#one of them says that mike is incredibly intelligent and that is CANON | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

strangertheories · 1 year

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I'm not surprised people are blowing up your Ask box. You didn't just say not all Mlevens are stupid. You blew up on the Anons who were just trying to explain to you why Bylers might be irritated and sick of constantly getting called slurs. You don't even know who sent you those asks, so how can you say they're condescending to Mlevens and that they bully them?

Firstly, the anons were in response to this post. And yes, I am going to say they are condescending because to me, that is how they came across, and they came into my ask box. They were talking down to me and saying I was only playing nice for having the opinions that I do. They also said that the majority of Mleven shippers are homophobes who use homophobic slurs and are rooted in bigotry so you're just calling out stupidity when you doubt the intelligence of all Mleven shippers and also gay Mike is the better and more valid interpretation than bi Mike. So maybe they didn't mean to and I struggle with tone sometimes, but it felt condescending.

S5 has not come out yet. Byler is not canon yet. It's weird to say anyone who disagrees with you is stupid and/or homophobic. I have a few Mleven mutuals who I follow for other reasons and I don't think that they ship it because they're stupid or even that they're not critical of the show. The ship has a lot of cute moments, so I understand why someone likes it even if I don't. Plus, I literally say in my original post that I'm only going to publicly disagree with these takes if they make the fandom unsafe or are in my asks, so it's not like they didn't know.

You can critique Mleven and not be condescending. If you scroll through the anti mleven tag on my blog, hopefully that is how I come across when I critique it. But I go after the show, not the shippers, unless they're making this fandom unsafe, being a homophobe or in my ask box, in which case I will call out the individual who said that. Sorry, I just feel like the enemy of the Byler fandom should be the homophobes in the fandom but because Byler is so set in people's minds, it can feel like erasure not to ship it. But it's set in your mind. After S5 and if Mike is confirmed to be gay, then I'd agree.

And I get that people are annoyed by Byler hatred. It's crap, I get a lot of it as I'm quite vocal about loving the ship. But being harassed doesn't excuse making the Byler tag a very hostile place. And I'm not even talking about Mleven shippers. If you agree with all the popular theories, you might not realise this but it's scary to have a take different to any of the popular ones on this tag (birthday gate, gay Mike, Edward Creel) because even if it is on your own blog and you haven't mentioned anyone, you get a flood of asks from people telling you that you're stupid or watching the show wrong.

So yeah, my patience has reached an end. And my ask box since I made that post just kinda confirmed that for me. I love this fandom. I think most people are nice and respectful. But I'm not going to pretend the Byler tag is not incredibly hostile and intimidating and that some of you guys can be quite toxic. It makes sense, it's a huge fandom so of course there will be infighting, but we can disagree without just insulting people or talking down to them. Ok, that's my final post on the situation for a while.

#byler #stranger things #byler tumblr

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tossertozier · 5 years

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you mentioned possibly doing a ben or mike writing guide.. would you.. be willing to post a mike one. i'm plotting a fic and im struggling to get my mans down?? also i think abt ur fics weekly bare minimum.

hi there!!! i did my best. i tried to not sound preachy or like a know it all bc y’all know i can barely write. i hope this is helpful in some way!! disclaimer of of course this is all just my opinion & there’s no wrong way to write, you’re the only person who can tell your story!!

[[MORE]]

i think the first really important decision you have to make as Person Writing Mike is his

family & background

-are both of his parents alive?

-if yes, what’s their relationship like?

-if no, who’s his primary caretaker? what’s their relationship like?

-if no, when did they die? did he cope well with it? what’s his relationship with their memory like?

these are really really where you gotta start to write mike imo. or any character! i think one thing stephen king is to be admired for is he doesn’t neglect the parent-child relationship as so many people who write youth do. your parents are the most important people in your life for a long time. i don’t think there’s a wrong or ooc way to answer the above questions tbh. canon has really left a wide open field for you to run amuck in.

(example: i’ve mentioned in the past that my & tfat mike being a small adult is no mistake and intentional. it’s a bit of a throwaway scene, but i mention in on pointe that mike’s parents are coming. it’s intentionally done there too. mike is goofier, more outgoing, more immature in general in that fic in the small bits he’s in & that’s all a response to his familial life. )

culture + friendships

after you answer those questions, important follow up questions are:

-are the losers his first set of friends?

-how much social exposure has he had?

-has he dated? who is he attracted to?

-who influences him? (celebrities, family, culturally)

-what are his cultural interests? what does he do in his free time? how would that impact how he interacts with the rest of the world?

again, no wrong way to answer these. i’ve seen a super broad spectrum of indirect answers to these questions. even thinking about where he might pick up patterns of speech can make him feel much more like a realized character. i’ve noticed some people dip fully into aave to an extent that doesn’t even seem logical in their character’s current situation & it can really seem like a caricature, but i think to write mike without any sense of aave at all is a little ?? too. just be cognizant of it is my only real advice here. it doesn’t so much matter as long as you don’t forget who mike is which next point

humor & personality

-what do you think he would find (shows, comedians, youtube videos) really funny?

-does he have something he quotes often? something he started saying ironically but never stopped?

man i know i’m all there’s no wrong way to write mike !! in this post but i will say real quick that i think mike is funny and i don’t really respect depictions of him where he’s not. i think this is where the movies really just fucked up. book mike drops some of the funniest lines of the book. and honest to god tip is to write out a scene as you feel the urge too, look away for five minutes, look back and give half of richie’s lines away. (or... dialogue.) this sounds like a joke but it was what i did when i first started writing & tfat

i’d always be like “n the funny part goes... to richie.” and thats a fandom inclination too. nooooo. avoid this trap. it doesn’t even make sense. have u ever been in a friend group where only one person... makes jokes? that’d be genuinely so weird. especially bc if you give the joke away to someone else, you can also build on it. amazing things start happening when u start thinking of the characters in flexible patterns. like for example, i almost always give absurdist humor to stan now. wholesome to ben.

mike’s humor is largely situational to me. solid comedic timing & he’s an observant person. sometimes i read back my own writing & have to change the pov bc richies making jokes about things he would never ever notice to make fun of. mike would. mike genuinely sees all. i think he’s just got one of the most analytical brain of the losers. & i think intelligence is subjective and people are smart in different ways but i think it’s foolish to write him as anything other than incredibly intelligent both academically and emotionally. he’s just a natural observer and pattern notice-er. which brings me to my next mike thing:

love & selflessness

i think the biggest part of mike being harder to flesh into a fully realized person is the fandom tendency to make him kind and nothing else. here’s mike. he’s nice. next. bc the book kind of points out his selflessness in his decisions and it makes itself one of his strongest character traits.

especially bc nice seems to trump him having any other emotions. ...no?

i believe in general, but ESPECIALLY in the case of mike, that kindness is a choice. it’s one i genuinely believe he’d make, over & over again. but a choice he makes. he gets annoyed with his friends being annoying like anyone else would. he gets hurt when he feels left out. he feels tired & anxious & hungry and all those other human things. sometimes he might not let it show outwardly, but there’s a difference between that and not giving him feelings at all.

people are selfish. it’s a defense mechanism. it’s to protect us. it’s not a bad thing. we think of how the world impacts ourselves first. we don’t always act upon those thoughts or voice them, but don’t forget to let mike have them. he doesn’t need to be happy for his friends all the time, or rooting for them or supportive. he should have his own things going on.

also. mike’s not a doormat. yes, he stays in derry. but those were life-death consequences for generations of children. it’s really not comparable to almost any decision mike would make in a pennywise free universe. yes, he made a sacrifice in the book but i don’t think he’d just lay himself down in any given universe to whatever fate wants to hand him. but this is where i end this topic bc i’m actually only barely beginning to get to this topic in my own fic!

it’s hard writing the losers young sometimes bc i do feel relationships are naturally a little unbalanced based on basic maturity levels as young people. sometimes friendships just are unbalanced bc of who people are at that time. everyone involved can still be good people in these relationships. it’s about growing together and learning how to be good friends to each other.

for example, in &tfat: certain losers are always checking in with others. others are really wrapped up in their own shit and don’t really notice what bothers the others. it would probably take a chart the size of a textbook to explain how i think this dynamic wholly pans out in full. and yeah, i think it grates on mike a little bit that he is always the checker and never the checkee.

but even when mike snaps, even when he gets upset, i always write it coming out of him with a lot of love. i genuinely think mike, regardless of experience in that fic, has the deepest understanding of love as its own concept and an understand of how exactly it rules his life and and his relationships. mike knows to feel strongly about something he has to care about it. there are lots of things he just doesn’t care about. in the book it’s stated he’s difficult to connect with as an adult. he’s distant. he’s focused on what he wants to focus on. i think mike is actually the most interesting when he becomes a little bit of a disaster man with very little time for what doesn’t interest him.

which last thing, dislikes & disinterests

-what annoys him?

-what makes him genuinely angry?

-what bores him to tears?

i always make jokes that i bring up the nastier parts of the losers bc i love nasty boys but thinking of things people don’t like is as much a part of them as the things they do.

for example, in &tfat, i write richie as making fun of “nerdy” things like anything you could find at comic con. i write bev as not giving a fuck about sports. bill doesn’t care about richie’s music tastes. eddie hates getting condescended to.

bc of the ... kind thing, mike’s one of the harder losers to do this with. i genuinely think mike would listen to any of his friends tell him about anything. & he knows, in return, they can’t say shit when he wants to ramble about history. but dislikes can also be super situational.

again, for example in & tfat: mike doesn’t like when his friends talk about college right now. no one is really being sensitive to him at all. he hates getting blamed for stuff that isn’t his fault, mostly bc it keeps happening.

anyway. i based a lot of my mike (mostly sense of humor and personality) off of a mix of real life friends of mine. it’s a luxury. i know. i’ve been blessed to have friends from literally all walks of life & for me borrowing little habits & quirks & sayings & jokes to slip into my fics and characters is my way of writing one massive love letter to those ive known. i hope i’ve helped you in some way anon. n if not.... don’t be sad i’m hardly one to take writing advice from anyway jandjxjx

overall, as i used to do often, i’d genuinely stop myself and say: is this a person, or a convenience for the plot? and if it was the latter, sigh, and get my backspace key ready.

#mike hanlon

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peachymess · 5 years

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If attack on titan was in the Harry Potter universe, what subject do you think the veterans would have been teaching at Hogwarts (like all the veterans including Nile, Hannes, pyxis and such) and what houses would 104 been in? It’s okay if you don’t like au’s like that then you don’t have to reply, hope you have a good day :) !

