#Star Wars and marvel are my two biggest fandoms so we might see some new kinds of fics

[sithbvcky]

Been mia a bit, I'm currently a full time online student which takes up a lot of my time but since I'm in between semesters I decided to come back! New blog name, new look ✨

[londonalozzy]

Stop Pretending (TFATWS)

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Genre: Romance, Angst

Summary: The reader thinks she's doing a stellar job of keeping her feelings for a certain soldier buried deep inside. Turns out, all it takes is an observant new friend to begin the unraveling of her most precious secret (Spoilers for TFATWS)

Masterlist

Word: Pretence

Definition: A way of acting that is intended to deceive people.

Example: Saying that he's just a friend when he's really the love of your life.

Your POV

Being caught in the midst of war is something that I, (Y/N) (Y/L/N)  know all too well. As a war vet, former shield agent, and now Avenger I'm used to being centered amongst conflict. When the fight begins within me though, a battle between what I want and what I think is right, how will I react? Will I listen to my heart, my head, or will the winner be chosen for me?

Delacroix, Louisiana.....

I love my sleep, always have, always will. It's not necessarily the comfort of the bed, the quiet or even the rest. It's the fact that I'm at peace when I sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, so anything that will put that off for as long as possible I savor.

I wish it were the same for a certain super soldier in my life. I look forward to going to bed, everything calms down then, and for most people it's the same. For Bucky however, it's when everything starts, the nightmares, the terrors, the seemingly unending darkness. If only I could take his pain away like he has with mine.

For the last few weeks, my life had, for want of a better word, been hectic. Hectic to say the least.

After the eventual defeat of Thanos and the loses we endured as a result, I thought naively that life might calm down a bit, that I'd have time to breathe, to live. How wrong I was.

It all began with John Walker being announced to the world as the new Captain America.

I was baking cookies with Morgan in the Stark family kitchen when it came over the radio. As that latest turn of events sunk in, my first thoughts were of Bucky, what that would do to him. Not even an hour later I had said my goodbyes and was on my way to help him get the shield back.

Since then even more had happened. We'd regrouped with Sam, busted Zemo out of prison which in turn ruffled the feathers of Ayo and the Dora Milaje. We came face to face with Morgenthou and the Flag Smashers, and finally witnessed the man who thought he could even compete with Steve, make himself judge, jury and most significantly executioner.

After that went around the world we knew we had to end it sooner rather than later. It couldn't get much worse than Captain America becoming a murderer. We got the shield back, which was a fight all in itself. Handed Zemo over to Ayo, to try and recompense for the distrust we'd instilled in the people who'd helped us so much. Then we travelled to stay with Sam and his family in Louisiana whilst we waited for Karli's next move.

This is where we found ourselves now, in the eye of it, the calm before the storm.

Waking up in the Wilson households guest room, I was greeted to the golden hue of the rising sun penetrating through the single glaze windows, and the melodic sounds of gulls on the hunt for their morning meal down by the docks.

Actually, no that's not right. What I could hear was most certainly not birds, and it was definitely not melodic. What were those boys doing?

Quickly and quietly I threw on the first clothes I could get my hands on and made my way downstairs towards the noise. What caught my attention when I discovered the source, was not the two youngest Wilson boys playing with our newly reacquired shield in the living room, but the super solider who was blissfully ignorant to it all, sleeping peacefully on the couch in front of them. I don't think I'd ever been so happy.

"Right you two, if you're determined to play Avengers all morning then I suggest you re-assemble in the back yard. You're gonna wake Bucky up," I whispered out in one breath, stepping between the boys, then placing my hands on their backs and tip toeing them towards the door.

"So what if we wake him up? It's gone 10am," Cass questioned in protest, pulling on his sneakers and jacket.

"Exactly! Which is why if you do as I say, I will make you the biggest plate of waffles for breakfast that you've ever seen."

The boys eyes lit up. "Can we have ice cream with it? Mum never lets us have ice cream for breakfast, and I'm sure there's a tub of Stark raving hazelnuts in the freezer," AJ clapped in muted excitement. "Oh, for God's sake.....Yes. You can have whatever you want if you get out of this house now and keep the noise down."

Once the boys were outside, I made my way over to the kitchen, stopping on the way to lean over my favourite senior citizen and make sure that he was still peaceful in his slumber. He'd never looked so relaxed, so at ease. It was a brand new Bucky I'd never seen before, a Bucky that had my heart pounding for him even more than it normally did. Not that he knew any of that.

Half an hour later and up to my elbows in waffle mix, I failed to notice my new friend and host Sarah making her way to my side at the counter, the huge smile on my face not going unnoticed. "What's got you grinning like the Cheshire cat, like I need to ask?"

"Bucky's sleeping. Isn't it amazing?" I spoke softly, bouncing up and down on my feet as I did so.

"And why is that?" She couldn't looked more confused if she tried.

"In all the years I've known him, I don't think I've ever woken up before he has. If his nightmares don't keep him awake all night, they normally have him up before the crack of dawn. I don't think I've ever seen him so still."

"Good answer," Sarah nodded in a hush, understanding why this meant so much to me, but not done yet with her morning interrogations, "Now on to my next question......"

"I'm already not liking the sound of this."

"Sleeping Beauty over there follows you around like a little puppy dog. He hangs on your every word, looks at you like you hung the stars or something. It's pretty obvious how crazy he is about you, so when are you gonna stop pretending that you're not head over heels in love with him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Wilson," I smiled forcefully, making out like the waffle maker deserved my attention way more than the conversation I was being made to have.

This was all Sam's doing, without a shadow of a doubt. He'd tried to have this conversation with me on multiple occasions and I shut him down every time. He obviously hadn't given up like I thought he did, and decided to draft in his sister. He is seriously gonna regret it when I find him.

"Sure you know what I'm talking about. Sam sees it, I don't even know you that well and I see it. The only reason Bucky doesn't, is because he doesn't believe he could ever be that lucky. You're a smitten kitten." These Wilson's are all as annoying as each other.

Knowing I wasn't getting out of this one, I grabbed Sarah by the arm and pulled her right into the corner of the room, trying my best to keep this convo as private as possible. "Look, I'm not pretending.....I'm ignoring. There's a difference."

"Care to explain what that difference is?" Sarah spoke softly, but with a sarcastic air.

Turning to look over my shoulder at the subject of our conversation, making sure he was still safely in the land of nod, I decided to just be honest. Sarah was much like her brother. Once she wanted to get to the bottom of something she wasn't about to give up.

"I love Bucky, more than I've ever loved anyone...and that terrifies me," the rawness of finally being honest making my voice shake, and tears come to my eyes. "Nat was like my sister, and she's dead. Tony was the closest I've ever gotten to having a Dad...and he's dead too. Then there's Steve, Vision, God knows where Wanda is....Everyone I love, either leaves or dies. If I admit my feelings for Buck then I face the risk of losing him too."

"Do you have any idea how crazy you sound right now? He's not going to die because you love him (Y/N)."

Silent tears were falling now. I was revealing my deepest fears to a woman I'd only known a few days, and I'm not underplaying it when I say it was like a colossal weight off my chest, a release I didn't know I needed. "Believe me...I know, but I can't take that risk. I can't lose anyone else, especially not him."

"Let's just say for a second that you're right, that there is some higher power somewhere, set on destroying everyone you love. Do you really think ignoring your feelings is going to make them disappear?" I didn't know what to say to that. "Natasha and Stark died so that everyone could continue living, and (Y/N) you're not living as long as you keep this to yourself. They wouldn't want that for you."

"But what if I lose him?" I whispered with a choked sigh.

"Then at least he'll die knowing how you felt about him. After everything he's been through don't you think he deserves to know there's someone out there who loves him like you do?"

"Of course..."

Sarah's lips pulled upwards in a satisfied smirk, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze, "then you owe it to yourself, and to him, to tell him the truth."

"Why do all you Wilson's have to be so clever?" I voiced in mock irritation, pushing her away from me and acting like I was annoyed she had gotten one up on me.

"I don't know," she thought aloud and with a cheeky grin, grabbing a plate to start piling on the long forgotten waffles, "I think it might be the sea air or something."

"Nah, it's in the genes," I chuckled quietly, grabbing my jacket and deciding it was time to get this conversation wrapped up. "I'll go find Sam and the boys for breakfast. Clear my head a little bit."

"You promise you're gonna tell him?" Sarah stopped me as I went to push the door open.

"I'll think about it."

3rd person POV

Once (Y/N) was out of ear shot, Sarah couldn't help but start jumping up and down in excitement, clapping her hands loudly as she did so. That went even better than she thought it would, and she was so proud of herself. Sarah Wilson could now add matchmaker to her resume.

"Coast is clear Barnes. You can open your eyes now."

(Y/N) had no idea what she had metaphorically walked into just minutes earlier, entering that very revealing conversation with her overly inquisitive host.

What drew Sarah to come down that morning was the sounds of both the front porch door opening and the smell of homemade waffles wafting up the stairs. As she entered the kitchen she was met with two sights. One being (Y/N), facing the counter and looking very smiley, the other being a wide awake super soldier who was just laying on the couch and staring at her, the sole object of his affection. Sarah could work with this.

Every time (Y/N) turned back in his direction, Bucky would close his eyes and pretend to be asleep again. He had never slept so soundly, so peacefully, thoughts of (Y/N) and his new friends filling his nightmare free dreams.

He'd initially woken to (Y/N) ushering the boys outside because she was afraid they would wake him up. He didn't want to disappoint her by proving her right. Besides, he liked just watching her move around the kitchen, completely unaware he was observing her the whole time. He had no idea about the conversation that was just about to happen.

After (Y/N) had left and Sarah had confirmed so, Bucky sat himself up, his body shaking with adrenaline and a look of complete shock fixed on his face. Had he definitely woken up, or had the whole thing been a part of his dream? Did (Y/N) seriously just admit that she was in love with him?

Bucky didn't know how to react, didn't know what to say as he looked up at a smug Sarah from his spot. All he'd ever wanted was for (Y/N) to feel the same way about him as he did about her. Now he knew that she did.

"You're welcome by the way."

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: Terror of the Terra-Firmians!  (Lena Retrospective) (Commission by WeirdKev27): Launchpad Looses his Last Brain Cell and I Loose My Patience

Welcome back Weblena Warriors to the second part of my look at everyone’s favorite Emo Teen Shadow Lesbian Duck... and probably the only one but hey, semantics, Shadow Into Light, which was made possible by viewers like you, the ultra humanite and a commission from WeirdKev27. Picking up where we left off, we have our first episode that has a different intended order than airing order. 

As most of you probably remember, but some of you who joined later might not be aware of the broadcast order for the first half of season one is, in the academic sense, pretty fucked. It’s not Darkwing Duck’s entirely fucked by a web of badger spiders and a queen snake on top to make it some sort of train situation, but by just sorta airing whatever episodes they wanted to, Disney messed with the character balance so Huey got less focus, not that he got a ton of focus this season but still, as well as leaning into the episodes focusing more on the kids with less involvement from the adults which gave the wrong impression about the series. While it IS very focused on the triplets and webby, the show isn’t entirely about them, but as Frank has mentioned a few times, Disney Channel apparently has this WEIRD thing where they assume kids won’t like stories starring the adult characters. 

Yeah I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while. Mostly how it’s so dumb I could swear Pauly Shore was an exec at Disney Channel. And he might be I don’t know what he’s doing these days and i’d like to keep it that way. For starters, the Scooge comics, while barely published in the US these days, are still popular globally and have appealed to kids and adults for generations and are mostly focused on him, with the kids in a supporting role and Ducktales, you know the thing your directly remaking here, was also mostly about him with the triplets supporting, if a bit less than the comics. Most of the Disney Afternoon was about adult characters, with any kids in side roles in the main cast. And it comes off entirely hypocritical of them to say this when the MCU is easily marvel’s biggest cash cow at the moment, and marvel properties have appealed to both kids and adults, like the duck comics, for decades. And if it’s because the marvel cartoons weren’t doing well , I’ll let you in on a little secret: Those didn’t do well because they looked bland and from what I’ve seen of them felt kind of bland, though I haven’t seen enough to fully judge. Kids LIKE adult characters as much as kid characters, and also like teen characters despite not being teens. Focusing on either is valid and while I LIKED Disney’s youth starring shows I also want another X-Men cartoon before I turn 50, and I bet kids would like that too, with the last one only failing because you bailed on it because you were throwing a hissy fit over fox having the movie rights, and do not get me started on that. Point is this argument is horse shit and should stay in the stables. 

So yeah I do think this episode came too soon and it’s placement effected it at the time and as such it dosen’t have the best rep with the fandom aside from the Lena bits and that includes me. The fact it was very early in the series and the characterizations hadn’t yet sunk in really hurt this episode in places but is it really that bad? Join me under the cut to find out

We open at the movies! Which scrooge apparently hasn’t been too since the 1930′s or seen any on video despite Della existing and being really stubborn. 

