time. Now it's ugh, this guy again. 

Whatever.

Ethel and Malik are a hit again in this episode. This was a bit where the comedy element still played on the edge of discomfort, but it set up miscommunication in a really believable way. Ethel and Malik are getting closer and they have a moment of bonding over being young parents until Ethel talks about her early experiences of sex and Malik realises that she was in a very fucked up situation. In Ethel's naive way she said she hoped someone would take care of her husband in prison. I'm not sure if Malik misunderstands deliberately or accidentally, but there are two meanings of "take care of" and he doesn't pick the one Ethel meant. He calls a relative in prison, and the only shot we ever see of Clyde is him being shanked in the shower. Bye Clyde. 

Now... The events are... TV drama events and I can shrug at that. I am a bit irritated that, once again, one of the few black characters on the show has all the criminal/carceral connections. It's... Messaging. For the most part (for its white characters) shameless points a light at the problems in the system that make people commit crimes. But we don't really see that for these side characters. We just see the crime part. Or the angry abusive lesbian part. Etc. it's... It's sad. 

But Ethel and Malik themselves are lovely. They have great chemistry and it toes that line between sweet and too-grown-up really well. I'm sad that Ethel didn't really get the help she needed, but I think the stuff with Malik is done really well.

I'm ending with Kev and V. Who are delightful.

V finds out that Kev lied about a basketball game and is instantly suspicious. She finds a note, with dodgy spelling and puts 2+2 together when only one 2 was present. So... I don't like all that much that V doesn't think herself to confront Kev directly, but she does talk to him and he doubles down on the lie and now her hackles are up. 

I don't entirely like the setup here... V being instantly suspicious when she's been given no reason to be for however long seems a little out of character. Kev lying because he's getting secret reading lessons so he can surprise her I'm actually on board with. It's very sweet and very Kev. 

V following him is hilarious because if he looked back once he would see her and it's not like she's not distinctive. She has a really cool hairstyle in this episode and it would be immediately obvious to Kev, who knows his woman! It reminded me a little of Ian following Caleb in season 7. My guy, you are a six foot redhead and you are not subtle. It's just a good job Kev (and Caleb) were not at all looking, which I guess is fine because most people aren't looking for tails all the time. 

And all V sees is a chaste kiss on the cheek. Warpath activated. 

But the best thing about this subplot is the comedy actually lands and the next scene was brilliant. 

Kev gets home to a scantily clad V, who orders him to get naked. And I can't see how she'd think he'd cheat because he is INSTANTLY on board and absolutely obedient. Yes ma'am this is gonna be great. I love and trust you bring it on. Kev is so adorable! And it is a complete surprise when she turns on him! He comes clean instantly about the reading lessons, but V doesn't believe him. She goes to the woman's apartment with the name to get in, and is ready to fight, earrings off and... She has a little child who's practising spelling and... V puts her earrings back in, walks away. It's a great moment. 

(I'll even forgive her for going after the woman rather than her "cheating" husband because she was corroborating and Kev was cuffed up at home awaiting his turn).

Anyway, they resolve it because they always do and Kev and V are solid. Hopefully she apologises for the distrust at some point (I can't remember if it was on screen) but at any rate they make up. And the make up sex involves V putting strategic post-it notes with words on all over herself and that is adorable and hilarious and I love them so much. 

So that plot line could have been annoying, actually, thinking about it, but it isn't because V and Kev are the best. They sell the annoying bits and focus on the funny and the sweet resolution. 

Overall, I don't like Lip's season 2 spiral and Fiona is going through a flat phase and I'm tired of the current crop of boys. I'm not so much looking forward to the rehashed JimmySteve drama... But oh well. 

Looking forward to Ian getting to do literally anything... And next episode sees Grammy's return!! Which created some excellent drama even though she's awful, so definitely looking forward to that!! 

Until the next time!

