#then i believe they did peter pan as a play before it got actually filmed

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

i often wonder what the cornley drama society were doing during the christmases/decembers we didn’t see a show in

[the-bau-quinjet]

Trending

Summary: Steve thinks you’re too young to like him despite the obvious hints you’re dropping.

Warnings: unspecified age gap

Word count: 2246

a/n: I’ve clearly spent too much time on TikTok recently, but inspired me to write something so that's good. It was loosely based on a request for a young reader x Steve, but I forgot part of the request so I'm gonna write something else for that one! Also, I wrote this on my phone so please excuse any typos I missed when trying to edit it lol

Masterlist

Messing with Steve is one of your favorite things to do. Tiny pranks, over the top flirting, poking fun at his lack of understanding of technology. Anything you can do to get him to roll his eyes and chuckle.

Nat would say it’s because of your feelings for him. She would be correct. Not that you’d ever admit that to anyone. Nope. So instead, you have your fun, and enjoy the way his eyes crinkle and his cheeks redden.

Your newest method of hearing the sweet sound of Steve’s laugh? TikTok. It’s a double whammy. One because he doesn’t understand the app and two because a lot of the trends make him blush.

It started as a fun way to blow off steam. Sometimes, being one of the younger and newer team members made you feel like an outsider. Of course, Peter was younger than you, but he had his own friends outside of the team. You didn’t have anyone else. When Tony found you and invited you to join, it was you against the world. Now you have this makeshift family.

Having your account on TikTok helped you when you hadn’t really become a part of the group yet. You bonded with Peter because of his account, and you found a new way to make Steve blush.

Anyway, you’ve learned way more TikTok dances than you ever would have thought just to see his pink cheeks. It’s not even always over the top dances that have him chuckling. The last trend you did had him laughing the entire day. It was that sound about Wednesday Adams having one thing on her mind. Only when it said homicide, instead of a deadpan expression you panned the camera to show Bucky and Sam arguing over who got the last donut.

Of course, you knew when you made the video it would appeal to Steve’s sense of humor. Sam and Bucky feature in a lot of your videos for that exact reason.

In general, you make a lot of videos featuring the Avengers just to keep Tony happy. He likes to be the center of attention, plus the only way he would approve of your account was if it could also feature as PR for the team. You agreed, as long as you had final say over what you posted. There’s nothing scripted or designed for a specific reason, you just feature the team sometimes.

Like when that sound from the Big Bang theory was popular amongst Avengers fans, you made a video confessing to Pepper that you’d been thinking about the Avengers, panning to show the team during training.

Of course, the text on the screen said “you are an Avenger” instead of “I believe that”, allowing you to play off the joke. But still, it was fun to include the team.

One of your favorite videos features none other than Scott Lang, mostly because nobody else would do it. Scott thought it was hilarious though.

Using the sound from New Girl, Scott played Schmidt and you Jess. The text on the screen read as follows:

Scott: You just walk around all day thinking about America’s Ass?

You: Yeah, don’t you?

Scott: No! How do you get anything done?

You: It’s hard…

Steve blushed like crazy when everyone cornered him to watch it. Bucky, Sam, and Tony wouldn’t stop bringing it up for at least a month. A part of you hoped he might make a move after that video, seeing as you put yourself out there, but he just assumed it was a joke and laughed it off.

Honestly, you were running out of trends that you could use to get him to understand your feelings. You only had two ideas left, and one of them would be mortifying if it didn’t work out…

-

“Steve. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Bucky sighed, exasperated with Steve for the umpteenth time that month. “You’ve been pining for forever, just make a move!” he whisper yelled, doing his best not to throttle his lifelong friend.

Steve rolled his eyes, purposefully ignoring Bucky’s pointed glare. The two men had spent the last hour looking through your TikTok account. Bucky was adamant that you liked Steve, but the blonde didn’t believe it, despite the so called proof Bucky kept forcing him to watch.

“Buck, would you please just back off? We’re friends. She’s too young to want to be with me like that.” Steve blushed, thinking about the context of his words.

Before Bucky could say anything about how repressing his feelings is bad for him, a new video popped up on your account. Bucky smirked when he saw the thumbnail was once again a picture of Steve, this time with a beard. Steve took the silence as an opportunity to escape, walking into his closet to change.

The video opened with a video of you and Natasha just hanging out, you lip syncing to the words “I like you have a cupcake.” You repeated the words as the video cut to you and Tony.

Bucky nearly dropped the phone when “smack my ass like a drum” blared from the speaker. He cackled bending over in a fit of laughter when he realized that’s what Steve’s picture was used for- and one where he had a beard to boot.

“What is it now, jerk?” Steve emerged from his closet, having changed into loungewear. The sight of Bucky fully cackling had him nervous.

Bucky tossed him the phone, doing his best to stop laughing long enough to tell him to watch the most recent video. With a hesitant sigh, Steve obliged.

Again, Bucky rolled his eyes at how obvious Steve’s feelings were. The second he saw you on the screen, he smiled. And not one of those half hearted polite smiles, a full on happy smile.

Steve’s eyes widened, nearly bulging out of his head when he got to the end of the video.

“‘She doesn’t want to be with me like that.’” Bucky mocked his friends earlier words, grabbing his phone back. “Punk, I don’t know how much more obvious she could be.”

With one more glare in Steve’s direction, Bucky finally left him to his own thoughts. Okay, so you made a lot of videos about how you find him attractive. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’d want to be in a relationship with him. Leave it to Steve to talk himself out of everything Bucky had spent so long trying to convince him of.

-

You were desperate at this point. You honestly thought the cupcake one would send him over the edge, but it didn’t work either. It has been three days, and you know Steve’s seen the video because everyone likes to tease him about it.

“Naaaaaat, it’s not working,” you whined, dramatically throwing yourself onto her bed. She laughed at your antics, briefly looking up at you before deciding to stop what she was going and give you her full attention.

“Look, not only is Steve one of the most clueless people I’ve ever met when it comes to women, but he can also talk himself out of believing someone’s interested in him. Especially you.” Nat watched as you lifted your head from her comforter, slowly turning to stare at her with narrowed eyes.

“Especially me?” you questioned. Why would you have a different standard?

“Y/N, Steve’s from the 40s. He’s super old fashioned. You're a hot young thing, super up to date on modern trends. He thinks you're just messing around as friends because he doesn’t believe someone as young as you would be interested in actually having a relationship with him,” she spelt it out for you, sick of trying to get you to figure it out on your own.

You took a minute to fully understand what she was saying, but then sat up when a new idea struck. “So you’re saying I need to be more direct?”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded nonetheless.

“I’ve got an idea. Thanks Nat!” you ran from the room before she could question your newest plan, instead checking to make sure her notifications were on for posts from your TikTok account.

-

“Steve!” you shouted when you saw him down the hall, about to turn a corner. He immediately stopped, turning back to see you running at him. “I need your help!”

You pulled him into the gym, briefly glancing around the room to make sure it was empty. Confirming nobody else was present, you set up your phone on one of the weight racks to record the two of you. It was already open to the recording section of TikTok, the sound you needed queued and ready to begin.

“What’s going on?” Steve looked between you and the phone, nerves heightening as he realized what you were doing. All of your videos about him thus far hasn’t actually involved him filming anything.

“I just need you to react to this trend, okay? It’s kind of old, but that doesn’t really matter,” you spoke quickly, trying to start the video before he could decline.

The music started playing instantly, with Steve awkwardly looking between the screen and you. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was reacting to, and it had him on edge. Just as the song reached the chorus, you turned and grabbed his face. Throwing caution to the wind, you followed through with your plan before you could back out, kissing him with all the passion and emotion you’d been holding back.

Steve froze, clearly surprised by your actions. Before you could pull away, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you closer. He kissed you with equal passion and emotion, no longer paying attention to your phone recording the moment.

Neither of you noticed when the music cut off, too wrapped up in each other. When the need for air overpowered the desire to keep kissing him, you pulled back to gasp in a few breaths. Steve leaned his forehead against yours, eyes closed and breathing erratic.

The two do you spent the next few moments just breathing, trying to come to terms with what just happened. You gasped when his hands moved, one resting on your waist and the other cupping your cheek. His eyes were still closed when you chanced a glance at him.

“What was the trend?” he breathily whispered the words, still coming down from the high of kissing you.

“Huh?” you mumbled, unable to comprehend the question when he was still touching you like this.

“The TikTok trend? What was it?” his grip on your hip tightened, but his hand framing your face remained gentle.

“Oh, uh, it was- it was kissing your best friend/crush.” You whispered, heart still racing from his proximity. Your nerves had never been greater. Yeah, Nat always tells you that Steve has feelings for you, but what if he was just being polite? Maybe he didn’t know how to reject you when you kissed him out of nowhere, and now he’s trying to find a way to turn you down gently. What if-

“Was my reaction good enough to post?” he broke your train of thought with another question. You took a minute to think about the question, your brain still moving like molasses

“Um, that depends…” you froze when his eyes opened and stared into yours.

“On?” he prompted you to continue.

“Which caption I can use.” you finished the thought, finally remembering the two most common outcomes of the trend.

“What are the choices?” Steve smirked when you looked flustered, clearly not expecting this conversation.

“Uh, the two-” he began rubbing small circles into your hip with his thumb, effectively cutting off your train of thought again. It wasn’t until he lightly squeezed your hip again that you remember you were answering his question.

“Right! The two most common captions are some variation of ‘this was so awkward’ or ‘we’re dating now’,” you managed to blurt out the choices, blushing when he smiled at you.

“Well, I know which I prefer…” you waited with bated breath as he prolonged the silence, enjoying seeing you so on edge. You nearly whined when he let you go, moving to pick up your phone from the weight rack.

You watched in silence as he typed out a caption, tapping each letter with his pointer finger. A small smile formed on your lips at his adorable old man behavior. He then managed to find the post button, adding the video to your account before handing you the phone to see what he chose.

Your smile only grew after you read the caption, dropping the phone and immediately kissing him again.

-

Meanwhile, Nat had gathered the rest of the team that happened to be around to wait for whatever video you had planned to be posted.

Tony, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Vision, Peter, and Clint all watched as the new video popped up on the screen. Peter bounced with excitement when he heard the song, instantly recognizing the trend. The rest of the group watched as you kissed Steve, mouths gaping open when he actually kissed you back.

Fans were already commenting about how long it took for the two of you to get together, but the team was too focused on laughing at the caption to pay any mind to the comments.

She said the trend was kind of old, but that fits because I’ve got a habit of waiting too long anyways.

Permanent taglist: @averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman @strawberryspence @sebastnstn @jswessie187 @ellobruv

Marvel: @leyannrae @livstilinski @oceaniamaddness @justreadingficsdontmindme

[sebstanseabass]

Afterglow (A Bucky Barnes AU fan fiction) - Chapter 16

Afterglow chapters

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The sun glared through the thin sheet of the tent, making your listless self stir beneath the blankets draped over your naked body. Cautious not to wake Bucky, who had his arms wrapped around you, you carefully buried your face deeper in his neck but he wasn't that much of a deep sleeper as you thought he would be.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." He said, pulling you closer.

"G'morning." You replied, smiling against his skin. "Have you been awake this whole time?"

"Yes. I didn't want to wake you. You looked so peaceful sleeping."

"Someone tired me out last night."

Bucky chuckled, sending a low vibration on top of your head. "Hmm, how was he?"

"He's pretty good in bed." You chuckled. "But pretty creepy when he refers to himself in the third person."

You stayed right there for another hour — in each other's embrace, in heat, in thin sheets, in profound silence, still taking pleasure in the afterglow of what had transpired last night: the intimacy in each other's skin, of each other's mouths, of each other's everything. A kind of intimacy you never dared share with anyone, not even with your serious ex-boyfriend.

Before the both of you got up and headed down the fire escape and then to the apartment, you had looked at him one last time and asked yourself the same question you had asked Bucky the first time you were here on the rooftop:

"Have you ever felt that kind of feeling?" You asked.

"What feeling?"

"The afterglow feeling."

Was this the kind of afterglow you sought after?

You shook your head, suddenly feeling ridiculous. Perhaps it was the sex; just that. The most amazing, mindblowing sex I ever had in my life, you thought. The more you described it that way while descending down the stairs and entering the apartment through the window (while wearing Bucky's shirt which looked huge on you, by the way), the more you believed it was just because of that. Besides, it was something that had given you sweet, sweet pleasure, something that made me feel like you were high on drugs, something that made you feel alive, something that made you feel things you didn't even know you could — the after of it all, of course, was worth so much more.

You both went straight to the bathroom to wash your faces and brush your teeth as soon as you got in. Of course, you took way more time than he did. He soon went to the kitchen to prep breakfast. You approached him afterwards, his bare back exposed to you while cracking some eggs into a bowl.

Without any hesitation at all, you wrapped your arms around his waist, resting your head on his back. You caught a whiff of his scent, even though he reeked of sex, the vanilla-lavender hint never faded.

"Whatcha cookin', good-lookin'?" You asked, taking a peek on the table.

"I was thinking of making you Japanese omelettes today." He stopped whipping for a second to face you. He placed a finger on your chin, tilting it upwards, and proceeded to kiss me.

"Have I told you you have the softest lips?" He whispered after.

"Yes, you did." You laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck. "And you kept reminding me last night."

"Good. You should be reminded of all the beautiful things you possess." He rested his hands on your hips. You wanted to shy away from the mention of the word beautiful but you didn't.

You have always received compliments, yes, but you never learned how to respond to them unless they tell you how to: "Oh for god's sake, just say thank you." Most people compliment you just because they have to, because social convention dictates them to (especially when you're at a party). Some, perhaps only five percent, genuinely compliment you.

But the spontaneity of last night — all the compliments Bucky kept giving you, all the "beautiful" being said over and over and over, were playing in your head like a broken record. Even after he saw all the folds, the rolls, stretch marks, scars, and acne marks.

It wasn't just that. He admired every single one of your photos down at the bar, photos you worked hard for, photos people kept neglecting. He talked about them like how you imagined someone actually talking about them. He talked to you about the beauty of art like how you wanted to talk to someone about it (Weirdly so, you picked friends you had nothing in common with: Nat just wanted to gossip, Steve preferred to be mysterious, Peter was all about business, Wanda was the one person you could talk to about these but you chose not to anymore, and Nick... was just Nick). It was like reading each other's minds.

You treated each as a compliment.

The five percent you were talking about? Bucky was it.

He pulled you out of your thoughts by sliding his hands to your ass, squeezing the cheeks for a bit, then placing them on the back of your thighs. You smiled then jumped, wrapping your legs around his waist. He placed you on top of the counter next to all the ingredients he had prepared.

He grabbed your face and continued to make-out, leaving the eggs on the bowl raw and unwhisked.

"You should," you said in between kisses, "go back to cooking. I'm starving."

"Y'know, you could just eat me."

"Sorry, I want cooked eggs."

He pulled away from, yet his hands stayed on your waist. With a cute pout on his face, he said: "Mean."

You broke into laughter after that and you watched him cook this Japanese omelette he kept talking about.

"I would make you the most amazing Japanese omelette — and the most complicated one, by the way. It took me months to perfect that — but I'm too lazy to prepare the rice." He chuckled, grabbing an apron. "So, I'm just going to make you the normal one. It's called Tamagoyaki."

"Hmm, interesting." You commented. "I just do mine sunny-side up. Crack an egg on a pan. That's it. It's an underrated hack, really."

He laughed. "It's a good thing I'm here then." He proceeded to heat the pan, and throw some butter on it once the heat was good enough.

"You told me you only know how to cook breakfast, right? Why is that?"

"The same reason why you cook your eggs sunny-side up."

"It's easy?"

"Not just easy." He replied. "It's the easiest of all meals! Toast, eggs, bagels, bacon — see, they're pretty easy."

