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#but not in an obnoxious way so its almost kinda cinematic
jaekaicx · 2 years
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games i dont see enough ppl talking abt
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crasherfly · 3 years
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Weekly Update
It’s a privilege to write about personal shit this week.
There’s not much I can add to the conversation about the election, suffice to say it was both better and worse than expected, and I’m glad that society isn’t immediately collapsing, at least this week.
Which is to say I’ve never been so glad to focus on my stupid, deeply low-stakes life updates. Obviously, the future is still uncertain and there will be plenty of work to do in the days and years ahead, but a week ago, I wasn’t certain if I’d be witness to a reality where questions like “how did a week of not drinking go” and “what are you playing” still matter.
So without further ado...
It was a challenging week, obviously.
Not just the election- I’m talkin’ for like- EVERYTHING. Home life. Work life. Creative life. I could go on. You get the idea.
I went on full blown quarantine as of last Friday after learning a member of my household may have covid. You wouldn’t think it was much of a change from my normal every day, but man, I did not realize just how many little things were working together to keep my sanity together.
A short list- weekend walks to pick up morning coffee, Friday night carry-out sushi and pizza, my weekly groceries at the co-op, and most importantly- trips to the weight room- all suddenly off the table until testing results come in. 
In my state, testing often requires booking at least 3 days in advance, and it can take another 3-4 days just to get results back. Luckily, everyone in my home works remotely, so this doesn’t put us out too bad. I can’t imagine now non-remote workers manage. Even so, having to toss all the precious little things I’d managed to keep despite the pandemic stung. I even had to put my wrestling watch parties on hold- they took place on Discord, but one of my friends would normally come over to watch. 
I’ve worked through a lot of huffy anger and annoyance over the course of the past few days. Losing my ability to get to the gym as the weather turns especially hurts. As a weight lifter, I’m pretty reliant on what the gym offers. Early into the pandemic I got a lot of folks snidely telling me to go lift paint cans. I resisted the temptation to tell them they could in turn pay for my back surgery. Thanks to the pandemic I’ve learned that the gym is actually a need for me, emotionally and physically. Losing it, even for a week, feels awful. I can’t wait to get back to it. 
Until then, jogging and biking will have to suffice.
One positive- I’ve gone a week without drinking!
Based on my tracking, that’s actually the longest I’ve since June, which is nuts.
Predictably, I have gained weight. Because no good deed goes unpunished. 
I don’t know if I’d say I notice any life-changing effects yet. For all I know, my body is still adjusting to the sudden absence of all the shit it’s normally used to working in overdrive to break down.
A few things I’ve noticed- my runs are going slightly better, I can stay up later working on games or creative endeavors, and I’m actually experiencing REM cycles again- meaning I’m dreaming, and dreaming vividly. I also get incredibly hungry around 10:30 every night- because, surprise!- that’s when I’d normally sit down with a beer or glass of sake. So I’m working on finding ways around that.
I can’t say I’ve felt a huge urge to drink. I occasionally wonder when, or indeed if, I’ll grab a glass of beer again any time soon. But beyond that, it’s been pretty easy to lay off. The fatigue alone was just such a pain to work through, not to mention the way a glass of beer would just kinda pin me into place for the rest of the night. I like how active my brain is now in the late hours.
But I do watch a lot less anime now :(
On that note, here’s what I’ve been playing lately!
Outer Worlds (XBONE)
So, you probably missed it last post- probably ‘cuz I forgot to write about it in my first draft, but I wrote about my Total Kill Run that I just wrapped up in Outer Worlds. 
The short and dirty version for those of you who can’t be bothered to go back and read- I tried to do a run where I killed every NPC in Outer Worlds, a space RPG from the Obsidian, and instead got sidetracked with completing the nefarious Board’s story and ended up doing a Board run instead. 
I was surprised by how humor and wit the game brings to its commentary on your wanton slaughter. The devs were not bluffing when they said you could kill anyone and anything in Outer Wilds and they even prepared a few nice moments in anticipation that some players would try.
I was disappointed to find that the Board’s mission- and indeed, some of the progression points I followed on my own go-it-alone-and-kill-everything story, mirrored the Good Guy story beat-for-beat, basically shrugging and saying “well, you’re gonna do this anyway, like it or not”. At several given points you can kill everyone you like- but you’ll still have to find that keycard, access that terminal, or visit that far off map point now matter how hard you try to get out of it.
I was finally struck by how little I missed. I skipped A LOT of stuff- almost every sidequest and all the companion quests. And you know what? I had a fine time. I might even say I had a better time. So much time in Outer Wilds is devoted to fetching, traveling, and sitting in load screens. Turns out you do less of all of that when you just go guns blazing into every civilized map.
Some friends earlier this week were talking about revisiting old Bethesda-style RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim. It got me thinking about whether or not I would bother doing that myself any time soon. It’s true those are better games than Outer Worlds. But if the point of Outer Worlds is to echo those positive experiences so closely...what does my recent experience say about the source of that reflection?
Just a thought I’m chewing on. I don’t have a good answer. But feel free to HMU if you have your own thoughts!
NeoGeo Arcade Stick Pro- Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, World Heroes 2
Friday night I sat down at my desk, dimmed the lights and hooked up my NeoGeo Arcade Stick Pro. On my second monitor, I brought up move lists for King of Fighters ‘95 and started my fighting game learning journey.
I did OK, in my opinion. I stuck to just learning the hero team- Kyo, Daimon, and Benimaru. I even managed to trigger a few level 1 supers. I think I could safely beat the average player at an arcade now- but there’s definitely plenty of system I came nowhere close to learning all the ins and outs. However, after trying out a few subsequent KOF games, it seems like my learning should transfer forward.
I also tried out a few other games on the stick. Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury aren’t games I’ve had prior exposure to. In my experience, they seemed a little slower than KOF. The command lists were definitely shorter. Samurai Shodown was absolutely gorgeous and felt really, really good to play. I could see getting really into it. 
My big highlight was World Heroes 2, which I ended up playing most of the night. It’s a bit sillier than the previously noted titles, but it has a really fun roster and a good, medium-sized move list that isn’t too taxing to remember. I had seen some of the characters, like Johnny Maximum, on the Spriteclub roster, so it was cool to see them in their native environment.
Overall, the Arcade Stick Pro is holding up nicely. The stick itself is solid, and the deck is a natural fit on my lap or desktop. I’m not noticing any serious input lag and the buttons seem really responsive. Of all my retro consoles, this might become one of my favorites.
Endless Space 2
AMPLITUDE’s 4x sci-fi has entered hallowed realms of my “Games I will Be Playing 20 Years From Now” list. A massive, sprawling turn-based strategy about managing a spacefaring empire, Endless Space 2 is great for those weeks where I want to play a 4X that I can resolve within 20 hours.
For my most recent run, I once again took up my favored faction, the Riftborn. Every game is a learning experience, so this time around I was determine to try and tackle the massive and deeply inconvenient quests that Endless Space 2 mercilessly slews at you every_damn_turn.
I was mostly successful. I didn’t finish my faction’s quest, but I did complete the Academy quests. Throughout every game the Academy looms as this impartial faction that hires out heroes and provides boons to those who donate resources to it. In the endgame, the Academy offers a quest that forces every active civilization to choose sides regardless of existing alliances. Depending on the results, the last phases of Endless Space 2 can look very different
I finished the questline, unlocked a cool cinematic and learned that next time I should definitely not ignore those quests, however obnoxious they might be. The faction buffs earned from successful completion are....pretty wild.
Sunless Skies
Another week, another dead captain in Sunless Skies. This captain had a particularly long run- I had managed about...15 hours with him before losing him to some enemies that I was not at all prepared to fight. Death comes quick in Sunless Skies- a single bad decision can lead to swift death.
This run I at least managed to bank a ton of valuable supplies and upgrade my engine. My next captain will have a better shot as a result. I’m not sure when I’ll pick the game back up. After a particularly long run I usually take a long break- weeks or even months. We’ll just see what happens.
Pokemon Shield
I’ve finally, FINALLY beaten the endgame of Pokemon Shield. At least, I think I have. I’m sure there’s a few more things to do here or there, but for the most part, I think I’m done. I beat the champion and saw the credits roll. There’s some DLC to visit and more ‘mon to catch, but mostly, I’m done.
I had the opportunity to take care of some trade evolutions and partake in a friendly battle with a friend. It was the first time I’ve done that since...I kid you not...the playground in 5th grade.
It was...really fun?
I’m a deeply casual pokemon player. I don’t search for shiny ‘mon or suss out perfect numbers. I just use who I think looks cool and I try to keep type and consideration in mind. As a result, my friend and I had to agree on some ground rules for average levels- but the result was a compelling match.
I found myself afterwards making plans for another battle night. This tends to happen in November- I get really into Pokemon again for a few weeks. Historically, this is ‘cuz I’m normally traveling a lot for the holidays. That won’t be true this year, but old habits die hard.
Maybe I’ll even bust out my 3DS again soon. Who knows?
Quest 2: Revisited
Last week, I posted some thoughts about the Oculus Quest 2. I’ve spent another week with the headset, testing some new features and trying some more involved experiences. I’m happy to report my thoughts on the machine are still positive.
If anything, my impressions are MORE positive than before. My eyes have grown used to the world of VR. I’ve found a setting on the out-of-box headstrap that I don’t hate. And I’m finding more experiences than I initially suspected I might.
I’ve had a change to run the Link option, for instance, which allows you to use your Quest 2 as a Rift. It’s actually pretty seamless, requiring only a good desktop and a USB cable. My cable seemed to suffer from some bad speeds, so my experience was pretty laggy, but with an approved cable, I have no doubt the Quest 2 could handle just about anything you throw at it.
I finished Superhot, and have only raving reviews to offer. It is a perfect introduction to all the Quest 2 can do. Given limited space, Superhot places you in do-or-die situations where you must dodge, duck and shoot your way through enemies. When you move- time movies- so you will often find yourself forced to take stock of your surroundings before making your next step.  
It is sharp, offers a great mix of puzzle solving and brisk action, and even serves as an ad-hoc workout. Picking it up with your Quest 2 is a must.
Encouraged by Superhot, I gave Job Simulator a try. It is a zany VR experience that humorously simulates a number of white collar job environments. It is short, funny, and with no shortage of silly interactions. I spent several minutes in my digital office cube shooting staples into neighboring cubes and giggling at the angry responses of my co-workers. WHO THREW THAT. STAND UP.
Finally, I’ve taken some time to try and get into the streaming world beyond the Mozilla app. It has been both encouraging and...well, not so much. I’ve mostly been dinking around in Bigscreen, an app that offers a number of Pluto TV channels in digital theater environments. You log into a room with other people, who appear as avatars, and you all watch the shows together.
Well, sorta. Most people don’t really watch the shows so much as they throw digital tomatoes at the screen and shout upsetting shit at each other. The server population seems really low, so the massive theaters take on the quality of a creepy XXX cinema, where one always feels a bit apprehensive of who they might meet.
At its best, Bigscreen is genuinely funny. I’ve made nightly stops at the Star Trek theater, which plays old reruns of Next Generation. The most enjoyable moments come in the spirit of MST3K, with witty comments and memes as people throw digital refreshments at the screen. I’ve found myself giggling despite myself.
At its worst, Bigscreen is a deeply racist and sexist hideaway full of the types of folks you’d normally shush the hell out of in a real theater. You can mute people, but it’s a tedious task. A reporting function also exists, but who knows how or if its being enforced at all. Finally, unless you’re doing a film rental, you’re going to be subjected to commercials on everything from erectile pills to The Blaze. I’ve described it to others as being Peak Late Night Cable: The App. If that appeals to you, well, it’s there and it’s free.