A rant for another episode. But the kids just got out of a Mole Monster movie, along with Lena, Beakly and Launchpad. Their reactions are as follows: Lena, Webby and Dewey really enjoyed it, Huey found it unrealistic... says the boy whose uncle fought a dragon made of gold a month or two back but we’ll get to that, and Louie was bored and felt it didn’t have enough of the ultra violence, kids these days it’s not about the gore it’s about the tension. And Beakly.. is just pissed Lena tricked them into seeing this and said it was educational. And the more I think about it the more this sounds like BEAKLYS fault than Lena’s. BEAKLY is the one who likely bought the tickets, who saw it was likely an r or pg-13 and who as we’ve seen HAS A PHONE, and ulnike scrooge probably isn’t so stingy she wouldn’t spring for a smart phone, so she could’ve just googled it, or whatever bird related pun is in this version.. gandered it.. yeah let’s go with that, gandered it, and SEEEN it wasn’t appropriate or walked htem out of the theater and ate the cost if she was that bothered by it. Sitting through a Horror Movie you didn’t research, didn’t pull the kids out of and dind’t bother to even check the poster for or use basic common sense is YOUR fault. And this could’ve worked fine, had Lena talk the kids into begging for it or had launchpad take them and have Beakly find out after, having driven to pick them up as she didn’t trust launchpad to take them home. Instead it makes the former super spy look REALLY stupid and feels really out of character for a SPY to not to do research. And it wasn’t like they decided on this later, Bentina being a spy was part of the character’s backstory from day one and its made clear as early as episode 2 in both airing orders. This is just lazy writing to justify the episode and I expect better from this crew. 

But an argument errupts between Huey and Webby over the Terra-Firmians, a hidden race of rock people living in Duckburg’s discontinued sewer system, allegedlys. So Lena suggest simply going down which gets a disapproving look from Beakly, despite you know this being their bread and butter, and the fact that if she had a problem with Scrooge not being involved.. she could just call him. Exploring fabled rock people is something he’d be into. I mean there’s a low profit margin but it also costs him almost nothing to walk to the theater or have launchpad swing around and pick him up. Just gas which given how much he pays for jet fuel isn’t a big ask. But Beakly soon gets distracted by Launchpad whose convinced the film is real and is attacking the poster a grim sign of things to come as while Beakly annoyed me in this one on rewatch, especially after realizing the above... Launchpad annoyed me both times and for VERY good reason we’ll get into. This provides a distraction and allows the trio to escape. Cue titles. 

After the title sequence, our heroes head deeper underground, there’s too much panic in this town... I mean props to Donald for trying something new but he really needs to rethink his cologne choices. Sex Panther is just.. not a good smell on.. anyone. 

So our heroes journey through the depths of the subway system, and we find out part of why Huey’s so skeptical, as he finds anything that isn’t in the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook to not exist, though the cracks in this already show as he’s added anything that does. We’ll get back to this later but as you can tell the basic dynamic for 24 minutes is Webby being a wholehearted True Believer and Huey being a Skeptical Sally. And Lena is just sorta “Eh gives me an excuse for shenanigans” about it. We also get a peak into webby’s mind as we see her notes .. which really just come off as Terra-Firmian fanfiction involving a war of succession between two sides, the terra’s and the firmies, something based on previous media, and also some doodles of a fictional candy called webby-dings and herself as a superhero, both things I want to see. 

But yeah the first third of the episode is pretty simple, just them journeying, the occasional shift in the firmament, and it’s not bad, and there are a few great bits: Huey nerds out about rocks, and finds them way more interesting than a possible rock monster.

Which leads to the best gag of the episode as when Huey tries to pick up a big sample Webby, annoyed at his hyperfixation on the JWG, asks him to ask his book for help.. which he does by reading it and actually manages to pick the large rock up. This is halted though when Lena screams.. though she really just did it to draw them to an abandoned subway car full of glomgold posters for glomgold products because of course a failed subway project has his name plastered over it. You can’t spell glomgold without failure.. the failure is silent. Glomgold is not. 

The fun is interuptted though by a livid Beakly who had realized they were missing in an earlier scene, after telling the Manager that McDuck Industries would pay for the poster.. and then found out Launchpad also destroyed the toilets “They come up thorugh the sewers!”. Launchpad that’s CHUDS, Ninja Turtles and Rats who raised Ninja Turtles like their own sons, mole people dig or use old mineshafts. It’s basic mole science. Also Beakly really shouldn’t sweat it, I just assumed the city has had a runnig bill witht he company for “McDuck Family and Employee Related Accidents, Mayhem and Shenanigans”. I mean he’s had Gyro on his payroll for at least a decade and a half by the series start, Gyro has leveled whole sections of city in an afternoon more than most giant monsters. Of which several have destroyed Duckburg. It got better. 

Point is she’s livid about them sneaking off with Lena pointing out their some sort of adventure family and Beakly.. saying she won’t see them again, or at least implying it hard. I’ll put a pin in this, as the train buckles and a bit of seismic, or rock men, activity means their stuck. So they divide into teams: Beakly will go try and unhook the train car from the busted cars so they can ride out, Launchpad will go try and fix it, and we get this lovely exxchange as a result

Launchpad: Cool never crashed a train before Beakly: Can’t you try driving it without crashing it? Launchpad: Wha? 

His face in that scene is priceless. He takes Dewey along. More on that in a second. Webby, Huey and Louie are told to stay put with Beakly only bringing Lena along because she dosen’t trust her. So since we have three split plots for a second... let’s split up gang, starting with the most aggrivating, middling with what you all came here for and why this is part of the retrsopective, and ending with the plot that directly heads into the final part of the episode. 

Launchpad and Dewey: GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay starting with the most infamous plot and easily the worst part of this episode, probably the worst plot in any Ducktales 2017 episode. That’s not hyperbole it’s really that bad and really pissed people off, as fans of the original launchpad felt they made him overly stupid. This is where the airing order’s a problem as putting an episode with a subplot where one of your characters is obnoxiously dumb right up front means they assume this is his charcter and not just one poorly written chapter in a very dumb but very loveable characters life, likely because the writers hadn’t figured out how to properly scale his stupidity with comptience. 

So as a result we get a good 3-4 mintutes if not agonizingly more of Launchpad assuming something he saw in a fucking movie film was real. That.. that’s his actual plot. Need I remind you, he’s in his late 20′s early 30′s. He’s not much older than me. While other episodes have him as dim this one claims he CAN’T TELL FACT FROM FICTION. 

There are lines you have to keep with your characters to keep the audience from hating them. They crossed it about 80 times with this plot and make Launchpad into a gibbering dunderhead who can’t do anything right versus a regular dunderhead whose good at one or two things and loveable enough for us to like him and not care about his numerous safey violations and child endagerment charges. Thankfully this is the ONLY episode that gets this bad and they clearly learned from this, but it dosen’t make it any less of a tough sit. 

Dewey spends most of the subplot with a look on his face that just screams that he’s as done with this bullshit as we are, as Launchpad assumes he’s a mole person and brought along a pipe to presumibly bludgeon him, because wanting to cave his best friends skull in over stupidity is a GREAT look> Thankfuly he does not. And when the lights come back on Launchpad.. assumes he’s a monster because of bright light, GAH, and locks him out before they end up outside and the plto resolves itself by Dewey pointing out by Launchpad’s utterly baffling logic that he could be a mole monster, so Launchpad.. assumes he is. 

The subplot’s later buttoned up as he claims “I love being a mole monster”, again diffrent subteranian creature launchpad, she says he’s not and my suffering is thankfully at an end. This plot just sucks, it’s bad, overly stupid and dosen’t work with an adult character. Someone like say Ed from Ed, Edd N Eddy, or someone who belivies in weird conspiracy stuff like Dale Gribble or Stan Pines. with either of them this plot would’ve been fucking great. I could buy it from Dale and it just comes off as his normal paranoid weirdness. With Launchpad it comes off like he seriously needs help because the episode frames it as if he can’t tell ficton from reality, and his splotlight episode later would directly contridct this and make this episode even more aggrivating, as he’s a fan of Darkwing Duck, and KNOWS it’s acted out by an actor, so why wouldn’t he get this? It’s just....

It sucks, it sucks and I thankfully get to move on to a better subplot

Beakly and Lena: What You Are in the Dark

Beakly tells Lena she’ll never see Webby again after this.. then chastises her when she won’t help despite you know having just said she’s going to force their friendship apart, which Lena points out. She then gets mad at Lena making a sarcastic comment at her. Okay she’s lived with Louie for at least a week in airing order and a month or two in actual order. She has to be used to this by now. She’s insolent.. because you show her no respect, blame her for something that while sure she talked you into, you should’ve known better, and top it off by saying you want to keep her from the kids because they have bright futures and come from good familes and asks who rasied her and her face.. well.

Yeah wheras Launchpad and Huey, more on that in a second, were hurt by this being some of their earliest big roles, Bentina wasn’t.. until later when we found out just HOW bad Magica is to Lena and how much she dosen’t care about her other than as a tool to use. At this point we didn’t know just how much Lena was playing webby, how much she was only manipulating her, and even with her heroic act here we didn’t know if she only saw Webby as her way to break free. The next episode makes it clear she dosen’t and genuinely does care, 100%, so in hindsight it makes Bentina come off as ghoulsih for horribly asssuming about a girl she dosen’t know, and even if she did know about Magica wouldn’t know the full story, just like us, and then BERATING her after already saying she’s going to rip her away from Webby, which itself is PRETTY bad as she’s the only friend the girl has and sh’es doing so on... talking them into a horror movie, which as I outlined was more Bentina’s fault than Lena’s, and leading the kids into a dangerous place whicha gain, Lena pointed out is something she lets Scrooge do. And trust me i know that she actually knows Scrooge, and we later find out, as we’ll cover next month, that she isn’t ware HOW dangerous things are with Scrooge. It dosen’t change the fact she knows they do dangerous stuff to a point and that Lena may just be acting out. It also dosen’t change the fact she drove three children, yes including launchpad, down here with her instead of sending them home with Launchpad.. granted that option isn’t the safest but it’s safer than taking her with them thena cting like it’s ALL lena’s fault when three of the children, again including launchpad, are down there because of HER. Not Lena, HER. I’m harder on her because she’s older, wiser and was “raised properly” apparently. Though given the way she treats a random teen off the street she again knows nothing about and dind’t bother to ask... it begs the question. 

IT’s a good question. I could see the classism coming from being raised in 40′s and 50′s britain, judging by the timeline.. but even then she’s seen the world, and while her nature is supscious, the classit bullshit makes no sense after presumibly working with, and later spymastering for, various agents of various backgrounds. How has she not dropped this in decades. Scrooge very clearly dropped the racisim and homophobia of his time, so it still stands  on her for not dropping this. And Lena’s hurt shows under hte mask for the first time, that beneath the snark and secrecy.. is just an abused teenager with nowhere else to go and no way out being bullied by an older woman whose cutting off the only light at the end of the tunnel nto for good reason but out of classist, overprotective mallice.  My issues, which to be fair probably were intentional in the episode but sitll are a bit overblown, aside we do get an absoluttley tremendous moment later as a car falls on top of Beakly.. and Magica, speaking once more urges Lena to leave her, let her die and let their plans progress. And while that iself is.. dumb, what if someone finds her or her corpse later, especially since Scrooge would likely perosnally want to retrive the body to give her a proper burial as she’s his only friend at this point, or the rest of the family questoin the story?, it fits Magica’s lack of foresight we see throughout the season. But Lena... saves her. While she later gives an explination, and a valid one at that, it’s clear from her expressoin, her actoins and how she does it... that this is her. Part of it is defiance, as she glares at Magica before doing it, her own stubborn nature mixed with her hatred of her “aunt”, meaning Magica just made it all too easy for her to do this. But the real reason is clear: It’s the right thing to do. While pissing off her aunt and getting away with it is the cherry on top.. the real reason is that unlike Magica.. Lena is not a killer, not a monster, and not a heartless vacum ofa person. Even if she doesn’t like Beakly, for good reason.. she can’t, she WON’T leave her to die and leave Webby an orphan again. She loves Webby too much to do that to her and while she may deny it.. she’s too good a person to leave someone to die for something so petty. Even if she never sees webby again and the plans ruined. It’s better than the weight of knowing she let someone who wasn’t trying to harm her and whose actions, while terrible, were out of misguided protection of her granddaughter, die like this. She saves her. And as we’ll see it pays off.. but before that. 

Huey, Webby and Louie: Into the Unknown This plot’s a bit shorter, as Webby and Huey continue their argument, with Louie eventually making it clear, and not even hiding it when directly asked by Huey, that he’s playing both sides with a delighted expression on his face as the movie was boring but this, this is interesting. Which it is. But it’s interupted by dings on the roof and while Huey assumes i’ts just a regular rock, it moves while their not lookiung.. and soon red eyed, horrifying beasts look out at them and the kids flee back to the car. This dosen’t pan out as the car starts to shake and is clearly going to collapse.. and while Webby and Louie are prepared to flee, rock monsters or no, Huey, in an utterly heart shattering image.. stays in place, terrified of moving. 

This is where this plot goes from mildly aggrivating, as Huey’s Skeptic shenanigans can get on the nerves.. to BRILLIANT. See at the time this was more annoying because it was assumed the skepticsim would be a part of Huey’s character and we’d get more episodes of him being annoying only to be proven wrong, as he semeingly dosen’t learn his lesson at this point, looging the terrafrimians in the guide book. But on rewatch.. this plot is amazing.  For starters the plot subtly introduced the defening characteristic of Huey’s personality, one that’s become more prounounced in Season 3: His need for Order. He needs things to make sense: He solves stuff because he likes there to be order in the world and something he can understand, he can put in a box in his head. Like a lot of neurotypical people, myself included, he struggles horribly when the clearly defined boxes of his life and things he undestand have wrinkles or complexities he can’t get. I for instnace easily got it when I was introduced to the concept of trans people or being non binary.. they just make sense in hindsight: given how our brains are messya nd complicated it makes sense some people would be born in the wrong ones, and tht with all the science and medicine we have to correct that, should be allowed to transition if they so choose. It makes equal sense that some people just don’t have a gender or are gender fluid, being both or neither. Despite struggling with non binary prounouns due to force of habit.. I get the concept with no real difficulty. But when it comes to accepting I don’t have to apologize for everything and that everyone is not angry or that anger is natural and people sometimes get mad and you can’t and shouldnt’ fix it.. it’s something I STRUGGLE with even knowing it’s not right, because my brain is just wired that way. 

