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cyarskaren52 · 4 months

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They performed as if the rent was due and the home was about to face foreclosure

Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman, The Last of Us

Photo : Courtesy of HBO

Guest stars Offerman and Bartlett took center stage — and broke our hearts — as they chronicled Bill and Frank’s romantic relationship from gruff start to heartbreaking finish. Offerman’s performance as the secretly sensitive Bill was a revelation that proved the comedic actor’s got some serious dramatic chops. And Bartlett’s easy earnestness as Frank made for a loving counterpoint that perfectly complemented Bill’s defensive cynicism. Together, what a dynamic, moving and eminently watchable pair! — Kimberly Roots

Photo : Courtesy of Prime Video

In the Amazon comedy’s fifth and final season, Borstein — who has already picked up two Emmys for her role as Midge’s indefatigable manager Susie Myerson — was tasked with playing her gruff, potty-mouthed alter ego through multiple decades amid some extreme emotional highs (Susie breaks Midge!) and lows (Susie breaks up with Midge!). And there was nary a false note in her work. In fact, the Susie-centric, Friars Club roast-themed sixth episode ranks among Maisel’s finest hours, in large part due to Borstein’s remarkably restrained comedic and, ultimately, heartbreaking performance. — Michael Ausiello

Photo : Courtesy of Apple TV+

Think back to Ted Lasso’s earliest episodes and ask yourself if you ever thought you’d be cheering in Jamie Tartt’s corner. No? Us either. And yet, there we were in Season 3: gutted for Jamie when Zava usurped him as AFC Richmond’s star player; anxious as we waited for that final goal against Man City to hit the back of the net; and utterly charmed by Jamie’s three-season metamorphosis, an arc that satisfied so deeply because of Dunster’s endearing approach to it. In Ted‘s third season, Jamie was all at once an effortlessly cool football superstar, a soft-hearted mama’s boy and perhaps the most devoted friend in Richmond’s entire clubhouse — and Dunster made us believe every version of him. — Rebecca Iannucci

Dominique Fishback, Swarm

Photo : Courtesy of Prime Video

We’re still thinking about Fishback’s fascinating turn as Dre, a hyper-fixated fan who embarked on a cross-country murder spree in her idol’s name. The actress impressively matched the show’s chaotic plot with an equally riotous performance, portraying Dre as mild-mannered in one moment and delectably unhinged in the next. We were especially blown away by Fishback’s transformation into Dre’s alternate persona Tony in the finale, appearing unrecognizable with just shorter hair and a downward vocal inflection. Swarm may have illustrated the perils of extreme fandom, but consider us obsessed. — Keisha Hatchett

Photo : Courtesy of Apple TV+

Ford’s natural charm and charisma were on full display throughout Shrinking‘s debut season. Even the quietest of quips and Paul’s mildest of irritations were transformed by the actor into big laughs and major moments. And despite the oodles of comedy the screen vet delivered, he also flexed serious dramatic muscle. When his character’s Parkinson’s disease raised concerns with his daughter, lingering resentment came to a boil, giving the actor plenty of meaty material to chew on. The living legend’s performance sizzled, frequently catching us off-guard, and elevating everyone and everything around him. — Nick Caruso

Photo : Courtesy of Peacock

Simone’s profound yet absurd journey in the Peacock show was as impactful as it was entertaining, and that’s because of Gilpin’s divine performance as the wry nun. The actress skillfully navigated each twist and turn of the show’s ambitious story with stunning clarity; even if we didn’t fully understand what was happening, we knew exactly how Simone felt each step of the way. Gilpin has always impressed with her exceptional talent, but it was this memorable performance that converted us into lifetime devotees. — K.H.

Photo : Courtesy of FX

Idris’ raw and deeply unsettling turn in the FX drama’s final season is a huge part of why Snowfall is also one of our picks for the Best Shows of 2023. As Franklin’s desperation to retrieve his stolen money intensified, so did the actor’s performance, resulting in one of the richest and most devastating turns we’ve seen all year. — K.H.

Devery Jacobs, Reservation Dogs

Photo : Courtesy of FX

Jacobs proved herself to be one of the Hulu series’ most versatile performers. When her character Elora wasn’t grappling with grief or trauma, the actress spent the show’s swan song going toe-to-toe with uproarious guest stars and exploring what it meant to be young and directionless. She aptly juggled complex emotions when Elora met her dad for the first time and made the difficult decision to leave the reservation for college. With her exceptional comedic timing and on-screen vulnerability, Jacobs will forever be remembered as the Rez Dogs’ beating heart. — N.C.

Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face

Photo : Courtesy of Peacock

We loved Lyonne’s raspy-voiced sarcasm on Orange Is the New Black and Russian Doll, but she may have found the role of a lifetime in Peacock’s charmingly retro mystery. Lyonne channeled classic TV detectives like Columbo and Jim Rockford as amateur sleuth Charlie Cale, who has a supernatural sense of when someone is lying. But she put a modern spin on it, too, with an endless supply of smart-ass one-liners, and she also let us glimpse the wounded soul that Charlie hides underneath all the punchlines. Here’s hoping she sticks around as long as some of those classic TV detectives did. — Dave Nemetz

Photo : Courtesy of Amazon Freevee

You might say that this was hardly a performance, since Marsden essentially played himself in an elaborate prank that convinced one unsuspecting dude he was a juror on a totally fictional court case. You’d be wrong, though. Marsden’s very presence on the jury helped sell the prank — who would make that up? — and he gleefully poked fun at his movie-star persona with plenty of shameless name-dropping and diva-esque demands from the jury box. He even formed a touching bond with the unsuspecting juror Ronald, cementing this as one of the very best performances of Marsden’s career… since Sex Drive, at least. — D.N.

Zahn McClarnon, Dark Winds

Photo : Courtesy of AMC

AMC’s Dark Winds with Season 2 amassed more of the acclaim it richly deserves — much of which is born of what McClarnon brings to the role of Joe Leaphorn. As the tribal police lieutenant, McClarnon with the nuance of an artisan brings forth many facets, including dead-serious intensity, understandable fear, camaraderie (and even the occasional dollop of biting wit), and the warmth of a family man navigating all manner of drama. We care about the cases because McClarnon’s performance makes us invested in everything that Joe cares about. — Matt Webb Mitovich

Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear

Photo : Courtesy of FX

Season 2 of Hulu’s culinary dramedy offered a feast of great performances, from unexpected guest stars (Jamie Lee Curtis!) to cast members hitting new heights (Ayo Edebiri!). But the most satisfying of all was Moss-Bachrach’s heart-wrenchingly vulnerable turn as Richie, the tough-talking bastard who actually got his act together and transformed himself into a world-class restaurant employee. Sure, he was salty throughout, but it was a joy watching him discover his life’s purpose — and sing Taylor Swift along the way. — D.N.

Elizabeth Olsen, Love & Death

Photo : Courtesy of Max

Coming off 2021’s genre-spanning WandaVision, Olsen confirmed with Max’s true-crime miniseries that her range is indeed boundless. Though Candy Montgomery’s life took a notoriously tragic turn, Olsen played Candy in those early episodes with a magnetic charisma and surprising humor, making her eventual pivot to axe murderer all the more heartbreaking. But Olsen then transformed the housewife into an anxious, withdrawn version of herself as her trial began, and a crucial therapy scene in which Candy mined her childhood trauma proved Olsen can literallydeliver the goods with her eyes closed. — R.I.

Bel Powley, A Small Light

Photo : Courtesy of National Geographic

The Morning Show alum was immediately lovable as Miep Gies, one of the people who risked everything to help Anne Frank and her family hide from the Nazis. Watching her take Miep from floundering young woman to steely member of the resistance was riveting, thanks to Powley’s choice of making Miep utterly unable to hide any of her emotions. Her turn in the finale, particularly when she blended devastating loss with a determined hopefulness as Miep comforted Otto Frank, was nothing short of a masterclass. — K.R.

Ramón Rodríguez, Will Trent

Photo : Courtesy of ABC

You don’t deliver a freshman season that earns a rare average grade of “A+” from TVLine readers without having something really special going on. For ABC’s Will Trent, that added oomph came from a stellar cast led by Rodríguez. Readers of the Will Trent novels by Karin Slaughter may have needed a minute to process the TV series’ casting, but Rodríguez from go brilliantly encapsulated both the investigator’s insightful strengths and his haunted, personal weaknesses. The season finale, in which Rodríguez cycled Will through an array of intense feelings, cemented his perfection in the role. — M.W.M.

Photo : Courtesy of HBO

Everyone brought their A-game to the final season of HBO’s riveting corporate drama — Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin could easily be on this list, as well — but Snook blew us away with her final episodes as scheming sister Shiv Roy. She was still quick with a cutting insult, but she also dove deep into Shiv’s true feelings as she faced unprecedented crises: first, the sudden death of her father Logan (with Snook submitting a career-best performance) and then the sad decline of her marriage to Tom. The worst of times for Shiv, though, brought out the very best in Snook. — D.N.

Patrick Stewart, Star Trek: Picard

Photo : Courtesy of Paramount+

This old dog still has a few tricks left up his sleeve. The 83-year-old Stewart could’ve just glided through Picard’s final season on cruise control, but instead, he submitted some of his best Trek work yet as Jean-Luc dealt with the massive shock of learning he had a child he never knew about. His emotionally charged confrontation with Beverly about their son Jack made for mesmerizing TV, and he was downright spry as he led the reassembled Next Generation crew on one glorious final mission. — D.N.

Meryl Streep, Only Murders in the Building

Photo : Courtesy of Hulu

It took no time for the three-time Oscar winner to escape into the role of a struggling stage actress, wowing us with her well-honed dramatic chops as she delivered Loretta’s audition in the premiere’s opening scene. A season-long arc would afford her the opportunity to be comedic (for instance, when Loretta flipped over a potential part in Grey’s New Orleans: Family Burn Unit) and romantic (in her scenes opposite Martin Short aboard the Staten Island Ferry). She got to sing her heart out (see: “Look for the Light”) and lay it on the line (when Loretta was confronted by estranged son Dickie). Suffice it to say, we were dazzled. Death Rattle Dazzled. — Ryan Schwartz

Photo : Courtesy of FX

We know her as Ted Lasso’s perky publicist Keeley Jones, so it took some getting used to when Temple went Minnesota Nice as meek housewife Dot. Within minutes, though, Temple sold us on Dot’s Midwestern roots — and showed us she’s not as meek as she seems, either. Temple is perfectly chipper as the happy homemaker and also holds her own packing heat in Season 5’s high-adrenaline action scenes. Plus, she hints at the many skeletons still hanging in Dot’s closet, making her a fascinating mystery we’re still working to unravel. — D.N.

Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, BEEF

Photo : Courtesy of Netflix

The feud was messy, but the performances were divine. As two characters who clashed, bickered and set out to destroy each other, Wong and Yeun wowed us with turns full of humanity and humor. Amid the series’ campy comedy, both actors dug deep into their character’s insecurities, showcasing blind rage, anxiety and sadness as they wrestled to accept the lives they had created. In a series that ran the gamut of emotions, genres and tones, the two actors combined their skillsets to elicit some truly next-level work, and as promised, this BEEF was flamin’ hot. — N.C.

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TVLINE'S YEAR IN REVIEW!

Performer of the Year: The 20 Finalists

By Team TVLine

December 13, 2023 7:00 am

Not even a months-long actors strike could stop the steady stream of phenomenal TV performances we were gifted in 2023.

All year long, Team TVLine has recognized the small screen’s most compelling work via our Performer of the Week column, honoring actors from broadcast, cable and streaming series as they brought their characters to dazzling, devastating life. But now, we’re tasked with naming a Performer of the Year â€” a decision that seems almost impossible, given the abundance of talent in the last 12 months.

To make the choice a bit easier, we’ve narrowed down the field to the 20 finalists below (named alphabetically), a list of nominees that doubles as a “ballot” of sorts. (Note: As is TVLine tradition, any contenders comprised of multiple co-stars â€” for example, BEEF‘s Ali Wong and Steven Yeun â€” compete as and will be considered one finalist.)

On Wednesday, Dec. 20, we will crown one of the nominees (and only one!) our 2023 Performer of the Year, dethroning the 2022 victor, Better Call Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn. And while our esteemed panel of judges wonâ€™t necessarily be swayed by the Comments section, weâ€™re itching to see if our 20 finalists line up with your favorite performances of the year.

Keep scrolling to see whoâ€™s in the running from this yearâ€™s shows, then drop a comment with your thoughts on who might be named Performer of the Year 2023.

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#Acting #director #martin scorsese #musicindustry #actor #movie #acting school #acting tips #acting career #acting coach #acting life #tv shows #year in review

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yurimother · 4 years

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LGBTQ Visual Novel Review - OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos

If you are at all interested in Yuri or visual novels, you will have undoubtedly heard of OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos. The Yuri rom-com was one of Steam’s top 20 February releases, and it hit the trending page on the platform. These accomplishments are incredible, and it is lovely to see both a visual novel and a Yuri game get so much love and recognition. However, whenever a title succeeds and manages to make an impact outside of the Yuri community, it always brings up a few questions. Mainly, does it deserve to be one of the few Yuri titles to obtain “mainstream success” and is it a positive ambassador for the genre, one which can further Yuri’s popularity and pull new consumers into it? These concerns boil down to one question, is it good? Usually, this inquiry is pretty quickly answered, with most elements of a product either being positive or negative. However, OshiRabu delivers more of a challenge. There are some fantastic parts to this game which I applaud and gush over, yet there are also several problems, both major and minor. The dichotomy between OshiRabu’s highs and lows is possibly the strongest I have ever seen in a Yuri title.

OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos is the debut game of SukeraSomero, the new sister brand of the excellent Yuri studio, SukeraSparo. The plot follows Akuru Hayahoshi, an otaku with an obsession with her “husbandos” from gacha games and seriously bad luck. One day she bumps into a cute and bubbly student, Ren Furutachi. After Ren shows off her uncanny good luck to Akuru, a miscommunication sees Ren believing that Akuru confesses to her. For Ren, it is love at first sight, and she persistently negotiates her way into living with the older woman.

The rest of the game flits between comedic moments as Akuru and Ren live together. Examples include the girls shopping for a new bed, since Ren insists on sleeping next to Akuru, and Akuru creating boys’ love doujinshi with her friend Shino. There is, of course, a climax, which will not be spoiled in this review, and three possible endings, depending on two-player choices. An optional 18+ DLC expands on one of the endings and offers several explicit scenes.

There are some enjoyable aspects of this plot. For one, it is light and pleasant, never letting itself settle too much or grow stale. The situations are not hilarious but enjoyable and well suited to the with the characters’ personalities, and establishing several recurring themes and jokes, such as Shino teasing Ren and Ren accusing Akuru of cheating. There is an excessive amount of adorable fluff, which matches well with the overall tone of the game. These delightful moments cater to a variety of interests and fixations, so every reader is likely to find something they like. My personal favorite was a brief imagination sequence where Ren and Akuru have a child together, cute Yuri stories about women raising a kid are one of my weaknesses, and the reason Voltage’s Lovestruck has stolen hundreds of dollars from me.

The writing is also fantastic. The descriptive prose makes me laugh at the poor quality English translations we had a decade ago, and sometimes still unfortunately get. SukeraSomero deserves a great deal of praise for the simultaneous English, Japanese, and Chinese release. It is amazing that everyone got to experience this game together all over the world, without having to wait years for a possible license and translation. English translator Meru is one of the best in the business, and her work shines here. Her adaptation is amazing and fits the games’ modern setting and feel. I personally do not care for the amount of internet culture language included, such as Ren calling Akuru a “thot,” simply because such terminology tends to become dated quickly. However, I will defend the creative choices as accurate to Oguri Aya’s original story.

There is one more major compliment I have to give this game, and it is a big one. OshiRabu is extremely queer. While most Yuri titles exist as lesbian or lesbian adjacent content with little construction of LGBTQ identity, for example naming, displaying meaningful sexual and romantic relationships, or showing any aspect of queer culture, OshiRabu does all of these. I was floored when, early on in the story, Ren confesses to Akuru that she is a “lesbian.” The word lesbian is actually used directly in the visual novel, an unfortunate rarity for the Yuri genre. I even swapped the game into the original Japanese to confirm, and there again was the coming-out moment; the word “lesbian,” in all its glory, was planted right on the screen. This fantastic scene was not a one-off occurrence either.

Throughout OshiRabu, Ren continuously mentioned her homosexuality, which is usually juxtaposed by Akuru pondering her own sexuality, which she defines as an attraction to 2D men and nothing else. Although, her identity obviously changes because you know the women must end up together by the end. Some other excellent scenes feature queer representation. For example, at one point in the game, Akuru goes to a gay bookstore where another woman approaches her. When trying to explain that she is not interested, Akuru almost exclaims, “I’m normal,” a sentiment which she quickly realizes is hurtful and prejudice with some spectacular self-reflected narration. Moments like these offer nuanced and thoughtful presentations of LGBT culture and are the definite highlight of the game.

Sadly, not every aspect of the visual novel is as fantastic as these. In fact, many parts of it range from unfortunate to downright atrocious. First, the characters, while not awful or unlikeable, have some harmful qualities to them. Akuru is distant and introverted, which often leads to her being cold or even rude to Ren, which is never confronted or resolved. On her part, Ren is sadly the stereotypical aggressive lesbian, and frequently invades Akuru’s personal space, a topic which is again never reconciled. It is fine to have a character make problematic choices, but when their actions do not have consequences and conflicts have no resolution, it is a significant issue. The only character I unequivocally enjoyed was Shino, as she spends the whole game humorously teasing the two.

