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avengerscompound · 5 years

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That Kid You Knew - 3

That Kid You Knew: An Iron Man Fanfic

Masterlist Previous //

Buy me a ☕ @iron-man-bingo Square: "Does Tony have a son?"

Warning: Angsty stuff, mentions of sex, drugs, and pregnancy

Word Count: 3201

Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader

Summary: You had grown up knowing Tony Stark but as you’d gotten older you’d lost track of him. When you see him at a party you have a drug-fueled one-night-stand with him.

10 years later he finds you again and has to come to terms with the fact he’s been a father all the time.

Chapter 3

“I want to try and make up the time with him quickly. I know he’s got school to worry about. But I can maybe come and get him after school a couple of days this week. I’d like to shuffle things around and take him out on weekends too. You’ve had him 9 years, I’d like to start getting to know him properly.”

Tony had gotten back from taking Owen out for pizza late. While he’d been gone you had a long phone conversation with your mother about what happened. To say she was unhappy about your lying was an understatement. After Owen was ready for bed, Tony had gone and sat with him, chatting about things, almost like he was just telling him stories based on his time as Iron Man, until Owen fell asleep.

His parenting instinct maybe wasn’t perfect, but it was strong. You couldn’t believe you had kept Owen from him.

When Owen was asleep, he turned his attention on you.

“Tony, I want to make this right. You can spend as much time as you want with him. I just - I’m not sure…” You trailed off not sure how to tell him that you didn’t really know him very well and you’re not sure if you can trust him to be completely alone with your son. Even letting Tony take him out tonight, despite the fact he had security with him, had filled you with anxiety. He was a multimillionaire. He could have taken him anywhere or done anything. Despite the fact you’d basically grown up together, you barely knew him anymore.

“Oh my god!” Tony groaned. “Are you seriously about to make some excuse as to why I can’t see my son now?” He tapped his left arm and leaned forward, looking you in the eyes. “I am really, really trying to keep myself together today. I think I’ve done pretty well considering. But so help me…”

The anger and frustration dripped from his words. It might have helped you build a case against him being alone with Owen, except you knew where he was coming from. If you were in his shoes, you would have lost it a long time ago.

You put your hand on his. “Tony,” You said, quietly. “You’re right. I had my reasons, but I was wrong. There is no way I can make up for what I’ve done. I want you to spend as much time as you can with him. I just… I don’t know you.”

Tony balled his hands into fists. “What exactly are you accusing me of here?”

You took a deep breath to steady yourself. “I’m trying to say, I haven’t dated anyone in ten years because I have trouble trusting strangers with my son. And it makes me anxious thinking of him being alone with someone I barely know.”

Tony opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again, his teeth clenched, and his jaw twitching. He tapped out a pattern on the table as he seemed to try and steady his emotions. “You do know me.”

“I haven’t seen you for 10 years and when I last saw you, you were high.” You counter.

“I’m Iron Man.” He said. “I fight to protect people. And I’m his dad. What the hell do you think I’m going to do to him?”

“And no father has ever hurt their child? Please try to see this from my point of view. Or look at it from the point of view of his dad. Do you want me to just let him spend time alone with strange men?” You implored. “I’m not saying I’ll never trust you. I just… I need time to feel like he’s safe when he’s with you. That’s all.”

There was silence for the longest time. Tony just sat opposite you at the table playing with his glasses. Gradually, he relaxed and looked up at you. “I get it. It doesn’t have to be alone, to begin with. You can come with us. Or… or we can find someone to chaperone you’re happy with. I have security people, if you have a babysitter it can be them. I don’t know. I can get Captain America if you like. Do you trust Captain America?”

You let yourself relax a little and let out a soft breath. The start of laughter but not actually laughter. You reached over and took his hands in yours. “Thank you for being so understanding. I know this must be hard for you. Honestly, you’re taking it better than my mom did.”

Tony let out a laugh and stifled it quickly as he pulled his hands away and ran them through his hair. “I just - I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel about all of this. Should I be excited? Scared? Angry? I feel like I’m in emotional overload and normally when that happens I shut people out but I know if I do that, I lose him before I even got him in the first place.”

You leaned back and nodded. “I know what you mean. I don’t know what I was expecting either. I had always just assumed you’d tell me that it had nothing to do with you.”

Tony shook his head. “He’s my son.” He said. “Which brings me to another thing. You can’t live here. He’s my son. I’m going to give you back pay for child support. We can work out the number later. But you need to use it to move somewhere more secure. When this gets out, this is not going to be safe for him.”

You blinked at him a few times. “You don’t need to give me any money.”

“He’s my son,” Tony repeated. There was a pain in the words this time. Like he didn’t think he was going to be enough for him.

You took his hand and nodded again. “I know.”

Over the course of the next two months Tony seemed to devote all this time to creating a relationship with Owen and proving to you he could be trusted. Certainly, for a man who ran a billion-dollar company and acted as a superhero, he wasn’t spending much time doing either. He was picking him up from school three days a week and taking him out. He was coming by both on Saturdays and Sundays and either just hanging out at your place or taking him on outings. They did museums and zoos and movies and bands. A couple of times he even went with you to look at houses. Sometimes you went with them. Sometimes it was an agreed-upon chaperone. If they went out it was always a team of at least two security.

He and Owen just clicked too. Owen was in so many ways, so much like his father. He was smart and sarcastic and curious. Tony seemed to take to the whole parenting thing pretty naturally too. He was overcompensating for the missing time and he second-guessed himself a lot, but in those moments when they both just relaxed and talked tech or science or one of what seemed to be becoming a long list of things they were both passionate about, it was like he had always been Owen’s dad. Tony would listen to Owen like everything he had to say was the most interesting thing in the world.

In those moments when you saw them like that you would start going over what might have been different if you had just told him. He was so different back then. Railing against his own father who had died before he’d ever been accepted by him. He definitely wouldn’t have believed you. He might even have accused you of getting pregnant on purpose for the money. Maybe it might have been okay in the end. Maybe you could have moved to LA and he could have been part of Owen’s life. Maybe you could have shared custody. He could have had him overnight and every second weekend. You wouldn’t have had to do this alone. You might have actually had time to have your own life and maybe even date. Owen would have had someone else he knew would be there for him. Tony would have had that exciting moment when he’d been called ‘dada’.

Not that everything was going smoothly and stress-free. Dealing with lawyers even at this early stage and with neither of you particularly arguing anything wasn’t exactly easy. You hated to think what it would be like if Tony she’d you for custody. You hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

His friends seemed to have a mixed reaction to you. From what Owen had said they’d all gone out of their way to make sure he felt at home there. From what Tony had said there had been bets made about whether or not he had some secret kid he didn’t know about. Most of them were at least polite if they ever saw you. Rhodey had come and told you that while he wasn’t sure you should have kept the secret, he got it and maybe Tony finding out now was better. He was ready now. Back then he as a mess. Clint Barton was openly hostile. Tony said it was because he had kids. You supposed you understood that.

That wasn’t the worst bit though. The worst bit was the press.

It was only one outing there was speculation on the internet. “Does Tony Stark have a son?” They couldn’t get any actual confirmation that it was true though. Thankfully, the people who knew were smart enough to not talk to the press and Tony wasn’t actually listed on the birth certificate. Even still they decided after two weeks of spotting the two of them together that he must be his son. After that, it was everywhere. Paparazzi began stalking him, yelling out to him in the street to get him to admit it. They camped outside your house and would approach Owen. Tony put security at your place too, but you could tell the fact you still lived there was causing him a great deal of anxiety.

