#the camping accident

[satticwrites]

Chapter 2: the Camping Accident

James was busy packing for her camping trip. It was weeks away, but she was so excited that she started early. It had been ages since her last family camping trip, and she couldn’t wait to be out in the woods, back to one of her favourite locations. “Rose, what are you doing?” said Benedict, her father, who always called her by her middle name. “The trip is weeks away,” he paused, looking at her…

[ktzart]

sometimes you pull your knife on the thing that you assume is possessing your brother and demand it vacate the premises even though unbeknownst to you there's only one consciousness on the premises because when this entity took your brother's body it kind of immediately extinguished his mind almost without even thinking about it which is probably actually worse but also cmahn this entity is just a little guy

[wylldebee]

Was thinking about an AU where Bianca lives—but all I can think of is how much trouble all Big Three kiddos can get into together because demigod luck + being children of the Big Three = chaos, and now I'm imagining something exploding in the distance. There's screaming, monster roars followed by pained cries, and last minute plans that somehow worked. Both camps just heave a big collective sigh.

[yellowocaballero]

SHAZAM SHAZAM SHAZAM pls tell us about billy batson. ive only ever seen the movies o great comic knower

Very very very VERY far from comic expert (that's brawltogethernow) but I have read a lot of Shazam. His history is actually really, really fascinating and involves more than one lawsuit that really defined very early comics. I'll focus on one thing, though.

There are two Captain Marvels: One from the 1940s to around 2013, and one from 2013 til now. The Captain Marvel you're familiar with (who is named Shazam) is from 2013. He's a more realistic, grounded character. He was created to be pretty much the polar opposite of his original version. The best summary is to say that the Wizard chose Billy Batman 1940 because he had the purest heart, and the Wizard chose Billy Batson ~2013 because he was there. My personal 'best' Shazam story is the "Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil" graphic novel by the guy who made Bone. It's good because it's for elementary schoolers yet acknowledges this small child as homeless. Which, don't get me wrong, you shouldn't always do. My personal favorite is the 1970s ones.

As some background: Otto Binder was the creator/main writer of the very early Captain Marvel comics. He was by far and away the best writer of the early Superman Silver Age comics, because all of his comics were batshit insane. Shazam has a complicated and legal history with Superman, so the 1970 run was a super fun high camp tongue in cheek reinvention of the best Silver Age stories.

So the 1970 Captain Marvel comics are insane.

I can't even summarize them without sounding crazy. Basically the conceit is that Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, and Mary Marvel (Billy, Freddy, and Mary) are having 1940s Golden Age Adventures when they get somehow in suspended animation and are basically time travelled to the 1970s. This don't bother them too much. Why would it bother them. Nothing bothers these people. Nothing. I don't think anybody experiences a negative emotion in these comics. Not bc they were twee. Bc they were insane.

Many of the comics basically had three shorter comics inside it: one Billy story, one Mary story, one Freddy story. Interestingly, they all had different art styles, artists, types of story, genre, etc. Billy's stories had a cartoony art style with very over-the-top and silly plotlines that involved supervillain bad dudes. Freddy's art was slightly more realistic and was slighty more grounded, but still had some classic Marvel indescribable scifi that can best be summarized as that one meme panel people have seen where Sivana recites a science equation that lets him walk through walls. Mary's stories were much more realistically drawn and featured the most banal shit, like her starting a club with her friends. Somehow Mary Marvel gets involved in those.

Sometimes they worked together and did superhero things and fought bad guys. The average fight looked like this:

Billy was a twelve year old who lived by himself, in his own apartment, had his own radio show, a full-ass job, a whole thing as Captain Marvel. He paid fucking taxes. Everybody knew this and nobody cared. He's the most affable, good natured kid on the face of the planet. Nothing bothers him. Nothing. Nothing bothers any of these people. Sivana shows up and he's BIG MAD so he's creating another death ray and Captain Marvel shows up like "Oh you rascal! Time to punch this and go back to helping my friend eat his infinite Jello."

He has a friend named Talky Tawny, who is a talking tiger wearing a suit. He also has a friend named Sunny Smiles, a person of indeterminate gender who everybody falls in love with, for unexplained and unknown reasons. Not to be confused with Freddy's friend Gregory Gosharootie, the "World's Dullest Mortal", who is so boring that nobody notices him and he keeps accidentally comitting crime. There is also an old guy named Uncle Marvel who pretends he has superpowers, which they all find funny so they just roll with it. Freddy is a disabled orphan who has to sell papers on the street corner to make a living. Mary lives in a middle class suburban home with loving foster parents. It never once seems to occur to Mary's parents to adopt Billy, for Freddy to live with Billy. Everybody is happiest this way.