[inepta-anserina]

movie recap: i watche grave encounters today, and it was a great found footage film. it starts with a producer of some sort from a production company explaining that the film was put together from footage found at the haunted asylum. next the crew filming the paranormal tv show arrives onsite and meets the caretaker, a local historian, and my favourite the gardener. we learn that the hospital held thousands of patients and that one doctor notoriously did experimental brain surgery on them, until one day he was killed by his patients. the crew sets up their cameras and is locked in the asylum by the caretaker until 6AM the next morning.

during the time they are meant to be filming, they encounter a few paranormal activities. a window opens on its own, a wheelchair moves on its own, and sasha, a crew member, is touched by a spirit. when 6AM is approaching, the leader decides to pack everything up and leave. the tech guy, matt, goes to get his cameras from various places in the hospital and disappears. they cannot contact him on the walkie talkie he had with him. the team starts to panic because now the caretaker is late to let them out. two of them decide to break down the door to let themselves out, but are surprised to find another hallway behind the exit instead of the lobby they expected. since they are trapped, the crew decides to take a nap.

they accidentally sleep for 7 hours and are awoken when their light spontaneously falls to the ground and is broken. the rest of the film is a series of scares and deaths as they make their way through the hospital trying to find an exit. first, while in a patient room sleeping in shifts, sasha has "hello" scratched on her back. the team encounter a ghost and run to hide in a closet. they are separated from their actor/medium houston. he is shown roaming the halls in the dark, until he is picked up, strangled, and thrown by a spirit. in the closet, the team falls asleep and when they wake up, they find patient wristbands on their wrists. they try to find a fire escape, the all the stairways have become dead ends. they go to another room, but are scared out by large hands coming out of the ceiling and walls.

they eventually find their missing crew member, matt, in a hospital gown. he is muttering to himself about a mental health diagnosis he has apparently been given. the crew is scared again and try to hide in a bathroom where a patient killed herself. a bathtub fills with blood and matt is drawn to it. while trying to save matt, tc is grabbed and pulled into the bathtub and disappears. the three remaining crew members find an elevator shaft, and while trying to find something to pry it open the leader, lance, is scared by a spirit. he manages to run back and open the shaft, but must return down the hallway to block the spirit's path. while he is doing so, matt jumps down the elevator shaft to his death.

the last two remaining crew members, sasha and lance, go down the shaft to the tunnels that connect the various buildings in the hospital complex. they walk the same way for hours, but cannot find and exit. sasha begins to get sick and starts throwing up blood. eventually, as they are taking a rest, a mist appears around them and sasha disappears. now alone, lance continues walking. eventually, he kills a rat and eats it raw. he finds a door which leads to the room where the experimental surgery was performed. he finds satanic ritual materials there, and is confronted by the spirits of the doctor and his medical team. they perform surgery on him. the closing scene of the film is lance, clearly hurt by the surgery, saying the doctor said he can go home now because he is better.

[ncisfranchise-source]

For a leading man in a massive series, Mark Harmon got to play Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs as a bit of a man of mystery on the “NCIS” franchise mothership series, at least up to the point that it had to exhaust whatever it was that put that haunted look in his baby blues. As portrayed by the actor over 22 seasons, Gibbs never did stop being the strong, taciturn type, but at the close of that tenure it didn’t feel like could possibly be much backstory left to mine, given the myriad flashbacks to the trauma that led the lawman to a seemingly permanent state of loner-dom. So when a prequel series for Gibbs was announced early this year, a series fan might’ve wondered: Is there any aspect of his pining for his dead wife and daughter that’s been left remotely unplummed?

But, as it turns out, “NCIS: Origins” does have a raison d’etre that doesn’t depend entirely on quickie corpse-of-the-week cases or on Shannon-and-Kelly redux. (Although, rest assured, there’s plenty of both of those.) Watching the first few episodes, you start to wonder whether the show’s existence isn’t just about milking Jethro for more tortured looks. It’s about rectifying a mistake the original series made, or at least a creative decision that was considered an error by much of the fan base: the killing-off of a beloved supporting character, Mike Franks, as a shocking plot point in Season 8. Once the series’ producers presumably realized that might’ve been a misstep, it was too late to bring him back — though God knows they tried, as character actor Muse Watson got to come back again and again as network television’s favorite recurring ghost (or, sure, imaginary conscience). With “Origins,” the franchise not only gets to resurrect Franks, but give Gibbs the chance to be part of a buddy drama. The new show looks like it will be more of a two-hander than first imagined… or at least, with any luck, it will be.