I’ve tried streaming my desktop, both on Bigscreen and via Oculus Link. Both were very laggy. There’s a very popular desktop streaming app I could try, but it costs IRL money. Honestly, most of what I’d want out of my desktop streaming I already get from Mozilla. 
I like the Quest 2 a lot. I hope we see more experiences tailored specifically to it, as opposed to through the Link function or via desktop streaming.
Dungeons and Dragons
I finally wrapped up my improv sessions with my local DND group. Having just finished The Lost Mines of Phandelver, I wanted to take some time between campaigns to improv and get off the grid a bit.
The result was 4 sessions, 2 hours each, where I had nothing prepared in advance and I let my players take the lead. I gave them a map I’d built of the region and told them we could go anywhere they like.
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My party ended up splitting into two groups- one heading to Castle Grayhawk, and one to Neverwinter. Antics ensued, personal quests furthered, and by the end, everyone felt ready for our next adventure at the Salt Marshes.
An interesting takeaway- when doing improv sessions, I had almost zero fights. I never once broke out the battleboard and only a handful of attack rolls were even attempted. 
I, personally, like combat a great deal. So I don’t think that will be my style forever. But it was interesting to see what my sessions could look like without it, especially after such a combat-heavy campaign.
Anime
I’ll be honest- I’ve fallen really behind on this season’s anime. I have so many hobbies, and one thing gets shoved aside for another, necessarily so. This time, it’s anime and manga. I promise I’ll get back on the horse soon.
As the year winds down, I’m already thinking about my experiences over the past year and what my end of the year experience list will look like.
I’ve seen so many amazing titles this year.
Like, I get deeply, viscerally emotional when I think about Re:Zero. 
My heart races as I think of the thrilling high points of Tower of God.
I delight in my inner goth kid as I ruminate in experiences like Gleipnir and Berserk.
I’m going to have a lot to talk about. Just thinking about it motivates me to get out there and see more.
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momentofmemory · 4 years
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fictober - day nine
Prompt #9: “It has a certain taste.”
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe (Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy)
Warnings: Grief
Rating: T
Characters: Thor Odinson & Rocket Raccoon
Words: 1674
Author’s Note: set in the near vicinity (1-3 months) post endgame.
>>Snøsøte on the Mountains
The Milano was scheduled for planet departure in a little over forty earth minutes, and no one had seen Thor in six hours.
They’d landed on Krylor three days ago so that Rocket could make some much-needed repairs to the ship—Krylorians were famous for their psionic-guided engines and other advancements in interstellar flight—and Rocket was convinced he could use his reputation as “savior of the universe” to schmooze as much free tech out of them as possible. In his defense, it had been going stunningly well until Drax accidentally offended half the local government being, well, Drax.
The need to leave on time had increased significantly after that.
Rocket sat in the copilot’s chair, inspecting the hyper-wave bomb he’d lifted off the security guard that’d escorted him out.
“Rocket.”
He vaguely registered Quill’s voice, but decided it probably wasn’t important. Instead, he turned the bomb around until his claws found the seam. He huffed in triumph, then flipped it upside down and pried off the base.
It immediately lit up and started beeping.
“Mother of—”
Rocket chucked it at Drax, but it bounced harmlessly off his head and rolled to the floor. It glowed briefly, then powered down.
Drax didn’t even wake up.
“Huh.” Rocket crawled out of his chair and snatched up the orb. He bet he could reverse engineer the power core with some of those lame lithium-ion batteries he’d stolen from Rhodey last week.
“Rocket!”
He winced and flattened his ears back against his head. “Geez, what, Quill? You trying to wake up the whole sector?”
“If that’s what it takes to get your attention, then yes.” Quill closed the map he’d been looking at and walked to the front of the ship, stopping in front of Rocket. “Thor still hasn’t shown up, and he isn’t answering his comm.”
Rocket poked at one of the wires and was immediately shocked for his efforts. He swore and shook his hand vigorously, glaring up at Quill. “Yeah, and?”
“And I’d like to leave this planet in one piece, which means on time. We’re not exactly on the hottest terms with the locals.”
Rocket frowned. “I’m sorry, I seem to remember that being Drax’s fault. I don’t see you asking him about electro boy.”
“That’s because Drax is an idiot.”
Rocket snorted and tried to slip past. “Guess that explains why you’re not doing it yourself, either.”
“Rocket.”
“He’s a big guy! He can take care of himself.”
“He is sad.”
Both Quill and Rocket turned as Mantis appeared in the doorway. “I do not know what is wrong.”
Quill gave Rocket his best I told you so look and Rocket crossed his arms over his chest. “I still don’t see why that means I have to go get him.”
Groot, who hadn’t even bothered to look up from his console the entire trip, chose that moment to stare at Rocket with his obnoxiously sincere eyes. “I am Groot?”
Rocket deflated and tossed the grenade at Quill, who yelped and dropped the datapad he’d been holding to catch it. “Use this if things go south before I get back.”
Groot smirked. “I am Groot.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Rocket said, taking the datapad for himself. He sighed. “I’m the captain.”
_________________________
Krylorians are deathly allergic to all forms of alcohol, so that ruled out the normal kinds of places the Asgardian would frequent. Fortunately for Rocket, however, the Milano’s energy sensors are one system he’d managed to get updated before Drax blew his street cred. He tapped in a few commands and the system recalibrates to perform a city-wide search for the weird, low-grade electricity signature Thor always seemed to give off.
The wavelength was nowhere to be found in the city, but widening it to include the nearby geography quickly solved the problem.
“Hey Quill,” he said into his comm as he grabbed a jetpack from the Milano’s storage, “How long do you think you can delay that take off for?”
“How long do you like living?”
Rocket didn’t bother responding. Quill was an idiot, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at bullshitting excuses.
He exited the Milano and flew to the outskirts of town, keeping an eye on the map. It took him twenty minutes to approach the location, mostly because of the rain, and Thor’s marker didn’t move the entire time.
He knew Thor got moody around the anniversary of the snap—who didn’t—but that was reversed now and anyway, that date wasn’t for another three months.
He finally found the Asgardian sitting on the edge of a rocky outcrop, his legs hanging down and hands folded in his lap, looking out over the coastline. Rocket landed next to him, rain water soaking his fur and dripping onto the hard surface. Thor smiled in greeting.
“Rabbit!” The man spoke with the level of exuberance he reserved for when he was feeling truly miserable. “How goes your quest for the finest technology this side of the galaxy?”
“Not so great, actually,” Rocket said, hiding under one of the larger rocks and shaking off. "We kinda need you back at the ship.”
“…Ah.” Thor made no move to get up. “A shame, really.”
Rocket was still trying to de-clump his fur. “What? You got something against being dry?”
“No.” A chuckle, likely at the expense of Rocket’s struggling. “But nothing against being wet, either.”
Rocket gave up and stepped back into the rain, and noticed Thor was rotating something between his fingers. “What’s that?”
Thor blinked in surprise and looked down, as if he himself had forgotten the item.
“This is Yggdrasil,” he said, carefully placing it in Rocket’s palm so the raccoon could get a better look at it. “The great tree of life, out of which Asgard was grown.”
Rocket turned the figure from side to side. It was small, barely bigger than his own paw, and felt like Terran marble. The trunk of the tree fused into the bottom of a cylindrical city ringed with mountains, and three branches curved up and around its base to form a domed top. In the center of the city rose the spire of a magnificent palace, and out of that, the rest of the tree: nine branches in all.
Rocket handed the carving back. “Asgard, huh?”
“Mm. It was the crown jewel of the Nine Realms.” Thor looked at the tree, then tucked it away in one of the pouches on his belt. “Home of the first root of Yggdrasil.”
“Seems fancy.” Rocket curled his tail under him and sat down beside Thor, though his legs weren’t quite long enough to hang off the edge. “They just called my planet Halfworld.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was a very whole planet in its own right. Not anywhere near as impressive as Asgard, but still.”
“No, that was literally its—look, nevermind, that isn’t the point.”
The planet’s sun was beginning to set, casting the sky into deep shades of green, blue, and purple—a sharp contrast to the pale yellow of the day.
Thor sighed. “This place reminds me of my home.”
“…You sure?”
Thor laughed and clapped Rocket on the back, nearly hurling him off the ledge in the process. “My apologies, Rabbit! I forget sometimes that you, too, have seen Asgard.” His countenance fell. “But it is not merely the geography that makes up a place.”
Rocket’s eyebrows knitted together and Thor smiled. “My father said that to me, right before Ragnarok.”
“A what rock?”
“It’ll be six years tomorrow, actually,” Thor said, continuing as if Rocket hadn’t spoken. “Six years since I had to destroy my homeworld.”
Thunder cracked in the distance and Rocket suddenly wondered if the rain wasn’t just by chance.
“There are much more important things to mourn, of course. Mostly people. Lots of those.” Thor shrugged. “Still.”
Rocket shifted. His fur was completely soaked through, and the sunset meant the temperature was dropping. Quill probably needed them back to the ship as soon as possible.
But he was the captain.
“You said this place reminds you of Asgard?”
Thor looked at him in surprise. “So it does.”
“Gotta say I can’t see it, but, you were there longer, so.” Rocket leaned back on his paws. “Explain it if you want.”
The smallest of smiles appeared on Thor’s face. He turned towards the violet-coloured sea, watching the waves crash into the coastline. “It’s true that the appearances aren’t very similar. I’m sure you’re correct about Krylo being technologically advanced, but stylistically they seem very lacking.”
“Harsh, but continue.”
Thor laughed, and took in a deep breath. “It’s not about the visuals at all, really. It’s in the way the air feels.”
Rocket frowned. “The… air.”
“Indeed, Rabbit.” He closed his eyes. “There’s a certain… taste to it, almost. Fresh and crisp. Metallic, though not badly. The barest touch of salt from the sea.”
“Sounds like you knew the place pretty well,” Rocket said, thinking of his own distorted memories. “Shame I didn’t get to see more of it.”
A hopeful look appeared in Thor’s eyes. He rose to his feet, offering a hand to Rocket. “Perhaps I could tell you more on our journey back?”
“Better than listening to Quill whine, so sure.” Rocket accepted the hand and climbed up onto the man’s shoulder. “What was this Asgard of yours like.”
Thor thought of the palace, its golden spire glistening in the moonlight, even as the heart of the city cast its own light from below. The churning waterfalls at the edge of the world he and Loki had explored as children, always with the careful eye of Heimdal guarding them. Sunlight streaming through the great, gilded archways that had been so lavishly sculpted as his people bustled through. Lignonberry jelly on toast, shaved salads with dulse at the evening náttverðr, his mother’s pönnukökur for breakfast. Snøsøte blooming in the mountains, its rich, deep-blue petals stark against the fresh white snow.
Thor smiled, and twirling his hammer, launched both of them into the air.
“It was beautiful.”
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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years
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Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man (2015)
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Does it pass the Bechdel Test?
Yes, once.
How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?
Four (22.22% of cast).
How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?
Fourteen.
Positive Content Rating:
Three.
General Film Quality:
It’s delightful. 
MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:
Passing the Bechdel:
Maggie passes with Cassie as she puts her to bed.
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Female characters:
Peggy Carter.
Hope Van Dyne.
Cassie.
Maggie.
Male characters:
Howard Stark.
Hank Pym.
Scott Lang.
Peachy.
Luis.
Dale.
Kurt.
Dave.
Darren Cross.
Frank.
Paxton.
Gale.
Mitchell Carson.
Sam Wilson.
OTHER NOTES:
Dave calls Scott a pussy, and Scott is not fussed at all about accepting the attempted insult.