I do think this is partly why a good Shazam comic has to be aimed at the 6-12yo demographics. They have to be for small children, because Billy is living a complete and utter power fantasy that only a ten year old would think is a good idea. He's a kid, and he doesn't have drag parents or a lame family, but he can turn into Superman, and he can also do magic, and everybody loves him and thinks he's the nicest person, and his supervillains are Dr. Doofenschmirtz and a worm, and his supporting cast is like okay my sister if she HAS to be involved, but also my best friend who is a paperboy! but cool because he's disabled, and….

Look, you could engage with that seriously. You could go "holy shit this is a homeless child". That's fine. That's what they do these days, and that's what they did in the movies. Nothing wrong with that. Take the story more seriously.

But also they don't give a worm the electric chair in those stories, so.

To actually give some commentary on these comics: these comics really love people. I've never seen comics that were so entrenched in their community. The kids just know everybody they meet on the street. Freddy delivers paper up and down every block, so an average story for him is just talking to a butcher or baker or old man or grumpy housewife and helping them out with some batshit problem. Mary's a sweet girl who's always starting clubs with her friends and taking on neighborhood projects. Many Billy stories involve one of his many friends falling into some trouble and Captain Marvel helping them out - or just exploring some fun with Billy hanging out with Sunny Smiles, who is a person of indeterminate gender who for some reason has magic love brainwashing powers -

This isn't the biggest #Shazam take, but I think a good Shazam story stays grounded in that. These are poor street kids who love Fawcett City so damn much. They love fighting their supervillains, but they love helping out the random guy off the street with their problems even more. Way more so than Spider-Man or a lot of other guys, I think of the Marvel family as the friendly neighborhood superheroes. They're both larger than life and street level. They're Superman level powers but they just use the powers for wrapping up their hijinks. Isn't that nice? Aren't you tired of going apeshit? Don't you just want to be nice?

[ghostlycamper]

I’ve been sitting on an owl house au and I needed to draw something for it

[nineratsinatrenchcoat]

Adventures of Bumpy: standstill traffic

[ectonurites]

SUPER DARK TIMES (2017) DIR KEVIN PHILLIPS

[ssruis]

Going through a straight up comical amount of irritating situations to get the stupid 4* guaranteed ticket from the welcome to sekai campaign. It Will Be Mine.

[b4rk-b4rk]

Aah Max plushie and events--

They're all from my tiktok pfp btw!!¡

png hat if you want it ❄

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Anyways I came up with a terrible fic idea involving Majexatli and Halsin :)

[melien]

I just had an embarrassing interaction with someone that I really want to get along with and then Doris's advice she gave Milo popped into my head. That person has moved on to other things and probably isn't even thinking of it! Thank you for writing an awesome character like her, who is honestly helping me deal with my social anxiety right now! 😊

Ahhhh this is so sweet, my heart is so full right now😭😭 Yeah I would say I agree with Doris here, this definitely can be helpful to remember, people have a short-term memory most of the time. But I also see Milo's perspective, some people could indeed get a certain impression of us from a small interaction. I guess it depends, but I do believe most of the time people are focused on themselves and their own actions (probably how not to embarrass themselves haha). The hard part is telling this to our brains. I was thinking how social anxiety doesn't just come out of nowhere, it usually comes from a string of prior bad experiences and all the silly societal norms imposed on us that center around playing some fake part and not fully being yourself, so it's definitely quite hard to put yourself out there repeatedly. So I'm proud of you and your little steps! Man I love rambling about human psychology, it's one of my special interests haha and I definitely try to put those things and different perspectives to reflect on into my stories too.

But yeah, I love Doris a lot, she's the best and so mature for her age! (I think she's like 17-18 in the story and Milo is about 4-5 years older?) It's really refreshing for me that the two siblings with completely opposite personalities are trying to support each other as well as they can. Doris usually speaks from her experience as an extroverted non-overthinker, and maybe it doesn't fully help Milo immediately to internalise it and apply it to themselves, but it does make it a bit easier to see that their sister is in their corner and is trying to be so understanding and helpful. It's really valuable to have someone who is validating our feelings and not acting annoyed at our anxious brain. Ahhh I love these two🥹

[thevoiceofdesertbluffs]

I was inspired. Here's Elijah Volkov as a Skibidi Toilet.

[warmchrysanthemum]

Dr Drakken finished his new invention: The Jetpack!

And what do you do with a jetpack? Love of course!

Drakken and Shego are above the roofs and on cloud nine <3

Er... this is what happens if you enter the wrong hole XD

Ok, that joke was low. But not as low as Drakken XD

[sensenotsense]

watching yuru camps makes me wish it was winter. all the blankets look so fuzzy and cozy.

[iii-days-grace]

looking for references for corey's tattoos and found this gem

[bhaalsdeepbat]

when we were working on our dream guardians on my astarion origin and i just started cackling and said "this boy is not having a good time" with no other context. i was turning the dream guardian into "Nexus Smooth Boy Mod-We Have Cazador at Home" Cazador.