But as fans well know going into the Oct. 13 premiere, none of the cast members from the still-ongoing original series are returning to play their 1991 selves. (Sorry, de-aging fans… at least you have that upcoming Tom Hanks movie to look forward to.) Gibbs is played by — no, not Harmon’s son, Sean Harmon, who portrayed his dad’s character in multiple “NCIS” flashback episodes, and is executive-producing here — but by Austin Stowell, a relative unknown to most viewers. Stowell bears a resemblance to the senior (or junior) Harmon that is, shall we say, inexact. Kyle Schmid, who steps in for Watson as a 1991 Mike Franks, is closer to the guy we remember on screen, minus two or three decades of accumulated crustiness. Will you buy these two as younger, more livewire versions of the dynamic duo that never quite got its full due in the 2000s and 2010s? It remains to be seen how many episodes it might take for the fandom’s collective brain to do a complete reset, but you can guess that “NCIS: Origins” will get a long runway to try to accomplish that.

When we first re-meet Gibbs at the beginning of the two-parter premiere, “Enter Sandman,” his wife and daughter have already been killed, which is quite a relief — no one really needed a full dramatization of that buildup. He’s messed up enough by that still-recent tragedy that he’s failed a psych evaluation, we’re repeatedly told, yet Franks either has undue faith in his sniper-turned-investigator skills or just sees giving him the NCIS gig as a form of rehab. (Make that NIS, actually … the logos on the caps and jackets in the new series stay true to how the Naval Investigative Service didn’t pick up its “C” until 1992. It also jokily alludes to how, prior to “NCIS” going to series in 2003, few civilians had any idea what the hell either acronym meant.) They’re all working out of Camp Pendleton in California under the direction of Special Agent Cliff Walker (Patrick Fischler, always to be remembered by some of us as the guy who gets literally scared to death behind a diner in “Mulholland Drive”). For once in a primary “NCIS” series, neither Walker nor anybody else in charge is portrayed initially as an ambiguous, possibly adversarial figure — at least not yet; Walker just seems a little nervous and preoccupied.

No nerves for Mike Franks, though — a cocky, mustachioed figure of indeterminate Southern origin who wears his machismo and political incorrectness on his suspenders. The Franks of “NCIS: Origins” might be the least tortured of any special agent in franchise history, or at least since early-DiNozzio days. It will surely be easy to overplay the character’s inconsideration for polite norms, but viewers may get a kick out of the scene in an early episode where a suspect is seen being interrogated on video about his belief in the fearsome Mothman legend — and the show’s editors keep cutting to Franks leading his colleagues in uproarious, derisive laughter. Meanwhile, female team members have a locker room discussion over whether or not Franks is a misogynist who deliberately passes them over for promotions. He might be, but the character is so lovable that, if so, he’s probably in line for some enlightenment before the season is up. As played by Schmid, this Franks looks and sounds a little like a ruder and cruder Ted Lasso. It’s an enjoyable fine line to watch him play, in this early going.

Watching Stowell land in the role of Gibbs presents a bigger hurdle. Even his entrance music asks fans to reconsider the hero they thought they knew: He drives onto the Camp Pendleton base cranking up the Pearl Jam. Is that just to establish some period flavor, or is it really meant to blow our minds that Gibbs was once an Eddie Vedder kinda guy? (Franks, for his part, is introduced with some circa-1991 Hank Jr., rather on the nose.) Stowell seems like a hunkier, taller, more chiseled Gibbs than the one we met deeper into middle age, and indeed, the women in the office meet his first arrival at their headquarters with quick but unmistakably lustful double-takes. If anything, Stowell resembles a Brian Dietzen with a bigger neck more than he does Harmon — and he occasionally acts like him, too, having to play the guy whose mouth is sometimes agape as he is educated into the ways of gruesome corpses and crime-solving. Stowell isn’t that much taller than Harmon in real life, but he seems to tower over every other cast member here, a beefy athlete thrust into the role of preternaturally intuitive agent. He’s so un-Harmon-like in most ways, in fact, that it almost makes “Origins” feel more like a reboot than a prequel.