Speaking of conflicts, the final dramatic twist comes about as a result of Ren running away and refusing to communicate with Akuru. It turns out, minor spoilers, that she was testing her, which is a pathetic and ridiculous action which in real life can and should have serious repercussions or even end the partnership. Additionally, the topic of Akuru’s shared affection for Ren and her virtual husbandos, which is an immense source of stress for Ren, is not addressed in the base game, only the DLC. The extra content has its own set of problems too.

It is not uncommon for visual novels to include adult content in a separate patch so they can sell the base game on Steam. However, such adult patches are usually free, and OshiRabu’s is not, instead it sells for $4.99. This price is on top of the $24.99 base game, which means you are shelling out 30 dollars for the complete experience. An experience which, mind you. only clocks in at about 3 hours, hardly what I would call a value. It is an additional shame because the adult content is really well done. All the 18+ scenes, except for maybe the brief first one, showcase a tender loving relationship and skillfully written erotic content, although one or two metaphors did not land very well. However, not every player will want the 18+ content, and OshiRabu essentially forces them to play through it if they are going to see all the base game’s conflicts resolved.

There is also an unfortunate amount of service. While most of OshiRabu’s service is just sweet and cute moments between the characters, there is plenty of exploitative artwork designed to cater to specific players of a more perverted persuasion. Ren is usually the subject of such content, with shots featuring her panties and one extremely revealing cosplay outfit consisting of little more than two strips of cloth. Obviously, some players will enjoy these aspects of the game, but they did not work well for me, especially when I compared such clumsy service with the robust adult content.

However, this exploitative artwork, along with the rest of the game’s art, is phenomenally well crafted. Artist and character designer DSmile creates detailed and colorful illustrations that match the light comedic tone of the game. The adorable and vibrant artwork, drawn in a light watercolor style, makes my heart sing! There are also plenty of CG pieces, over 20, including the DLC, which adds six more. Given the games short length, this means you will see a new CG every ten minutes or so. The UI is also incredibly clean, easy to navigate, and blends well with the aesthetics of the art. My only complaint visually is that the sprites are entirely static. Except for different facial expressions and a few outfit changes, they are always the exact same, standing like flat mannequins against a backdrop. There is no animation or even alternative poses for them.

The voice acting is similarly high quality. Voice actors Nekomura Yuki, Kitaooji Yuki, and Waou Kirika all give fantastic performances in Japanese, and the quality of the recordings is consistently amazing. Even the adult scenes are voiced and showcase the range of talent present. The music is not nearly as good, but it does not intrude either. There are enough tracks to prevent the music from getting too dull, although the central theme and one of the tracks, “Let’s Go Out!” push this boundary a little far. Unfortunately, none of them are too memorable either, and I can guarantee that I will never be touching the BGM tab of the extras menu.

OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos is a highly polished and visually impressive experience. The visual novel contains incredible artwork and is well constructed, showing the promise and talent of SukeraSparo. The stellar, although unfortunately necessary, adult DLC, and inclusion of LGBT themes are superb aspects that could have made playing this game a blast. However, a poorly constructed story, weak characters, and a high price tag compared to the amount of content offered severely detract from the game’s success. If you do not mind excessive service or are interested in lots of cute Yuri moments, pick this one up when it goes on sale.

Ratings: Story – 5 (6 with DLC) Characters – 4 Art – 9 Voice – 10 Music – 5 LGBTQ – 10 Sexual Content – 5 (9 with DLC) Final – 5

The visual novel is available on Steam and MangaGamer

#yuri #reviews #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #lesbian #visual novel #oshirabu #oshirabu: waifus over husbandos #girls love #gl #wlw #video games #gaming #game

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serendipitous-magic · 4 years

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Any HCs for older (30s/40s) / married byler? :)

Yes! And most of them are blatantly self-indulgent (don’t look too closely at Mike’s career path, I swear it’s not just me projecting), and I’m not even sorry. :) Let’s gooooo!

(Also, note: I took this in a very fluffy domestic direction, so sorry if anybody was really hoping for some NSFW HCs or wedding HCs or something like that - although I might be convinced to expand on that another time. ;) )

-As a young couple in their 20s they lived in a typical shitty apartment near where they went to college, but now as they’re getting more established and their careers are picking up, they’ve moved into something more similar to a townhouse / condominium in the city where they work. They don’t need an entire house, really, and besides, they’re usually not a huge fan of suburbia. If they did have a house, it would probably be one of those small-ish houses near the outskirts of the city - you know the type I mean. Lots of renovation expenses because it’s so old, but unique and cozy enough that it makes up for the hassle. I do tend to picture them in more of a townhouse/condo situation, though.

-Speaking of careers, they both got into something creative. Neither of them at all wanted to work in any type of office environment. Will fought tooth and nail to make a living with his art, which has made for some rough spots financially, but now that they’re getting through their 30s and into their 40s, it seems like it’s finally starting to even out and become more reliable as a source of income. He may do concept art for movie / TV / video game studios, he may do comic illustrations, he may do commissions, maybe a combination.

-Mike, meanwhile, leaned into his passion for storytelling and his leadership skills - but I feel like Mike would wander in a couple different directions with that. Trying out this path, then this one - less of a cohesive, driven career path than Will’s, just trying things until he landed on something he really liked. Maybe he dabbled in computer engineering in college for a while (see: Mike’s nerdy mini-conversation with Bob about programming languages), decided that wasn’t quite for him, tried some creative writing classes, some film studies. Maybe he was a high school history or language arts teacher for a few years after college, what with his caring and nurturing instincts, his nerdiness, his leadership skills, his passion for stories (LotR, Star Wars, and D&D, anyone?), etc. But that probably wasn’t quite for him. Eventually, after having storytelling hobbies for most of his life, he starts integrating that into his career kind of on accident - and that’s when he hits on what he actually likes doing for a living. He consistently writes short stories on the side and submits them to magazines for publication. Maybe he uses something like commercial writing/directing as a stepping-stone, making heartfelt hit-you-in-the-feels and funny-memorable commercials for shitty instant coffee and cotton tee shirts, and that block on his resume is what gets him into The Business for real. From there it’s small-time TV studios, sitting in a writers’ room hunched over cold coffee cups, chattering with a table full of other creatives about plot twists that will air on local stations. Or maybe he’s on set, wearing black jeans and a black tee that won’t reflect the light and mess up the shot, flipping through a clipboard of rumpled papers and hustling towards a fast-incoming deadline. Maybe he’s third-in-command on set, right-hand-man to the right-hand-man of the director. Continuity supervisor or art director. Or maybe he’s a practical effects guy, mixing up buckets of sludge or fake blood or figuring out a way to make a plastic-and-foam lobster puppet look alive. In any case, he’s doing something he really enjoys, and he’s steadily moving up in the ranks. Will swears he’s going to be directing blockbusters in Hollywood before they’re fifty; Mike always scoffs at that, laughing it off, but Will isn’t entirely joking.

-They have a medium-sized dog - something with a long snout and a long tail. Will counts himself as a dog person, but for a while there after the fall of ‘84, it was hard for either of them to be around big dogs without remembering the Demodogs. But it’s been decades, and somewhere in their late 30s (when they finally live somewhere with some form of backyard), they finally feel ready to get a puppy.

-Semi-regularly, they group-call the old Party and play D&D over the phone (much like The Adventure Zone). Sometimes one or both of them (Mike or Will) will be trying to do something else in the background at the same time - cooking dinner, working on a piece of art, etc. (Hey, they’re adults, they’re chronically short on time. Gotta multitask where they can.) This leads to occasional bouts of hilarity - like the time Mike almost knocked his entire laptop into a pot of spaghetti sauce because he was trying to DM and cook simultaneously. These over-the-phone D&D sessions are invariable merry and hilarious, cheering everyone up even after the worst of days. The Party is often spread out over the whole country - Mike and Will probably in one of the hubs of the storytelling industry (San Francisco or NYC), Dustin somewhere in the midwest doing scientific field work, Lucas still somewhere in or near Indiana, El and Max living in a new city every other year - but these phone calls bring them all together, and remind them of “simpler” times when they were kids in the Wheelers’ basement.

-Nancy is a highly successful journalist who travels a lot for her work, and whenever she and Mike / Will are in the same city, they make sure to meet up for coffee if not a day or two of old-times sibling shenanigans. Nancy has considered Will like a brother ever since they were teenagers, and that only strengthens as they grow older. But Mike, especially, reverts right back to a fifteen year old whenever his big sister is in town, throwing potato chips at her across the table and teasing her until she chases him with her soup spoon, and the whole time Will is just laughing with his face in his hands, pretending to be embarrassed but really just happy to see the two of them both happy.

-Similar situation with Jonathan. ^^^ He kept up his photography through the years, but like Mike, he’s wandered from career path to career path, just trying things out. (Whether he and Nancy are together depends on your own HCs, but be assured, whenever he’s in town he and Will are just as insufferable as Mike and Nancy.)

-It’s a long time before either (let alone both) of them feel ready to seriously consider kids. They both have a lot to work through after what they went through as kids themselves, and being a parent means being 100% there for someone else’s needs, often at the sacrifice of your own. Not to mention that with both of their creative-based careers, with not nearly as much financial stability as some of their peers, they’ve had some years where supporting just the two of them is a challenge. But eventually, they do get to the point where they start thinking about kids. I think they’d have at least one. Maybe they adopt, maybe they team up with El and Max (depending on how you HC the girls at that point) to do an in vitro deal, it depends.

-They visit Joyce and Hop (who are married) for Christmas. El and Max come home for the holidays, too. Joyce and Hop moved out of Hawkins together after all the kids moved away for college. Not too awfully far from Indiana, but far enough from Hawkins that they could leave the memories behind. Somewhere fairly rural, but not quite small-town. A large town or small-to-mid-size city, maybe, where they have a house with a big backyard and a big front yard and enough combined beds and couches to house all the “kids” over the holidays.

-Ever since college, they go to Pride every year - most likely along with El and Max, if the four of them can arrange to meet up.

-Mike and Will still tease each other a lot and play-fight and they still tussle for the remote or the last fry, and they still have nerdy posters up in their living room, and they still trust each other more than anything else and they still geek out over their interests together and they still bicker and protect each other and love each other. So, really, not too much has changed since they were teenagers - they’re just in a better (read: much less homophobic) environment, working on their mental health, growing, healing from years-old traumas, doing what they love for a living (after decades of fighting tooth and nail to make it work), spending time with loved ones. Just living life. Taking new risks. Riding the ups and downs together.

#asks #byeler #byler #HCs #married byeler #adult byeler #basically the moral of this story is that everything is gonna be okay kids #you'll find something you love doing #and you'll have a nice home that you get to build with someone you love #and you'll visit your friends and family #and you'll cook dinner and listen to podcasts and it'll be okay #just in case anyone needed to hear that

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oosteven-universe · 4 years

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Strange Adventures #2

Strange Adventures #2 DC Black Label 2020 Written by Tom King Illustrated by Mitch Gerards & Evan “Doc” Shaner Lettered by Clayton Cowles What is the truth about Adam Strange? When an activist who publicly accused him of war crimes ends up dead, the public begins to doubt Strange’s stories about his adventures on the planet Rann-and he’s even starting to doubt himself. It’s going to take a special investigator to get the truth, and he’s going to have to tear apart Adam Strange’s life and reputation to do it. This is another fine example of storytelling. After the Mister Miracle story I wasn’t surprised to see another one coming from them and god I was thrilled with the choice. Adam Strange has had a raw deal over the last decade at least, small wonder. Still this is what comics were made for, to tell a story, take us to places far away and unknown to thrill readers with adventures and even some darker grittier stuff that no one expects. It really does encompass a real now viewpoint on how we see people and their actions and it’s at times extremely brutal but ya know what this Black Label line is the best thing DC has going right now. The way that this is being told is completely and utterly brilliant. Leave it to Bruce Wayne not to trust someone and send someone else to do his dirty work. What I do find interesting here is the fact that it feels as if Bruce doesn't know Adam personally which is definitely an interesting new take. The story and plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented in a way that you often cannot take at face value. This is partly because we know how Mister Miracle went and partly because everyone’s view is their own and completely unique to that individual. Which leads me to the character development which is amazing to see. From Adam, Bruce and Michael what we see is this superb tangle of emotions and feelings and it just makes for this truly glorious read. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we get this amazing tale unveiling before us. How all this works together to create the books ebb & flow as well as how solidly the book is structured exceptionally well done. The interiors here are truly inspired. The work we see is mesmerising and hypnotic in that I as a reader cannot stand to look away from the pages. The people we see have this unique look and quality to the way they are presented. The linework we see with its varying weights and techniques is utterly gorgeous. The utilisation of the backgrounds bring us this nice depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. They also beautifully enhance the imagery we see while it keeps setting the stage for the main focus. The way that we see the page layouts and the angles and perspective in the panels show off this utterly amazingly talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is beyond spectacular and how the various hues and tones are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work enhance everything we see. The skill in how the colour is applied and utilised throughout is stunning. There really is something magical about this series already and you can feel in each and every page. How we see the story being layered with depth and how the characters respond to that which is being asked of them as well as the situations and circumstances that arise. For me I couldn’t be any happier that DC is finally utilising some of these classic characters and showcasing why they were so vital to the company's rise in popularity. Adam strange is just a man thrust into a life he had to adapt to and through that became a hero, saviour and father, his iconic status in the universe is well deserved. Now though it’s the focus on Michael which I find more interesting as i know very little about this legacy (replacement) character. This is a fun ride and it has only just begun!

#Comic Books #Comics Reviews #DC Black Label #Tom King #Mitch Gerards #Evan Shaner #Clayton Cowles

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alwaysspeakshermind · 5 years

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Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#4: “Varchie’s boring/predictable, love at first sight is so cliché(d).”

Love at first sight is so clichéd? Okay, sure, I’ll allow that.

I’ll even agree.

But think contextually for a sec: love-at-first-sight is so clichéd as opposed to what? The utterly original, never-been-done-before uniqueness of best-friends-to-lovers that Barchie and also Bughead, why do people who say they want to see a friends-to-lovers relationship keep forgetting Bughead’s in that category? represents? The novel concept of enemies-to-lovers that is Cheryl/Toni (and Veggie if you squint)? The dated-in-the-past-but-sparks-still-fly (Falice, Tom Keller/Sierra McCoy, Fred/Hermione) or misunderstood-outsider-falls-in-love-with-“perfect”-America’s Sweetheart (Bughead, and also Kevin/Joaquin, Kevin/Fangs)?

Come on.

Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, a trope is a trope is a trope. There are only so many combinations possible when it comes to romantic dynamics, and since fiction and reality have both existed for a really long time, there’s no one trope that hasn’t already been done a million times over. So…what’s the point of harping on this particular one? Or any other trope just because it’s not your personal favorite?

Yes, Love At First Sight is the bread-and-butter of many fairytales and/or Disney movies. But it’s by no means alone in that regard.

Best friends/childhood friends-to-lovers has been a longtime staple of books, TV shows, rom-coms, and musicals (Harry Potter, Kim Possible, 13 Going On 30, Phantom of the Opera, and Lion King all say hello), and so has enemies-to-lovers (27 Dresses, The Proposal, You’ve Got Mail, Tangled, etc.). I’m not even going to bother touching on the sparks-still-fly/loner-loves-”good” kid thing, because the first is the golden goose for Hallmark, Lifetime, an a billion-and-one romance novels, while the second is YA fiction in a nutshell. And if you’re one of those “I can’t help it, friends-to-lovers is my crack” kind of people, it might be worth noting that “Love At First Sight” is plenty of other people’s crack. Also, if your complaint against a trope you find overused is a valid argument, so is someone else’s. Childhood-best-friends-to-lovers may feel newer and unique to you, but it doesn’t to everyone. Some people are as tired of it as you are of Love At First Sight.

And even if your claim is that “love at first sight’s not realistic/there’s like zero basis for it in the real world/it’s the exception not the rule,” that claim also extends to Childhood Best-Friends-To-Lovers and Enemies-To-Lovers.

In the real world, the Best-Friends-To-Lovers thing is about as common as Love At First Sight, with the latter maybe being a bit more common, since the overwhelming majority of people tend to notice attraction within the first fifteen minutes of meeting someone and the overwhelming majority of childhood best friends grow up thinking of each other as a sibling. (Important distinction: when childhood best friends do grow up, fall in love and get married, they don’t tend to take until high school/college to figure out how they feel. They’re typically aware of it from puberty/slightly before puberty onward, and it doesn’t change because they already know everything there is to know about that person...they know if they’re attracted to them; they know if they’re not.) And both those tropes are more common in everyday life than enemies-to-lovers since, in truth, most people don’t want to have anything to do with the antagonistic person who made their life miserable.

So realism/unrealism? Kind of a shifting-sands argument. Especially within the context of a show that puts an ex-“gang” member in as sheriff and deputizes other “gang” members, one of whom is named Sweet Pea, of all things. I mean, if you truly feel morally obligated to reality-police Riverdale, there are far more pressing issues than the likelihood of two teens meeting each other one time and deciding within five minutes that “This is The One” (which is not even how it happens except for Archie, but still).

What it really comes down to is not the trope itself, but how well the trope is executed.

In other words, it’s not what you’re given...it’s what you do with what you’re given. Every trope has been done many times before. Like it or not, that is an undeniable fact. Arguing that something has little-to-no value purely on the basis of its commonality is in essence weighting originality (theory) over style (practical application). To illustrate why this kind of thinking is a critical mistake, let’s put it this way: weighting originality over style is like saying Riverdale Season 3 is better than Riverdale Season 1.