That’s how Huey’s struggle comes off here.. he reveals he’s willing to stay and die.. because he’s SO scared of the unknown, that the idea of dying from something he at least knows what it is versus something he dosen’t.., so paralizyed by his own brain he can’t figure out the obvious.. it takes Webby reaching out to him figuratively and literally, to show him that sometimes you have to face the unknown. The unknown is fucking terrifying.. but it can be good and it’s better than sitting there, scared and unable to move. You have to try, to grow and take that risk that things may not go well to really LIVE. 

So he does.. and they reunite with the rest of the group.. and soon find the terrafirmains.. who as it turns out once we get some light on them... are actually just goofy looking,  brightly colored, each one matching one of the kids, kids themselves, and Huey reaches out and touches one, which by ET logic means their friends now, and the terrafirmians help them get out. And this lesson sticks. While sure Huey catalogues it and it seems it didn’t.. he’s never this skeptical again. This douchey skepticsim was only for one episode, his fear of the uknown replcaed with boundless curosity and from here on he’s CURIOUS about new stuff as long as it’s not trying to kill him. He loves taking in new experinces, maybe not to webby levels but he does actually try them and study them instead of just fearing them. 

Before we wrap things up, obviously we need to talk about the JWG not having entries on a lot of stuff. This would be corrected next season as it returns to being a big book of everything, but dosen’t completely contridct this as Timephoon! shows there’s stillcgaps.. which i’m fine with. While it knowing EVERYTHING was fine for the original series here, with things being slightly more groudned, it’d just be an obvious plothole if Huey didn’t use it every single time they ran into something and that’d get boring. Instead it’s simply that it dosen’t know everything, and really in the comics at times it didn’t and the triplets found out new things. It knew almost everything mind you, but having some gaps for dramatic tnesion is fine with me and Seasons 2 and 3 decided on that instead of just having it being a scouting manual which wa sfor the best. And even by later in the season hit has guides to getting a small buisness loan, so they already course corrected. 

So everything’s wrapped up and while Magica berates Lena for disobeying her.. Beakly interputps, thankfully not seeing magica and admits she was wrong and invites Lena for pancakes, even taking a crack about if their actually pancakes or english muffins with syrup, which sounds like my own living hell, in stride, having clearly grown. And Lena explains to Magica that this was the better approach: now she’s got the in theyw anted, and is above suspcison for now. Still not so much that an obvious act won’t be detected but enough that she dosen’t ahve to work actively around her anymore. Magica scoffs.. and while part of it is probably rage.. part of it is deep down both of them know she did it out of defiance.. and only Lena knows that she did it for the right reasons... she just dosen’t get why. She probably justifies it as playing the long game.. but deep down she knows something’s changing about her.. and she’s not sure if that’s a godo thing or not. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is as you can tell a mixed bag. It’s 2/3 of a good episode, with the Lena plot, my issues aside, being excellent and the Terra-Firmian plot likewise fun, even if Huey can get grating the payoff is worth it, and the jokes are really high quality. It’s just bogged down by that fucking launchpad plot that just crushed my soul in it’s palms every time it came back. I went on at length why i hated that one but boy oh boy was the hate of that subplot warranted and I stand by calling it the worst plot of the series. It is: it’s not funny, it makes no goddamn sense, and it drags down what’s otherwise a pretty solid epsiode.

Next Time on Lena: Jaws the shark, lurking in the dark, in the depths of the bin one day of a lark decides to get rowdy, get real violent takes a vacay out to Duckburg er.. Island.. also Scrooge faces his greatest Nemesis.. a PR Tour to clean up his image after an unfortunate giant Beanstalk Incident. Be there and be hip to be square. 

Next Time on This Blog: I Tackle a DCOM for the first time for another commissioned review as we take a look at racisim, specifically Apartheid and breaking indoctrination, with The Color of Friendship. See you next Rainbow. 

[iliumheightnights]

We Have A Jedi [13] | Peter Parker x Male Reader

Fandom: Star Wars and Marvel

Pairing: Peter Parker x Male Reader, Tony Stark x Son!Reader

Summary: Being on Earth was just what (M/N) needed, but the war is still raging and it seems to be getting worse. With the same vision plaquing him, he’s wondering what lay on the horizon.

Read From The Start

…

It had been a week since their arrival to Earth. In that time Sheyo’s leg had fully healed and she was back in the action. The two had trained with each other in both force techniques and lightsaber combat. It was a nice change of pace. The two of them had been able to spend time with the avengers and (M/N) got to spend lots of time with his father, which he was grateful for.

As said before, Thor did eventually return from Asgard. He broke into the biggest smile when he saw (M/N) had returned. He had asked when he had been and (M/N) gave him the same run down as before. Unlike the others, Thor was not surprised that Sheyo was a Mirialan in the slightest, instead asking her if she Mirial had been alright during the war. After a brief chat (M/N) pulled him into his room. “Is everything alright young Stark?” (M/N) sighed. “I need you to do something for me. I need you to take something back to Asgard with you.” By the look on his face Thor seemed intrigued by the idea. “What do you need me to take back?” (M/N) went to where he hid the stones and pulled out the space stone. “This.” Thor eyed him and the stone. “This is-” “An infinity stone yes. One of two that I have. The longer I have them the more of a target they become. I need you to take this one back to asgard and keep it safe. I’ll leave the other one here with the rest of the avengers. They’ll keep it safe.” Thor seemed to be thinking of something, maybe about how (M/N) had ended up with two stones. “Aye. I’ll do it. Wait- is the other stone you have the one from last time?” (M/N) nodded. “I didn’t trust the council or the republic to keep it safe. Neither did my mother. We thought they’d use it for their own efforts, just like the sith.” Thor nodded. “Well you’ve done well keeping it safe so far. It was probably a good decision. Not to worry, I shall take this stone with me back to Asgard and keep it safe within our vault.” That was all the confirmation (M/N) needed, he knew Thor would keep it safe.

…

There was a city, not like new york. More like coruscant, only cleaner and not as large. It seemed to be domed too. There were the sounds of gunfire and shouting. A battle. He could hear lightsabers clashing. Once again a flash of purple and gold. “You should have gone for the head.” Then the fighting seemed to be dying down and the air became littered with ash. The screaming had turned to cries. This wasn’t a nightmare, it was a warning.

(M/N) shot up from his bed. His breath was rapid and his heart was beating fast. Sweat could be felt all over his face. What did that mean? He had that dream ever since before he even came to Earth the first time. “Mr.(M/N). You’re heart rate is increasing rapidly. Shall I inform your father?” (M/N) had never heard the A.I so...so worried before. It was almost comforting in a way. “No. Thank you Jarvis. I’m just...just going to go for some air.” He got out of bed and put on some clothes and a jacket before leaving the tower. He just needed to keep his mind distracted for a bit. He didn’t even know what time it was, it had to be early in the morning. Even then the city was still somewhat awake. 

He had been walking for a bit, he didn’t know how far he had gone. Too far into his mind and what the dreams meant he didn’t even notice when someone walked up to him. “Give me all your money and you won’t get hurt.” That brought his attention back. “Huh? Oh, you’re trying to rob me.” The person in front of him wore a mask and had a knife out to him. “Give me your money!” (M/N) sighed and brought his hand up, waving it at the man. “You don’t want to rob me. You want to go home and rethink your life.” The man stiffened up and dropped his knife. “I don’t want to rob you. I want to go home and rethink my life.” That was all it took, the man turned and walked off. “Cool. I wonder if he sells death sticks too.” (M/N) smirked at the voice and turned to greet his friend. “Earth has death sticks?” The eyes of the spiderman mask widened. “Oh! Um no, just part of the movie.” (M/N) nodded. “Ah yes. Star Wars.”

(M/N) turned and began walking again, he heard Peter land and felt the boy walking beside him. “So...what are you doing out here so late? Early? I don’t even know what time it is anymore.” (M/N) hummed. “I’m not sure either honestly. I couldn’t sleep. Nightmares. Decided I needed some air, now here we are.” Peter Nodded. “Here we are. Here.” Peter held out his hand to (M/N) who looked at him questionably before grabbing on. Peter then shot out a web and brought him onto the roof of a building. “This way we can sit down and have some privacy.” (M/N) smirked and sat beside Peter on the edge of the roof, Peter removing his mask to reveal messy hair. “It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights, Spidey.” Peter blushed and covered his mouth. “I should have asked. I am so sorry.” But the other boy only waved him off. “You’re good. I’ve jumped out of ships in the air too many times to count.” Peter looked curious but wanted to hear. “Yeah?” That’s how (M/N) ended up talking with Peter about his adventures out in the galaxy. The boy never once seemed to be uninterested, instead gave all his focus on him.

Soon the sun was starting to rise over the city. “I should probably be getting back. Don’t want anyone to be worried.” (M/N) stood up, Peter doing the same. “I can take you back. You’ll get there a lot quicker, plus you won’t get stopped by other thugs.” (M/N) smiled and nodded. “I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind of course.” Peter shook his head and held onto him. “I wouldn’t have offered if I did mind.” Then he started swinging back to the tower. (M/N) was smiling the whole time, he had travelled many different times before, but never like this. It wasn’t long before the two landed on the deck of the tower. “Thanks for the lift. Get home safely.” Peter, now with his mask on, laughed. “I will. Not looking forward to school though. See ya around (M/N)!” with that Peter went swinging away.

When (M/N) entered the tower he discovered no one was up yet. “(M/N) you’re back. I was worried something might have happened.” Jarvis spoke. “Thanks Jarvis. Was talking with a friend.” (M/N) was about to head back to his room when Jarvis spoke up again. “Your father is currently in the lab if you want to talk with him.” (M/N) smirke and headed to the elevator. “Thanks J.” Arriving in his father’s lab he heard the music blaring already. He had been in the lab a couple other times, mostly helping his dad with some projects but otherwise he didn’t really come in here. Tony was currently working over a workbench. “Morning dad. Let me guess, haven’t slept yet.” Tony looked up from his spot and smiled. “No, I got a solid five hours.” (M/N) shook his head and rolled his eyes. He looked over the table. “You need more sleep. What are you working on?” Tony just went back to work. “Some upgrades to the suit, maybe even plans for a new suit. Working on nanotechnology.” Tony pulled up the idea sketches and data, (M/N) looked it over impressed with his dad’s work. “Impressive. Think you’ll be able to get it done soon?” (M/N) didn’t ask if it would be possible, because through his dad anything is possible. “I hope so. I think I can at least get parts of a watch to form a glove in a couple months.” (M/N) nodded and sat down next to him, he figured it was a time to ask. “So...what’s going on between you and Steve?” That made his dad stop for a bit but continued on with his work. “What do you mean? Me and capsicale are doing just fine.” (M/N) hummed. “Oh I know you are, maybe TOO fine. Don’t play coy with me. I see how you look at him every now and then.” Tony continued to work but huffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I look at him like I do any other member of the team.” (M/N) nodded when the door opened and the man of the hour walked in. “Tony. (M/N).” Steve nodded to them both. (M/N) stood up and patted his father’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go see if Sheyo’s up. Have fun you two...but not too much fun.” He smirked at Steve who looked confused before walking out. “What was that about?” Steve asked Tony who was looking anywhere but Steve. “I have no idea. Teenage angst.”

(M/N) walked to the guest room and knocked on the door. It didn’t take long for Sheyo to answer the door and let him in. “Morning.” She smirked at him. “We need to talk. Now that my leg is better, we need to start thinking of finding a way back to Tython. Or at least to a station.” (M/N) nodded. “I agree. As much as I want to stay...I had another vision last night. The same one I’ve had for the last two years...I think it’s coming sooner than we think.” Sheyo seemed troubled by that. “That’s not good. Not at all. We need to find out what your vision means and stop it. Perhaps Master Yoda will know.

Before the conversation could continue, the alarm began to ring out. “What’s that? Are we under attack?” Sheyo asked, preparing to fight. “No. That’s just the alarm letting the avengers know to suit up. Looks like they’re needed somewhere. Good. When they’re gone we can ask fury about getting a-” Jarvis spoke up. “Excuse me Mr.(M/N), your father has requested you and Miss Wune to suit up. You two will be going with them on the mission.” (M/N) was surprised to hear that. He figured his dad wouldn’t want him along. “Alright we’re on our way. When we’re back. Come on Sheyo, let’s go see what’s going on.” (M/N) quickly ran to his room and changed back into his jedi tunic and grabbed his lightsabers. He and Sheyo made it to the quinjet which the avengers were boarding.

It wasn’t long before the jet was in the air and the briefing began. “Alright. We have reports that remnants of Hydra have taken over a shield base in colorado. They’ve put up a good fight of keeping it too.” Sheyo looked over the holotable. “What’s the strategic importance of this base sir? Why would they take it?” Steve looked troubled. “That’s the thing, this base didn’t have anything of importance. It was just a look out base, a couple artifacts are there but nothing that we’ve discovered to be important or dangerous. We’re worried we might be wrong about that. We’re not sure exactly sure why they took it...especially with how reckless they’ve been about it.” (M/N) felt a little nagging feeling in his mind. “I have a bad feeling about this. Do you feel that Sheyo?” She nodded. “Yes. I feel there is something more here than any of us know. We should be cautious with how we proceed.” The avengers nodded at that, worried about what that could mean. Tony seemed to stand a bit closer to (M/N). Steve continued the briefing and they continued their flight to the base. “Ready to get back into the fight?” (M/N) asked his friend. “You know it. You know I hate sitting around when there’s people to help save and criminals to stop.” The two laughed as someone approached from behind them. “You two seem chipper for going into battle.” (M/N) smirked at the archer. “This is an everyday occurrence Clint. We’re used to it by now.” The man frowned at that. “I don’t like that you’re used to it. You shouldn’t be used to it.” Sheyo smiled at him. “We don’t like it either. But that’s just how the universe works sometimes.”