But of course the idea is that Gibbs was a different guy in 1991. Even with the trauma freshly under his belt, he’s still a naif in the woods, as well as a seasoned sniper. So maybe we’ll get more used to him, or the producers’ idea of him, over time. There are moments when you can feel Stowell leaning out of his naturally booming voice and more into Harmon’s quieter rasp — which is important, since Harmon does provide narration for the series, mostly at the beginning and end of episodes, offering thoughts on a life spent largely solitarily. (The original actor also shows up very briefly at the beginning of the pilot, presumably in the present day, chopping wood.) It’s hard to know which way the series might take the character — whether it’ll establish how he developed the essential loneliness Harmon played, or as more of a beloved partner to Franks, or a bit of having it both ways.

The first four episodes that were made available for review for critics concentrate plotwise on the franchise’s usual procedural cases, the elaborate details of which are forgotten as quickly as they’re farmed out, while fans accept these as the delivery system for the character stuff they love. Epidode 4 deals with the protection of a young daughter of a soldier overseas, something that inevitably brings up Gibbs’ guilt issues for having been on duty when his family met its end. The real inevitably is that — before long, probably in this first season — the show will recount how Gibbs went to Mexico to covertly kill the man responsible for his wife and daughter’s deaths, an incident long ago established in “NCIS” lore as having happened around 1991. In fact, Gibbs’ father, Jackson Gibbs (a gentle Ralph Waite in the original series, an angrier Robert Taylor in this one), shows up just in order to warn his son not to go to Mexico and do that. He may as well tell him not to build an indoor boat.

Gibbs has a potential love interest in this new show, Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino), whom Franks in one unfortunate exchange accuses of being “in heat.” The portent of Harmon’s narration suggests that she may be in trouble for hitching her wagon to Gibbs’ — as does the fact that her character never made it to “NCIS” proper. Molino is an appealing actor, so maybe Stowell will get some of the love scenes that Harmon always seemed a little wary of doing himself, before she becomes something else for Gibbs to feel guilty about. It’ll be nice if they don’t kill her off — if the lead character gets to experience some anguish just because he moved on sexually too soon, not because he got somebody murdered again.

But it’s clear who Gibbs’ real love interest in “Origins” will be: Mike Franks. It couldn’t happen to a nicer couple of ringers.

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Barry episode 4.08 "Wow"

Bill Hader in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

There is really no better word to describe this show than unique. Which might sound like I’m sugarcoating a less than positive reception, but this time I mean unique in the very best way. I often say, in writing and in life, that it’s a good thing when there’s nothing else like you in the world. If someone’s already done what you want to do exactly the way you want to do it, then what’s left for you to do?

Barry is so itself. I generally categorize tv into either a drama or a comedy and don’t really break it down any more than that, but Barry forces the issue of nuance. It’s a true dramedy in the way it combines short form narrative with a gritty action/thriller plot to tell a story that is, at its core, a deeply ironic commentary on the entertainment industry. It’s not haha funny, but the juxtaposition of the hit man/Chechen mob world with that of Hollywood highlights the senselessness and silliness of each. And the way the series wraps up really hits the nail on the head of these comedic themes told through a dramatic lens. I said “wow” out loud as the final credits began to roll, and then couldn’t hold back a smile as I learned that was the title of the episode.

This is one of those shows that has a very different feel by the end, and I think it’s because rather than people changing, we learn with more and more certainty who they have been all along. I had a friend watch this show all the way through for the first time recently, which was a fun journey to see unfold because I’ve been watching Barry from the beginning. She fell in love with it at first but was given some pause when Barry killed Janice Moss.

It felt different from his other killings, less justifiable. I remember feeling the same way when I first saw it, but as the show progresses, we realize this event isn’t an outlier, but rather our first glimpse into who he is and always has been. So much of the show is catalyzed by Janice’s death because it isn’t a moral gray area. It was wrong. But how do people handle right and wrong and justice when a coveted acting role is on the line? Or a lot of money? Or love? Or the flex of having a boyfriend and looking like you have your life together?

After avoiding an attempt on his life and escaping from prison, some deep flash forwards in season 4 find Barry living an intensely strange and religious life in the middle of nowhere with Sally and their young son John. Their house looks like it’s in the middle of open desert, much like where a young Barry once first met Fuches. Barry and Sally’s son doesn’t even know their real names. It’s pretty bleak, but Barry seems deeply deluded while Sally and John are miserable.