You frowned, tilting your head. "You know, most times, you say the most profound things but you do say the weirdest, silliest things sometimes."

It was like two people were fighting against each other inside him: the child, and the man.

He laughed at your comment and said nothing further as he concentrated on cooking. You watched him move around the kitchen as the minutes passed by. And while you talked about the small things in life, you couldn't help but wonder how this Bucky, standing right in front of you, kissing you, holding you, was much more different — way more different than the Bucky you knew in Peter's stories.

The thing you liked about it though, was that both versions excited you. You longed for spontaneous adventures, ones that you’d keep forever, ones that would remind you of the days of your youth, ones you too stuck up to do, and you longed for conversations like this, and the ones you and Bucky have had before, conversations that made you see more of life's beauty and appreciate it.

That same afternoon, you spent it lying down on a couch in each other's arms, watching a movie he guilted you into watching: Roman Holiday. You made side commentaries while you watched, how lame the lines were, how cheesy they all sounded, but at the same time, amazed at how things have changed since then.

"Ugh, I love me a vespa." You said, watching the vespa speed away on the streets. "I would just love to ride around New York city in a vespa and just pull off some Roman Holiday in this bitch."

"I have to admit, that does look fun."

And somewhere halfway through the film, when Bucky was making small circles with his finger on your waist (igniting fire within you, and at the same time, making you weak on your knees), you ended up making out, grabbing and touching each other beneath your clothes, and taking them all off, sending them flying all over the living room floor, and repeating what you did last night — except it was in broad daylight and Bucky dominated over you, over and over and over, flesh on flesh. You kept screaming each other's names. He kept fucking you into oblivion, taming the mad woman in you.

You laid there on your back, pulling down his neck with your right hand, making your foreheads touch, locking your eyes together, telling him to go "faster, deeper", digging deep and scratching into his back with your nails, making him hiss out your name, and at the same time, crying out his name repeatedly like a chant, making you forget your own.

You felt the droplets of his sweat on your skin, mixed with your own. You watched him ravish you, watched the pleasure consume him wholly, and watched his eyes roll back as he came inside.

"I really can't get enough of you, babydoll." He growled, and kissed you one last time before you showered and headed down to work.

-

"You look different." Nat observed, sitting on one of the high stools across you. "Did you do something with your face?"

"No, I didn't." You grimaced, shaking your head.

"Then, why are you glowing?"

"Quit staring."

She chose not to listen to you and kept on following you with her eyes as you moved around the counter. "Oh my god, I know what it is — "

"Goddamn it, Nat — "

" — you had sex!"

She cackled, gesturing you towards the booth with a sharp tone: "Booth. Now."

You followed suit. It was crystal clear in that moment that you had no other choice, that she held the upper hand in this friendship. You were starting to think that perhaps this friendship you were pursuing with Nat was a mistake as she kept on berating you about the information she just acquired.

"There's no way in hell I'm telling you all about it." You huffed, sitting across from her.

"I'll tell you one thing, though," she said, "I'm a fucking prophet."

"Don't be such a smug bitch." You rolled your eyes. "No one likes a smug bitch."

"What did I tell you about this Bucky thing, huh?" She smirked, ignoring you. Again. "Come on, spill the beans! I wanna hear everything!"

You shook your head unamused. "Nope. No way."

She groaned. "Please? Nothing exciting is ever happening in this bar but now I have this! You!"

"How about you and Steve humping each other like bunnies?" You bit your inner cheeks to prevent your lips from smiling. "That's gotta be exciting."

"Let's not talk about me and Steve."

"So, it's okay if we talk about my sex life but not yours?"

"Exactly."

You frowned. "You're a weird friend."

"No." She leaned in. "I'm a miracle-worker that happens to be your new best friend, by the way — "

"Parker's my best friend — "

" — and you should at least thank me. I am more than welcome, by the way."

"Nat, if you don't stop I swear to God I'm gonna out you and Steve to the whole ass bar." You groaned, knocking your forehead against the table. Coincidentally, you could actually out them of the closet knowing they were actually doing it in one of the closets here in the bar (yes, you found a condom wrapper lying around one time. Knowing what had transpired in that small space, believe you me, you sprinted the fuck out of there).

"Ugh fine, fine." She said, making you stop banging your head and forcing you to look at her. "Just tell me this... Was it good?"

You rolled your eyes. "Fine, yes, it was good."

"Just good?"

You sighed in defeat, leaning back on the cushioned backrest of the booth. "It was the best I ever had." Nat bit her lip, hiding a squeal. "There. Ya happy?"

"Now, I'm curious! Please, y/n, you have to tell me. I gots to know! Okay, tell me, how big was he?"

"What?! No, I'm not gonna tell you that."

"Come on, I'll trade you Steve's."

"Ew, Nat! Gross!" You cringed. "I don't wanna know that!"

Then, she proceeded to move her hands in the opposite direction slowly, "tell me when to stop." You shook your head and just watched her in plain amusement as she continued to do it. Her jaw dropped. "Oh my god, this big? Seriously?"

"I'm not telling you anything."

"Come on, you told me about the time you kissed!"

"That's different." You scoffed. "This one's... intimate."

"Ooohhh, intimate. Well, I've never heard anyone describe sex that way."

"It was just different, okay? Good different." You replied. "And that's all I'm telling you."

She heaved a sigh, finally accepting the fact that you won't go anywhere past what you just told her. "Okay, at least you gave me something. Do you mind if I ask you something real, though? I swear this is the last time. It's not about sex, I promise."

Convinced, you nodded. "Go ahead."

"So, are you guys dating now? Or is it just, ya know, fooling around?"

You sat there, undoubtedly floored by the question. You had never even given it a thought. It never crossed your mind until Nat just made you realize the consequences of yesterday, last night and this afternoon, the inevitable. Were you dating? Will you ever talk about it? Is he even considering it? Or will you just continue to have sex without ever talking about dating?

"I, uh, I don't know. We didn't talk about it."

"Well, clearly there's gotta be something, right? That it's not just fooling around. I mean you said it was intimate, that it was good different — whatever that means." said Nat. "There's gotta be something deep?"

You looked at Natasha with astonishment, baffled by the things coming out of her mouth. Apparently,you were still on cloud nine to think about any kind of repercussion, to think about what could happen next to afterglow.

"I guess?"

"Do you like him?"

"Clearly, I do."

Unlike Nat, you were stunned by your answer. You answered that question faster than the speed of light.

She smirked at you in response. "You are so gonna fall in love."

"Shut your hole, Nat."

The door flew open suddenly, revealing Bucky and Sam, which got you up your feet. Instinctively and ignoring Nat, you approached him halfway and greeted him with a kiss which he gladly reciprocated, all the things you and Nat just talked about disappearing into this sweet, sweet kiss.

"Hey you." You breathed after pulling away from his lips.

"Hey, babydoll."

"Oh hey, Sam."

"Hey, babydoll." Sam mocked, a smirk playing on his lips. "That's a cute name. What is that? French?"

Bucky smacked his friend on the stomach, making Sam groan and glare at him. "So, it's not French?"

"Sam." Bucky warned which Sam only found funny.

Bucky kept his hand on your waist as you approached the booth, with Sam behind us. Nat, who was still sitting on the booth, cocked her head on the side and eyed Bucky up and down. "Bucky, Sam... This is Nat from the night before." You introduced them to each other before you made them sit in the booth.

"Do you boys want anything to drink?" Nat asked.

"We'll have scotch." Bucky replied, giving Nat a friendly smile. "On the rocks."

"Actually, I don't know how to make drinks, I just asked to be nice."

You rolled your eyes at Nat, laughing lightly. "Don't worry, I got them." You approached the counter and prepared the drinks while Nat followed your trail.

"Babydoll?" She asked. "Steve doesn't even have a nickname for me."

"Okay, I have to ask this since you already did it to me anyway." You said, pouring scotch on the glasses. "Are you and Steve dating? Or is it just, like you said, fooling around?"

"We're friends... with benefits."

"So, just fooling around then?" You asked.

"Yeah, you can put it that way."

"Aren't you worried he might want something more than that? Like a relationship? He does seem like a man who wants to settle, y'know."

"Aren't you worried your new boy toy might want something like that too?"

You fell silent just as you were about to finish the drinks. You weren't worried about that, no. You were worried about you, wanting something more, something you haven't had in a long time, something Bucky hasn't had.

"The chances of me and Steve getting even serious are very slim." She whispered. "But you and Bucky? Now, that's a big fat chance. It doesn't even matter how long you guys have known each other. If there's chemistry, then you can't do anything about it, and the way you described your whole thing with him? Babydoll," she smirked, proud of herself, "if that's not chemistry then I don't know what is."

"As far as I can remember, you're the one who told me to just 'go where the river takes you' and now you're confusing me with these things!" You hissed, looking over at the booth and making sure Bucky won't hear your little banter.

She rolled her eyes at you. "Okay, okay, okay... Allow me to paint you a picture, y/n."

"Paint me a picture — ?"

"Do you know where the river takes you? A waterfall." Nat cut youoff. "Now, right now, you're still on a boat, just gliding through the river, going where the flow takes you. Then some time now, you're gonna hit a fast stream until boom, waterfalls, and when you reach the top of the falls, inevitably, you're gonna fall... fall in love, that is, with the hunky rich man over there. See? Painting a picture. I can be smart too."

You kept Nat's words in the back of your mind until you gave Bucky and Sam their drinks, saving them for later. Nat had to go out for a while to smoke outside, leaving you, Sam and Bucky in the booth, discussing the project you had with Sam's line, updating you with all the dates and details. Seeing as you'll soon be leaving the bar by the end of the week, you offered to start first thing next week.

"But I could actually give you a little pitch presentation just before we start shooting," you added, "idea decks we can work with, like styles, and some mood boards that fit your whole apparel aesthetic. But first, I need to know your brand bible, like your target audience, the tone of your business — stuff like that — just so I can prepare for the presentation."

"Wow, you know a lot about the business industry." Sam replied, amused.

"I used to major in business and finance." You sighed. "It does come in handy with my photography."

Under the table, Bucky reached for your hand, interlacing your fingers together and squeezing your hand three times which elicited a smile.

"Oh, I can give you a tour!" Sam enthusiastically said. "We can go to the office and to some of the stores; maybe the one in Fifth Street. We've actually received the shipment for the new designs. We could discuss everything then. How does tomorrow sound? Bucky can come with ya."

"Tomorrow works, yes! Tomorrow's perfect." You agreed.

You broke out in a smile, leaning on Bucky's side who was more than glad to see you discussing with Sam about the project, squeezing you hand once more, three times.

"Then, it's settled!" Sam boomed. "Now, where's the toilet? I think I got a little too excited."

You threw you head back, laughing. "Right down the hall over there." You pointed.

As soon as Sam was gone, Bucky turned towards you and held your face with his hands, planting a soft kiss on your lips. "You sound so hot talking like that."

You chuckled, sliding closer towards him, your thighs brushing past each other. "You and your weird mind, Bucky I swear to God."

With his lips pressed on yours, you didn't even notice the door open, didn't even notice Steve walk in. You pulled away, hearing Steve clearing his throat. With your hands still on Bucky, you turned towards Steve, who was clearly entertained, and sent him a huge smile.

"H-hey, Rogers." You chuckled nervously. "You remember Bucky."

"Mr. Barnes." Steve nodded at Bucky.

"Mr. Rogers."

You frowned at their formal exchange. "Bucky's actually here with his friend, Sam Wilson. I'm starting a project with him for his business that'll start next week. We were just, uh, discussing the details."

"In his mouth?" Steve smirked.

"Steve." You hissed. "Not cool, man."

"So, where's this Sam Wilson?" Steve asked, looking to his right.

"On your left."

Steve turned around on his left at Sam's voice. Both men stared at each other for a while before introducing each other and shaking each other's hands. Weirded out, you turned to Bucky and asked if they knew each other, if the three of them knew each other (as you now remembered that time when Bucky and Steve met here in the bar).

Bucky shook his head no. "Maybe he's just one of those familiar faces you see on the street." He whispered, but as Steve went straight to his office, and as Sam got back in the booth, a weird tension surfaced that was cut off by Nat entering the bar, together with some customers who were more than happy to be the first ones here.

"That's my cue." You sighed, standing up and letting go of Bucky's hands before going to the counter and greeting the customers.

You felt your phone vibrate against your back pocket after a few seconds. You opened it, and on the screen was a message from Peter:

Sorry couldn't get to you sooner. Lost my charger on the way to the cabin! Schmidt didn't want me to borrow his until I did everything he told me to. Everything's great! I'll send you pictures when I can.

Hope Bucky's taking good care of you. Miss you, y/n. I'll see you in a few days!

Your fingers hovered on the screen as you glanced at Bucky who caught your eyes. He winked at you while taking a sip from his drink and licked his lip afterwards, eyeing you up and down.

Tell Schimdt I'll beat his ass when he comes back. See you in a few days, Parker!

A series of what happened between you and Bucky flashed in your mind, making you bite your lip.

And don't worry, Bucky's taking good care of me.

... such good care.

[kaypeace21]

do you think it’s possible sarah (hoppers daughter) was an early-formed alter that went dormant before the events of season one? it’d make a lot of sense with how much of hoppers arc in season one was him mourning her and channeling that grief into protecting will (which would make sense since he seems like a protecter to both will and el). love your posts!☺️

Yep . :D

I already discussed all of this in the original did post - how sarah was a “little” (kid ) alter. And how hopper was a protector /introject alter. I also discussed her going dormant as a major possibility in my did theory. My assumption is she either (a) “became dormant” like some alters do- aka they are “gone” sometimes for many years but can return . And this can happen in a myriad of ways - sometimes alters go dormant after they had a simulated death in the inner world . theoretically sarah had such a Death. And so did El. Death isn’t really a permanent thing for alters ...they usually will come back or stay dormant - unless the body of the host dies (or they integrate) . They can’t really die . I think it’s very possible she comes back and Hopper while exploring the various innerworlds of Will’s minds (like the Russian one, the memory scapes , etc ) reunites/ finds her . look at the st s4 movie inspirations. In ‘what dreams may come”  a guy with the guidance of his dead kid explore a heaven like world influenced by a painter’s emotions.We also have the movie ‘inside out’ -which involves “memory islands” (distinct worlds based on a child’s memories) which are influenced negatively by the kid being depressed she moved to California. The characters traveling to these memory islands are constructs of  kid’s mind -and 1 of them also has a guide helping them explore the ‘memory islands’. in  Inception a guy says he’s a construct of a guy’s mind and needs to help him escape the many different Ievels of the dream worlds.The in inception who made the worlds- had dad issues. 'the cell’also had alternate dimensions of a man's mind that a cop explored ( the dimensions were created by a man who was ab*sed by his dad). Movies like inception, matrix, Truman show, total recall, the cell, enter the void, wizard of oz, Peter Pan, hellraiser 2, dream warriors, bill & ted’s bogus journey, and welcome to marwen  also allude to this: because they involve entering simulated abstract worlds usually created/based on happy& traumatic memories/fears.Cough s4 using the movie wizard of oz quote “we’re not in Hawkins (kansas) anymore.While truman show/matrix are more about realizing your reality isn’t real.in bladerunner 2044/total recall it has the theme of false implanted memories… probably relating to hopper realizing he’s an alter and not in “actual Russia.” Before seeing the other segments of the innerworlds with sarah. Like in total recall- the bad ass spy is told all his memories: his wife/ years of marriage,  , his name, are just implanted memories. And she says “you’re life is a dream.” 