Hi, anon! Finally, I’ll be answering your Harry Potter AU ask! I knowit’s been ages and ages – I’m really sorry about that. To pay you back for thelong wait, I’ve done headshots of the entire 104 plus some of the vets for thisAU. Please accept my apology-drawings, haha. Art posts for vets here, and 104 here.

For the vets, I assigned each of them one of the HP subjects, and I’m reallyhappy with where they ended up. I can see them all in these positions, and Ihope you can too; if you’d like a deeper explanation as to why some of themended up with what they did, just shoot me an ask about the specific charactersin question and I’ll be happy to explain.

Erwin (Slytherin): Defence against the dark arts

Levi(Hufflepuff): Potions

Hanji(Ravenclaw): Transfiguration

Moblit(Hufflepuff): Muggle studies

Mike(Gyrffindor): Herbology

Nanaba(Gryffindor): Flight class

Nile(Ravenclaw): History of Magic

Pyxis(Slytherin): Astonomy

Hannes(Hufflepuff): Groundskeeper

Petra(Hufflepuff): Divination

Oluo(Slytherin): Charms

Eld(Gryffindor): Arithmancy

Gunther(Gryffindor): Apparition lessons

Ness(Hufflepuff): Care of Magical creatures

Now, forthe houses, and where to put everyone: I have to talk about how I view the HPhouses first…

To start off, I’m not the biggest fan of dividing young, impressionable kidsinto groups based on personal traits to begin with. I feel like it’s likely toshape – and restrict – how the kids view themselves and the people around them.I feel like someone who’s more like, say, a Ravenclaw, at eleven years old,might develop into more of a Gryffindor during their years of schooling (atwhich case, it would be inappropriate for their development, to put them intothe house they not yet fit into, just like moving them mid-school would be). Notto mention it can restrict what social interactions they allow themselves; onegroup villainizing another, or avoiding befriending those they won’t share acommon room with, etc. Even more, I feel like saying people are EITHER brave ORsmart OR driven OR loyal, is doing the complexity of personalities a massivedisservice. If I had a dollar for every person who’ve ever told me they areboth one house and another, or a little bit of all, I’d be… well, richer than Iam now. So. My point is, I’m not a fan of saying someone is one thing, as it can sound likeI’m saying they’re NOT the other three things – which simply isn’t true. HarryPotter houses is something a lot of people have a lot of emotional investmentin. As such, I’m sure some of you will disagree with where I personally see theSNK characters. That’s ok. For most of these, I struggled to settle on onehouse, and I’d probably be swayed to change my mind on many of them, ifpresented with the right arguments. However, I have set some guidelines formyself, and I’ve landed on something, following these:

I’veseparated the HP houses into two categories: action-driven (active) houses andREaction-driven (passive) houses: Slytherin and Ravenclaw are action-driven:while Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are REaction-driven.

Beingaction-driven, in this context, means you actively seek out something. ForSlytherins, this is a personal goal. Be it a wish to become the most powerfulwizard alive, the richest, or for your moral compass to be universallyacknowledged and followed. If your path is dictated by where you want to endup, your path is unfolding through the actions you take to get there. This isSlytherin. Ravenclaws, similarly, are first and foremost seekers of truth andknowledge. They spend their time actively improving their insight into whateverfield they find most worthwhile; their path is created from the steps they taketo improve on this knowledge.

Being REaction-driven,on the other hand – in this context – means that you are mainly passive,waiting for something to occurs that requires you to react; you respond to anenvironment, rather than cause an environment to occur. For Gryffindor, whosemain trait is their unwavering drive to withstand and overcome even thescariest, most personally endangering obstacles, this means they’ll REact tosaid obstacles by tackling them head-on, because it is the right thing to do(even when it’s also the hardest thing to do). Hufflepuffs, similarly, willrespond to an environment by letting their loyalty tell them how they shouldrespond, when situations occur.

Using theseguidelines, I’ve ended up placing the characters like this:

Eren(Slytherin): Let’s start this off by getting one thing straight: being aSlytherin and being driven by a personal goal, does not have to be a bad thing!By placing Eren in Slytherin, I am in no way saying he’s a bad guy or that Idon’t support him. No. Eren is here, because, after thinking about it, I can’tdeny that his drive, is an intense, active personal goal of making things rightin the world. Sure, his goal of making the world titan-free (and seeing thefree world later), has taken him down a dangerous path that requires him to bebrave – but he’s not driven by bravery as much as an idea that he just “has todo this, danger level being whatever it is”, for his goal to be reached. He’snot wrestling his fears as much as he is wrestling the danger of not winningwhat needs to be won to advance towards his goal. Lucky for us, his personalgoal, is to give all of us the justice and freedom that is our birthright. Eren’sstrength, is his relentless strength to pursue this freedom.Armin(Gryffindor): I’ve got two names for you to suck on: Hermione and Neville.These characters have taught us that there is no such thing as being “toointelligent” or “too scared” to have the brave heart of a lion. Armin is veryintelligent, and he’s also very human in the face of danger. He also has a dreamto explore (which could make you advocate for Ravenclaw), but more thananything, his dream remains a backseat driver to his rising to the occasionsthat occur; saving humanity before pursuing his own dream. He uses hisintelligence to very skullfully aid in the brave battles he end up in. His maindrive, is wrestling his personal demons, and rising to the occasions. He’sbrave – so incredibly brave – and he’s a Gryffindor.Mikasa(Hufflepuff): A friend of mine said “anywhere but Hufflepuff” when we talkedabout Mikasa. But I beg to differ. Mikasa is strong, and she’s proud. But she’sloyalty bound most of all. She has amazing skills that take her far in battles– but they are not the product of her facing her fears and being brave, butrather the product of her being willing to give it her all to defend what she’semotionally bound to. She’s peak Hufflepuff, because she’s got the skills toback up what she’s loyal to. Honestly, I’d say EMA are all the peaks of theirhouses. Jean(Gryffindor): I’d got Slytherin, had it not been for the fact that once hispersonal desires had to face off against the world’s need for him to rise to adifferent standard, he answered. Jean puts on a good “bad guy slytherin”persona, but his actions say something else. He’s very human, and he’s a slowgrower (as I’ve talked about before), but he DOES grow – and it’s in responseto the world’s need for him to, not for his own personal goals and gains. He’sa Gryffindor.Marco(Ravenclaw): To be honest, we just need someone in Ravenclaw at this point. Ibased this off of Isayama’s HS AU; Marco and Armin are both smart guys, butwhile Armin is shown to be a geek (more devoted to his interests outside ofschool; not being defined by his cleverness), Marco is a “nerd”; school smart –defined by his intellect. I’d say this is better shown in the AU than in canon,but then again, Marco didn’t have much time to blossom. That’s why I’ve chosento go with the context Isa has given us, and say he’s someone who strives toalways be better, learn more, gain knowledge – be it how to fight better, howto strategize more, or how to read situations.Sasha(Hufflepuff): Sasha very nearly ended up as a Gryffindor for me. I held backpartially because I love the idea of her and Connie being Huff-buds. And atfirst I felt like I was cheating; after all, the ways she saved that child andtook out a titan on foot, is still one of the most amazing moments of thisstory for me. Like if you cry every time… But I had to take a step back andremind myself that Hufflepuff is not BELOW Gryffindor. Hufflepuff is not alower tier than any of the other houses. It’s supposed to be your main note.And for Sasha, what we see her do most of, is being a very quirky, goofy, funnygirl who enjoys the simple things (good times with friends, food, etc.). To me,that’s a Hufflepuff. She’s sweet, and she’s fierce. Precisely like a Huff who’sthrown into a world where her loyalty is called upon a lot.Connie(Hufflepuff): He’s in the same boat as Sasha; he’s brave in the face of danger,and he’s the Lion’s heart worthy, but more than that he’s a simple guy who’soften shown to fit snugly into the simpler times-life. Who said Hufflepuffscan’t also be brave when they’re called upon by something or someone they careabout?Reiner(Gryffindor): To be honest, I’m the least sure about the BRA trio. Partiallyfor the sake of mirroring the EMA trio, I decided to put them all in differenthouses. But also, I partially wanted to emphasis that they all have differentpersonalities. Lumping them all into Slytherin and calling it a day, woulddoing them and their individual causes a big disservice. And at the end of theday, while Reiner was the left-over after I placed Annie and Bert, I do thinkReiner’s struggles warrant recognition in the Gryffindor way. After all, nobodyworked harder to get a spot amongst the shifters than him, he took on the roleas Marcel 2.0 after BRA were thoroughly lost, he kept going even after theintense mental struggles he suffered from that point onward, he genuinely triedto be just be best tm - even though he’sstruggled to find out what IS the best. I’d say he’s got a drive to mimic aSlytherin, but on the other hand, he became very passive inside the walls, oncehe found a comfortable place to play pretend, so I’d say he’s more a re-actor.Annie(Slytherin): Since the beginning, we’ve seen that Annie does not put much stockin loyalty for the sake of loyalty. Sure, she can stick to a side/idea once shedecides on it, but how she decides on it, is driven by her own interest. Shejust wants to be ok, and to have a better life for herself. She’s not exactlyshooting for the stars with this goal, but it’s her final compass none theless. Again, she’s not bad; wanting to wathc out for yourself is not inherentlyevil – it just is what it is.Bertolt (Hufflepuff): Bertolt is loyal to the side he’s picked, preciselybecause it’s what he’s decided to stick with. Loyalty for the sake of loyalty.He says he’s not sure what’s the right thing anymore, but he sticks with Marleybecause that was his entry point. He’s also – while powerful – more of areactor; doing the work he knows he has to do, once it’s possible or asked ofhim. He’s a Hufflepuff to me.Ymir(Slytherin): Ymir’s selfishness is a front she puts on. It’s aself-preservation mechanism that kicks in, understandably, after everythingthat’s happened to her. She’s not a Slytherin because of this. She’s aSlytherin, because at the end of the day, she’s made the choice to follow thatfront’s example, and put herself first for once. Perhaps she’s a convertedGryffindor. All I know is, she’s chosen to put herself and her interest(s)first, and she’s actively sought out these benefits – Slytherin by fomula – butthe more I think about it, the more I want to replace her in Gryffindor.Historia(Slytherin): Historia may appear to be a selfless, brave Gryffindor, and sure,she’s in dangerous situations, like everyone else in 104 – but she’s therebecause that’s her goal. Her personal goal is to appear selfless. To me, herentire arc was about accepting and beginning to love and blossom as herSlytherin self. A Gryffindor wouldn’t say they didn’t care if someone was indanger in their stead (Armin standing in for her), nor would a Gryffindor telltitan Ymir to tear down the tower to save herself, dooming three other people (Connie,Bertolt, Reiner) to death in the process. Historia is not a selfless personfirst and foremost – and while I personally don’t appreciate her, I’m not goingto say she’s in Slytherin for being selfish. No; she’s there because her drivehas been facing inwards, and that’s ok. She’s had little choice but TO have herown back. And she was a child, and can thus not really be blamed for ending uptrying to tend to herself in a harmful way (attempting to die in a heroic wayfor how that will appear outward). But she is, in the end, a character drivenby self-preservation and (the search for) self-acceptance. And that puts her inSlytherin for me.

