#you know he never actually saw… magic betty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bealovesmarauders · 1 year

Text

cardigan / james potter

⋆ ࣪. ⁺⑅ ⋰˚ *.ﾟ .˳⁺⁎˚ ˚⁎⁺˳ . ༺ ˖

james potter x fem reader

angst

word count: 1.1k

in which james knows she’s the wendy to his peter, but she keeps slipping from his grasp

but i knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, i knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs

a/n: sooo i was originally gonna make this a folklore love triangle series but i wrote this oneshot cause its all i had energy for and i actually love it kinda but i hate it at the same time since it’s so so rushed- i really wanted to get something out for you guys. i don’t even really know how to categorize it because there’s not even that much dialogue or characterization, it’s more just my interpretation of a cardigan james potter fic. this isn’t proofread haha so i sincerely apologize for any errors. i might make an august and a betty oneshot as well but this is what i have for now because i’m super burnt out! thank you for reading, i love and appreciate you all <3

requests are open!

⋆ ࣪. ⁺⑅ ⋰˚ *.ﾟ .˳⁺⁎˚ ˚⁎⁺˳ . ༺ ˖

she’s walking along the side of the road when it hits her. it’s late, rainy. the faint glow of streetlights above her provide all the light she needs. but the darkness, the lack of laughter- his laughter- is what makes her remember.

it wasn’t always lonely with james. he’s always emulated love and light. at one point, she thought he was overflowing with it. love poured out of his words, his mouth, his lips. stars spilled from his eyes, that ever-present twinkle. his hands made magic. everyone who’s met james has always known this. but she, naively, thought there was enough of his love to go around.

it had run out in august. the apologetic phone calls stopped coming, and so did he. there were no more pebbles thrown at her window late at night, no more secrets shared in the stolen hours that james spent in her bed, sneaking back out of the window at dawn as if he was never there in the first place. she would watch smiling from the windowsill as he climbed down the lattice, nimbly jumping the last few feet and blowing her a quick kiss. and as the sun rose, she would observe silently, wondering how lucky she was to be in love with a boy like james potter.

but she doesn’t watch the sun rise anymore. how can she, when it is what reminds her the most of him? she doesn’t do a lot of things anymore. she’s quieter now, a shell of a girl. she doesn’t talk for hours on end now, playing with the cord of the landline, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. softly-whispered “i love you”s are reserved for diaries and love letters he’ll never read now, not james on the other end of the phone. and try as she must, she can’t stop remembering the sound of his voice: warm dark roast, the texture of crushed velvet armchairs. the way he talked too fast sometimes, words jumbled together from enthusiasm. the way some of his words were thick over the phone, muffled by pillows pressed against his face, and others were so thin you could hear their hearts beating through the line.

and then all of the memories and sacred words shared, were gone in the span of a single song.

the streamers had adorned the school gym. her favorite song was playing- how could she not dance? and james wasn’t there yet, although he’d said he would be. sure, he had a tendency for being late. but he loved her- right? later he would argue that she danced with that guy from math class just to make him jealous (which, admittedly, was not a difficult feat- james was infamous for his protectiveness)- but in reality, all she wanted was a chance to spin in her highest heels. to shine.

but james was arrogant, too. he’d danced with lily evans just to spite her back, and when she’d spotted him from the far side of the gym, she’d fled. she saw it in his face- the way something had changed. and so she walked home on cobblestone streets, holding her heels in her hands, wishing she’d never needed to shine in the first place.

she can’t forget any of it. not when he came to her door, that night of the dance. standing in the soft light of the porch at midnight, a frown muddling his features, a bouquet of flowers in his arms. lilies and hyacinths and daisies, her favorites. in fact, all three are planted in her garden. she often dreamed they’d get married there- a backyard wedding, with friends and family and florals everywhere. she would wear a flower crown with her veil, and james would have some sort of pretty boutonniere. but that image had been fleeting, drifting from her mind as she’d accepted his apology, and given one back. he’d pulled her into a deep hug, but she remembers him turning around to walk home. he’d given her a smile she couldn’t quite decipher, a look of bittersweetness and sadness and love all at once. his dark brown eyes bore into hers, but the usual smile-crinkles on his face were gone, and his curly hair fell flat, illuminated by the streetlights.

she’d known, then, that he wanted more. but up until summer, she’d still thought that was enough.

they’d gotten into another fight in july. she can’t even remember what it was about now. she can’t remember a lot of things. but she’s never forgotten his words.