It wasn’t long before the quinjet landed and everyone got into position. “Alright everyone, you know what to do. Keep on comms and stay safe. Especially you two.” Steve looked at (M/N) and Sheyo who only grinned at him and saluted. “Yes sir!” They said in unison. “Smart asses.” (M/N) heard his dad mutter. The doors opened and everyone went into their objectives. (M/N) and Sheyo were of course teamed up together and they were tasked with taking out the outer defenses and watch towers. It was relatively easy for them to finish seeing as both have taken part of sieges. Both however did do their best to not kill anyone, only to disarm them and knock them out.

“(M/N), Sheyo, Hydra is starting to retreat. We’re following the bulk of their forces. Can you two take the few stragglers from the main facility?” Steve said through the comms. “Absolutely! We’ll take care of them!” (M/N) said back. He and Sheyo made it back to the main facility and took care of the few stragglers that had remained. “Well...that was a blue milk run.” (M/N) joked. “Another day's work for the galaxy's best duo.” Sheyo high fived him. The two returned to the outside of the facility. As they stepped outside the sound of a lightsaber igniting was heard and a chill ran up (M/N)’s spine. He was quick to ignite his and block as a red blade came down almost hitting sheyo.

“Well, well. When my master said you would be here I thought he was letting his anger and pain confuse him. Guess he was right after all.” Another sith. This time however it was a twi'lek girl with red skin and black tattoos over her body and face. Sheyo came in with her lightsaber but was blocked as the sith ignited another lightsaber...this one however had a pure black blade with a white silverish outline. “My my...two in one? My lucky day!” (M/N) brought up his other lightsaber for a swing but the sith only jumped out of the way. “I’m guessing you’re the reason Hydra’s here?” She gave out a laugh before bringing her hands up and shooting out lightning which the two jedi blocked. “WHO ARE YOU!?” (M/N) yelled. “My master sends his regards! He wanted to kill you himself but he’s currently still licking his wounds!” It was then (M/N) knew, he had studied enough of his enemy in the jedi archives. She was Kren’s apprentice. “So...we finally meet...Talon!” The sith grinned widely. “I’m glad to see you’ve heard about me!”

The lightning was keeping it’s pace. Talon was strong, but she was too focused on the two jedi to notice as a missile launched at her. She stopped her lightning and jumped out of the way in time not to be directly hit. The sound of jet’s came into hearing range and blaster fire began being shot out. (M/N) thought that it was his father coming to the rescue, he was surprised when a mandalorian landed next to him still firing at the sith. “Well what are you waiting for!? Finish her off!” The mando shouted. (M/N) shook off his confusion and moved to attack again but watched as Talon jumped off the railing. The sound of engines got louder as Talon rose into view. She was standing on a small fighter. “Thank you for the fight! Sadly I must leave now for I have what I need. Not to worry I’ll be back!” The mandalorian shot off a rocket at her which she pushed back with the force. “Duck!” (M/N) pushed the mandalorian down while Sheyo dropped to the ground. The rocket hit into a wall the opposite side and Talon escaped in her ship.

(M/N) groaned as he looked up into the visor of the mandalorians helmet. “You mind? You’re kind of crushing me.” (M/N) quickly stood up and helped the man up. “Oh sorry.” Sheyo got up and came over to them. “You alright?” (M/N) nodded and turned back to the man. “Thanks for the help. Who are you? What’s a mandalorian doing here on Earth?” The man rose his hand. “Name’s Ven. Ven Myjal of Clan Zost. I was looking for an important heirloom, sadly she got here first.” (M/N)’s mind clicked with recognition. “That lightsaber. The one with the black blade.” Ven nodded. “It’s called the darksaber. The person who holds it leads the mandalorians. I was trying to find it before they found it, I fear they plan to use it to conquer Mandalore.” Sheyo snorted. “The sith will conquer all of their ‘allies’.” Even with a helmet on, (M/N) could tell Ven was glaring. “We want nothing to do with your war. The mandalorians that have sided with the empire are all seperatist!” Sheyo backed off but the air was tense. “So what are you going to do now?” Ven shrugged. “I’m not sure. I can’t really follow her all the way back to Dromund Kaas or Korriban. I’ll probably just return to Mandalore and prepare for whatever comes next. No matter what happens, my clan won’t listen to the empire.” (M/N) nodded. “Can I ask a favor? Can you drop my friend and I off at a republic station or planet? We’re stuck here and need to get back to warn them of events that happened before we got stuck.” The man sighed and shook his head. “I have a ship not far from here. I’ll take you as far as Alderaan but then I’ll have to head back to Mandalore.” (M/N) smirked. “That’s all we need. Thank you. I have to quickly wrap up some business but Sheyo will go with you for now. Sheyo go with Ven and I’ll go back with the avengers and finish up our business. Lead Ven and pick me up. It’s time to go.” Sheyo nodded and followed Ven to his ship.

(M/N) arrived back at the quinjet the same time the avengers were. “(M/N)! Where’s Sheyo?” Steve asked. The others looking worried, (M/N) rose his hands. “She’s fine. She’s with someone who’s going to help us get off world.” That caught the attention of everyone, his father pushed his way forward. “Off world? You’re leaving again?” (M/N) hated seeing his father look down, but he needed to go. “Yes. I’ll tell you more on the way back to the tower. I need you all to do something for me.” He didn’t wait for a response and boarded the jet. On the way back to the tower he told them everything. Talon. Ven. The darksaber.  And finally- “Remember the last time I was here? I had the infinity stone that we were going to give to the jedi council...well I still have it. I need you to hold onto it and keep it safe. I can’t trust it with anyone else.” He pleaded with the avengers but he really didn’t need to. They had all already made their decision to keep it safe. Arriving back at the tower they exited the jet and (M/N) quickly went to his room to grab the stone. However when he went to where he hid the stone he found it missing. “What...Jarvis! Did someone enter my room when we were gone?” Jarvis was silent for a while. “I’m sorry sir. It seems like part of my security feed was erased. This is...alarming.” (M/N) felt his heart race quickening, someone came and stole the stone. He raced out of his room to his father and the rest. “It’s gone! Someone took the stone.” This alarmed them all. “What? Jarvis do you have the security recording?” The ai repeated that it had been erased. “This isn’t good, not at all.” Bruce said. The sound of engines got louder and they watched as a gauntlet class ship landed on the balcony. The ramp dropped and Sheyo walked out. Tony placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find it. But you need to go and do what you need to do.” He could see that there were tears building in his eyes but still held a smile. 

The avengers walked him out to the ship. Each of them said their goodbyes to him. Steve reached out his hand but (M/N) pulled him into a hug. “Bye Steve. See ya in a bit...take care of my dad.” Steve seemed to understand what he meant and nodded. Finally it was time to say goodbye to his dad. “Well...at least I get to say goodbye this time.” Tony laughed and shook his head. “Not goodbye, just see ya later.” (M/N) smirked and hugged his dad. “You know it. I’ll try and be as quick as I can. I have a bad feeling things are about to get a lot more difficult.” Tony rolled his eyes, still hugging him. “Well if it’s easy it’s no fun.” (M/N) groaned. “Says you! I like it when I don’t have to constantly be worried for my life...I love you dad.” Tony hugged him just a little bit tighter. “I love you more.” With that he let go and turned to the ship. “Oh! I almost forgot. Here!” He turned back around and gave dad his comlink. “This way we can keep in some sort of contact and it’s not just static for two years.” Tony huffed out a laugh and (M/N) gave one last goodbye to everyone before turning to the ship.

Sheyo smiled as he boarded the ship. “Ready to go?” He nodded. Ven was at the controls and Sheyo sat in the co-pilot's seat, (M/N) sitting behind Ven. “About time. Let’s leave this place.” The engines roared and the ship began flying away. It was only then watching the city getting smaller did (M/N) realize he didn’t get to say goodbye to Peter. He’d have to apologize next time he came...hopefully both survived long enough. “Next stop, Alderaan.”

[pearwaldorf]

fanwork roundup 2019

LIST OF FANWORKS NSFW is denoted with an asterisk. All Good Omens is Aziraphale/Crowley unless noted. the last witness before the wave hits (Good Omens, gen) can you feel my heart beat fast (I want it to last, need you by my side) (Good Omens) *well you laughed baby it's okay (it's buzzcut season anyway) (Good Omens) take care to leave a trace (KOTOR 2; Jedi Exile/everybody, Jedi Exile/Visas Marr) of some other man's belief (Good Omens, gen) I've got this feeling, so appealing, for us to get together and sing (Good Omens, gen) [archive-locked work] (RPF) I knew that sullen hall (Good Omens/Dragon Age: Inquisition crossover) *we gladiate but I guess we're really fighting ourselves (The Last Jedi; Finn/Poe/Rey/Rose) healing spirit (Good Omens) [archive-locked work] (RPF) better than anything else that I've tried (Good Omens) gotta blame it on the goose (Good Omens/Untitled Goose Game crossover) *don't know you super well but you might be the same as me (Good Omens) sleeping at last (Good Omens) *don't need a crown to know that I'm a queen (Good Omens) *just let me try (and I will be good to you) - an Anthonavery RPF (Slow Show) *I can make you boil up baby, let it simmer (Slow Show) an instrument of thy vision (Rise of Skywalker; Finn) Tumblr ficlets I also did two challenges this year: Ineffable Fictober and Drabbletober. TOTAL WORD COUNT 

62423!!! By fandom: Good Omens: 36697 Star Wars: 7421 RPF: 5808 KOTOR 2: 2505 Dragon Age: Inquisition: 1105 Everything else (Critical Role, MCU, Hannibal, Mass Effect): 8887

OVERALL THOUGHTS 

Oh god it was so good to get my words back, and not only that, surpass my word count for my previous best year. The past two years have been super fucking bad for writing, and to be able to write with ease and joy againi feels like a marvelous gift, and I am grateful. And copypasta from last year, because it seems worth repeating: If, despite everything, you were able to produce work this year, congratulations. And if you couldn't, that's okay too. Next year will hopefully be better. 

PERSONAL BEST/FAVORITE I really do feel like I leveled up as a writer this year. The words were good and they came easily. I branched out a lot this year: RPF, really strange metafic, things that should be fic but the thing it's fic of doesn't actually exist. I had a lot of fun writing all of it. 

MOST UNDERAPPRECIATED (IMO) 

I feel like everything was appreciated the right amount. I would have loved more people to have seen I knew that sullen hall, but niche crossovers are hard to attract attention.

MOST POPULAR

well you laughed baby it's okay, aka the hair-pulling fic. People really seemed to like it an almost disproportionate amount to its length and quality. Maybe it was exactly what fandom wanted at the time. Also somebody tried to plagiarize it so I guess that must mean they liked it a lot. :P 

STORY WITH THE SEXIEST MOMENT Don't need a crown to know that I'm a queen. I like stories where characters know they're a snack and aren't afraid to show it off.

MOST FUN STORY TO WRITE 

Gotta blame it on the goose, for sure. It's so silly.

STORY THAT SHIFTED MY OWN PERCEPTION OF A CHARACTER

I knew that sullen hall. I never spent a whole lot of time with Blackwall, so it was interesting to get into his head for a bit. And in the course of writing the story, I had to think about things that he and Aziraphale would have in common, and it was useful character work for both of them.

HARDEST 

Of some other man's belief was a strange, recalcitrant story where I never really knew where I was going with it. All I know is it wanted to be written very very badly.  

BIGGEST SURPRISE/S 

The fake RPF I did for the Slow Show universe. The everything I wrote in the Slow Show universe. But it was great fun, and the Warlock Party House is a wonderful group of people. 

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT  

I wanted to get out a vid this year, but I don't think that's going to happen. 

MOST UNINTENTIONALLY TELLING STORY 

Like I say every year, all my shit is out in the open.  

FAVOURITE LINES/SCENES

Occasionally, as she is drifting off, she feels something shift in her awareness of him, like the brush of a hand on a curtain.(from we gladiate but I guess we're really fighting ourselves) “Jesus fucking christ, angel. You can’t just say things like that.” “Leave that poor boy out of this. Now tell me, do you like the red or the black better?” (from Ineffable Fictober prompt "anything you like") He reached up to grab the other man’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Come for me, he tried to communicate with his touch. Flood me with your release. (from just let me try. I was writing it intentionally badly but sometimes I'm not sure people got that 😆) 

LINES/SCENES YOU’D CHANGE 

I try not to think about it because then I'll want to change them and then I'll never stop fiddling. 

TOP FIVE SCENES YOU WISH WOULD BE ILLUSTRATED

The alley scene in can you feel my heart beat fast Nanny, Warlock, and Aziraphale at the concert in I've got this feeling Crowley tending Aziraphale's hands in healing spirit This chapter (wings) from Ineffable Fictober Crowley chasing after the goose 

2020 WRITING AMBITIONS

As always, a look at last year's:

(Creative) Survival is still a laudable ambition. I will endeavor to produce as much as I can creatively, and hopefully exceed this year's incredibly pathetic word count. I haven't made a vid in a while, and I have a new NLE (VEGAS Pro 15) to take for a spin. Art is also part of resistance, and integrating it more into my life will be good. 

