#Also my mom has threatened to abandon me and leave for Florida just because I wanna go to a different school

[homobrainjuice]

god forbid I eat dinner with my family and the only two moots I talk to have to leave like actually fuck me

[intothestarkerverse]

Welcome to My Dark Side (2)

Sequel to ‘Time of Our Lives’

Tony Stark has done his best to fit into the 21st century by embracing his new role, new family, and even his new nicknames.  Determined to become a hero worthy of calling Peter Parker his life partner, everything seems to be going better than he could have hoped…until Tony’s efforts to help Peter uncover the truth behind his parents’ death put everything he knows and loves in terrible danger.  In the face of absolute darkness, how can love and life survive?

(STORY CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS)

Read on AO3

“You have breakfast yet?”  Tony eyed the six year old perched on a stool at his breakfast counter.  Her responding expression was beyond her sparse years, little mouth drawn into a serious frown, brows furrowed, dark eyes humorless with their intensity.  “Guess I should ask if you had anything good for breakfast, instead, right?”  Without waiting for a response, he turned back to his cupboards, plucking two bowls, two spoons, a carton of milk and a box of cereal out before precariously balancing his bounty back across the kitchen to the counter.

Morgan immediately perked up at the sight of the sugary breakfast treat that Pepper tried very hard to keep away from her growing daughter.  The fact that she had dumped Morgan on him this morning because she had an early morning conference call with someone in Japan just meant that Tony had a chance to spoil her, and spoil her he would.  Tony couldn’t bring himself to look on her as a daughter no matter what genetics said about the matter, but he’d always wanted a little sister and Morgan Stark was special in every single sense of the word.  He loved that kid and he’d happily murder anyone who even breathed on her wrong.

Morgan examined the box of cereal carefully as Tony prepared their meal, amused by the sugar-covered pieces of processed grain in the shape of tiny arc reactors and corresponding red and gold iron man helmet-shaped marshmallows.  “Let’s not tell your mom about this, huh?”

Morgan cocked her head at him, providing him with a half smirk as she chewed.

“Yeah, okay, don’t know what that means.  Kid, you’re the most cryptic six-year-old I’ve ever met.”  He enjoyed a few spoonfuls of his own bowl before he thought to ask, “Happy’s taking you to school in a bit, right?”  Pepper hadn’t said anything about Tony playing chauffeur, but he also hadn’t been paying much attention when the mother and daughter had arrived early that morning either.  Pepper could count her lucky stars that he didn’t require a lot of sleep and that he was still almost obsessively focused on the puzzle that Fury had presented to him after the fundraiser or he’d likely have been down for the count like most of the civilized folk in Manhattan at that hour.  As it was, he’d been deeply ensconced in his workshop with something that was going to benefit his future plans with Peter...a project he’d had to artfully hide from Pepper before she connected the dots and realized something he’d rather she not know.  

“Mhm,” Morgan barely afforded him a grunted response around her heaping mouthful of cereal.  It really was a shame how Pepper fed this kid.  Cutting sugar out of her breakfast food regimen was un-American.  School plans settled, the two fell into a companionable silence, eating their cereal and glancing over the graphics of the Old Man on the box from time to time.  Some kind of idle statistics about his do-gooding and IQ adorned the back.  The IQ was off by twenty points.  He was going to have to make them fix that.  

Tony didn’t realize Morgan had finished her cereal until he looked up from the box to find her staring at him with that same intense expression.  “You okay, Maguna?”

“How come you and daddy are the same?”

Tony almost spit his cereal out.  Somehow, he managed to swallow it in a gulp and stall for time with a little coffee as he coughed and sputtered on the soggy grain and milk.  “Uh, well, it’s just genetics kid.  You and the Old Man are a lot alike, too.”

“Um...no.  You and daddy are just alike, TJ.”

“Okay...well...there’s an explanation for that...”

Morgan pursed her lips and raised both brows at him, moving to a kneeling position on the stool so she could lay across the counter and reach out to place her hands on his face.  “You look just the same.  And sound just the same.  And your fingers are the same.  You’re the same as my daddy.”

Yeah, okay, so she was a Stark and he really should have seen this coming.  He could almost pity Howard in this moment if this gave him any clue about what he’d been like as a six year old.  Christ.  Tony cleared his throat, searching for something to say to explain it all away.  Instead, all he could do was stall for time.  “How did you figure this out, Kid?”

“Miss Friday helped me.”

“Seriously? What do you have to sat for yourself, Fri?”

“You told me to assist in Morgan’s education whenever possible, Boss.”  Tony let out a long sigh, that had not been what he meant.  “She asked me about your fingerprints and voice analysis and how they corresponded to Mr. Stark’s so I provided her with detailed comparisons of both.”

Tony tapped the back of the little girl’s hand on his cheek with his finger.  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

“Cause I am.”

“Mhm, and what made you think to compare my fingerprints and voice with your father’s?”

“My teacher said everybody has a voice that is just their own and not like anybody else in the whole wide world but you and daddy sound just alike.  Sometimes when you put me to bed I close my eyes and pretend you’re him.”

God, she was actually trying to kill him, now.  Tony felt his throat constrict as he plucked her hands off of his face and gave them a tight squeeze.  “I’m not your daddy, Morgan.  I wish I was because you’re so damn smart and beautiful and amazing, but I’m not.  You’re right, though, I’m not you’re brother either.  I just....I really need your mom and everyone else to believe that I am so can this be our little secret and I promise that sometime real soon I’ll sit down and tell you everything, okay?  For now...believe me when I tell you that your daddy is out there watching everything you do and he’s so freaking proud of you kid.  Whenever you see a rainbow or a shooting star or something crazy good happens to you out of the blue, that’s your dad telling you how much he loves you.”