At the two month mark, Tony had organized a trip for the two of you to the Natural History Museum after it had closed. Owen was extremely excited to get what he was calling the ‘A Night at the museum tour’. He ran through the halls of taxidermied animals, his feet echoing through the place as you and Tony strolled along behind him.

None of this stuff was particularly Tony’s expertise but you could see him sharing in the excitement whenever Owen called him over to look at something.

“We need to work out what we’re going to do from here, don’t you think?” Tony asked as you trailed along after Owen. “I really want him to start doing sleepovers. I mean… I think it’s time, don’t you? But there’s the Avengers stuff. I keep thinking that the first time I have him over something big will happen and I’ll get called out and then what?”

You went to answer but Owen excitedly called you over to look at the family of elephants. “Are these African or Asian?” Tony asked.

“African. You can tell by the ears.” Owen answered.

He took off again and you chuckled and followed after at the slow pace you had been walking before. “That’s a good idea. I - the stuff before - about the chaperone. I trust you.”

“Good. That’s good.” He said. “I don’t want to go through the courts for custody. I want to just work it out with you. ��This is hard enough as it is.”

“I’m not against you, Tony. I know you don’t trust me. You don’t have any reason to trust me. But I promise I want to give you guys what I can.”

“I thought to begin with he could come and visit every second weekend,” Tony said, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “But… Okay so hear me out. I think until you find a new place you should move into the tower. The press are assholes. It’ll be safer for you both there.”

“Tony, I don’t know…” You said.

“Look, I know it’s gonna be weird us living in the same building. But it’s not like we’d be living in the same apartment. You’d have your own place. There are actual apartments there. I can have a car take you to and from work and one to take Owen to and from school.” He said. “Plus it would give you a chance to see what it’s like for me day-to-day. And I’ll be able to see him a little more regularly.”

You took a deep breath and watch as Owen stopped to look at the Bison. “Alright. I want to keep him safe and you’re right. But it’s not forever, Tony. Just until I find something more suitable.”

He smiled and seemed to relax. “Great. Fantastic. This will be great.”

The move into the Avengers Tower happened really quickly. Within a week your apartment was empty and things were on their way to being unpacked in the new place. It wasn’t as big a place as your old one but the idea was it would be temporary. You and Owen were looking for a house, and with the money from Tony, it was going to be a lot nicer than either place.

Living in the tower brought with it a lot of benefits though. The buildings AI was amazing. She ordered in your regular groceries as you ran out of them. She would turn lights on and off as you need them. Lock and unlock doors. She knew where Tony was all the time. You started to wonder if you could go back to not having her around.

The building had a gym and a pool. There was a thing called the party deck where the Avengers’ would hang out and they’d invite you and Owen up. The longer you were there the more they settled into having you around and the resentment any of them felt for hurting their friend seemed to dissipate. Especially as Tony slipped deeper and deeper in his role of father.

You started getting along better with Tony too. Eventually, it got to the point that it had felt like there had been no missing time between the two of you. He’d show up at the apartment and you’d all eat together and he’d help Owen with his homework, or they’d do some other little project together. Then he’d tell him watered down Iron Man stories to him at bedtime. It wasn’t every night, but it was most nights.

There was the whole ‘Avenging’ thing that would get in the way, and it was nerve-wracking. Being this close to it you hadn’t considered out stressful it would be to have someone you were so connected to out risking their life. You could see it was affecting Owen too. He was always so relieved and almost clung to Tony when he got back.

Finding a place was difficult though. Or maybe you lacked the motivation. Whatever the case you ended up being there for months building a comfortable routine with Tony.

“What are you guys feeling for dinner?” He asked one Friday afternoon as Owen let him in. “You want to order in? Or are you cooking?”

“Ordering in sounds good. Work was a killer.” You said, coming out of the kitchen to greet him.

“Can we get burgers?” Owen asked.

Tony ruffled his hair and handed him his phone. “You know the drill.” He said before collapsing on the couch.

“You two and burgers.” You said sitting down beside Tony. “How much do you have them when I’m not around?”

Tony put his finger to his lips. “Shh…”

Owen cracked up laughing. “Hardly any, mom.” He joked as he tapped around on Tony’s phone. “Alright. Ordered something for everyone, dad.”

Tony and your heads snapped up. You looked at each other and then at him. Tony’s jaw dropped open in shock.

Owen looked down at his shoes and furrowed his brow. “Should I not have called you that? I can call you Tony. Sorry.”

Tony almost tripped he jumped up so quickly. He pulled Owen into a tight hug. “No. No, no, no.” He soothed. “I was just surprised. But… good. It’s a good surprise. You’ve never called me that before.” He crouched down and looked Owen in the eye. “I am your dad and I’d love if you called me that.”

Owen nodded his head. “Okay. ‘Cause that’s what I want to call you.”

That night after Owen was in bed, Tony came down and sat down next to you, holding a tumbler of Scotch a little too tightly.

You smiled at him and patted his leg. “You’re a dad now.”

He returned the smile almost hesitantly at first until he was beaming at you. “I know.” He said, with a slight shake in his voice. “I hoped that one day he might call me that. I wasn’t getting my hopes too high because of how long I’ve not been part of his life. But I hoped. I had no idea it would feel so good and so scary when he did it though.”

You tried to hold it together as he spoke, but once again it hit you, how much you stole from them.

You burst into tears and Tony put his drink down and wrapped you in his arms. “Hey, now. I’m not planning on taking him from you.” He said.

You shook your head, wiping your tears on his t-shirt. “It’s not that. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I kept him from you.”

“We can’t keep going over that,” Tony said. “It happened. You can’t keep beating yourself up over it.”

“You should have been a daddy though. You should have got to hear him say dada when he was learning to talk.” You sobbed.

He tilted your face up to his. “I know. It sucks. It sucks that I missed that. But he just called me dad. This is a good day.”

You nodded a little pathetically and he wiped the tears from your cheeks with his thumbs as he cradled you jaw. You looked up into the brown of his eyes and you saw it. His eyes flicked to your lips. You felt your breath hitch and your eyes flicked to his. They were parted just a little, almost inviting you in. You looked back into his eyes and he ran his thumb over your bottom lip.

“Have you really not been with anyone since me?” He asked, his voice almost a soft growl.

You shook your head, not sure what exactly was happening right now. Not sure if anything should happen right now. It did though. It felt like time stopped. Your heart was beating in your ears and you couldn’t stop looking at his lips as they came closer and closer. His breath tickled your skin and you closed your eyes.

// NEXT

#ironmanbingo3000 #tony stark #tony stark x reader #iron man #iron man fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #that kid you knew

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 4 years

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Triple the Losers AU - Concept Notes

i wanted there to be 27 but if i added patties and audras that made 27 but then i’d have to add kay bc i love her which would make 28 so 21 it is

so the basic concept for this is “hey guys remember how i doubled the baudelaires and made the best au with movie! and netflix!bauds well we’re doing that with book, miniseries and film losers club”

So, yeah, in this au, the book, miniseries and film Losers are all in the same universe, related, and ready to kill a clown. There is no Chapter Two because these kids bully that clown to death asap.

A friend group of 21 is pretty wild but definitely makes for a pretty great army.