In s2 Nancy asks Steve how his “grandpa’s time in the war is a metaphor for your life?” And steve compares the mf to the germans in the war. Dr owens mentions Will has ptsd like “ (vietnam) soldiers’, Hopper saying he had buddies like Will . “In the 70s there was a study that compared the post-traumatic stress symptoms in Vietnam veterans and adult survivors of childhood s**ual ab*se. The study revealed that childhood s**ual ab*se is traumatizing and can result in symptoms comparable to symptoms from war-related trauma.” Hopper isn’t actually in Russia -but in one of the innerworlds (after he jumped through the rift of the machine- into Will’s mind). We’ll see flashbacks but also present circumstances of his imprisonment echo Will’s past with Lonnie (if the movies indicate anything)- being starved, guards getting payed in order to let other prisoners  r*pe a gay prisoner (than claim incorrectly because of his sexuality he wanted it) , as well as a gang of sadist men who r**e others and a warden using that as a threat to be compliant , being thrown in a dark room of solitary confinement and starved when they didn’t obey the warden, the warden being religious, etc. And the Anerican soldiers (in Vietnam) in the movies aren’t much better and do similarly horrific acts to civilians like r**e and bragging/ happily k*lling women, children, and the elderly. The drill sergant in vietnam calling them homophobic slurs & women, and chocking one of the soldiers with one hand, slapping one for not believing in christianity. Tying up a soldier in a bed , gagging him, beating him and saying “remember it’s just a dream.” Only praising them when good in fire arms.(movies : fullmetal jacket, papillon, shawshank redemption, platoon, welcome to marwen, etc ) . My assumption is  flashbacks of his life- will hint he’s an alter of Will’s-the boxes in the basement are “vietnam” ,“dad”, and “ny” (and these are the memories of his we’ll see). And some of the bad characters in said stories will also parallel Lonnie . For instance in s2, Jonathan mentions Indiana writer Vonnegut- In his book ‘slaughterhouse 5′- Vonnegut begins the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has “come unstuck in time”. It accounts of Billy Pilgrim's capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy's life with his dad, and his own wife and kids.Billy is forced to be part of the war and similar things against his free will. The moments start from his childhood when his father throws him in the water to teach him how to swim. He was unwillingly drafted into the war. Later, he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians  (aliens that are implied to be caused by his mental health issues/trauma) against his will. Therefore, he realizes that this concept is just an illusion.

  And some of the bad characters in said stories will also parallel Lonnie . Like how in ‘peterpan’- the young girl Wendy imagines netherland and the villain -captain hook- is based off her father ( in the movie they have the same voice actors/while in all stage productions the 2 characters are always played by the same actor). Similar to the other s4 film- ‘wizard of oz’ where the wicked witch of th west from the mythical land of Oz (is played by Dorothy’s real life mean neighbor in the real world/kansas). Or ‘in the cell’- every villain from the alternate-mind- dimensions is played by same actor in diff makeup. Not sure if they’d use Ross Patridge (actor of Lonnie) in this way . But it would be very interesting if (In makeup) Ross played many negative people in Hopper’s life/past -as a way to show Will’s past tr*uma.

Like also-look at Sarah’s tiger plushie! In chinese mythology/culture: “The tiger is personified by the constellation Orion (interesting given Sara’s interest in space/blackholes). The tiger represents protection over human life (hmm?). Tiger charms were used to keep away evil and disease (that’s awful ironic if she died in the manner she did). In Buddhism, wearing tiger skins during meditations was believed to bring protection from spiritual interference and potential harm while exploring astral dimensions.” HMMMMMMMMM  XD

Kali in the stranger things novel ‘Suspicious Minds’ says…

“I was named after a goddess. She wore a tiger skin and was fierce in battle.”

Then Kali says to Alice (a women who can see future visions): “I love you, Alice. We can be tigers together.”This parallel (in relation to Alice) is fascinating because Kali actually uses her powers to fake Alice’s death- and to trick Dr. Brenner, and allow Alice to escape. The allusion was so realistic, that Terry could even touch the ‘dead’ Alice.

So the tiger symbolism could be a HUGE hint- that Sarah’s death was simulated and she’ll come back and travel the innerworlds/alternate dimensions of Will’s mind (as Hopper’s guide). Hopper about sarah “galaxies the universe-she always understood that stuff.”

Another possibility (theory b) is she integrated with another alter or with Will (which means she can’t return) .Hopper saying about Sarah “the black hole it got her.” Could imply she integrated with the mf/shadow monster? And ,or maybe she will later ?

But... I lean heavily to theory (a) the most , though.

Obviously sarah has a lot of the connections to Will. will and Sarah both being into science, Sarah winning a spelling bee, Will winning the science fair, both being connected to tigers. Both hallucinating something no one else can see and people trying to snap the 2 out of what they’re viewing. Joyce saying as a witch she’ll eat Will. Parallels Hopper saying as an ogre he’ll eat sarah. Hopper, in s1, when seeing Will (with a vine in his mouth) has a flashback of Sarah on a mouth respirator. And he also has a flashback of Sarah when seeing Will’s lion plushie which resembled Sarah’s tiger plushie. And el also had a lion plushie-like Will’s in s1. Hopper monitored both Will and Sarah at the hospital when they were “dying”. Will has a fear of clowns- and Sarah’s hospital gown had clowns on them. All 3 kids draw.

Plus, we all know the parallels of Will to El (Hopper’s new daughter).

I discussed in my did theory that Hopper (as an adult alter) is a form of protector to all the kid alters - el, Sarah, and Will (host/core). And Hopper as an introject-alter (who are alters based on a person the child knows ) are usually put in the system cause the kid assumes that person could protect them . And since original-Hopper was a police man (a little kid could easily assume that). Although, because he’s a “father figure” for the system he has some of Lonnie’s traits- which are reflected in other perpetrator alters/ bad npcs in the system- Brenner, Neil, Billy, the evil’s Russians,etc . So sometimes he acts similar to a Perpetrator alter too . And I listed those examples/bad parallels extensively in the original did post (linked in the beginning).

And I used these quotes from psych papers in my original did post to pretty much sum up Hopper’s use in Will’s system .

“Introjects can also be based off of  figures that the dissociative child found strong, courageous, heroic, or otherwise worthy of being emulated and internalized and could theoretically protect them.”

“Older adult alters are created to serve a nurturing or parenting role, thus serving as a protector. (*protecting Will/el) . However, sometimes their older age is related to taking on the identification of the ab*ser and can therefore take on any of the other more hostile roles too ... Introjects which are mimicking ab*sers are trying to "keep you inline" in order to protect you from external ab*sers. They are copying behaviors shown to them by bad people, not harboring the intent, s*dism or imm*rality of the actual perpetrators.”

I think it pretty much sums up the nuances and motivations of Hopper’s character.

Thanks for the ask, anon :)

[thebirdandhersong]

Fairy tale retellings! because I couldn’t help myself (under the cut because I got carried away and remembered my fairy tale retelling phase from middle school........ oh boy)

Cinderella 

Cinderella (2015 Disney live action): beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL (the music! the script!! the Hope! the costumes! the dress! the gentleness at its heart! the overall design and the colours!) (I still believe it’s the best live action re-adaptation they’ve come up with so far) (then again they DID have one of the Rogue One writers and Kenneth Branagh--both of whom understand story AND fairy tales--on the team, and possibly the best combination of actors and costume designers)

Cinderella (Disney animated movie): like a dream. Can’t remember it that well because I haven’t watched it in over ten years, but I remember that I loved it

Cinderella, the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical featuring Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana: Laura’s Cinderella is so lively and hopeful and bright and affectionate and I Love Her!!! The script is also surprisingly funny, and the little changes they made (like the fairy godmother being an old beggar woman in the village, the subplot with her stepsister, the scene at the ball where she suggests that they should all be kind to one another, the fact that the prince is called His Royal Highness Christopher Rupert Windemere Vladimir Karl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman (HERMAN!) Gregory James....... iconic) added rather than detracted from the themes they chose to emphasize

A Cinderella Story: possibly one of my favourite films. I loved the fact that they knew each other before the ‘ball’. Loved the way the fairy tale was ‘translated’ into the 2000s. The friendship was strong with this one. I had the best time watching this movie. (Dress-wise, Hilary Duff’s dress is my least favourite, but that’s a minor quibble, and is also due to the fact that it has Lily and Laura’s gorgeous fluffy ballgowns to contend with, and that’s not fair competition)

Persuasion, by Jane Austen: does it count?? The way I see it, Persuasion is like Cinderella gone wrong (we discussed this in class, and my prof called Lady Russell a fairy godmother who means well but fails her protege before the story even begins. We talked about Anne’s ‘Cinderella’/makeover moment taking place over a longer period of time, about the ‘evil’ stepsisters, etc. etc. I’m not entirely sure I agree with every single comparison he made, but he made some Very interesting points).... at least the first time :)

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer. Oh, the images!!!!! Marissa Meyer is WONDERFUL at them. You wouldn’t think they’d translate well into a futuristic sci-fi (almost steampunk) world, but she did it SO brilliantly (the slipper! the ‘dress’! the whole family situation!)

Rapunzel

Tangled (Disney animated movie): an absolute joy. Rapunzel is an Ariel-like character who has hopes and dreams of her own, and I love how warm and vivacious and endearingly transparent she is. The dance scene is so, so lovely. (I stand by my opinion that very few little went right with Disney’s fairy tale retellings after Tangled.)

Cress, by Marissa Meyer: once again. Images. I can’t believe she managed to pull Rapunzel-in-space off so well. (Plus she’s a hacker, and such a sweetheart!!)

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (Disney animated movie): Amazing. Gorgeous. Brilliant. The buildings and the music and Belle (Belle, my darling!!) and the darker, more Gothic feel to the art and the design...... Yes

Beauty, by Robin McKinley: knocked it right out of the ball park, right through the atmosphere, right into outer space... The language is so lush and atmospheric, and even though I knew roughly what was going to happen, I loved every moment of it. She puts a special emphasis on family and on human connection and I Loved that so much.

Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley: also gorgeous!!!!! Beauty is still my favourite of the two, but this one was also a gem. (Again: the emphasis on family and sisterhood!!!)

Beauty and the Beast (the Broadway musical): Susan Egan’s voice is SO lovely. And Home deserved more than just an instrumental reference in the 2017 version.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George: the Best. The sisters are easier to distinguish, the changes/things she added (the war, the queen’s past, etc.) make the story even more interesting, and Galen is fantastic (courteous, kind, brave, AND likes to knit?? NICE)

The Barbie movie: I loved it when I was a little girl (it is also Muffin-approved!)

The Princess and the Pea

@fictionadventurer​‘s Wodehousian one :) which is an absolute delight. Every once in a while I remember it and then can’t stop smiling

The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale: the Best. And by the Best, I mean the absolute Best. Her writing is so beautiful and her characters are so real and distinctive. The worldbuilding is fascinating. It’s so simple and so beautiful, and is near-perfect as a retelling and as a novel. The rest of the Bayern series is also wonderful!!

The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (Disney movie): can’t remember it very well, except for the chef who wanted to cook Sebastian and also Ariel’s very cool sisters.... the music and Ariel’s character are lovely :)

The Little Android, by Marissa Meyer: genius. The first time I read it, I cried furiously. What does it mean to be human?? Marissa Meyer loves to talk about this in her other books (through malfunctioning robots, androids, werewolves, etc.). And the conclusion she comes to is always the same (and always done so beautifully): it’s about love and sacrifice (and tbh even though she’s talking about this through robots and werewolves, she’s got a point!!! When you act with love and self-sacrifice, you reflect the character of the Maker and His love and self-sacrifice, which is what makes us in that moment the most human--or at least human in the sense that that’s what we were made to be and to do towards our neighbours and enemies)

Ponyo (Studio Ghibli movie): this counts, doesn’t it?? A film that is an absolute joy through and through. It doesn’t completely stick to the original fairy tale but it also talks about compassion, kindness, and love as a choice

The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog (Disney animated movie): can’t remember it very well, but Anika Noni Rose has a fantastic voice, and I loved Tiana’s practicality, optimism, and kindness

The Prince of the Pond, by Donna Jo Napoli: can’t remember it either (read it in third grade) but basically it’s about how the prince turns into a frog and starts a family with another frog (the story is told from her perspective). I do remember that the ending made me so sad, though

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty (Disney movie): can’t remember it at all either, except for: 1) Once Upon a Dream (a brilliant song) and 2) forget pink or blue. I liked her grey dress the most

Spindle’s End, by Robin McKinley: the story was told in such an interesting way (the animals! the way she wrote about love and protecting the people you love and self-sacrifice in familial and platonic relationships!) with Robin McKinley’s beautiful style

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

East, by Edith Pattou: I was obsessed with this book in elementary school. Obsessed. I kept rereading it over and over again because I just loved it so much. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, but I can remember certain scenes (Rose entering the ballroom for the first time, the white bear’s hulking figure in the doorway, the architecture of the hall where she washes the shirt, her fingers running over the wax, the reunion scene) so vividly as if it had been a movie instead of a book, or if I’d actually been there, experiencing what Rose was experiencing

Orpheus and Eurydice (which kind of counts)

Hadestown (the Broadway musical, the original cast, AND Anais Mitchell’s original concept album): I’ve talked about it so much I probably shouldn’t even start slkfjsdl;kfjlk; I just wanted an excuse to mention it again

Tam Lin

Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones: I loved it when I first read it but I was so confused and so fascinated by it.

The Snow Queen

Frozen (Disney animated movie): no (insert heart emoji)

And contemporary(?) books that are considered modern classics, if not modern fairy tales (depends on how you look at it, really):

Peter Pan

Peter Pan (Disney animated movie): a childhood favourite!!!

Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry: the whole series is so much fun (and they’re among some of the funniest books I’ve read). This one serves as a sort of prequel to Peter Pan, but it’s safer to say that Dave Barry reimagined the whole story.

Peter and the Starcatcher (Broadway play adaptation of the book, which is a reimagining of the original Peter Pan..... yeah): the source material is incredibly funny, so naturally the play adaptation makes you laugh until your sides feel ready to split (I mean!! You have Christian Borle as Black Stache, Adam Chanler Berat as Peter, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Molly..... they’re all brilliant) The script, the way the cast makes use of the set and props, the perfect comic delivery....... love it

Finding Neverland, a musical adaptation of the movie (the A.R.T. production with Jeremy Jordan as James Barrie): the music is so good, and the way they write about the value of looking at the world through the eyes of a child?? of seeing the beauty in everything?? of hope and imagination and wonder?? If it weren’t for the way it handles adultery (even emotionally cheating!) and divorce :( but Laura Michelle Kelly is absolutely enchanting, and the script is also incredibly funny and heartwarming

Tiger Lily, by Jodi Lynn Anderson: a twisted fairy tale... it was quite disturbing at times, but it was also beautiful and heartbreaking. It’s a darker take on the story, which I tend not to like (at all), but the way it explored Tiger Lily and Peter was quite interestng

The Wizard of Oz

WIcked, the Stephen Schwartz musical--I haven’t read the book: as far as retellings-about-the-villain-of-the-original-story goes this one is my favourite. It is another twisted fairy tale, though, and there’s a constant undercurrent of doom and dread, even in the motifs Stephen Schwartz uses... the ending is not completely happy, but the music is FANTASTIC (Mr. Schwartz also did The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Prince of Egypt!!)

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland (Disney movie): another childhood favourite... I also haven’t seen this one in over ten years, but I can still remember specific scenes very clearly in my head

Alice by Heart: a musical about a girl called Alice Spencer whose coping mechanism (quite literally) is Alice in Wonderland. She knows it by heart (again. Literally) and she dives into the world as a form of escapism (LITERALLY. There’s even a song at the end where the characters acknowledge how unhealthy this is). There’s a lot about growing up, losing a loved one, learning to let go... about self-deception and grief and the control one has over one’s life (unfortunately it IS subtly antagonistic towards Christianity at times)..... i do wish that writers didn’t have to treat sexual maturity as the most prominent/interesting part of coming-of-age stories, though. The characters, the set and lighting and costume design (BRILLIANT, by the way!!!!)... all wonderful. But the strangely sexual references can be a bit uncomfortable. (Really!! You can tell a coming-of-age story WITHOUT that stuff, you know!!!!!)