… And that’sit, anon. I hope you found this interesting and/or entertaining. I put quite abit of effort into this, and I hope something positive will come from it ^^

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dear-wormwoods · 6 years

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We all know about Eddie's relationship with Richie and Bill, but what about the other losers? What's your take on his relationships/dynamics with each of the others seperately?

This is such a great question and I’m sorry it took me so long to get to it!

Ben: Eddie and Ben’s friendship is my favorite Eddie dynamic in the novel, next to his relationship with Richie of course. Their interactions are so sweet and wholesome, and although they have the ‘same’ family history (single mother, only child, father who died when they were five) they have SUCH drastically different upbringings because Ben and his mom are so close and loving, and Eddie and his mom are… something else entirely. From the moment they meet, Eddie is amazed by Ben’s bravery and intelligence, laughs at his jokes, and just really goes out of his way to establish a connection with him. He’s so impressed by Ben, literally, but not in a hero worship way like with Bill, just in a ‘wow Ben’s so cool, I want him to teach me stuff and fight alongside me forever’ kind of way. He’s not gonna die for Ben, their dynamic isn’t unequal in that way - he sees Ben as someone worth fighting WITH, not FOR, and that distinction is important. Also their interactions are just so cute, with the chocolate milk thing and the ‘see ya later alligator’ bit. Throughout the novel, Eddie is super impressed by Ben’s ability to build things and have these creative problem solving ideas, and also by his bravery (like when Ben tells the story about the track coach at their reunion). On the more headcanony side of things, I think Eddie and Ben would have a really close, laid back friendship where they just really get each other in a way not all of the Losers do. They are both empathetic people who are idealistic and romantic and get lost in their own daydreams, so I think their relationship would be sort of quiet and whimsical. Ben is good at calming Eddie down, in canon, and they both like imagining and building things, so I can see them just… being really chill, building model ships/trains/cars/etc, eating snacks that Ben’s mom makes for them, and confiding in each other about their most secret feelings.

Bev: I have A LOT to say about the parallels between Eddie and Bev’s lives, but it’s sadly not something they personally talk about or explore much, if at all, in canon. I think they have the potential to be an amazing duo and incredibly close because they have experiences with abuse and control that none of the other Losers can relate to, if ONLY they were ever given the chance to talk about it. In the novel, Eddie and Bev don’t have many one-on-one interactions, but he is always willing to listen to her, and wants to help out (like when her bathroom was covered in blood). It is mentioned a couple of times that he sees her as sort of a mother figure, and goes to her when seeking comfort - Eddie just really doesn’t know how to interact with women because of his mom, and that shows in how he acts around Bev. For example, the first time he sees her cry he has to use his inhaler and can’t look at her, because he’s used to being the ‘cause’ of his mother’s tears and doesn’t know how to address it. I understand why their friendship couldn’t be explored more, because it would have opened the door too much for them to actually heal, and that went against the narrative King wanted to tell… but in my head, I like to imagine a world in which Eddie and Bev reconnect, talk about their abuse, help each other heal, look out for each other when it comes to choosing significant others, and just really have each other’s backs in a way that is unique to THEM.

Stan: I think Eddie and Stan’s friendship is one of the most often ignored ones in fandom, which sucks, but I can see why - it’s so understated in the novel that it’s easy to miss. They are close, but their interactions are quiet and subtle - Stan lightly touches Eddie’s shoulder or back to comfort him, Eddie sees Stan having a panic attack and his first thought is to share his aspirator with him. Eddie reads Stan’s emotional state VERY easily, Stan pokes fun at Eddie with his weird humor and gets irritated at his naivety. Eddie gets defensive of Stan’s religion when Richie takes his jokes too far. Eddie watches Stan play baseball and admires his athleticism. Eddie is also the first to ask Mike how Stan died. Little moments, here and there, that show that they have an unspoken understanding of one another. They hang out to listen to music, watch TV, play board games, etc. Theirs is a very typical friendship, probably the most ‘normal’ of Eddie’s friendships imo. There’s no hero worship there, or even admiration… just a mutual understanding and respect, mixed in with an ability to talk shit at each other AND feel comfortable enough to say when it’s time to shut up.

Mike: Eddie and Mike’s friendship is one of the most untouched in the book… they basically never interact, even as part of the larger group, which is a shame. It’s hinted that they know each other, or at least know OF each other - Eddie likes to hang out by Mike’s church on Saturdays because he likes the gospel music, so they must have seen each other before formally meeting, and in the 2017 movie Eddie knows that ‘the homeschooled kid’ is named Mike. But inexplicably, the only moment they HAVE in the whole book is when Mike protects Eddie from the IT Bird down in the sewers - the bird is targeting Eddie because IT realizes that Eddie is the group’s cheerleader (this is after the crawling eye bit), and Mike faces his bird fear by using his body to cover Eddie’s after he gets his back all torn up. I just wish there were some moments leading UP to that, anything to highlight their dynamic beforehand to show why Mike feels Eddie is worth doing this for. It’s annoying that despite being arguably the main character, Mike has almost no solid interactions with most of the Losers.

#asks #stephen king's it #eddie spaghet tea #it meta #eddie kaspbrak #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #stanley uris #mike hanlon #it novel #my meta #meta #anonymous

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listdepot · 6 years

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Top 5 Superhero Teams

5. The Marvel Family

A team of particularly do-goody do-gooders, the Marvel Family are the offshoot of Captain Marvel, the alter ego of child reporter Billy Batson. A team of people mainly granted the power of the amoral yet morally convicted wizard Shazam (he needs an avatar to fight the forces of evil and puts the onus of it all onto a 7 year old), the Marvel Family includes Billy’s sister Mary Batson as Mary Marvel and his friend Freddy Freeman, who sheds his disabilities when he becomes Captain Marvel Jr.

There’s also the Lieutenant Marvels (Tall Billy, Fat Billy and Hill Billy, three men who share Billy Batson’s name) and Uncle Dudley, a dumpy old man without powers who believes he’s the Uncle Marvel, who the Marvels took a liking to. There’s also Tawky Tawny who is quite literally a talking tiger who often wears a tweed suit. Its great. He’s great.

The Marvel Family, similar to Superman’s family, is part of that general “idea” of ideal superheroes. Just... weirder. That’s what makes them great. Its what makes Captain Marvel wonderful. “Superman but a little weirder” works wonders for this character and his team.

4. Justice League Dark

When Metallo is rampaging through Metropolis, you call Superman. When Sinestro or Atrocitus are attacking planets, you call the Green Lantern Corps. These basic villains are often easy solutions when matched with their respective heroes. But what do you do when eldritch creatures from dimensions in between space and time invisibly swarm the planet? Will the Justice League stop that? Or do you need a Darker Justice League?

That’s where Justice League Dark (get it) comes into play. DC’s supernatural side is, I believe, their greatest strength overall. And with a team staffed by, among others, magician Zatanna, magician/conman John Constantine, actual ghost Deadman, avatar of nature and protector from horrors Swamp Thing, and chimp detective Detective Chimp, these creatures certainly have a reason to shake in their boots.

The forces of Heaven and Hell, the occult, the reemergence of Vertigo characters into the main DC canon. Justice League Dark deals in all of these themes, creating a heavy, interesting series of constant world-threatening events within the pages of their comics.

3. Agents of Atlas

A spy, a spaceman, a siren, a mermaid, a robot, a gorilla. One of Marvel’s oddest teams have nothing in common except for a single IRL connection: all six of them first appeared (and then mostly disappeared) in Marvel’s early years during the 40s and 50s, back when the company was known as Atlas.

In the canon, ATLAS was formed by the FBI to rescue President Eisenhower from the forces of the Yellow Claw. Claw’s archenemy Agent Jimmy Woo recruited the Venusian Marvel Boy and siren Venus, before also fixing the mute “Human Robot” M-11 and gaining the aid of Gorilla-Man, a soldier of fortune CURSED TO LIVE FOREVER IN THE BODY OF A GORILLA UNTIL SOMEONE KILLS HIM which is an idea that is incredibly stupid and part of the reason I love this garbage. Also not soon after, the Atlantean Namora (who had refused to help Woo initially) joins the team as well.

Inheriting the Claw’s Atlas Foundation front, the team works mostly in the dark, fighting the forces of evil. Most recently, (2009, they don’t get used often enough, basically) this espionage team has opted to take on the identity of “supervillains” as resistance against Norman Osborn’s regime as head of SHIELD. Again, this was 2009. They need to get out more.

2. X-Statix

Marvel, for some reason beyond my understanding but that I won’t question for reasons you’ll soon find out, decided to hand over the X-Force title to Peter Milligan and Mike Allred. X-Force was a comic known for both portraying a gritty. more aggressive form of X-Men and for being the most Rob Liefeld thing prior to him creating characters with names like DEATHSTRYKE and KILLBLOOD or whatever for his own comics label. Peter Milligan, meanwhile, was known for his mind-bending postmodernist works like Shade the Changing Man and Mike Allred’s pop art sensibilities seemed like the furthest possible artistic style from Liefeld’s grimacing over muscled footless monsters.

And when X-Force #116 premiered, it was not only incredibly different, but it introduced a whole new team of vapid, self-obsessed superheroes. An early 00s take on celebrity through a superhero vein, the original issue takes a turn when the last page features the collective death of all but 3 of the new team, immediately setting up a whole OTHER new team to remember after being introduced to the interpersonal relationships of this ego-driven team of mutants.