Ah, the old ‘wish you’d call me dad’ cliche, the most worn-out lazy way to establish an antagonistic parent/child relationship. 
“a sustainable environment of well-being”, what an excellent fascist euphemism.
Maggie is very reasonable with Scott about the conditions for seeing Cassie; it’s refreshing to not have this played as ‘harpy ex-wife refuses to let man see his child because she’s just the worst!’ Maggie has a child to look after - and has been doing so for years now while Scott was in jail - and she has every right to impose rules on how things proceed, Scott doesn’t get to just march in and have things his way ‘because she’s my daughter!’ Children are not possessions or status symbols, and this movie does a nice job of recognising that and having the adult characters recognise that and behave in reasonable and understanding ways for Cassie’s benefit rather than their own egos. Other films should take note. Also, real people.
“Yeah man, it killed DiCaprio.”
Turning lambs into goo is worse than kicking puppies. What a monster.
They do a pretty solid job with the reason for Hope not being allowed to don the suit instead. It has strong potential for seeming like flat-out sexism, the idea that a woman can’t get the job done (in universe) and that a female hero won’t sell (out universe), and while that may indeed still be the core reason, they still pull off the reasoning as if it’s genuine.
Pym’s excuse for why he never told Hope the truth about her mother’s death, on the other hand, is pretty fuckin’ weak. Tell people to stop pretending ‘I was trying to protect you’ is a reasonable explanation for lies. It’s super-high - easily Top 5 - on my list of Worst and Most Tedious Cliche Lines.
Kurt suggests that the suit is the work of gypsies and it’s...not the best line they could have picked. Something less racist instead, maybe? No?
Cross is really fixated on Pym as a father figure. It’s different. I like different.
“That’s a messed-up looking dog.”
Scott and Paxton making peace is so great. Paxton peeing in all the corners and Scott being all jealous and threatened by Paxton ‘usurping his place in the family’ would have been such a predictable cliche for them to use, and this very palatable mature adult behaviour is sooo much better. This is how you stop normalising petty possessive rivalries. 
Luis is magical, and also, mad cultured. I love it, but I love even more that they don’t hang a lantern on it, they just let it be part of his character.
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Ok, I confess, this is probably gonna be a weird sort of meandering review, because I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts for two months gathering dust while I deal with the mental and physical fatigue of the first trimester of a pregnancy (it’s FUN), and now the due date for this post (pun definitely intended) is right on the horizon, so...I’m just gonna get it done, and it’ll be whatever the heck it is in the end. This is not a complex film filled with deep nuance, it’s basically just an action-y heist movie with some hand-waved scifi on top. And there’s ants. It’s not a hard film to talk about, so you’ll excuse me if it doesn’t get my very best effort. I’m kinda busy growing a human over here.
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I remember a lot of grumbling and even some outrage in fandom, back when this film was announced; a lot of people upset that the MCU was bringing in a comparatively little-known and perhaps little-loved superhero like Ant-Man when they still hadn’t bothered with a single female-led film yet, and various complaints about the problematic nature of the Ant-Man character from the comics (referring, I believe, to the Hank Pym version). And then, of course, there was the doubt about whether or not an Ant-Man story was just a fucking idiotic idea in the first place, what with the questionable application of science and the even more questionable appeal of a tiny little man running around playing with ants. Expectations were not high. And yet, Ant-Man pulls through, not just with a great fun romp, but with what I consider one of the more entertaining films the MCU has churned out to date.
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I have made my fair share of sour comments about previous films in the MCU and their unimaginative paint-by-numbers plots, and so what I’d like to talk about with Ant-Man is how it manages to be such a success to me despite an essentially uncomplicated story that follows a predictable narrative arc the likes of which we’ve all seen a hundred times before. The basic tenets of a heist movie are all there; the basic tenets of a good vs evil story play straight, alongside a low-key but typical redemption plot, and some plight-of-the-regular-guy vs corporate greed and warmongering, and the leading man hooks up with the leading lady in the end and proves himself as a hero to his family and all that jazz. We know every one of these story and character beats. So. Why do they work?
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Let me back this up a second to talk about a couple of major-league pet peeves of mine, the one a microcosmic version of the other: firstly, when people say ‘all Marvel films are basically the same’, and secondly, the Advanced Level Faux-Intellectual Douche version of that sentiment, when people declare that ‘there’s no such thing as originality anymore! There are only seven types of story in the world anyway! Everything is derivative!’ It’s an obnoxious absence of a viewpoint that betrays a lack of imagination and a use of such broad-strokes surface-level comprehension as to be essentially meaningless. Sure, if you break down story concepts to their most fundamental core drives, you can summarise their arcs in a relatively small number of ways, and familiarity with these core concepts can provide a degree of predictability in the way things play out. But that doesn’t mean that every single version of, say, the classic Hero’s Journey is the same damn story, and therefore a useless derivation from which no entertainment or message can be gleaned. If someone asks you to tell them the plot of a movie and you just go ‘oh, it’s a Hero’s Journey’ and leave it at that, you’ve told them almost nothing about what to actually expect. The Matrix is a very, very different Hero’s Journey to The Lord of the Rings, which is a very different Hero’s Journey to Finding Nemo, which is not at all the same as Iron Man. And which of them is closest to The Odyssey, anyway? One of the most obvious differences with all of those examples is genre, and the traditional trappings which often (but not always) follow from them. Sure, the MCU films tend to all fit superhero-comic genre conventions, and some of them (particularly origin stories, as with Iron Man and Thor) may employ a lot of the same tropes while they’re at it. But does anyone really, genuinely think that Ant-Man is ‘basically the same’ as Captain America: The First Avenger? Is Guardians of the Galaxy almost indistinguishable from Black Panther? Does anyone who says ‘Marvel movies are all basically the same’ actually believe the words out of their own mouth, or do they just hope it makes them sound smart if they imply that they’re ‘above’ enjoying mainstream popcorn action?
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All of this is to say, what makes Ant-Man work where other trope-heavy films fall apart? The same thing that makes literally any story ever work, and be worthwhile, whether it ‘breaks barriers’ or ‘teaches something’ or is considered ‘high art’ or not: details. Some films are too light on details, which makes them boring because they never really bother to build anything on top of those core foundations we know so well. Sometimes, the details - numerous as they might be - are too generic to have an impact, and the dull result is the same. Sometimes the details are too absurd to land, or there are too many to keep track of, or they require too much extraneous qualification to fit into the flow of the rest of the story, or they’re irrelevant to the rest of the story anyway. The thing about details? There are countless options. People come up with new ideas all the time, through the exercise of imagination or through developments and innovations in the real world. Basic, core plot arcs may be distilled to a handful of options, but story details are limitless, and the possibility of fun new combinations is always there, whether you’re inventing something entirely never-before-seen or not. The idea that you have to be shocking and unexpected to be worthwhile is ridiculous, and shepherds illogical contrivances and gimmicks without narrative cohesion or purpose much more often than it achieves something genuinely surprising with merit (and storytelling that prioritises ‘shocking twists’ is usually so busy trying to look clever it forgets to actually be clever, but, that’s another conversation). The point is, Ant-Man being a delightful film isn’t rocket science. It’s as simple as just a little forethought in the construction of its details.
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As noted back near the top, the whole Ant-Man concept and its wobbly science was something that drew some doubt regarding whether or not it could be pulled off in a convincing manner; the solution to achieving that is to do more than just lean in to the idea. The film throws itself whole-heartedly into its core conceit and its tropes, and it drags us along with it to gleefully delight in the act. The story is not embarrassed by itself, it doesn’t try to keep its distance; instead, it gives us a flying ant named Antony, and a dramatic death scene for that ant. What is the point of the Pym particle science conceit if we don’t enjoy the comedic potential of an epic battle inside a briefcase, or on a child’s train set? Relevant to this also is the subject of casting choices (as much a detail-of-interest as anything; a single casting choice can legitimately make or break a film). Paul Rudd has a perfect blend of leading-man charisma and affable comedic chops; he plays Scott as a beta-personality, which is always a refreshing change-up for a lead, and one which invites other refreshing changes around him. It avoids tedious masculine antics in his interactions with other men, while encouraging balanced and respectful interactions with women; Scott never asserts himself as the boss or leader in his relationship with Luis and the rest of his crew, allowing for a smoothly-cooperative dynamic; no time or plot is wasted on pointless jostling for control of the operation with Pym; the idea that Scott needs to prove himself to the three female characters in his life - Hope, Maggie, and Cassie, each for similar but different reasons - is given legitimate weight, instead of implying that Scott and his perspective is inherently superior and correct and the onus is on the other characters to realise that, rather than being on him to live up to other people’s reasonable expectations. It should come as no surprise that the latter element is especially interesting and heartening in the context of this blog.
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This is particularly good news when it comes to the kinds of relatively minor details which can make a huge difference in whether or not one reflects on a film in a positive or negative manner; the fact that the narrative supports and validates Hope’s anger, her frustration and resentment and her all-business-no-fun attitude, is vital to keeping a viewer like myself on-side with the film. Hope is never presented as someone who should ‘just loosen up’, or ‘have faith in her father’s plan’, the fact that she is denied the Ant-Man technology because Pym ‘can’t bare to risk losing her’ is offered as a reason but not as an excuse for something deeply patronising, and Scott proving that he can get the job done despite Hope’s misgivings about him is not framed as her being ‘wrong’ - her concerns were legitimate, as all her emotions across the film are, and the story never compromises on that in order to bolster another character. Whether or not Hope is well-handled is not important to the operation of the central narrative plot in a technical sense, but it means a lot in terms of delivering strong characters with satisfying arcs, and a central plot can easily fall flat if the characters participating in it don’t work well, individually or together.
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I’m trying to wrap this up coherently, but it’s just as well that I disclaimered myself in the beginning because all I’ve got are frayed pieces of, probably, five other paragraphs I could waffle about. It’s not a complex film, no, but it has a surprising amount of quality details, the more I think about it, even regarding aspects of the movie that I liked less than others (Pym, for example, I did not love, but I like that the movie never tried to pass off his ‘genius’ as an excuse for him being a significantly flawed figure in the lives of most people who encountered him, often with bitter consequences. I’m also a big fan of the fact that both he and Scott have complicated but loving relationships with their daughters, considering that Hollywood has a hyper-obsession with the idea of ‘A Man And His Son’ as the beating heart of family narratives). I’m going to close this out with what may be my personal favourite refreshing detail of this movie, and that’s the mature adult relationship between Scott, Maggie, and Paxton. I mentioned it already in the notes, but honestly, how many times have we seen that toxic cliche, with the shrewish ex-wife and the terrible new man in her life, where the main character (who is Doing His Best!) has to prove through [insert plot heroics] that ex-wife is WRONG and should have stayed with him, the father of her child(ren), because did we mention, her new man is terrible and the main character is always right and good and better! In the end, ex-wife almost certainly leaves her terrible new man to get back together with the main character, because he is Doing His Best and that’s more important than actually being a stable/responsible person! The American nuclear family is the ideal! Divorce is for heathens! Y’all know that toxic plot. I can think of three different examples of it in action right off the top of my head, with no effort required. Point is, the degree to which I was utterly thrilled by this movie subverting cliche at every turn of its family saga really cannot be overstated. Maggie is a reasonable person! Scott respects that Cassie’s needs are more important than his wants! Paxton cares about his family and genuinely wants Scott to land on his feet, for the benefit of everyone! There’s no jealous posturing and Scott acting all hurt about being ‘replaced’! HE LITERALLY THANKS PAXTON FOR EVERYTHING HE DOES, WHEN HAVE I EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE?! Honestly, you don’t have to tell the most original story in the world to tell a story that resonates. You don’t even have to avoid common tropes, you just have to think about what you want to do with them. It’s not rocket science. It’s just good honest storytelling.