“3000.”

Tony blinked away the tears in his eyes, clearing his throat and abandoning the counter to tidy up.  “Exactly.”

“Boss, Happy is here to pick up Morgan for school...” Saved by the AI.

“You hear that, Maguna?  Get a move on or you’ll be late.  Wait...I want a hug first.  Yep, that’s the stuff right there.”  He buried his nose in the little girl’s hair for a moment and gave it a good ruffle with his fingers before he let go.    “Be good and kick butt in school, okay?  Love you, kid.”

“I love you too, TJ.”

“3000?”

A pause.  “2005.”

“Ouch.”

~~~~~

“I’m still not sure about this.”

“What’s not to be sure about, Beautiful?  I’ve thought of everything.”

Peter turned back to the holographic read outs with a long sigh.  They were blueprints of the old Oscorp labs, or at least what little information Tony had been able to hack his way into at Shield, along with a few other reports that looked like weather and topographic readouts of the area.  Peter knew that this was their best bet, but he didn’t like it.  He didn’t think he could attribute it to his Spidey Sense, or Peter Tingle as the rest of the Avengers had taken to calling it (thanks to May).  No, it didn’t feel quite the same.  There was no sense of impending danger, just a heavy blanket of foreboding that was threatening to choke off his air supply.  Tony obviously didn’t feel the same, so maybe he was just being silly.  Or maybe he wasn’t.

Peter was supposed to tell May that he was going on a spring break trip with Tony, MJ, and Ned.  While MJ and Ned were actually going to go to Florida to live it up, he and Tony were heading to upstate New York to infiltrate Osborn’s lab.  Ned would be armed with a special Stark Phone that Tony had outfitted with the tech to provide realistic synthetic substitutes of Tony and Peter.  If May or Pepper sent texts, they were going to get varied and believable responses meant to replicate the young men’s actual speech and text patterns.  If they called or video chatted, a variant of the BARF technology was going to provide a realistic computerized response that would again fool the older women into thinking they were both in Florida living the good life by utilizing actual noise pollution and visuals from Ned and MJ’s vacation.  The guilt of leaving May at the airport thinking they were taking Tony’s private jet to Florida when they were instead flying headfirst into danger...it was almost suffocating and he couldn’t ignore the worry any longer.  “What happens if we’re not back in a week, Tony?”

“If we’re not back by the time that MJ and Ned have gotten back, than Friday is going to reveal our true destination to May, Pepper, and Fury so arrangements can be made.”

Funeral arrangements or just rescue mission arrangements?  Peter wanted to ask, but he knew better than to say any of that out loud.  He and Tony rarely fought, but Peter knew that nothing made Tony angrier than mentioning their own mortality.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”  Because Peter wasn’t sure at all.  He’d heard Tony’s argument a hundred times but part of him still felt sick at what they were planning to do.

“Your parents are out there.  They’re alive.  We don’t leave men behind.  Besides, if there is something big and nasty coming than we need to know what it is and how to stop it.  I refuse to do what the Avengers did and just sit around waiting for the Big Bad to come knocking down our door.  We’re not going to be surprised again, Peter.  Whatever this bad thing is...we’re going to identify it and even after we close that gateway...we’re going to be ready for it because there’s no guarantee that closing the gateway will end the danger.  None.”

Peter could only nod slowly.  “Yeah, okay.  No, you’re right.  Of course you are.  I’m just...I’m nervous about getting my hopes up and visiting another world and just...everything.”

Tony laughed, reaching out to tug Peter across the room and into his arms.  His lips ghosting against the younger man’s, breath hot against Peter’s mouth as he embraced him, “We had sex in two different times, Baby, now we get to consummate parallel earths.  Tell me that’s not hot as fuck.”

“Depends on the parallel earths.”

Tony snorted a laugh as he nuzzled into Peter’s neck and nipped at his ear, “You need to stop worrying.  We’re superheroes, Baby.  Arguably the two best superheroes on the planet.”

“Only because Thor is off world with the Guardians...”

“Honestly, you and Thor.  If I didn’t know better, I’d be jealous.”

Their conversation died off as the Quinjet came to a quiet landing.  Peter held onto Tony for several more seconds, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of the older man in an attempt to calm the frenzied beating of his heart.  Finally, though, he gently pushed himself away and tapped his watch to engage the Ironspider suit.

Several things became apparent to Peter as the two descended the ramp from the cloaked jet plane.  This was clearly going to be even more difficult than Peter had thought.  Fury hadn’t been lying when he said that Shield had sealed the lab in an attempt to prevent anything from the Gateway from breaching the outside world.  From outward appearances, it looked like the entire building had been encased in a giant block of cement.  “Uh, so...” 

“Don’t worry, I had the Iron Legion working on our way in for the last twenty-four hours.  Believe it or not, inside this cement, there’s another layer of titanium.  Anyway, it took six suits, but we have a way in.  Follow me.”  Iron Man circled the building with Spidey close on his heals.  The moment they turned the corner, Peter could see the suits.  It appeared that they’d concentrated their repulsers into a succession of laser-like beams that had sliced a rectangular chunk of cement and metal to reveal one of the doors on the blueprints.  “I’m leaving them on guard duty while we’re gone.  Friday will make sure that nothing comes out of this facility until we get back...and if by some miracle something gets by, she’ll radio the New Avengers.  You don’t have to worry, Pete.”

“Famous last words.”  It was in times like this that Peter found himself missing Mr. Stark.  Tony just hadn’t experienced the level of failure and defeat that Mr. Stark, or even Peter, had.  He didn’t know to expect the worst, but Peter did.  He cast a wary glance at the Iron Legion, biting his tongue as Tony moved for the door.

It came open with a pop, the musty smell of stale air, dust and mildew washed out around them.  Peter only got the smallest whiff before he felt the filtration system in the suit come online. 