Full list of Losers:

The Denbrough Boys

Isaac Denbrough - film!Bill

An adopted sibling, though he’s never known any family but the Denbroughs and is never considered anything other than the oldest Denbrough boy

Artist who wants to illustrate for his brothers’ books bc he loves them

Gay but in denial. Giant crush on Daniel Hanlon.

Anselm Denbrough - miniseries!Bill

Likes to write fantasy novels as an escape from reality

Fights with Bill about whether fantasy or horror is better which is lowkey a metaphor for them arguing about how to deal with their trauma

William “Bill” Denbrough - book!Bill

Writes horror stories cause he loves psychological analyzation

He prefers to face his fears rather than “escape” from them, causing tension between he and Anselm with how they deal with Georgie’s death

Georgie Denbrough - there is only one Georgie as he literally only exists for like one chapter

Loves his brothers

Dead as fuck, sorry

Stuttering seems to be a family trait during childhood in the Denbrough family that Anselm and Bill are afflicted with, though Bill much more than his older bother. (Isaac also starts stuttering young, which is suspected to be more psychological.) This trait skipped a generation, and thus the Denbrough parents don’t really know enough about how to deal with their sons’ disability.

They’re a very creative family, usually in terms of creative writing, though they’re also pretty skilled in the art department. Sharon Denbrough is a skilled pianist and taught Isaac until recently. The family was never very close, and Bill always had a rocky relationship with his parents, but the family fell apart after the death of Georgie. Isaac and Bill found themselves practically ignored, while Anselm was pretty much yelled at for trying to fix everything. The brothers only managed to maintain their relationship by trying to avenge Georgie by killing this fucking clown.

The Hanscom Boys

Desmond “Des” Hanscom - film!Ben

Would like to go into Investigative Journalism, though he’s also really into Local Histories

Tends to be afraid of the concept of death more than anything else

Has a lot of social anxiety

Auster Hanscom - miniseries!Ben

Super into all forms of writing but mostly poetry, which he loves and kinda obsesses over

Was most affected by not having a father figure around, as Des and Ben didn’t seem to mind

Assumed he was straight for a while but is probably demi

Benjamin “Ben” Hanscom - book!Ben

The Architect, and his love of blueprints and planning has made him the main strategist of the Losers Club

He really doesn’t have many psychological demons so his worst fear is just the mummy he saw in a movie too late at night

Pure baby

The Hanscoms’ father left the family when Arlene was still pregnant with Ben; while the boys never understood why, they sometimes speculate about secret missions, one or both of their parents cheating, government conspiracies, etc. Des and Ben never really minded, as Des was quite the introvert and Ben was close with their mom, but Auster really wished they could have a paternal figure, especially since the boys tend to be shunned for their genetic overweight appearance and he really wished for some kind of acceptance.

The move to Derry was recent, as Arlene managed to find a higher-paying job that could help her support her boys. Ben managed to get himself in trouble with the Bowers Gang, meaning that his brothers, defensive of him, also became targets. But they manage to find friends in the Losers Club, and with the whole gang together, nobody’s going to be able to hurt them... right?

The Marsh Girls

Karen “Karrie” Marsh - film!Bev

Hates her name, thinks it sounds like a middle-aged mom. Goes by Karrie which she thinks sounds cooler (and serves as another Stephen King reference)

Wants to do movie stunts as an adult, is the most daring and bold of the Losers Club, and also probably the physically strongest

Intensely protective of her sisters, especially due to their home situation

Brooke Marsh - miniseries!Bev

The sweetest little angel you will ever meet. Has never done anything wrong in her life

Wants to be a painter and is very artistic. Karrie has shoplifted her paint supplies before

The only one of her sisters to not smoke, as they refuse to let her near cigarettes

Beverly “Bev” Marsh - book!Bev

Technically the half-sister (stepsister?) of her older sisters, and can tell that her Mom doesn’t seem to care for her sisters much. She loves them, though, and won’t stand for people insulting them

Quite the fashion designer, and even though the family is poor, she’s been making sure they don’t look like shit since she could choose her own clothes

Probably the most manipulative of the Losers, though this has its advantages, such as when they need to get out of trouble.

Giant Lesbian, definitely marries Kay McCall

Karrie and Brooke have lived under the hate of their father for a while, due to the fact that he blames them for their mother’s death; Karrie brought home a virus from daycare that infected their mother, weakening her enough that labor with Brooke killed her. Karrie tends to get the most shit for this, mainly because Brooke gets along more with their stepmother, Elfrida. Elfrida married their father only a few months following their mother’s death, mainly due to the fact that Al got her pregnant. The family is quite poor, and the parents work quite a lot, meaning the sisters have gotten pretty good at fending for themselves.

Recently, the girls have started to get more fears about their father than just physical abuse- he’s been acting weird around Karrie and Bev, and while Brooke seems to avoid his eye for the time being, she has been quite hurt by his violent outbursts. Karrie’s secretly been saving up to take her sisters away before he can do anything to them, though she’s not sure how to tell Brooke and Bev, as they don’t even understand what they’re supposed to be afraid of. But while they’re in Derry, they end up finding themselves among the Losers Club, on a mission to save the children of the town by killing a monster that lives in the sewers. That won’t be much of a problem; they have much worse monsters at home.

The Kaspbrak Boys

Chase Kaspbrak - film!Eddie

Somehow simultaneously the most paranoid and most reckless boy in the world

He’s really into analysis and predicting events

Can and Will fight you, but he will be bitching about it the entire time

Otto Kaspbrak - miniserires!Eddie

11, Eddie’s older twin

Incredibly stubborn and snarky, but also the most loyal Loser and the most sincere

Has an interest in mechanics and repair, and when his mom’s not looking he’ll take things apart to find out how they work

Edward “Eddie” Kaspbrak - book!Eddie

11, Otto’s younger twin

Very adaptable and adventurous, though he has a lot of anxiety at times

Special Interest in cars, wants to be a driver as an adult

Able to find direction no matter where they are, and his gift of coordination has helped the Losers numerous times

There will absolutely be a car chase scene where he has to drive

Chase is the only Kaspbrak who really remembers their father, being seven when he died instead of his brothers’ five. He seems to recall them not being so sick back then, though his Mother claims otherwise, and their father being a good, playful man. But he’s not here now, and their mother, Sonia, is paranoid about everything. Her boys are very weak and sick and can’t do much, and she hates that they have such rough, rude friends that must be corrupting them somehow.

The boys, however, are much more adventurous and capable than Sonia believes- especially Chase, who has actually won more than one fight, mostly on behalf of his brothers. As the eldest, Chase believes he has to protect Otto and Eddie, whether it be from a bunch of school bullies, a killer clown in the sewers, or their own mother. Also, Chase and Eddie are gay as hell and Otto is demi-gay as fuck.

The Hanlon Boys

Daniel “Danny” Hanlon - film!Mike

14, the oldest of the Losers

He’s actually the cousin of Orel and Mike; he recently moved in with his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents in a house fire. He’s pretty traumatized from the incident

Wants more than anything to travel and explore the world, meet new people and see everything there is to see, and being stuck in boring, bigoted Derry is pretty much hell for him

He is very protective of his cousins and friends, though, and is the one who believes the most in their ability to triumph over Pennywise

Orel Hanlon - miniseries!Mike

Incredibly excitable and very optimistic, as well as incredibly bookish. As such, he tends to infodump whether people want to hear him or not

Super into cartography, and collects old, antique maps as well as making his own pretty much wherever they go

Really into gruesome horror stuff and doesn’t understand why it scares and/or grosses out other people.