That Disney Movie directed by Tim Burton: wouldn’t recommend. Alice doesn’t need to be a warrior. (At ALL.)

Would also like to mention: Princess Tutu :)

[bettycooperoutfitwatch]

4x15 Chapter Seventy-Two: To Die For

Jughead died as he lived:

The world’s most dramatic bitch.

But that’s okay, because his plan hinges on everyone else in Riverdale being just as messy—and it works!

We finally reach the flash forward we witnessed in 410: the cropped red trousers, the stripe-y Juliet puff shoulders.

I’m not even gonna get into the waste of public resources (search parties, forensics, all of this costs money), I’m just gonna wave my hands and shrug, it’s Riverdale, etc. 

One, this shot is really well set-up (the mirror fracture? Nice), and two, appears to have been filmed on a potato.

Two potatoes. 

Three if you include Kevin, whose exposition-delivery work in this episode is especially thankless.

One of Betty’s two most-utilized purses this season, which are actually the same purse with slightly different stylings. This one is the simpler of the two.

The peacoat we’ve also seen a few times. 

Cousin Cheryl puts Cousin Betty on suicide watch. It’s a lot. 

So much of the core four’s plan hinges on other people. This is pure Scooby Doo logic. Let’s not dwell.

I repeat, for like the 89th time, this show hasn’t taken set dec photos since season one. 

The raccoon eyes!

We’ve literally seen all of this before, so I won’t repeat myself.

Well, spoke too soon.

This sweater-of-much-debate first popped up in a flash forward at the end of 405 and then once more in 408. We’re really getting to the end of these flash forwards now, it would seem. 

...

Do you think Betty and Jug got into some felon role-play after all this was over?

You know what, never mind, never mind. 

🙃

This shirt looks a lot like one Betty wore in 105. Maybe they’re the same, maybe they’re not. There’s a lot of season one touches in this ep. 

Well.

Initiate phase 2 of the plan, I guess: let’s plan a funeral. 

Stripe-y ribbed turtleneck and a suede mini. This outfit will come up again, we’ll talk about it then. 

Throughout this episode, we see a lot of different characters wear touches of tartan. It’s not the first time we’ve seen most of these people wear tartan or some kind of check print detail (yes, even Hiram)—but here it sort of reads as their tribute to Jughead. 

Veronica’s collar.

Hiram’s shirt.

Archie’s tie.

FP goes for a glen plaid suit and a windowpane tie, the extra is clearly genetic.

Betty’s funeral attire is very classically Betty—sheer, swiss-dot puff sleeves, and A-line cut to the dress. Her hair is notably down, like the first time we saw her at a funeral. 

A lot of people argue that Betty wears what looks like a J+B necklace in Jug’s dream opening to 222. I always thought that was her B pendant necklace, but idk anymore—I could be convinced given its showing here. 

(Jellybean’s tights.) 

Peep Betty’s pointy-toe kitten heels, with the little metallic embellishments. 

Does Riverdale have a very active amateur theatrical society? Everyone’s really bringing their A game here.

Betty reads an excerpt from Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “The Final Problem,” which...girl.

To keep it brief (ha), Conan Doyle intended “The Final Problem” to be the last Sherlock Holmes story—which he tried to ensure by killing off his hero. 

But then fans got mad at him and after a while of that, his hero rose from the dead in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

What a way to telegraph, Elizabeth. 

(Jellybean’s jellybean necklace!!)

(There’s nothing so enjoyable as hearing Ms. Reinhart call someone a bitch in that Midwestern twang. Truly, a delight.) 

Anyway. People still have doubts about Jug’s life-status. 

Initiate phase 3: the nuclear option. 

I really can’t tell if this ribbed long-sleeve turtleneck is a pale pink or an oatmeal, and that frustrates me. If it’s pink, well then Betty’s wearing pink and a rusty red-ish color—meaning the next phase of this master plan is underway, and it involves Cheryl being Riverdale’s other resident chief messy bitch:

Pink and red—as we’ve discussed several times before—are Betty’s Archie colors. 

They’re not always a symbol of a romantic connection, but that’s defo the weight costuming is trying to impart here. 

At this point, we (technically) don’t know that Jughead isn’t dead. Using this motif in this moment is just another way of trying to convince the audience that the act everyone is putting on here is real—both the internal audience within the show (RHS, the town-at-large, but more specifically the Stonewall group), and the external one (us).

Visually there’s also almost too much going on with this shirt. Contrasting patterns, contrast v-neck, Juliet puffs on the sleeves. It’s a lot, it’s visually confusing in a way that mirrors the actual plot machinations of the story. Her mental state is stressed. 

I include it for the boots and the skinny jeans, which are very season one-esque. Don’t @ me. 

A moment for Veronica’s knit. 

Betty wore this very shirt, in another coloring, in 318! I like to think of this as another little costuming easter egg, that it suggests B & V are secretly on the same team here—and after all, they are. 

Same purse from earlier in the ep, and a jacket that first debuted in season 3. 

That’s the face of a girl on a mission.

Listen.

We know. 

Boyfriend’s S shirt. 

...consider how tame that fake kiss above is in light of this message.

Anyway: 

Pour one out for the sex bunker of death!! 

What favor did Betty do for Archie such that she is owed a milkshake? Give me friendship shit!!!

Visually, this is an intentional throwback to episode 102, in which Archie tries to apologetically text Betty after telling her he’ll never love her, only to be shut down.

The yellow shirt, the ballet bun, the shorts, the same gd teal phone case. It’s all intentional.

415: 

102: 

We haven’t seen Betty and Archie interact much this season between the time Fred died and...basically this plot. So these itty bitty crumbs are what’s supposed to make us believe all the shit that goes down several eps from now, but we’ll cross that (very dumb) bridge when we get to it. 

The cable-knit is kind of season one throwback, too.

On the right her earring looks like a heart with an arrow through it, but idk idk. 

Her kicks are the same she wore in 403. 

I could say I’m including this here because she’s wearing plaid, it’s in honor of Jug, blah blah—but honestly it’s just cause she looks gorg here. That’s all.

Summary: T e n outfits, ten. That includes two we’ve seen previously in flash forwards, two sets of pajamas, and one instance of boyfriend-wear. 

Is Betty a River Vixen??: ...only in Jug’s Stonewall spank bank. Also, isn’t the season over? Football ended. It’s fake murder season now. 

Backpack 2.0?: Mhm.

The floggingink Memorial Peter Pan Collar Count: with all the season 1 shit being thrown at us, you’d expect it, wouldn’t you? But no. 

Best outfit: I’m into the funeral look I think! 

[idkiwillfindone]

Post Sky High part 1

Sumary:

Giorno, Guido, Ungalo and Prada finally reached the little girl's house but there are bad news waiting for them

TW:

Implied child abuse

This is a part two of Post Bohemian Rhapsody

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Prada didn’t liked when strangers spoken to her, especially if they didn’t had the courtesy that she deserved, so, naturally, she was really annoyed when a weird man screamed at her for reading too loud, and on top on that the guy even took her book whitot asking. She stayed silent for the rest of flight swearing that she would make him pay for his impudence. But then when they arrived to Key West and she looked over him she realized that the man fell asleep while reading, how could someone find Peter Pan’s story so boring to fall asleep? To her the story seemed so fun and interesting, did this guy just hated fairytales in general? No that was impossible, she loved fairytales, each one of them created new worlds, experiences and memories, she just couldn't imagine someone who hated all fairytales, that guy had to have a favorite story and she was determined to find out which one.

Giorno checked on the rearview mirror of the car, the two guest had fallen asleep hours ago probably tired out by the flight. Guido was next to him peacefully driving, fortunately he hadn’t realized yet that there where four people in the car, their destination was Orlando, the city where Prada lived whit her parents, Giorno didn’t really believed the little girl when she said that the man, during the road trip he learned that his name was Ungalo, was her babysitter and he had reasons to believe that she was actually trying to run away from home, once they would got to her house he would have judged if her parents were worthy of raising a kid, but he played along whit her just to have an excuse to keep the man close. He hadn’t told Guido yet but from the moment he stepped in the airport Giorno felt a weird connection whit him and he was pretty sure that the man was able to see GER, he wanted to know who this Ungalo really was and then decide what to do whit him. “Giogio!” His boyfriend’s brought him back in the present as Giorno saw out of the car Prada’s home... or what was left of it, the whole block of houses was destroyed, the scene was full of policemans and ambulances, it seemed to be in a post apocalyptic film, “what the hell” Giorno muttered, “ugh- what’s going on, are we arrived yet?” he heard from behind his seat, looking again in the rearview mirror he saw Prada and Ungalo stretching out after their long nap, “what the fuck happened here?” Said Ungalo after taking a better look at the outside of the car, “oh god, Giorno” Guido started “it’s because of the four, we are four! How did i not noticed before!” Well there he goes “what is this guy talking about?” Asked Ungalo confused “it’s a long story” Giorno simply replied “listen we’re going to find Prada’s parents, you stay in car sir” the blonde got out of the car whit his partner and the little girl “remember running away is useless” he added before ultimately approaching the rubble.

“Excuse me mister officer” Giorno said to one of the policeman that were scanning the area “can i ask what happened here?” The cop took a deep breath before answering “I’m sure you’re aware of that strange phenomenon that involved the whole world just a bunch of hours ago” “the fictional characters that came to life?” “Yes, Superman came to life in this block and fought whit one of his enemy, leaving twelve injureds and thirtyfive dead” Giorno and Guido shared a worried look aware of what this could mean, “sir we were looking for this little girl parents, she told us that they lived in this zone” the cop crouch down to Prada’s level “hey little miss, can you point me your house?” Prada smiled pleased by respect that the cop was showing her, then she pointed to one of the many pile of rubble, the policeman got up whit sad look on his face he slowly shook his head before returning to his work, The two men looked at each other again, they both silently agreed to let Guido handle the situation with Prada, he was pretty good whit kids after all, “hey little one are you ok?” He gently asked “i don’t have any other relatives that can take care of me” she mumbled “does this mean that I can spend more time whit you two?” Prada continued whit more energy “of course honey, we’ll be by your side through this this difficult time” “sweet! You guys are a lot cooler than my parents, i mean he look like Rapunzel and you have a gun” Prada immediately responded happier than ever “sure, but you don’t have to bottle up your feelings, you can cry if you feel like it” Guido tried again “nah i’m fine, oh! What’s our next stop? A library? McDonald’s? Disneyland? Can we go to Disneyland? I always wanted to visit it” “sure but-” “yey let’s go” the little girl happily ran back to the car excited for what was waiting her for the rest of week “well she got over that quickly” commented Giorno not less surprised than Guido “so... what now?” His boyfriend asked scratching the back of his head “we go to Disneyland, again” the blonde calmly replied “and if Prada really doesn’t has no one that can take care of her we will bring her and her babysitter back in Italy with us” he added as he started to walk to the car “that seams like a plan” concurred Guido.

When the two of them reached the car the first thing that they noticed was that , besides Prada, the vehicle was empty, when Giorno asked her where Ungalo was she simply responded “i don’t know” the blonde scanned the crowd until he found a familiar purple beanie trying to get away from them, Giorno sighed as he summed Gold Experiences Requiem and returns Ungalo’s actions back to zero “what did I tell you about trying to run away?” Giorno asked whit the same tone a father who’s calmly scolds his son would use “oh come on what do you want from me? I heard what that cop said, the brat’s parents are dead, they can’t lecture me for neglecting a task that they didn’t gave me” Ungalo protested “since Guido and i decided to take Prada’s custody we will need you and all the instructions that her parents gave you” That wasn’t one of Giorno’s most brilliant lie but for the moment it would have work “I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THAT KID IS! god! you are just insufferable as my...” Ungalo stopped as the realization of how to escape from this situation came to him “my stupid brothers!” He exclaimed whit new energy “they know that i would never babysit a child because they’re just useless little parasites” now that striked Giorno interest “you have brothers?” “Yea! They’re two, last I saw them they were in an hospital with...” He hesitated again, this time all the joyful mood he had gained disappeared as he remembered about the other man in the hospital, he had fucked up way too many time as kid for forgetting what could happen if he disappointed a person older or stronger than him “Ungalo?” The blonde called “is everything ok?” His voice sounded genuinely worried which just made Ungalo more pissed whit him, this guy had no right to interrupt his depressing childhood memories “yea yea” he quickly dismissed him, Giorno nodded to his response but mentally took note of his behavior “as i was saying” Ungalo restarted “last time I saw them they where in a hospital whit a plan to get rid of a bitch called Jolyne and her friends” “hey Giorno’s great niece is named Jolyne too” interrupted Guido “what weird coincidence” “yep weird, unlike the fact that i don’t give a fuck about Giorno’s family tree” Ungalo remarked in a monotone-passive aggressive tone, the gunslinger decided to keep quiet for the rest of the other man explanation “the closest to our position now should be Rykiel” he lied “alright then, let’s go to find this Rykiel” the blonde respond hopping that this other brother would be more collaborative, “let’s find him quickly” Guido added “we are still four Giorno, we cannot take a risk like this anymore”.

So their next stop was decided and thanks to Ungalo and Rykiel’s family connections it was easy to track the other brother position. Unfortunately for the little girl their trip to Disneyland was delayed. She quietly sat in the backseat looking at the landscape go by, “hey, uh, Prada?” Called Guido from the passenger seat earning her attention, he wanted to do a last tentative to get her to talk about her parents, she had just lost her family the kid had to show some reaction “are you sure that everything is alright? You know, about your parents” “I’m ok, especially cause this means that I don’t have to see my therapist anymore” she responded happily, once again Guido didn’t expected this answer “a therapist?” “Yes, he said that I had to see him twice a week” she promptly explained “he always makes me do all this boring things like speaking about my feelings, talking about the other’s feelings and some more stupid stuff” “sounds like hell” Ungalo commented mostly to himself than anybody in the car “exactly! And everything because one of my teachers snitched on me after i pushed her down the stairs” the car fell silent after Prada’s words said so casually, the three man needed to elaborate them “y-you pushed down the stairs your teacher?” Normally Giorno hated repeat a phrase, it didn’t matter if it was one of his own or someone else’s, but in that moment he really couldn’t find anything else to say “and a girl on a wheelchair” the kid proudly added “the jury gave her the ballet trophy that i wanted” “so let me get this straight” interjected Ungalo “you physically attack two persons” Prada turned over him with an annoyed face, she had this conversation thousands times and it always went the same “yes” she angrily muttered “whitot verbally attacking them first?” Now her expression was a total surprise one, that was definitely new “yes?” The man let out a loud sigh of frustration “goddamit children are so dumb, you cannot physically attack someone right out of the blue like that, you need to make sure that whoever you’re attacking is afraid of you” “Ungalo I don’t think this something you should teach her” intervened Giorno, his normally calm voice betrayed a worry tone, But apparently Prada didn’t agreed whit him “no no why? I want to know how to make people afraid of me” then she turned towars Ungalo whit sparkly eyes “please theach me” “it’s not that hard kid” The man began whitot any trace of hesitation “you just need to find your victims weaknesses, there’s anything that’s making that teacher you attacked vulnerable?” “She was kinda sad for her divorce” “there! That’s something you could have use” Prada stayed quiet listening in awe as the man kept talking, she didn't even remotely expect that this Ungalo would actually be so cool, but it was nice surprise, meanwhile Giorno and Guido sat whit their eyes whide opened while they listened to a twentythree years old man teaching a ten years old how to verbally abuse the people around her, Giorno, Giorno, Giorno! the blonde heard his boyfriend call through his stand yes Guido he responded already knowing what he wanted to say when we’re going to return in Italy we’re going to find a good therapist he stopped only to hear that Ungalo was still going on whit his disturbing explanation for both

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I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

I really wanted to include Rykiel in this chapter here, but it was becoming too long and i’m and the school is draining me from every energy, i swear that he is going to be the first character to appear in the second part. Also I’m sorry if in some parts the story is rushed but has i said school etc

[erictmason]

The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day Four

(Sorry for the delay on this one, Life proved just a bit too busy the other day to finish it; my “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” review is gonna be pushed back as a result too.  But!  No worries, on we go. ^_^)

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Writers: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly

Technically speaking, Gareth Edwards’ “Godzila” from 2014 was the first entry in what is now generally referred to as “The Monsterverse”, an attempt by Warner Bros. Studios and Legendary Pictures to do a Marvel Studios-style series of various interconnected movies (and which, like most such attempts to cash in on that particular trend, hasn’t really panned out; “Godzilla VS. Kong” seems likely to be its grand finale as far as movies are concerned, the only two “names” it had going for it are Godzilla and Kong themselves, and even at its most successful it was never exactly a Powerhouse Franchise).  But the thing is, when that movie was made, the idea of a “Monsterverse” did not yet exist; it was only well after the fact that Legendary and Warner Bros. got the idea to turn a new “Kong” project into the building block of a Shared Universe of their own that they could connect with the 2014 “Godzilla”, with a clear eye on getting to remake one of the most singularly iconic (and profitable) Giant Monster Movies of all time.  As you might guess from that description, however, said “Kong” project also had not originally been intended for such a purpose; it would not be until 2016 that it would be retooled from its original purpose (a prequel to the original “King Kong” titled simply “Skull Island”) into its present form, which goes out of its way to reference Monarch, the monster-tracking Science organization seen over in 2014’s “Godzilla” and which includes a very obviously Marvel-inspired post-credits stinger explicitly tying Kong and Godzilla’s existences together.  