The interior looked like nothing but darkness.  No light could penetrate from the concrete and titanium covered walls, so there was nothing visible beyond a few feet into the entry.  It wasn’t as if Mr. Stark hadn’t thought of those concerns a long time ago.  Something as mundane as darkness was hardly any match for Iron Man.  Lighting and night vision had been built into the earliest models of the suit, after all.  As Iron Man stepped into the abyss beyond, that tech came online to illuminate the area around him and several feet in front of him.  A similar array of artificial illumination ignited on the Ironspider suit as well.  Gulping back his fear, Peter reached out to close the door behind them and they were bathed in black.

The entire facility was filthy, awash with dust, debris, and cobwebs.  Out of the corner of his eye, Peter caught sight of what he could only assume was the corpse of a fallen Shield Agent, but he did his best to avoid looking at it for too long.  Still, the momentary glimpse of the skeleton was burned onto is retinas.  “Tony...”

There was something wrong with that sight.  The body.  As much as he wanted to avoid looking, he couldn’t help but glance back towards it.  “Tony, if the building is sealed...how is that body not mummified...”

Tony was already bending over it to examine the bones as the oddity of the body struck him as wrong at almost the same time.  “I think these are tooth marks...”. He held up an ulna, running an armored finger over the grooves on the bone.  “These are definitely toothmarks.  Friday says they appear...humanoid.”

Peter certainly hoped that Tony couldn’t hear him gulping in fear behind his own mask....but with the sensitive comms, he probably could.  “Tony...what are we locked in here with?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s just...be careful, and hope that Peter Tingle of yours is on point tonight.”

“Spidey sense.”

“Hmm,” Tony reverently replaced the bone and stood, brushing off his gauntlets.  

“I prefer the term ‘Spidey Sense.’ “

“Give me one good reason why I should call it Spidey Sense, Baby, because that name isn’t nearly as funny...”

“Because you’re the only thing that makes my peter tingle.”

Tony had to brace himself against the wall to support himself as he laughed.   “God, Beautiful, every time I don’t think I could love you more...you go and drop one of those gems on me.  Damn.”

Peter’s response was lost on his lips.  He felt the telltale warning of danger shiver down his spine as he caught sight of movement just at the periphery of their location.  There wasn’t time to warn him, there was really only time for Peter to fire a quick line of webbing at his lover and tug him back as something dark and terrifying lunged from the shadows.  Peter could swear he could hear it moaning the word ‘meat.’  

“What the fuck...” A repulser blast bit into the wall inches from the creature, scorching its arm and the tatters of what appeared to be clothing and once more driving it back into the shadows before either hero could get a good look at it.  “Well, at least we know what ate the bodies...”

“Yeah, Tony, that’s not nearly as comforting as you think it is.”  Even worse, perhaps, were the observations from both Karen and Friday that the creature had no heat signature and wouldn’t be visible on infrared.  Now their trek through the building was much more careful and calculated.  There were signs of the creatures everywhere.  Claw marks on the walls, ransacked rooms, shattered furniture, the little skeletons of rats and mice and anything else unfortunate enough to have been sealed into the lab with them.  It was only the knowledge of the Parkers’ distress call that kept Peter moving through the corpse of the once thriving laboratory.  His parents were alive.  They’d escaped this place, and so would he and Tony.  They just had to.

At least Tony seemed to know where he was going.  He’d studied the blueprints much longer than Peter and had no doubt pinpointed precisely where a lab with a dimensional gateway would be located.  Neither man mentioned the occasional sound of shuffling footsteps, the soft grunts and moans, the momentary glimpses of shifting shadows.  There were clearly more than one of those things in there with them, but for the moment, they were hanging back.  Maybe Tony had scared them with the repulser.  Or, maybe as with many of the hunters in the animal kingdom, they were stalking their prey and waiting for exactly the right moment to strike.

The Gateway didn’t look anything like Peter had imagined it would.  Shows like Stargate had always made them out to be large and imposing, a shifting, whirling mass of colors housed within an intricate metal or stone structure that provided it shape.  This portal was anything but. 

Peter could barely make it out without one of the specialized lenses of his suit.  To the naked eye, it appeared as little more than the somewhat fluid appearance of very hot air on a humid July day.  It was in that subtle wavering of the light that the slightest glimpse of a world beyond their own could be captured...but never long enough to make anything out.  A quick sweep of the area showed that the portal was being maintained by a strip of metal along the ground that was joined to a large and imposing computer.  While Peter had been examining the Portal, Tony had been taking stock of the technology.

“They cut off power to the lab in the hopes that it would cause the Gateway to close.  It didn’t, which means that whatever is powering this portal isn’t coming from our dimension anymore.”

“That’s comforting.”  Peter reached out to touch the shimmering air.  As his finger hit the air, the tip of it vanished.  He felt nothing.  No pain, no tingling, no disconnection.  Nothing to suggest it was a portal to another world besides the fact that the tip of his finger had vanished before his very eyes.

“Peter, stop poking the portal.  It has a radiation signature...”

The young man withdrew his hand quickly, glad that Tony couldn’t see what he was certain was a guilty look on his face.  Neither of the men had withdrawn their suits since entering the laboratory.  The air inside the lab was breathable, if their read outs were any suggestion, but also so stale that it would likely not be pleasant for either one of them.  Besides, with those monsters running around, it seemed smart to have some kind of protection on hand.  Now, with what looked like a radiation signature emanating from the portal...the suits were staying on for the foreseeable future.

Tony was busy patching one of the main computer terminals into a handheld arc reactor to allow him to reboot and access the information they both hoped was still accessible on the hard drives while Peter was pacing the lab like a nervous animal in a zoo.  Just like a nervous animal in a zoo, he could feel what was an indeterminate amount of eyes trained on his every movement and his inability to know where they were or what they were planning was making his every instinct scream warnings in his head.