With ants.
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exnvhilo · 5 years
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━━  ❛ ☆  KATIE MCGRATH  /  CISFEMALE  /  SHE&HER. anytime i hear queen of peace by florence + the machine i think of alexandra decker. the thirty-two year old has been living in hollywood as a director. since then they’ve built the reputation for being ingenious & cavalier. if you were to ask them if they were hades from greek mythos they’d probably say no.
wow i’m late as fuck. sorry guys ! i was making this extremely pointless & unnecessary template and procrastinating. i’m truly sorry. btw ! i’m ron. i’m 23 years old and a huge Heaux for mythology. any kind of mythology, ya know??? but my mom is a history teacher and she always loved greek myths so i kinda inherited that from her. i live in the gmt -3 timezone, & my pronouns are she/her. i also read like 2 issues of wick + divine and it’s so fucking good so i had to join this. but hennyways. let’s get to the Flavor, shall we?? 
--------------- THE PAST
i. for some unknown reason, perhaps a trick played by the fates or a plan from the titans themselves, the king of the underworld, feared & respected ( not particularly loved ) incarnated on a child in the middle of the desert of nevada in 1986. alexandra decker’s parents were simple, reserved & owners of a funeral and embalming business ( i know, i’m so smart ). growing up with death around her never really phazed alexandra. other kids might have been squeamish within the line of empty, soulless eyes, but not her. it was almost like an enigma to alexandra. what makes a soul, anyway? and why is the human body just flesh once its gone?
ii. although never an emotional child, it could be said that alexandra loved her parents. in a way that you love a bird, understanding that life itself is limited and extremely fragile. but they were good people. on sundays, after mass, they would eat breakfast food at a diner and take her to the latest showing of whatever was on in the small town’s movie theater. alexandra loved it, especially the movies of old hollywood. the glamour and opulence. and how it inevitably these gods of the screen ended up just like the mortals on the other side. decadent in the twilight of their lives. ( not the movie twilight ya know?? although thats an idea )
iii. greek tragedy follows the master of death, and alexandra got a taste of what loss feels like when you’re in mortal skin. at eleven years old, the decker funeral home crumbled under an unexplained fire. alexandra was at school at the time, returning to only the ashes of her parents. it was notable, however, that she didn’t cry ------- not even once. to what the child psychologists attributed to shock. her destiny was now foster care. with black hair, fair, smooth skin & icy green eyes, every prospect of parent was instantly fond of the girl. she was quiet but intelligent, extremely mature for her age. an elderly couple, the montgomerys, loved the girl from the moment they saw her. they were older than alexandra’s biological parents, but educated & comprehensive. and they made sure alex didn’t have to change her last name if she didn’t want to.
iv. growing up with the montgomerys was wildly different than what alexandra was accostumed to. they were old money as old money comes. terribly inclined to art and music and everything alexandra believed transcended the mortal experience. they coaxed her out of her shell, turning the intelligent but shy girl into an well-rounded, outspoken woman. gone were the days of embalming and smelling formaldehyde in the basement, and in with art history & piano classes in a lavish mansion in beverly hills. always draped in expensive clothing, always balanced. it was a life that suited alexandra, although she still felt weirdly drawn to death. feeling as if, somehow, for a weird twist of destiny, it was her own fault that her parents died.
--------------- THE PRESENT
i. alexandra’s first feature film was a homage to her favorite movies. the old hollywood glamour, somehow an homage to the deckers in their small, burned down funeral home. it was a goodbye of sorts to alexandra, an omen of things to come. and they did come. the first movie was a success, and soon enough the young director was the talk of the cinematic industry. over ten years have passed and now, alexandra is a well-known director, with over twenty movies under her belt and a few flashy awards to show for it.
ii. fame suits her well. she’s outspoken, educated & the owner of an acerbic wit. the secret is never taking herself too seriously, or so she likes to say, since we’re all just dirt in the end. the reminder of death has been constant in alexandra’s life. the montgomerys are long gone, with alex being the sole heiress of their fortune. mr. montgomery died when she turned eighteen, with mrs. montgomery following suit when alexandra was twenty-four. over the next few years lovers & friends all met their unrevokable end, and though alexandra was never involved in any of it ------ it seemed like she only brought death to those she was close to loving.
iii. that particular trait has left her a bit hesitant to get too close to people, fearing that somehow her strange luck will bring on their demise. she has colleagues & even friends that she keeps at arm’s length. she’s had companions but mostly sexual, never truly settling down or getting too close. but she is extremely charismatic & alluring, an irony of destiny ------ being so inviting but never letting anyone in.
iv. extremely educated due to the montgomerys, speaks five languages, plays the piano and the violin and paints. really artistic although her heart really resides in filmmaking. she is also known to fool around with hollywood heartthrobs, having an especial preference for the women.
v. overall, not a terrible person though she can be a bit obnoxious sometimes due to her upbringing. years of accolades have sort of gone to her head and she believes she’s the best thing since méliès happened to cinema. loves dogs ( and i think its bc of cerberus ok ), has an extremely expensive taste & gives people inappropriately expensive gifts because no one has ever told her you’re not supposed to do that. occasionally a bit on the brooding side, but she likes to be where the people are, so you’ll probably find her in reserved booths of exclusive clubs around l.a.
wow, this got really long & i’m truly sorry. really i made her sound v serious but she’s kind of a lonely sweetheart bc we love hades in this household. so if you’d like to plot smth juicy pls pls like this or quietly say ‘can i sing for u’ & i’ll hear u & come for plots. thank u so much if you’ve read thus far u r great i love u. also if you’d like to plot thru d*scord, i’m lil d pression#2978 over there. thank u
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movienotesbyzawmer · 3 years
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October 20: Friday the 13th Part 2
(previous notes: Friday the 13th)
Welcome to night two of this solemn duty wherein I get through the first eight Friday the 13th movies. I have embarked upon this task so that I may reflect on and honor the cinematic craftsmanship on display in this proud collection of cheap slasher movies. Or I just thought it would be a fun way to kill time.
I first saw this on cable TV, probably when it first became available; I'm sure I watched it at least as many times as I watched the first Friday the 13th. I remember the final sequence pretty well, but I don't actually remember much else. But I will say this… as a kid who was becoming increasingly curious about movies, there was an appeal to these gory movies that represents something we haven't had in this century. I'm talking about "how did they do that" wonder. Modern audiences don't have to ask that question because we all know that the answer is "CGI". In the early 80s, these movies did challenge me to figure out how certain things were done. Okay, enough about that, let us observe Friday the 13th Part 2 in its unnatural habitat… my TV in 2020.
First shot seems to have ambition, we just see some people's feet walking through puddles at night. Kinda nicely shot, maybe with a Steadicam. They clearly had more money. Also, looks like a very nice Blu-ray transfer.
But nothing really happens before we switch to the bedroom of the main girl from the last movie, nightmaring her memories from the first one; an opaque effort to catch us up on The Story So Far. They spend several minutes here showing us the whole end of the last movie. Like, almost all of the first six minutes of this movie is just the end of the last movie intercut with her tossing and turning in bed.
Some more opaque exposition where she wakes up from her nightmare and answers a phone all from her mom, and is all "I've told you this before, I need to be alone here to try to put my life back together".
So now they're just showing her alone in her cute vintage house, having established that, uh-oh, she's ALONE, and they're just filming it in a scary way, and she's acting scared, but what's she even scared of, it's like she's watching the footage so that's why she's scared.
Ope! She was right to be scared because look how killed she got! That wasn't very scary or gory. It climaxes with the triumphant return of the title logo thing, but this time it EXPLODES and changes to a PART 2. *polite applause*
0:14:25 - Crazy old dude sighting! Must be we're in that same little town that's kind of near the camp. He sees two youngniks and tells them "you're all doomed!" His favorite saying, back for an encore. Oh how droll.
Okay, so we've got some new teenagers, and two of them appear to be meeting up with a third one who lives in this little town. But are they counselors? They said something about going to the camp. But this dude is a local. Whatever.
Oh, here we go with the more prurient approach! A shapely lady is hiking by herself and a really plumb closeup of her butt turns into a cadence about a creepy guy who "flirtatiously" shoots a pebble at said derriere with a slingshot. It seems like we're going to be looking at both of them as sexy people as the movie progresses, and that will be important to the vision of this storytelling team.
Okay, this dumb scene just happened where the girl in the convertible can't start her car. Handsome Boss Man gives her some cocky advice and opens the hood to take a look. But exhaust gets him in the face ever so comically, and the girl acts like she did it all on purpose.
A little more setup happens in the form of a campfire ghost story that is also the plot of the first movie. But he says that was five years ago, probably so that it can make sense that Jason, who will soon be introduced as the new full-time villain for the remainder of the series, isn't a kid any more.
I should mention that the last bunch of scenes have been generously perforated with AND SOMEONE WAS WATCHING THEM moments. Handsome Boss Man is now kissing the girl who keeps humiliating him. She can really do better. But as they are making out, we see that there is a stalker outside. It's the crazy old man! Was it him all along? Why does he even care, this isn't even the same camp. I guess we'll never get to the bottom of that because he GETS KILLED it is a BARBED WIRE STRANGULATION MURDER AGAINST A TREE. The scares in this movie so far are just kind of quick and cheap.
Almost every scene has a CH CH CH CH HA HA HA HA moment to tell us they are being watched. There is too much of it.
So they come up with the idea to fake us out by having the mischievous couple sneak across the lake to check out Camp Crystal Lake, but they're being watched… by the sheriff! They're in trouble but they're okay. But now we're staying on the sheriff all by himself, and he chases a mysterious figure into the woods. He sees something in a shed before getting Jason'd! I remember what he sees. It's a good idea to set that up, but they could have made a bigger thing of it or made it more interesting.
0:46:10 - The girl with the importantly curvy caboose has decided to go for a walk all by herself at night, partly because her dog is missing (we have already seen its mangled corpse though), but also partly because slasher movie. Also for that reason she strips and goes skinny dipping and this time it is clear that they're very deliberate about showing us some sexiness...
…OMG they are even using the Jaws theme! Seriously! They straight up stole the two-note Jaws theme as a tribute to that movie's skinny dipping scene! Not cool dude.
Slingshot dude stepped in a ground-noose trap, and was hanging upside down waiting for Caboose to come back & cut him down, but he ends up an easy kill for Jason, who slices his throat open with a machete. THE machete??? It's the gushiest death so far, but it is still just a quick scare. Could have been more interesting; instead it just counts on us to have considered what a bummer it would be to hanging upside down like that when someone is fixin' to machete you.
Okay, so the people that went into town include the girl who I think survives at the end, and she has this monologue about how maybe you gotta look at this whole Jason situation differently, you know with a little bit of empathy. It doesn't sound like anything anyone would actually say.
A word about the handicapped character. There is a handicapped character! One of the guys is in a wheelchair and he is actually being treated the same as everyone, all egalitarian like. A cute girl totally likes him. I don't recall it being a significant plot point that he’s in a wheelchair - maybe the movie will prove me wrong, but it actually seems like admirable inclusiveness. Do I dare hope that they actually cast a disabled actor?
There was just a scene where Cute Girl went out to her car to get something, and they shot it as if she was MAYBE being watched. But then it turns out she wasn't. They did that once before in the first sequence. I would never do that to you.
But then Wheelchair Guy, all by himself on the porch waiting for Cute Girl to return, gets macheted in the face, and he rolls down some stairs dramatically. I guess maybe that image is why they had that character be in a wheelchair? There was this stylish zoom visual thing that gave it some intensity. But it also gave it some obnoxiousness.