I think I did pretty well with the first two. Didn't make a vid, but I'm starting on one now. Good Omens was more important to me this year than I realized. Coming off Endgame, I needed something to feel excited about, and Good Omens is a very enthusiastic fandom. It also got me through the lead-up and release of Rise of Skywalker. For a while I was deeply suspicious a shoe was going to drop re: how much fun I was having in GO fandom because it felt too easy. People weren't wanking the day away (or I could avoid those that were) and they were so happy to love on the characters. And then I realized no, that's actually how it should feel to be in a fandom community. So I guess that's one of the things I'm going to do next year: prioritize joy, especially when it comes to fandom. I've never been exactly bad at writing whatever the fuck I want, but that is something I should continue to do. I would like to write something long with at least a modicum of plot. I am bad at both of these things, and it would be nice to prove to myself I can if I wanted to. I am going to try and make two vids next year and see if I can learn Vegas 15 and maybe another NLE. I also want to get a captioning/transcription guide up for fans who want to make their vids more accessible, as somebody asked about it.

[eremji]

Thoughts on Infinity War, and Thanos' Motivation

Disclaimer: I'm not a Marvel expert. Some of my information on comic plots was collected from wikis and secondary articles, due to a lack of access to a primary source or the simple inaccuracy of my own memory. I also mostly enjoyed Infinity War, and any criticism herein should not be taken as decrying the whole.

Spoilers behind the cut. Please close your eyes and scroll super fast, block tags, duck and cover, etc. if you’re on mobile, because, seriously, spoilers.

An extremely simplified version of movie production:

From a production standpoint, Iron Man was a huge risk for the studios fronting the money for it. After critical and box office flops from 90s Batman films and other various superhero action flicks, studios typically found comic book movies to underperform in comparison to budgetary requirements for good visuals, making them unattractive. Marvel has taken a large step away from making comic book movies, to making comic book adaptations, because what works on the page doesn’t work in a moving picture.

Marvel Studios’ cinematic success has almost nothing to do with how compelling the source material is – because some of Marvel’s library is pretty much slush pile garbage. This was before your average artist or consumer realized you can get pretty literary while still having cool pictures on a page. They’re valuable because they propelled the comic industry to widespread success, but the source is best examined with a critical eye towards tone deaf and anachronistic viewpoints on race, sexuality, gender, and pretty much everything else. Marvel Studios has done a fairly consistent job of divorcing the cinematic canon from the original medium’s baggage, to which I attribute a large portion of the films’ success in comparison to very lukewarm iterations of DC or X-Men.

As media consumers, we’re accustomed to having a finished product to hold and analyze. When considering story, in terms of plotting and pacing, I personally believe it’s most helpful to compare the scope of the MCU production to be similar to that of a television show, rather than a traditional movie or movie series. It may be startling to know that even very successful television shows, like Breaking Bad or Stranger Things, often don’t even have all the episodes completely written out prior to beginning filming of a season.

Marvel Studios’ movies have been in production for ten years, with many, many different hands in the pot, and earlier scripts don’t always set up the best planting and payoff of character or plot elements later in the continuity. (For visual learners, Lindsay Ellis has a very layman-friendly example using clips from Mad Max: Fury Road.)

You can see where this might start to cause some consistency issues.

Crossover event comics and the necessary sacrifice of emotional development:

For anyone walking in to expecting Avengers: Infinity War to have a lot of character development, I’m very sorry for your loss.

There was never going to be a grand emotional reunion for Steve and Bucky, and there was never going to be whole hours dedicated to bonding and witty bickering and new friendships that weren’t absolutely vital to the plot. That we got things like the Steve-and-Bucky hug, the jealous Star-Lord vs. Thor moments, and Steve introducing himself politely to Groot were for the benefit of the audience more than advancing the plot, which is a huge victory in terms of crushing as much as possible into a theatrical cut.

A film production has a finite amount of screen time to allocate before a movie becomes bloated. When people joke about Infinity War being the most ambitious crossover event, I don’t think some of them realize how on the mark that is from a production standpoint. Hard decisions have to be made between what isn’t vital to advancing plot in a compelling way and what was retained to meet audience expectations. Infinity War often felt like it tried to recapture that Joss Whedon-ish sassy-but-kinda-flat comedy from the first Avengers, and that meant punchlines for jokes sometimes land at emotionally inappropriate times because characters just don’t have cinematic space for witty banter between shooting aliens and losing everyone they ever cared about.

There’s a difference in author-audience expectations of what’s important in these team-up movies, and also gaps between fans actively participating in fandom because they love the characters and casual moviegoers looking for a blockbuster. It all comes down to how much each party in the creative transaction is willing to settle for. Traditionally, Marvel has set up the character-driven plots and subplots in individual comics with occasional crossover cameos for a few issues when another character or baddie is relevant to the plot. The large crossover events, like Civil War, Contest of Champions, or Infinity are almost always plot-heavy and character-light.

This is so much easier in comic book format, where multiple series can be coordinated in regular, paced releases, and different comic issues may happen parallel or directly before/after the event crossovers. Movies take a significantly larger amount of time to produce, through pre-production, filming, post-production, marketing, and distribution.

A brief (I’m serious, they’ve been making comics since the 1939) explication of source material:

One of the largest disconnects for me, as a fan of both the comics and the movies, was the change in Thanos’ motivation, but not his mission. For those who aren't aware of the origins of his character, he essentially wants to murder people to impress a girl – Mistress Death, to be specific. He wants to kill half of all life in the universe so that he can be her equal and win her affection. 

Dorkly did a pretty solid breakdown of some of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet story and the innate misogynistic slant of his character, including comic panels from the original source material, that paints comic!Thanos an internet Nice Guy™. (Feel free to skim the article; it's a bit slow to get to the point.) Perusing the comic panels, you can see Thanos is hella into negging and is spiteful when Mistress Death shows interest in another dude (spoilers: it’s Deadpool). He clearly believes love is possession, and if he can’t have what he wants, then, good golly, no one can.

He’s also really off the rails – dubbed the Mad Titan even before his objectification mega crush on a badass corpse with a wicked bod – and is personally responsible for destroying Titan. He’s not a villain that believes he’s the hero, and this shift away from his motivation being dangerous-and-horrible to dangerous-and-misguided casts the first shadow on the premise.

My (very personal) opinion on the execution:

MCU essentially played keep away with some of the more supernatural elements of the source material, at least until introducing Dr. Strange. In doing so they had to construct Thanos’ motivation for a comic-book-inspired task out of whole cloth. There is no Mistress Death. Secondary characters that were discrete entities are often pulling double duty*.

(*Or triple. See also: Bucky Barnes, who is wearing the backstory of Captain America's gay best friend Arnie Roth and now White Wolf. If you were previously unaware of this factoid, please enjoy the irony that Marvel’s biggest pro-American propaganda piece had an openly gay best friend circa early 80s but Civil War ham-fistedly had to work in that awkward-as-fuck smooch between Steve and Peggy Carter’s hot young romantic surrogate niece.)

So, okay, they have to reinvent Thanos, who we've only seen in a handful of post-credit scenes and vicariously learned, through Loki in the first Avengers movie and then Gamora in Guardians, is a conqueror and also really Bad News™.

I buy everything so far. And why not? Black Panther made me love Killmonger and his rage, and the parallels to contemporary issues made him fairly empathetic without highlighting that his perspective was necessarily the ‘correct’ one. Similarly, Spider-Man: Homecoming’s villain, Vulture, was believable in the sort of suffering everyman-turned-desperate way, highlighting the fallout of the Space Invaders vs. Avengers destruction without suggesting the audience should root for Vulture.

In general, I am on board for these movies going straight for the throat on the big baddies of the comic universe because movie production is lengthy, expensive, and time-consuming. Dear Marvel Studios, Give me Avengers vs. Dr. Doom. Love, Me.

A villain can be built up over the course of a single movie (or two). Armed with this optimism, and heartened by recent Marvel Studios successes in characterization, I walked into Infinity War expecting as much gratuitous violence, universe-cleansing genocide, and genuine fear of Thanos as I could possibly expect from something Disney-adjacent.

I knew people were going to die. Let me say – there was no way to spoil this for me. The Infinity Gauntlet comic series starts with half the universe dying. I expected there to be ‘casualties’ and even though the Russo bros said that this wasn’t two parts of the same movie, it’s certainly serial. At minimum, I was expecting Thanos bent on conquering the cosmos, worshiping at the altar of death in the abstract, if not groveling for an inevitable-cosmic-force-turned unattainable woman.

And yet. And yet.

We got the purple version of the Kool-Aid man with some seriously unaddressed parent-child issues (mirrored in Tony Stark’s loss of Peter Parker) and a wholly unimaginative motivation. I won’t go too far much into the movie’s alarming efforts at framing Thanos as a sympathetic character despite his genocidal and horribly abusive tendencies, because I am A) not an expert at identifying film technique and B) the push for Thanos to be an empathetic villain has been analyzed elsewhere.

Phenomenal, limitless cosmic power and all you want to do is break shit? For all the immaturity of it, Thanos’ comic book motivation was more believable.

To those arguing that the his motivations in the movie are predicated off of him being the Mad Titan and therefore not rooted in logic: The film did not explicitly plant the idea – except in the way that we know genocide is bad due to an innate sense of morality – that he was unhinged and power-mad, nor did they really give the audience any payoff.

Instead, we get, ‘I don’t really want to do this, but I must.’

There was a point where I started wondering why the hell he wasn’t just being steadily roasted by the Avengers for not receiving some sort of basic education in the evils of wealth disparity and resource distribution.

As an audience member, was I meant to believe this incredibly powerful entity at the center of a massive fleet, accompanied by a group of talented and sycophantic followers, couldn’t think of a better way to bring ‘balance’ to the universe?

Perhaps Thanos’ justification is simply the conceit of the way the universe operates, required to propel a plot forward. However, this is also poorly explained. There are many unanswered questions: Why is it a given that killing half the universe will create balance? What does balance look like? Is this state permanent or is it a routine, necessary evil in order to stop entropy? Is balance a socioeconomic state, or does it have some greater cosmological significance? We know that Titan fell after rejecting Thanos’ extreme solution, but would the population have actually endured and flourished if his plan had been carried out?

For a movie that did so well at handling a cast so phenomenally large as the one involved in its production, Infinity War really didn’t go in very hard on selling Thanos. I would have been perfectly happy if Marvel Studios had taken the risk to lean in hard on making the movie Thanos-centric, given Thanos even more screen time to develop his character, motives, and the rules of the universe – and then make Avengers 4 about, you know, the actual avenging.

Parting notes:

What are we left with?

Infinity War gifted us with some badass action clips, a fairly jarring death performance by Tom Holland, Cheerful Goatherd Bucky Barnes, and emotionally traumatizing bubbles. It never really sells the conundrum it sets up via Thanos. You'll never hear me insist a peice of art or entertainment is required to carry some sort of social commentary or moral message, but I feel like this could have been, tonally, a vastly different film had it considered the core of Thanos' motivations the same way it considered Vulture's or Killmonger's.

Also, where the hell is Adam Warlock (set up at the end of GotG: Vol. 2; revisit planting and payoff) to shit talk Thanos’ lack of villainous veracity when we need him?

[jeremys-blogs]

Marvel’s Future: A New Main Trio?

I don't think it's any real debate at this point that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made its impact on both film and popular culture at large. That studio took characters that few outside of comic book fandoms had ever even heard about and turned them into a billion-dollar franchise, creating a series of movies rightly regarded as greats. And all this culminated in Avengers Endgame, a decisive cap-off to the story we'd come to know and love, as well as serving as a farewell to many of the characters who had served as the heroes of this tale. And its those characters I wanted to talk about today, or rather, the now-lack of them. Because the cast is undoubtedly one of the major highlights of this franchise, and standing at the center was its three biggest stars; Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. But, as Endgame now showed, those are three costumed crimefighters that we're likely to never see again, thus taking out a lot of the draw that made the past films work as well as they did. And since the MCU is likely going to want to continue for a long time, that leaves the worrying question of who can take the place of those three greats. Who can stand up to fill the void left behind by the original core trio of the Avengers and serve as the face of the franchise from here on out?

Now this is a pretty big thing to speculate on, I know. These three characters brought the franchise to life and are, within the MCU itself, absolute giants that would be pretty daunting to try and follow in the footsteps in. But if Marvel is going to want to continue to draw people in, we're going to need a central cast around which everything else has to revolve. And my big idea here is this. Don't just focus in on a new cast, but specifically a younger one. A trio of younger heroes who have grown up in this world of monsters, heroes and aliens, who have, with the rest of the world, seen the world change from the mundane to the fantastic, and have them be the ones to take up the mantle left behind by Tony, Steve and Thor. Young people who not only have coming-of-age stories of their own, but also have to have them during an age that has been irreversibly influenced by these powerful, larger-than-life figures who, without even realizing it, have shaped just what life is going to be like for the next generation. Thankfully, the MCU has already provided a pair of characters that I feel can be a part of this new hypothetical core trio, and as for the third, well, I'll get into that one a bit later on.

The first of my proposed new trio would be none other than Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man himself. And this one, I think, is probably going to be the least contentious of my choices, because Peter has proved himself to be a well-liked and popular addition to the Marvel films since his debut in Civil War. In fact, the reveal that his character was going to be a part of that movie was likely a big reason why so many people were drawn to it, even though that film would likely have been considered great even without him. Tom Holland has been a real standout performance in the role and every subsequent film he's been in has only cemented my belief that he is not only a worthy Spider-Man, but someone who will probably go on to be one of the key figures in Marvel's future. And since the movies have already set him up to be a sort of successor hero to Tony Stark, I'd say him being considered as one of the new mains is going to be something a lot of people will want. And hey Tony himself personally "knighted" him as an Avenger back in Infinity War, and if that's not a blatant "I choose you" moment for the character, I don't know what is.