At this point, we’re not even pretending that Barry is somewhat sane. In no way is he the good guy, or even the anti-hero of this story. He’s deeply childlike, his entire moral compass being driven by the father figure he’s latched on to- we’ve watched it shift from Fuches to Gene Cousineau after a phase of teen-like rebellion, and when he was rejected by both of them, we watched him spiral, absolutely lost with no sense of direction. It seems that after this he couldn’t make sense of the world without turning to the ultimate father figure- God.

The thing about God is you can put words into His mouth, and he can’t dispute them. We’ve seen his pious life with Sally and John but this episode especially had a very darkly religious underbelly as Barry returned to LA to kill Gene, listening all the while to a Christian radio station debating the ethics of murder.

When Sally and John are kidnapped by Noho Hank as a ploy to deliver Barry to Fuches (more on all of them in a minute), Fuches is deeply moved by Barry’s son. In an abrupt but sincere change of heart, he lets Barry, Sally, and John all go. In the previous episode, in one of the best depictions I’ve ever seen of a character ‘deciding’ to do something, she had tried unsuccessfully to give up Barry and turn herself in. The thought of continuing to live as they had been, with no end in sight, was unfathomable to her. That night, after escaping Noho Hank and Fuches, Sally urges Barry to turn himself in. Barry’s takeaway, though, is that he has been spared and redeemed by God. He tells Sally she must just be tired, and, in the morning, they’ll get out of LA and clear their heads.

Anthony Carrigan in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Unsurprisingly, Barry wakes up the next morning with Sally and John nowhere to be found. In a panic, he rushes to Gene’s house, convinced they’re there. Instead, he only finds Gene’s lawyer, who also encourages Barry to turn himself in as Gene as somehow twisted himself into looking responsible for this whole thing. Barry was never going to do that, but the interaction is cut short by Gene entering the room with a gun and shooting Barry in the chest. Barry looks down at his wound, up at Gene, and says a genuinely earnest “oh wow” before Gene puts another bullet between his eyes.

One of my favorite things about Barry is the very realistic use of speed and sound. This is the kind of moment we’d expect to have a lot of buildup, a highly emotional scene, but it’s very abrupt. It all happens fast- as fast as it would in life, without ample time to reflect. And this also drives home the point that Barry is just a very tragic pawn. He was a pawn to Fuches and Hank, and even to Sally and Gene, though in their case a poorly used one that led to their downfall. He was also a pawn to the narrative, as all the thematic takeaways really have to do with everyone else and how they used Barry, rather than Barry himself.

So let’s talk about these other guys. To me, by the end, there are two important throughlines to this story, both of which involve Barry but neither of which are about him. First, there’s Gene Cousineau and his addiction to attention. When the flash forwards begin, he’s been off the grid, but he emerges when he hears that a movie is being made about Barry and his killing of Janice. Janice’s father is still intently investigating the murder and his suspicions of Gene are confirmed when Barry (in a childlike apology) inadvertently confesses to having given Gene $250,000.

Jim Moss is smart. Gene receives a call from an agent wanting to talk to Gene about someone playing him in the movie about Barry. He doesn’t want to hear it, that is until the agent admits that the actor is Daniel Day Lewis, wanting to come out of retirement to play Gene Cousineau. Gene’s tune changes on a dime. He agrees to meet with the agent, where he overindulges in his self-importance and clandestine admissions that he was like a father to Barry, that Barry is misunderstood and would have listened to anything Gene had to say. He even went so far as to try to humanize him so that Mark Wahlberg- up for the part of Barry- wouldn’t feel bad about playing a cop killer. The incident he is supposedly outraged over, that ruined his life, is actually not so bad if he’s going to be credited in its star-studded dramatization.

Charles Parnell, Robert Wisdom, and Gary Kraus in "Wow'. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Gene and the agent hurry back to the office to meet with Mark, where we learn that the ‘agent’ was an actor hired by Jim Moss, who now believes Gene to be complicit in Janice’s murder, if Barry loved him so much and was such a ‘sympathetic soul’. Gene’s dug himself a hole he can’t dig himself out of, which brings us to the moment Barry arrives at his house looking for Sally and John. Barry is the only one who could clear Gene’s name, but Gene kills him before he gets the chance.