Then a sudden double murder! The couple that was getting busy was shish-kabab'd in bed.
Cute Girl is now the only one left alive that didn't go to town. She goes upstairs and finds Jason, who is wearing a hood, jumping out at her in the bed! He had hid under the covers where he’d speared the couple, so that he could be a terrifying surprise for all of us! He brandishes a knife and we linger on Cute Girl's terror for a bit longer than we've done before in this movie; the camera stays on her face as she is stabbed out of view, and it's more intense.
The main girl and Handsome Boss Man get back and quickly notice that problems are afoot. Soon enough, Jason is attacking them. This movie has Jason in a hood always, I guess. Like a burlap sack with a hole in it for an eye. He's just a guy in a hood that is on their case. This is pre-hockey-mask Jason.
1:10:07 - Jason has a pitchfork now. We had a good scare when she was watching both a door and a window, not sure which way he was going to come from. It was the window! But she made it to a car, and he followed… but where did he go? Where did he go. PITCHFORK THROUGH THE CONVERTIBLE ROOF that's where. Missed her though.
Seems like we're approaching the climax of the movie. She's the last one alive. Chase chase chase, Full moon! Chase chase! Cabin in woods… suspenseful cabin hiding!
1:15:15  - The unsustainable cabin-hide situation ends with her finding a chainsaw, starting it up with a deftness that she can never muster with the convertible, and apparently kind of touching him with it! There's no blood; he just kind of collapses, and she walks away. Hm.
Very soon, she's at the cabin where the Sheriff got killed and she finds the room he'd seen. It's a Mom-head shrine room with some new bodies adorning the base. Caboose's body still looks hot, way hotter than the other corpses. The girl quickly gets the brilliant idea to put on Mom's sweater and pretend she's Mom. The actress who plays Mom even makes an appearance in a dreamy visual! I remember all this. It doesn't work for long though because Jason sees the actual Mom-head. But Handsome Boss Man shows up to fight him some more, giving the girl time to machete him in the shoulder. A climactic machete-shouldering.
But like the first movie, we have a shocking denouement. The couple holes up in a nearby cabin, steeling themselves because of a sound outside that might be Jason, maybe a machete wound to the shoulder wasn’t so climactic after all… but just it's the missing dog that apparently wasn't the same dead dog we saw before! But also Jason launches through a window and does mysterious dramatic things. The only other information we get before the credits roll is that the girl is taken away on a stretcher and is noting aloud that she doesn't know where Handsome Boss Man is. Also, the Mom-head is still where it was. It is a very, very weak ending. Maybe they were in a hurry; this sequel was released less than a year after the first one, and there's no way they expected the first one to be a huge hit.
So that is the end of Friday the 13th Part 2! It seems like they weren't inspired to do much other than have a large number of bloody murders, and have the teenagers be hornier and more attractive. I get why I didn't remember much of it other than that Mom scene; it mostly is not memorable.
Some follow-up info - I have now learned that Wheelchair Guy was not played by an actual disabled actor. But the actor did die of AIDS in the 90s, so there's that.
(next: Friday the 13th Part 3)
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bevioletskies · 7 years
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20 questions [18/20]
characters: peter/gamora, guardians-centric
fandom: avengers academy/marvel cinematic universe
summary: wasp has a new competition in store for the students of avengers academy, and there’s money involved. so obviously, peter and gamora have to pretend to be a couple in order to win. wait, what?
chapter preview: peter and gamora meet, fight, and get to know each other for the first time.
word count: 8853 | total word count: 118k
a/n: welcome to flashback friday, I guess? i promise i didn't time it this way for the stupid joke, it just happened.
ao3 | previously | next | masterpost
“And what do we have here?”
Peter jumped at the sudden voice coming from behind him. He’d been sitting in this rather exuberant plush chair for so long he was starting to get cramps, and his left foot had fallen asleep. A man with a shock of white hair came into view, perhaps one of the strangest men Peter had ever seen, and he’d met plenty of odd aliens here and there. “Um, Peter Quill, sir. Star-Lord.”
The man held out his hand to shake. “Of course, Mister Quill. You came highly recommended. Taneleer Tivan, also known as The Collector. I’m the headmaster here at the Cosmic Conservatory. Delighted to make your acquaintance.” As he shook Peter’s hand, he glanced down absent-mindedly, only to jump at the sight of Peter’s scraped knuckles. “Red blood!” he exclaimed. “You must be Terran.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter replied, growing more uncomfortable by the second. He shifted around in the chair, wondering when Tivan was going to let go. “Listen, I just needed to get away from the Ravagers for a while, and I was told the Conservatory accepts students of all backgrounds, even those without, uh, legal records.”
“Of course, of course,” Tivan murmured, running a thumb across one of Peter’s knuckles before finally letting go. He moved to stand behind his desk, fingers splayed across its surface as he stood tall and proud. “Here at the Conservatory, we have all sorts around here. Even a few students that are, sad to say, the last of their kind.”
Despite his discomfort, Peter still felt a sense of remorse for the ones Tivan spoke of. He might have been the only Terran this far out into the galaxy, but he knew he wasn’t really alone, not in that sense. “Sorry to hear that, sir. So, uh, where do I sign up? For classes, I mean.”
______
It had been a long few first days for Peter after getting his schedule sorted out, along with room and board. He didn’t have a lot of units left after leaving the Ravagers, but Tivan didn’t seem all that concerned. He didn’t really seem that concerned about anything, aside from casually mentioning he’d be grateful if Peter provided a blood sample, maybe a hair or two.
For the most part, he kept his head down, didn’t make too much eye contact. He kept his knuckles wrapped up, his injuries obscured, so other students would assume he was Xandarian, and leave him be. After all, Peter wasn’t really here to be a student, he was after that stupid orb. One last job, and he’d have enough money to sever ties from the Ravagers forever.
He didn’t like the idea of leaving Yondu behind, but Yondu was the captain now. He wouldn’t abandon his boys for Peter, no matter how close they were. He had a duty to uphold, men to look after. Peter was just the skinny kid they’d picked up off Terra who managed to get a black eye less than an hour after he had joined them.
Once the week had started, so did Peter’s classes. He’d gotten hopelessly lost on his way to his afternoon class, despite spending his weekend going over the map and walking around campus. Somehow, he found himself near the gyms instead of the science wing. Groaning, he stashed his map back into his knapsack in frustration and decided to walk into the gym and ask one of the instructors for directions instead.
As he approached the entrance, he could hear the loud shouts of students - two voices, female, grunting and yelling, along with what sounded like bodily impact - and the cheers of others who were probably watching them. Fight training, huh, Peter thought. Neat. He opened the door, attempting to slide in neatly without being seen, and promptly brained himself on the corner, because whoa.
Two girls were in the middle of the room on a set of elevated mats in a mimicry of a wrestling ring, clearly the ones fighting in front of everyone else, who had them surrounded along the perimeter of the small gymnasium. One of the girls was Kree, notable because of her blue skin and violet eyes, filled with fiery rage. Like many of her race, she was tall and broad-shouldered, muscular beyond compare. However, she was being pinned to the ground by another girl unlike any Peter had ever seen before. Vibrant green skin, long dark red ombre hair, and silver markings on her beautifully fierce face. She wasn’t petite, but she also wasn’t as tall or physically intimidating as the Kree girl, what with her tiny waist and slender, but muscular arms and legs. While the Kree girl was holding a giant spear, this girl only held a small knife, its entire length no longer than her forearm.
The students standing near Peter snickered at his plight, and he felt his face grow warm. So much for keeping a low profile, he thought sullenly, though he was distracted once more when the girl turned to look in his direction, probably wondering what the laughter was about. Her dark gaze fixated on him for a moment in confusion, before rolling her eyes and turning her attention back to the Kree girl. However, her luck seemed to have run out - having been distracted by Peter, the girl found herself flipped onto her back the moment she’d looked back. She let out a feral snarl as the Kree girl lifted her spear over her head with a satisfied cry.
Peter’s heart jumped in his throat, wondering if he’d somehow walked into a fight club to the death instead of just a typical gym class, when the girl slid her legs out from under, wrapped them around the Kree’s head, and twisted. Hard. With another yelp of surprise, the Kree girl hit the mat with an impact that bounced off the gymnasium walls and finally slumped in defeat, panting. “I give,” she gasped, clutching at her neck.
The girl stood, satisfied, twirling her knife between her fingers for a moment before tucking it back into her belt. She turned to look in the direction of the instructor and nodded. “I’d invite a bigger challenge for next time, but I doubt you have anything of real work for me,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly melodious, yet just as strong as she was. She leaped down from the mat and walked towards Peter, causing the crowd to immediately part. She didn’t spare him a single glance as she breezed out the door. Damn, Peter thought. What a girl.
______
Another week passed before he saw her again, this time in the cafeteria. It was somewhat serendipitous, as Peter had heard rumours that she hung around Ronan, another one of the few Kree students here, who was also thinking of stealing the orb. She was sitting at a table with him, a dark-skinned boy with ice blue eyes and a visible brain implant, and a blue-skinned girl with almost entirely black eyes. Their heads were ducked together, talking quietly, until Ronan had let out a sinister chuckle and got up, causing the other boy and the blue-skinned girl to follow, exchanging looks of worry. The girl remained behind, glancing up at her companions briefly with a nervous flicker of her eyes before looking back at her tray with a resigned sigh.
Peter picked up his lunch tray and went to make his move when he heard a loud, obnoxious laugh. He turned towards the source of the noise and was startled to find himself staring at what appeared to be a raccoon and a tree, who had joined him at his table for some reason. “Don’t even try it, fly boy. She ain’t interested.”
“What...what are you talking about?”
“Gamora.” The raccoon jerked a thumb in her direction. The girl appeared to be pushing her food around with her fork, no longer hungry. “You know who she is?”
“I - no, no I don’t.”
“Daughter of Thanos. That name you gotta know.” It sent chills down Peter’s spine. Yes, that he did. “She’s the deadliest woman in the whole d’ast galaxy. You hit on her, you’re gonna lose the appendage you’re thinkin’ with.”
“I wasn’t gonna flirt with her,” Peter protested, though he had been thinking about it. She was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, not to mention possibly the physically strongest. He had never been so impressed by someone so quickly. Still, it wasn’t what he was after. “I need information about Ronan.”
“Don’t tell me it’s about the orb,” the raccoon said, his voice dropping a few octaves. “How many people are after this thing?”
“Not a lot, if you keep quiet,” Peter said, eyes narrowing. “Stay outta my business, okay? I don’t need a raccoon sniffin’ around.”
“What’s a raccoon?” he said, looking genuinely confused.
“‘What’s a raccoon’? It’s what you are, stupid,” Peter snapped. He was getting incredibly frustrated at this point, and it didn’t help that the tree kept waving at him with a giant dopey grin on his face.
“The name’s Rocket. Ain’t no thing like me, ‘cept me. Don’t ever call me a - whatever - again.” Rocket jabbed a thumb towards the tree. “This is Groot.”
“I am Groot,” he said enthusiastically.
“Yeah, yeah, he just said so,” Peter grumbled, standing up. He’d had enough. He walked over to Gamora, set his tray down, and slid onto the seat across from her in one fluid movement. Her eyes flickered upwards, and there was a sense of vulnerability, like a spooked animal, before it was quickly replaced with annoyance. “Hi. Peter Quill. People call me Star-Lord.”
She huffed, immediately irritated. “What do you want?”
“You looked like you could use some company. Your friends kinda left you behind.” Peter put on his most winning smile. She didn’t look too impressed.