Desperate for some distraction, Peter started to look more closely at the room itself.   It looked as if the place had just been abandoned in the middle of a shift.  There as a mug of coffee by one terminal with what appeared to be dried contents of a cup still housed within it.  A stack of granola bars and food from what must have been a break room vending machine  sat next to a swath of complicated equations that Peter picked up and shuffled through silently.  Not everything was immaculate, however.  A few desks had been upturned.  Chairs broken.  There were bullet holes in the wall near the door and the door itself had clearly been forced open from the outside by organic means.

“I think...I think after they sealed them in here, my mom and dad must have gathered some supplies and tried to stick it out in here.  But um...whatever’s out there...it must have wanted them pretty bad.”

Tony glanced up from the computer, the expressionless mask of his armor giving Peter no hint as to what was going on in the mind beneath.  

Peter’s foot met with something on the floor and it skittered forward.  Upon closer inspection, he recognized an old school camcorder with a tape still housed inside.  “You um...you think you can make this work?”

Tony had already Jerry-rigged a thumb drive to the computers’ memory to download any and all information he could.  Waving Peter over, he took the camcorder and in a matter of minutes had it once more powered up, tape rewound.

For several seconds it appeared to be a tape recording the team’s initial attempt to establish the Gateway.  Then, the scene cut out and a familiar face came into frame.

She was a little older and much less put-together than she had been the last time that Tony and Peter had seen her, but there was no mistaking Mary Parker for all that she and Peter resembled one another.  She was dirty, sweating, tired, but still very much alive as she addressed the camera.

“If you’re seeing this, than that means you came back for us...which...all due respect, Fury, but that was stupid.  I told you we’d be okay if you sealed us in here, that we’d figure something out...and we did.  I think.  I hope.  No, I’m sure that we did.”

A loud sound shook the frame and with wide eyes Mary glanced off camera where Richard was shouting “Hurry up, Mary, we don’t have a lot of time here.”

“Right.  Right.  We can’t stay here, Fury.  The anomalies are...they’re not like we thought.  They appear to have higher brain function, an ability to communicate.  They’ve displayed a remarkable ability to reason and hunt and now that they know they’re trapped in here with us...that we’re the only food supply left...they’re pretty determined to eat us.  So uh....it’s time to go.  And since we can’t get out of here through the door....we’re going to use the Gateway.”

“I’ve had a little bit of time to work on the math.  I think I understand how this thing works at least as well as the men who built it...which arguably isn’t very well.”  She held up the swath of complicated equations that Peter had seen on the desk nearby.  “It’s all here.  I’ll...leave if for you.  Hopefully...hopefully it‘ll still be here for you.”

Another loud sound, a curse from Richard, and Mary paled considerably.  “I’m sorry...I’m sorry I’ve got to cut this short.  I...I can’t shut the Gateway down because it’s not being powered by our dimension anymore.  Unless or until we find the power source, this thing is open for good...but I can change the world it opens up to.  We’re not going to the world where these things originated...but beyond that.  I don’t know.  I’m going to try to make it home, Fury.  But if we don’t...you keep your promise and you make sure my baby boy is taken care of, you hear me.  You owe us that.”

The sound of wood splintering, of those creatures hissing and screaming and moaning.  The camcorder dropped, still recording and slid against a desk, catching the image of Richard and Mary Parker as they ran through the Gateway to the screams of the monsters they left behind.

Peter closed the camcorder, hands trembling slightly.  “Tony...if those things are as smart as she says...why aren’t they coming after us?”

Tony hazarded a glance towards the broken door and rubbed the back of his neck with a gauntlet.  “I don’t know, Beautiful, but I don’t like it.”

Peter considered it for a moment.  “Maybe they’re trying to get out again...”

“I don’t care how scary they are, Peter, there’s no way they’re getting past the Iron Legion.”

“So...when they can’t get out the door and they realize that we’re the only food source...”

Tony cursed, “Yeah.  I think the ones we can hear are sentries...”

“They’re watching to make sure we can’t get away.”

“‘Fraid so.  Or hoping that when we get done here we’ll leave them an opening to get out.”

Peter was already gathering the papers his mother had left behind, stuffing them into a briefcase he’d found discarded beneath a desk.  He threw the camcorder in with it and after a moment’s hesitation grabbed the handful of granola bars as well.  They probably didn’t go bad, right?  And he might get hungry later.  “What I don’t get...is why they didn’t go through the portal, too.  If they’re smart and they’re hungry and they’ve been surviving in here for over a decade....why not try that other world out?”

“Because your mother was smart enough to leave it open to a location they wouldn’t be able to utilize, Pete.  Radiation signature.  Whatever is on the other side of that portal is deadly for them...at least as deadly as it would be for us.”

“But my parents...”

“They didn’t go through to that world, Pete.”  Tony gestured to a read out near the floor where a long alphanumeric sequence could be seen.  “You can see most of the readout on the video.  It’s not the same.  After your parents went through...they must have found a way to redial the Gateway and make sure it emptied to someplace...innocuous.”

Peter didn’t know if this new made him feel better or worse.  “Okay...so...what’s our next move...” His words died on his lips, replaced by an anguished cry brought on by what felt like the pain of being set on fire.  His Spidey-Sense had never felt like that before.  It had never been so strong that it was excruciating, but as his gaze moved from Tony to the doorway and he caught sight of what had triggered the tingle...Peter completely understood.

His Spidey Sense was right.  

They were so totally and completely fucked.

[introvertguide]

Midnight Cowboy (1969); AFI #43