Michael “Mike” Hanlon - book!Mike

Incredibly watchful and steadfast, and the Loser with perhaps the most emotional stability

He’s a lil Historian whose greatest desire is to work for the library and get to read as many books as he wants

Just. really fucking loves his dog

Orel and Mike don’t go into town much, mainly staying on their farm with their loving parents and spending their time with the farm animals; Mike is closest to their watchdog, but Orel loves being among the sheep. In the last few months, their cousin Danny moved in with them, and their relationship is... a bit awkward. Orel is too blunt and Mike is too curious, and they don’t know how to carefully approach the subject of his parents burning to death in front of him without making him feel worse.

It doesn’t help that Danny hates Derry; it’s bigoted, it’s tiny, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and people are dying left and right. However, once his cousins convince him to come hang out with their friends, he ends up bonding with the other Losers of the town, even though they’re all a bunch of weird white kids. And though the Hanlons don’t deal much with town business, they’re ready to join in the fight to stop Pennywise from killing anyone else.

The Tozier Triplets

Reynard “Reynie” Tozier - film!Richie

12, the firstborn of the triplets

Loudmouthed, rude, impulsive and very crass, mainly to hide his crippling self-doubt and fears of being ostracized

Super good at video games and says he wants to be a professional gamer, though honestly he’s just really interested in stand-up comedy

Gay as all fuck

Roderick “Rod” Tozier - minseries!Richie

12, the middle of the triplets

While he’s just as hyperactive as his triplets, he’s a bit more controlled and actually the least raunchy, meaning Reynie and Richie joke that he’s not using his name correctly

Wants to be a voice actor for cartoons like Looney Tunes, and is actually getting decent at impersonating the RoadRunner.

Richard “Richie” Tozier - book!Richie

12, the youngest of the triplets

Pretty wild and uncontrollable, energized as all hell, and makes off-color jokes to piss people off and get attention, though he does have a true heart for his friends

Wants to have his own radio show in the future. Was the first to befriend the Marsh girls, because he and Bev would share cigarettes during recess

Bi as all fuck

The Tozier triplets are a trio of ADHD disasters and nobody in Derry can or will ever forget it. Reynie and Rod tend to “big brother” Richie, meaning they tend to end up slapping him upside the head for saying something insensitive, though sometimes Reynie says something a bit too impulsively as well. They used to do different voices to entertain each other, meaning it’s a bit of an interest for all of them. While Reynie tends to lean more towards comedy, though, Rod wants to be a voice actor for cartoons like Looney Tunes, and Richie hopes to be some kind of radio personality.

Their parents mean well but are often at work, and even at home they don’t quite understand their boys, so the triplets are pretty used to relying on each other. Reynie kinda has the least parental affection, as Rod and Richie tend to get into even more shit than he does, so he kinda falls to the wayside. His isolation tends to manifest in fears of abandonment and loneliness- and a public outing resulting in such, starting when he started to realize that he maybe didn’t like girls as much as he said he did. Rod and Richie, meanwhile, also have vague fears of outing, though Pennywise represents their bisexuality as werewolfism- always transforming in painful and terrifying ways.

The Uris Boys

Mason Uris - film!Stan

Very cautious, but definitely not the Mom friend; he will inform you how shitty your idea is, but will not stop you, and in fact will grab popcorn to watch

Loves studying art history and different art forms, though he doesn’t want to create them himself, just catalogue them. He likes to entertain Isaac and Brooke by “critiquing” their “fabulous” artwork

The only one of his siblings who doesn’t get along with their parents

Peter Uris - miniseries!Stan

12, almost 13

Incredibly logical and has the most anxiety. Is the last one to believe in the clown just because it doesn’t fit into his worldview

While all the boys love birdwatching, he’s the one who’d like to go into it as a profession; he loves ornithology and wants to study birds for the rest of his life

Stanley “Stan” Uris - book!Stan

Loves to have things in order, and doesn’t really know how to interact with people socially, because people don’t act in predictable ways.

Super good at mathematics and hopes to be an engineer or accountant

Has the weirdest sense of humor, which means he is the best

The Urises are one of the few Jewish families in town, and in a bigoted town like Derry, that means they were pretty much outcasted from the getgo. They are all relatively close with each other, in that they’ll argue nonstop but also would die for each other without question. Peter and Stan probably get along the best, as they’ll sit and talk about birds until they pass out, while Mason likes to sit in his room and read his books on famous artists. Mason also has a bit more of a strained relationship with his parents, while his brothers get along with them much better.

The boys refused to believe in Pennywise for the longest time, as they’re all very logical and orderly and “magic alien clown eating kids by turning into their fears” doesn’t exactly fit into their normal worldview. But they’re going to stick by their friends and do their best to protect themselves and the town... and, well, if the way to kill the clown is by bullying him to death, they have a shitton of insults they’ve been saving for a special occasion.

#it #it 2017 #it 2019 #it chapter one #it chapter two #it book #it 1990 #triple the losers au #mine #losers club au #it au

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omniversalobservations · 5 years

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Do ‘Get Out’ and ‘Being John Malkovich’ Exist in the Same Universe?

Last year, when Catherine Keener was promoting Incredibles 2, she was asked during a press junket whether she would ever reprise any of the characters she’s played in the past. “I can’t imagine, they’ve kind of all been put to bed,” she said. The interviewer then informed her that there is a theory that her character in Get Out is actually the same person as her character in Being John Malkovich. Keener blinked. “Because the whole idea of people being put into other people’s brains,” the interviewer said. Keener’s eyes went wide, and her face assumed an expression halfway between “people on the internet should go outside” and “I am alarmed by how much sense this actually makes.” Said Catherine Keener, “Wow.”

That was, roughly, my reaction when I first read about this theory last week, after rewatching Being John Malkovich. What a simpler existence I led just seven days ago, for now I am in the Sunken Place—a state of mind in which I believe that Get Out and Being John Malkovich occur in the same universe. (I’m calling it “The Mind Control Universe”; to keep you from confusing it with other cinematic universes I will refer to it as “The MCU.”)

That tinkling sound you hear of a spoon against a teacup? Don’t worry, that’s just me dragging you down into this abyss with me. Relax.

A surreal collaboration between screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich is a tale as old as time: Three relatively miserable people stumble upon a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich, which allows one to inhabit Malkovich’s body for 15 minutes before being dropped into a ditch near the Jersey Turnpike. An unwashed John Cusack plays Craig, a sad-sack part-time puppeteer and full-time office drone who lives with his animal-loving wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz and a wig) but falls in love with his seductive/disinterested coworker Maxine (an Oscar-nominated, aspirationally outfitted Keener). Maxine, in turn, falls in love with Lotte—but only when Lotte is inhabiting Malkovich’s body. Craig goes to increasingly disturbing lengths to keep the lovers apart, but he finally makes the mistake of climbing into the Malkovich portal just after it has closed, leaving his soul trapped in some sort of metaphysical purgatory. After becoming pregnant by the body of John Malkovich while Lotte was inhabiting it (I probably should have mentioned that this article is NSFW), Maxine gives birth to a daughter, Emily, whom she and Lotte happily intend to raise together. Except, as we learn in the last scene of the movie, Craig’s soul is actually trapped in the young daughter’s body. Talk about a classic setup for a sequel!