...Which, as even the most casual of Riverdale viewers knows, is not the case.

Is S3 more ambitious than S1? Yes. Does S3 contain more jaw-dropping plot twists than S1? Absolutely. Are there some damn fun episodes in S3? For sure. But guess what? S3 also contains far more plot holes, inane plot “twists” and contradictory developments/sheer why-are-you-trying-to-make-fetch-happen-with-this-storyline moments because S3 goes so hard for shock value/the unexpected, that it effectively lapses on execution and winds up with a more creative, but ultimately less-compelling finished product than S1. Moral to the story? Creativity is good, but devotion to creativity at the exclusion of all else is not. If a few predictable elements aren’t mixed into an unpredictable world (or vice versa), everything ceases to shock. On Riverdale, because things are always so wild, the biggest surprises are usually when things unfold normally/don’t go haywire.

Now.

Me personally, I’ve shipped every trope at least once. I’m in the habit of making myself set aside all preconceived notions when beginning a new show/book/movie, because I never know what, if any, ship I’ll go for. Historically, I’m about 50-50 on Childhood-best-friends-to-lovers—sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. Enemies-to-lovers—usually, I dig it, sometimes it’s a big, fat no from me, dawg. Love At First Sight however, I am overwhelmingly prejudiced against. And when I say overwhelmingly prejudiced, I mean that as a rule, I flat-out hate it. I find it stupid. It annoys me. I roll my eyes and make jokes.

But, here I am. Writing a bunch of long-ass Tumblr posts in defense of a fictional relationship that makes a direct play on the Love At First Sight trope.

So why are Archie and Veronica my huge exception?

Well, for one thing, their relationship kicks off in a manner that is highly evocative of the comics. The instant Archie sees Veronica, all of time (for him) stands still. The one solitary thing he’s aware of from the moment she steps into Pop’s and he looks up is her. No matter what he’s doing, he ends up looking at her, and after a very short amount of time, the same goes for Veronica (though of course, she tries to play it cool). Regardless of how I feel about the cheesiness of the trope, the execution of the scene is fricking cute.

For another: it actually is an unusual trope, and I was surprised to see it used.

Don’t get me wrong, the whole see-a-person-across-a-crowded-room deal is a cliché and it’s a million percent been done to death. But the funny thing is, Love At First Sight is such a clichéd cliché that it’s hardly ever used nowadays. By virtue of its extreme clichédness in fact, it has accidentally and ironically become fresh again because the second someone suggests it, someone else inevitably goes, “Nah, that’s too clichéd, we can’t do that.” In all honesty, I can’t remember one TV show or non-90s-Disney movie I watched in the last ten years where that trope was used over any/all of the other tropes available. I actually intended to make a list of the books/movies/shows I know of that have used the friends/enemies to lovers trope for comparison purposes, but it was getting so long with just the books section I ended up going, “Haha, no,” and scrapped that plan. (But for the record, almost every single Jane Austen novel is on that list.)

So, in summary: Love At First Sight clichéd? Yep. For sure.

Too clichéd?

Nope.

Certainly no more, and arguably less, than the other tropes Riverdale’s many ships adhere to. So if you’re not nonstop complaining about those other ships on the basis of the overdone/predictability factor, it shouldn’t be an issue that Varchie’s relationship is built around a recognizable trope that has been out-of-use by most everyone except Disney for a good while now. (Besides, some tropes are considered timeless for a reason.)

And seriously, if we’re going to go down the Disney path, let’s stop a second and recall how many Disney Channel shows/movies in the last decade utilized Best-Friends-To-Lovers and Enemies-To-Lovers. Or hey, what about Nickelodeon shows? Or maybe cop/CSI/civil service-type shows where best friend partners/partners who hate each other eventually fall in love?

Again, a relationship is not automatically made “boring” because it falls within the parameters of a well-known trope, and “predictable” does not automatically mean “bad.” If that were truly the case, no fictional relationship from probably the 18th century onward would have any popularity and/or critical acclaim. And if you try to argue that that’s just how it is for you personally: predictable/clichéd = boring, you should probably keep in mind that when measured by those standards, every single other ship on Riverdale is, by definition, boring.

Every.

Single.

One.

Not just Varchie.

So if you really are passionate about Riverdale not focusing on a “boring, predictable, clichéd ship instead of an interesting one,” you might want to take a break from griping about Archie and Veronica and start examining exactly how original those "interesting” ships you’re touting actually are. And if that’s not really what you mean, if you don’t really buy into the line you’re selling (i.e., you’re just using “they’re so boring” as an excuse to disguise the fact that you don’t like Varchie because they prevent your preferred ship from happening), you might also want to consider just being honest about that.

Because when you build your argument around a point that encompasses more relationships than just the one you’re criticizing, it makes you look like you’re either extremely clueless in not realizing that your complaint also applies to your ship/other ships, or else a giant hypocrite.

#varchie #archie x veronica #riverdale opinion #my opinion #my post #rant #I'm calmer now #so we're trying to remain relatively tactful here

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traincat · 5 years

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I was wondering if you could explain Peter and Tony Stark's relationship in the comics. I was reading something along the lines of that they are friends but that Peter did in fact look up to Tony as a father figure once but after Civil War they remained as friends. I don't think Peter ever saw Tony as a father figure but I could be wrong although I do doubt it. Can you help? :)

Sure, I can do that, especially with Endgame Eve upon us and the inevitable return of my gritting my teeth every time someone refers to Tony as Peter’s father figure within comics continuity as well as in the MCU. First things first: I have to say that when I talk about this relationship, I’m speaking as someone who has read far more Spider-Man than Iron Man, and as someone who is far more interested in Spider-Man than Iron Man, although when I first got into Marvel I did read quite a bit of Iron Man-focused things.

That being said, a lot of times when this conversation comes up among people who are fans of Peter Parker in the comics (and who are not fans of what the MCU has done with the character and how they chose to tie him to the Iron Man franchise) it takes on a comics!Tony bashing tone, which is not something I’m interested in doing because I’m not interested in breeding bad feelings between different factions of Marvel fandom – and because I don’t dislike Tony Stark as a character. So my goal here is not to paint Peter as The Good Character and Tony as The Bad Character in some sort of conflict, but to break things down and illustrate that Peter as a character has always been his very best when he’s independent, and that this dynamic wasn’t, ultimately, good for Peter – I suspect it also wasn’t good for Tony, but the fallout from Civil War was a trip for everyone, because Civil War was a very manufactured event that had its characters act in accordance with the plot instead of shaping the plot around the characters. Comics! Anyway: this is a bashing free zone on my part when it comes to the comics, with the exception of Marvel themselves. Marvel, I’m gonna insult. That being said, this is probably going to look lopsided, first because I have to discuss Civil War, because the area around Civil War is where most of this relationship exists, and second because I think the fallout of this relationship is important to discuss and Peter is very, very angry during the fallout.

First things first, and this isn’t exactly the place for this because it’s a much larger topic, but I think both pop culture and fandom have a big problem lumping a whole host of older man/younger man dynamics together: mentor/protege, boss/employee, team leader/team member, and father/son are not all the same dynamic and shouldn’t be treated as such. If I had a dollar for every time “he’s his dad” cropped up in relation to characters (not just Tony and Peter but in general) who just have, like, an age gap between them, I would be sunning myself on a private yacht right now. Not every older man is every younger man’s father, figurative or otherwise, and especially not once both characters are into adulthood. That’s not how relationships work; to simplify them like that removes nuance. In the interests of transparency, there are a few panels where Peter and Tony banter and joke: when Tony is telling him about the features in the new suit he’s building him, Peter jokingly whines “dad c’mon” (Amazing Spider-Man #529), and at one point I believe he makes a joke about wanting to borrow the keys to the car. But these are, you know, clearly jokes coming from a highly sarcastic character who is prone to these kind of wisecracks. There is one panel off the top of my head from One More Day where Peter says Tony was “like a father to him”:

(Amazing Spider-Man #544) As you can see, it’s not a happy scene. I should note this is after Peter has broken into Tony’s home, punched Tony in the face, webbed him up, and forcibly wrenched his faceplate off, if we’re going to talk supposed filial piety. Personally I’ve never liked this line, in part because it doesn’t make sense – this is part of what I was saying about conflating different dynamics with a certain power dynamic at play and then labeling them all father/son. Peter certainly, in the events leading up to Civil War, trusted and respected Tony. He certainly let Tony lead him. There was definitely a mentor/protege thing happening, with Tony doing things like taking Peter to Washington DC with him. But to put it simply: in 616, Tony Stark is simply not old enough for Peter Parker to view him as a father figure. Like with how Peter Parker is often thought of as much younger than he is in fandom, Tony Stark seems to be thought of as older. (This is probably because of either the mustache or the MCU.) Realistically, there can’t be more than a decade between them. Older brother, if we’re going to go the familial feelings route, would be more appropriate than father. It’s also a bit ridiculous to think that Peter, who is a married adult who has lost his own child and has lived through events like his own father supposedly coming back from the dead, would be desperate for a father figure at this point in his life, especially when he wasn’t interested in having one from the superhero set in his teen years. That being said “you were like an older brother/very young uncle to me” doesn’t pack the emotional punch we’re conditioned to register with “you were like a father to me” and I suspect that’s why this line is here for the reader. Alternatively, from a characterization standpoint, if you are both very angry and very desperate and you need someone to do you a large favor even though they won’t be inclined to at that point in time, you might want to pull out the big emotional manipulation guns, and while it’s not stated as such that that’s what Peter’s doing deliberately on the page, if I wanted to reconcile the line with who Peter is in canon, I could buy it. As it is, it just kind of sits there allowing for people to claim that Peter honestly viewed Tony as like a father to him in comics by denying greater context. I’d say if the comics wanted me to buy that Peter honestly felt Tony was like a father to him, they should have done more work, but the problem is that this event happens with decades of characterization behind Peter, and looking at the big picture I just don’t see it happening even if they had put in more work.

(As a person concerned with the integrity of the overall Spider-Man character and narrative, I should say I’m very anti-father figures in Peter’s canon – not only does it erase Peter’s independence, a key component of the character, but it tends to gloss over May as Peter’s primary parental figure, and it warps the narrative around Norman’s twisted desire to have a Perfect Heir in the form of Peter. That being said, if we’re talking about father figures in Peter’s life: shortly before Peter joins the New Avengers, he encounters an older man named Ezekiel who also has spider powers and who tells Peter he can tell him much more about his own powers. Though he’s incredibly enigmatic, Peter develops a fondness for Ezekiel and grows to trust him. Then Ezekiel tries to sacrifice Peter to further fuel his own spider powers. So Peter shouldn’t have much of a taste for father figures at this point in time anyway.)

This got exceedingly long! More under the cut.

Let’s backtrack to the early days of Spider-Man. I’ve mentioned before that independence is very important to Peter, but that doesn’t mean he’s never tried to join a team. In Amazing Spider-Man #1, after all, he tried to join the Fantastic Four – until he learned they didn’t pay. Similarly, in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, some years later, the Avengers try to decide whether they should issue an invitation for Spider-Man to join their ranks, and ultimately decide to test him. Peter is unsure whether he really wants to join the Avengers, although he is tempted by the idea of financial security and the public’s respect. His temper’s still pretty hot at this point, and he doesn’t react all that well to the notion of being tested:

In the end he goes along with the test, passes it, but then decides to pretend like he didn’t because he didn’t care for the actual test. There’s not a whole lot of interaction between Peter and the Avengers for a while in general, beyond the occasional team-up – I’m partial to the one with Jan Van Dyne in Spectacular Spider-Man #105-106. Peter’s got a particularly vibrant supporting cast of his own, and they tend to outshine his hero teamups. I was trying to think of any Iron Man and Spider-Man content I could remember around this point and while they’re probably is some other stuff, what comes to mind is the fight from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #20:

For the record, this isn’t Tony Stark, but Arno Stark, the Iron Man of the future. Peter, however, does not know that; he definitely thinks he’s punching his native Iron Man. (First law of Spider-Man’s aggression: is it an adult man? Peter is willing to punch him in the face. Captain America? Done it. His own clone? Tried to choke him out. It’s just how he is.) So nothing really is sticking out for me re: Peter and Tony specifically having any type of relationship at this point in time. Peter does at one point become a reserve Avenger, although he voices doubts about whether it’s really for him:

“Maybe I oughtta reconsider my reserve Avenger status!” (Amazing Spider-Man #357)

On the subject of Peter and other heroes, I like this panel from Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2, where Peter talks about how Mary Jane says he has a bad attitude around other superheroes:

This is admittedly after he broke into Avengers Mansion ostensibly for help but just ended up fighting and arguing with them, so, she’s not wrong. (I pulled this up because I went to reread this scene because I couldn’t remember if Tony is in it, but he’s not.)

So here we are, north of the year 2000, and I would say Tony and Peter don’t really have much of a relationship. There have been times they’ve found themselves in the same battle, and I wouldn’t say either of them dislikes the other, but I don’t think they really think of each other much, either. Peter’s closest superhero connections are, at this point, as they traditionally have been, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. So what happened?

The answer is simple. In two words: Event hell.

If you’ve spent any time in comic book fandom, you know people have Feelings about events – those big company wide storylines involving every other character and their butler that used to happen every so often and now are basically nonstop. Mostly negative feelings. Events disrupt the flow of individual books, can screw up already in progress storylines, and somebody’s always totally out of character. I’m actually not an event hater in theory; I think they can be done well. On the other hand, these ones I’m about to discuss really suck for Spider-Man, not even in terms of characterization at the time but in terms of getting the ball rolling on what I personally think led us here, to the worst Spider-Man characterization period I have ever seen reading comics. And it starts with Spider-Man becoming a real, full time Avenger.

During a story called Avengers: Disassembled, the Scarlet Witch has a breakdown and as a result kills several Avengers, including Hawkeye and Ant Man. The Avengers disband as a result. Six months later, a supervillain prison breakout brings together a collection of heroes including Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. Steve and Tony reform the Avengers, and this time invite Peter to join them. Thus, Peter becomes a headliner on the New Avengers title, along with Spider-Woman, Wolverine, and Luke Cage. I’ve said before that I don’t think Peter functions well on team books, and for one reason: he gets underused. With the New Avengers, you had your smart guy (Tony Stark) and you had your strong guys (Luke Cage and Wolverine – even though, in practice, Peter is much stronger than Luke, and has pummeled Wolverine before). He’s not even the only spider-person on the New Avengers lineup. Moreover, New Avengers was written by Bendis, and as much as it pains me to say this about the most vocal Marvel writer supporter of a canonically Jewish Peter Parker: I don’t think Bendis writes a good 616 Peter. The jokes take over. His dialogue lacks his particular 616-ish steel. In short, Bendis writes Peter with too much bark and far too little bite. It’s very noticeable during this period if you compare how Peter is written in New Avengers to how he is written in his own solo, Amazing Spider-Man, which at the time had JMS, who writes an absolutely incredible Peter, on it. Even the way JMS has Peter interact with the other Avengers in ASM is leagues ahead of Bendis on New Avengers:

(Amazing Spider-Man #522)

A lot of stuff happens at this point that further binds Peter to the Avengers and, with the Avengers, Tony: an ex-classmate of Peter’s turns himself into a military science experiment gone wrong and burns down Peter’s apartment as well as Aunt May’s home in Queens. Tony then invites Peter, Mary Jane, and May to move into Avengers Tower, which they do. When Mary Jane is caught going into Avengers Tower late at night, a tabloid story starts circulating that she’s having an affair with Tony. Also around here Peter eats a psychic vampire, “dies”, molts, comes back, did I mention he ate a psychic vampire? But nobody ever mentions that part. And at this point, we hit the road to Civil War.

(Amazing Spider-Man #529) I mean, I think you could argue that the Avengers on the whole are like a family, but sure, whatever. I’ll be honest: I think the comic itself at this period in time uses words like “family” in order to foster a sense of a longer relationship history that doesn’t actually exist, although at this point in time Jarvis and May were dating, so I guess that could make things a little in-law-y. It’s also, in story, being used to get Peter to agree with what Tony is pitching him. Anyway, I probably don’t need to explain Civil War but the cliffnotes: big superhero-caused explosion kills a bunch of children, a law is proposed that would make superheroes register with the government the superhero community becomes divided between two sides. There’s the pro-registration side, headed by Iron Man and also by Reed Richards, which favors cooperation with the government. Then there’s the anti-registration side, headed by Captain America. Peter originally starts out on the pro-registration side, swayed by the opportunity Tony presents him to finally unmask to the public and buoyed by his claims that with this movement they can keep Peter’s family safe, which is the reason Peter has kept the mask on all these years – concern that, should he take it off, Mary Jane or May would pay the price. (Wait for it.) Through Tony’s directive, Peter unmasks himself and reveals his identity during a live television press conference. Tony had also made Peter a new, more high tech suit called the Iron Spider, which in addition to being in the Iron Man colors of red and gold also has several golden mechanical spider’s legs.

This alliance between Tony and Peter is shortlived. Peter becomes disillusioned with the pro-registration side and defects, but not before he and Tony have a showdown:

(Civil War #5) You can see how I might have issues with how the MCU has reworked this particular storyline for their movies in regards to Spider-Man’s part in it. It’s not that I think anyone, including Peter, was written to their best during Civil War, but I think it’s disingenuous to take this storyline and attempt to remake it into a father/son dynamic, not only because it severely undermines Peter’s independence, something that marked him as very original as a teenage hero.