The resulting film is fun enough, all things told, but that graft is also really, distractingly obvious.

Honestly, I wish I knew why I’m not, generally, fonder of “Skull Island” than I am.  It’s not as if, taken as a whole, it does anything especially bad; indeed it does a great deal that is actively good.  Consider, for example, the rather unique choice to make it a Period Piece; that’s decently rare for a Monster Movie as it is (indeed one of the only other examples that springs to mind for me is Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of “King Kong”, which chose to retain the original’s 1933 setting), and it’s rarer still that the era it chooses to inhabit is an immediately-post-Vietnam 1970’s.  Aesthetically speaking, the movie takes a decent amount of fairly-obvious influence from that most classic of Vietnam-era films, “Apocalypse Now” (a fact that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was always fairly open about), and it results in some of the movie’s strongest overall imagery (in particular a shot of Kong, cast in stark silhouette, standing against the burning sun on the horizon with a fleet of helicopters approaching him, one of a surprisingly small number of times the movie plays with visual scale to quite the same degree or with quite the same success as “Godzilla” 2014).  It also means the movie is decked out in warm, lush colors that really do bring out all the personality of its Jungle setting in the most compelling way and, given how important the setting is to the film as a whole, that proves key; Skull Island maybe doesn’t become a character in its own right the way the best settings should (too much of our time is spent in fairly indistinct forests especially), but it does manage to feel exciting and unusual in the right ways more often than not.  The “Apocalypse Now” influence also extends to our human cast,  which is sizeable enough here (in terms of major characters we need  to pay attention to played by notable actors, “Skull Island” dwarfs “Godzilla” 2014 by a significant margin) that the framework it provides-a mismatched group defined by various interpersonal/intergenerational tensions trying to make their way through an inhospitable wilderness, ostensibly in search of a lost comrade-is decently necessary.  Though here we already run into one of those aspects of “Skull Island” that doesn’t quite land for me.  Taken as a whole, it sure feels like the human characters here should be decently interesting; certainly, our leads are all much better defined and more engagingly performed than Ford Brody, to draw the most immediately obvious point of comparison.  Brie Larson (as journalistic Anti-War photographer Mason Weaver), Tom Hiddleston (as former British Army officer turned Gun For Hire James Conrad), and John C. Reilly (as Hank Marlow, a World War II soldier stranded on Skull Island years ago) definitely turn in decently strong performances; I wouldn’t call it Career Best work for any of them (Hiddleston especially feels like he’s on auto-pilot half the time, while Larson has to struggle mightily against how little the script actually gives her to work with when you stop and look at it) but they at least prove decently enjoyable to watch (Reilly especially does a solid job of making his character funny without quite pushing him over the edge into Total Cartoon Territory).  I likewise feel like Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard has the potential to be a genuinely-great character; his lingering resentment at the way the Vietnam War played out and the way that feeds into his determination to find and defeat Kong is, again, a clever and compelling use of the 70’s period setting, it gives us a good, believable motivation with a clear and strong Arc to it, and Jackson does a really solid job of playing his Anger as genuine and poignant rather than simply petulant or crazed.  But there’s just too much chaff amongst the wheat, too much time and energy devoted to characters and ideas that don’t have any real pay-off.  This feels especially true of John Goodman’s Bill Randa, the Monarch scientist who arranges the whole expedition; the Monarch stuff in general mostly feels out of place, but Randa in particular gets all of these little notes and beats that seem meant to go somewhere and then just kind of don’t.  Which is kind of what happens with most of the characters in the movie, is the thing; we spend a lot of screen-time dwelling on certain aspects of their backstories or personalities, and then those things effectively stop mattering at all after a certain point, even Packard’s motivations.  A Weak Human Element was one of the problems in “Godzilla” 2014 as well, though, and you’ll recall I quite liked that movie.  There, though, the human stuff was honestly only ever important for how it fed into the monster stuff; it was the connective tissue meant to get us from sequence to sequence and not much more.  Here, though, it forms the heart and soul of the story, and that means its deficiencies feel a lot more harmful to the whole.

Still, those deficiencies really aren’t that severe, and moreover, like I was saying before, there’s a lot about “Skull Island” to actively enjoy.  The Monsters themselves do remain the central draw, after all, and for the most part the movie does a solid job with that aspect of things.  It does not, perhaps, recreate “Godzilla” 2014’s attempt to make believable animals out of them (even as it does design most of them with even more obvious, overt Real World Animal elements), but there is a certain playful energy that informs them at a conceptual level that I appreciate.  Buffalos with horns that look like giant logs with huge strands of moss and grass hanging off their edges, spiders whose legs are adapted to look like tree trunks, stick bugs so big that their camouflage makes them look like fallen trees…the designs feel physically plausible (especially thanks to some strong effects work that makes them feel well inserted into the real environments), but there’s a slightly-humorous tilt to a lot of them that I appreciate, especially since it never outright winks at the audience in a way that would undercut the stakes of the story. Kong too is very well done; rather than the heavily realistic approach taken by the Peter Jackson version from 2005, this Kong is instead very much ape-like but also very clearly his own creature (in particular he stands fully erect most of the time), with a strong sense of Personality to him as well; some of the best parts of the movie are those times where we simply peek in on Kong simply living his life, even when that life is one that is, by nature, violent and dangerous.  Less successful, sadly, are his nemeses, the Skullcrawlers; very much like “Godzilla” 2014, Kong is here envisioned as a Natural Protection against a potentially-dangerous species that threatens humanity (or in this case the Iwi Tribe who live on Skull Island, but we’ll talk more about them later), and while they’re hardly bad designs (the way their snake-like lower bodies give them a lot of neat tricks to play against their enemies in battle are genuinely fun in the right sort of Scary Way), they’re also pretty bland and forgettable, even compared to the MUTOS.  That said, they serve their purpose well enough, and their big Action Scene showdowns with Kong are genuinely solid.  Indeed, the movie’s big climactic brawl between Kong and the biggest of the Skullcrawlers has a lot of good pulpy energy to it (particularly with how Kong winds up using various tools picked up from all around the battlefield to give himself an edge), likewise there’s a certain Wild Fun to the sequence where our hapless humans have to try and survive a trek through the Crawlers’ home-turf.

Where things get a bit tricky again is when the movie attempts to put its own spin on “Godzilla”’s conception of its monsters as part of their own kind of unique ancient eco-system. The sense of Grandeur that gave a lot of that aspect such weight there is mostly absent here, especially; there are instances where some of that feeling comes through (Kong’s interactions with some of the non-Crawler species, for example, do a good job giving us an endearing sense of how Kong fits into this world), but far more often it treats the monsters as Big Set-Piece Attractions.  Which is fine as far as it goes, it just also means a lot of them aren’t as memorable or impactful as I might like.  Meanwhile, the way the Iwis have built their home to accommodate, interact with, and protect themselves from the island’s bestiary feels like a well-designed concept that manages to suggest a lot of History without having to spell it out for us in a way that I appreciated (I would also be inclined to apply this to the very neat multi-layered stone-art used to portray Kong and the Crawlers except that the sequence where we see them is the most overt “let’s stop and do some world-building” exposition dump in the whole movie).  But the Iwis in general are one of the more difficult elements of the movie to process, too; it seems really clear there was a deliberate effort here to avoid the most grossly racist stuff that has been present in prior attempts to portray the Natives of Skull Island, and as far as it goes I do think those efforts bear some fruit; we are, at the very least, very far away from the Scary Ooga-Booga tone of, say, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, and that feels like it counts for something.  I just also feel like there’s some dehumanizing touches to their portrayal (in particular they never speak; I don’t mean to imply that Not Speaking equals Inhuman, but the fact that we are not made privy to how exactly they do communicate means we’re very much kept at arm’s length from them in a way that seems at least somewhat meant to alienate us from them), especially given their role in the story as a whole is relatively minor.  

At the end of the day, though, all the movie’s elements, good and bad, don’t really feel like they add up together coherently enough to make an impact.  And I think if I had to try and guess why, even as I find it wholly enjoyable with a lot to genuinely recommend it by, I don’t find myself especially enamored by “Skull Island”.  It has a lot of different ideas of how to approach its story-70’s pastiche, worldbuilding exercise, Monster Mash-but doesn’t seem to quite succeed at realizing any of them fully, indeed often allowing them to get in each other’s ways.  It isn’t, again, a bad movie as a result of that; there really isn’t any stretch of it where I found myself bored or particularly unentertained.  But I did paradoxically find myself frequently wanting more, even as by rights the movie delivers on basically what I was looking for from it.   

[imaginedigimon]

Greetings, this is Rene Astle. I have a question for you. What will it be like if Digimon Adventures 1 and 2, and Digimon: The Movie have a crossover with the animated Disney films and Toy Story? If so, the animated Disney villains for Digimon would've included Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Jafar from Aladdin, Emperor Zurg from Toy Story 2, Hades from Hercules, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.

Greetings! Am I supposed to know who Rene Astle is? I’m bad with names

The second part of your request wasn’t exactly phrased like a question, so this is a reminder that I take requests, not demands :) but I do thank you for the suggestions to make this a little easier!

This is an interesting one, indeed!

Digimon Adventure Meets Disney/Pixar

Honestly, this might’ve taken the turn of “worlds collide” rather than your classic Disney Channel crossover episode in which the logic doesn’t really add up, but it’s our favorite characters meeting so who cares?

That might’ve been a vague Kingdom Hearts reference, but I haven’t played the games and read like 1 volume of some manga series, so I can’t actually tell xD

Naturally, the kids think at first that the villains in question are Digimon or something, like how else do you explain the weird Darth Vader-esque robot coming after them?

Then Izzy realizes that something happened and the Digital World and another dimension (or six, depending on what you think about the separation of the Disneyverse, or possible lack thereof) have collided

This takes a sort of Dark Masters arc turn, but the kids are prepared since this isn’t their first rodeo

They sort of try to split up to divide and conquer considering what the villains’ specialties are

Captain Hook and Ursula are the seafaring villains, so obviously they send Joe on that one. But they overheard Hook saying something about fairies, so Mimi came along for the ride, too. And Cody came with since he’s got Submarimon, which is helpful for reconnaissance.

Since you asked specifically for the movie and 01/02, Tri has not happened as of yet, so unfortunately, Rosemon and Vikemon do not make an appearance. BUT THAT’S FINE. I think.

Knowing Disney villains, Hook and Ursula probably don’t exactly get along, so they’re “separated”, but Flotsam and Jetsam are keeping an eye on Hook just in case.

So Ursula sees right away when Zudomon and Lillymon attack... but not much else, because Submarimon disabled her little spy system ;) [EXCELLENT WORK, CODY, WE LOVE YOU]

Ursula tries to come to her ally’s aid, only to see that, naturally, the pirates were not prepared for a giant viking turtle and his flower fairy companion, so they’re all knocked out. Joe’s trying to steer the ship, and I think we all know what happened when Prince Eric did that >w>

Team Seafarer hath succeeded in their goal.

Arguably, Jafar might be the smartest of all the villains in this crossover (I have NOT seen Maleficent, don’t get on my case, but YES, I do consider her quite genius as well, I mean---literally laid in wait for 16 years just to put a girl to sleep THAT’S DEDICATION) so Izzy, of course, has to go take care of that. Ken was a genius because of the Dark Spores, but... he’s smart, too. So he comes along. And T.K.’s a little shit, like Aladdin was, so naturally he insists on coming along. (Also because he’s a smooth talker.)

Part of the plan was letting themselves get captured.

T.K. smooth talked Jafar into believing he would join his side, and Jafar had heard from a restrained Gennai (poor Gennai didn’t deserve it) that T.K. had one of the hella powerful Crests, so who was he to doubt this boy?

He’s so easily wooed by promises of power.

Jafar greatly underestimated the power of Digivolving, so as soon as T.K. got Patamon up to MagnaAngemon, he was able to free Izzy and Ken. Jafar, of course, had the genie-ish powers and tried to magic himself away, but when you’ve got MegaKabuterimon and Stingmon around, you start to get squeamish of giant bugs.

Also, electricity-based powers used on a guy who hadn’t really encountered electricity before? Pretty powerful.

I’ve never seen T.K. so excited to give a fist bump to Ken.

3 down, 3 to go.

Hades had the terrifying fire thing going on (plus his amazing wit), and Maleficent had the fire-breathing dragon. So of course the fire kids were sent after them. Tai, Sora, and Davis had some interesting team potential, let me tell ya.

Davis is annoying. We all know this. But so is Tai. So basically, the Goggle Boys are sent in to annoy the two big bads. And since Hades has the shortest temper of all the villains involved in this crossover... well.

Then they sic MetalGreymon and Flamedramon on his ass, naturally. He’s not really able to hold back two fiery Digimon with just his own firepower, so... yeah. Ass kicked.

He starts regretting not bringing the Titans.

Maleficent tries to take off and escape in her dragon form, but she didn’t count on Sora and Garudamon to come after her. What a magnificent, phoenix-y plot twist.

Nobody ever expects the giant phoenix. So Sora and Garudamon kick some ass, too, as they should.

Tai and Davis both try to say a really witty line to wrap it all up, and Sora ends up saying the wittier one. As she should.

Theirs was somewhat the easiest fight, but also the most amusing.

That leaves Matt, Kari, and Yolei to deal with Emperor Zurg. And, well, this one gets a little confusing.

Well, first, for some reason Matt dresses up like Luke Skywalker.

Yeah, that’s right, they’re doing this.

Basically, they pull a Last Jedi on Zurg, but without Palpatine. Somehow, Zurg falls for it. But I mean, he’s basically a human-sized toy, so I guess that’s not a surprise?

There was no lightsaber battle, though, which was a bummer. Instead, Kari and Yolei send in Silphymon and Weregarurumon to kick his butt and finish the job.