Just by chance, our 43rd film to watch was #43 on the AFI list, Midnight Cowboy (1969). This story of the country mouse in the city won the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Both lead actors (Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman) were also nominated for Best Actor. To most people, it is a story of two men in dire straights with simple (if not a little odd) dreams that remain unfulfilled. Roger Ebert called it the story of “two characters who have nothing to offer the audience but their lost souls.” It is truly fantastic and one of my very favorite movies on the AFI top 100. I have done a lot of side articles on this film over the last week, so there isn’t much left to go over besides the plot and the final review:

COMPLETE SPOILERS! PLEASE WATCH THIS FILM BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER BECAUSE THE MOVIE IS SO GOOD! YOU DESERVE TO NOT HAVE THIS FILM SPOILED AND THERE IS ONE HUGE SPOILER IN THIS REVIEW! GO WATCH IT! LAST WARNING!

Joe Buck (a very young Jon Voight) is a young Texan who is quitting his job as a dishwasher to move to New York to be a male prostitute. There is reason for this which is explained through dreams and flashbacks, but it seems a little abrupt to start a movie. It does make the viewer really identify with Joe because we have all considered quitting a mundane job for some crazy scheme. He is excited about his prospects and manages to become the most annoying bus rider I think I have ever seen. I still like him though. 

On arrival, he is Initially unsuccessful in finding a sugar momma, but finally he manages to bed a middle-aged woman, Cass, in her posh Park Avenue apartment. The encounter ends badly when he asks for money because she thought he was just hitting on her and hadn’t discussed payment before anything happened. It goes especially wrong as he gives her money after she is insulted and throws a tantrum when he requests payment.

Joe did not have a lot of money and realizes he needs to find work soon. At a bar, Joe is saved from accidently trying to bed a gay man with strong feminine features. His savior turns out to be Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a con man with a limp who takes $20 from Joe in exchange for an introduction to a pimp. Joe soon discovers that the man is actually an unhinged homosexual religious fanatic, and Joe flees in pursuit of Ratso but cannot find him. Joe spends his days wandering the city and sitting in his hotel room. Soon broke, he is locked out of his hotel room, his belongings are impounded, and he is forced to live on the streets.  

Absolutely desperate, Joe tries to make money by receiving oral sex from a young man in a movie theater, but learns after the act that the young man has no money. Joe threatens him and asks for his watch, but eventually lets him go unharmed. The next day, Joe spots Ratso and angrily shakes him down. Ratso offers to share an apartment in a condemned building where he is squatting. Joe reluctantly accepts his offer, and they begin a "business relationship" as hustlers. As they develop a bond, it becomes apparent that Ratso's health is very poor and needs to live. Ratso speaks of moving to Florida where the two could live the good life working over older rich women. 

In a flashback, Joe's grandmother raises him after his mother abandons him. He also has a tragic relationship with Annie, a mentally unstable girl. The film has successive flashbacks to an experience in which he and Annie were jumped while naked in a parked car and both raped by a gang of cowboys. It becomes apparent that the women in Joe’s life were both fragile and gullible while the men took what the wanted and walked away from the carnage. His mom was impregnated and left by a man, his grandmother was grifted by a young man, and a bunch of men attacked and ruined his relationship. Joe has decided to take control and be the aggressive one, but he is not very good at it. 

Ratso tells Joe his father was an illiterate Italian immigrant shoe shiner whose job led to a bad back and lung damage from long-term exposure to shoe polish. Ratso learned shoe shining from his father but considers it degrading and generally refuses to do it, although he does shine Joe's cowboy boots to help him attract clients. Ratso continues to harbor hopes of moving to Miami, know shown in daydreams in which he and Joe frolic carefree on a beach and are surrounded by dozens of adoring middle-aged women.

Things get even more desperate because it is getting cold and Ratso’s apartment has no heat and his health is failing dramatically. An eccentric man and woman approach Joe in a diner and give them a flyer inviting them to an Andy Warhol-esque party.  Joe and Ratso attend, but Ratso's poor health and hygiene attract unwanted attention from several guests. Joe mistakes a joint for a cigarette and starts to hallucinate after taking several long puffs, which adds to some "uppers" he is offered. He leaves the party with Shirley, a socialite who agrees to pay him $20 for spending the night, but Joe cannot perform sexually. They play Scribbage together and the resulting wordplay leads Shirley to suggest that Joe may be gay, and suddenly he is able to perform. The next morning, she sets up her friend as Joe's next client and it appears that his career is finally taking off.

When Joe returns home, however, Ratso is bedridden and feverish. He refuses medical help and begs Joe to put him on a bus to Florida. Desperate, Joe picks up a man in an amusement arcade and robs him during a violent encounter in the man's hotel room where Joe brutally beats the man (it is implied that Joe may have killed the man). Joe buys bus tickets with the money so he and Ratso can board a bus to Florida. During the trip, Ratso's health deteriorates further as he becomes incontinent and sweat-drenched.

At a rest stop, Joe buys new clothing for Ratso and himself and discards his cowboy outfit. On the bus, Joe muses that there must be easier ways to earn a living than hustling, and tells Ratso he plans to get a regular job in Florida. When Ratso fails to respond, Joe realizes that he has died. The driver tells Joe there is nothing to do but continue to Miami and asks Joe to close Ratso's eyelids. Joe, with tears welling in his eyes, sits with his arm around his dead friend, alone. 

It is a dramatically relatable film that was surprisingly directed by an Englishman known also for TV movies and opera. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised because a lot of my favorite directors are English and I like simple character stories that would also do well on a stage. I have to say that I never have cheered for a character that wants to be a prostitute so much...probably because Joe Buck genuinely thinks of it as a dream job. The viewer just wants him to succeed because he is not trying to trick anybody and it is honest pay for honest work the way that he thinks of it. 