So Peter joins the anti-registration side, there’s a big superhero fight, etc etc. Things come to a close when Captain America surrenders, and so the pro-registration side is, technically, victorious. This leaves Peter a fugitive, and Mary Jane and May, who had been hiding out in a motel, his accomplices. Their stint on the run is short; with their safety no longer protected by Peter’s secret identity, his enemies do go after his family. When an assassin targets them, Peter manages to cover Mary Jane before she’s shot – but the bullet hits May as a result. Which brings us back around to the first panel I posted, in the scene where Peter does say Tony was “like a father” to him. With May on life support in the hospital and Peter and Mary Jane unable to reveal her name, Peter goes on a rampage looking for killer. This is actually one of my favorite Spider-Man storylines, called Back in Black, and it takes place between Amazing Spider-Man #539-543, which some absolutely stunning Peter characterization. He’s also incredibly angry at both Tony and at himself during this period.

(Amazing Spider-Man #544)

(Avengers: The Initiative #7)

At this point, Tony and Peter go separate ways. Peter sells his marriage to Mephisto for May’s life (comics), and with that deal his secret identity is restored among the general public and Peter continues with his daily life, becoming engrossed in his recently resurrected best friend Harry’s affairs and fighting crime. Tony, iirc, becomes Director of SHIELD, and later deletes his brain (comics) to keep the database containing the identities of other heroes from falling into Norman Osborn’s hands when Norman Osborn essentially takes over the government following his killing the Skrull queen during the Secret Invasion event (comics).

Since then, Peter and Tony have worked together and been on teams together (as much as I would like Peter’s Avengers status to never crop up again because the character simply wasn’t built to function on this kind of a team and nobody seems to know what to really do with him on it except have him crack jokes, with the MCU’s influence I don’t see that happening any time soon) and can get along.

(I do not have the issue number for this panel! But it’s from a fairly recent Invincible Iron Man series.)

I wouldn’t call them close. They’re not going to be the first person either of them calls on in an emergency unless there’s something specific to one of them that the other needs. I definitely wouldn’t call them familial, or say that, in current comics canon, Peter considers Tony to be anything close to a father to him. They’ve been teammates, I’m sure they’ll be teammates again, and at best I think you could call them friends, albeit not especially close ones. And in my opinion, that’s fine; not every character has to be best friends with every other character, and sometimes superheroes are just so far apart in how they operate that they don’t mesh well together, even though they’re both smart guys. I did not mean for this post to get so long, but I hope it helped!

tl;dr: the idea that Peter Parker viewed Tony Stark as a father figure is the byproduct of a very brief period of canon that was necessary to maneuver the characters into the roles they were going to inhabit for the Civil War event – which ultimately went very badly for both of them. The dynamic – or any genuinely close relationship between them – didn’t exist before that, and did not continue to exist afterwards, and it’s my personal opinion that saying Peter looked up to Tony as a father rather than as a mentor is taking the words on the page slightly too literally.

#peter parker #marvel comics #*replies #long post/#traincat talks comics

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alicesadventuresintherye · 5 years

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This is a very personal post. My sister @once_upon_a_paintbrush and I are 10 years apart. She's not just my sister but also my best friend. And I've also been a maternal figure in her life from the beginning. Heck, everywhere we've gone for the past decade and a half everyone thinks I am Sophia's mom! We are frequently called "The Gilmore Girls;" however, that show doesn't fit us as beautifully as a wonderful series that had its finale tonight, Andi Mack. The show @andimacktv spoke to my sister and I on many levels beyond Andi and her Sister/BFF/Mom Bex. I could particularly relate to the storylines focused on anxiety/PTSD. Joining the ranks of shows like Freaks & Geeks, The Wonder Years, and Boy Meets World, Andi Mack took the time to gracefully address real life issues without ever smothering them in melodramatics, cheap plot twists, or mockery. Instead of being a shallow and pretentious teen soap filled with fluff, it never held aesthetics over honesty and quality. It's such a shame that it was cancelled. Nonetheless, I am happy that my sister's generation had a show that asked its viewers to accept themselves and others for who they are. This is the type of show that helps inspire its audience to think compassionately. My sister and I will always treasure our time that we have spent with these characters. As a tribute, I have drawn @peytonelizabethlee and @yourfriendlilan as Andi and Bex with the refrain of the show's theme song. And these words remind me of my sister and the promise I've always tried to keep to her each day: "I'm ready for tomorrow. Tommorow starts today. There ain't a map to follow but I'm with you all the way. All the way." ♥️

#doodle #frannotated #fanart #myart #art #artistsofinstagram #digitalart #graphicdesign #Adobe #illustration #illustrator #surfacepro6 #createdonsurface #andimack #bexmack #andimackfanart #disneychannel #disney #disneyfanart #disneyart #peytonelizabethlee #lilanbowden #terriminsky #renewandimack #uncancelandimack #personal

#disney #andi mack #peyton elizabeth lee #andi mack fandom #andi mack fan art #fan art #disney fan art #lilan bowden

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spyrograph · 6 years

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DS9 airport AU

It’s a tiny regional airport in a small city that’s fallen on hard times. There are maybe two gates and only one runway. It looks like it was built in the 40′s and has never been remodeled. Most of the traffic is private planes and the smallest connecting commercial flights.

Quark’s Restaurant & Bar & Grill always smells like breakfast and cigarettes. The carpet has been replaced in sections and none of the squares quite match. Vintage arcade games line the narrow hall that leads to the restrooms.

There’s a news stand that sometimes has fresh flowers. There’s always a religious nut handing out beautifully illustrated pamphlets about the alien oppressors. The baggage carousel never stops rattling.

Nobody’s really sure why Garak chose to set up shop in the space that used to be the car rental office. Most of his business seems to come from dry cleaning pilots’ uniforms.

((This got long for something that isn’t a fic.))

Corrupt Mayor Dukat has been trying for decades to shut down this tiny airport so he can get funding to build a larger, more modern one. The entire region is in decline and it seems entirely due to Dukat’s political scheming.

Don Enabran Tain from the big city upstate has had a run-in with the Feds. He plans to reroute his “business” through this tiny airport until everything blows over. Tain is giving his bastard son one last chance to prove his loyalty. Garak’s Clothiers is only a front for a drug smuggling gig.

There’s an old hotel across the street from the airport. Everyone is convinced that it’s haunted but it’s the only 4-star hotel in the city so that’s where travelers and flight attendants stay. Julian Bashir (jet-setter, old-money, dilettante) has been spending a suspicious amount of time there. The rumor mill says he’s having an affair with one of the city’s residents.

Julian Bashir is actually working for the federal government under duress. If he doesn’t help the Feds he’ll loose everything- because Richard Bashir committed an ungodly amount of tax fraud.

Odo is the city’s sheriff. He’s working closely with the Feds on this case. Odo absolutely cannot stand the fact that organized crime is happening in his city.

Kira is the city’s overworked District Attorney. She honestly just wants Mayor Dukat to die because that would fix 90% of the city’s problems.

Sisko is the airport’s new manager. He took this job because he wanted to raise his son in a wholesome small-town environment. Sisko has always had very vivid, lucid dreams.

Worf is a TSA agent. His inflexibility and anger issues are the reason he was reassigned to this tiny airport with basically no traffic.

Jadzia, is the air traffic controller. She’s too young to have ulcers but she has them anyway because her job is unreal levels of stressful. You wouldn’t know it though- she’s really good at compartmentalizing.

Miles is an aircraft technician. He’s a shell-shocked veteran. Keiko is merciless about making sure he takes care of himself.

Rom is a baggage handler. He wears two pairs of ear plugs under his ear protection because he gets overstimulated at least five times a day.

Leeta is a flight attendant. She once jokingly said that she would marry the man who could guess where she was born. Quark has been methodically listing off cities for years.

Damar is a pilot. He went to school with Dukat. They played football together. They attended the same college and they planned to run for office together. They had a serious falling-out and neither of them will say why.

The Dominion is a multinational corporation that takes advantage of Mayor Dukat’s ambition. The Dominion promises to create jobs and stimulate the local economy. What they actually do is monopolize literally everything and convert the whole city into a next-level dystopian “company town”

The economic woes of this small airport and this small city are a microcosm of what is happening all over the planet in the wake of the Dominion’s aggressive capitalism.

((This is the point where the plot goes from “realistic crime drama” to “actually, i lied, this is science fiction,”))

THE BIG TWIST:

The Founders are actually alien invaders. The Dominion Corporation is just the most cost-efficient method of subjugating the population.

The Vorta are actually aliens. They’re also lawyers, secretaries, regional managers, and every other corporate stooge you might think of.

The Jem’Hadar are hired thugs. They’re mostly human. “Ketracel White. It’s transformative!” is a slogan.

COMEDY BITS:

Quark gets busted for smuggling exotic fish.

Worf is genuinely embarrassed by the sex toys he encounters while searching luggage.

Julian uses bad pickup lines on Leeta, “You must have been born in the clouds because you’re an angel.”

Benjamin keeps dreaming that his baseball turns up in weird places. His baseball keeps turning up in weird places.

Garak goes over-the-top flaming-homosexual-cliche in an attempt to get Julian out of his shop. It has the opposite effect.

ROMANCE BITS:

Garak and Bashir have a torrid this-could-be-my-last affair because both of them have everything to lose.

Worf and Jadzia’s love-to-hate-you relationship escalates to a full-on-brawl. They fuck in the men’s room and then pretend it never happened.

Rom accurately guesses that Leeta was born on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean and proposes. She accepts.

DRAMA BITS:

Jake Sisko uses Ketracel White in order to gain entry to the Dominion factory and uncover the truth. He is successful but the long-term effects of the drug are devastating.

Garak travels to the big city upstate and confronts Don Tain. Tain, on his death bed, forgives Garak but bequeaths the “family business” to Pythas Lok.

Odo is revealed to be a Founder. He was sent ahead as a scout but fell in love with the planet and it’s people.

Damar’s falling out with Dukat happened because Damar (drunk and/or coked out) killed Ziyal in a car accident. Dukat believes that Damar did it deliberately.

Ben Sisko realizes that his “lucid dreams” actually effect reality. He is kidnapped by the Dominion. The Female Founder interrogates him because she believes he is an alien! That’s ridiculous! Isn’t it?

Dukat (hyped up on Ketracel?) assaults Kira. She destroys him; physically and politically. She then proceeds to kick asses and take names.

HORROR BITS:

Wiki How To Make a Jem’Hadar Army with Disenfranchised Youth and Ketracel White.

CLIMACTIC BITS:

A joint FBI/mafia assault team retakes the airport and prevents SOMETHING BAD from happening.

Miles terrifies the living shit out of everyone with his sniper skills.

Damar does a kamikaze with an empty 747, destroys the Ketracel factory, and eliminates the Female Founder.

Benjamin is rescued. He accepts that he is not entirely human and uses his “lucid dream” ability to remove all traces of Ketracel from Jake’s body.

Sisko and Odo board a Dominion space ship: they hope to intercept the Dominion forces and convince them to turn around.

ENDING BITS:

Kira is elected mayor.

Jake’s investigative reporting earns him a Pulitzer or something.

Rom and Leeta get hitched. Garak and Julian slow dance at the reception.

The airport gets rebuilt. (It was totally trashed in the climactic battle.)

Nobody knows what happened to Sisko and Odo. Either they were successful or the world will be destroyed sometime in the near future. People are preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.

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bucklesomeswashswan · 5 years

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Once Upon a December (6/10)

Summary: Emma doesn’t remember much of her past, all she knows is she needs to get out of Misthaven. The mysterious group called the Industrialists continues to gain power and control since they overthrew the royal family over a decade ago. Out of options, Emma joins forces with a conman Killian and his partner Ruby in their plot to pass her off as the lost princess of Misthaven. But as they travel together and Killian and Ruby try to teach her how to be a princess, Emma begins to uncover hidden pieces of her past. When threats start closing in around them will she choose to escape to safety or risk everything to find her family and reveal a dangerous secret that could change history forever?

Rating: M

Story content warning: some descriptions of violence, slow burn

Part of @captainswanbigbang 2018. Updates every Saturday!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 also read it on AO3

The art for this story is from the very sweet and very talented @prongsie! Take a look at these awesome illustrations for chapter 2 and 5! Thank you to my beta reader @csobsessed-21!

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting and liking the story! It is the best feeling to have people react to your story. Thank you so very much!

Chapter 6 : Glowing Dim as an Ember

Killian moved restlessly about the small windowless room. Over the last few hours he had learned that it was twenty-three paces around the square room, that each wall had 162 stones, and that the ceiling was approximately eight feet high. The room was lit with three sconces each with two gas fixtures. Twice he had heard footsteps above him, and taking the slightly musty air into account it was reasonable to assume he was in some sort of basement.

But for all that he had knew about the room he still had no idea what had happened to Ruby or Emma since they were separated. He didn’t know if they were nearby, possibly locked into similar rooms, or if they were even still in the mansion. No one had entered the room since he had been shoved inside and he hated that he didn’t know what they were planning to do with him or any of them.

He growled in frustration pounding a fist into the thick metal door. The sound echoed dully and faded into silence. No answer. No change.

Trapped. He was trapped. He should have seen this coming. Maybe if they had been more vigilant. It had been a weak moment, a small pleasure he hadn’t been able to deny, to stay with Emma last night. He should have set watches, they should never have let themselves think they were safe. Now because of his mistakes they were all caught in Gold’s cruel grip.

He had been distracted for days. Seeing Emma’s magic had thrown him, an unbelievable display that had shocked him and left him feeling like he’d missed a step. A lurch in his stomach like he was falling with no end, nothing anchoring him to solid ground.

He’d only seen one other person do magic like that before. And everything since the attack on the train had only made it harder to ignore what was right in front of him. The dreams she described, her magic, the ease with which she picked up what they taught her, the way she had described the amulet from her nightmare.

It was too much of a coincidence. There was only one explanation. His mind railed against the impossible thought even as he knew it was true: Emma actually was the lost Princess of Misthaven.

Killian blew out a sigh. The absurdity of it almost made him want to laugh. For over a week he had been in the company of royalty. The heir to the throne of his homeland. A ghost from a time long ago. And then, when she needed it, he had failed to protect her, again.

He rubbed his hand over his face. They were in such deep shit. Not only had they fallen into Gold’s trap, but they had delivered the Princess right to him, the target of his crusade for over a decade, the symbol of everything he had worked to crush.

Their only hope for Emma to survive this was that Gold never find out who she really was, no matter what.

~*~

Emma was in some kind of laboratory, elaborate machines lined the workbenches around her. Scattered about were piles of gears, scrap metal, and spectacles with multiple lens that could be lowered presumably for magnification. Perhaps this was a place Gold had spent hours creating his inventions, or even more likely where he had others do it for him. She wondered what he might have threatened talented craftsmen with to get them to work for him. What dark secrets had been traded for favors within these walls.

Emma glared at the man seated across the table from her. One of Gold’s men. He wasn’t a blackguard, or at least he wasn’t wearing the dark uniform, but that didn’t make him less menacing. He seemed to match the worn and industrial feel of the room, his features were sharp and grizzled. And his scowl carved deep lines across his forehead as though it was the expression he wore the most often, and now it was chiseled permanently onto his face.

“I’m not sure you realize the trouble you are in, Miss,” he said gruffly. Emma didn’t reply, her jaw clenching as she watched his thumb drum on the table. A ring flashed in the light where it sat against his knuckle. Something about the twisted band seemed familiar but she couldn’t place it before he spoke again.

“Our world is governed by laws, and those laws were put in place to keep everyone safe.” Again he paused, perhaps waiting from some response from her. After a moment he continued, “When those laws are broken it represents a danger to everyone. It weakens our society and perpetuates fear.”

Emma wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, especially not from the people that had toppled their society and continued to perpetuate fear.

“I’m not sure what this has to do with me,” she told him bluntly.

A flicker of emotion flashed in his eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was anger, frustration, or disbelief. He straightened in his chair leaning a little closer to her.

“You were found in the company of known criminals,” he told her. “That makes you complicit.”

This wasn’t going the way Emma had hoped. This wasn’t an overworked provincial country deputy who could be easily persuaded to turn a blind eye. She ran quickly through her options, trying to predict where each possible lie would lead the interrogation.

“I just met them,” she said with a shrug that was more nonchalant than she felt. “I had no idea who they were.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You’re telling me that you didn’t think, for even a second, that the people who smuggled you illegally over the border, who broke into a private home, might be criminals?”

Emma blew out a breath. “They told me they could help me travel out of Misthaven, I didn’t know they meant illegally.”

“It didn’t seem strange that you had to chase down a train and jump on board? Most people board trains at stations, they have tickets, travel papers.”

His patronizing tone made Emma’s fist clench, she pushed down the desire to punch him. She wondered vaguely what would happen if she reached over and grabbed the telescope sitting on the table beside her and decked him with it.

“Like I said, I didn’t know how they were planning to cross the border,” she said.

“How did you learn about the train? The route? The schedule?” he asked, the questions coming in rapid succession.

“The schedules of the trains aren’t a secret,” Emma said. “Any merchant knows when trains leave the city.”

He seemed to pounce on that. “So a merchant helped you? Give me a name.”

Emma frowned. “There was no merchant. I don’t have a name to give you because there isn’t one to give. I’m just trying to say that there are people who know the schedules. And if anyone knows the schedules then you can bet that information gets sold to criminals.”

A grin spread over his lips before she even realized her mistake. “So now you’re admitting they are criminals?”

Emma fought to keep her expression impassive as she struggled for an answer that wouldn’t incriminate them all. “I’m saying I don’t know how they learned about the train, but it wouldn’t be impossible for anyone to find out.”