Its smart and pretty sharp and the constant retooling in the book itself by scummy mentor and amoral super rich investor creates an odd reality TV aspect of these strange heroes with their constantly shifting, often dying team (even Dead Girl, a mutant whose power is she’s already a ghost/zombie and can return to near-life after dying), all ready to be filmed, in moments of heroism or tragedy by their cameraman, Doop, a character I refuse to go into any more detail for because you should experience Doop for yourself. Just Google Image Search Doop thanks.

There’s a LOT to say about X-Force, who eventually changed their name to X-Statix due to the negative reaction from the 00s comics crowd, which sorta proves they were totally before their time, and, truthfully, its the best to just check it out on your own. There aren’t a lot of runs that I’d tell you to just hey look it up but hey

Look up X-Statix. Its really good.

1. Doom Patrol

The Doom Patrol can, perhaps, best be described by their classic original tagline: “THE WORLD’S STRANGEST HEROES” and hoo boy does that apply. Founded by Niles Caulder, the Doom Patrol features actress Rita Farr aka the size changing Elastigirl (eat it, Pixar), test pilot Larry Trainor aka the radioactive Negative Man, and race car driver Cliff Steele aka Robotman, a robot man.

And things were fairly odd for a while for the Patrol, up to and including the Doom Patrol’s presumed deaths at the hands of General Zahl while saving the small town of Codsville, Maine.

Then Grant Morrison happened.

Grant Morrison never met a comic book convention he didn’t love to openly embrace while also flipping it into some metatextual nonsense (and I can’t help but love it every time). Morrison took the Doom Patrol and created a comic based around Dadaist art and literature, William S Burroughs-esque cut and paste writing and just general absurdity. Negative Man Trainor merges his Negative Spirit with Dr. Eleanor Poole, becoming a multiracial, divine intersex radioactive being who refers to themself as Rebis. New characters were introduced like Kay Challis aka Crazy Jane, a woman with multiple personalities, each of which have different superpowers, and Danny the Street, a street. An actual sentient street. Who is also a drag queen. Its better than it sounds I swear.

The Doom Patrol soon became well... strange. Stranger than the strange they used to be. Their only recurring enemy was a 2 dimensional supervillain named Mr. Nobody who founded the Brotherhood of Dada, a team less about world domination or getting rich, and more about just like... idk? They don’t really recognize good or evil as simplistic concepts and prefer to just mess around like a bunch of dickheads, really.

Soon came Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol. Pollack, a trans woman, used the Doom Patrol’s debut in the Vertigo imprint. to discuss issues like identity, bisexuality, Judaism, creating an equally intelligent and mature comic, just on a separate level than Morrison’s. And a decade later, after a few changes in guards all around, Keith Giffen had a Doom Patrol run, letting the team go through a more humorous bent, notably featuring the inclusion of the fouth wall-adjacent comedy hero Ambush Bug. Most recently, Gerard Way (yeah, the dude from My Chemical Romance) has been creating his own Doom Patrol for DC’s Young Animal imprint, a mix of his own ideas and the classic Dadaist Doom Patrol that Morrison created.

Doom Patrol is a team of the strange, the outsiderest outsiders of DC, a team initially brought together by tragedies (unknown to them caused by their sociopathic leader), and who soon grew into an ersatz family of freaks. A loving museum of the weird who defend Earth from just the craziest nonsense imaginable,even if the rest of the superhero community don’t respect them. They do what they do because they have to, and because no one else can even wrap their mind around what they do. They’re the Doom Patrol, The World’s Strangest Heroes.

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theteablogger · 7 years

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Michael Corner and Terry Boot

While working on the timeline, I’ve found myself digressing quite a bit to talk about Mike and Terry’s “evolving” relationship throughout DAYDverse and Andy’s meta. Rather than clutter up the timeline, I decided to post something here and simply link to it later. So I put together an outline, with fic links and excerpts and as much chronological detail as possible, of what Andy wrote about Mike and Terry over the years. It stops in 2013 because their labeling has been consistent since September 2012, and he hasn’t written any significant fic featuring these characters since the following year.

(Cut for length and NSFW content.)

April 2008 - In DAYD, Andy establishes that Mike and Terry are best friends, extremely close, and can “read each other’s minds”. Eventually, we learn that this is literally true; they use Legillimency to maintain a constant mental connection that they rarely choose to break. He also mentions that they have matching tattoos, and that Terry’s says, “L’amitie de la conaissance.”

Sometime between April 2008 and July 2009 - In his FAQ, Andy “bans” people from slashing Mike and Terry. He says:

This is the first thing on the FAQ that is preemptive, not a response to comments or emails, but I feel I need to, particularly after #50. I have given other authors permission to play in my world, but I am putting a few caveats on that. I have no problem with slash or homosexuality. Rowan Glynnis and Malcolm Braddock both “stir their cauldrons in their own direction.” IMHO, both Colin and Luna are bisexual. HOWEVER, I am refusing permission for anyone to slash my Neville and/or Ernie, as well as any Michael/Terry slash. Obviously, these are all four originally JKR’s creations and I cannot ban the pairings in general , but I can ask people not to use my story as material in them. In the case of Neville and Ernie, this is because their relationships with women are just too vital to the plot and who they are as young men in my world, but in the case of Michael and Terry, I have another reason too. As a male writer, I have tried very hard to accurately portray the way the men in my story think and feel, even as I try my best to do justice to the ladies as well. The kind of love Michael and Terry have for one another is an extraordinary sort of brother-bond that men can form for one another under very rare circumstances, and it is one of the most powerful forms of love in the world, sometimes almost as strong as a mother for her child. That is something that I would find debased by making it into romantic or physical attraction, and that is why I am requesting that it not be done. Please respect this, and if I find out that someone has written a story from my canon that violates it, I will be reporting it to ff.net as uncondoned plagiarism.

Prior to June 17, 2008 - Andy publishes “By Consensus”, in which each of the two boys telepathically shares with the other the memory of a sexual encounter that he has recently had with a girl. These are memories such as one might see in a pensieve, except that their telepathic connection allows each to experience it as if he were in the other’s body. This is incredibly skeevy because neither girl is asked for her consent before they share. The experience of sharing these memories is so intense that Mike and Terry “wake up” afterward entangled in each other’s limbs, sweaty, chests heaving, evidently having kissed each other--oh, and they’ve both come. (Link goes to a much later re-posting on the DAYDverse community.) Excerpt:

He was still trembling, there was a hot stickiness at his groin, a deep throbbing that told him he'd come again, but Terry scarcely noticed as he released the connection, the memory fading back to what it had been before he raised it and shared it with his friend. Instead, what had his attention so completely was he and Michael were no longer laying side by side, but tangled together, and he could feel the other boy's erection flagging as freshly as his own. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their hair damp and clinging to their faces, their chests still heaving, and he could taste a faint lingering hint of chocolate in his mouth. He hadn't eaten chocolate that day.

June 19, 2008 - Andy publishes “Empirical Evidence” on hprarepairs. In this fic, Mike and Terry have sex and it's the most profound, amazing, meaningful thing ever precisely because they are male, not gay, and feel no sexual desire for each other despite their extremely strong friendship-type-love. It’s so intense, in fact, that they’re afraid ever to do it again. Excerpt:

Michael chuckled, and the sound was oddly rough in his raw throat. “Kind of defeats the whole purpose of avoiding emotional involvement when I love you more than any witch in this school?” “No fucking kidding.” Terry rolled unsteadily onto one elbow, tucking himself back into his pants. “That was…yeah…but I think if we ever do anything like it again….” He reached out, pushing a piece of the long blonde hair out of Terry’s eyes. “Speaking of your ancient Greeks, the Spartans encouraged their soldiers to have sex with one another because it took the brotherhood bonds to a level that would drive them to acts of insanity on the battlefield to protect one another. Never made sense before, and I don’t think it’s anything like what Stephen and Derek have…that seems to be more like what we have with witches. This was something else, something more raw, and I mean here –“ he tapped his chest, “—not just down there. It wasn’t…it wasn’t about sex at all, but it was certainly sexual, but….” “It was terrifying.” “Completely.” Michael bit his lip, looking down for a moment before reaching out to lace his hand through his friend’s, squeezing it tightly. “Mindless shagging definitely goes somewhere else, then?” Terry nodded. “Definitely.” His fingers tightened on Michael’s. “There’s nothing mindless about what you mean to me, Mike.”

September 30, 2008 - In “20 Random Facts about Tiresius W Boot”, Andy says that Mike and Terry each has half of a quotation by Comte DeBussy-Rabutin tattooed on his upper arm. Mike has “L’amour vient de l’aveuglement” (”Love comes from blindness...”) and Terry has “l’amitie de la connaissance” (”...friendship, from knowledge.”).

November 4, 2008 - In “20 Random Facts About Michael J Corner”, Andy reveals that following Mike and Terry’s deaths in the Battle of Hogwarts, their ashes were mixed and split in half, then buried under identical gravestones with both their names on them. Their parents had intended to engrave the text of their tattoos on the stones, but the Greek characters for "philia" appeared instead, "inexplicably and indelibly of [their] own accord". In this hilarious summary of DAYD, this is described as, “No Homo, in Ancient Greek.”

December 9, 2008 - Andy throws a fit on fanficrants when someone writes what he describes as “a craptastic slash threesome” between Mike, Terry, and Tony. He reports this person for plagiarism because he says that they “stole” his version of Terry.

December 12, 2008 - In “Standing Witness”, Mike is horribly tortured by Belsen while the other students are made to watch. Because of their telepathic connection, Terry shares the experience, and finally casts Avada Kedavra to put Mike out of his misery--but it doesn't work because he doesn’t really mean it. Later, Terry sits at Mike’s bedside and internally monologues at great length about how Mike is indescribably beautiful and intelligent and wonderful and he loves him more than life itself, and now he’s thrown all that away. When he realizes that Mike is still alive, he monologues some more about how much he loves Mike, who no doubt will never forgive him. When these events are described in DAYD itself, the other characters talk about how much Mike and Terry love each other, to the point that they’re closer than brothers. When Mike wakes up, Terry cries over him and Mike kisses his hand. Excerpt from “Standing Witness”:

I've wondered for years what kind of person could burn the Library of Alexandria; all that knowledge, all that art, so much priceless genius, who could look at that and bear to think of a torch or a hammer…but those monsters are still with us, aren't they, Mike? That he could look at you and do…do what he did, knowing you're not just beautiful, but brilliant and brave and good…and how could I help him? What does that make me? Qu'est-ce que creature, quel monstre suis-je? ... We'll fight and we'll survive and all of this, every minute of it and every day of my life I've lived and every day I have left will be worth it if I can just have one more day with you well and whole and seeing you smile, seeing your eyes light up with a new idea, some new bit of knowledge, some new discovery that we can share. ... Maybe, in the end, that's why I'm here…so that at least once, someone would truly know how precious you are, even if you're in the end a treasure only measurable by its cost to lose.