So does this movie belong on the AFI top 100? Undoubtedly. Oscar winning writing and directing, phenomenal acting, Grammy winning main song, memorable ad libs, and an iconic time capsulation of the seedy underbelly of New York in the 60s. It is great to see that an English director can make something so relatedly American. Would I recommend this? Absolutely...to adults or at least mature teens. There is some nudity and adult situations, but that is not the issue for me. In this film, a man chooses to perform homosexual acts out of desperation and, throughout the film, the lowliest people still look down on gay men (includes a fair number of homophobic slurs). It takes a mature brain to understand that it is the desperation of going against one’s own sexuality that is so bad and that the director is not merely saying that the worst thing could be that a man is gay. It seems straight forward to me, but I am not sure that younger kids would get it. But to any even slightly mature person, I would absolutely recommend. It is a great movie with a great story and I was glad to rewatch it (and I probably will again).

[crackinwise]

Found out where my mom learned her new fun trick. She went to that counselor i’ve mentioned before with all the lovely advice. Apparently my mom asked what to do when i’m “yelling” at her or something and the counselor said ignore me. Except, besides being horrible advice and maaaaaybe unethical for a counselor to just talk about a patient to a caretaker with such power without permission(?), my suspected-bpd mother used this to further control and sabotage me. Because every time my mother has used this it’s been over text. There is no yelling. And before there can be an argument or discussion of any kind, it’s “i don’t want to fight” and radio silence all day, then continued silence days after in my presence. (Eventually she starts talking again like nothing happened so that 180 is also a great mindfuck.)

But still, as proven last night, i can’t walk away when SHE’S physically here yelling at me over stupid shit. I go in my room and lock my door and it’s just screaming and insults and hurtful things thru the door as she (like she and my bro have done since childhood) breaks my lock and barges in to scream at my face. I said nothing. Once i threw her “i don’t want to fight” back at her then resumed silence. It didn’t help as the screaming emotional tear-down went on like 15 minutes. Classics include “bitch, ungrateful, heartless, controlling, crazy” and being compared to every relative my mother is known to despise.

Another new fun thing i may not have mentioned is she threatens to call the cops to have me committed to a mental hospital. It’s happened 3 times now. Reminds me of when my bro would misbehave as a kid and she’d threaten to take him to military school and watch him crumble into a terrified panicked mess. It’s a horrible thing to threaten a child with abandonment, and horrible to threaten your grown daughter with involuntary hospitalization. I don’t panic about it happening, but it is hurtful. Now, i don’t know the laws on it in Florida but i’d imagine like most places the cops or emts would have to see evidence of self-harm before they cart you off? Like, if a mental health professional makes the call i think they immediately take you for up to 72hrs, but if it’s just a relative or friend i think (hope) they’d need proof or a court order, yeah? Cuz cops would come over, see no marks on me, count my meds and do the math from when they were filled to see i didn’t OD, find me lucid and probably just crying that my mother went this far, and....what? Be really annoyed at this dumb domestic call and leave? 

I can’t even imagine what would happen if i was forced into a mental hospital over my mom’s tantrum. It’s so low. Would she even care if i was mistreated there or the stay affected any credibility i’d have applying for jobs or stuff in my future?

[the-firebird69]

Your motorcycle idea is the best thing we've ever had and we provide them for all of our teams that are safe and behind the wall and there are tons of them by the way they have huge armies of people that's how they get around for the most part it's really easy and you have to go short distance and get on to get off and get on to get off it's very easy and something like four wheelers but it's okay we have tons of those lots of them like the new VW Lunatic and we have just a huge boatload of those and they don't require a fuel so it saves us fuel for weaponry and ships and so brilliant way to get things done and if you have to charge up which we told them how and we trained you can it's an amazing system it's not recommended though but they had to.

We are introducing it now and a lot of places entertainment areas of satanists like their roller coasters and amusement parks theme parks carnivals and circuses and where giving away them free as a contest and we're circulating marketing material as a result of the entries and we're doing it at practically every mall on Earth we have the whole family there and then we have some big honking cruisers and hot rods or really he calls them choppers and we have the light cycles and we put them in a bunch of malls too and put them there high tech areas and tons of people buy them and we're infiltrating using them so we need people to sign on for these duties

Hera Zues

I'm providing a way in for hours in here we're putting in shops and lots of little ones and they're selling our products in each product has a shop and we're going to put in your mega vape store it's huge you just gigantic and has every brand and make that they that they make and we're taking them over too and we're putting in these Mega stores everywhere and taking over all the vape stores as we do it and here in town we're taking over a whole bunch of little shops they're just sitting there and nobody's really there actually some of them people aren't even going to them anymore or they're not even around so we're taking over the ones that they're not around at and we're finally papers and we're owning them and we're pulling their card on it too and if you're not there and you're not running it and it's vacant it's abandoned and we've been doing it for months and their security tons of them today and we're moving in condo complexes and housing complexes and tons of trailer parks or hours with trailers that actually would make it through a storm and their stormworthy and we're moving them out and tons and tons of that stuff's going in also moving on Walmart and we're going to start doing it here cuz we can't stand you people at all it's so arrogant you're losing and take over your towers on the Earth and use some scrap for shoring for mining so we need them.