Again there was that flicker behind his eyes, this time it was more ruthless. It seemed he was getting tired of this conversation too. But before he could say anything else the door to the room opened again, the wide deadbolts sliding back, and Gold walked in.

Emma swallowed as he came to a stop. His gaze seared over her and she shivered. The intensity made her feel as if he were looking straight through her, as if he were reading her thoughts. It sent fear prickling up her arms and tickling at the back of her neck.

His lips pulled up into a twisted grin. “So,” he said his voice between a rasp and a hiss, “if you aren’t partners with Mr. Jones and Miss Lucas then who exactly are you?”

~*~

Ruby hated prison cells. She had spent numerous nights behind bars over the years. Small run-ins with the authorities. It never stuck for long. She had friends in strategic places, a knowledge of what bribes would open which locks. Killian was always there waiting for her. He was always the first face she saw when she released. He used to joke she was his very own bad penny, but time and again he kept coming back for her.

She sighed leaning back in the plush armchair in the cozy study. This might have been the most luxurious place she had been locked up in, but it was still a prison. No antique furniture, crackling fire in the gate, or steaming cup of tea could hide that fact. She wasn’t so easily bought.

In hindsight there was an irony to their situation. What were the odds that the house they had chosen to break into would belong to Gold? It strained probability. Of all the mistakes she’d made over the years, those momentary lapses in concentration that landed her in tight spots, this had to be the dumbest. And still there wasn’t any way they could have known.

She wondered where the others were. Killian and Emma. She hoped they were together, wherever they were. This solitary confinement thing was starting to make her fidget. She hated just staring at the walls waiting for something to happen. And she had been waiting too long.

Why had no one come to talk to her yet? Where was Gold? What was he planning to do with them? Too many questions and no way to get answers. She hated uncertainty.

In Misthaven it had been fairly simple. There were still laws and procedures that had to be followed. Charges and sentencing. It was a corrupt system, sure, but it was predictable. But they weren’t in Misthaven anymore. Here they were off the edge of the map. Locked in Gold’s private home, there was no oversight, no system to govern his judgement. He could do anything to them and no one would ever know. No one would ever even know to miss them. They would simply disappear, like so many others.

The thought sent a chill through her.

They were completely at his mercy. There was nothing stopping Gold from locking them away, or worse, a thorn in his side finally vanquished. They had no way to save themselves. They had nothing to bargain with, nothing that he wanted.

~*~

“Well, perhaps I’ll tell you what I know about you, Emma,” Gold continued lingering on her name. “I know you fell in with some bad company.”

Emma remained still, not trusting herself not to betray all of them under his scrutinizing gaze. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but outwardly she tried to keep her breaths slow and even.

“People like Jones and Lucas, they are easy to be enchanted by. They are deceptive by nature and they profit on others falling for their smiles and charms. But it is only that, an illusion.”

Emma knew this tactic was a simple manipulation, and yet Gold had crafted it to perfectly prod at all her insecurities, apply pressure on old wounds, and she couldn’t help the shadow of doubt that slithered into her thoughts at his double edged words. She had known the kind of people Killian and Ruby were, she had known they were dangerous and still she had allowed herself to be pulled in by them, into their plan, like gravity. But maybe that was all it was: carefully timed smiles, well chosen kind words, magnetic personalities and a lonely girl so desperate to be wanted that she had almost fooled herself into believing their scam. If she was completely honest, there had been moments she had almost believed she could actually be the princess.

But wouldn’t it make more sense if it had all been a trick? Just a way for them to score a huge sum of money. What did they care if they crushed a random girl in the end. Just concentrate on the reasons you’re doing this, those had been Killian’s words. The ends justify the means. And if he was concentrating on an enormous payout would he willing to sacrifice her on the way?

“I’ve known of Killian Jones for years,” Gold said. “He’s a cunning lad. Always some plot, some gamble, some adventure. That’s what drives him, the thrill of the game. He doesn’t care about the collateral damage: the people’s lives he ruins with his actions, the people who are left behind. He has cycled through many partners, discarding them as soon as they were no more use to him.”

Her thoughts went to Robin and his men, abandoned at the border. A stepping stone in his plan, used and then left behind.

“He knows nothing of loyalty,” Gold finished.

Emma frowned. The words echoed dully in her mind, slowly losing their meaning as they repeated over and over. But unlike the rest these didn’t ring quite true, a crack in an elegant argument. She didn’t need her uncanny ability of sensing lies to know it. Gold might have known Killian for years, but she had known him long enough. He had shown himself to be courageous, smart, selfless. And beyond anything she knew he was loyal. All the stories Ruby had told her of the way they had grown up never giving up on each other, the way they continued to protect each other. The way he had found a family with Ruby. It was the most striking thing about him.

“You don’t know them. They are not bad people,” Emma said quietly.

Gold’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. “What?”

“They have been helping others for years,” Emma said more confidently. “They were only trying to help me find my family.”

“Trying to help you?” Gold sneered picking up one of the twisted pieces of metal from a workbench and turning it over in his hands. “You mean by attempting to pass you off as the Princess of Misthaven?”

Emma blanched. This wasn’t some probing guess, she could tell Gold knew the truth, the entire truth. Only the three of them had known their plan. A sense of dread spread through her. If Gold knew then it meant one of the other two must have told him.

“Who told you about that?” she asked.

“I have my sources. I like to be well informed” Gold said cryptically.

But there wasn’t anyone else. The only logical answer was it had to have been Killian or Ruby. She didn’t know what would have made them give up that secret, but could Emma truly blame them if they had done what they had to in order to survive?

They were all in a perilous situation, captured, Killian and Ruby at the whim of a man who hated them. What would she have given to protect any family she had?

She leaned back in her chair. “So you know about our plan,” she said. “We slipped out of Misthaven in an attempt to get the reward money.”

Gold eyed her curiously. “And that’s all it was? Just a way to steal money?”

“There aren’t many ways to earn money in Misthaven anymore,” Emma said icily. Fury flashed through Gold’s expression. She knew she shouldn’t provoke him but it had been too tempting.

“You didn’t care that you’d be swindling the royals?” he asked her.

Her brows pulled down. “We’re not loyalists of the royal family if that’s what you’re asking.”

Gold tilted his head a little. “That’s interesting,” he said and it seemed like he meant it, though he didn’t elaborate.

Emma didn’t know or care why he might find that interesting. If Gold knew their plan and any hope of pulling it off was gone, then she at least wanted to see the others.

“Where are Killian and Ruby?” she asked him.

He seemed a little surprised at her question.

“I’d have thought you wouldn’t be so worried about them after learning they had betrayed you,” he said.

Emma stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. “They haven’t betrayed me. If cooperating with your interrogation was what they needed to do to survive, that isn’t a betrayal to me.”

Gold was staring at her with an unreadable expression, unreadable but not blank. She could see him forming a plan.

“You seem quite fond of them,” he observed.

She could sense the trap in his words. She worked to keep her expression neutral.

“I want to see them now,” she said.

“That isn’t how this works. They are in the official custody of the Industrialists now.”

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“They will be dealt with accordingly for their crimes,” he told her mildly. His tone immediately belied by the way he grabbed a pair of pliers from the bench and gripped an edge of the piece of metal in his hand. He pulled back, wrenching off a chunk, the metal groaning loudly as it tore free.

His implication was clear. Emma’s fingers clenched into a fist hard enough her nails dug into her palms.

Gold seemed to notice her expression. “It won’t be anything they don’t deserve.”

“They haven’t done anything wrong,” Emma said firmly.

Gold set the ruined twist of metal down impassively and sat opposite her. “That isn’t for you to decide.”

“Who does decide? You?” she asked him. “You’re the leader of the Industrialists.”

Gold studied her with his dark gaze. She felt again as if he were staring into her, dissecting her piece by piece, able to see the hidden inner workings of her mind as if she were nothing more than the clockwork machines around them.

“I am,” he agreed. “And as such it is my job to protect the interests of the Industrial Guild.”

His exact wording caught her attention. This wasn’t about justice or crime and punishment. This was about Gold getting what he wanted.

“The Industrial Guild is that interested in Killian and Ruby?” she asked. “Seems to me like a waste of resources to have tracked them so far from Misthaven. There must be something you want more than them.”

A crooked smile pulled slowly at his lips, a hungry glint in his eyes. “Indeed.”

“Then let them go,” Emma said seizing on his admission. “You don’t need them.”

Gold looked at her for a long moment. She had the unnerving sense that despite everything, despite the fact she almost felt like she was winning, she had ended up exactly where he wanted her. Cat and mouse, and he was closing in.

“All favors come with a price,” Gold told her at last, “If I do this for you, you’ll need to do something for me in return.”

Emma met his eyes. “What do you want from me?”

His smirk widened, his expression victorious. It made her wary of what kind of deal he would propose.

“The reappearance of the royals has been a growing irritation for me,” he said.

Emma marveled at his word choice: irritation. As if Kings and Queens were just a mild nuisance to him, nothing more than an itch in a hard to reach spot, a fly buzzing in his ear, or sunlight shining into his eyes. It made her aware again of just who this man before her was, that he had toppled dynasties and he had bent and twisted countless people to his will.

“Rumors have reached Misthaven about the King and Queen, unsettling whispers that are upsetting the people. It’s destabilizing what we have worked for,” he continued.

“An unstable Misthaven,” Emma said sardonically, unable to stop herself, “goodness, what must that be like?”

Gold straightened in his chair his cold eyes piercing her. “I was under the impression you wanted my help,” he said icily.

Emma clenched her jaw biting down any response. He was right, she needed him. She needed to help Killian and Ruby.

“Good girl,” he said. The words made her skin crawl. Condescending and patronizing. It took everything in her to stay still and quiet. He watched her reaction carefully as if the words had been a test of her compliance. Emma wondered if his every word and action was a test, always gauging everyone in the room. She was beginning to understand how he had come to power so quickly.

“There is a ball being held tomorrow night for the royal family and their exiled supporters. Their disillusioned and misguided aim is to garner support from within Glowerhaven. They profess a goal of returning Misthaven to a monarchy and regaining control, but what they are really doing is trying to get Misthaven to regress. They plan to disrupt trade between Misthaven and the other kingdoms, to cut off resources needed for manufacturing. If that happens many workers and their families will suffer. I can’t allow our people to be attacked in this way. After over a decade hiding from their responsibilities and guilt, freeloading off the people of foreign lands these out of touch royals presume to know what is best for Misthaven, the country they abandoned. We are a proud and strong people who do not need an outdated monarchy staging a coup and ripping the power of democratic voice from us.”

He spoke to her as if they were both of the working class of Misthaven. As if they both would be personally affected by whatever sanctions or political maneuvers Glowerhaven or the royal family made. As if they weren’t sitting in his opulent mansion in a foreign country, as if he wasn’t the one who had ripped the power and voice from the people, as if he wasn’t the one who had attacked Misthaven and everything it had held dear. Every word he spoke was gilded exploitation.

“What is it you want me to do?” she asked bluntly.

“I need you to take the royal family out of the equation before they cause any more damage,” he said.

Emma blinked.

“I’m sorry,” she said holding up a hand as she tried make sense of what he said. “Are you asking me to kill them?”

Gold leaned in closer. “Think of it as a life for a life. You asked me to release two convicted criminals. My offer is a stay of execution for each of them. Buy their freedom with the lives of the King and Queen.”

“So I murder the King and Queen,” Emma clarified, “and you will let Killian and Ruby go? No strings attached? You won’t hunt them down, or press any charges?”

“That is my deal,” Gold said his eyes watching her closely.

Emma ran a hand over her face. It was insane. She was actually contemplating murder. Her thoughts running furiously as she tried wrap her mind around it. But with no leverage and no other options she met his gaze.

“I accept.”

Gold nodded, like he had always known that would be the outcome. As if she were predictable, a foregone conclusion in his design. He seemed to be already enjoying the idea of having her be his puppet.

“So how does this work?” Emma asked him. “I just stand outside the entrance of this ball until the King and Queen show up and then I kill them?”

Gold shook his head. “No, I’ll get you inside the ball.”

He gestured to the guard in the corner of the room who passed him a small case. Gold set the case on the table and opened it. He pulled out an embossed invitation listing the information for the ball, and then slid the box closer to Emma. She peered inside and there, sitting in a bed of satin padding, was a shining dagger with jagged blade.

He lifted the blade and laid it on the table with soft thud. “What exactly you do once inside is up to you.”

Emma eyed the blade warily.

“And what about Killian and Ruby? How do I know you’ll keep your word?” she asked.

Gold shrugged. “Keep them with you. They’ll accompany you to the ball. If you hold up your part of the bargain they go free. If you fail, well, I suggest you don’t fail.”

Emma glared at him picking up the dagger and sliding into the inside pocket of her jacket. “I want to see them now.”

Gold stood and waved her to the door. “Be my guest.”

~*~

Ruby looked up at a sudden noise coming from beyond the door. A scrape and the sound of a key in the lock. She stood quickly glancing around for anything that might be used as a weapon: the cooling tea in the pot, the iron lamp on the side table. She tensed, readying for a fight.

The door creaked open and one of the blackguards waved Killian inside before shutting and locking the door once again. Ruby sighed in relief.

“Killian,” she breathed.

He looked around the room, eyes skimming over the plush furniture and paneled walls. “Where’s Emma?”

Ruby frowned. “I thought she might be with you.”

Killian shook his head. “I was alone. If she isn’t with you then we need to get out of here and find her.”

“No use,” Ruby said. “I’ve been thorough while I waited. There’s no way out of here unless you can climb through fire and up a hot chimney.”

Killian glanced at the fireplace as if seriously considering it for a moment. In the end he walked over to the door and jostled the handle studying the lock. He carefully pulled out two of the lock picks hidden within his mechanical hand and slid them into the lock.

Ruby pursed her lips. She had never seen a lock like the one in the door, and she knew Killian hadn’t either. She had a feeling it was useless, but she bit back the words because hope was a terrible thing to crush, and she knew he would need to exhaust every possibility before he gave up.

Watching him work was what she imagined it might have been like to watch Michelangelo or one of the great sculptors at work. The way his hands moved in small, precise movements, the clink of the tumblers within the lock. But instead of a masterpiece whittled from marble, she watched as with each minute a little more of Killian’s patience and confidence was chipped away until he threw down the picks with a curse and laid his forehead against the door in defeat.

“Well, if you’re done wasting time with that,” Ruby said gesturing to the door.

Killian scowled over his shoulder at her.

Ruby picked up the teapot with a smile. “Want some tea while we wait?”

Killian scoffed rolling his eyes. “I prefer coffee.”

Ruby shrugged. “Prisoners can’t be choosers.”

The word prisoners sobered Killian. His worried gaze meeting Ruby’s, vulnerable in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. She could see the same fear in his eyes she had been trying to push down herself. Fear that at any moment the blackguards or Gold might reappear, something that would definitely end badly for them. At least he was here with her again, they’d face whatever came next together.

The lock clicked behind them, the door handle turning. Killian stood quickly placing himself a half step between Ruby and the door. Ruby tightened her grip on the teapot. They waited as the door opened a second time.

A slim figure was pushed into the room, stumbling and falling to the floor, her blond hair spilling around her.

“Stay here,” the blackguard in the hall ordered before slamming the door shut.

Emma gingerly pushed herself up. She looked at each of them carefully as she stood.

“Are you okay?” she asked them. “Gold didn’t hurt you?”

“Hurt?” Ruby repeated. “No, I’m fine. They locked me in this room and offered me tea. Bored maybe, but not hurt.”

“They didn’t interrogate you?” Emma asked looking surprised.

Ruby shook her head. “No one’s even come to talk to me, not until you two showed up.”

They both looked at Killian. “I was alone,” he said.

Emma’s eyes lingered on each or them for a long moment before a vaguely sick expression slowly settled over her features as she backed away from them and sank heavily into a nearby chair. Her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

“Emma?” Killian asked. “What’s going on?”

Emma didn’t respond but her face was pale in the flickering light of the fire and she looked close to passing out.

“Did they do something to you?” Ruby said sitting in the chair beside Emma.

“Was it the blackguards?” Killian asked kneeling down in front of Emma.

Emma blinked at them before swallowing thickly. “It was Gold,” she said quietly.

“Gold?” Killian repeated the word a low growl. “What did he do?”

She stared down at her hands in her lap for a long moment before she responded. “We made a deal.”

Ruby’s heart dropped into her stomach. Gold had a reputation for making deals that always seemed to benefit him and leave the other party worse off than before.

“What deal did he force you to make?” Killian asked placing a gentle hand on Emma’s knee.

“He knew,” she told them still not quite meeting their eyes. “He knew about our plan. Impersonating the princess, finding the King and Queen in Glowerhaven. I thought one of you had told him.”

Killian shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. No one questioned us.”

Emma frowned. “He knew things, things about each of us.”

Killian swallowed, his expression worried.

“What did he know about you?” he asked Emma.

She shook her head. “It felt like he knew all my insecurities. He knew everything we were planning.”

Ruby frowned looking at Killian. “But if none of us told him then how did he know? No one else knew.”

Killian sat back on his heels.

“Robin,” Killian said softly breaking the silence. Ruby looked up at him.

“What?”

“Robin told Gold,” Killian said. “If it wasn’t us, it had to be him.”

Ruby shook her head. “He didn’t know what we were planning.”

Killian gave her a skeptical look. “He’s smart enough to have worked it out. And he’s smart enough to know what that information might be worth to Gold.”

“No,” Ruby said firmly. “Robin wouldn’t do that. Not to us.”

Killian didn’t look convinced. Ruby knew the arguments he’d make: that they didn’t know if Robin had been arrested, or worse. They didn’t know what he might have had to do to escape the blackguards at the border. What wouldn’t he do if they threatened Roland. But she had known Robin longer than Killian had and she knew he wouldn’t betray them.