“They aren’t my friends,” she replied. “And you aren’t going to be one, either, so leave me alone.”
“That Ronan guy in particular seems pretty intimidating,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Why do you hang around those people if they’re not your friends?”
“You must be new here,” Gamora said dryly, finally setting her fork down. “Ronan works for my father, as does Korath. And Nebula, she’s my adopted sister. Will you go now?”
“You’re not like them, are you,” Peter persisted. “Whatever it is they’re planning on doing, you’re just, what, sitting it out? Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Ronan would let go. More like the kind of guy who’s all, ‘I wanna take over the world and blah blah blah, you’re gonna help me’, y’know?”
“Charming,” she said snidely. “You seem to think you know him well enough, so why are you asking me about him?” She looked as if she were considering picking up her fork again so she could stab him with it.
“A Ravager never tells,” Peter winked. She looked taken aback at this, like she had expected him to simply be a common criminal. Well, that was rude. “Look, can I tell you a secret? No, don’t answer that, I’m gonna tell you anyways. I’m here for one thing, and one thing only, and I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about. And Ronan clearly knows something about it that I don’t, so why don’t you fill me in on the details?”
“And why would I do that?” Gamora had picked up her fork again, twirling it around in her plate menacingly. He wasn’t aware that sort of thing could even be done so threateningly.
“Because if you do, I’ll take you with me when I leave, and you won’t have to hang around this crapsack anymore.”
She looked alarmed at this. “How could you tell I wanted to leave?” she hissed.
Peter merely shrugged in response. “You didn’t choose to be here with those people, I can tell that much. So, what’s the deal with the orb?”
She cast a glance around the room, ensuring that her companions were truly gone, before sighing, slumping forwards onto her arms in defeat. “It’s not just an orb. Inside, there’s a…”
______
Peter honestly wasn’t sure how he had gotten here. It seemed like one minute he’d been sneaking into the Collector’s private rooms, seeking out the orb amongst what appeared to be hundreds, if not thousands, of artifacts and, well, collector’s items, and the next, he was being shipped off to the Kyln, the Collector shrieking about how he should have never trusted, quote unquote, “outsiders”.
It wasn’t the worst place Peter had ever been (some seedy pubs that Yondu had dragged him to came to mind), but he suspected he would feel a little less threatened if not for his companions, or rather, his assailants. Rocket and Groot had come running after him the second they realized he was going to snatch out the orb from under Ronan’s nose. When Gamora had seen Peter sprinting out of the Collector’s quarters like he was on fire, pursued by Rocket and Groot, she had misunderstood and thought he had betrayed her to help them instead, resulting in her attacking him and screaming about dishonour. Honestly, Peter had kind of blocked the whole thing out of his memory once Groot had started entangling Gamora in his branches while Rocket tasered him about fifty times in a row (alright, three. It hurt like it was fifty, okay?). And now, they were all in prison together, because that apparently made sense.
So, really, it was probably in Peter’s top 5 (bottom 5?) least favourite places to be.
A part of him told himself to keep his distance from the others. They didn’t owe each other anything, and although he had promised Gamora he would spring her out of the Conservatory, there was no telling what she would do now that she was convinced he had double-crossed her. After all, she knew he was a Ravager - a thief, a con artist, a no-good pirate - and probably assumed it was in his nature, that he couldn’t be trusted. She certainly wouldn’t be the first girl to come to that realization.
However, there was something incredibly disturbing about watching a bunch of grown men, twice her size, snarling in her face, telling her they wanted to tear her apart, limb by limb. Whether it was for her own crimes, or that of her father and his employees, they seemed entirely serious about killing her, along with some other threats that made Peter shudder. As far as he knew, Gamora was around his age - barely past twenty years old, already world weary, tirelessly desperate for an out. She clearly was more moral than her so-called “family”, the fear in her eyes as she described Ronan’s plans had told Peter that much. The corrupt members of the guard didn’t seem to care, though, looking just as ready for her blood as the other prisoners were.
“Dammit,” Peter mumbled to himself, watching as one of the guards, who was probably old enough to be her grandfather, patted Gamora down a little too thoroughly. She hissed at him, but knew that any sort of retaliation would be an excuse to kill her without moment’s notice. Peter, however, didn’t have that sort of reputation around here, not yet, anyways. He jogged over to them, knowing he couldn’t be a bystander any longer. “Hey, hey, you wanna leave her alone?”
“What’re you gonna do about it?” the guard sneered. Without giving it a second thought, Peter reeled back and punched the guy straight in the nose, knocking him to the ground instantaneously. He reached for Gamora to pull them both away, but the guard pulled out his stun gun and promptly jabbed Peter in the calf, resulting in him falling down, too, electricity jolting through every muscle in his body (a sensation he had gotten too used to after his encounter with Rocket). “You BASTARD! Stay down!”
The guard got to his feet and stumbled away, waving off the others who approached him and asked if they should do anything further about Peter. To Peter’s surprise, Gamora remained behind, kneeling down next to him. “That was stupid of you,” she informed him.
“You’re welcome,” he grumbled, though admittedly she was right. She pulled him to his feet, then turned as if to walk away. He immediately reached for her arm and tugged. “Hey, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not when there’s so many people around here trying to kill you.”
“Let me go, Quill,” Gamora snapped, yanking her arm out of his grasp. “I’m heading to my cell. I have no desire to be around others any longer.” Peter was pretty sure she was looking at the Sakaaran who appeared to be attempting to bite off his own fingers. “Besides, I’m certainly more capable of fighting people off than you.”
“At least let me stay outside, then.”
“You really think you’re my last line of defense?” she scoffed. Her chin was held high, eyes hard. “When you said you’d help me get out of the Conservatory, I didn’t realize this was what you meant.”
“Well, if you had let me explain myself instead of just jumping me, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place,” he shot back.
“So this is my fault?”
“I’m just saying, if your attitude was a little more ‘let’s talk about this’ instead of ‘stab, stab, those are my terms’, then we wouldn’t be in freaking prison!”
“If you’re so irritated with me, then why are you bothering to protect me?” she yelled, shoving a finger in his chest. The other prisoners were starting to watch them, though Gamora suspected it was because they wanted to see who was going to kill the other first. “I swear, if this is some stupid, harebrained scheme to seduce me - ”
“What? No!” Peter exclaimed, though admittedly there was something oddly exhilarating about her shouting at him. Maybe he needed to get his brain checked for...something, that could not be a good sign. “Look, we agreed to get the orb away from the Collector and away from Ronan, right? Having it in lockup here doesn’t count, not when we know what it can really do. And I promised to help you get out of the Conservatory, although I gotta say, the Kyln? Not what I meant.” The corners of her mouth twitched in what he imagined was meant to be the beginnings of a smile. “I always keep my promises, when they’re to girls who can kill me with their bare hands if I don’t.”
“My hands? I could kill you with a single fingernail if I wanted to,” she said, her voice so low that it made him shiver. She eyed him up and down, considering. “Fine. You can keep me company. But only inside the cell, since I don’t trust you won’t leave. And you’re sleeping on the floor.”
“Wasn’t planning on sharing your bunk,” he replied cheerfully, grateful that she seemed to have relented. Maybe this was the beginnings of a beautiful partnership. That is, if she didn’t gut him in his sleep.
That night, Peter found himself looking up from the floor at Gamora, curled up on her bunk. She was practically in the fetal position, tightly tucked into herself, her hands partially over her head as if to protect her skull. He didn’t know much about Thanos or his children, but he suspected her childhood couldn’t have been pleasant, resulting in her odd sleeping habits.
His consideration of her was rudely interrupted when a grey-skinned alien with red markings and biceps larger than Peter’s thighs decided it was a good time to break in. Damn, he’d been hoping to get a decent night’s sleep for once. Of course, the moment Peter had lunged for the man he would later know to be Drax the Destroyer (and even later still, an admirer of good practical jokes), Gamora had sprung up from her tiny bed, and with a feral shout, pinned Drax to the ground in one swift move.
“Don’t even think about it,” she hissed. She had somehow grabbed his knife and turned it back on him, pressing the tip into his throat.
“Your father killed my family, and my sweetheart, Hovat,” Drax snarled, anguished, his breath coming out in short pants as Gamora pressed further. “They are dead, because of him. I shall kill one of his in return.”
Peter, who had half-collapsed against the wall, clutching at his bruised torso where Drax had punched him, scrambled forwards onto his hands and knees. “Hey, if you’re trying to get to Thanos, this isn’t the way to do it.” Drax turned to fix his cold, ice-blue stare on Peter’s face. “She betrayed Ronan, so they’re gonna come after her. Be patient, and you’ll have the big guy in no time. Killing her now is only gonna do their job for them.”
Gamora’s brow furrowed, staring him down, and Peter looked at her pleadingly, hoping that she understood he was only trying to subdue Drax. Seconds later, a moment of clarity passed over her face, and she turned back to look at Drax, who had finally gone slack, arms collapsing against the metal floor with a loud clang. She slowly moved off him and joined Peter against the wall, though she kept the knife pointed at Drax’s face. “Apparently, your talent is in talking in excess until your opponents give up. Who knew?” she murmured. He chuckled softly in response, relieved. At least they seemed to have finally reached an understanding.
“You two are tryna leave the Kyln, aren’t you?” They jumped at the sudden sound of another voice. Even Drax leaped up to his feet, fists up in the air, ready for another fight. Rocket was standing just outside the open cell door, arms folded, Groot hovering by his side. “Don’t trust ‘em, man,” he said to Drax. “They’re gonna bolt as soon as they get the chance. Trust me, I got experience with these losers.”
“They will let me follow, or else,” Drax said threateningly. Despite Gamora holding the knife to his throat again, he seemed unperturbed. Peter was impressed. “You will not leave without me, murderess.”
“And you ain’t leaving without us, either,” Rocket snapped. “You got us into this mess, Quill. And you’re gonna need guys like us, me with the know-how and Groot with the muscle, if you wanna make it out. I’ve escaped twenty-two prisons, this one’s no different. Hell, I’d like to see you try without me.”
“Oh, great. I wasn’t aware this was now a team effort,” Peter groaned, rubbing at his face with the heel of his palms. This was all just supposed to be for the damn orb, so he could get away from the Ravagers and start a new life on his own. Instead, he had apparently picked up a new pack of misfits along the way.
“I would never be on a team with the likes of you,” Gamora snarled, waving the knife around haphazardly. Peter was slightly offended she had included him in her statement - if anything, they were the only two that should be leaving together. “We get the orb back, we escape, and that’s it. Understood?”
The tree shrugged, a nonchalant grin on his face. “I am Groot.”
______
Okay, so Peter was pretty sure he needed to stop asking himself the infamous question, “what’s the worst that could happen?”, because for him, it went a little like this:
After making their escape from the Kyln with the orb, they had been at a loss for what to do with it. Gamora had suggested bringing it to Nova Prime, to which Rocket and Peter both vehemently protested. She then ordered Peter to fly the group (she refused to acknowledge they had become something of a team) to Knowhere, as she knew of a safehouse they could hide out in until they finally made up their minds about the next move. To their dismay, both Yondu and Nebula were on Knowhere when they arrived (Nebula, because she apparently had a sixth sense when it came to her sister, and Yondu had been tracking Peter ever since he was thrown into prison, again ). The group retreated, rather stupidly, to the Conservatory, where they fought with Ronan, nearly blew up the entire school in the process, lost possession of the orb, and to Peter’s horror, found out that Ronan was now heading to Terra, seeking petty revenge against him.
This was where it went kind of sideways (well, more than before). Peter should have known the Milano wasn’t exactly acquainted with Earth’s atmosphere. But, well, he didn’t, and now they were spiraling towards the ground.