Nearby we have a hard knock facility going in that leads to the trail that goes to the trail station trail center out there it's been there for years here and put to go to and we're putting in that parking lot half of it's going in today the other half will be a huge storage facility a giant Warehouse about 2 million or 3 million square feet and we're going to try and go down one story at least one story and we might go two or three and put in huge diapers and bladders and pumps because we want to fill it up everyday and there's tons of people who are at it saying no it's going to be an eyesore so we're planning to put up pines in those tall pines we'll cover the whole building they do it all over Southern Florida by the way you can't tell what's around here and they say no and we say yes and it's in planning and we're going to have to go in there and ask them if the town needs anything or townspeople like a few cases of whiskey and had a party that they want actually put on a party tonight out there and we're going to have all sorts of hard knock bikes and memorabilia and contests and giveaways in the parking lot and we're going to cure it I'm going to start now so why don't you pave that things we can have a party and pay off all these people so he goes okay I will get to put it down all of a sudden he said okay so we're going to go ahead and do that he said you should probably bring some of your fantastic trucks and have all the same stuff on them so he's doing that it's like a little kid and he's going crazy with it telling people to get everything out of the way he's a scooter his bike is killing him it's a pain in the balls

Hera Zues

I have a location for a store Ken says it's for your version not Sebastian cuz you won't give me a job at all not even cleaning up it's such a pill he's kind of a b**** and he doesn't really hire anyone he doesn't have anyone it's kind of a lunatic I was thinking more of a hard knocks door but that's fine since we need someone for the lunatics store and you have costumes today I can't figure out it's you anyways we go right up to you no it's funny so don't take over my conversation too it's funny cuz we let him that you're just aware now we want to see what you're saying now Thor is.

I was thinking I could run that hard knock accessory store in the mall and open several a lot of people do that with accessories for their bikes and stuff and it would be interesting and something to do and I'm wondering about it and start thinking it's 5150 stuff my life would be an instant hell so I think I might ask about that Segway store and you have all these Segway type things skateboards segways gear and helmets and shirts and it's like that skateboard place maybe competing and their place sucks it just sells one version of skateboard and a bunch of shirts it's nothing to it it's competition probably knocked him out for someone else they say I'm hired and they're going to send paperwork and in the Fitty the new one to test it out and show people you driving around on it and to see what they say cuz they probably closing on you and stuff and threaten for a Segway and Sim Segway okay just to buy one and that's enough for me

Ken says. We send the paperwork and we're going to get down to you and it's me still and couldn't remember who's doing it cuz he started doing stuff and it's going to be awful because he's always like this and people think he's just out at the lunch but it's really the part of being a leader but here it's terrible that's the weirdos do it sometimes stuff sometimes it's not to have to keep checking so we're going to ap prove it and kennel trying to get the tech and we're going to monitor and he's going to be selling our stuff and it'll sell pretty good and come to think of it there's something about Sears it's attractive to us because it's a department store I can put a store in there and not call it Sim. It's kind of a department store but it's more like Sears where we have machines and lawn mowers and zero turn radius lawn mowers that can beat yours in a race and we've been having these zero turn radius lawn mower races and yours get beat by us every time so they're asking for it to put it in there they might put in the lawn mowers today and see how it goes and the manager saying yes I'm putting in a very large variety of them it says yes to that and Big Time she might put something outside or even help out with the landscaping we have a licensed company and we can use all Sim products and put them inside and say we're doing work outside and do it for free and leave the trees you want so bringing new ones those things are kind of tall he says nothing radical but yes so we're going to do that for a section of Mall and we're going to bring in all our small equipment and show what it can do I'm going to set it up and we're going to renovate part of Sears if we can I'm just trying to get approved and use tools and equipment that we sell and show it on display in front of it and around it it says around it like you coordinate off and you put plastic up if it's dirty but really Accord it all off and you show them using it and you just play it and you have someone explain it with a microphone while they're doing it that's kind of the coolest thing I've ever seen and you can do the whole Sears if we can take it over and he says yes so do it piece mail while we're selling stuff he makes us look like we're not humongous

Hera Zues

We have approval and we're going to send the guy a house a nice one and he's going to have to pick where though that's kind of the problem and he says okay that's fine and it was not by his prodding it's something that Zeus said to do and I agree with it instead of life Thor Fred says we do agree it's a fantastic marketing system and we can have some robots sent over the vacuuming and cleaning and things like that our cooking system is not a full-blown robot so that's fine and you put in one of his pools it was redesigned and he likes it and it says we could actually do a pool company and he says yeah I can have robots do it no no we want to do it ourselves so we're going to put in his brand of pool and say it's his company and people try and find him with the money also to get the idea you're going to try and get it cleared and going to go to Olympus with a full package and then I'm going to be on the crew probably torturing him no I have just a couple ladies mom and daughter

Hera Zues

Manager of town cntr mall

I'd like to be involved in this because it sounds like a lot of fun and I think we should and we have the town management and we have the AVP I need to be getting supplies there most likely and supposedly the sun ripped it off so people will be trying to pull tons of stuff on them and we think it would be a lot of fun this is a huge number of pool people that would be opposed to it supposed to be the idiots ordering the pools