As the theory (which likely began on Reddit but has now become widespread enough to warrant its own lengthy section on the Being John Malkovich Wikipedia page) goes, Maxine and Lotte continued to crave the experience of inhabiting other people’s bodies, even after the Malkovich portal had closed. They eventually crossed paths with neurosurgeon Roman Armitage, the malevolent patriarch of Get Out, who transplanted the spirit of dressed-down Cameron Diaz into the body of Bradley Whitford (Malkovichy enough, I guess, given the options). Of course when you relocate your family to try and find illicit portals into other people’s consciousness, it’s always wise to assign everybody new identities, so “Rose Armitage” is actually grown-up Emily, and such is the nuance of Allison Williams’s performance that I didn’t even realize she was playing a disgruntled John Cusack trapped in a young woman’s body until at least the third viewing.

Obviously, the most glaring difference between these two films is that one is a thoughtful meditation on race in 21st-century America, while another is a movie about a bunch of white people who want to be John Malkovich. These stories may appear incompatible. If Maxine and Lotte really were as horrifically racist as the Armitage family, wouldn’t we have at least seen hints of that worldview in Being John Malkovich? I briefly believed this was a deal-breaker for this theory, until I fell even deeper into the Sunken Place and realized that the true, conscious architect of the scheme’s racism is Roman Armitage, who could have recruited Maxine and Lotte and in doing so awakened a latent hatred within them. If the internet can do this, so can Roman Armitage.

OK, fine, this all checks out, you are definitely thinking, but if all this were true, wouldn’t Rose Armitage, technically a vessel for the imprisoned spirit of Angsty John Cusack, be desperately in love … with her own mother? At which point I would remind you of the bottomless nuance in Allison Williams’s performance, which contains more notes than a fine rosé. Also … she kind of dresses like Maxine did in Being John Malkovich? Which may be her way of paying homage to her beloved mother’s peerless ’90s style.

Still on the fence? What if I told you that the place where Chris finds the incriminating photos of Rose’s past paramours in Get Out is … BEHIND A VERY TINY DOOR?

In a December 2017 video for Vanity Fair, Jordan Peele was asked to comment on several Get Out fan theories. When he came to the Being John Malkovich hunch, he said, “I love this theory, I have heard this theory. It was definitely not lost on me that I was able to get Catherine Keener in her second, like, weird-perspective, living-in-someone-else’s-brain movie. We joked about that, and I’m a huge fan of the movie Being John Malkovich.” Peele claimed he even discussed it with Spike Jonze after Get Out was released, and the two shared a laugh. “So as far as I’m concerned,” Peele added, “it’s true.”

Maybe the deepest link between these movies is that they are both imaginative enough to keep fans talking and speculating about them long after their initial release. It’s a testament to Being John Malkovich that 20 years after it came out, people on an internet that barely existed back then are still trying to concoct theories that help wrap their heads around it. And although little is certain in this life—such as, say, whether or not the screaming demonic spirit of Craig Schwartz is inhabiting the body of Rose Armitage—I can say one thing for sure: We’ll still be musing about Get Out on its 20th anniversary, too.

Source: The Ringer

#unofficial #Get Out #Being John Malkovich

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/07/21/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-72117/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 7/21/17

I haven’t been doing such a great job with my movie tally for 2017. We’re more than halfway through the year, and I’ve barely watched anything. Well, I kinda made up for that last weekend, as I caught Keeping Up With The Joneses on HBO. This is one of those movies that came and went, and might find a fan base on TV, but will probably just be forgotten. If it should be remembered for anything, it’s that it features both Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher in lingerie. That’s about all it’s got going for it. What’s it about? Well, Isla Fisher and Zack Galifianakis star as a milquetoast suburbanite couple who become suspicious of their new neighbors, Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot. So, they’re pushed out of their comfort zone when they find out Hamm and Gadot are spies, and they get wrapped up in their latest mission. This is the kind of movie I would’ve killed a chunk of a Saturday afternoon on had it aired on Fox 5, but I can understand why nobody went to see it in theaters. Folks loved Don Draper, but for whatever reason, they have no desire to help along Jon Hamm’s movie career. And this was pre-Wonder Woman Gadot, so there was no heat on her yet. It doesn’t suck, but it’s got no Wow Factor either. Once it hits FX, it might be a good way to waste away a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I finally got around to watching The Nice Guys, too. I’d tried a few months ago, but I only got as far as the Ryan Gosling fully clothed in the bathtub scene, where I went, “What the eff am I watching?” I wasn’t ready for the absurd that night, but I was ready now. Like everyone had told me, it was really good. I still have trouble with heist/mystery films because my brain doesn’t work as fast as the film, so sometimes I have to reflect back on the thing when it’s over just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Ryan Gosling is a private investigator who teams up with local tough guy Russell Crowe to track down a missing girl. Sure, there’s some stuff about porn, and the Detroit auto lobby, but that’s the gist of the movie. It’s got a precocious kid, a cool 70s aesthetic, and titties. Can’t really hate on any of that. Anyway, I could see this as one of those movies I drop everything to watch whenever I see that it’s on. If you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out.

My new favorite reality show debuted this week on Bravo, called A Night With My Ex. It’s just what the title says: a former couple spends the night together to see if the spark is still there and/or to reopen old wounds. In the premiere, 28 year old virgin Rachel is reunited to smarmy douchebag ex-boyfriend Fabian. They dated for four years, but he cheated on her with a sexy Tinkerbell at a Halloween party because he had a major case of blue balls. When the show starts, you don’t think Fabian is really that bad of a guy. He knows he made a mistake, and he even plans to propose to Rachel because he wants her in his life forever. But things go south quickly. He chastises her for scraping her plate with her fork as she eats, and he tries to make her give him a handjob once they’re in bed. All the while, she’s trying to actually apologize for basically pushing him to cheat by withholding sex, but he never lets her get a word out before saying/doing something stupid. Finally she declares that she deserves better than him, and basically laughs in his face when he proposes. That was some damn good television! If anything, I’d say the show is too short at 30 minutes, but they only spend one night together, and not the whole weekend, so I guess that’s all they could edit together. It’s a lot like MTV’s old show, The X Effect, only the couple’s current partners aren’t spying on the date like they were in that show. Anyway, it’s only been one episode, but I count me in for the next nine!

In TV news, it was announced that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have lined up their post-GoT project, Confederate, which is an alternate history series set prior to the United States’ 3rd Civil War. Well, this rang some alarm bells for some folks, as you can’t really get into the Confederacy and Civil War without dealing with slavery. And folks weren’t really happy about these White showrunners making what some considered to be “slavery fanfic”. What hasn’t been covered extensively, though, is that the project is really just coasting on the fact that the GoT showrunners are attached, but they’re not the only ones involved. Husband-wife team of Malcolm Spellman and Nichelle Tramble Spellman , who are Black, will be partners on the show along with Benioff and Weiss. Plus, the show it’s so deep in its infancy that there aren’t even character names or an outline yet. It was originally developed as a two-hour movie, but they decided it could be fleshed out and taken to television. There’s basically nothing on paper for it yet, though, so there’s not much for folks to be upset about at this stage other than mere speculation. The Spellmans acknowledge the criticism, but say that they’d rather it had followed the premiere of the show instead of starting now, as it’s being announced. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that this criticism will go into shaping the show going forward, so we may never get what they originally intended to put out.

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We got a new trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans. Still looks like garbage. I’ve loved Iwan Rheon since Misfits, but I can’t follow him here. This just looks so bad. Look, I’m gonna watch it, but I really don’t see how there’s any damn way I’m paying for an IMAX ticket to see it in theaters.