Drax, Rocket, and Yondu had all been knocked out for about five minutes by the time Peter managed to reach Gamora, who was clutching onto Nebula for dear life. Nebula appeared to be grinding her teeth in pain, passing Gamora off to Peter so she could try to crawl her way back towards the cockpit, maybe use the wiring in her body to gain control of the ship again. Groot was growing at a rapid pace, using his branches and vines to create little “cots” for their unconscious teammates.
“Quill,” Gamora gasped, her nails digging so tightly into his arms that she was drawing blood. “QUILL!” Suddenly, she threw herself on top of him, flattening them both into the floor. His face was ground painfully into the metal as one of the benches broke free from the Milano’s walls, sailing over their heads and out the large hole in the ceiling.
Peter started to get to his hands and knees when he felt the sudden sensation of suction yanking him upwards. With a pained yell, Gamora managed to grab one of the tether lines and secure it around his waist, dragging him back down. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him, bracing her against the floor. “G’mora,” he panted. He could feel blood trickling into his hairline from where he had been slammed about, though he was more concerned about the way she was shaking underneath him. “Thank...thank you. Are you okay?”
“I...I really am gonna die among my friends, aren’t I?” She let out a weak chuckle, turning her face away from the wind.
“Well,” he said with a soft laugh of his own. “We had a pretty good run, didn’t we? The last...what, week we’ve known each other?”
“Has it really only been a week?” Gamora tipped her head backwards, attempting to catch a glimpse of Nebula, but the angle was too impossible. Another piece of equipment went flying over their heads, grazing her chin. She immediately tilted her face back down, eyes wide in terror.
Before Peter could answer, the two of them found themselves scooped up by Groot’s extended branches and pulled towards the others. Nebula had also become entangled, though she didn’t look too pleased about it, attempting to wrench her arm free so she could reach her knife. To their astonishment, Groot had formed a giant sphere inside the cockpit, weaving his branches together so tightly that they could no longer see the walls of the ship. “Groot,” Rocket said sleepily, blinking himself awake. “Groot, what’re you...no, you can’t - ”
“What’s he doing?” Peter asked worriedly. He had never once heard Rocket sound so frantic before.
“Groot, you can’t, you’ll die,” Rocket continued, as if he hadn’t heard Peter. He only had eyes for Groot, who was smiling at him reassuringly. “Why are you doing this?”
Groot extended one tiny branch to wipe the tears that were forming in Rocket’s eyes. “We...are…Groot.”
______
The five of them (well, four of them. Groot was merely a twig in a clay pot at the moment) stood on the loading ramp of the Milano, staring out at the rest of the campus. Peter was honestly in disbelief after everything that had transpired, after the life he’d lived, the life his companions had lived, that they were truly here, back on his home planet, the newly christened Guardians of the Galaxy, and the latest recruits of Avengers Academy.
For the most part, everyone had accepted their roles and purpose on the team. Drax was happy to be the muscle, ready to fight the good fight, and though he claimed to defer to Peter, he did continue to question his every move. Rocket primarily worked on the ship and weapon development, accepting every bit of scrap metal thrown his way, though he refused to accept any sort of help from Stark (“What can that humie do that I can’t? Pah!”). Groot, for the most part, spent his time hanging out in his pot and asking Peter to leave his Walkman behind so he could dance. Yondu and Nebula had been thoroughly chastised by the Director for their past crimes, more harshly than he had towards the others. So, they were grounded for now, something Yondu had shrugged at and Nebula had sneered at - no surprises there. As for Gamora…
“Hey, what’re you doing? Milano’s that way,” Peter called at Gamora’s retreating back. She turned stiffly to face him. “We’re supposed to be wheels up in ten, we’ve got a job. An actual paying job!”
“Is that what we’re doing here?” Gamora snapped, avoiding his eyes. “Pretending to be a team of heroes, while we avoid the real problems at hand?”
“If by ‘real problems’, you’re talking about Thanos, then hell yeah, I’m all for avoiding that fight,” he replied cheerfully. At her annoyed expression, he chuckled and held up his hands defensively. “Come on, we have a while to go. Stay in school, take on missions, make some extra dough, and when we graduate, get pardoned by Nova Prime. And Thanos? We gotta work our way up to that, okay? That’s not the kind of fight we just decide to jump into.”
“Exactly, which is why we need to start planning now, instead of jetting across the galaxy doing god knows what, or going to classes here. I - we, need information.”
“You said ‘I’, not ‘we’,” Peter frowned, folding his arms across his chest. “Wait, are you trying to leave?”
“I can’t stay here,” she said, letting out a slightly hysterical laugh. “I don’t want to be responsible for Thanos coming here and eviscerating the entire planet for my betrayal.”
“You can’t - you can’t just leave us,” he stuttered. The disappointment in both his face and his tone were clear. “I thought you wanted to be a part of this. The team, the school.”
“I have more pressing concerns than being a good little student,” Gamora retorted. “And believe me, Quill, this team? It’s not going to work. You’ve seen the personalities we have to deal with, the egos battling for the most attention. That includes yours.”
“You said you wanted to die among friends.” Peter fixed her with a steely-eyed glare. “Or was that just a lie?”
She hesitated, finally taking a few steps towards him instead of turning away. “I have rarely been so...terrified the way that I was when we were spiraling towards Terra. I thought I had finally found true companions, only to lose them all within a matter of seconds. That being said, if I told you that you weren’t my friend, would that help you let me go?”
He smiled privately to himself. Finally, a bit of truth. “No. Because I still consider you my friend, and I want you here, with me, with us. All the nonsense that’s been going on ever since we met proves that our group of weird a-holes? We’re stronger as a team. So please. Stay.”
______
Peter had been unsure whether he would cry for the death of his father. He had grown up thinking that he was just a man who had left his mother behind, but it had turned out to be so much worse than that. His blood boiled just thinking about everything Ego had said to him - about his mom, his friends, especially the stuff he’d said about Gamora. Still, he found his eyes were stinging a little bit as he turned away from the window of the Eclector (praise all the gods that Yondu had thought to call Kraglin in to rescue them).
The others had tucked themselves away quite early that night, exhausted with the week’s events. Mantis, despite being brand new to the team, had already proven her worth when she had helped put everyone else to bed, quieting their minds so they wouldn’t toss and turn all night. The only person that remained behind with Peter, strangely enough, was Gamora. “Quill?” she said quietly. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been better.” He turned to look at her, attempting to read her expression. She seemed rather melancholy, having slipped off to have a heart-to-heart with Nebula before returning to join him. He had a feeling it had been because of his eulogy, knowing that Gamora was often more than frustrated with her sister’s attitude, and had considered abandoning her before. Peter sometimes felt the same way about Yondu and his lackluster effort in school, but both he and Gamora had chosen to continue having hope in them. “How about you?”
“It...scared me, thinking you were dead,” she confessed, folding her arms across her chest as if to protect herself. From what, he didn’t know. “You think I’d be used to it by now. We’ve already watched each other nearly die a handful of times. But this felt different - probably because I wasn’t there to witness it. One minute, I was leaving to save you, and the next, I was waking up thinking you were gone.”
“You want to watch me die?” Peter joked half-heartedly. “But yeah, I know what you mean. It’s dangerous work we’re doing out here. Really puts things into perspective.”
“Things like what?” She stepped closer, curious. The hardness in her eyes had melted away, her arms coming to her side.
“Like how important the people in your life really are,” he said softly. “What they really mean to you.”
She nodded somewhat absentmindedly, turning to stare out the window with him. The observation deck of the Eclector had always been a tad nicer than that of the much-smaller Milano, providing a better view. Even then, at this distance, the exploded remains of Ego’s planet were barely visible.
Peter couldn’t help but watch her for as long as he could without feeling like a creep, observing the scratches and patches of raw skin on her face and hands that were already healing, her bloody knuckles that had already started to scab over. She would be back to normal by the following morning, but there was a sense the emotional weight of this particular mission would sit with her for a long time, as it would for everyone. There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that Gamora was beautiful, likely the most gorgeous girl he’d ever met, but she was so much more than that. Uncompromising, unyielding Gamora, with the sharp tongue and the sharper blade. His second-in-command, though she was usually steering more often than not. It was getting easier to talk to her nowadays, and she had opened up to conversation and companionship by leaps and bounds since they had first met, but she still felt a little distant to him, a bit out of reach. She spent most of her spare time with Nebula, disciplining her sister so she would finally be allowed on missions. Peter knew that Nebula was Gamora’s priority, and that she had no obligation to spend time with him, but he still couldn’t help but speculate what it would be like.
“Gamora,” he suddenly found himself saying, and oh god, what was his mouth doing? “What’re your plans when we get back?”
“Sleep, probably,” she said with the beginnings of a laugh. “The beds on this ship certainly aren’t my favourite. Why?”
Since she hadn’t turned back to look at him, Peter chose to study her profile, noting the tightness in her jaw, the cool demeanor returning to her gaze. “I was wondering if maybe you…” He trailed off. No, bad idea, he told himself sternly. You barely have anything to talk about when you’re alone on the Milano for five minutes, what the hell could you possibly say on a date? “...were planning on doing a show this weekend.”
Gamora eyed him suspiciously, curious about the odd pause he’d taken. “If I’m not too exhausted, probably. Though my amps haven’t been holding up very well as of late. I might have to dip into our funds, see if we can spare some units to get them looked at.”
“Right, good idea.” He cleared his throat, and silence fell over them again. He wasn’t sure what else to add, and she didn’t seem to have anything else to say, either. Peter wondered what it would be like to talk to her about something that wasn’t related to the team or school. “I’m, uh, gonna go to bed now. So, uh, night.” She glanced over at him briefly, nodding, before turning to watch as the last of Ego disappeared before her very eyes.
______
Gamora caught a whiff of something rather foul as Peter walked past her on the way out the Milano. She looked up from her book, setting down the blade she had been idly twirling between her fingers. “Quill, what's that awful smell?”
He paused, turning on his heel to look at her. “New cologne. Why, you don’t like it?”
“You smell like you’ve been rolling around in toxic waste,” she sniffed. Her eyes flickered over him, fully taking in his appearance. He was wearing a button-up shirt under his usual red leather jacket, had swapped out his cargo pants for slacks, and replaced his giant combat boots with loafers. His strawberry blond hair, usually haphazardly messy and a little curly, was artfully slicked back, and the edges of his stubble had been cleaned up, no longer making its way down his neck. “You’re going on a date.”
“How could you tell?” She rolled her eyes. Honestly, didn’t he know her better by now? Besides, it wasn’t rocket science. Groot probably could have put it together. “Yeah, one of the SHIELD agents. She was training with Johnson the same time I was in there, and I thought she was pretty cute. Asked her out on the spot. We’re gonna get dinner at one of the restaurants on campus, not sure what yet.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, she’s going to regret saying yes once she sees you,” she said dryly.
“Hey,” Peter exclaimed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sighing exasperatedly, Gamora slammed her book shut and got to her feet, walking right up to him. She regretted it slightly when the smell only grew stronger. “If she was as charmed by you as you say, then she won’t like how you look - or smell - right now. You’re not this, this clean-cut, preppy boy, Quill, you’re a roguish ex-Ravager who never stops talking. Pretending otherwise is...unattractive.” Now that she was closer, she couldn’t help but notice Peter’s eyes as they watched her. She had never noticed how many colours there were, the way the light could change them in an instant.