Second on my list would be Princess Shuri, younger sister to T'challa, the King of Wakanda and the Black Panther. Much like Peter, Shuri has proved to be a likeable addition to the MCU, with some even citing her as the most enjoyable character of the Black Panther film. And while her brother might himself be more associated with the Avengers, we cannot forget that he is a national leader, and therefore will probably be occupied with a great many responsibilities. His sister, by contrast, is not only unhindered by such things, but also seems to have a greater affection for the world beyond Wakanda's borders, and as the end of her brother's film showed, she'll be getting out there pretty often as part of Wakanda's efforts to better be a part of international affairs. So she'll definitely have more opportunity be out there, and if rumours are to be believed, there's even a chance of her perhaps taking on the mantle of Black Panther herself one day, if only during those times when T'challa himself won't be able to do it. As a funny, intelligent and witty young woman, I think Shuri would be a welcome addition to the new main cast of the MCU, especially since there would be a need to have a hero whose abilities didn't solely lie in some extra-human powers like other characters have.

As for my final choice, I thought long and hard, and eventually decided on the character of kamala Khan, AKA Ms Marvel. Now, this one is likely less-known than the other two since she hasn't appeared in the MCU yet, but to give a brief rundown on her she's a Pakistani-American teenager who, like Peter, acquired her powers (in this case super-elasticity, in sort of the same vein as the likes of Mr Fantastic) by accident and decided to take on the role of a costumed hero as a result. As for her personality she is, to be perfectly frank, an utterly unapologetic Marvel fangirl, completely obsessed with the bigger name heroes of that world, in particular Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, whom you can probably tell she took her hero name from. There's a bunch of other stuff with her but that's more or less the gist of it, that she's a super-stretchy girl with an total love of superheroes and would, most likely, be the most enthusiastic about not only the work of heroing but also being a part of whatever new Avengers form up in the wake of the departure of the old guard. And with her, we hopefully have our new core trio for the franchise going forward. A group of youngsters who come of age in an era of superpowers, gods, aliens and all manner of other world-changing events.

However, much as I would love for Kamala to be included in this, I must concede that her being a part of the new Avengers would present a very specific problem. You see, while Ms Marvel has indeed been confirmed to be a future addition to the MCU, her arrival will not be by way of a theatrical film, but rather television, specifically a Disney Plus exclusive. Now that might not sound like an issue since it's all Marvel, but consider this. The movies will, by and large, be the main form of Marvel that general audiences will be watching or otherwise be aware of. So, for instance, while not everyone going into the original Avengers will have seen all the other movies, they will have likely at least heard of characters like Tony, Thor and Steve. Kamala has no such luck, especially if she's thus-far only going to be appearing on a streaming service that not everyone has access to. So if we're going to have her as part of this new trio, there's probably going to have to be more explanation with her than there is with Peter or Shuri since audiences would already be familiar with the two of them. Fortunately, I've given this some thought and I think I've come up with a workaround.

Remember, Peter's own introduction in Civil War clearly showed that he'd been having a career as Spider-Man for some time before Tony recruited him. He never had any in-movie depiction of his origins. The same thing can be done for kamala. Have her go through her TV stuff sure, but wen it comes to the team-up have her inclusion be like Peter's, where the other heroes find her and include her with only a vague acknowledgement to the stuff she's been getting up to before that meeting. So those who've seen her show might understand what she's been referring to and moviegoers will, like with Peter, get this sense that there was this whole other story that they just haven't been told yet. As for how to bring the three together, maybe Peter will come across some baddie he can't fight alone, and with the Avengers kaput he decides to seek out other help. He goes to Shuri (with the two of them having maybe established an acquaintance during Tony Stark's funeral and wake) and together they try and stop the villain between them. And during their attempt they come across kamala, who has been getting involved with the antagonist while they were tracking them. Details can maybe be worked out later.

But while getting the characters all together is all well and good it'll all be for nothing if they don't work well off each other. That was, after all, one of the things people loved about the original Avengers. Thankfully, I believe these three kids have a lot they can do together once they become a team. Shuri and Peter, as one example, could pick each others' brains over some random new technology they discover during their combined villain-fighting, all while Kamala looks on totally confused as to what they're talking about. Kamala and Peter could share a moment where they consider how their chance for an ordinary teenage life is gone for them because of what happened to them. Or perhaps they could share an avid fan moment where they discuss who could win in a fight between two of the older heroes, all while Shuri watches them with amusement. Maybe Kamala and Shuri could have a talk about feeling like they're in the shadows of their respective predecessors, Captain Marvel and Black Panther, and assure each other that they're just as worthy of being heroes. Really, there's no end to the kinds of interactions these three could have once they're all together, and I think it has the potential for some truly great character moments.

Now, I realize that it's unlikely that such a team-up will happen. It was all just a bit of fun speculation. But I do think it's worth considering. After all, the MCU, at least as we've known it for the past decade-plus, can no longer continue as it was because of the massive cast change that Endgame gave us, and I truly think that the franchise will need some new main face if it's going to want to continue onwards, trio or otherwise. Thankfully, if nothing else, we know by now that this is a studio that has enough experience at making great movies that, no matter what form their franchise takes, at least it'll be fun for us to see play out 😊

[randomaliha]

A, C, N, X

Thanks! :) 

A - ships that I currently like a lot.

I always have a bunch of ships I’m invested in to some degree (most sort of casual or in the background) but my main one right now is stucky so prepare yourself for a ramble, my friend. I’m a sucker for ships that span a long time frame because you get so much richness and development. So, Steve and Bucky meet as kids in 1930s Depression-era New York. They grow up together but get separated for the first time when Bucky gets drafted for the war. It’s a whole time period that’s really evocative, with heaps of scope for stories about discovering each other and ~feelings and trying to work jobs and live together and Bucky trying to find Steve a date but no one wants to date Steve but p.s. Bucky’s pretty much taking him on dates all the time soooo yeah. Then we get this second act where Steve has been transformed and Bucky has been captured and experimented on, so they’ve both changed – except for the way they feel about each other. They spend the rest of the war fighting together until Bucky is presumed killed (Steve couldn’t save him! Steve will never fail him like that again! Is what Steve says to himself every night I’m guessing!) and right after that Steve sacrifices himself and puts his plane into the ice. Ultimately, of course, the war was bigger than both of them. And that should have been the end of it, an amazing but tragic journey for those two kids from Brooklyn. But we get another act, another page, in which they find each other again and Steve breaks through Bucky’s 65 years of brainwashing pretty much by existing. Two bits I absolutely love in this third act: the first time they cross paths again since 1945 is in TWS, when Bucky/the soldier comes to kill Fury at Steve’s apartment. At that moment, ‘Its been a long, long time’ by Kitty Kallen plays on Steve’s record player, a romantic af song from 1945 about lovers reuniting after the end of the war. Never thought that you would be/Standing here so close to me… You’ll never know how many dreams I've dreamed about you/Or just how empty they all seemed without you/So kiss me once then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again/It’s been a long, long time. Wow what a totally platonic bros reunion song. And second, when they’re fighting aboard the carrier and Bucky’s struggling with his programming, Steve says “finish it. Cos I’m with you, to the end of the line” which…. you know, he’s telling Bucky/the soldier to kill him because Steve won’t kill Bucky. Will not. Full stop. He’s with Bucky even if Bucky’s not really there anymore, even if being there for Bucky means dying. And the thing about it is, that’s a promise they made to each other. To be there til the end of the line. We see Bucky say it to Steve in a flashback, it’s how Bucky has always felt about Steve, a promise he’s made to Steve as much as to himself, to be there for Steve always, and on that carrier Steve is returning that love and that unwavering loyalty. And that promise is what finally gets through to Bucky and breaks decades of brainwashing. I MEAN. This devotion to each other is absolutely core to their characters. Those birds are in love. (If Infinity War kills one of them or separates them again I will be mad as hell, dishonour on all marvel’s (cash) cows.)

C - a ship I have never liked and probably never will

I feel like all my NOPE ships are in Star Wars. Rey/Kylo is the biggest nope in the galaxy and I hated their scenes in tlj. Actually, Kylo really reminds me of Anakin in the prequels, but worse. Kylo is that kid who got a chip on his shoulder when he was a teenager and has never moved past it, and now he’s a selfish tool who causes suffering and kills people because he got his feelings hurt and it makes him so angry but he’s just misunderstood and deep down he’s a nice guy if people would just do what he wants. In a high school AU this would be the character that would need to be on some kind of fbi watch list, and I hate that Star Wars writers can’t come up with a better characterisation when they’re trying to write a complex character who turns to the dark side. Things don’t go right for angry young white man; he kills everyone? That’s basically it? Some fans might point to the influence of Palpatine and Snoke as playing a role but there are plenty of characters in the SW universe who got dealt a shitty hand in life and got tempted by the dark side and didn’t go over. Basically Anakin wasn’t good enough for Padme or Obi-Wan (nooope nope nope) and Kylo isn’t anywhere near good enough for Rey or indeed anyone in the galaxy. 

N - 3 things you wish you saw more of in your fandom(s)

1. I just found a bunch of meta posts for Bucky/stucky that included timelines and costume research and meta and it was amazing and super exciting. So I guess more of that in all my fandoms but yeah, I love world-building, I love being able to fit a character into a setting and a world, and get more context on who they are, so discussion of that stuff is great and I find it really helps and inspires me as a fic writer.

2. drabbles on my dash. Can we bring back 100 word drabbles as a thing we post on tumblr? I tend to only read longer fics on ao3 but 100 word drabbles are perfect little mouthfuls for your dash, like a gifset. Also they are a damn art form and I love them.

3. Rare pairs maybe? (says every rare pair fan ever) 

X - a trope you are certain to love in any fandom

Misunderstandings that lead to mutual pining and loads of shivery tension and a big beautiful reveal. I WILL ALWAYS READ SUCH PERFECT GOODNESS.

Tagging anyone on my dash who wants to do this or send me an ask?

[dreadhaus-literature]

{A/N}

I~ truthfully don’t know why I came to write. I’ve just been kinda doing my own thing tonight, gave myself a manicure (would have done a pedicure too but it’s cold and I have sockies on) and otherwise was messing about in my closet. Having one of those rare restless moods where I don’t really want to do anything, but y’all know me. I can’t not do something.

So here I am. Doing something.

Uh, well first I suppose I oughta address I hyped up coming out of hiatus today and then, lmao, didn’t. I opened a document to write initially but I just wasn’t feeling FL was connected, so I went to talk to Monica about how things are going. No sense beating a dead horse, we all know what goes with FL and why stuff gets the way it does. So at this point, I’ve just set my pen down until I’m told to pick it up again. Not going to put the blog in hiatus, just don’t expect regular updates anymore, I guess? I’m finding I get discouraged trying to do this alone, so if I can’t do it with my partner, I won’t be doing it at all--and that’s coming from a place of support.

FL isn’t FL without Monica, nor should it be.

I’ll give it a few months and if things keep stagnating or I haven’t gotten a chance to write for FL anymore, I’ll take a look at other stuff to write. I don’t want to not write through 2019 like I did the past three years, I meant what I said at the start of the year.

My whole inspiration for what was going to be today’s prompt was Carol, actually--because I watched the red carpet premiere for Captain Marvel earlier tonight when it was live. Haha, I cried three fucking times. Three! First time was watching everyone SO hype for Carol, like the little girl in me could not handle seeing so many people so excited about someone I’ve loved since I was a kid. I’ve said it before, several times, but I never thought I’d get to see Carol on the big screen. Now, I get so excited I cry, lmao.

The second time I cried was when the youngest actress (who plays Carol as a little girl) was doing an interview and she said how important and special the movie was for her--again, the little girl in me could relate plus Mama Bear was all aflutter at seeing this little angel talk about how excited she was to see another female superhero get her own movie. I remember she said something, “Now every little girl in the world knows she’s special!”

Sweet Christ I’m about to get teary again remembering that. THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT MOVIE. 😤

...And I cried when Brie came out, lmao. I was not ready. She wore a dress full of sunbursts/stars, for Carol’s insignia. 💖💖💖

I could not handle that, like one of Brie’s first lines during her red carpet interview was that Carol changed her life, and my heart about shattered. You can tell Brie is proud to play Carol, and she worked her ass off to be able to do so--and I have so much respect for actors who commit to these roles like that. These characters mean the world to me and I love when the actor who plays them takes that seriously. You can tell, listening to Brie, she does. It was genuine, and I have renewed respect for her and I sincerely hope she knows how much support she has for this movie, despite all the fuckhead trolls out there.

So yeah, I cried for like, an hour? Haha, no, that’s an exaggeration and even if it wasn’t, it was all happy tears. I’m just so excited about this movie and to be somewhere I never thought I’d be. It isn’t to diminish, like, Tony or Peter or Logan but I always knew there’d be Iron Man or Spider-Man or X-Men movies--but there are others, like Thor or T’Challa or Carol, who I never anticipated seeing on the big screen and it’s so huge to be here.

I’m so grateful that we are here.

I’ve kinda just been all over the comicverse today, actually, looking at stuff--well, haha, in the two biggest backyards, rather. I only really stray outside of Marvel and DC to visit Anung & Co, but y’all know me. I’ve got my faves and I stick to my familiars--which up until very recently just included Marvel, lmao. But DC’s in there now, obviously, so I do wander about there from time to time. I feel like I visit a new school or some shit every time I do this, because I recognize some folks now but I run into others and I’m just like, yeah, i have no fucking idea who you are, haha. My DC coloring book came and it was vastly different from flipping through my Marvel book; I could name every single person for my Marvel book but I think I can count on my fingers and toes the DC folks I know. BUT I AM TRYING. Haha, I am learning, and it’s fun for a lot of reasons. Say this all the time but I am grateful to Monica for getting me to stop staring down my nose at the lot of them. I was missing out.