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We also got a new teaser for The Defenders, which teases the Punisher series at the end. People are going nuts online about this thing because it’s narrated by Stan Lee, but I actually think he’s tonally wrong for this clip. When I think of Stan, I think of his marquee, larger than life characters – NOT the street-level vigilantes. I almost feel like it would’ve been better narrated by Bendis or Brubaker, but they don’t have the recognition factor that Stan has. I get that. Still, it just feels like a hollow waste of a cameo.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

The good Lord answered my prayers, as Chris Hardwick and Comedy Central have “mutually decided” to end @midnight. I won’t miss his smarmy face or those stupid hashtag games.

I guess the third time’s the charm, as Paige Davis will start her 3rd hosting stint on Trading Spaces when it returns to TLC later this year

Ed Sheeran was on Game of Thrones this week, and I guess some folks didn’t like that. I dunno. I kinda couldn’t care less about Sheeran or GoT, but folks were hatin’!

Meanwhile, it was reported that Lena Dunham will join American Horror Story for season 7, and folks lost their shit about that, too. Apparently she’ll only be in one episode, but that was enough for some folks to claim they weren’t gonna watch anymore.

Transformers: Titans Return will debut in November as an animated micro series on the Go90 app, featuring the voices of Green Ranger Jason David Frank and the original Rodimus Prime himself, Judd Nelson.

MTV is in talks to reboot Teen Wolf before this iteration’s final season has even concluded. Slow it down!

Sega broke up with Archie Comics over Twitter, thereby ending the Sonic The Hedgehog comic after 24 years of publication

Seacrest IN! Ryan Seacrest has officially signed on to host ABC’s revival of American Idol. I feel like I’ve written this sentence 3 times in the past already, but now it’s for real for real.

Coming as no real surprise since The Vampire Diaries ended, The CW announced that its spinoff, The Originals, will end after its upcoming season.

In an odd choice, the directors of the original Catfish documentary (the movie, not the show) are in talks talks to helm a Mega Man film that will be produced by Masi Oka of Heroes fame.

Words with Friends is being developed into a television game show. Ya know, so it’s basically the Scrabble game show being rebooted.

Meanwhile on Black Twitter, R. Kelly is allegedly running a sex cult, Usher paid a woman $1.1 million for her to keep quiet about the fact that he gave her herpes, and Kevin Hart allegedly got caught cheating on his pregnant wife. I’m just waiting for some crazy Steve Harvey news to round out the week.

At San Diego Comic Con, MGM announced Stargate Origins, which appears to be a prequel webseries that will run on the Stargate Command website this fall.

Shazam! will be the next DC film to go into production, following Justice League and Aquaman, but it’s unclear if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will co-star as Black Adam.

There might soon be a new Cutco salesman on the block, as OJ Simpson has been granted parole from the armed robbery that landed him in prison nine years ago. The Juice is almost loose!

I love those weeks when the West Week Ever recipient presents itself early in the week, ’cause it’s pretty much smooth sailing after that. This was one of those weeks, as history was made across the pond. The Doctor Who franchise is over 50 years old, but every time the Doctor regenerates (a clever in-story mechanism for recasting the actor), he just turns into another White dude. That’s pretty much been the unending pattern since 1966, when the first regeneration occurred. Folks have been saying it’s time for a change, and they were hoping we’d either end up with a Doctor of color (with The IT Crowd‘s Richard Ayoade coming up in a lot of the discussions) or a woman Doctor. Well, half of them got their wish, as Attack the Block‘s Jodie Whittaker was announced as the 13th Doctor. And, as you’re probably not surprised, folks lost their shit.

We’re always taught the the Brits are so proper and upstanding, but the comments sections of several sites proved that they can troll with the best of them. At the end of the day, it’s a bunch of folks who are afraid of change. A friend of mine, however, did point out that the victors in these circumstances also tend to trigger the backlash against themselves. For example, it would be one thing if this was seen as a bold move forward for a progressive franchise. The problem, however, is that some people take it too far, and get on the “I’m savoring these fanboy tears” soapbox, making it about something that it really didn’t need to devolve into. Sometimes the winners can suck just as much as the losers in these scenarios. This can be seen as a “win” for some without it being a “loss” for someone else. How about framing it as a win for everyone? Nah, the internet doesn’t really work like that.

I have never gotten into the Doctor Who franchise because it just seems so daunting. Sure, folks claim you really only have to start with the Eccleston season, but when I get into something, I go ALL IN. To me, that’s like telling someone they can start Star Trek with The Next Generation (which I’d probably do, since I hate The Original Series, even though I’d still feel like I was cheating them out of an experience). I feel like I’d have to watch all 54 years of the show, which is impossible because those seasons ain’t streaming anywhere, and a good chunk of them have been lost to time. It’s a franchise that cannot be wholly consumed! I hate mysteries that can’t be solved. Still, I can respect a longstanding institution, and I understand when change is a big deal. It’ll be interesting to see how fans take to the new Doctor, but the one thing to remember is that she’ll probably do it for 2 years, and then regenerate into another old White guy (the Doctor role has the retention rate of a community college). So, everyone gets their wish! I am kinda curious about the next season, though, as rumor has it Kris Marshall (Colin: God of Sex from Love Actually) is going to be the Doctor’s next companion. I loved that dude!

Anyway, I know which side of history I want to be on, and it’ll be interesting to see this all play out. The way the franchise works, we won’t see her until the Christmas special, and then won’t see her again until late 2018 at the earliest. So, folks have got some time to get used to the idea. Still, I think it goes without saying that Jodie Whittaker had the West Week Ever.

#Christmas #DC #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Power Rangers #Race #Religion #Social Media #Star Trek #Syndication #Television #Video Games #West Week Ever

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i-just-like-commenting · 7 years

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Star Wars rewatch, part 5: Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith

General Impressions

I’ve been sitting on this review for a while because life has been busy lately – I’m starting a new job in a little over a week – and hadn’t gotten around to writing it. This film was a large part of why I wanted to do this rewatch, to see whether or not Revenge of the Sith was as good as I remembered it.

The answer is that I’d actually forgotten just how good this movie is. Like, seriously, I will fight you on this, RotS is a good movie. Not a great movie, and we will be talking about its flaws as I go along, most of which center around Padme. But it is a good movie, at least on par with Return of the Jedi.

It really does help, I think, to watch Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars immediately before this, not just because that film-length series ends right before RotS opens, but because there’s a certain stylistic match. A lot of the action moments in RotS feel very Tartakovsky-esque, and preceding this with an animated film made the CGI a lot more palatable – this looks very much like an animated film, just with live action performers filling in the human parts. It’s a definite upgrade from the previous sequels, sometimes looking absolutely gorgeous, especially on Coruscant.

Also upgraded? The acting. Hayden Christiansen is massively improved in this film. While still not an Oscar-worthy performance or what have you, he’s on the level of the original actors in the first trilogy, which is to say competent most of the time, and occasionally even quite intensely compelling. It helps that he and Natalie Portman seem to have settled on how to handle their ridiculous romantic dialog, playing it as “Anakin can’t do romantic interactions well, Padme knows this, finds it charming, and teases him for it.” The lines are still awkward but played with an awareness of the awkwardness.

But speaking of romance, having rewatched these, how in love with Anakin was Obiwan? The answer is a lot. I know, I know, when they met Anakin was a child and that’s kind of creepy, but by the end of RotS it’s hard not to read Ewan MacGregor’s performance as more than a little bit smitten. It doesn’t help that in Clone Wars, he and Anakin have an exchange that is a literal copy-paste of Han and Leia.