Sometime prior to February 28, 2009 - Andy publishes “Perils of Studying Outdoors”. Caught sneaking around outside by Amycus Carrow, Mike and Terry misdirect him by passionately making out and...well, here’s an excerpt. The non-italicized bits represent the two of them communicating telepathically.

There was no acting necessary to love him, just love him with every bit of his soul, but he rarely let himself just feel it this completely, because it was so overwhelming as to be a little bit frightening, and he heard a tiny gasp escape his lips, a shiver running through him at the raw, almost feral depth of it. You're beautiful too, Terry. I wish you could see that. Not just your eyes, either. Terry flinched back, closing his eyes at the compliment and trying to turn away, but Michael's hands were clasped behind his neck now. You don't have to...he can't hear us. I'm not saying it to him. I'm saying it to you. You're the pretty one. I'm the pin-up. But you're no half-cast spell either. Sometimes I almost wish I could fancy wizards, because you already mean so much to me, and I know if I did, even a little, I'd lose myself in you so easily. You're already so much everything to me, adelphos. Philia et agape... ... The kiss was uncertain at first, edged on barriers neither quite understood and both knew completely, barely a whisper of lip to lip, then the tight set of Terry's shoulders seemed to melt beneath his hands, and arms that had become recently stronger than he had realized were around his waist, pulling them in together until their bodies breathed under one rhythm. It was real in every way that they were, no act at all and so much more than what it was meant to appear to be, expressing every layer of the love that Michael wondered if any other couple in this school - in this world - who could claim simple eros even began to understand. What a pity if they didn't, because even as some faint part of him heard the Death Eater's roar of outrage, knew what was about to come, his mouth was still reluctant to edge away from Terry's, teeth and tongue lingering across the moisture of his lower lip, and the rest of himself was reflected in cobalt that lazed open just in time to lace their hands together and brace themselves before le vilain petit monde cracked over them again.

April 1, 2009 - On the LJ community, Andy posts “Revelations” as a prank for April Fool’s Day. In this fic, Mike and Terry inform their friends that they are involved in a romantic relationship with each other, and then kiss passionately in front of them, as a joke. In the header Andy says, as part of his prank, that he's had writer's block and is curing it by changing the story/characters to fit what the readers want to see. Excerpt:

“There’s no need for rash action,” Michael cut in hastily. “We’re not offended. But if we’re going to be trusting each other with our lives, we can at least trust you with this. It’s been such a year…a lot has changed. We’ve all discovered things about ourselves that maybe we didn’t realize before.” ... Another moment of wordless conversation, and then Neville’s jaw nearly hit the polished surface of the conference table as the two wizards moved as one. Chairs scraped the stone floor deafeningly, and now Michael was almost in Terry’s lap, their arms locked around one another, and they were kissing. Not just kissing, snogging. Bloody near trying to suck one another’s tonsils out. Mouths crushed together, eyes closed, hands sliding up under robes and gripping shoulders, moving over backs in the most passionate, almost desperate embrace that Neville had ever seen. The tendons corded tight on Terry’s neck. The flutter and fan of dark lashes against Michael’s still-pale cheek. Breath sucked quick and fervent between teeth and around tongues, as if any moment it wouldn’t, couldn’t be enough and they would either have to go further or burst from the pure intensity. It was the kind of kiss that was uncomfortable and voyeuristic to watch, even if it hadn’t been two wizards, and he had to look away, staring at the ceiling and wondering what…wondering how…?

April 6, 2009 - Andy posts his completed “Quadrophilia” sketch, which portrays Mike and Terry having sex with the Patil twins.

July 12, 2009 - What is a slash and what do you mean Mike and Terry have subtext; I can't see these things at all in any canon ever.

May 26, 2011 - Mike and Terry are bicurious.

June 2011, just over a week later - Terry is asexual. (Andy copy/pasted a group chat about LGBTQIA characters to the community. Neither Mike nor Terry was mentioned during the chat, but in the comments, another user asked if there were any asexual characters in the DAYDverse. Andy replied, “Terry, as a matter of fact.” I won’t link to it because it includes DAYDians’ full names.)

July 12, 2012 - Mike and Terry = BROTP.

September 2012 - Terry is homoromantic/asexual and Mike is homoromantic/heterosexual.

February 23, 2013 - Andy defends himself when asked whether his portrayal of Mike and Terry constitutes queerbaiting.

December 10, 2013 - Andy publishes “Unison”, the story of Mike and Terry’s establishing their mental link, with an author’s note that tries to preempt further talk of queerbaiting. Excerpt from the fic:

“I’m afraid.” "So am I. Of so many things." The vial stopped. The crease between his brows deepened. He pushed his hair back. “What could you ever fear?” "Falling." From grace. From my pedestal. In love. Too late and he knew it for all of them and I couldn’t breathe. The vial lifted, uncapped, tilted to dampen his finger, all still untouched. His wand was still on the floor somewhere behind us both, glowing and casting its ghosts’ light. Oh, but he was so astoundingly gifted in ways I could barely comprehend. I could never. How could he not see it? Maybe if this worked. He touched my temples with the potion; first one, then the other. “I’d catch you.” ... “...I think I’ve only ever done two perfect things in my life." "Only two?" His left hand on his face now as well, his right on mine. Our pulses had come to match. I felt light headed and didn’t even know if it was beginning. I closed my eyes. We were too young, they said. It was too dangerous. We didn’t have the maturity, the control, the capacity for the necessary level of responsible intimacy, much less to handle the complexities and abstracts of it all. Blocking, maybe, under the direst need, but never probing, penetrating, accepting, inviting, receiving. It could change who you were if it happened too young. Never before seventeen, surely. Not for children. Not for us. Rules were made to be broken by the exceptions. Or the exceptional. "Finding you, and now letting you in."

#daydverse #queerbaiting #andythanfiction #thanfiction #andrew blake #andy blake

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justanothercinemaniac · 7 years

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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #179 - Scooby-Doo (2002)

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) According to IMDb:

The idea of a live action Scooby-Doo movie languished in "development hell" throughout most of the 1990s. In 1996, Jim Carrey was attached to play Shaggy and Sara Gilbert was attached to play Velma. At one point, director Kevin Smith was attached, but later dropped out. Later, Mike Myers accepted the project and was the one who most often had his name linked to it (Myers' friend Janeane Garofalo was supposedly tapped by Myers to play Velma). Eventually, even Myers had to leave the project.

This film was originally set to have a much darker tone, essentially poking fun at the original series, and was set for a PG-13 rating. Shaggy was set to be a stoner, Velma and Daphne had a side relationship, and there were many marijuana references. According to Sarah Michelle Gellar, after the cast had signed on, there was a change and the film became more family-friendly.

2) The Case of the Luna Ghost

The Luna Ghost was heavily featured in promotional material, to the point where it seemed like it would be the primary antagonist of the film. This is likely because visually the Luna Ghost is comparable with some of the best monsters from the original run of cartoons. From a storytelling standpoint the prologue wastes no time in establishing the tone and characters which - in my opinion - is actually pretty spot on. It doesn’t waste time in telling us, “This is Fred, this is Daphne, this is Velma,” because you either are familiar with these characters or will figure out who they are very quickly. Also the prologue plays out like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode, where the group tries to execute a plan to catch the villain but it ends up failing.

3) Wait, that’s…that’s Pamela Anderson? AS PAMELA ANDERSON!?

I did NOT catch that as a kid, although in some ways it makes sense. In “The New Scooby-Doo Movies” there was ALWAYS a celebrity guest star who worked on the case with theme (Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Sandy Ducan, Batman & Robin, etc.).

4) For whatever problems this film has (but more on those later), they get the characters VERY right. Writer James Gunn (yes, writer/director of both Guardians of the Galaxy films) 100% nails the film’s characterization of Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Velma, and Daphne. Even when he makes them different from how they were in the show (notably Daphne and Fred) it FEELS right. It feels in line with who the characters are/were in the show and like a natural extension of those people. The reason I enjoy this film as much as I do is because in so many ways they FEEL like the cartoon characters through and through.

5) There are surprisingly deep life lessons between this film and its sequel.

6) Matthew Lillard as Shaggy.

Honestly, Lillard gives the standout performance of the film (although Linda Cardellini’s Velma is VERY close). Like all the actors he is able to support the characterization found in the script with a true to form performance, but he is by far the most chameleonic. You can see shades of Freddie Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar in their performance, but Lillard IS Shaggy. He gives off the heart/warmth - as well as the occasional stoner vibe - associated with the character since the late 60s. There is not an ounce of ego in his performance, being totally honest and committed. AND he acts with the CGI Scooby incredibly well. When working with a character who is not actually on set (namely: an animated one) it is important to see them and not see through them. Through all of Lillard’s scenes you believe Scooby is there with him. There’s not a doubt in your mind that he was on set, it’s not like he was added with CGI in post production or anything. And considering Shaggy’s relationship with Scooby is the heart of the film (and that Lillard shares the most scenes with the great dane), the fact that he’s able to nail this is all the better.

7) There are a number of deleted scenes in this film which I think are actually NEEDED for it to make sense in a lot of ways. Namely: when Fred, Velma, and Daphne meet at the airport and we get a juxtaposition of how they’re not as great in life as they say they are.

youtube

8) Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne.

This is the first time I’ve watched this film since having become a fan (and completing) “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, so seeing the lead from one of my favorite show in that new light adds a level of fun to the movie. In the cartoons Daphne is not always the most consistently written character (although more modern entries into the franchise do better with this), often being relegated to the role of damsel in distress. But writer Gunn and actress Gellar are able to make Daphne more than that without disrespecting the source material. She’s unique, has her own personality which isn’t always true for the original show. Gellar adds warmth, humor, and gusto to the performance, while her striving against her own role as damsel in distress makes for surprisingly interesting conflict.

9) Wait, ISLA FISHER IS IN THIS!?

(GIF originally posted by @scoobycloos)

10) The gag above is a good example of how this film was originally meant to be darker and poke fun at the original source material. While the movie ends up much more family friendly, some of these jokes do find their way into the final cut.