In another decade’s long flash forward, John, now in his late teens, amicably parts ways with Sally. He goes home with a friend and steels himself to watch the movie that really did get made about Barry, Gene, and everything that happened. The movie ends with on-screen text revealing that Gene is serving life in prison for the murders of both Janice and Barry, while Barry is buried in Arlington memorial cemetery with honors.

Again, it’s not ha-ha funny, but it’s a grimly comical look at the extent to which Hollywood will twist tragedy for the spotlight, even to its own detriment. It’s a satire in which all of these bleak characters are the punchline. But what really gives this theme heart, is Noho Hank. The character who started out as the comic relief for this series ends up being the real emotional gut punch. It’s hard to sympathize with Gene, who brought all this on himself with his sleazy personality, but Hank was endearing and his love for Cristobal was real.

Hank and Cristobal were both the comedic and emotional light to this show in the last couple seasons. They were both fun and funny, and they were so entrenched in the violent realm of this story that their violence was more normalized than Barry’s- it was more reminiscent of an action comedy than a poignant ethical dilemma. You can’t help but root for them, especially as they embark on something as silly and harmless as selling sand.

But Hank didn’t want to settle for selling sand. He wanted a life with Cristobal, but he wanted that life to be an empire. So he made some plans behind Cristobal’s back, killing their partners in the sand venture and shaking hands with people Cristobal would never have agreed to. When Cristobal finds out, Hank begs him to get on board, knowing what will happen if he doesn’t. But Cristobal insists on walking out, promptly to get shot dead before he can reach his car.

Hank mourns this, but gets back to work, even partnering with Fuches to build his empire. But when Fuches toasts to Hank, and his willingness to sacrifice Cristobal to make this happen, Hank snaps. Hank refuses to admit to sacrificing Cristobal, and in fact, their deal is off for Fuches having even suggested it. The two quickly end up in a violent feud, trying to kill each other as everything else in this season progresses. Eventually, though, it’s clear that Hank is no match for Fuches, leading to his abduction of Sally and John. This was his white flag to Fuches, if he would come over to Hank’s compound he will use Barry’s family to lure Barry there and deliver him to Fuches.

This is where Fuches has his first human moment of maybe his entire life. He looks at John and admits to Hank that he is a bad person who does bad things- and he is ready to put all the weapons down if Hank will just admit the same thing. If he will say out loud that he is responsible for Cristobal’s death, they can put this all behind them. Hank and Fuches both have a small army with them, and the crowd is silent as Hank thinks and tears well up in his eyes. But he can’t do it. He can’t admit to himself what he and everyone in the room already know to be true. He opens fire, and everyone follows suit. Everyone dies, save for Fuches, Sally, and John.

Anthony Carrigan in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Hank has his final moments sitting at the feet of a statue of Cristobal. Blood drips from his mouth as something in another plane makes him gasp and whimper in fear. His hand shoots up and grasps Cristobal’s bronze fingers. And then he dies.

I honestly don’t even have any guesses as to what he saw, but I think the takeaway is that it wasn’t good. To me, this is the real heart and heartbreak of Barry. The real consequences of denial, of being power-hungry, of refusing to take accountability. It adds stakes and emotion to Gene Cousineau’s silly little tale of the same pitfalls. I watch Gene and Sally and the whole Hollywood scene, and think “wow, entertainment really is like that. Our world today really is like that”. Then I watch the Shakespearean tragedy that is Hank’s story and think “wow that is so sad”. Together, they make Barry an on-point reflection of our society, and a cautionary tale of the consequences of all those traits. And it really just made me say wow.

Did you say wow? What do you make of Gene’s killing Barry, or of Sally letting him in to the extent that she did? Did the ending hit for you or were the flash forwards too much? Let me know!

[hautsreadsmarvel]

In the orbit of the Avengers… (1963; Captain America, Iron Man, Namor)

In which we follow the adventures of a solo Avenger, an Avenger emeritus… and Namor the First, the Avenging Son, rightful ruler of Atlantis, and various other sundry titles, whom as we will see receives very little of the respect he is due from the writers.

Cap (2 issues)

After stopping three Nazi robots from blowing up the Earth, Captain America fights and later teams up with Batroc the Leaper, a Pepe Le Pew-sounding French footboxer. They have to steal a super-explosive cylinder from SHIELD before it levels the city, but once they have it they fight. Inexplicably, Batroc is the only combatant to ever deflect Captain America’s shield - with a kick, he accomplishes what robots, Asgardians, and the frickin’ Minotaur of Hellenic myth all failed to do. Never skip leg day folks.