“It wasn’t Robin, though I think he did manage to work out most of our plan,” Emma said. “I think it was that member of his crew, Will. He heard Robin and I talking that night we camped in the woods. He had a ring, at the time I didn’t think anything of it. But then tonight one of Gold’s men had the same ring, I couldn’t figure out why the ring had seemed familiar until you just mentioned Robin.”

“Will would definitely sell us out to save his own his skin,” Killian said darkly. “Son of a bitch.”

It made sense. Will had always been a bit of weasel. Since he joined Robin and the Merry Men he had been more interested in lining his own pockets and helping himself than helping the cause. If he had leaked information to Gold about their plan, about their location at the border, she wondered what he other intel he might have leaked about the Merry Men and the supply underground in Misthaven.

“If Gold knows our plan, then he knows about the reward money,” Ruby said thinking through the ramifications. If Gold had convinced Emma to cut him in on any or all of the reward money it would supply money straight to the Industrialists, and strengthen Gold’s power.

“Emma,” Killian said his voice low as he looked at Emma, “what deal did you make with Gold?”

~*~

Emma looked between Killian and Ruby, the warm light from the fire so different from the stark laboratory she had been in with Gold. There it had felt like she had no options, no choices. Here with their kind and worried faces she was ashamed of what she had agreed to.

Even after all the time Gold had spent trying to convince her they were hardened criminals she knew they wouldn’t easily condone murdering a king and queen. And still there was nothing else she could do if she wanted to save their lives.

She pushed down all the warring emotions within her and tried to keep her expression from betraying her under Killian’s piercing gaze. She hoped his habit of seeing through her was currently distracted with everything else going on.

“Gold wants a meeting with the King and Queen,” she told them the lie rolling easily off her tongue. “He said the rumor that the royals are trying to return to power is creating problems in Misthaven and he wants to address any complications with them directly.”

Emma waited for their reaction, nearly holding her breath.

“Why can’t he set up a meeting himself?” Ruby asked.

“Well, he did try to murder them and ran them out of their own country,” Emma said. “They probably wouldn’t be that receptive to granting him any favors. But I can get an audience with the King and Queen and arrange a meeting.”

“You think you can get the King and Queen to agree to meet with Gold?” Killian asked his tone unsure.

Emma nodded trying to look more confident than she felt. “Our plan was to convince them I’m the princess anyway. If they believe I’m their daughter I’ll be able orchestrate a meeting with Gold.”

“Did he tell you where the King and Queen are?” Ruby asked.

“Gold said there’s a ball tomorrow night the royals will be attending. He gave me an invitation that will get us inside.”

She passed the invitation to Killian. He looked it over carefully his expression veiled.

“So you set up the meeting and then what?” Killian asked her setting the invitation aside. “What are you getting out of this deal?”

“Gold will let us go,” she told them.

“Just like that?” he asked his expression held a hint of suspicion. Suspicion she hoped was for Gold and not her story.

She nodded. “That’s the deal.”

“You’ll be meeting the King and Queen tomorrow night?” Ruby asked. “That’s much quicker than I was hoping. Do you think we’ll be ready?”

Their eyes turned to Emma. She gave a half shrug. “We have to be.”

Ruby ran a hand through her hair listing off the things Emma still should learn or go over before any face to face with the King and Queen. Emma wasn’t listening though. It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t need to convince anyone anymore, the only thing she needed now was the dagger tucked into her jacket.

#csbb #captain swan #captain swan big bang #cs ff #cs ff au #anastasia au #steampunk au #my writing

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authorlaneblevins · 6 years

Text

The Conjurer

*This is a short story I wrote a very long time ago. Warning: some bad language and sexuality throughout. Enjoy!

“I, of the savage kingdom, will guide you to glory!” The sound of a Big Easy traffic jam punctures the steady scream of her words, a few of the syllables slipping out into the never-was. “ ‘Court not death by your erring way of life, nor draw to yourselves destruction by the works of your hands! Because into a soul that plots evil, wisdom enters not, nor dwells she in a body under debt of sin!’”

The hint of Russian singsong gives her away. I know her voice better than I know my own. They say that, no matter how early one is separated from one’s mother, the mind is imprinted with the sound of her voice and conditioned to hear it again; and while decades might pass without hearing it, the lost child could still detect the mother’s voice out of a tapestry of hundreds. Because it was the first sound, the first pitch and tone and coo to ever have existed. It was the sound on which all other sounds were based.

I’m sitting on the bench across the street, watching her, the only one watching her. Ilyena Tracy, still the magician; the way she moves her hands, pushing the air away with them, drawing people inward while keeping me confounded on this frayed bench, wondering how this could’ve happened.

Some small moments are nothing, they don’t snowball into the rest of your life. But some of them, they’re gods, they own you.

I imagine that, at one point, she lured crowds on the corner with her flailing Fascist body movements, jerks of her arms and a twist of her neck that mimicked cerebral palsy or spiritual ecstasy. Whenever she bellows the word “sinners,” her face sinks downward toward her neck, and small bubbles collect at the corners of her mouth.

I can’t stomach the battery-acid taste of the coffee anymore, and I hold the cup close to my face as if I’ve paused mid-sip, just to feel the steam siphoning through the lid. I tear confetti-sized pieces from the letter that Rita slipped into my pocket the last time I saw her. I’m waiting for my shift in telemarketing purgatory to start, in which I try to ignore the chorus of ringing, chatter, staplers, scribbling, and gnashing of teeth, and push our patented stain erasing formula.

This is my ritual: sit on the bench, mesmerized, my heart a rabid dog begging for the bullet. At work, I empty the letter-confetti from my pocket and forsake the names on the list, instead calling Rita, wanting to tell her, wanting for her to tell me what to do. For the past week I’ve only gotten her machine and her husband. I hang up, playing with the idea of asking her husband what he would do: he seems like the type that would know, with his voice calm and British asking me who’s there, who is this; talking quietly as if he’s in a glass room and he doesn’t want the walls to crash down on him. At this point, I’m usually lectured by my telepathic boss, always privy to when I’m not being productive.

Yes, I know I have a job to do, sir. Yes, I know that I’m not doing it.

Then, I study my reflection in the computer screen, trying to find a feature my mother would be sure to recognize, though so many have changed. A narrow nose broken in one of several foster homes. Glasses are no longer there to hide greenish eyes that bear the constant squint of non-trust, having been replaced by contacts.

The dimpled chin is the only thing that’s stayed the same. Is that enough to remember a son? Should I buy a pair of glasses?

I start writing a letter to my mother that I plan to slip in her Bible when she’s distracted by the Rapture. I mull over trivialities, whether or not my signature will exhibit my shaking hand. After work, I stand beside the bench, pinching my thigh in hopes of triggering a muscle spasm that might force me into my first step to her. I pay the cab fare in sweat-dampened singles, always pausing, everyday choosing inertia. On the ride home, I make the resolution that I’ll approach her tomorrow. I’ll get it over with tomorrow.

I sleep, impervious to the fact that I am a liar.

˟˟˟˟˟

I should’ve had her figured when I was six years old and realized, seemingly for the first time, that she had really, truly, actually named me Balthazar. After kindergarten giggles and with no middle name to fall back on, I told everyone to call me by my last name, Tracy—a fragmented version of the original Tratzinsky, cleaved in half somewhere on the Atlantic. For ten years we lived like gypsies. We stayed with her friends, friends of her friends, occasionally having to squat in an abandoned warehouse. I knew better than to complain. I had no voice. I was her baggage, her immigrant suitcase.

She preached differently, back then, gracefully performing tricks of prestidigitation, making things disappear—wallets, mostly. Every incredulous question of “How?” was answered with “Magic!” A firm believer that the world might end in twenty-five years, she called America a “savage kingdom,” place with too many machines and too many brands of detergent, place where people too easily loosened their grip on time.

She talked to me sometimes about Omsk, her home, about how she was the statue of fear to all the other women. In her youth, she was a breathy scandal of a girl, running around with nomads, traveling sideshow acts, literary fugitives and Trotskyites who had escaped the purges and lived in paranoid old age. Her very footsteps caused neighborhood elders to gasp and cross themselves: her tracks, they swore, were hooved.

She had a laugh that unsettled concrete, a devil-may-care that made onlookers think that if the devil did care about anything on this lonely dull planet, it was her. His Persephone. His awful queen.

I craved her stories, her Omsk, her random switches between English, Yiddish, Russian, as if she had three tongues housed by one mouth. I felt that the stories I heard at school were lackluster in comparison, always about little brothers or missing puppies. Never in those skinny illustrated books were there stories of black markets, or missile crises, or gypsy circuses where the Conjurer carried the Lone Torso on his back.

When I couldn’t sleep she’d wave me over to her. “Bad dream, boytchik? Here, take mine. I’ve dreamt this one before,” she’d say, putting her hand on my forehead and describing her bargained reverie to me so well that I saw it all for myself, could’ve dreamed of nothing else. And when I had horrible fevers, she used to remove my dingy glasses and place her hands against my eyes, applying the slightest pressure, invoking cold with her tiny palms. She would whisper to me, her breath in a flustered hurry, a mother’s hysteria, her words leading me to Siberia.

She had bad spells, too. Anxious days when she’d look at me as if wishing I might disappear. She would watch me intently as I ate her pungent food. And then she’d abruptly stop me from eating and scrub the food off of my plate like dead skin.

For ten years this is how we lived. On the fourth night of that year, she ushered me to sleep, her palms over my eyes as she kissed my forehead. I woke the next morning alone, a note on my pillow. “I’m sorry. I’ve stopped paying for this mistake of mine. I have to set you down, Balthazar, I can carry you no longer on my back.”

I cannot claim uniqueness in abandonment: the history of the act stretches back to the Alpha, to the foundation. Think of the Jews sold out by former friends, sniffed out of their hiding places and ritualistically unpersoned. Think of leftovers, discarded ideals, uncompleted revolutions, the Rosenberg’s, Charles Foster Kane. Think of Abraham’s son, Isaac, who feigned dignity under the knife when all he wanted was for his father to say “You are more to me than God. Run from here and live forever.”

Or a man quietly in love with a sadist, wanting to tell her that he didn’t mind how she wounded him, just as long as she would stay.

Think of a ten year-old boy in a warehouse left suddenly, irreversibly alone; a boy discovered two days later, hungry and dirty, by one of his mother’s Bohemian cab-driver friends, who dropped him off at the nearest police station without a “goodbye” or a “good luck.” A boy who will never know why.

After that day came too many homes, and never enough time in them to get comfortable. Fourteen placements in eight years, the same life lesson from all the pseudo-fathers: go to school, get a job, get a wife, get a house. Obtain more possessions than those smudgy glasses and the clothes on your back. Possessions are reality. Possessions are identity. I was whittled to fit this new consumer’s world, where living in a warehouse is generally frowned upon, sleight-of-hand is only a profession in Caesar’s Palace, and dreams are non-transferable.

Before the day she left, we had been each other’s world, a cult of two. It sutures, that kind of companionship. Without it, you have a hard time figuring out where the wound starts and where it ends.

˟˟˟˟˟

I’m fifteen minutes late for work. The boss told me yesterday that if I continue to be late and unproductive, I’m out. Still, I can’t stand up from this bench, opting instead to stare at her. “…For touch is the most demystifying of all senses, unlike sight, which is the most magical.” I tell myself that this explains everything that I am incapable of.

She slaps her hand against her ragged leather-bound Bible to emphasize a point, closing her eyes and chanting western prayers. I try to fathom a holy man skillful enough to have converted her from unstated paganism, a believer so pure and apotheosized that wherever he walked the blind cried “Messiah” and corpses sprung from their graves, coughing up dirt.

But preachers of this faith, they’re a realm away from the things my mother used to believe in. A woman like her would’ve been impenetrable to brainwashing. My best theories on her radical change involve lobotomies and Doppelgangers, or the rootless guilt she’d passed on to me.

I want her to know about my nightmare where in a room, exquisite red, we face each other, and she laughs at me, the sound bouncing from wall to wall. “In the old days, you know what they did to spineless boys like you when they were babies? The villagers saw one weakness, one defect and you were fed to the pigs.” She places her hands over my face, and when she pulls them away my eyes are viscous spider-eggs.

When I was young, I’d never had a bad dream. I’d pretended just so that I could steal hers. So she would tell me her sole parable one more time.

“I tell you story, boytchik, just this last time; the short version because I’m too tired for more. In village not too far from Omsk, the gypsy circus came once a year bringing always the sound of drums, and people would stop from their working so they could go to see it. It was a wonderful spectacle, a lady with two heads, a man with a face that has grown on his stomach with real eyes that blinked, a man with red fists that sprout from his shoulder-blades. And of course magicians and dare-devils and cannibals and fire-breathers and people with tremendous talents. One woman, she could fit herself in a shoebox. It’s true.

“The Conjurer was called this because he could beckon the dead and make them visible to all, he could make those that have vanished reappear, but he could never go to cemeteries because with all the dead begging from him his attention, he would never leave. He was quiet man, pale and thin and dressed always in black cloak and black felt-hat like peasants used to wear. And the Lone Torso, he was named because he was born without legs, but this was not an appropriate name since he still had arms that he could walk around on. He was a very gentle person, and the two became comrades.

“During all the travels, the Lone Torso was harnessed on the back of the Conjurer so that they could talk all the way, and so that the Lone Torso didn’t hurt his hands. They walked this way so often that they became fused together by their backs, from the cold. They wanted to fix it, but the medicine man said that their spines were no longer their own, and to become separate one would have to do without. This was just not possible, so they got used to the idea, and remained comrades, walking everywhere together.

“But then one day they were stranded from the group, and the Conjurer died. The Lone Torso had to haul both of their bodies with his arms. Nobody imagined he could make it, they underestimated his strength. His hands grew blistered from the road but still he pushed onward. Doing for his friend what his friend had done for him for so long…”

At this point in the story, I usually fell asleep; she so expanded on details unexplored in the previous telling that I never got to know what happened, how it ended. That was just like her. So I made up my own endings. Back then, I liked to believe that the Lone Torso absorbed the Conjurer into his body, assuaged the pain without ever losing his comrade. As a teenager, I hoped that the Torso found a carpenter who sawed the cadaver from his back, and he was then able to move without the crippling weight of his abandoner.

Now I imagine the most realistic of endings: the Lone Torso, arms shaking, giving in and falling to embrace the windswept earth for the final time, breathing the dust until his lungs were crushed and it was done.

˟˟˟˟˟

A pack of teenagers gathers near her corner, laughing and elbowing each other. The kids are dressed all in big black clothes, fishnet gloves, spiked collars. Goth kids, convinced that they took the class on suffering, have befriended the beast in their sixteen years of existence. I was like that when I was their age.

A fat kid with blisters of acne along his jaw is the one to move toward her. I lean forward, a vigilant watchdog, one hand still pulling at the shredded corners of Rita’s letter. I swallow cigarette smoke, watching my mother crossing him with her unbendable arm.

Would she do the same if I walked up to her, baptize me, bless me?

The kid’s shirt says “I’m not prejudiced, I hate everybody!” and I picture the forty other kids wearing the same shirt all over the city, thinking that absent words alone can generate your own statement, your middle finger to a world that is indifferent to middle fingers. He’s smirking at her, getting too close. He glances back at his friends for encouragement, their black-lined eyes glittering with laughter. His breath, it must stink of pot and sugar. Gripping the edge of the bench-seat, my chewed fingernails aching, I whisper “Please” in my head over and over, but I have no idea what it is I’m asking for.

“Hail Satan!” the kid says, raising his fist in the air.

She spouts psalms about the heretics and the nonbelievers. He laughs an obscenely girlish laugh, and slaps the Bible out of her hand. I stand, a reflex, my thumb twitching. I have that post-invasive-surgery feeling that I’ve read about, the mysterious and besetting ache of the violated body.

I imagine the Goth kid shoving her, her head cracking against the curb, the garnet trickle on the pavement; all the pain I’d let her go through just to be her savior, so that I could pick her up from the ground like Simon. I would quietly tell her in a flood of syllables that I can help her, she needs help, I’m sorry and I forgive, goodbye and goodbye, that I can carry her no longer on my back, that still, I push onward.

I picture her shaking off my help, pointing her finger at me and screaming wildly, seeing past my skin straight to the muddy heart.

But the kid backs away, laughing with his friends. “Go back to Germany, you old cunt!” he shouts.

Still standing, I seem to be having trouble producing saliva. This kid, this nothing, had the guts to approach her. Having no idea who she is, that’s how he managed it: because he didn’t know that this is a woman who had somehow broken out of an inescapable country. A woman who could paint a beautiful world for you, and trick you into becoming Atlas.

˟˟˟˟˟

This is important. This is the catalyst. This is the prologue spewed by her God, who has stopped concerning Himself with linearity.

I was with Rita the night my car pulled its disappearing act. She’d called me at work, set up the usual time and place. Her name wasn’t really Rita, I just called her that because she was a meter-maid. I’d seen the grin on her face when she scribbled the violation and the cost in her little leather booklet, bearing down so hard on her pen that the indentation left sort-of words on five carbon copies. She was a parking ticket sadist.

Rita often voiced how she wished our year-long arrangement was legitimate, so she could tell the story of how we met to strangers. It was a hot August day, a brownout. Due to the jadedness I’d gained in telemarketing purgatory, I visited the Woodward, Wight, and Co. warehouse that used to be home to me. But it looked the same, the glass and concrete and slats of light. There was no magic to be found, only half-empty cans of beer and heroin spoons. I smoked a cigarette, singeing the edges of the letter my mother left on my pillow with the lighter, naively thinking this was my moment of release.