Her first memory of Peter wasn’t exactly a fond one, what with him sitting across from her and asking her about fifty questions in one go. It had somehow resulted in them deciding to grab the orb and run before Ronan got his omnicidal hands on it, or the Collector unwittingly released its true power. Then Rocket and Groot had gone running after them, Drax inserted himself into the situation once they were at the Kyln, and the rest was history. Aside from all that, however, was how much Peter had managed to get under her skin in less than thirty seconds - hell, before he had even opened his mouth - and, admittedly, how physically attractive she had found him to be, not that she would ever tell him that. Gamora wasn’t blind to Peter’s qualities - his tousled hair, his strong jaw, his easygoing, slightly crooked smile that made him all the more charming. Still, he had managed to both aggravate her and understand her in record time, his looks be damned.
This odd, sterilized version of himself he was sporting? It wasn’t him.
“Maybe I should cancel,” Peter groaned, now slumping onto the couch. “It’d be better than telling her I’m gonna be late, and then chickening out. What should I do, Gamora?”
“It makes no difference to me,” she said lightly, though she felt inexplicably pleased. She sat back down next to him and picked up her book. “I’m not the one you’re going on a date with.”
______
It was almost midnight when Gamora returned to the Milano, adrenaline still pumping through her veins. It had been a fantastic show at Club Galaxy, one of her best. People seemed to fully accept her presence among them despite the title and kill count she carried with her, embracing her as much as they did with every new recruit that arrived at the Academy.
Her train of thought was broken when she nearly tripped over something on the bathroom floor. “Shit. QUILL!” she hollered. When there was no immediate response, she stalked back out into the corridor and banged on his bedroom door. “Quill, you left another towel on the bathroom floor again. How many times do I have to tell you to pick it up?” All she heard in reply was a groan in pain. Immediately fearful, she hurried inside to find Peter curled up in the fetal position on the floor, still fully clothed. She immediately kneeled by his side, hands going to his shoulders. “Quill? Are you okay, what happened?”
“Mrrrgh.” He slowly rolled onto his back, staring up at her with glazed eyes, his mouth hanging slightly open like he’d forgotten how to close it. Okay, drunk, then. She could handle drunk Peter. It was injured Peter that she was unsure of - not first aid, that she was proficient at. It was the comfort required that she wasn’t sure how to give.
“This doesn’t get you out of cleaning up after yourself,” she informed him, though she did help him onto his bed. “How much did you drink at Club A? You smell like a distillery.”
“Not ‘nough,” he slurred, slumping against the wall. It was like every bone in his body had given up. “Today’s the...today’s the daaay.”
“Day for what?” She began undoing his shoelaces.
“Mom’s day.” He pouted at her in such an exaggerated manner she almost wanted to laugh, but she knew it was no laughing matter. Whether he meant it was his mother’s birthday or the anniversary of her death, one thing was clear - he had drunk himself into oblivion because he was thinking about her.
“I”m sorry,” Gamora whispered, reaching to pat his hand awkwardly. “You’ll be okay, Quill. Just get some sleep, alright? I’ll take care of the towel. You need me to bring you some aspirin? Water?”
Peter could only nod in response, shrugging off his jacket and flopping down onto his mattress like a ragdoll, one boot still dangling from his toes. With a heavy sigh, he mumbled into his pillow so quietly that she had almost missed it. “Thanks, G’mora.”
______
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Peter jumped at the sound of the noise. Was someone attacking the Milano? No, wait, they were on the ground. Was someone pulling a prank against the Milano?
He ran outside to find Gamora sitting on the floor of the loading bay, bouncing what appeared to be Rocket’s old dud grenades against the side of the ship. Peter wasn’t sure what he found more disturbing - the sullen look on her face that could only mean trouble, or the fact that grenades bounced so well. “Uh, Gamora?”
“I don’t want to talk, Quill,” she said firmly. Thunk. “So don’t even try.”
“Then I can talk,” he said brightly. “I love talking.” She shot him a dirty look, but he ignored it in favour of settling down next to her, though his eyes remained on the Milano. Despite clearly being upset, she was doing a good job of hitting the siding in different spots so she wouldn’t leave dents. How considerate. “So, when I was fifteen - and still with the Ravagers - we had this one job that was pretty interesting. Some stuffy old museum curator dude, I guess he was a bit corrupt like us, wanted us to stage a robbery so he could smuggle some artifacts out and sell ‘em to the Collector for, like, a million units. That’s actually how I found out about the Conservatory. Anyways, Yondu was all, ‘don’t this job feel weird t’ya, boys?’ and Stakar - that was our captain - was like, ‘shut up, Yondu’. But I thought so, too, ‘cause like, what was stopping this guy from just reporting us to the authorities when we ‘robbed’ his museum?”
He paused to look over at Gamora so he could gauge her reaction, maybe stop if she truly wanted to be left alone. She had stopped throwing the grenades, and was now rolling one around in her hands, her dark eyes fixated on Peter, curious. “So what happened?”
“Yondu and I found out the curator had this super hot daughter, who was like, a year older than me. Which is a big deal when you’re fifteen, right? So we both tried talking to her, and obviously, I was more successful. She told me the job was legit, but the Collector was planning on cutting the deal off. Turns out she was a student at the Conservatory, and connected her dad to the Collector. But she freaking hated her dad because he was super neglectful or whatever, and it was all her idea so that she could get part of the cut from the Collector and run away from her family forever.”
“You stopped her, right?” At this point, Gamora looked almost fascinated. Hey, Peter took pride in his storytelling abilities. They didn’t always go so well whenever Gamora was on the receiving end, though she was certainly a better listener than Drax.
“Duh. I asked her out to dinner, told her I was gonna be her getaway driver since I already had the Milano by then, but I secretly reported her to her dad and the authorities. She had no idea until we got to dessert, and the cops came up to us and was all, ‘miss, can you come with us, please?’. I felt super cool, like I was James Bond or something.” Peter laughed at the memory.
“Did you ever see her again?” He looked sheepish, and for a moment, she couldn’t understand why, until she sighed in realization. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”
“Yup, lost my virginity to her,” Peter mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. Gamora felt like driving her head through a wall. Of course it somehow resulted in him getting the girl. It was probably why Peter had tried flirting with her on Knowhere - not because he had been interested in pursuing Gamora, it was just something that came naturally to him, a personal challenge. “She was so impressed, she asked me out after her mom bailed her outta jail. She also put in a recommendation at the Conservatory with the Collector, in case I needed somewhere to be.”
“Unbelievable,” Gamora groaned, shaking her head. They fell silent for a few minutes, though it was noticeably less awkward than it could have been. She considered whether to tell him what had been bothering her, then decided it couldn’t hurt. Although Peter often acted rashly, he was surprisingly reliable when it came to conversation. “Nebula had another ‘episode’ again. Someday, somehow, she’s going to run off and head straight for Thanos, Guardians be damned.”
“You’ll get through to her eventually,” he said soothingly, resting a hand on her back. “She’ll see how valuable having a team can be. And she cares about you a lot, even if she’s really bad at showing it. Like, really bad. She’ll stick around, be a Guardian, fight by your side. She’s not the same person she was when we first got here, and she’s gonna get even better with time.”
“Maybe if she listened to someone like you and all your over-the-top motivational speeches, she’d finally believe it.”
“Hey, no. It has to come from you, Gamora. It’s between the two of you, and you mean more to her than anyone else. You’re totally capable of over-the-top motivational speeches!” She ducked her head down into the crook of her arm, smiling into her elbow so he couldn’t see.
“Thanks, Quill.” He grinned at her, a curiously warm sparkle in his eyes. “You always have such odd stories to tell.”
“You must have some yourself,” Peter offered.
“There’s not much to talk about when it comes to my life, aside from the horrors I’ve committed under Thanos’s rule. I doubt you’d want to hear about those.” Gamora gave him a self-deprecating smile. “One question, though - who or what is a James Bond?”
He straightened up almost instantly in excitement. “You’ve never seen a Bond movie?”
“I have never watched a movie, period,” Gamora said, brow furrowing. “Is it like that Footloose you keep mentioning?”
“Uh, Footloose and Bond? Totally opposites,” he laughed. “But, hey, if you’re free right now, I’ve got Footloose on VHS. I could use the distraction, I’ve got an ethics essay with my name on it and nothing else. Literally. I haven’t even come up with a title yet.”
He expected her to chastise him for ignoring his work as she always did, but she simply smiled in return. “VHS? They’re those boxes that are like bigger versions of your cassette tapes, right?” He nodded, surprised she had remembered. “Sure, I could use the distraction as well.”
As Peter got to his feet, Gamora finally set the grenades aside and began running her fingers through her hair, shaking it loose from where it had gotten tucked into the back of her shirt. The sunlight caught her movement, glinting off her silver rings and illuminating the red undertones of her hair. His breath caught for a moment, watching her eyelashes flutter closed as she flicked her tresses over her shoulder.
“O-okay. Let’s head inside then.”
______
Peter leaned back in his pilot’s seat, satisfied. Another successful job, complete. No one got hurt (aside from Drax’s pride when Gamora had taken out more bad guys than him, that had been incredible to watch), they got paid enough to keep everyone’s stomachs full, and were now headed back to campus.
“Quit daydreamin’, Quill,” Rocket called from his left. “We ain’t on autopilot yet.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we need two pilots right now. Nothing’s happening.” He waved at the windshield absentmindedly, where there was nothing but stars in sight. “We’re only a couple clicks away from Earth. We’ve got, what, fifteen minutes left? Ten?”
“I am Groot,” Groot said from Rocket’s shoulder.
“See, Groot agrees with me. I don’t have to stick around, you got this.” Peter stood, patting Groot on the head and giving Rocket a playful slap on the shoulder.
“That’s not at all what he said!” Rocket exclaimed. “And you just wanna hang out with your girlfriend.” Peter froze on the spot.
“Uh, no, wrong, not my girlfriend,” he said as cheerfully as he could manage, though his heart was racing oddly fast. He hoped she couldn’t hear them from below. He moved to pick up his textbooks from the storage compartment next to his seat. “Just a girl. Who’s my friend.”
Yeah, a girl you run a team with and spend all your time with, who’s basically one of the most important people in your life, Peter thought to himself. Whatever, Peter, you decided to let that ship sail a while ago. You’re friends, good friends, even. Don’t mess that up just because you also think she’s cute. Even then, he was lying to himself. It wasn’t just about Gamora being cute. It was that smile she gave him whenever he was good, the stomp in her foot when he was being particularly irritating, the fierce warrior’s cry she let out whenever she was engaged in combat. Her intelligence, perseverance, surprising sense of humour, her...everything.
Shaking himself, he made his way down to the common area and flung his books down onto the table, settling down in the seat across from Gamora. He cracked open his textbook and glanced at her, only to see she hadn’t even looked up at his arrival. Deciding he needed to get her attention, he leaned forwards.
“Gamora. Psst, Gamora. Gam - ”
“What do you want, Quill?”
“What did you get for question twelve?”
a/n: this chapter has a special place in my heart because i had it planned out before a lot of the other chapters, and it helped me figure out how to differentiate these guardians from the mcu guardians (aside from the obvious, of course). i wanted to have more group sequences but this chapter would've ended up a good 12k in total. maybe i'll have some stand-alone one-shots in the future? ;)
not gonna lie, my schedule for the next week is incredibly hectic, so i can't guarantee the final two chapters are going to be on time. i'm gonna try my best for wednesday and then the following monday instead. or maybe i'll somehow follow the usual, who knows. either way, just wanted to let you know before you think i've suddenly abandoned y'all at the end!
to compensate, here's a little sneak peek of something i'm working on to accompany the epilogue, and also part of the whole flashback theme i've got going on here - the hotel room selfie, and the kissing selfie! (yes, these are sims. yes, i'm aware they look nothing like the actors. i tried, but chris pratt's face especially is really difficult to capture in sim form.)
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