But I uh, well I’m noticing that a lot of what I like...not a lot of other DC fans do, lmao. And I’m not going to be tooting my own horn over here--or Avery’s rather, because I gave that back to her--but I just mean, I was taken aback by how, uh, upset some DC fangirls are about things that I liked or enjoyed? And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it happens on the Marvel side too. People are opinionated and I usually fall to the counter-culture side of arguments. I guess because I’m a wide-eyed newbie to the DCverse, I wasn’t thinking about it. Okay, like, for example--

My first unpopular opinion is that Arthur Curry looks better in the comics than the DCEU.

“Whaaaaaat?! BUT DOT, ARE YOU SAYING JASON MOMOA ISN’T HOT?!”

I’m not here to say Jason isn’t attractive or that he doesn’t do Arthur justice--but I’mma stand here and on the same hand say Tony Stark looks better in the comics than in the MCU. One, because I’m a huge gigantic lesbian, and two, because I always think the comics look better. Like, you will never hear me say otherwise, in terms of looks. Real life cannot compete with fantasy; characters can be drawn perfectly and try as we might to emulate that in real life, we never can.

It has nothing to do with the actors, nothing to do with Jason or RDJ, it’s all about the comic character they play--which a lot of fangirls seem to forget when it comes to these live-action portrayals, might I add.

And so uh, when I wanna look at Arthur, like everyone else in the comics, I’d rather see his comic iteration. And ain’t nobody here for comic Aquaman for some reason. I never see him around and it sucks. I guess I shouldn’t judge but I do a little. Like, y’all been sleepin’ on Arthur or mocking him for fucking years and even I knew that, from my DC-hating lawn chair. But now that Jason plays him, now he’s acceptable? Now he’s okay?

Arthur is literally in the same boat as Loki, like if you don’t love them at their comicverse then you don’t get to love them in the movies. Ya don’t love Arthur, you love Jason. And I just don’t get that. Jason’s a beefcake and y’all know I’m here for some bulk but if we’re comparing looks comic Arthur is who I’m diving into the briny deep for every single day of the year.

^ LIKE THIS GIF IS SAVED IN MY PHONE LIBRARY, I LOVE IT SO MUCH how do you not find this sexy, like I am a gay woman and he could part me like the Red Sea.

Anyway.

My 2nd apparent unpopular opinion is that Edward Nygma, Mr. Riddler, looks super scrumptious in the Batman, War of Jokes and Riddles arc. I went to look at him for...reasons, earlier tonight, and I was expecting others to agree with me and was pretty stunned that everyone in the tag was making fun of him. I felt like Peter, like I went, “Riddle me this, how hot is Edward in this arc, guys, amirite?” And I held up my hand for a high five and got left hanging by the entire rest of the fandom--Monica not included because she’s above the fandom on her lofty angel cloud.

And I don’t give a shit, y’all know I hate popular things and I’m not complaining about this, I’m talking about it because I’m still not over my surprise. I’m aware I don’t like conventionally attractive types, I have this thing with unique bone structure or just unique appearances to begin with but I didn’t think Edward fell into that. I just thought he was handsome, like...at the risk of embarrassing myself but I found myself staring at him a lot during the arc when Monica was reading it to me because it was the kind of attractive that kept catching my eye. And so to hear so many people saying how ugly he looked or how they hated that iteration of him and I was like...lmao, am I missing something?? There’s every chance I am, I am very new to this party.

But I’m not new to the general premise of finding someone attractive so to look me in my retinas and tell me this--

This is not an entire look? Y’all seriously gonna hit the pass button on this particular Nygma?

This--

This is ugly, to you?

??????????

I’M NOT JUST USING QUESTION MARKS BECAUSE IT’S EDWARD I’M BEING SERIOUS, I am seriously confused by this. I see people posting photo sets of him in this arc and I wanna reblog them but they’re being shitty/sarcastic/mean about his appearance and i can’t delete OP’s unnecessary commentary.

I just can’t believe people think he looks ugly here. 😗 I can’t believe this particular opinion is an unpopular one...but whatever it’s my opinion and I’ll just sit on this island with my giant cardboard cutout of him. I don’t need y’all.

Man, and I thoroughly enjoyed that arc and so many people hated it, lmao. It may be because I’m new--actually, no. I’m not giving the fandom the benefit of the doubt for that one. Monica and I read that arc and while I didn’t have a ton of Batman history to base it on, it was solid writing and it was enjoyable to read. I think it comes down to that everyone is so quick to shit all over anything, anymore. Everyone is so fucking miserable, lmao, like it’s so chic to hate everything that’s put in front of you. It reminds me of trying to serve a toddler lunch. I can still remember trying to appease my little sister’s picky ass tummy when she was a baby, even things I knew for a fact she oughta like or that she did like, she’d smack off her high chair and cry about wanting something else--so she could repeat it when I set something new down. It’s the same fucking thing. As someone who is pretty happy with pretty much anything, it makes me anxious, like I worry everyone hating everything is gonna make content creators stop doing things. Why should they keep on, all you wanna do is bitch about anything they do? I wouldn’t write if I got that many complaints about my perfectly good stories. It’s...aggravating, why people can’t just be happy.

Which~ brings me to my third unpopular opinion, that I know Monica shares with me--BatCat sucks. Like, it’s a crappy pairing. It’s in the same boat as Peter & MJ, or Matt & Karen, or Tony & Pepper--I am not writing their dumbass ship name. I only wrote BatCat because the ship name is cute and that’s 90% because it has cat in it and I love kitties.

Anyway.

I see...so much support for this pairing and I’m like...y’all know she left him at the altar, right? Broke his heart? I really don’t care why she did it, there’s not going to be a single reason she could give that would make it okay in my book. I don’t know Selina all that well and I don’t actually dislike her like I do MJ or Karen or Pepper but I do dislike that I’ve been told she does this to him all the time. Everyone knows I have trust issues and someone flaking or betraying me constantly would drive me...haha, batty.

It’s 8AM leave me alone.

In all seriousness, it really makes me question the sort of girlfriend some girls think they are. I’m a feminist through and fucking through but that doesn’t mean I have to support shit-ass behavior and I don’t tolerate foolishness. As I said above, she could show up in a few issues and say there was some reason why she did it, some noble reason to do with Bane (seriously what the hell is he doing, I know he’s up to some shit) but you let your man know. You let your partner know, you don’t leave them hurting. There’s no fucking excuse for that. I’m a sensitive bitch and I’m 100% fine to admit that and admit that is where I’m coming from but I get so tired of women being selfish in comics, like why do you think it’s acceptable to act like this? I don’t know the nuances of Bruce and Selina’s relationship very well but like I said, I know she betrays him or leaves him a lot and that flaky shit gonna turn me off just as fast as when I saw Joker uncaring about Harley’s love. There are some things I just can’t truck with and that’s one of them.

I shouldn’t be surprised there’s so much love for this pairing, so many people are pushing for them to be married and I shouldn’t be shocked--Tony/Pepper and Peter/MJ is super fucking popular but that doesn’t...make them good pairings. You don’t treat your partner the way these women do. You just...don’t. I used to hate Bruce, h-a-t-e him, but it’s polar opposite at this point. He about did me in, initiating all those “I love yous,” and she broke his heart and I just...fwah. The fastest way to make me love you is to give me a reason to take care of you, I have learned.

Shit like these unsupportive relationships for people who give and give until they literally bleed flares my Mama Bear up bad.

I went from hating Bruce to this--

AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT, WHAT’S DONE IS DONE. Bruce can protect Gotham, that’s fine, but I guess my black ass finna be there when he gets home to protect him.

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW.

My poor future children are fin’ta be smothered.

So yeah, I kinda went off on a tangent there and I initially...didn’t mean to, lmao. I’m sure there’s other shit I’m missing in terms of my opinions on DC, and I could go on for sixteen years about my Marvel shit, but I’ve...rambled on long enough.

Good night, my loves~♥

[swipestream]

Sensor Sweep: Keys to Other Doors, Xenophile, Skylark of Space, Roger Zelazny

Pulps (The Pulp Net): When I was first involved in the pulp fandom world in the late ’90s, I saw ads for Keys to Other Doors. Subtitled “some lists for a pulp collector’s notebook,” it was put together by John DeWalt. There were at least two versions, a first version in 1995 with a revised version in 1998.  I believe the 1995 version has a blue cover and was done for Pulpcon.  I got the 1998 version which has a red cover.

I didn’t get it at the time and only recently got a copy. I wish I had gotten a copy back then, as I had to work to find some of the information, and thanks to the Internet and various websites, a lot of this information is now easy to find. But, there is information here I was not aware of despite that. So there still is value in getting it.

  Publishing (Chaosium): Chaosium, Inc., publisher of the celebrated roleplaying games Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, announces the relaunch of their fiction program.

The Chaosium fiction line originally launched in 1992 and was suspended in 2015 during a general company restructuring. Subsequently, Chaosium management brought on publishing and gaming industry veteran James Lowder as a consulting editor to help resolve any outstanding contract and payment issues with authors, editors, and artists.

Lowder then drafted new, creator-friendly contracts for the department, worked with SFWA to register the company as a qualifying professional market, and then commissioned a schedule of new, creator-owned fiction releases, in both print and e-book formats.

  RPG (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): The RPGPundit is back with another video in his series on “Things They Taught You Wrong on Purpose”, this time on the topic of equal spotlight time for all players no matter what. He is absolutely correct that this is antithetical to the rpg medium. One thing I will add here is that the returning to “3d6 six times in order” for attributes produces a far better outcome at the table than going along with the conventional wisdom on this.

Here’s why: When D&D is played this way, most people tend go with the class that has a prime requisite that matches their highest attribute. When combined with a challenging, high death scenario, this results in each character niche being frequently redistributed almost at random. People that would normally play a bombastic high charisma fighter end up playing a scruffy, sneaking thief with hilariously low hit points. People that prefer to play the stout, law-abiding cleric can very easily find themselves in a situation where they have the privilege of making that choice between Magic Missile, Charm Person, and Sleep for the party’s one and only spell!

  Writers (Don Herron): In the course of researching his book on the boxing world of Robert E. Howard, Brian Leno keeps tumbling to interesting tidbits — such as the news item above.

Brian notes, “As far as I know, this is a first — printed at a time when Howard was still alive after shooting himself, and his body was fighting to keep him alive.”

  Pop Culture (Walker’s Retreat): A few days ago, I made a post where I point out that we have sufficient independent media outlets (each with sufficient audience sizes) that we no longer need to put up with the mainstream. We can–and we should–network among ourselves henceforth and cut the MSM out entirely.

So I decided that right now we’re in a position where the various clusters I see as being close enough together to benefit from this sort of move, and this morning I did take that first step: I made sure I was in the livestream for Morning With Pop Culture, the new morning show that World Class Bullshitters now puts on during the week. I lucked out today; Jeff (the host) decided to do an Ask Me Anything segment and I got the question answered.

  Comic Books (Of Wolves and Men): Haven’t posted anything for a while so I figure I’ll share some of the old covers I saved on an impulse.

  Fiction (RMWC Reviews): Star Wars casts a long shadow across science fiction and fantasy. For most people in living memory, it is THE example of the power of Space Opera on audiences. But George Lucas stands on the shoulders of another giant: Alex Raymond, the creator of Flash Gordon, and Raymond stands on the biggest shoulders in all of Space Opera, a humble food engineer specializing in donut mixes from Sheboygan, Michigan, named Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith (1890-1965).

  Fiction (John C. Wright): I have notice more than one fan of mine (I have at least two, counting myself, and my mom) lauding elements in my stories which I shamelessly steal from better authors. As a public service, I would like to mention those authors, and lead you to the original of which I am but a shadow:

I suggest that if you like the family infighting, larger-than-life superhumans, and intrigue, you read yourself some Roger Zelazny’s deservedly famed Amber series. It is a delight: a film noir detective tale (starring my personal favorite character, an amnesiac), which morphs into a fantasy and a Jacobin-style revenge drama.

1970 Nine Princes in Amber

1972 The Guns of Avalon

1975 Sign of the Unicorn

1976 The Hand of Oberon

1978 The Courts of Chaos

The Merlin books take place in the same background, but they are terrible. Avoid.

  Comic Books (Injustice Gamer): There’s a lot of talk of the markets shrinking in sff and comics from the tradpub sources, and here’s a bit of my theory on the comics side.

I think Marvel and DC, with some help from Diamond(active to a point, but I have trouble believing they’re that dumb) might be actively colluding to close the comic book stores. Diversity and Comics has made a good amount of noise over the fact that over 60 shops have closed this year alone.

Marvel is being overshipped, and the stores have to pay for the books. DC had a few exciting and high selling things early in the year, but their more recent moves are really bad from a sales standpoint, and the stores would be more inclined to take those chances after the big early sales.

  RPG (The Mixed GM): Some in the OSR complain about skill systems, particularly due to the introduction of the Thief character class. I understand that with the 3.X/Pathfinder and 5E, skill systems have gotten out of control. In response, I have even heard a call to remove Thieves from the game!

  Pulp (Pulp Flakes): Index to the fanzine Xenophile – part 1

Had the good luck recently to acquire a complete run of the fanzine Xenophile. Have been reading a few issues, shocked by the low prices and high dudgeon evinced by subscribers at price increases of pulps to as much as $3 for a late 1930s Black Mask issue. Didn’t find it indexed, so this is my take on the index, which i plan to submit to FictionMags once it’s done. Will post a few articles from it once I’m done indexing.