The music is also killer for this film, and supplements all of the best scenes, like the tale of Darth Plagueis, Padme and Anakin on the balconies at sunset, the implements of Order 66, Obiwan and Anakin’s final battle…this is a well-made film, you guys. But let’s dig into some of the flaws.

Continuity, part 1: Relation to the Other Prequels

You know, if the mitochlorians had just been introduced as “a kind of symbiont that can spontaneously generate life” as an explanation for Shmi’s mysterious pregnancy, I don’t think people would’ve had a problem with it. It’s that it explains connectivity to the Force that nobody likes. So the reappearance of mitochlorians doesn’t bother me at all in this context.

I mentioned in my last post that one cut of Attack of the Clones that I enjoyed deleted Anakin confessing the murder of the Sand People to Padme, and while I support that change, it would make that Anakin told Palpatine the truth that much more disturbing. Palpatine is genuinely manipulating the fatherless Anakin in a disturbing way.

The biggest problem in relation to the other prequels, though, is the demotion of Padme to side character. She’s very passive in this film, as being increasingly pregnant limits her ability to be an action girl. But it didn’t have to be this way – there are a sequence of deleted scenes, some of which are redundant and thus wouldn’t be more than about 5 minutes, that depict Padme being one of the founding members of what became the Rebel Alliance. It’s an unfortunate cut not just because it would have kept Padme as a more active figure, but also because one scene has Palpatine trying to sow doubts in Anakin’s mind about Padme’s trustworthiness, setting up that he will snap at the end and kill her.

Continuity, part 2: Relation to the Original Series

Which brings us to Padme’s death, the other big flaw in her character in this film. That she has nothing physically wrong with her, she just “lost the will to live,” is the dumbest part of this film, and one that was almost immediately retconned. I understand that Lucas was trying to say that the psychological effect of everything that had happened to her had as much to do with her death as physical injuries, but it could have been something more like “we’ve done what we can to fix her, but the shock and emotional strain is inhibiting her body’s recovery process.”

More significantly, though, Padme shouldn’t have died yet. Leia says very clearly in Return of the Jedi that she remembers her mother, so unless Leia can remember events from her birth…or did Bail Organa’s wife also die, when Leia was very young? Leia must have known she was adopted, why does she not mention that instead?

When I was growing up watching the OT, I’d always assumed that Leia’s mother remarried Bail and passed off Leia as their daughter. That wouldn’t work with the trilogy as-is, because Bail is too prominent and it wouldn’t be a good place to hide her.

So let me propose an alternative scenario: Padme survives, but is clearly never going to recover from her injuries. Obiwan persuades her to divide up her children to keep them safe, with her keeping one and other sent to live with Anakin’s siblings. Padme lives in hiding on Alderaan for a few years before ultimately dying, and Bail adopts Leia. She remembers her biological mother and thinks of Bail as her father. Maybe he’s a single father; maybe he’s got a husband. Either way, it fills in that continuity gap.

The other dumb connection to the main trilogy is the random scene of Chewbacca knowing Yoda. I have no problem with Wookies being in this film, or with Chewbacca being a former general who had to go rogue after the war was over, but him knowing Yoda? Pointless fan service, doesn’t add anything to his character.

The best connection with the main trilogy is that ending, though. Critics are absolutely correct that the reveal of Darth Vader being accompanied by an anguished “NO!!!” isn’t a good transition into episode 4, where you need him to be a terrifying villain. But it is the perfect transition into episode 6, where you need to realize that he’s a broken, miserable, hollow human being. So yeah, the correct order for the first time watching is, indeed, 4-5-1-2-Clone Wars-3-6.

On every subsequent viewing, though, make it 4-5-Clone Wars-3-6. 1 and 2 just aren’t good enough to justify rewatch.

Continuity, part 3: Relation to the Current Series

There is still a part of me that wants Hayden Christiansen to get his redemption and reappear as Anakin’s Force ghost with a good script and a good director and yell at his grandson about how badly he is behaving. Failing that, Ewan MacGregor as Obiwan.

That said, the status of Force ghosts are still strange in this universe. In a deleted scene for RotS, Yoda gets a message from Qui-Gon that he’s learned to basically transition his body straight into a Force ghost at the point of death, which is why Yoda and Obiwan can appear after their deaths. The scene’s actually in the film, but there’s no voice over and so we’re left to figure out what message Yoda got from Qui-Gon by ourselves. But why doesn’t Qui-Gon appear in the OT? Is there a point chronologically after which you can’t do it, and that’s why we don’t have Force ghost Anakin yelling at Kylo? How did Anakin know how to do this if it was something new?

I kind of want to do a “Reimagined Prequel Trilogy” that fixes these hiccups, with the premise that Tartakovsky could remake them in animated form. That’s not ever going to happen, any more than Game of Thrones is going to remake seasons 3 and on to actually match their source material, but I always like speculating on these things, it helps me as a writer.

Conclusion: Brainwashing as a Joke

C3PO gets his mind casually wiped at the end of this film, which by all appearance is standard procedure for protocol droids when they get new owners, presumably to keep secrets of their former owners safe and to ensure their loyalty to their new ones. This is absolutely horrifying if you accept droids as sentient beings, of course, and seems to be banned in the New Republic.

What’s unnerving is that in the captioning, R2’s reaction is described as laughter. He’s mocking C3PO for his plight. From this I can only conclude that the true tenderness of their relationship must have started after episode 3, and R2 right now is taking delight in the irony of his more obedient counterpart being victimized by a system he supported. Not a cool attitude, R2, but it gives him an implied arc, too, as the two droids grow closer.

#star wars #revenge of the sith #spoilers for whole franchise #review

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spirit-science-blog · 3 years

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How does one describe Lucy?

What begins as a story of a woman with an average quite human consciousness and a short-lived boyfriend with a pretty sweet hat, very quickly transforms into a film about ascension.

So, as always - spoiler alert. Now let’s get into it!

The idea of Lucy is the rapid escalation from a low level of consciousness. It progressively moves into trying to describe what might happen if someone was to experience transcendent superconsciousness and unlocking new powers that come with it. It is a commentary both on theoretical human evolution and psychedelics very much psychedelics, LSD, to be specific. In a way, the whole movie seems to be based around it, allow me to explain.

In the opening narrative, we see cell mitosis, followed by a shot of Lucy - the 3.2 million-year-old first “early human,” Australopithecus, before quickly cutting to Lucy - the 25-year-old woman studying in Taipei.

Before we even go further - it should be known that the ancient Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old early human, was named Lucy BECAUSE the person who discovered it was listening to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles - when the discovery was made. This song today is notoriously known as a reference to LSD, and the synthetic psychedelic is often known for lifting one's consciousness to a more transcendent state of being, giving those who experience it clear visions, more in-depth insight, and stimulating notions of spiritual expansion within.

The entire film speaks about an idea of human evolution, very much in a similar line of thinking as 2001 - A Space Odyssey, but done in a very different way, with Lucy actively going through quantum leaps in the evolutionary process.

But now, we see more in-depth references to LSD by the fact that the entire story here is about this synthetic drug that is facilitating this evolution to happen. All of the wisdom that she uncovers throughout this process on her way to becoming a superbeing - in a sense planting seeds in the human imagination about what’s truly possible.