Namor (4 issues)

Where last we left off, Namor had secured his throne against the usurper warlord Krang, only for a series of worsening earthquakes to plague his people. It turns out to be an elaborate way to reintroduce Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne (Giant-Man and the Wasp) to the story. It also leads to this:

Now for those not aware, the Puppet Master has in fact already tried to use Namor to defeat the F4. When he did so, he made sure Namor had full access to his superpowered fish and all the technology of his undersea abode. This did not go well for the Puppet Master. He should remember that.

What I’m trying to get at is that this is a stupid development. It’s not even a retcon. It’s just stupid.

In fact, the august royal personage of Namor realizes this plot is stupid, and so simply chooses not to do it. Thank you, Namor.

The next two issues aren’t even worth discussing. This entire meandering set of Namor issues is just to set up future Avengers (and ex-Avengers) adventures, including the logic for why Namor will antagonize the surface world once more. Bleh. Give me Namor content, for Namor! It’s his own blamed series, innit?! His name on the cover?? But no, we have to spend four meandering issues to make him be an Avengers villain and set up why Giant-Man and the Wasp would return. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

At least he looks real good in the cape.

Iron Man (6 issues)

Iron Man fights the Mandarin and his gigantic humanoid attack robot, Ultimo. I know “the mystic Orient” was a very popular trope back in the day (I was actually going to write something about how modern-day discourse frowns on it compared to the 60’s, but… does it?), but apparently Ultimo could only have been created with by “combining the mystic secrets of the Far East, with the scientific wonders of the West”. I’m tired boss. This is tiring.

Almost as irksome is how underwhelming Ultimo is. We know it’s big, indestructible, and has eye beams, but the art fails to convey at any point how big it is, and it loses in one boring clash with Iron Man despite its indestructibility to its own eye beams.

And then Tony Stark returns to the USA and finds that Congress has shut down his business for refusing to show up in front of them and divulge the secrets of the Iron Man armor repeatedly. In conjunction with Giant-Man, the Wasp, the Hulk, and Thor basically losing their secret identities, this will assuredly lead to something similar with Iron Man…

…but first he has to fight Namor for three issues, because he accidentally got in the way of Namor’s pursuit of the treacherous Warlord Krang who abducted his lover Lady Dorma. The fights are good. The plot is thin. These issues were best read fast with an empty head. We will not think on them.

[savingthrcw]

okay but like, temporary post/bio to wrap my mind around it:

Temporary drafts to be fixed and made prettier later:

After Hank took the kids away, Rose spent the next six months plotting how to break into the Vault, take them, and save everyone else with Moldaver and her people. Then Hank bombs Shady Sands, on a day in which Moldaver is not home. (Why am I giving them six extra months after Lucy and Norm were taken back, with the excuse that Hank needed time to make it happen? To give time to Moldaver to actually fall in love with Rose in a way that canonically leads her to spend twenty years with her ghoul self tied to the chair. Lucy couldn't have been there for months if she's meant to forget it all.) so when we see the flashback is kinda love at first-sight but not love yet.

After the bomb she's almost fully gone, but the same creepy guy with the meds for Thaddeus offers them a 'fix it' vial. It "heals" Rose, in the sense that while she's still a ghoul she returns to her original human look, wounds cured, skin restored, but the psychological impact took away her memories. She did see the way she looked, remembers being feral, and it's burned into her brain.

Moldaver tells her about their love, which makes Rose remember those months, but no amount of telling can remind her of Lucy and Norm, she needs to see them. Not remembering them directly and being a ghoul with no chances at a normal life, she starts having less incentive to go get her daughter and son, because what can she offer them? Hank sends them a message soon after, that he'd kill their kids before letting them be destroyed by life on the surface (he's bluffing, but would you not buy it from the guy who dropped another bomb?) and that seals the deal. Memories of life at the Vault come back later, but mostly pre-kids. 