  Sensor Sweep: Keys to Other Doors, Xenophile, Skylark of Space, Roger Zelazny published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[viralhottopics]

6 Hilariously Improbable Events That Resulted In Huge Movies

Hey, remember that Final Destination franchise from all the way back in 2011? You know, it’s the one where a clowder of hapless teens get hunted by Death through a series of overly elaborate, Rube Goldberg-style horrors. Well, it turns out that sometimes this same over-the-top domino effect can be applied to how films get made (including Final Destination, which started as an X-Files spec script). A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing, and Jeff Goldblum ends up shirtless on a table in Hollywood, basically.

Some films end up creating a gigantic ripple of success and artistic inspiration … all from a single unassuming start. Here are such times when the road to the cinematic immortality was paved with random nobodies, stupid coincidences, and just plain dumb luck…

6

The Alien Franchise Exists Because Of Literal Nightmares

From the creature design to the directing, the first Alien has always been a poster child for the unspeakable horrors you can accomplish through collaborative effort. With that in mind, none of it would have been possible without writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett first coming up with the story. They are the face-huggers to Alien‘s uh… alien. This was O’Bannon’s second film as a screenwriter, one that would have never existed without the frustrating failure of his first.

Dark Star was a John Carpenter sci-fi comedy about people exploding planets in space, and O’Bannon hadn’t simply written it, but also designed and supervised the special effects. It was this (not his writing) that got the attention of weirdo director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who at the time was working on an ultimately shelved Dune film. O’Bannon was brought on Dune‘s production where he met a creepy Swiss artist working on the film’s set and character design. His name was H.R. Giger, and you might find his work on Dune a bit familiar.

To put this guy in perspective — upon their initial introduction, H.R. Giger immediately offered O’Bannon opium. And when asked why he himself took it, Giger bleakly responded “I am afraid of my visions.” If Werner Herzog had night terrors, it would be personified in H.R. Giger’s ghastly Scandinavian gaze. His paintings are what Satan uses to get an erection.

Dune was sci-fi failure #2, and after production was closed down O’Bannon found himself running out of work, and consequently money (which is commonly a thing you get in exchange for work). In what was no doubt an act of pre-hooking desperation, he and Shusett dug up yet another old failure — a story about monsters attacking a WWII bomber (which later became a segment in the 1981 animated “film” Heavy Metal — a series of events we’ve previously discussed).

Like some kind of mad scientist, O’Bannon spliced this story with another failed horror script about bug monsters, added a re-written scene from Dark Star, and somehow churned out Alien. Meanwhile, H.R. Giger was developing a terrifying artistic portfolio based on his childhood nightmares — one example being a painting called “Necronom IV.”

That’s one of two nightmares that will come into play, this first fruition appearing in an H.R. Giger art book that O’Bannon gave to Ridley Scott while developing Alien. Nightmare number two came from Shusett who, after a day of writing, woke up in the middle of the night with the idea that the alien could impregnate a crew member through their throat — meaning that nearly every aspect of these creatures was quite literally the stuff of nightmares.

5

You Can Thank The 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election For HBO’s Westworld

In the early 2000s, California underwent an energy crisis, presumably after everyone left their tanning bed on overnight. As bills tripled and the anger grew, a representative named Darrell Issa donated two million dollars to a small group collecting signatures for a gubernatorial recall. It was this money that boosted their efforts in a historic moment for the United States: a new Westworld TV show.

We should probably explain.

HBO “Yes, please. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on in this show.” — Anthony Hopkins

See, after successfully reaching enough signatures, it was the actually historic recall of Governor Gray Davis that sparked one of the weirdest elections ever — eventually boiling down to this veiny cup of whatever Austrians drink instead of water:

Playboy And by “ever” we mean “before 2016,” of course.

Arnold Schwarzenegger threw his hat into the governor ring and came out with a whopping 48.6 percent of the vote. This was in October of 2003, and along with shaping the future of California, it panicked a butt-ton of producers who had previously attached the hulky destroyer to upcoming films. One such producer was Jerry Weintraub, who had cast Arnold as the Yul Brynner role in an upcoming remake of that enduring ’70s sci-fi cowboy classic, Westworld. As we’re sure you can guess, this did not end up happening, and the project was shelved indefinitely — or in producer-speak, “until someone big enough shows interest in it.” That took two years.

Variety “We’ll begin shooting in 2008 with Heath Ledger, Bernie Mac, Anna Nicole Smith, and President Gerald Ford.”

In 2005, Weintraub once again set his sights on this ridiculous film — this time with the director of The Cell attached. This, unsurprisingly, did not make Westworld the exciting filmmaking opportunity that studios were scrambling over, and so Jerry moved on to another project while letting his baby degrade on the back burner. That project was a little TV movie about Liberace starring Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, and Matt Damon’s glittery thong.

In the biggest plot twist yet, the HBO-made Douglas/Damon smooch-fest was a hit… causing Weintraub to turn to the network for a Westworld series. The rest is excessively naked history. And hey, Schwarzenegger is finally available now, so maybe they can throw him a bone and cast him as a background extra or something.

4

We Wouldn’t Have The Entire Marvel Cinematic Universe If It Wasn’t For Superman: The Movie

It turns out a DC Comics movie is responsible for Marvel’s current cinematic dominance, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. This long goddamn journey starts with a producer named Lauren Shuler Donner, whose husband you might recognize as Richard Donner — director of such insanely diverse hits as The Goonies, The Omen, and of course, 1978’s Superman: The Movie.

Superman was a hit, but this didn’t instantly result in every single over-pantsed defender getting his own movie — remember, it would take over a decade for even Batman to get one. However, the Donner flick did nab the attention of a five-year-old named Kevin who, like five-year-olds tend to do, became enamored with this genre of mighty punchers. His fandom eventually turned into a job at the Donners’ Company as Lauren’s assistant. As she puts it, “one of the main reasons Kevin managed to get himself an intern position at our company was because of Superman: The Movie, [that freaking nerd].”

Lauren went on to make a few disaster films, like Volcano and the harrowing You’ve Got Mail, before becoming inspired by her husband’s action background and buying the rights to the X-Men franchise in 1994. Feeling his intense ray of nerdiness, she gave her then-assistant Kevin a producing role on the first X-film, where he instantly became “a walking encyclopedia of Marvel.” Usually that just makes you very good at internet message board arguments, but in Kevin’s case, it led him to this:

That’s right. It’s Kevin Feige — not Bacon as you were all no doubt guessing. Having been inspired by that first Superman film, Feige beelined directly to the Donners before getting thrown into X-Men and scooped up by Marvel. It was there that he continued to read an endless number of comics and work closely with directors making Spider-Man, X2, and Daredevil until 2005, when Marvel decided to make their own studio. In 2007, Kevin was named the chief of that studio and began to develop what would go on to be this jumbled mess of media:

The Marvel Cinematic Universe gave way to an entirely new method for making movies, now being applied to Star Wars, Lego, and even the goddamn The Mummy. It’s completely changed franchises and made a once-bankrupt Marvel Studios the hottest goddamn game in town… all ironically thanks to a fucking DC Comics movie. Thanks a bunch, you sulky jerks!

3

A Mailing Error By A Fresno Librarian Kicked Off The “Brat Pack” Era

All you Val-speaking, Atari-playing, AIDS-epidemic-ignoring ’80s kids no doubt perk up at the mention of the “Brat Pack,” but in case you’re scratching your supple 20-something heads, we’re referring to a group of young actors who swarmed Hollywood around the early 1980s. Luminaries like Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and all those The Breakfast Club motherfuckers were birthed from this era. The phrase “Brat Pack” was coined in a New York article, and became the soil in which a lot of pretty careers were cultivated.

Also, it was started by this lady:

Her name is Jo Ellen Misakian, and back in 1972 she was hired as a librarian aide at the Lone Star School in Fresno, California. While there, she noticed that the naturally reading-averse students all loved the same book, so she helped them start a petition to turn it into a movie. After attempting (and failing) to contact the author, Jo Ellen decided to just take a shot in the dark and mail the book to a known director instead. The book, by the way, was The Outsiders — the basis for the very first of the Brat Pack films, which kicked off the stellar careers of actors like Cruise, Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, that other guy, and that other other guy.

And this never would have existed as a film if it wasn’t for Mrs. Misakian, her plucky kid pals, and the fact that she totally fucked up mailing their petition.

You see, after deciding Francis Ford Coppola should direct the movie, Misakian found his New York address in the reference section of the Fresno library and mailed a copy of the petition there — but Coppola was living in Los Angeles at the time. The New York address was outdated and unused… and, consequently, got very little mail. However, it just so happened that Coppola was in New York that week, and was able to personally see the letter for that reason.

According to a producer there at the time, “It was lucky for the kids that we were in New York when it was sent over.” Eventually, Coppola read the attached book, optioned it, and then began production on the film, all while maintaining a correspondence with the librarian who first sent it to him.

In the end, the film was attributed to Misakian and her class — the closing credits saying, “The film The Outsiders is dedicated to the people who first suggested that it be made — librarian Jo Ellen Misakian and the students of The Lone Star School in Fresno, California.” The Brat Pack was born, and like a thousand careers started… all because a librarian sucked at tracking down someone’s more-current address.

2

Jurassic World And The New Star Wars Got Their Director From A Silly ’90s Magazine Ad

After culturally blue-balling us with talking raptors, the Jurassic Park franchise re-exploded the box office with Jurassic World‘s $1.6 billion dollars in ticket sales. World will go on to get a sequel (obviously), and the director is now working on Episode IX of Star Wars. And oddly enough, it was back in the decade when the first Jurassic Park became a hit (and we all thought Star Wars prequels would be, like, the raddest shit ever) that an author named John Silveira was inadvertently shaping all these events, like a secret John Hammond.

Back in the ’90s, Silveira would occasionally submit content for Backwoods Home Magazine. His job was to fill in gaps of the magazine’s classified section with whatever joke bullshit that came into his head. It was a fun gig with a specific and sparse readership, by definition.

Then, one day in 1997, Silveira was asked to contribute right before a deadline (what kind of backwoods magazi– oh, right). Without any prepared jokes, he remembered the opening lines to an old unfinished novel he had been working on years back. With the clock ticking, John spun the words into a fake classified ad and submitted the following:

Yes. That ad. Silveira had created what would later become a meme that would inspire Colin Trevorrow to make an indie film called Safety Not Guaranteed, about a dude looking for a time-travel partner. Not long after, director Brad Bird was being approached by Disney and Lucasfilm to direct the next Star Wars film — and in turning it down for Tomorrowland (yikes), Bird recommended they watch Trevorrow’s little movie.

In short, two major sci-fi franchises ended up being completely dependent on an indie comedy director who was inspired by some joke-writing weirdo in Southern California. And speaking of stuff Spielberg once touched…

1

Like Schindler’s List And The Coen Brothers? You Can Thank The Evil Dead For That

It’s not exactly controversial to say that the Coen Brothers are two of the most influential and iconic directors of this era. We also probably won’t get any hate mail for praising Liam Neeson’s performance in Schindler’s List, or really any of his subsequent roles. What will sound insane, however, is that all of these things are of direct result of the 1981 horror film The Evil Dead. You know, the one where a woman gets fucked by trees before turning into a Kandarian basement demon.

It was on this film that a young Joel Coen was working as an assistant editor while trying to make his debut with a script he co-wrote with his brother. While there, director Sam Raimi convinced the Coens to shoot a fake trailer for their script, which subsequently led to them finding investors for the movie — eventually called Blood Simple. You might recognize this as the pivotal moment leading to decades of amazing films like The Big Lebowski, No Country For Old Men, The Hudsucker Proxy, and certainly not Garfield (common mistake).

Meanwhile, while casting Blood Simple, the brothers went to see a play called Crimes Of The Heart. It featured Holly Hunter, who they immediately wanted to cast… but couldn’t, for scheduling reasons. However, Hunter went home from the audition and mentioned the film to her roommate: Frances McDormand. Frances, of course, would go on to kick ass in the role, marry Joel Coen, and play one of the most badass baby-ovens to ever point a gun at Peter Stormare.

And it gets weirder. Because while Holly didn’t get the role in Blood Simple, she would later move into a Silverlake home with both Coen brothers, McDormand, and Raimi — who at the time was writing Evil Dead II on the porch. Cut to a few years later, and a young actor named Bill Paxton got a phone call from his friend James Cameron asking if he had heard of Evil Dead II. When Paxton said no, Mr. Titanic rushed him to a local showing, as any loyal friend would. After falling in love with Raimi’s slapstick horror style, B-Pax auditioned for the director’s follow-up, Darkman. You with us so far?

According to Paxton (who later worked with Raimi on A Simple Plan), while he got super close to landing the role, he “made the mistake” of informing another friend about the movie as well. It was Liam Neeson.

Neeson got the role and killed it as the titular rubber-faced rage goon in Darkman, which was then seen by a stage actress named Natasha Richardson. At the time, Richardson was putting together a production of Anna Christie, and thanks to Darkman, she pursued Neeson to play a role. Not only would his performance in the show end in a marriage with Richardson, but it would grab the attention of a director in the audience… who at the time was casting an upcoming film called Schindler‘s Fucking List.

YEP. Liam Neeson’s entire career exploded because Bill Paxton was dragged to a screening of Evil Dead II and fell in love. Consider this yet another reason he’s going to be deeply missed. RIP, you ultimate badass.

David is an editor and columnist for Cracked. Please direct all your goddamn “hellos” to his Twitter account.

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