This is a bit of personal conjecture here. Still, my overall experience with this film was that it seems like the natural outcome of what would happen if a filmmaker were to have an LSD experience, and then a conversation about humans overclocking the capacity of the brain. Throw in some theoretical quantum physics and a nebulous lousy guy to give us some action scenes, and badabing - Lucy.

Now, in the film - our modern-day Lucy has just the worst kind of luck, forced by her boyfriend to deliver a mysterious case to a South Korean drug lord. We’re shown these scenes as it’s happening - cuts to a cheetah hunting and catching a gazelle in the wild. The initial thing this is describing is the animalistic nature of the predatory bad guys, and this is further elaborated on later by Morgan Freeman, giving a lecture about creatures and their capacity to use their brains. He describes that animals use 3-5%, the reference to the cheetahs and the gazelle - with humans using about 10%, and dolphins using the most with 20%. He speculates on human evolution, and what paranormal or seemingly superpowers might occur using more and more brain capacity.

Speaking to this brain capacity thing, if you look it up, the general scientific consensus nowadays around the internet is that humans use almost all of their brains and that the 10% thing is entirely a myth. There’s a whole wiki on the history of the idea that - summarized, essentially says, “this myth is busted.” No matter how much brain capacity you utilize, you won’t be able to change the look and length of your hair on command.

However, we can go more in-depth here. Google, how much of our DNA is Junk DNA will reveal that the answer is 90%, meaning that only 10% of our DNA is truly utilized or active. Now I understand that brain capacity and DNA activation are two different things. Still, we can see the relationship here that the idea of us only using 10% of our latent capacity is not about using portions of the brain, but depth within the mind and body through our DNA itself, and transforming us into greater, wiser, and more connected beings than ever before.

So Lucy, having been newly adopted to a drug lords extended family, has a bag of the blue stuff surgically embedded in her belly, and is sent off to smuggle it through an airport to some other place. Along her way, a vulgar man with a low state of consciousness kicks her while she’s down, which releases said blue stuff into her body. It turns out the blue material is a potent drug called CPH4, which is a molecule that pregnant women produce in small quantities in facilitating child growth. In this initial surge of CPH4, we see it trigger a wild experience, temporarily negating gravity. There are stories and legends of wise spiritual masters doing things that would seem impossible, from Jesus walking on water to the yogi’s who could levitate, and perhaps these kinds of abilities could be available to anyone who had reached a certain level of human evolution, tapping into all of that stored up limitless energy inside.

Throughout her adventure, Lucy - continually leveling up every 10 minutes or so and unlocking new achievements and upgrades, finds herself explaining these very fundamental concepts from a transcendent state of mind, inviting us to connect with her awareness as she describes it to us, and accelerating our spiritual evolution while we watch. Now, to try and break down every scene would be a bit much here, so here’s a highlight reel of all of the things Lucy experiences, which sound very much like things you might hear either from quantum physicists, spiritual masters, or people who just came down from an LSD trip.

With Lucy activated, the very first thing that we see is that she becomes suddenly very clear. She enters into a meditative calm, despite her circumstance, and acts and behaves with a deeper knowing, tremendous confidence to handle whatever she needs to, including breaking free of captivity.

She can now suddenly hear and understand what is going on all around her to a tremendous depth. She says that she hears everything - the air, space, the vibrations, people, the gravity, the rotation of the earth, the blood in her veins, she can feel her brain, the deepest parts of her memories. She handles everything because with more mental capacity, comes more ability to feel.

She also is soon able to see the energy of things, like trees and her friend's body - and is now motivated to obtain the other blue bags, which we learn she needs to crack open her cells, revealing the limitless energy within each neutron. When she arrives at the Drug Lords place, after killing his men and stabbing his hands, she takes a moment to reflect and ponder some pretty deep stuff.

She says, “I used to be so concerned about who I was and what I wanted to be, but what makes us is primitive. They’re all obstacles. This pain you’re experiencing is blocking you from understanding…” a fantastic lesson for us all - that when we are struggling, when we are in pain, we limit ourselves from expansion in the higher centers.

And then She leaves him alive. I can’t help but think this is the film's way to appease the general human consciousness, by moving the villain alive we could have some more action scenes and drama throughout the movie, by having him come back and bring a bazooka to a university. Wait. What?! Why?

Anyway - soon after, she levels up again and unlocks the ability to telepath onto Morgan Freemans TV and manipulate various frequencies like affect radios and appear on his smartphone screen. She says that all of the things that make us human are fading away, she doesn’t feel pain, fear, desire, things that make us human. As these all fade away, the workings of the universe become available to her, deep intrinsic understandings of the fabric of reality.

Here she is undergoing a rapid state of ego-death, her consciousness is colonizing her brain, activating it, and leading her towards her death very quickly. She asks him for advice, and he reflects that in his awareness, the ability to pass on information of what one has learned is one of the highest purposes of all of life, and encourages her to do so. She says she’ll be at his place in about half a day, and they part ways.

Now there’s this exciting scene in the airplane where Lucy, on her way to see Morgan Freeman, has this experience of tasting some champagne and let me tell you, her ascending body cannot hold it’s liquor, because within minutes she is exploding into particles of light in the bathroom this scene doesn’t offer us an explanation as to why it’s there. I think it’s because it’s necessarily a scene of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds of light.

A bunch of action scenes later, we arrive at Morgan Freeman's place, and she continues to blow minds with theoretical quantum physics and describes that time is the only unit of measure, for time legitimizes anything's existence. Without time we don’t exist because we become one with everything.

Professor Freeman expresses his concern that humanity is not ready for this knowledge, it could bring chaos, and Lucy responds with a solid truth bomb - “Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge.”

From here, Lucy ramps up to 100% and hit maximum limit break overdrive. She takes all of the CPH4, and her body transforms into… like, Venom? It might be a bit more like a matrix reference. The black body form she takes is similar to the sentinels in the matrix, and what’s more, very soon, she blasts away all of reality for herself and the doctors, and they enter into the matrix loading zone.

One recurring line of dialogue throughout the film is that the nucleus of every cell has limitless untapped potential and power and that in this ascension process, she has to crack open every last one to attain the transcendence that she is steering towards. Eventually, in this process, she starts warping all over the place, through time, space, watching human evolution transpire in specific ways. It’s interesting that as she is blasting through new york, nobody even takes notice of her as she goes backward and forwards until she goes back far enough and sees some native Americans, who all look at her puzzled. This might be a subtle commentary about how humans today are notoriously distracted and do not pay attention to what’s going on as much as they could. Lucy then meets the first Lucy, and when they touch - future, Lucy goes back to the beginning of time and blinks out of existence.

The film ends with her texting her police-buddy that she is everywhere, permanently transitioned into an omnipresent consciousness that exists beyond time and space, and telling the audience. Life was given to us a billion years ago, and now you know what to do with it.

The key to this movie, I feel, is to watch it while playing with ideas in your mind of what human evolution could genuinely look like. Could it be possible to transcend time and space, and step into alternate realities with heightened abilities, just as so many ancient spiritualities describe we can? For most people, this movie is “just a movie, don’t read into it”... but who knows, maybe anything is possible! Lucy is telling us that we now know what to do with the life that was given to us strive to evolve to the highest potential of our existence. I mean, that seems like a pretty noble thing to strive for, which is why we recently launched the Seven-Day Transformation, a unique week-long intensive to support you in completely transforming your life! Click the link here or in the author's comments, and I’ll take you there right now.

#spirituality #science #ascension #mystery school #spirit science

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