When I left the warehouse I saw Rita leaning against my car, gripping her ticket book and staring at the meter. Waiting for the time to run up. She watched so tensely, hunched forward, like one of those students in art school scrutinizing a nude model.

I saw her right then: a woman who served the great god of Time, she would never let a moment circle the drain. Her every word meaningful when so many of mine, vague and unheard, were milled under the slightest wind. Life, to her, was too short for a job you hated, regrets, procrastination, one lover. Sleep was an unnecessary diversion. The world might end in five years.

Underneath her glacial civil servant surface lay a closet-genius; a concert pianist by fifteen, enrolled at Lafayette by sixteen, where she studied everything indiscriminately. She knew two other languages, spoke them fluently. And then she suddenly dropped it all for this mediocrity, renouncing all her frightening potential. She never told me why.

Rita had been married to some insurance salesman for two years; I had the slightest feeling this career she gave him was a calumny or a metaphor of some sort, she said it like it was a private joke. She liked to fuck with her wedding ring on. She constantly smelled of lemony wood polish, her hands forever smudged with ink. She looked like Grace Kelly’s evil twin, only brunette and with dark gray eyes. Her favorite phrase was “As I do to you, so do I to me.” Her status as proud atheist was challenged nightly when she called out to Jesus during sex; I’d never heard his name sound so sweet, so full, than the way it sounded in her voice.

She became docile before sleep, self-exposing, expressing thoughts so eloquently I couldn’t tell the difference between her words and the memorized quotes of long-dead lyricists. I told her about the Conjurer, the story without an ending. She confided in me her dreams of escaping the human zoo, becoming a recluse or a migrant or both, shedding her skin, her marriage, her vices.

Yet another prone to flight. My life filled with Houdini’s.

Rita picked the worst places on Old Gentilly to meet, places with neon signs boasting color-TVs that never worked; places with heart-shaped beds in which we were the tender arrows digging ever deep, pushing toward an exit-wound. She said that, statistically speaking, men who cheat on their wives go all out in lavish hotels, expensive restaurants, maxing out credit cards on lingerie for their mistresses. Women, on the other hand, tend to do the opposite. Slumming it. Loving the fuck even more for its taste of dirt.

Afterwards, I lay on top of her, doling out puffs of cigarette, holding it just far enough so that she had to strain her neck to take a drag. Maraschino light came in from the window, it pulled all her thorns out. She strove for the cigarette, breathed it in, held it between her dry lips.

I knew that what she felt for me was amusement, at most. Our connection could best be described as a volute, an exchange of power that coiled downward until we were both left without. It was a shocking thing to discover: that she was what I’d been looking for, the romanticized destroyer.

I put my hands over her eyes, feeling the moth-like flutter of her eyelashes.

“You should leave him. Leave the city with me.” I took my hands away from her eyes, feeling the burn of her incredulous stare.

She paused, then slowly, intentionally blew smoke in my face. She so expertly recovered all her thorns, I had to smile.

“Let’s not get poetic or anything.” A typical rejection, it meant she was far from sleep. “You say it, but you’d never leave.”

“You don’t think I could leave? Why not?”

“Unfinished business, maybe; or a talent for misery. Something you’re attached to. All the same, it’s a dreadful city, Tracy. It suits you.”

“Why haven’t you left?”

“It suits me, too. Besides, Phillip’s going places with his life.”

“I’m going places.”

“Phillip’s going good places.”

I stared at her for a second, waiting for the sting to dull before I got up to leave. I couldn’t stand the stink of the room, like Pinesol and gunpowder, the grimy red neon turning everything into doomsday. And the sounds of our temporary neighbors. All the pilgrims in other rooms screaming for that brusque high, that scavenging cock, all the pilgrims curled up in bed dreaming up Mecca.

The dusty spider legs in dresser drawers clinging to Gideon’s Bible. Motels, motels, never any home.

She talked while I got dressed, gripping the complimentary motel pen tight in her fist as she smiled. “Come on, Tracy, come lay back down, don’t throw a hissy.”

“I’m not. I’ve just gotta go,” I said, pulling on one boot, then the other. She lit a cigarette and waved the match until it curled up, bent its head, a gray shamed child.

I opened the motel room door. Lo and behold. All the energy spilled out of my body at once. A man with a black coat and a satchel on his back was strolling through the white lines of the parking-space where my car once waited.

And the new concrete world established its strictest law to me: don’t get attached to anything, son, if you gained it you’ll lose it someday. Just you wait.

“What are you standing there for? Is this a pivotal moment where you make some life-changing decision?” Rita asked with a nasty little laugh.

“No. My car’s gone.” I looked back at her, numb. She furrowed her brows and waited for the “Just kidding,” but it didn’t come.

“Well. Huh.”

˟˟˟˟˟

The next day I took the streetcar to work for the first time ever, the taste of Rita a film on the roof of my mouth. Across from me a woman bounced her lemur-eyed baby on her knee. The old man beside me waved at the baby, made silly faces.

After reaching my stop in Downtown, I walked along the pavement on a stretch of O’Keefe I’d never walked before, brushing past workers and businessmen who seldom looked up. Someone was whistling. Everyone chatted on their cell phones. And somewhere in that latticework, a familiar voice. A phrase I’d only heard her use. “America, the savage kingdom…”

Realization fell down my spine, like a body crashing through water, the slow sink once the surface was breached. My brain a knot of electricity, I told myself to run, but it seemed to take whole minutes for my legs to receive the message. Then, once I was moving, there was no clarity of thought, just jumbled noise in my head, sounds without source or meaning. Animal sounds, industrial drones, the chant of “Please.” Hope and hell and motion. I drafted new endings for the parable: the Conjurer suddenly waking from a skein of beautiful dreams, the Lone Torso relieved of his bleak loneliness. Carried, defined, once more. The weight fading in the descending night.

My limbs were pushing through the crowd without any real instruction, pushing me against the current. And then the sea parted and I saw her, in a black frock, surrounded by candles, a great nuclear fallout come down on this city. Every incredulous question of “How?” now answered with “Jesus!”

She was across the street, on her knees, her hands pressed together in shouted prayer. She looked so old, nothing like how I remembered her. She had the face of a shrinking rose, dry and curled around the edges. Slender, bird-like shoulders. Eyes like a jack-o-lantern’s, scooped out and empty. Her silvery hair butchered. This was not her, this woman with her eyes blinking at the sun. My mother knelt for no one.

How little I knew her, how much of myself that had been lost in the transition, new weight that I couldn’t take. The Lone Torso, lugging the Conjurer and a cross on top of that.

Drained. My breath a ragged joke, my throat like stretched leather. Wanting nothing more than to fucking scream, I sat on a bench. I haven’t gone farther than that.

˟˟˟˟˟

I’m an hour late for work. I smoke a cigarette on the bench, not caring what time I show up. The new world has collapsed. I can’t sit through that purgatory anymore, selling a product that erases stains, all the while wishing I could take long harsh swigs of it to cleanse or to kill, if there is any difference.

I feel the corners of Rita’s note in my pocket rubbing against my leg. I pull it out of my pocket, resisting the urge to tear a piece away, and unfold the surviving paper. After my week of picking at it like a scab, all that’s left are the last few lines: “Goodbye is for funerals, yet I have thought it every time I saw you. What you fail to realize is that there is not one of us without a corpse on our backs, and only the weakest of us need some third party to remove it. ��The strong can be their own carpenters, they are the ones who push unremittingly and let it decompose and turn to dust, as all things do. For your sake, I hope that it does. P.S. Sorry about your car.”

Because the god of Time can be vengeful. Because I’m tired, my own weight is enough. Because the world is in a constant state of ending, I flick my cigarette out toward the street and stand on quietly shivering knees. I suck in a deep, lightheaded breath, relaxing my clenched jaw like an animal letting go. I brush past strangers. Her voice grows closer. My head feels staticky, like I’m dreaming a dream I stole from her.

My feet are warmed by the vicinity of her candles of all the futile saints. She shouts after discreet prostitutes a corner away. “‘Depart from her, my people, so as not to take part in her sins and receive a share in her plagues’—”

She glances at me for a second, her eyes squinting until they’re beady and hawkish. I half expect her to single me out as supreme Blasphemer, Beelzebub, Judas. But her eyes, the master copy of my own, stare with the faint recognition usually reserved for strangers who frequent the same grocery store, who offer that pleasant, noncommittal smile and don’t say a word, and keep pushing their carts down the aisle.

She turns away from me, shouting her verses. “‘Depart from her…For her sins are piled up to the sky and God remembers her crimes.’”

There is only one ending: the Torso does not stop crawling. He pushes onward, alone, toward some unknowable dot at the belt of the horizon. As he crawls, the Conjurer is slowly erased, picked up by the wind, disseminated like seeds. The corpse breaks down, back to the elements, to the dirt of it all, and a stain of gray atoms that will trail the Torso wherever he goes marks the long passage to Omega. This is how she would have told it. This is what she would have wanted me to know.

She pauses in the middle of a verse, some further slander against Babylon. I can see the twitch in the back of her neck as she finally realizes, as the weight settles. She is silent and stiffened. Her fingers tighten around the Bible’s throat, as she grabs at a deep and stuttered inhale with her mouth open. I see her slowly start to turn her head.

She will not turn around before I do. She will not follow as I walk away.

#my writing #short story #magical realism #writers on tumblr #writeblr #horror

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thisweekingundamwing · 6 years

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TWIGW May 13-19

Hello Amazing Fandom!

Thanks to everyone who submitted something, and thanks to everyone who keeps contributing and helping our tiny fandom truck along!

Here’s the round up for this week - if we missed anything, drop us a line! And don’t forget to leave the creators some love!

XOXO

Mod CB

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

ammiehawk

What Do You Say?

On the road with a new companion after the events in St. Louis, what will Sam and Dean do with a supposed civilian now traveling with them? Will Sam and Dean be able to keep their secrets? Or will secrets between the brothers break them apart?

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Trowa Barton, 1x5

Warnings: Supernatural crossover, slash, supernatural elements

@anaranesindanarie

Death Unspeaking - Final Chapter!

What happens when a Gundam Pilot is mute? Will the other Pilots look down at him because of it? Will he overcome the odds or will the odds overcome him?

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Underage, Mute!Duo, Gundams, Eventual Canon Divergence, Mobile Suits, Fighting, Eventual Yaoi, AU, Sign Language, just pure awesomeness, Blowing Shit Up, blowing ships up, Circus

@claraxbarton and @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport. What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3, 1x4

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

@duointherain

Perfection

Heero is a very good Preventer agent. Duo used to be his partner. Now he's stuck with Burt Gummer. If he could find Duo, he'd love to confess his love. Life is not fair. Then, in order to get Burt to resign from Preventers, Heero, Wufei, Quatre, and Trowa agree to an easy mission of delivering supplies to Perfection National Monument. There they find Duo. Things are going to get grabby, and not just with the graboids!

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4

Warnings: none

Terminal Velocity

Duo comes looking for Heero after a long absence.. there is make-up sex. Well, then they have the whole effort of learning to live together like normal people. Mistakes will happen.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: none

@gundamwing-ellesmith

Heero's Inheritance

A headcanon/drabble: Heero has often wondered what it might be like to have something to hold onto...

Pairings: none

Warnings: headcanon-ish, illustrated

KageKagi

The Heir of House Black

Harry attends Sirius's will reading and learns that there was more to the black family than anyone expected,

Pairings: 2x4, Drarry, Ron x Hermione, 1x2

Warnings: none

Lithle

Salt

Three months after the events of Like Oxygen, Duo shows up on Wufei's doorstep. As familiar, dangerous patterns assert themselves, Wufei's left wondering if there is, or could be, anything between them beyond self-destructive desire.

Pairings: 2x5, 1xR

Warnings: Unhealthy Relationships, Post War Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, no EW, Post-War, Explicit Language, Sex, Bad Decisions, POV Chang Wufei, everyone is broken, But Maybe Trying to Get Better?

LittleMouse

WarCraft

Alternate Fantasy World - A world where people have ‘Talents’ that allow them to control certain elements. Different Talents can ‘Join’ to become a specific entity - some can heal, some can repair damage to land and buildings, some are weapons. The Talents you ‘Join’ with are called your Others. The perfect Joining is of five separate Talents. One lonely Fire Talent far to the North has given up waiting for his Others - good thing they haven’t stopped looking for him.

Pairings: none

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, Alternate Universe, Fantasy, Non-con touching

luvsanime02

Identifying the Problem

Wufei has a problem. The other guys want to help, once they can figure out what the problem actually is.

Pairings: None

Warnings: None

A Cocktail Friday submission

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, 1x2x5

Warnings: alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technologyl brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for. But there isn't just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated. Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Shinigamiinochi

A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)

Duo Maxwell has been stuck his entire life. With an abusive father, a mother who doesn't even realize he exists, severely bullied at school, and hiding his sexuality, he has given up all hope for a better life. When he falls in love with his bully's boyfriend, he needs to make a choice about his future. Will he continue to let himself be abused or will he fight back?

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 2x3, 1xR

Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Noncon, Underage, Child Abuse, Bullying, Angst, Suicide, Incest, Alternate Universe

@stoic-rose (Alithea)

Lose By Winning

Wufei goes in for an interview. Short drabble takes place after Endless Waltz. Inspired by @lbro009

Pairings: none

Warnings: none

Sylvieforaday

Neighbors

A/U - Meilan is learning, not everything happens the way you thought it would. Sometimes you fall for the perfect girl next door when she gets knocked off her pedestal.

Pairings: RxM

Warnings: none

white_fox

Life Is A Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

The Vote, pt 1

The Vote, pt 2

@remsyk-blog

Feel good fluff

@terrablaze514

Teaser Tuesday - Secret Magic AU, Rated M; I’ve pulled this scene out just to play with the pair itself, for a late 2x5x2 (Duo/Wufei) moment. It is a combination of silly, dark, and h/c.

@vegalume

From Collide, a 13x1

Black Adder quote prompt

WIP Wednesday

Photo Edits/Manipulations

@gundamwing-ellesmith

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Chang Wufei’s office ft. Sally

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@disturbed02girl

Postcard 11

@lbro009

Characterizations by Japanese vs non-Japanese fans

@lifeaftermeteor

Quatre’s (not)sleeping habits

@terrablaze514

HeadCanon Time (Secret Magic AU): The G-Boys encounter problems behind the scenes + how Quatre and Wufei reconnected.

@whenwillmailcome

Chang Wufei - MemeLord

Multiple Contributors

Q&A with Gundam Wing producer Hideyuki Tomioka and fans

Wufei and stringed instruments

Why was Zechs kept alive?

Fanart:

@chronicwhimsy

Duo and Wufei for Mermay

@duointherain

Duo

@lemontrash

Duo chilling

@zibelinbelt

Gundam Wing minifanbook about Gundam Wing

Calendar Events:

Cocktail Friday

https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/

A new prompt every Monday!

Submissions should be posted Fridays between 3 and 5pm EST, and tagged with @gwcocktailfriday, and are included in the This Week roundup on Sundays.

Interview with a Creator by @remsyk-blog @interview-with-a-creator

Remsyk has created an online interview for fandom creators to fill out and then she features one each week so that everyone in the fandom can learn a bit about each other.

If you haven’t filled out her interview, go! do! now!

This week’s featured creator is @gwepisode50 check their interview out here!

30 Day Gundam Wing Challenge

Daily questions about Gundam Wing. Please tag your participation posts with @gundamwing30daychallenge for them to be recognized.

Challenge questions and more information can be found here

Pick and choose which questions you wish to answer (or tackle them all!). The point of this challenge is to stimulate fandom participation and to promote conversation and interaction between all fans!

Submission Box Open for Diamond in the Stars (OT5) Challenge

Challenge information can be found here

Submissions due September 23, 2018

Current posts:

@terrablaze514

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 8, Day 9, Day 11, Day 12, Day 15, Day 17, Day 19

@lbro009

Day 15

Day 18

@chemicalcrush

Day 13

Day 15

Day 17

@lifeaftermeteor

Day 18

#This week in Gundam Wing #twigw #may 13 - 19 #mod cb

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quietpagan · 6 years

Text

How to Train Your Trollhunters

The island on the southernmost edge of the Barbaric Archipelago suffered only lightly from dragons, in comparison to their more northernly neighbors. The Vikings living there had little to fear from the skies.

Their terrors dwelled below ground, instead.

While other islands bestowed fearsome names to their children in hopes of scaring away gnomes and trolls, the Arcadians knew that such a practice was folly. Nothing scared away trolls except the threat of daylight, and gnomes were even worse.

Being closer to the mainlands gave the island greater opportunities for trade, without which they would have died out with the raids decades ago. The trolls fought them tooth, nail, and sword to the death year after year, century after century, and if the islanders hadn’t been hardened by cold then they were hardened by war with their fearsome adversaries.

Far inland, in a covered arena, metal doors shook with tremors and roars as their occupants screamed and fought for release. Parents held their children in the night and told them, when the noise echoed throughout the village, that those were the monsters they would have to fight against one day.

A hundred crushed sailing vessels formed together a fearsome throne, nestled into the back of the deepest cavern. Upon its broken boards and masts were dozens of half-rotten, disfigured skulls, broken and flayed and displayed in grisly warning.

The figure seated upon the loathsome mass was just as twisted as his macabre throne, black and rough as the volcanic rock of the caverns. The reddened glow of his eyes shone as the only light in the darkness.