Not gonna lie, he was the easiest one to take down, mostly by sheer virtue of being a toy. But also because he somehow fell for the Luke Skywalker bit.

Matt won’t get out of the outfit now, why did we give him this power.

With Gennai’s help and Izzy/Ken/Yolei’s genius techno capabilities, they were able to send the villains back to their respective movies, where their usual nemeses were able to take care of them. Because for some reason, they didn’t show up and I lowkey forgot to even include them in any capacity because of how much brainpower the villain encounters cost me.

Until next time I guess xD

------

WHOOPS----

[xxgothchatonxx]

Hades for me is ranked at "Why didn't they use Hera" in terms of Disney villans. I liked watching him, but I wanted more Hades-like motivations. Visually he is great and the fact that they had good enough effects for that but put no effort in the make up just... I think they cast him pretty right since I mostly know that actor as playing an entitled asshole and that sounds like a good spin for the character but I have a feeling that's not what happened. . .

It's funny the more they delved into Disney adaptations the worse OUAT was. Like I needed that Mad Hatter inspo from them where they delved into side characters who could have any background because there's nothing anyone is familiar with other than their existence and they just kept retelling things people love badly.

Like, it was kind of genius to use Snow White as their baseline of the show because if you watched the 1937 film, there is literally no real characterization just plot. The only character with any oomph was the mirror. So using that as a base for a show gives you a lot of creative freedom to create a whole world around. I think they forgot that after, and kind of during, the Neverland arc. I'm glad I stopped watching, but I think what I'm more thankful for is how clear the drop in quality was for me to cut my losses at a time when just casually viewed every show I watched.

Descendants!Hades was kind of strange because while Cheyenne Jackson did such a great job, the writing was... not bad, but Hades wasn’t the main villain. So it did deviate from Disney canon. But he did get a good “reconcile with your estranged kid, you deadbeat” story and a very good slam against the heroes hypocrisy about villainy and punishment. I don’t think either of those stories would have worked if they had made him a villain in the traditional Disney!Hades sense. Also I think the only reason why the design worked is that they went theatrical. The flaming blue hair can only work if the rest of his look is as outlandish. It does not work when he’s just wearing a boring black-and-purple suit and nothing’s happening with his face. 

Oh you were so right with “the more they delved into Disney adaptations the worse OUAT was”! Even though I love the Disney characters, I loved that Once was kind of the opposite of Disney, while also giving a few nods to Disney lore (Snow White humming “with a smile and a song” and then trying to squash a bird with her broom is still one of the funniest moments of the entire series). But it just became too much. When it became Once Upon a Frozen, it just wasn’t the same. I think that’s why I loved Tiana so much, because while you did have Dr. Facilier looking like Disney’s Dr. Facilier so there’s that obvious Disney reference, it was a different take on the story. And it’s why I unfortunately had a bit of trouble with Jafar in season 6 (even though our baby Oded was a nice well-needed splash of sexy camp) because he was acting more like Disney!Jafar as opposed to... well, the actually intimidating Jafar from the spinoff. And we were supposed to believe they were the same character (pretty sure this was done after backlash from very confused spinoff fans - personally I see Naveen’s Jafar and Oded’s Jafar as two different characters)

But Once!Hades... god, he really could have benefited from more of the Disney influence. There was nothing resembling the Disney version aside from the hair (which just looked worse and worse as the season progressed) and that was a real shame. Let’s go back to the 1997 Hercules film. What made that character work was entirely James Woods (i know he’s a prick but he did a great job with Hades) because he saw that Hades was just going to be another boring “I want to take over the world!” villain and decided “right, I’m going to play him like a sleazy cars-salesman.” Basically, James gave him a personality. That’s why he’s so well-loved. There wasn’t a villain like Hades before, at least not by Disney. 

That personality was not there in the Once version. Greg Germann made Hades like every boring “world domination” villain, complete with an irritating Christian Bale Batman voice. Which is so bad because he would have been perfect playing that kind of sassy and sarcastic villain role! Instead he got told to do THAT?! And no one thought “this is stupid”?! Also the writing was truly atrocious. This was Hades! For a show that loves to go “hey, morality can be grey - sometimes the heroes are actually villains and the villains are actually not that bad” how could they not do that with Zeus and Hades?! But no. Instead we got a really REALLY forced love story between him and Zelena (oh yeah, that’s the only reason why he was there - to force a completely undeserved redemption arc for the most repulsive female character who should never have been brought back no offense to Bex Mader, she’s lovely) and a really weak Zeus v. Hades backstory that went absolutely nowhere. So stupid design + weird acting + atrocious writing = a pretty disappointing Hades. 

The last great Once villain was Peter Pan (except Cruella but she was more of a fun distraction than an actual villain) - there, I said it. 

[jgroffdaily]

Jonathan Groff, now starring as a hapless flower shop clerk in an Off Broadway revival of “Little Shop of Horrors,” has a tiny confession to make.

“I am really bad with plants,” said the 34-year-old actor, recalling how rapidly the orchids and other flora occasionally sent his way seem to shrivel up and die. “I kill them.”

We were seated under an oak tree that had just tried to bean us with a fast-moving acorn, somewhere inside the New York Botanical Garden. Visiting had been my idea, and I wasn’t quite sure whether it was cheesy or inspired. (Spoiler alert: The musical is about a bloodthirsty plant).

But Mr. Groff was game — he had never been — and although the Bronx gardens were not especially menacing (other than that wayward nut) they did provide an opportunity for some reflection on his unlikely career swerve.

He’s performed in two juggernauts — the animated film “Frozen” (he voiced Kristoff, the rugged ice harvester, and will do so again in “Frozen 2” next month) and the stage musical “Hamilton” (he played King George, scoring his second Tony Award nomination with just nine minutes of stage time). And he stars as an F.B.I. agent in the critically lauded Netflix serial-killer drama “Mindhunter.”

So what is he doing in a 270-seat Hell’s Kitchen theater performing a show that can easily be seen at many a summer camp or community theater, and that, the producers say, will absolutely positively definitely not be transferring to Broadway?

The answer, he says, is mostly that it’s fun. He loves the idea (“It made me so giddy and excited”). He loves the music (“I’m just obsessed by it”). And he’s as surprised as you are (“I can’t believe we’re doing this”).

“We’re just laughing because it feels like we’re doing a professional version of the quintessential high school show,” he said. “We’re all going to back to that initial nerdy impulse of what made us fall in love with musical theater.”

The other key factor: This revival, of a show that first opened Off Off Broadway in 1982, is a passion project for the director Michael Mayer, who played a formative role in his career. Thirteen years ago, Mr. Mayer took a risk by choosing Mr. Groff over actors with more education and experience to star in an experimental Off Broadway musical called “Spring Awakening.”

That show transferred to Broadway and won eight Tonys; it brought Mr. Groff his first Tony nomination and changed his life. “It was everything I ever dreamed of, come true at 21,” Mr. Groff said. “And, like I told Michael, it’s a lifetime of paybacks.”

In May, Mr. Mayer asked Mr. Groff to join him at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of his production of “Rigoletto,” and during intermission, said to him, “I think I found the next project we’re going to work on, because I know something about you that other people don’t.”

A week later, Mr. Mayer called and asked him to play Seymour, a clumsy and nebbishy orphan fascinated by exotic plants and besotted by his co-worker Audrey.

The show, written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, is now in previews at the Westside Theater, where it is scheduled to run through Jan. 19; the production also stars Tammy Blanchard, as the ill-treated and ill-fated Audrey, and the two-time Tony-winner Christian Borle as her sadistic dentist boyfriend.

“Jonathan presents as a beautiful man, competent and terrific and engaged and completely at ease in his own body — the paragon of the golden boy,” Mr. Mayer said. “But I know that there’s this other part of him that is very much like Seymour — he’s got insecurities, and he’s got this childlike passion for things that he can get obsessive about, in the way that Seymour is obsessed with the plant and with Audrey.”

Obsessions? Let’s just say that as a child, Mr. Groff would type out, from memory, scripts of “I Love Lucy” episodes (he also read books about Lucille Ball, a memoir by Desi Arnaz and a book about their company).

“I am a total nerd, and this role is actually closer to who I am as a person than the other parts that I’ve played on Broadway,” Mr. Groff said. “I have a whole side of me that isn’t the projected image,” he added. “I get this — I totally get it — and it feels like a natural fit.”

His physical transformation from hunky to homely has turned out to be surprisingly persuasive, so much so that this production has interpolated a recurring sight gag about the character’s unattractiveness that, by combining absurdity with plausibility, slays the audience (pardon the pun) over and over.

Mr. Groff, dressed by costume designer Tom Broecker in ill-fitting khakis and a vintage blue shirt, appears to cave in on himself during the first act of the show, as if he doesn’t even deserve to stand fully upright. He wears black mad scientist glasses, a beige cap and blue Chuck Taylors, and manages to look boxier and younger than he is in real life.

“The only way he’s not a Seymour is because he’s gorgeous,” Ms. Blanchard said. “But even that goes away — he just seems to shrink into this dorky thing.”

But is “Little Shop” more than a lark?

“It’s about something larger — it’s Faust,” Mr. Groff said. “It’s about greed, and how far you’ll go to get what you want.” But, he added, “the reason it ran for five years Off Broadway, and there’s a movie, and every theater in the world has done it, is because it so doesn’t take itself seriously.”

Visiting the botanical garden prompted memories for Mr. Groff, who said it reminded him of childhood trips to Longwood Gardens in his home state of Pennsylvania. “The smell!” he exulted.

He grew up in Lancaster County, where his father trains horses. He loved musicals, and dreamed of performing (early fantasy roles: Maria in “The Sound of Music” and Eliza in “My Fair Lady”). As a little boy, he dressed as Mary Poppins and Cinderella and Alice and Dorothy, as well as Peter Pan, before discovering the joys of Robin Hood.

He moved to New York instead of going to college, and after waiting tables and an early Broadway debacle (as an understudy in the short-lived “In My Life”) landed “Spring Awakening.” That show, he said, “was my college experience, in a lot of ways,” broadening his understanding of musical theater and increasing his appetite for risk.

He had known he was gay from an early age, and had been living with a boyfriend since he was 19; he came out to his parents shortly after leaving that show, at 23: “I said, ‘I’m gay, but I’m not going to be in a parade or anything.’”

By 2014, he was starring in the HBO series “Looking,” about a group of gay friends in San Francisco — and appeared as a grand marshal of New York City’s gay pride march.

“I started to just become way more comfortable,” he said. “When I came out it was sort of like, ‘If I could change it I would, but sorry, this is how I am,’ and then it took those years to feel like this is a part of me that I love and I would never want to change.”

He said coming out has had a generally positive impact on his career — he has been landing roles both gay and straight, and “ultimately the payoff has just been that I’ve been able to be more and more myself.”

And he’s happy. For the last year and a half he’s been dating Corey Baker, a choreographer from New Zealand he met while teaching at a musical theater summer school there. He lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, but also recently purchased a house adjoining his father’s horse farm, because he has a fantasy of eventually transforming the property.

“My ultimate dream is to turn it into a kind of artists’ colony for my friends to go make work,” he said.

Mr. Groff shuns social media — he said he doesn’t think his life is that interesting — and bikes around the city. He has no interest in clothing. He showed up for our photo shoot with three T-shirts — white, gray and black — proud that he had heeded a publicist’s advice to bring options.

Although he’s never quite sure what’s next career-wise, he likes the work he has.

“Mindhunter” was an unexpected pleasure — “I’m not naturally drawn to true crime,” he said — but he wanted to work with the director David Fincher, and has enjoyed the immersion in a new world, as well as the time filming in Pittsburgh, which allowed him weekends with his family.

Up next: “Frozen 2.” He won’t say much about what to expect, other than that Kristoff now gets his own song, and that the character is “ready to take it to the next step” with Princess Anna.

As we were wrapping up our conversation, I asked Mr. Groff about an article I had seen in a Pennsylvania paper, noting that he had been spotted in the audience for a community theater production of “Evita.”

Mr. Groff said he loves seeing theater where he grew up, and had been further inspired by the actor Michael Cerveris, who while filming “Mindhunter” had soaked up shows in Pittsburgh. So yes, he was at “Evita” with his 4-year-old niece, and he also made time to see “Mamma Mia!” at a theater where he had performed.

As we hopped into a golf cart to find our way out of the garden, he wanted to show me one more thing. He pulled out his phone, loaded with pictures of the cramped backstage at “Little Shop,” and swiped to a video in which he was running lines with that niece, who has been learning about the show in preparation for attending opening night.

“She’s apparently been telling the kids at her day care that she eats blood, and she’s obsessed with the plant’s eyes,” he said. “But I think she sort of gets that we’re playing pretend.”

[alwayysmichael]

Michael Jackson and me.

I was a boy in Michael Jackson’s life, and nothing of what he’s being accused of in this documentary happened...

I wanted to write and post this before Leaving Neverland premiered at Sundance last Friday. After all, I had a close relationship with Michael Jackson growing up and nothing of what he continues to be accused of has ever happened to me. I decided to wait because I was curious to see if the film would get any wings considering Wade Robson’s volatile and unsuccessful claims against Michael Jackson in the past. Sure, let him tell his story again. Truth and justice will prevail as they have. Soon after it premiered, I quickly Googled “leaving neverland” to discover news articles stating that the four-hour documentary received a standing ovation. In disbelief, I searched the hashtag on Instagram to see Story footage from the theater and there they were — Wade Robson, James Safechuck and the film’s director Dan Reed — on stage in front of an applauding audience at their feet. I’m not sure if the audience was doing so because they were perceived as survivors making a public appearance, or if the film was actually good in their eyes, or both; but all I could think about was that their strategy, unfortunately, worked.

Raising awareness about child abuse and providing a safe community for others to speak their truth is vital, but using Michael Jackson as a vehicle to do so is simply wrong. In order for any story to be valid, there has to be an element of trust and I do not trust the people associated with this film. Let’s be clear: Michael Jackson showed up. He faced public interviews, he answered difficult-to-stomach questions, he agreed to interrogative documentaries, he withstood a 10-year FBI investigation, and he appeared in an eighteen-month criminal trial until he was acquitted having been found not guilty on all fourteen child molestation and abuse-related accounts. The fact that twelve years of criminal investigations and government legal proceedings can be completely overruled by the media due to a manipulation of the same stories once told before by a select few, especially by those who were initially on the defense, is deeply concerning. Maybe even horrifying.

I haven’t seen the documentary, but it “focuses on two men… who allege they were sexually abused by the pop star Michael Jackson as children” (Wikipedia). Everyone is entitled to his/her/their story and I believe that each story should be told in truth to the best of his/her/their ability, but my issue with Leaving Neverland is the heavy reliance on one side, especially when that one side is comprised of only two people. On top of it all, those two people happen to know each other. So what we have is a product comprised of two acquaintances’ stories who were in Michael’s life as boys that has been glorified in a 236-minute documentary. Remember that the film would mark Robson’s second attempt to tell his story. He told the same, truncated version of his story publicly in 2013 and simultaneously filed suit against the Michael Jackson Estate, which the court later dismissed. This was eight years after he testified twice under oath explicitly stating that Michael did nothing wrong during a criminal trial in which the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. It’s clear that this film’s intention is to position Michael as a child predator, but I find that the entire Leaving Neverland saga is really, in turn, a predation on a man of power and wealth now almost 10 years dead and thereby defenseless.

I was part of Michael’s life from the day I was born in 1987 until 2001. The last time I was literally close to him was backstage at the Staples Center when his casket wheeled past me. I knew him well because my mother, Janet Zeitoun, his sole hairstylist during the time, knew him even better. One could say that they might as well have been siblings. In fact, my mother was one of the few non-family members invited to the private memorial service at the cemetery hours before the public one in Downtown LA. Michael felt so comfortable with my mother because she made him laugh unlike anyone else, let alone the fact that she’s incredible at her craft. Michael even said in writing that she’s the “Michelangelo of hair.”