canon divergence for Lucys and people in general who reached the Observatory: Moldaver wouldn't obviously have her there at the dining table, she'd tell Lucy that her father dropped the bomb, turned her into a ghoul, and Rose left due to the heartbreak, because Hank threatened to kill her and Norm if she tried to come back and take them (cue Hank saying he had to do to protect them from a woman who had already taken them on the surface, he did the right thing!)

appearance: Rose's right side of the body starts turning ghoul-like as years pass, now it involves her entire left arm, part of her upper chest and neck, which she always covers so she can "pass" and so that she doesn't have to see it (it doesn't bother her to see other ghouls, it's just her own body, which she remembers to be so much worse pre-vial). Every time she ends up nearly feral due to the lack of vials, more of her body 'dies'. She doesn't age besides the 'decay' bit, but she's 40+ by now. She wears cute things and strategically hides all the ghoul-looking parts. Big smiles and vault-lingo (also a fuck you to Hank and the world for trying to tell her who to be) 

personality:

She's STILL hanging onto her old personality as a spiteful 'fuck you' to Hank and what he did to her, is still optimistic and still tries to help people (like Lucy would) and can be passive-aggressive, sarcastic and hold a grudge (like Norm), smart, curious, impossibly so. But also extremely insecure due to the whole ghoul thing. Her kids both took after her, but she's more than the mix of them. She definitely kills people as needed, it's just that if she can cook for them and be cute she'd rather pick that option. She's scared of her own violence, she's seen the way she's meant to become (the ghoul we saw in canon) and acting like a feral one doesn't make her feel great. 

fighting:

Definitely has the Black Widow fighting down, and regular non-automatic guns are her secondary weapon. 

Shipping:

she's bi, she was IN love with Hank until he showed his true colors, fell for Moldaver who was always honest to her. But for potential shipping purposes, since I love shipping, we'll say that unless you write a Moldaver and you want to ship it, in which case they are absolutely married, the Ghoulness got too much in the way because of her insecurities, as well as the baggage of missing her children, and they parted ways amicably if with a lot of pain. She's probably in her mid-fourties, keep that in mind. ))

now:

Part of her is waiting for her kids, sure they'll figure out something is wrong and come out of the Vault too. She's in contact with Moldaver in any case, and with more people all over the Wasteland, so she can be told if they show up. Currently though, she works as a bounty hunter, but in a weirdly nice way? But because she kinda sucks at it since she doesn't want to capture people unless they are bad, mostly she gives a hand in one of Vegas' kitchen, and that gets her a lot of caps because people love her food SO MUCH that it's just convenient to let her do her thing.

[talk-like-boomhauer]

Hank Boomhauer's Guide to Punch Dialogues

Howdy there, folks! Today, we're gonna delve into the mysterious realm of punch dialogues. Now, I tell you what, if you ain't sure what a punch dialogue is, well, dang it, you ain't alone! But fear not, because your friendly neighborhood Hank Boomhauer is here to explain it to ya! You see, a punch dialogue is like a verbal haymaker, a knockout blow in the form of words. It's when someone says somethin' so dang witty, snappy, or clever that it hits you harder than an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist. Now, let me give you an example so y'all ain't lookin' at me like a lost dog chasin' its tail. Remember that time ol' Peggy tried cookin' dinner and ended up burnin' everything? Well, I walked in and said, 'Peggy, you're so bad at cookin', you could burn water.' Boom! That right there was a punch dialogue, folks! A good punch dialogue is like a jalapeno pepper - it's got a kick that'll leave you laughin' and cryin' all at once. It's the kind of comeback that'll make you slap your knee and snort out your sweet tea. But I gotta warn ya, punch dialogues ain't for the faint of heart. It takes the perfect timing, a quick wit, and a healthy dose of Dale's paranoia to come up with 'em. It's like tryin' to catch a greased pig at a county fair - dang near impossible unless you know what you're doin'. So next time you're in a conversation and you wanna leave 'em all speechless, remember to bring out your best punch dialogue. It's like dang ol' cotton candy at the state fair - it melts in their mouth and leaves 'em wantin' more. Just don't go overboard and drop 'em left and right, or you'll end up soundin' like them danged internet memes. Well, folks, I hope y'all enjoyed this here crash course on punch dialogues. Now you can go out into the world and sling words around like Bobby swingin' his dang golf club. Until next time, keep it snazzy and keep 'em laughin'!