Mac daddy

[cover2covermom]

Well, I failed my September TBR by only reading 3 out of 7 books… Does it count that I am finishing up the 4th and am adding the 5th back on October’s TBR? No?  Didn’t think so… Let’s hope I fare better in the month of October.

Let’s see what I am planning on reading this month, shall we?

*Book titles link to Goodreads

» Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2) by Leigh Bardugo

Welcome to the world of the Grisha.

After pulling off a seemingly impossible heist in the notorious Ice Court, criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker feels unstoppable. But life is about to take a dangerous turn—and with friends who are among the deadliest outcasts in Ketterdam city, Kaz is going to need more than luck to survive in this unforgiving underworld.

This is going to be a buddy read with my friend Kirstie over at @Upside-Down Books

» The Tale of Despereaux, The Tiger Rising, The Magician’s Elephant & Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

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Kate DiCamillo will be attending the Books by the Banks book festival here in Ohio at the end of the month.  I am currently reading Raymie Nightingale, but have never read a Kate DiCamillo book before this.  I’ve only heard wonderful things, so I am going to read as many of her books as I can before the festival.

» Replica by Lauren Oliver

Lyra

From a distance, the Haven Institute, tucked away on a private island off the coast of Florida, looks serene and even beautiful. But up close the locked doors, military guards, and biohazard suits tell a different story. In truth, it is a clandestine research facility where thousands of replicas, or human models, are born, raised, and observed.

But when a surprise attack is launched on Haven, two of its young experimental subjects—Lyra, or 24, and the boy known only as 72—manage to escape. As they make their way through a new and menacing environment, they meet a stranger named Gemma, who has embarked on a perilous quest of her own. And as Lyra tries to understand Haven’s purpose, she uncovers earth-shattering secrets that will change the lives of both girls.

Gemma

Gemma has been in and out of hospitals her whole life. A sickly child, she has grown into a lonely adolescent whose life is circumscribed by home, school, and her best friend, April.

But after she is nearly abducted by a stranger claiming to know her, Gemma starts to investigate her family’s past and discovers her father’s mysterious connection to the secretive Haven research facility. Hungry for answers, she travels to Florida, only to stumble upon two human models, or replicas, 24 and 72—and a completely new set of questions. As Gemma tries to unravel the mysteries of Haven, she learnes terrible truths about herself and her family that will threaten to destroy everything she loves.

Two girls, two stories, one novel.

While the stories of Gemma and Lyra mirror each other, each contains revelations critically important to the other story. Their narratives can be read separately or in alternating chapters.

  Back from my September TBR, this is part of my Books by the Banks TBR.  If anyone has any insight into how to read this book (separate narratives or alternating chapters) please let me know.

» The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway’s most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

My husband and I will be taking a vacation to Key West (Florida) the first week of November to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary.  I figured I should probably read one of Ernest Hemingway’s books before I visit his home & museum in Key West 🙂  I picked this one because I remember my Mom (not a big reader) saying this was one of her favorite books that she read in college.

» Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.

Solimar Castro Valdez is eighteen and drunk on optimism when she embarks on a perilous journey across the US/Mexican border. Weeks later she arrives on her cousin’s doorstep in Berkeley, CA, dazed by first love found then lost, and pregnant. This was not the plan. But amid the uncertainty of new motherhood and her American identity, Soli learns that when you have just one precious possession, you guard it with your life. For Soli, motherhood becomes her dwelling and the boy at her breast her hearth.

Kavya Reddy has always followed her heart, much to her parents’ chagrin. A mostly contented chef at a UC Berkeley sorority house, the unexpected desire to have a child descends like a cyclone in Kavya’s mid-thirties. When she can’t get pregnant, this desire will test her marriage, it will test her sanity, and it will set Kavya and her husband, Rishi, on a collision course with Soli, when she is detained and her infant son comes under Kavya’s care. As Kavya learns to be a mother – the singing, story-telling, inventor-of-the-universe kind of mother she fantasized about being – she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child.

Lucky Boy is an emotional journey that will leave you certain of the redemptive beauty of this world. There are no bad guys in this story, no obvious hero. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon valley, author Shanthi Sekaran has taken real life and applied it to fiction; the results are moving and revelatory.

» The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping, heartfelt saga about the course of one man’s life, beginning and ending in post-war Ireland

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery — or at least, that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from and over his many years will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.

In this, Boyne’s most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.

» The Alienist by Caleb Carr

The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

Fast-paced and riveting, infused with historical detail, The Alienist conjures up Gilded Age New York, with its tenements and mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. It is an age in which questioning society’s belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and fatal consequences.

Which books are on your TBR for October?

Have you read any of the books on my list?  If so, what did you think?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

  See which #books are on my #TBR for the month of October! #BookBlogger #Bookworm #AmReading Well, I failed my September TBR by only reading 3 out of 7 books... Does it count that I am finishing up the 4th and am adding the 5th back on October's TBR?