11) Rowan Atkinson as Emile Mondavarious is an occasionally fun role (more so for the reveal at the end than anything else), but unfortunately the comedic talent doesn’t get too much of a time to shine. He’s fine it what he does I just wish he could do more.

12) Linda Cardellini as Velma.

Favorably comparable to to Matthew Lillard as Shaggy, Cardellini similarly is able to 100% abandon any sense of herself/ego to support the strong character writing. You don’t SEE Cardellini, you only see Velma. She is able to embrace the intelligence and work with the occasionally cartoonish tone of the character/film in a way which never comes across as annoying but is instead a treat to fans of the cartoon. Also able to play Velma’s occasional insecurities well, Cardellini shines as Velma in a standout performance.

13) I get a big kick out of some of the jokes this film makes.

Bartender: “We got a Mr. Doo here? I got a call for a Mr. Doo?”

[Random guy stands up]

Melvin: “Melvin Doo?”

Bartender: “Nah. Scooby.”

14) Splitting up Mystery Inc. for the first chunk of the movie on Spooky Island makes the film a little scattered from the beginning. We never commit to one point of view or the other and this is another case where a deleted scene on the DVD (I believe it’s called Nightmare Boulevard) helps to slow down the pacing and establish some things better. Because I can hardly fault the script for equating in this film’s structural problems (as I haven’t read the script on its own), but it seems like every deleted scenes in the DVD would have improved the film. So the fact they’re cut is disappointing.

15) I actually really dig the sense of place Spooky Island conveys. Its fascinating, supported by a unique art style and conveying a sense of tone which makes the movie pleasantly macabre.

16)

Shaggy: “Like, Scoob and me don't do castles. Because castles have paintings with eyes that watch you, and suits of armor you think is a statue with a guy inside that follows you every time you turn around!”

This all happened in the first episode of “Scooby Doo” ever.

17) I have a head canon here. So Daphne does the usual bit of, “I’ll give you a Scooby Snack if you go into the spooky castle and be detectives.” Except she was planning on solving the mystery by herself and she came to Spooky Island expecting to be solo. I think she carries Scooby Snacks around out of habit. As a reminder for the friends she used to have, it just so happens that right now they’re actually useful.

18) Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred

Much like Daphne, the film takes the occasionally flat character of Fred and builds on who he is in the cartoon to make someone who is unique. Fred is utterly buffoonish in the most fun of ways, but he is still human and sympathetic. Prinze Jr is able to make Fred a jerk when he has to be a jerk, but we’re still rooting for him and we still see that he’s Fred from the cartoon. Just with more of a personality.

19) Oh Fred…

(GIF originally posted by @kpfun)

20) The brief set piece of the Spooky Castle ride gone haywire is kinda fun to watch. Slapstick, madcap, energetic, but it makes me understand why the ride was shut down. It’s lethal.

21) I think one of the reasons this film is not so well received by critics is because the mystery can be confusing. Each time I watch it I have to remind myself how one seemingly random piece of information connects to the other (which I think is the victim of some deleted scenes), but here’s what I got: “Mondavarious” is planning world domination after having taken over Spooky Island from the real Mondavarious because the island has demons just living below the surface (I don’t how “Mondavarious” learned this but whatever). He uses the park as a front while at night he lets the demons posses the college kids. He needs to teach the demons HOW to act like “normal” teenagers so he creates an instructional video. His reach is far, even infecting the Coast Guard so no one can help people out on the island. But apparently just by knocking over the vat of souls everyone around the world is cured and we’re assuming all the monsters burst into flames. But why does “Mondavarious” want to take over the world? Just because he’s evil? And why would these super powerful demons let him lead them? I think I’m just going to move on.

22) Did we really need to have a burp/fart off in this film?

23) Mystery Inc. hiding in the armor is very cartoonish, which I mean in a compliment as it feels like it’s right out of the cartoon.

(This was the best image I could find of the scene. It conveys what’s happening well enough, I think.)

Heck, it is at this point in the film when they start really working together as a team again. Which is fun for us as the audience ot watch.

24) Okay, Velma’s boy friend always looked like Orlando Bloom to me. Am I just crazy?

25) Scrappy-Doo.

Scrappy is almost exclusively despised in the Scooby-Doo fandom and this film WORKS with that. As I understand it, James Gunn wanted to make sure Scrappy never appeared in a piece of Scooby-Doo media again. And outside of jokes about the character, he never has.

In the film Scrappy is portrayed as bossy, arrogant, and a general pain in the butt (as he was perceived by the fandom). He even pees on Daphne in what Fred calls, “marking [his] territory!” before getting kicked off the team. And potentially the best part is this:

Velma: “He wasn’t even a puppy! He had a glandular disorder!”

26) Apparently in the original script, Velma and Daphne were having a relationship on the side. This deleted scene plays into that more than anything else.

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Is it wrong that I ship Velma & Daphne? Even if it is, I don’t care.

27) The CGI for the monsters is - at times - sort of lacking. I think this may be a key reason that the Luna Ghost was heavily marketed instead of the actual demons which make up the majority of the film: he’s more interesting to look at.

28) As a kid, I LOVED “Man with the Hex”. That songs did and still gets me pumped, so I always smile when it plays in this film under a chase scene. Also, the use of the song during the previously mentioned chase is very in style with the original cartoon (which would often use songs by The Monkees during chases).

29) It’s fun seeing Daphne stepping up to take charge in the absence of Fred and Velma. Although unfortunately the deleted scenes and lack of focus the film has means we don’t get to see this as much as I would like.

30) Another example of deleted scenes making the plot confusing: it is never established that Velma is possessed, we never know why there’s a random scream from somewhere in the island to tip off demon Fred that something is wrong. But a deleted scene establishes this. Making me wonder: why was it even deleted?

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31) While I do love James Gunn’s characterization and tone in the script, could the film not come up with a better reason for Shaggy & Scooby to have conflict instead of them fighting over a girl?

32) Similar to note #31, the scene which established Daphne getting possessed by a demon is deleted. So we just see her kidnapped then Shaggy finds her head in a vat. That’s it. Another instance of a deleted scene which should’ve probably been kept in.

33) And here I was thinking Shaggy was the only one of the gang who dabbled in hallucinogenics.

Fred [when Shaggy is holding his disembodies ectoplasm head]: “Listen man; someone must’ve spiked my root beer last night. Talk me down man. Talk! Me! Down!”

34) It’s kind of fun seeing Sarah Michelle Gellar perform as her then-boyfriend-future-husband Freddie Prinze Jr and seeing Freddie do the same for his then-girlfriend-future-wife. Although I must say Prinze does a better job playing Gellar than vice versa, but that’s not to mean she isn’t good playing her partner.

35) So Scooby-Doo theory is that it’s always the first person they talk to. And guess why the first person they talked to was when the gang arrived to Spooky Island: “Mondavarious”.

36) This hits me harder than I expected it to.

Shaggy [trying to save Scooby’s life after they fought]: “Who’s your best buddy?”

Scooby: “Raggy?”

Shaggy: “That’s right. And who’s my best buddy in the whole wide world?”

Scooby: “Rooby-Roo?”

37) Let’s just just take a moment to appreciate the fact that this movie decided to make Scrappy-Doo the bad guy.

THEY MADE FREAKING SCRAPPY THE BAD GUY! Oh my god, I love that so much more at twenty-one than I did when I was six. Although, unfortunately Tim Curry turned down the role of Mondavarious because Scrappy was in the film (THAT’S how much Scrappy is hated).

38) The “Buffy” fan in me smiles every time I get to see Sarah Michelle Gellar get her martial arts on.

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39) It is really satisfying - if a little expected - that Fred allows Velma to take credit for the plan which captures Scrappy.

40) File this one under “Jokes I Didn’t Get As A Kid”.

Scrappy: “If not for you meddling sons of -”

[He’s cut off.]

So I know this film isn’t exactly Oscar worthy. The structure is a mess due to messy editing, some of the humor is infantile, it’s a little scatted. But you know what? I like it. I’m a fan of the franchise so watching this film is fun. It makes me feel like a kid again. The characters are spot on in both the writing and acting, the tone is fun, and it’s just a good 90ish minutes to shut your mind off too. If you’re a fan of the series, there’s a good chance you’ll be a fan of this film.

#Scooby Doo #James Gunn #Sarah Michelle Gellar #Linda Cardellini #Matthew Lillard #Freddie Prinze Jr #Isla Fisher #Pamela Anderson #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #Movie #Film #GIF

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aion-rsa · 8 years

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Wolverine’s 15 Craziest Retcons

Wolverine is a powerhouse whose claws, super-strong adamantium skeleton and incredible healing factor make him a force of nature. He’s also a messed up guy with a history filled with tragedy, confusion and contradictions. It was established early on that Wolverine suffered from a combination of brain damage, mental trauma, psychic blocks and memory implants that gave him amnesia and flashbacks of things that never happened. That makes him… complicated, to say the least.

RELATED: Everything You Knew is a Lie: 15 Most Altered Superhero Origins

Until Wolverine’s origin was laid out in the pages of the appropriately-named 2001 mini-series “Origin” (by Bill Jemas, Paul Jenkins and Joe Quesada, with art from Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove), his life was a collection of ideas that would get changed whenever a new writer came along. Those changes are known in comics as retroactive continuity or “retcons,” and they can be both interesting and problematic. He’s not the only character with retcons, of course, but he’s one of the most famously affected by them. With Wolverine’s new movie “Logan” making a stir in the ether, the CBR team runs down 15 of Wolverine’s biggest retcons.

HIS HEALING FACTOR

One of Wolverine’s defining powers is his healing factor, which allows him to quickly walk off almost all injuries. It’s part of what makes Wolverine almost indestructible, which is why it’s kind of surprising that he didn’t start out that way.

In his first appearance in Len Wein and Herb Trimpe’s “Incredible Hulk” #181 (1974), Wolverine didn’t heal rapidly at all. Instead, he was so fast that Hulk could barely touch him, except for one moment when Hulk hits Wolverine, but he mysteriously shrugged off the impact. It was only when he became a regular member of the X-Men in 1977’s “X-Men” #107 that his healing was established, but throughout the ’80s, it took him weeks and even months to heal from major injuries. Starting in the 1990s, Wolverine’s healing ramped up until he healed from a nuclear incineration within minutes. He later explained this by saying his healing factor grew more efficient the more he used it, retconning his earlier weakness.

HE KNEW EVERYONE

For a long time, it was said that no one knew how old Wolverine was, because his healing factor made him both immortal and also kept him from showing his age. That meant writers could say he was as old as they wanted him to be, and wrote stories of Wolverine hanging around for decades. With his long life, it makes sense that he met a few familiar faces along the way, but it kind of got out of hand.