Each of his subjects was both a pride and a disappointment to him. Half of them served his needs in loyalty to him and his father, while the other half needed to be subdued with fear and threats.

Both of which, much to his fortune and pleasure, he was exceedingly good at delivering.

But all of his subjects shivered when his darkened laughter echoed up from the throne room.

Crouched against a support pillar, a red-headed woman sobbed into her arms. Several sailors, fresh off of a returning merchant vessel, tried in vain to comfort her.

“I…I’m sorry, Barbara,” one muttered. “He just…left.” “We really did try to stop him.”

She heard their words as if through water, weak and distorted beyond comprehension. She shivered in horror at the thought of explaining what had happened to her young son. Losing your spouse in a troll raid was bad enough. How could she tell her boy that his father simply didn’t want to come home?

Chief Liefr walked from home to home, offering his services and condolences. As chief, he had to be the strongest, the most generous, the one with the fiercest sword and most gentle hand. Every troll raid drained their resources and took the lives of more and more of his people, and every one of them turned to him for help and guidance.

Behind him, his second-in-command noted who needed what and helped him to delegate. Without him, the chief would be hopelessly overwhelmed. They worked comfortably and companionably, the chief never knowing that the entire while his second was thinking of ways to cleanly dispatch of his leader.

Huddled together in a mass of stony silence and shaking limbs, two companions gently cleaned each other’s wounds, their ears picking up sounds from the trolls around them doing the same; counting their losses, gathering their spoils, tending to their injuries. The tributes stolen from the night’s raid would go directly to their leader, and they could only be hopeful that their offerings pleased him this night. If not, then more of their numbers would fall.

Far away, outside of the archipelago, a ravenous king feasted upon the remains of his weakest warrior. His singular eye burned in the darkness, illuminating scraps of bone and skin and gristle before they disappeared into his relentless jaws.

Trapped willingly within his realm for centuries, he relied only upon the eyes and ears of his spies and his son to give him word of his growing army. His attack could not happen now, could not happen yet; after the War of Killahead, his numbers were decimated too greatly to risk war again.

But slowly, surely, he gained power, and one day would permanently darken the world.

And on that day, he would truly feast.

A/N: Honestly, it had to be done. Because I’m a fucking sucker for these kinds of stories.

It’s short, but I wanted to establish a bit of the world we’re building here before getting into the main plot.

The hardest part was actually (but not surprisingly, given my penchant for naming things just the right damn way) finding corresponding Viking names for all of the characters. The trolls are alright, but the humans were a bitch to do while still making everyone immediately recognizable. The thing is, Vikings travelled, so they snatched up bits and pieces of cultures from wherever they went. Which is how I’m going to excuse the name ‘Barbara’. I could have kept all of the original names, but it really grinds my gears to read a HTTYD fic with modern-day names, so nope.

I’ll be adding a bit more of book-lore into this AU, especially when it comes to the trolls appearances. The Trollhunters book is a good read and I love the characterization, but hoo boy are the illustrations nightmare fuel.

Especially Blinky.

You ain’t seen horror until you’ve seen what this bookworm nerd looks like in del Toro’s original book. He is terrifying.

#trollhunters #blinky #jim lake jr #bular #gunmar #aaarrrggghh #barbara lake

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wearepaladin · 6 years

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My thoughts on The Last Jedi

It...wasn’t what I hoped for, but I can live with it.

I’d heard rumblings prior to seeing it, but I knew we’d found ourselves listening to a different storyteller when Luke threw away his father’s lightsaber, (come on) turned away from someone asking for his help (Come On) then locked himself in a hut and changed into darker clothing for no other reason than to match the aura of the bitter figure he’d transmogrified into between two films (very subtle Rian Johnson).

Ok. Rant done. It’s just that whole scene was the most obvious sign to me that the story was going in directions I’d be uncomfortable with, and I’m still rolling my eyes at it even now. I’m dissapointed in the direction the film went a lot of ways, but that opening scene will rankle me forever.

Moving on: The direction I would have prefered the film to take forgotten in favor of a far less subtle twist on one my heroes, I can live the rest of it. There are plot problems galore, but I do think there’s room for everyone’s established character for the paths they take in the film.

Rey: Rey’s journey reaches one of forced reflection. While stuck on the purged a y of Ach-to, she finds little to center herself with, the legend rejecting her, and her enemy unexpectedly present in her thoughts. She is initially snarling at Ren’s presence, but while he cannot break through her mental defenses, and he tries to wear her down by presenting a human face.

And...it makes sense that this works. Rey is a person hungry for connection, the majority of her life she’s been alone, her sense of worth worn away by desert sands and the desperation of living hand to mouth. But when she meets the droid BB-8, she could have sold him for more food than she’d ever seen before. When she meets Finn, the two form a fast connection that some have compared to Drift Compatibility seen in Jaeger Pilots. She sees in Han Solo the father she always wanted. She forms connections fast, even in the face of people she was hostile too or hostile to her.

And since Luke was closed off to her, (and Chewbacca was a background character instead of a presence who should have been consistently present in talking Luke out of his malaise due to decades of friendship) when Kylo is put in front of her, unable to harm her beyond talking, she willingly or not, formed a connection.

It is...virtuous that she tried when she believed she could have succeeded in turning him. She adresses him as Ben not out of out of place intimacy, but an echo of what Han did when he tried to help his son, by putting the truth in front of his face and giving him a doorway back to Light. But when he refuses her, when she sees that he values power over either freedom or goodness or whatever connection he has with her, she leaves. Because you cannot save what refuses to seek atonement. She saw “you’re nothing, but not to me” as manipulation, and left, as she should have. Had she stayed, they truly would have butchered Rey’s character, but she didn’t, and I’m grateful/

As for Ren himself, I actually wouldn’t have done anything different with him here. His humanity is exposed, and his character diverged from attempting to be a duplicate of Vader, the mask smashed, Snoke slain, free from a master but not his own vicious mind. I’d anticipated he’d kill Snoke as his midway development, not as Vader would have/had done it to Palpatine, either by either his own raw strength or combined with Luke’s/Rey’s assistance, but through the kind of manipulation that would have made Palpatine the Deciever himself proud, by letting his former master see what he wanted to see until the move was made.

But Kylo Ren is still a slave to his own evil, no matter what he tells himself. The moment in the film where he nearly fires the shot that could have killed Leia but is unable, only for the First Order fighters to do so instead, illustrates that whatever goodness he has in him, any crisis of conscience, means nothing. Because he’s still with the group that is dedicated to destroying everything his family built, and he can dance around saying that he’ll kill his mother in favor of “destroying the resistance”, the end result is the same. The humanization of Kylo Ren/Ben in this film only illustrates how much of a villain he is.

Because he could have been better, could have made heroic choices for heroic reasons...but chooses not to. That says more about his pathetic vileness than any mask covering his face ever could.

As for Luke’s journey...there’s a lot I would have done differently. It felt like they had a convoluted way of illustrating there was more to the Force than Jedi=Good, but it could have been handled much better, with a more open Luke going through what he’d learned to the eager pupil he would have had in Rey. Instead, I feel like much of Luke’s development had to do with overcoming regression, learning lessons he’d already known the answers to, but could not recall in his closed off state. That’s not a terrible direction to take. It’s better than having to see Luke Skywalker say with a straight face that the Dark Side is actually good or that balance in the Force meant accepting some Sith Teaching nonsense. I am grateful they didn’t go that direction with him.

The issue with how Luke nearly attacked Ben in his sleep...Well they phrased it in a way that made sense insomuch that Luke has stood over someone, Lightsaber blazing and ready to kill for the sake of the people he loves. When Vader threatened to turn Leia, that shook Luke as much as the moment that led him to confronting Kylo, sensing, accurately, that he’d be a threat to everything Luke cared about.

This is actually an interesting contrast to Kylo Ren. Kylo has impulses to do the right thing...and either resists them or just stands back as horrors are done by those he’s aligned with. Luke does have dark impulses...and chooses not to give into them. He might come within a hairsbreadth, but he does not give into them.

His encounter with Yoda is something I’ll have to watch again, but it seemed to imply to me that by opening himself up, both as a person and to the Force, he was learning what he already knew. So much so that in the conclusion he’s regained not only the strength to help the people he cares about, but connect with the Force in a way that surpasses any Jedi we’ve ever seen before.

Because here’s the thing: I don’t believe Luke died in the conclusion. Nothing leading up to the film indicates he’s in poor health or that his astral projection should physically harm him beyond the effort of concentration. It shouldn’t have killed him.

What I propose actually happened is this: I believe Luke became One with the Force while still alive. A consistent trait of the sequel trilogy is that of escalation: stronger Force Powers, Stronger Super Weapons, More Amazing Feats that were supposed to be impossible (the Falcon going into Hyperspace while still landed, the First Order tracking the Resistance through Hyperspace). Why can’t this be the case with Luke, the greatest Jedi ever when he’s finally back to who he truly is?

Entering Heaven Alive is referred to in many religions as Ascension, Assumption, or Translation, and across many beliefs very few are ever said to have completed the feat. Prior to this, it was thought that death was a requirement for the rare feat of being aware while being one with the Force, with either specialized training involved, or the power requisite in being born of the Force and on the side of Light, such as Anakin’s redemption.

Luke has had access to both the necessary training and he’s of the Skywalker bloodline. If anyone could ascend to the living Force while still living, it would be him.

Other notes: The Resistance ship subplot felt weird and could have been done better. I liked the new characters though, and it was good to see Finn and Poe again. I can’t think of much more to add.

#star wars #my thoughts #the last jedi #the true jedi #jedi woman king #kylo ren

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oosteven-universe · 3 years

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The Joker #3

The Joker #3 DC Comics 2021 Written by James Tynion IV Illustrated by Guillem March Coloured by Arif Prianto Lettered by Tom Napolitano The hunt for The Joker is under way, as Jim Gordon heads to a remote part of South America to run down a lead...and comes face-to-face with the Clown Prince of Crime himself! The mystery around A-Day deepens, but not before an attack by the blood-thirsty Sampson family! And in the Punchline backup story, Punchline has to face off against the Queen of Spades’ new muscle...Orca! At the same time, Bluebird’s investigation at Punchline’s alma mater takes a dark and horrifying turn! Well now it would appear that this issue is a game changer in this little ongoing saga. As much as I hate to say it I think I actually believe what’s being said. Vague enough for ya? You have to read the book to understand what I am saying and it’s more than worth your time to pick this up and give a twirl or try it on for size. That this is just as much as James Gordon as it is about the Joker and their twisted history with one another thrown in for good measure is just that proverbial icing on the cake. I am in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see is amazing! The dialogue and how we see the character interactions as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really help us get to know more and more about these people, the Joker included. The pacing is sensational and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story, the twists & turns galore and members of the Bat-Family we see continues to draw us in further and further. I admire how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, strengthen and evolve as well as newly emerge. They carry us along and open avenues for exploration as well as engage the readers mind brilliantly. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as move the story forward is achieved so incredibly well. The interiors here absolutely stunning! I am utterly impressed with the imagery here and how we see different versions of the Joker brought to life in the visage of past artists by Guillem. His talent amazes me like there’s no tomorrow. The linework is utterly brilliant and how the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work that we see is absolutely mindbogglingly blood gorgeous! This is so expressive and breathes so much life into these characters and ever single one of Gordon’s wrinkles tells a story. The composition within the panels and it works with the backgrounds brings us this great depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation fo the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masters eye for storytelling. The colour work is utterly phenomenal. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work showcases and extraordinary eye for colour and how to best utilise it and its effects. I was a fan of the first Joker series but for vastly different reasons, even now I have a hard time finding the complete run. This dual story that parallels Gordon and the Joker who are intertwined by their work and fate is one of the best things in comics and it goes back decades with the Jim being the only non-costumed being to ever play such a role in the Joker’s ife and reigns of terror. Their dynamic is unique in all of comics and this is how we see that take hold and thrill everyone.

#Comic Books #Comics Reviews #DC Comics

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stalwartignoramus · 4 years

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Return of the Obra Dinn (Review)

Gameplay (8/10) Memento Mortem

(+2) Unique gameplay mechanic. The process of invading the dying memories of a corpse to investigate the circumstances surrounding their demise was a very innovative and clever way to explore the Obra Dinn.

(+1) Great pacing. The game progresses in two ways; either you discover new corpses to investigate or you correctly guess the fates of 3 crewmembers. Investigating new corpses gives you more evidence to pinpoint the identity of each crewmember, and correctly guessing their identity and fate narrows down the selection, making it easier to deduce the remaining crewmembers’ identities.

(+1) Intricate character detail. The crew and their relationship with each other really shines through the gameplay since you’ll be using any sort of clue in their interactions to correctly determine their fate and identity.

(=) Trial and Error works wonders. There are certain points in the game where you can make educated guesses based on the information you currently have. For example, if you narrowed down the identity of a crewmember to 2 possibilities, you can force the game to progress by guessing between the 2 possibilities and pairing it with 2 fates that you’re absolutely sure of. It surely isn’t the intended way to play the game, but it works if you don’t quite have the patience (like me) to look for the more subtle clues hidden in the game.

(-1) Traversal and exploration in the midgame can get tedious. In the middle of the game when you already have all the pieces but don’t know where they fit yet, you’re gonna do a lot of walking around, flipping through pages, and jumping from one corpse to another. The game’s lack of a sprint mechanic, or an easier way to navigate the pages of the book, or a way to go back and forth between corpses in a certain chapter really drags out the game and makes it extremely tedious.

Story (6/10) Standard Lovecraftian horror

(+1) Tried and tested narrative. While it doesn’t tell anything new (classic ancient relic stumbles upon a ship, misfortune descends upon the crew, sea monsters emerge to take back said relics, everyone dies), it fits the mold really well because of the gameplay mechanic. The story is the gameplay. The gameplay is the story. You can build up the narrative by discovering the subtle details in each memory and witness the downfall, the daily life, and the different activities that take place in the Obra Dinn through the player’s eyes.

(+1) The non-chronological structure of the game keeps the player guessing about what really happened aboard the Obra Dinn until the very last minutes. It also helps you in deducing the identities of the crew by observing their behavior before, during, and after a certain crewmember’s demise.

(-1) Anti-climactic final chapter. The Bargain chapter was completely set up to be a major plot twist, and the first part it shows (Part 5) certainly supports this when the game makes us think a certain character did something mischievous behind the scenes. Instead, it fell flat on its face and ended in a very predictable manner which most players probably already knew.

Visuals (10/10) Less is more

(+2) Masterful use of illustration, shading, and negative space. The entirety of the game looks like an illustration from an old book come to life, which is what the game is. A Blues Clues-esque adventure that allows you to jump into a “picture” of the surroundings of a dying person. Every detail, carefully illustrated. The shading, well contrasted to give life to the environment. Negative space in places where the game doesn’t want you to focus on to give more emphasis to the relevant details. It all comes together to create a simple yet intricate portrayal of the Obra Dinn and its members.

(+2) Intricate character design. Every crewmember has a defining characteristic that separates them from their fellow crewmember and it is usually reflected in their character design. One crewmember has tattoos all over his body, some crewmembers share a similar hairstyle that stems from their cultural background, while the officers wearing hats are obvious tells to give the players a headstart in determining their identities. The illustration makes sure that there will always be something that separates one crewmember from another so that each one is a unique individual that can be discerned even from a seemingly similar crewmember.

(+1) Well-orchestrated death scenes that create a dramatic spectacle of the crewmember’s moment of death. Aside from being pleasing to the eye, it also offers the players all the information they need; victim, suspect, method of death, murder weapon, motive, etc. From a Kraken wrapping around the entirety of the ship, to an accidental death by cannon fire, to a cabin scuffle, the game never runs out of spectacles that are worthy of being portrayed in a masterpiece renaissance painting.

Audio (8/10) The terrifying and magnificent sounds of life on the sea

(+1) Ambient noise to Seafarer’s tunes. The background sounds switch depending on where you currently are. If the player is in the present time, they’ll hear nothing but the waves, the rain pelting the deck of the ship, their own footsteps, and the creaking of the doors as they get opened. If the players are inside a memory, a track plays depending on the overall mood of the memory. It varies from solemn to intense. It’s a wonderful juxtaposition of the present time and the past to remind the player that life was once bustling on the Obra Dinn but it is now lifeless and silent.

(+1) Voice acting plays a vital role. In all honesty I’m not at liberty to say that the voice acting was great since I’m not a native speaker of any of the languages spoken in the game, but they were distinct and detailed enough that I can tell roughly from which area their language/accent hails from.

(+1) SFX also plays a vital role. If the frozen scenario doesn’t give enough information regarding the circumstances of a crewmember’s death, the sound effects that play at the moment of their death might be a better tell. Gunshots indicates being shot by someone, blunt sounds indicated clubbing, gruesome squelching and tearing sounds accompanied by screaming means someone is most likely being torn apart. The plethora of sound effects littered throughout the game are just as helpful as the visuals when it comes to determining the fate and identities of the crewmembers.

Final Score (8) Excellent A game that defines the decade in gaming

This decade has seen the rise of indie gaming. More and more indie developers are coming up with excellent and fresh titles that can stand against the AAA games. They make up for the lack of sheer size, scale, and detail that a AAA provides by utilizing simplistic visuals and innovative gameplay mechanics. Return of the Obra Dinn will be remembered this decade alongside indie gems like Celeste, Shovel Knight, and Super Meat Boy as the games that defined indie gaming’s march to greatness. Simple yet intricate, short but sweet, hard and rewarding. Return of the Obra Dinn, a cult classic in the making.

(1-2) Terrible (3-4) Bad (5) Average (6-7) Good (8-9) Excellent (10) Masterpiece

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