From the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, my mother has been around the globe with Michael. She’s been by his side doing his hair on sets, in dressing rooms, backstage at his concerts, at his home, on planes, in hotel rooms, in cars, and yes, even at Neverland. When my mom was pregnant with me in ‘86, Michael told her that she’d be having a boy; and on the day of my birth, Michael sent a limo to our home filled with gifts. And from then on, my single, hard-working mother who wanted to spend as much time with me as she could often brought me to work with her. So I grew up on the sets of Michael’s music videos, I played with my toys on the floor of his dressing rooms, and he sometimes came over to our house to get his hair done. As I got a bit older and could walk on my own two feet, I became the boy responsible for making sure Michael got candy in between some of his concert rehearsal sets. Michael would make everyone stop and patiently wait for me to wobble my way on stage to him. I even remember singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” to him in his trailer (so embarrassing!) but he gave me his undivided attention and smiled. I went to Neverland, several times of which Michael was there and he gave us the full tour of his home. I remember my favorite golf cart to get around had a Peter Pan emblem on it. I remember his movie theater concession stand being filled with candy that you could go behind the counter and take to watch whatever movie you wanted. I remember riding the big steam engine train that would take you from one end of the ranch to the other. I remember a big pot-bellied pig named Petunia and that I could name a newborn deer and rabbit. I chose Cuddie and Thumper, respectively; original, I know, but Michael loved the names.

Unlike Robson or Safechuck, I wasn’t in the public eye with Michael. The only sort of public thing that happened was him publishing a photo of us in the centerfold of his 1995 tour book. Fourteen years later, the caretaker of his children recognized me backstage at the Staples Center during his memorial service and told me that the photograph was one of Michael’s favorites, and at the time in 2009 was still framed on his grand piano in Neverland.I remember leaving Neverland a happy kid who couldn’t wait to go back. 

I remember telling my mom that I wanted to have another birthday party there or that I wanted to hang out with Michael again at the ranch. The bulk of my experience with Michael was during the 90s right when the FBI investigation began on account of child molestation allegations. Knowing that this was happening and that these charges were set against him, I don’t think my protective and well-aware mother would’ve allowed me to continue hanging around Michael or head up to Neverland had she not trusted him.

I firmly believe Michael did no wrong. You don’t have to take my word for it, though; know that his truth was proven in a court of law. The stories being presented in Leaving Neverland are incredibly one-sided. This film is merely the Wade Robson & James Safechuck Story because I, too, remember leaving Neverland, as does my mother, and as do many people in his life who’d be glad to have a say in a film so generically titled; now wrongfully entitled to depict Michael’s life and his misunderstood relationship with children. Any credible director of a documentary seeking truth on the matter would do his/her/their due diligence and present the full story from a carefully chosen and meaningful variety of sources. With four hours of film time to spare, I’m sure there could have been room. This is why I’m deeply disappointed in HBO and Channel 4 UK for picking it up with plans to air it later this spring. The networks snagged a falsity and will be responsible for disseminating a poorly researched film based on the highly skewed opinions of a select few that many of its subscribers will conclude as true.

Leaving Neverland is connecting because Robson and Safechuck’s well-acted stories are similar to those of true survivors watching the film. It’s a smart, yet corrupt way to capitalize on an entire community’s vulnerabilities. It’s also connecting because their stories are bolstered with a compelling medium to tell them as well as an accredited establishment like Sundance to premiere it. It’s riding the wave of an important #MeToo and #TimesUp movement, and it poorly validates a shortsighted equation that many people think they already have the answer to: Michael Jackson plus always being around children must equal child molester. The result? A byproduct of lies smeared with a thin layer of credibility intended to enrage the general media and side with self-proclaimed victims. And because the people behind these forms of media have a following (or not), perhaps they’re employed by some “greater” masthead and their information is muffled with journalists who actually seek the truth, the general population slowly becomes convinced, valuing information by ease of access which has really been served to them by algorithms designed to showcase what individuals only want to see. This is where destruction escalates. This is where the snowball gains its mass. This is why I’m stepping in with my story now.

I urge you to make it your undying responsibility to seek truth and acknowledge all sides in your consumption of how Michael is being depicted in this film. The capitalization of circumstance, divisive use of content and manipulation of media — all combined with rising false senses of entitlement — can quickly nullify a verdict and forever challenge truth to favor the other. This is the loophole with our digital ecosystem that actually determines one’s fate and this is the precise mechanism Leaving Neverland is using, especially when money is at stake. It will ultimately destroy his family, defame his legacy and eradicate his artistry. If you think this little loophole won’t take it that far, well, for starters: it’s already killed Michael Jackson.

Michael signed a letter to me on Neverland letterhead once. It read: “from your protective and older brother, Michael Jackson.” Now I find it my turn to protect him by telling my story because I solemnly swear that this kind-hearted, genius-of-a-man is innocent. I probably would have known otherwise. -  Talun Zeitoun

[joemuggs]

I Don’t Wanna Go

J Mascis is one of the best rock stars ever, I love him so much. I was reminded by this great Rolling Stone interview how great his (incredibly dry) chat is so I dug out this thing I did with him for the late lamented The Word mag in 2007.... actually not sure this ever ran...

FILM/TV: I’ve been watching a lot of DVD TV series, the whole series in one go. Gray’s Anatomy has been good, I like long, long dramas – things like seem like a really long, long, bad movie. I like just the quantity, the fact you can watch it for so long; I can get into just about anything if it’s long enough, if it’s really bad it might take 8 episodes to get into, but I’ll get into it. I started watching Dawson’s Creek recently, having never seen it before; the first series of that was actually really good, but I’m on the second one now and it’s getting horrible quite fast – I don’t know if I can power through another seven seasons or so. The girls all seem to break up with Dawson for absolutely no reason, it’s just not believable, they’re in love one day then the next they want to break up just for drama’s sake. A lot of these long series get horrible as they go on – I’m fed up with the Gilmore Girls which is on its seventh and last series now, and it seems all the talent on the series has been pushed out and the whole thing is just melodramatic and cheesy, where it used to be full of banter, full of people drinking a lot of coffee and talking fast, which is something I really appreciate. Same with The OC this year, it’s got pretty bad – Marissa has died and it’s gone boring. I watched Pan’s Labyrinth and Last King Of Scotland this year – but I was surprised how violent both of them were. I almost wish I’d left before the horrible stuff started – I hate that inevitable violence… I like random violence in movies, non-sequitur violence, slapstick violence, guys losing arms randomly, stuff like that. I loved Grizzly Man, the guy who got eaten by the bear, that guy was just so wild; I love Crumb too, for the same reason: that I like watching people who are crazier than I am. My favourite films are Crumb, Rushmore and Harold & Maude, they all speak to different parts of my life.

BOOKS: I read a lot of rock biographies. All of them, in fact. Just now I was reading the Mick Fleetwood biography – I was really interested to find out about Peter Green and also Stevie Nicks, and about the middle period between those eras. I read a book about the Ramones that their road manager wrote, that was really interesting. I read a lot of kinda spiritual books as well, I like to get different perspectives on what different people are thinking about – recently I’ve read some parts of books by [Amachi] who’s an Indian saint, and Dalai Lama books. I don’t really like it if it’s some yuppie guy who’s decided he’s New Age. I don’t like the New Age, I’m more interested in things that have stood the test of times. I also like Image Guitar Magazine, geeky stuff – I like to know about effects, and see the latest prices of old guitars, just to shock myself. Especially lately it’s really accelerated, a guitar can go from $20,000 to $100,000 in two years in these weird stores that are dedicated to rich people who collect guitars as investments, putting so much money in that they’re afraid to pick it up in case they wipe off a hundred grand in value!

MUSIC: The Fleetwood Mac thing is a big interest for me, I have a thing about the blues kinda rock of the time – Peter Green, Taste, Rory Gallagher, Free, Groundhogs, stuff like that. Dinosaur Jr was always a combining of all the eras we loved, so there was that blues rock, then Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, and from the 80s Birthday Party, Minor Threat, the first Jesus & Mary Chain records, My Bloody Valentine, even REM – these are all things I listen to sometimes, kinda in cycles. For more recent stuff I see a lot of bands play in my town, there’s a scene of all these people playing together, which I see live rather than listening to, a small scene so every show is different, improvisational. MV&EE are a part of that, which is how I came to play the mellotron on their album. Witch, another band I play with, came out of that too, though they’re a bit more Black Sabbath, a bit more song-based than the “free folk” guys like MV&EE. Some of these new metal-influenced bands with drone stuff, that guy from Sunn 0))) for example, are involved with this scene too, and Japanese bands who visit, like Acid Mothers Temple and Boris. Everyone has the same influences, it seems – Black Sabbath, Bert Jansch, Velvet Underground, but the way they combine those have quite different results. It’s still underground, definitely for kids who aren’t fitting in, these are pretty intelligent people, left-wing people, not mainstream at all. I saw Jeffrey Lewis recently, a really funny video of his about Will Oldham, about how all the hip kids on the New York Williamsburg scene are looking for a Jesus figure to give them all the answers. I saw (Smog) solo for the first time the other day, and I was so impressed, he’s funny too, but a great songwrier. Joanna Newsom was following but (Smog) was just in another league. He writes a real pop song.

[matrixaffiliate]

Ojalá - Aleatory

Chapter Update! FFN and AO3

From this lovely prompt by @writing-and-nutmeg  I've changed it up a touch but I've kept the most important bits.  Prompt: "You're famous and I'm a checker at Target so I never expected us to meet, but now it's three a.m. and you just waltzed up to the counter with a tub of fake butter, a package of water balloons, and a cart full of bananas and asked if I wanted to help you get revenge, so...Hi, I guess?" AU

Aleatory

Marlene hated working the late shift. It was torture to sit as the only employee in the small shop from ten at night until she could close at three in the morning.

She'd just finished the vast majority of the closing list and was waiting for the stupid clock to move all two minutes so she could close and go home when the door opened.

Marlene clenched her teeth to keep from yelling at the idiot who managed to make it into the store two minutes before closing.

The man went straight for produce, pulling bananas down into his trolley and then he made a b-line for dairy. Marlene sighed in relief when she saw him heading her way.

But words failed her when she saw his face.

"Hey, do you sell water balloons here?" He asked as he started unloading the trolley.

"Nnn, no," she looked closer, sure she was mistaken.

"You watch the Marauders?" He asked when he caught her staring.

Marlene nodded, most everyone watched the popular YouTube channel. They had started as pranksters while in A-Levels but had branched out to do a lot more in the last couple of years while they went to university.

"Are, are you really?" She stuttered.

He nodded and held out his hand, "Sirius Black."

"Marlene McKinnon," she shook it, still trying to resolve in her mind that one of the Marauders was standing in front of her with a cart full of bananas.

"You want to help me get revenge?" He grinned at her and Marlene found herself smiling back at him.

"I, well, I, er, I'd need a few minutes to close..."

"Great, I'll load up my car while you close and then we're going to show James what happens to men who think it's alright to hide my Switch at the top of a light pole."

Marlene's eyes went wide, "Holy shite, did you get it down alright?"

Sirius reached into his leather jacket and pulled out his phone. "It's a shitty resolution because I wasn't going to wait to get it down but you can watch the footage I took when we're done."

"You're, you're offering me the opportunity to help out with a prank and to watch uncut footage?" Marlene wondered if she'd slipped while mopping, hit her head, passed out, and was now experiencing a very strange dream.

Sirius grinned at her, "Seriously. I need help and I don't know if Remus and Peter were in on James' prank or not so I can't go to them."

"So you'll take any stranger?" Marlene chuckled as he paid with his card.

"I'm not taking any strangers," he held her eyes, "I'm taking my new friend, Marlene McKinnon."

Marlene bit her lip, feeling the butterflies starting to build in her stomach. "I can probably finish the rest of the closing list in five minutes."

"Perfect," he loaded everything back into the trolley, "I'll meet you outside."

Marlene watched him walk out before pulling her cash drawer and switching on the closed sign. She tried to hurry through the closing checks before coming to the door, finding Sirius waiting for her with his trolley.

"If you show me where this goes, I'll put it back."

"Right there," Marlene pointed to the neat stacks of trolleys inside the door.

"Great," he pushed off and jumped on the trolley, riding it to the stacks and making a ruckus as he crashed into them.

"Are you good to leave your car here?" He pushed open the door. "We can drop it off wherever you want if it can't stay here."

Marlene blinked, "I, you want me to ride with you?"

"Yeah, it'll be more stealthy if we're in one car. But we'll still need to be careful because James knows I'm going to get him back, so he'll probably be on the lookout for my car."

"We could take my car," the words were out of her mouth before she could think better of it.

"You're a genius!" Sirius threw his arm around her shoulders. "Follow me, we'll drop my car off at my house and then go to James' in your car."

"Alright," Marlene said it slowly. She had often thought that the Marauders played characters on their videos, that they were acting a part. But Sirius' behavior so far led her to believe that maybe he was more toned down in the videos than he was in real life.

"Here," he threw his arm off her shoulders to grab her hand and started writing on it. "This is my number in case we get separated."

Marlene stared down at the back of her hand.

"Let's go," Sirius winked at her and then climbed into his car.

This was so weird.

Marlene followed Sirius for nearly a half an hour before he pulled up to his house. He parked and motioned Marlene to pull in beside him.

"Let's load up," Sirius started putting his bags of bananas into her back seat. "James goes for early morning runs about six and we need to be far away from his place when he gets up."

"What is the plan here?" Marlene helped him transfer everything to her car. "You've got bananas and a tub of margarine, I'm not coming up with anything coherent."

"Oh, the water balloons," Sirius shut his car door and ran for his house. "Come on," he waved her forward.

Marlene hesitated only a moment before following Sirius inside.

Inside was exactly what his vlogs had looked like on the channel, except it was cleaner than she remembered on any of his vlogs.

"Ah-ha!" Sirius stuck his head out of a hallway cupboard. "I thought I had some."

He held up a small package of water balloons like a trophy.

"Let's fill them up here," he pointed to the kitchen sink, "then we'll head up the road to James'."

Sirius tossed her the bag before pulling out a camera.

"Hi everyone," Sirius spoke to the camera as he clicked it on. "It's," he panned to the oven clock, "3:38 in the morning and I'm here with my new friend Marlene." He moved to include her in the shot.

Marlene tried to smile like a normal human being and not someone whose stomach just plummeted at the realization that six million people were going to see her in this video.

"And I'll splice in some footage here of me rescuing my Switch that James managed to hide at the top of a freaking light pole." He paused for a brief second before continuing. "But Marlene is here helping me get some revenge."

Marlene tried to look natural as she focused on filling water balloons.

Sirius switched the camera off and slid it into his coat. "You're really photogenic, everyone's going to love you."

"How do you handle that? Knowing six million people are going to see you at least once a week?" Marlene tried to distract him from the blush on her cheeks that blossomed with his words.

Sirius shrugged, "It didn't used to be that way. It used to just be our mates. I try to remember that for the most part that hasn't changed. I'm not going to go grab a pint with all our subscribers, but a lot of our mates are still watching us and I feel like it's still for them."

"So I should just think about it as making a video for a friend?" Marlene tied off another balloon.

"With a friend," Sirius winked at her and Marlene felt the blush blossom again.

They made quick work of filling the rest of the balloons and then loaded them into her car. As she stared out into the early morning, Sirius flipped on his camera.

"Alright, we're here in the lovely Marlene's car and back here," he moved the camera to include her back seat in his shot, "is bananas, water balloons, and a tub of margarine. And we're going to have some fun."