For example, in Archie Goodwin and Howard Chaykin’s “Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection” (1989), Wolverine tells Nick Fury that they knew each other in his days serving with Canadian intelligence. However, “Wolverine Origins” #17 later shows them meeting during World War II. Since Fury didn’t dispute Wolverine in ’89 and didn’t recognize Wolverine, that was clearly a retcon. Also, the story showed him meeting Captain America, even though Cap didn’t recognize him decades later. How can you forget Wolverine? That hairdo alone tends to stick with you.

WEAPON PLUS

One of the defining moments of Wolverine’s life was his kidnapping by the Weapon X program, which forced the powerful adamantium metal onto his bones and tried to brainwash him. But Weapon X itself has gone through a lot of changes throughout the years. In 1975’s “Giant Size X-Men Annual” #1, Wolverine was codenamed Weapon X, but that changed in “Wolverine” #50 (1991), when Weapon X became the name of the super-soldier program that experimented on him.

In Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s “New X-Men” #129 (2002), another huge retcon was introduced when it said the “X” in Weapon X stood for the Roman numeral ten, meaning there were other experiments going all the way back to World War II, with more created after Wolverine. The program’s full name became the Weapon Plus program, and included most Marvel super-soldiers (including Captain America) as former members. At that point, it was said that early Weapon Plus experiments involved animals, but “Uncanny X-Force” #22 (2012) retconned Weapon III as the human supervillain, the Skinless Man.

RELATED: Bait and Switch: 15 Comic Book Reveals That Were Changed

HE MET PROFESSOR X

Wolverine became an official member of the X-Men in “Giant Size X-Men Annual” #1 (1975), when Professor X went to the Canadian government to recruit Logan because the original team of X-Men was lost on the mutant island Krakoa. Wolverine reluctantly agreed, which seemed kind of odd, considering he’s always been a lone wolf and didn’t fit in well with the rest of the team.

It was always the first meeting between the two, but that all changed with Daniel Way and Mike Deodato’s “Wolverine Origins” #29 in 2008. In that issue, Professor X revealed that Wolverine had been sent years before their meeting in Canada to kill him. Xavier knew about Wolverine’s mission, but used his psychic powers to erase his memory of the meeting and also implant the suggestion to become an X-Man because Xavier wanted to use Logan as a weapon. This retcon set up Xavier as kind of a jerk, manipulating and lying to Wolverine for decades.

HE FOUGHT THE ANGEL OF DEATH (A LOT)

As we mentioned earlier, Wolverine’s healing factor has grown to pretty ridiculous levels. Even with his unbreakable skeleton and rapid healing, Wolverine seemed to be able to brush off death way too easily, and it got to the point where someone had to explain why. When Marvel decided the time had come to kill off Wolverine, a new explanation for his miraculous healing was retconned.

In Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin’s “Wolverine” story arc in 2008, it was revealed that Wolverine actually had died many times in the past, but each time had fought Lazaer (the Angel of Death) for the right to escape Purgatory and come back to life. As quickly as that was set up, Wolverine discovered his soul had been damaged and made a deal with Lazaer that if it was fixed, he would stay dead. Just in time for the “Death of Wolverine” stories, Logan was killed for good. Or at least, so far…

HIS REAL NAME

The real name of Wolverine has been a huge mystery, which makes sense since he couldn’t even remember where or when he was born. It didn’t help that he spent some time as a secret agent using false names. Over the years, there have been a few suggestions for his name, several of which contradict each other.

In Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s “Uncanny X-Men” #139 (1980), it was first revealed that Wolverine’s name was “Logan,” but he didn’t say if it was his first or last name. This became a critical point, and something other comics played with. Throughout the comics, they’ve also made references to the name “James,” but the matter seemed to be settled in “New X-Men” #143, when a file in the Weapon X program listed his name as “James Logan.” However, in “Wolverine Origins,” it was retconned and finally made canon that his original name was James Howlett. Logan was just the name of the family groundskeeper.

SILVER FOX

It’s hard to overstate how complicated Wolverine’s relationship is with the woman known as Silver Fox, since she’s both one of his greatest loves and greatest mysteries. In fact, she’s arguably been the subject of more retcons and switcheroos than any other character in his history.

First introduced in “Wolverine” #10 (1989), Silver Fox was a former lover who was killed by his archenemy Sabretooth, and her death became the spark that lit the flames of hatred between the two for years. Yet, in “Wolverine” #60-64 (1992), her death was retconned when Wolverine discovered she never died at all, and was actually an agent of HYDRA. In fact, the comics went so far as showing him a fake cabin that was used to implant his false memories of her. Her death was retconned yet again in Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel’s “House of M” in 2005, when Wolverine recovered memories of Silver Fox being killed by Sabretooth, after all. They didn’t even bother to explain that one.

HIS FATHER

As we mentioned before, Sabretooth is Wolverine’s most cruel and sadistic archenemy, revelling in tormenting Logan. There have been a lot of attempts to explain the conflict between the two, and one went way too far.

Sabretooth was originally created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in “Iron Fist” #14 (1977), but readers quickly noticed his similarity to Wolverine, so they became enemies. The two fought lots of times, but in “Wolverine” #41 (1991), Sabretooth shocked the comic world by telling Logan they were father and son. It kind of made sense, since the two look similar, have similar powers and Sabretooth is indeterminately older. Later, Claremont in interviews confirmed he intended for Sabretooth to be Wolverine’s father. However, in the very next issue, this was revealed as false by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., who conducted DNA testing to prove Sabretooth wasn’t Wolverine’s father, after all. That left their relationship to continue, but the roots of their hatred still hasn’t been solved… at least not the way readers may have wanted.

HE WAS A LUPINE

Now we’re getting into some of the bigger retcons Wolverine has gone through, which were changes to his very species. From his joining the X-Men, it’s been said that he was a mutant, which was how Professor X was able to locate Wolverine. That all changed in “Wolverine” #53 in 2007, though. In that story, Wolverine met a new enemy named Romulus (who we’ll get to later); he explained they were actually not mutants, but a new species of human evolved from canines instead of simians, or what he called Lupines. More than that, he claimed that all other wild mutants like Sasquatch, Sabretooth and Feral were Lupines, and that Sabretooth hated Wolverine because he was from a blond-haired tribe that hated the dark-haired tribe on sight.

That retcon went over with fans about as well as a screen door on Wonder Woman’s invisible airplane, which may be why this was reversed in “Wolverine” #312 (2012), when Romulus’ own sister Remus told him that Lupines didn’t exist, and said Wolverine was a mutant, after all.

ROMULUS

Speaking of Romulus, let’s get to that big ball of retcons. By any standard, Wolverine has had a hard life. He’s been crushed, blown up and poisoned, but his physical injuries are nothing compared to his mental trauma. Pretty much every woman he’s ever loved has been brutally murdered, he’s fought through countless wars, and most of his life has been spent not knowing who he was or where he came from. There was no rhyme or reason to any of that, except to show why he’s such a hard-drinking and angry loner.

That all changed in Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi’s “Wolverine” #50 (2007), when Wolverine had dreams of a mysterious figure known as Romulus, who was thousands of years old and had been manipulating Wolverine before he was born. He secretly controlled Weapon X, took Wolverine’s son Daken from his mother’s womb, arranged for the death of Wolverine’s lovers over the years and pretty much got the ball rolling on anything bad that ever happened to Logan. His entire existence is a retcon of Wolverine’s sucky life.

HE STARTED WEAPON X

Since Barry Windsor-Smith’s classic story “Weapon X,” which appeared in “Marvel Comics Presents” #72-84 in 1991, Weapon X has been portrayed as a dark and shadowy organization that kidnapped and subjected Wolverine to the torturous process of bonding adamantium to his skeleton. The moment the Weapon Plus program came into his life changed Logan forever, and certainly wasn’t something he agreed to. At least, that’s the way it always was until 2012’s “Wolverine #312.”

In that story, Wolverine has a climactic fight with Romulus, who reveals that his claims of the Lupine were lies (another retcon mentioned earlier) and that he wants to create a new race of his own. In the final moments, Romulus also says that Wolverine was the one who altered his own memories to make himself into a test subject, and that Weapon X is and always was Wolverine’s idea. So far, that hasn’t been explained, because it makes no sense. It also contradicts the claims and flashbacks of Wolverine and other people involved in Weapon X.

ADAMANTIUM

Besides his claws, Wolverine’s unbreakable skeleton is one of his most defining physical features, with the indestructible metal used to reinforce all his bones, making them unbreakable. His skeleton is one of the strongest objects in the Marvel Universe, second only to Captain America’s shield. Much like everything else involving Wolverine, his adamantium skeleton is also a retcon.

In his first appearance fighting the Hulk, it was never said that Wolverine’s entire skeleton was covered in adamantium, only his claws. Wein only intended the claws themselves to be adamantium, and removable at that. After Logan joined the X-Men, later comics established that the adamantium ran through his entire skeleton. That made him not just fast with a quick healing factor and razor-sharp claws, but unbreakable, leading to his legendary immortality and invulnerability. It’s hard to imagine the old Canuckle-head without his metal skeleton, but that’s exactly what his creators did.

HIS CLAWS

When it comes to Wolverine, his most prominent feature is his pair of razor-sharp adamantium claws. That’s why we’ll be getting into how those claws have changed over the years, and how they’ve been retconned since the very beginning.

In his first fight against Hulk and Wendigo in “Incredible Hulk” #181, Wolverine fought the Hulk with his claws out the entire time, and never retracted them. That implied that his claws were attached to his gloves, which was actually the original writer Len Wein’s intention. When he returned in “Giant Size X-Men Annual” #1, Wolverine could retract his claws, but everyone assumed the claws were attached to his gloves. In “X-Men” #98 (1976), Wolverine surprised everyone when his gloves were removed, and he still was able to pop his claws, showing they were a part of his body, not his gloves. Reportedly, this was changed because Chris Claremont felt it would be easy for anyone to be Wolverine just by putting on his gloves. By having the claws inside his arms, they became a part of him and one of his most distinguishing features.

HIS (BONE) CLAWS

In his early appearances, it was said quite clearly that Wolverine’s claws were added during the process at Weapon X. Wolverine himself said this many times, and Weapon X confirmed it. In Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell’s “X-Men” #25 (1993), Magneto infamously ripped the adamantium out of Wolverine’s skeleton, leaving him a shattered mess. Everyone expected Wolverine’s claws to be torn out as well, since they were (as previously said) believed to be a part of Weapon X.

But in the aftermath, they discovered his claws were actually made of bone, and the adamantium was just covering the claws. This was a huge retcon, since it meant his claws were in fact part of his mutation after all. It also meant his claws had been a part of him all along. This became clarified in “Wolverine Origin” #2, when he was shown as a young boy popping his bone claws for the first time.

HE WAS AN ACTUAL WOLVERINE

This is the big one, the mother of all retcons, so controversial that it never even made it to the printed page. It involves Wolverine’s very nature and existence, and goes all the way back to his first Hulk appearance, where he appeared to fight the Hulk and Wendigo with no explanation of who he was and where he came from. When he returned in the pages of “X-Men,” Xavier said he was a mutant, but that’s not what his creators intended.

Rumor has it that Marvel planned to reveal Wolverine wasn’t a mutant, but an actual wolverine, who had been turned into a human being. The idea was that the High Evolutionary (pictured), a supervillain obsessed with evolving animals, would have created Wolverine, making his mutant history a huge retcon. Wein has loudly stated that the evolved wolverine idea wasn’t his, laying the blame on Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum or John Byrne. In an interview with Cockrum, he did admit he planned to have the High Evolutionary involved in Wolverine’s origin, which seems like confirmation. Given everything we’ve seen of Wolverine over the years, we’re kind of glad that idea never saw the light of day.

What do you think is Wolverine’s biggest retcon? What other Logan retcons have you noticed?

The post Wolverine’s 15 Craziest Retcons appeared first on CBR.com.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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John Cena Shows His Passion For Animation With Dallas & Robo

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Han and Chewy, Kirk and Spock, Groot and Rocket – the science fiction world isn’t hurting for lovable outer space duos. Now, another intriguing pair is putting themselves forward into the “space buddies” canon.

Dallas & Robo stars the accomplished Kat Dennings as Dallas and WWE megastar John Cena as Robo. The series that bears their name follows the misadventures of Dallas, a sassy space-trucker with a colorful vocabulary and Robo, her bone-crushing artificially intelligent best friend.

The eight-episode series comes from creator Mike Roberts and animation studio ShadowMachine (both of Bojack Horseman). It will be making its cable run debut on what seems to be the perfect fit, Syfy, this August on Saturday’s late night TZGZ programming block.

This past week we had the chance to chat (via phone, of course) to the man behind Robo — the GOAT, John Cena himself. Cena discussed becoming Robo, his love for animation, and how his years in the WWE have prepared him as he continues to further his career in entertainment.

Den of Geek: I could certainly try to describe it, but since you are Robo, how would you best describe the show for all the potential first-time viewers out there?

John Cena: Robo’s description of the show would be different than mine. Robo would say that AI is absolutely equal to or greater than the human species and should be treated as such. I think, as a viewer, it literally is a fun ride, a look at a quasi-realistic futuristic environment. It gives us a chance to laugh. It’s very lighthearted and it looks at the future through freight, which is not a job that’s going anywhere soon. With all the online ordering and all the shipping to your door, this is something that will be around for quite some time. So it takes something that’s extremely important now, but rather mundane and that’s the basis of the show going into the future.

How exactly did this opportunity come about to play Robo? Is starring in an adult cartoon series something you always wanted to do?

Animation is something that I love. I really think it gives you a chance to tell stories and use tools that aren’t possible in live-action or actual film. So it was very entertaining to me and to do something in the animation comedy space. It’s even more entertaining because of what I’ve done for most of my life, regardless of the risks that I take outside of that, it’s very difficult to break those typecasts. Where I was able to be a voice in an animated comedy, man, that was something that I was really interested in and I really have an interest in AI and the development of electronics.

Certainly as a semi-professional future, all of these things hit on certain channels that I really do enjoy. The folks at ShadowMachine have a great track record, and I’m so grateful to Syfy. It couldn’t have ended up on a better network. It belongs on Syfy. It belongs on the weekend animation spot.

You co-star with the amazingly talented Kat Dennings. What was it like recording the voiceovers for the show alongside her?

As with most animation, it’s very difficult to get everybody in the same room, especially when you want to put together an all-star cast. Because of all the outlets of entertainment, everybody’s really busy. It’s a really good time to be an entertainer, which I’m certainly very fortunate for every day. But to be able to stack the cast the way we did, a lot of times you’d have to record without the person being there. Now, Kat and I did record many times together. I wouldn’t see anyone else as Dallas. And she really embraced it.

Animation is realistic yet over the top. And a lot of times you get the opportunity to leave a joke longer. With animation, you can punch home some of the punchlines because there’s stuff you just can’t do without drawing. So she’s incredibly gifted and I think has a brilliant mind for how long to lean into a joke, the correct presentation of the humor, and also giving the character a sense of … you’re very sympathetic to the character, as well. It’s more than just coming in and reading from a paper and she absolutely really did a great job.

I love the chemistry between your two characters. Robo acts as sort of the voice of reason counterpart to his reckless, alcoholic partner, Dallas. Did the dynamic between the two characters come naturally through the script, or did the two of you sort of mold the characters into what they ended up becoming?

Well, I’m pretty straight laced. So I think Robo was easy. It wasn’t beyond my reach. And that’s also what drove me to the character – this kind of skeptical, really logical piece of AI that really just wants to be treated as equal. But he’s also very angular at points, and I hope that that helped Kat let loose because me not pushing those boundaries too much allows her to push her boundaries. And it really gives, like you said, a great comparison between the two characters.

I think if we were both on that same wave of really trying to push the boundaries of personality, I don’t think either one of us would’ve stuck out. So I’m really glad at how everything came out. And for me to play straight laced and logical, that’s kind of right in my wheelhouse. So like I said, I was very grateful to be able to do it.

Throughout the series, we see the two of you fight off cannibal biker gangs, get into time travel fiascos, and compete and speed races on Mars. Without too many spoilers, what scenes or episodes from the show really made you laugh while watching back?

Dude, I like anything to do with Fat Paul. He’s one of my favorite characters. I actually like some of the attempts to be a futuristic entrepreneur because it really just gives a forum for a whole new sense of stories. The series tackles a bunch of stuff like social isolationism, the development of AI. Then it goes to something as commonplace as car racing and it kind of keeps the environment the same and life on different planets and our expansion of the human race and how certain planets are and how certain environments are. I dig that a lot, that’s the stuff that makes me laugh. There’s a running joke about a casino operation that’s pretty decent.

I even like the … I hope I’m not spoiling it for anybody … the hidden bounty hunter element of what’s going on and all. But there is a lot to be told in each episode and I think you really should enjoy them all together. And I think once you watch one, hopefully you enjoy it and we have good characters and good stories. Hopefully you want to see them all.

Full disclosure: I’m a gigantic WWE fan. In honor of the name of our company, (Den of Geek) … I’m totally geeking out having this interview with you. So how have all your years in the WWE prepared you to play these different roles as you continue to venture off into acting and voice acting?

This one I’ll try to not be so long winded. I’ll sum it up like this. After 15 years or 18 years of putting yourself in front of a public audience six nights a week, constantly, with no break, you begin to really know … you’d either go one of two ways. You don’t know who you are anymore, or you really have a great knowledge of self. And that’s really made me comfortable in my own shoes. Doing that, it’s made me want to challenge myself and grow and get better. The WWE has prepared me not only for live entertainment, but life. And I really hope one of these days in the right circumstances, I can thank the WWE audience for all they’ve given me because it’s been really important in the development of me as a human being.

While we’re on the topic, as I was watching some of the fight scenes in Dallas and Robo, I noticed quite a few wrestling moves out of Robo, including some DDTs and what looks to be a move inspired by your finisher, the attitude adjustment. Did you inspire that decision?

I really get excited when I see stuff like that. I think the animators take a chance and cross their fingers that the artist isn’t going to blow their stack or be offended. I’m never offended with stuff like that. That is such a great homage as to the fact that hopefully I contributed to something that left a lasting impression on somebody. I would have loved to have Robo do the “You Can’t See Me.”

What’s great about a good show, is being able to dig into those nuances. If it’s something you catch, like you being a dedicated fan, that’s cool. If it’s something you don’t, it doesn’t ruin the story. I think great animated programs have a way of doing that, where they can shoehorn in little Easter egg jokes. Dallas & Robo, especially those fight nuances, is a great example of there’s a lot in there and you don’t need to get it all. You can still watch it and have a good time.

I know a lot of fans like myself loved your cinematic style WrestleMania match against Bray Wyatt this year that sort of brought us through this John Cena time machine. What was the creative process for coming up with that idea?

That, in its entirety, is a great example of being given an idea and then when asking, “Well, what is this idea?” then the response from those people that give it to you is, “We don’t know.” I can waste the entire day talking with you about that performance, because it means a lot to me and it’s one of those that is really special. But if anything, it’s a great example of just not stopping and continuing to lean into anything and everything to tell the correct story. We weren’t given any direction. We were just given this thing. And then we made this out of nothing because the response of all of our inquiries was always, “I don’t know.” So instead of taking “I don’t know” as mopey complacency and going back and kicking the rock down the road, we took “I don’t know” as an opportunity. And trust me, man, when we were doing this, everyone involved was like, “This is either going to be awesome or it’s going to suck. No one is going to apathetically watch this and go get popcorn.”

It’s not like we knew we had something special. You talk to anyone who was involved in the process and the theme was, “This is either going to be really good or it’s going to suck. And we’re going to go down with the ship, but let’s not err on the side of caution, let’s be brave and let’s do something different. And if they don’t get it, at least we’ll know right away that they didn’t get it and we’ll know why because our audience is very vocal when they don’t like stuff.” We really could have sat on our haunches and done whatever we want and it would have been okay. It might’ve been just another match. But we all leaned into it and came up with some really creative stuff and in the process, used the forum to tell a great story.

It really was a cool thing. And I say it’s important to me because I also like to help and teach and guide younger performers that are looking for answers. For them to be like, “I get nothing. No one gives me any information.” They don’t realize that that’s a goldmine. Now I actually have multiple experiences, when I started rapping, for example, and the choices then, to even now of like, “Hey man, it happens at every level. You are not alone. Take it by the horns and do your best to make something out of it. And don’t be afraid to fail.” I really was happy with the effort and whether it bombed or it went to the moon, literally, I was happy. But I was also so happy that our audience understood what we were trying to say.

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