He switched off the camera and grinned over at her.

"What exactly are we going to do?" Marlene asked as he pointed for her to turn.

"We're going to rig water balloons to fall on him when he leaves for his run and smear bananas and margarine all over his front drive so his special running shoes he ordered from the States get all gooey. I brought a camera to hide and film the whole thing too."

Marlene laughed, "That's actually one of the tamer pranks you've concocted."

"My Switch was unharmed and my data untouched," Sirius shrugged. "Now if my Switch was busted or if James had erased my data we'd be finding a way to feed his running shoes to goats."

"Oh my gosh, could you really get a goat?"

"Maybe," Sirius frowned, "I'll have to look into that. It's good information to have on hand."

"This is fun," Marlene smiled as she followed Sirius' signal to turn again.

Sirius grinned at her, "You're fun."

Marlene focused on driving, but she couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face.

Very quickly she found herself pulling up in front of James Potter's house.

"Let's unload everything and then I'll park my car down the street." Marlene looked back at all the bags in her car.

"Brilliant, you are," Sirius jumped out of the car and started unloading.

They quietly moved everything on to the pavement and then Marlene pulled her car around the corner.

It didn't take long to set everything in place, and while it was a bit messy, Marlene had so much fun that she forgot how tired she'd been before Sirius showed up to the shop nearly three hours earlier.

But what was most surprising to Marlene was how much she liked Sirius. He was attractive, all the Marauders were, but now Marlene knew that Sirius wasn't just another hot guy on YouTube. He was funny and sharp and exciting and genuinely nice.

Every time he pulled his camera out he'd remind her it was just a video with a friend, just him and her. And it helped. She felt herself falling back into her snarky self, making Sirius laugh with her comments and teasing him, especially when he flipped on the camera.

She felt a little sad that it was all coming to an end. Sirius was putting the hidden camera in place and then she would just have to take him home and that would be it. She'd go home, get some sleep, and maybe, she looked at the phone number still on the back of her hand, maybe

she'd text him. Ask how it went. Maybe he'd tell her when the video would go up so she could see it happen.

"All set," Sirius' voice pulled her back to the present. He opened his mouth to say more when Marlene heard steps behind the front door.

Without thinking she grabbed Sirius' hand and ran at full speed down the street, pulling Sirius around the corner just in time to hear James scream in surprise as the prank unfolded. But in her haste to get them around the corner she'd pulled Sirius into her and inadvertently pinned herself between a fence and Sirius Black.

"Sorry," she panted and looked up at Sirius.

"Don't be, you were brilliant," Sirius didn't move to unpin her.

"I, thanks," Marlene waited, sure he'd pull back and ask for a lift home.

Instead, he moved his hand from holding hers to resting on her hip.

"Do you have plans for later today?" He bent his head and Marlene felt her back try to arch without consent.

"Nope."

He brought his face just a bit closer to hers, "Want to grab dinner and then edit a video with me?"

Marlene grinned up at him, "A date then?"

"If it must have a label," he smirked, "then yes, a date."

"Well, labels aside, I'd like to get dinner with you and edit this video."

He moved closer, bring his lips down to hers with just a fraction of an inch between them. "Good, because I don't want you to be just one of the six million people who watch Marauders' videos anymore."

Marlene couldn't stop herself as she closed the distance between them, her lips catching his. It was feather-light at first, but Sirius stepped into her, bringing both hands to her waist. Marlene's hands moved from the fence behind her to rest on Sirius' shoulders. The kiss was soft and exciting and a part of Marlene's brain couldn't grasp that she was standing in James Potter's neighborhood kissing Sirius Black as the sun rose behind them after having pulled off a prank that would be viewed by millions of people. But the whole of her brain told her she never wanted to stop kissing him.

The woman who lived in the house behind them didn't know any of that though and tsked loudly at her gate.

Marlene laughed against Sirius, grinning when he laughed with her.

"Why don't you drive me home and then we can meet up after we both sleep?"

Like a spell, the word sleep instantly made Marlene yawn as her exhaustion started to catch up with her.

"Here," she pulled his hand into hers and pulled his marker out of his jacket pocket, "this is my number."

She held up her hand where he'd written his number, "Now we match."

"Brilliant you are," Sirius grinned down at their hands. "I don't know if I'll ever wash it off."

Marlene's eyes went wide, "If my number ends up in one of your videos I'll kill you."

Sirius winked at her before pulling back and moving to her car.

"I'm not kidding, Sirius," she glared at him as she unlocked the car.

He laughed as they both climbed in. She turned to threaten him again only to find him leaning across the center console.

"Don't worry, Marls," he tucked a curl behind her ear, "I don't want anyone else calling you to go grab dinner."

He kissed her then, and Marlene finally just told the part of her brain that felt this was too surreal to shove it. She was kissing Sirius Black and she had no plans of stopping.

[marauders70s]

which audiobooks do you prefer?? the stephen fry ones or the jim dale ones?? personally ill always love stephen frys voices and intensity better. jim dales voices just seem more cartoony to me. hp audiobooks are my fave method of consumption honestly

Hello! Thank you for your question! 

I HARD STAN JIM DALE. 

And here’s why (long, personal version): 

I really love Stephen Fry. I just listened to his Audible audiobook “Victorian Secrets;” I loved his shows touring the country; I even loved him on Bones as a guest star. He’s such a strong LGBTQ ally and supporter, and great speaker and advocate for so many important things. He makes me feel like even though he’s cynical and annoyed generally, his love of learning, interest, being snarky, and being rad and cool friends with awesome people (both here and ones gone before, like Douglas Adams), makes me wish we were personal friends. One day, I really hope to meet him, and the news of his prostate cancer makes my stomach clench with unfairness and sadness.

However, my family purchased the Harry Potter audiobooks on CD. They came in big chunky boxes and had fun little segments saying things like “This ends disc four, please insert disc five to continue the story.” My dad had a flexible work schedule and drove me and my sisters to school every single day. During our morning commutes, we used to listen to The Beatles, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. But then came Harry Potter when I was about 12. (I actually saw “Chamber of Secrets” the film before ever seeing the first film or reading any of the books because my dad wanted to see what all the hype was about and dragged me to see it in theaters! The basilisk fight scene was so scary I had to close my eyes and felt just like Harry). 

Now back in the day, CD players just held one CD at a time, and sometimes if that CD got stuck, you had to use a pen to nudge/unjam the felt lip of the CD player to let the CD get out. And the day we started Order of the Phoenix on CD it plays little intro music and Jim Dale says happily: “Chapter 1: Dudley....Demented” with a very long dramatic pause. Well the CD got stuck or skipped or sucked up a crumb or something and I swear to fucking god we listed to “Chapter 1: Dudley....Demented” about 48 times in a row in fifteen minutes while my dad is trying to unjam it and I’m in the backseat trying to lean up/climb up and he’s like “get back get back sit down” and I’m like “let me do it! You drive! Let me do it!” And then of course once I get in the front seat I can’t do anything and my two younger sisters (the youngest about six) were shrieking with laughter and have started joining in on the unending chorus of “CHAPTER 1: DUDLEY.....DEMENTED” with the same sort of zeal and insanity of “none pizza left beef.” We finally pull up in the carpool line of school and my dad can put it in park and unwiggle the CD and unjam it and reinsert it and we can finally start listening but at that point we’re all so giggly and ridiculous there’s absolutely no point in trying to start a new book.

The cool thing about getting into Harry Potter at 12 was that Order of the Phoenix was the first ever “release” of the book I had to wait for. Of course I had swallowed it up immediately after my parents had finished with our SINGLE hardback copy. And my Dad turned to me to warn me “Now...someone dies at the end of this book.” And I was so upset that he was spoiling for me, but he was like “I know you love Sirius.” (Guys I did love/was in love/am still in love/love Sirius Black the best). And I just got so angry at my dad for spoiling it, yet my voice still squeaked: “does he die?” And my dad is backing the car up in the driveway and he’s doing the thing where his hand is on the passenger seat and he’s twisting around and there was this heart stopping stomach drop where he stops looking out the back window and the car is still rolling and he looks directly at me. And to me, that’s the swooping, horrible feeling I still associate with Sirius dying. And even though when I read it and I cried, I never felt as much dread and as much sadness and as much grief as that moment when my dad looked straight at me and said nothing at all.

Jim Dale is also an incredibly talented amazing guy. I think that listening to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter is a bit like having your uncle or grandfather reading to you. Very a la Princess Bride. But when Jim Dale reads it, at least to me, when I was 12 and all my life since then, it felt like the characters were real. That his voices were real. When Hermione squeals “Oh HARRY!” but says it “har-eeeeee” in her anxiety; if Mrs. Weasley is scowling furiously and vocalizing her annoyance with huffs and gasps; how gentle Remus Lupin sounds, how raspy Sirius Black does; how very old, and very kind, and very wise Albus Dumbledore comes across. And how through his own inflections, Minerva McGonagall became more Scottish than you could have believed possible, and her voice the most instantly recognizable in the whole series. Jim Dale even commits to Peeves, and uses the inflections of David Bradley and Alan Rickman from the first film to help weave into Filch and Snape’s characters for continuity.

Jim Dale became the first person to win a Grammy for an audiobook, prompting a new category to be added in 2000 (post his nomination into a non-existent category for Sorcerer’s Stone). He created 134 distinct voices specifically for OOTP. He carefully recorded each individual one into a sound file so before he spoke that person’s lines he could re-listen to the voice he had made for them if he hadn’t spoken for them more than once or twice a book (or series - like Dedalus Diggle). His level of dedication and perfectionism is something I GREATLY admire and greatly adore. 

Although I do like hearing Harry Potter as a bedtime story read to me by a man I wish I could befriend, in my heart of hearts, I want Harry Potter to be as magical, as intangible, as silly as “Chapter 1: Dudley...Demented” for my whole life long. And maybe it’s because I have deep connections of listening to it with my dad, who has since passed on in a way that made me understand that feeling when he looked back at me in the car. The sick stomach Harry felt when Sirius was gone. Or maybe it’s because my mom listens to Jim Dale’s Harry Potter every. single. night on her old fashioned iPod before bed, carefully copied from the original CDs, skips and all, even though we own all of it on Audible. She says she’s missing several 5 minute segments throughout the series, but she fills them in from memory anyways. My mom knows more about the canon of Harry Potter than anyone I know, and can recite most of the first book by heart, because its her favorite. 

Obviously I run a Harry Potter blog because Harry Potter is important to me for many sentimental and personal reasons. And the audiobooks are part of that. Sometimes when I’m down or blue, I want Fred & George to tease me in their own voices, to tell me: “We thought we heard your dulcet tones!” “Yeah, it’s not good to bottle that up!” I still really admire and like Stephen Fry as a person, but in my heart, my books and my experience will always be narrated by the wonderful Jim Dale, a man whose voice I adore so much that I watched Pushing Daisies, and searched by narrator on Audible to fall in love all over again with Peter Pan. Harry is a personal experience for all of us, and this is mine. Thanks for listening.

tl;dr - Jim Dale. He does a really great opening line in Chapter 1 of OOTP. 

[wall-krawler]

Spidersona Week! Day 2: Equipment (Minor spoilers for upcoming fanfic)

Due to living in a two bedroom apartment Marcus was forced to keep most of his gear in a secretive and secluded “lair.” A safe haven much larger than his closet.

Toni’s bleached curls bounced as she jogged down a hallway while turning on her video camera which was facing her. She studied the lenses before smiling and turning the small device, aiming it right at Marcus. “Video log 15, the spider Caveee! Spooky~” She chuckled behind the camera as Marcus looked up and smiled.

“It’s not a cave, it’s just a chill spot.” Marcus told Toni before giving the camera a glance over. He’d gotten used to this by now, the filming and random questions. Out of the little friend group Toni seemed to be the most curious about Marcus’ new powers and life.

“Mmhm, well cave or not it’s still spooky. Only weird inventors do their hero work in secluded places.” She teased him as she panned out to show off the little room they were in. Various tools were scattered on the table he was working on while sketches and sticky notes filled the rest of the room. It looked like a bunch of teenagers rooms clumped together. Or at least some type of messy work room.

She zooms in close to catch sight of what Marcus was so concentrated on. It looked like a slim steel wrestling belt. “What are you working on?” She asked, getting him to look back up and smile into the camera.

“It’s a spider belt, I wear it underneath the pants.” Marcus explains while showing off the smooth design. He had Peter’s help to designing it but the usage was all up to him. “It has six back up cartridges of web fluid just in case I run out of my own.”

He clips the belt on and does a quick demonstrate of switching out the cartridges without fumbling around too much. But to add a little excitement to the video Marcus fires a few random strands of webbing into the air just to have them splatter all along the ceiling. It was pretty cool to see how the web-shooters worked without being covered.

“Wow that’s so cool.”

🕷🕷🕷🕷(Gadget Headcanons)

- Due to having organic webbing Marcus only wears web-shooters to help direct the web he’s firing into a straight line or into a small pellet. But in a few instances when he’s used up a large amount of webbing at once he has to rely on the Web cartridges until his own organic webbing comes back.

- The spider belt is exactly like Peter’s old one except Marcus ditched the spider light to build a little compartment for breakfast bars. (He’s a growing child, he needs to eat)

- Peter loaned a few spider trackers to Marcus in case the bad guy ever got away. They look like small magnets with clinging legs.

- Besides his cell phone Marcus carries his old PSP around in his book-bag to play around on boring patrols. Sometimes he just ends up rewatching the Spider-Man movie dedicated to Peter. He strongly believes Toby Maguire played a great Ben Riley.

- Now for the important equipment:Suits!

- Marcus has three suits in total.

- Homemade: This suit actually isn’t anything special. It’s just a pair of blue jeans, faded red converse, a $6 Spider-Man T-shirt with a black black long sleeve underneath, and then a very cheap red ski mask with eye holes cut out. People thought he was a bad guy at first.

- Retro: Peter’s younger years as a hero were spent on sowing a lot. Always having a spare costume throughout high school Peter began to upgrade, leaving the old suit behind and never returning to it. Through some interesting events (keep a secret for fanfic) Marcus stumbles upon the old suit and decides to “borrow” it. Although in the end karma did strike when Marcus though the underarm web wings would actually make him glide. Spoilers: They didn’t.

- Unlimited: Marcus needing a real costume goes to Peter to ask for help. He wanted something that stood out so that the two wouldn’t get mixed up as each other. Peter understood this and went through all the suits he’s created or collected over the years as Spider-Man. The one he landed on was the unlimited costume, a dark red, blue, and black futuristic looking suit he unfortunately damaged. The nanotechnology used to retract the suit into a watch were fried in a fight with Electro. Ever since then it’s just be hanging up in one of the displayed vaults. Marcus, without hesitation, chose that one.

- Unlimited benefits: The suit is skintight and still comes into parts which makes it easier to wear underneath clothing while stuffing the rest into a book-bag. The lenses within the mask is extra thick to help from breaking or being blinded by bright lights. There’s a camouflage mode but it only works for about 20 seconds. The web-shooters and belt fits perfectly beneath the suit as well. As for built in communicators, Marcus can link up with Peter and talk through an earpiece designed into their masks. So that Marcus never feels alone when in battle.

🕸🕸🕸🕸

A/N: I’m not the best when it comes to designing costumes and what not, I’m just a writer. But it dawned upon me that Peter from into the spiderverse (Blonde one. The one I’m basing my fanfic Peter from) has like a whole bunch of suits! Heck Miles basically borrowed one from the lair and made it his own. It just makes sense to me that Peter wouldn’t mind giving out older suits to those who would make use of them. The suits he’d never wear again. So that’s why I chose the unlimited costume. It has a great design, totally stylish, and It’s one of my favorite suits of all time.