“i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything, i’m sorry, i-”

her response had been bullets, words ricocheting off the walls. “you don't know what, james? if you love me or not?”

of course he had. he was james potter, after all- the type of boy to stop the car on the side of the road to pick flowers, the type of boy to wear red converse and learn how to braid hair, the type of boy to know if a girl was the one on the first date. he wasn’t the kind of person who stood there, tongue tied, eyes brimming with hurt, and stayed silent.

but humans are messy, complex, inexplicable. they constantly change, and he had changed right before her eyes. the shell of the boy he used to be, with no reason other than the summer sun.

so then came august, inevitably. a blur of strawberry blonde sand and salty waves, long legs twisted in bedsheets and sunkissed skin fading into memory. james had laughed away his emotions; she’d cried them all out, every last teardrop. they were right back at square one, two sides of the same coin. and now here she is, under the same sky he’d kissed her for the first time under, wondering how on earth anyone could ever stop loving james potter.

because the truth was, he was her neverland. that childish grin of his, the way he could transport her back in time by weaving a daisy crown or putting on a nostalgic song on his record player. but he’d always thought she was his tinkerbell, forever by his side and sprinkling fairy dust wherever she went. he could patch her broken wings- he knew he could. but the thing about wendys, true wendys, are that they grow up without notice sometimes, and oftentimes they possess a sense of vulnerability that peter pan will always shy away from.

she was magic, but she was also james’s cardigan. whenever he put her on, called her his favorite, the warmth of their relationship seemed to ebb away. moth holes appeared- tattered sleeves grew tight- and time passed. but he always came back, and she always let him back in. the wendy to his peter, forevermore.

367 notes · View notes

your-senpaaaai · 8 months

Text

my thoughts on fiona and cake finale

I’ve never actually written any posts here but i guess the time has come 😭

I’m gonna be honest and say that I didn’t like the finale AT ALL. I mean yes fiona and cake got their happy ending with their world having a bit of magic as they both wanted and that’s a good thing ! the best possible ending for these two BUT WHAT ABOUT PETRIGROF ????

omg I have so much to say about them.

first of all, I really REALLY wanted a solid happy ending for them. I know that a lot of people say that not every couple need to be together at the end but could you imagine being separated from your love for THOUSAND years and not be together after all struggles? both simon and betty realised that their relationship has never been healthy and that’s the only thing they really needed !!!! after all these sacrifices and problems they FINALLY realised what was lacking in their relationship and they could make this work for sure !!!!! that wouldn’t be easy ofc but they’ve been though literal hell for each other so do you really think something could stop them from being together??

secondly, I’m MAD about how betty is treated. I saw a post saying that “they can finally follow their own paths and not be dependent on each other 🥺” but about what path for betty are we talking about if SHE IS STILL TRAPPED IN GOLB ❓❓and don’t you ever say that betty is alright with that since she’s always been kinda irrational. she might be too selfless but she is NOT stupid. do you genuinely think that betty would choose to be trapped in golb for eternity if there was a chance to return to simon since he is safe from the crown now ??? I don’t think so. after all her and simon’s mistakes betty realised that she is important! she needs to make decisions that are good for herself and not follow simon blindly. but that has never change the fact that she still loves him dearly.

I know this post is kinda messy but I’m really emotional rn + I’m writing in my second language lmao 😭 despite this I hope you guys get my point 🙏 it’s just really disappointing and sad to see that every character got their happy ending except betty. the only thing I didn’t like about adventure time’s last episode is how betty disappeared after all she did for simon and now the story repeats itself. I love her character SO MUCH and I hate to see that she is treated like that

#adventure time #fionna and cake #simon petrikov #ice king #betty grof #petrigrof #betty golb #adventure time golb #golb betty

39 notes · View notes

moomeecore · 10 months

Note

i hope this does not come off as rude, but re: your mental health petrigrof posts....have you considered betty having bpd? i saw another AT fan say they think of betty as borderline and ive never been able to stop thinking abt it. and i like your hcs a lot, i think they fit what you think perfectly so... i wanted to ask you what you thought?

somehow, id never really thought about this concept - despite having already considered the idea of betty having a cluster b personality disorder (NPD) and thinking “hmm… potentially”. after reading this, it clicked in my brain so quickly & suddenly that i immediately had to dig up a set of notes id made on personality disorders, and review the diagnostic criteria of BPD with betty in mind. anyway, you are literally so right. honestly, this fits a lot better than NPD in multiple ways.

down below im gonna go through that criteria & talk about betty a bit. but id like to disclaim that i personally do not have BPD and since im not speaking from personal experience, i may have messed up a bit here. i did my best to only use reputable sources (which i will put @ the bottom) for this - but also this isn't an actual psych essay or anything. its me talking about fictional characters.

i do not intend to make light of others mental health experiences by attributing mental disorders to a fictional character. if anyone with BPD feels i've overstepped by bounds here or i've used dehumanizing or otherwise inaccurate or offensive language, please tell me!

I had to shorten this into more short summaries of the analyses i wrote initially. oopsie!

fear of abandonment & rejection; particularly involving frantic attempts to avoid real or perceived abandonment/rejection - betty's entire narrative surrounds her attempts to cure simon of the curse to restore their previous relationship. this isn't necessarily an attempt to avoid (perceived) abandonment or rejection, but it certainty could be, at least to an extent. To me (the way i interpret her), I think a fear or rejection/abandonment is present - even if it wasn't simon's conscious choice to forget her, it still could easily cut into deeper insecurities regarding those things. of course, this would only be one element of betty's very complicated feelings towards simon & motivations for trying so desperately to cure him.

POINT 1 SUMMARY: has basis in canon, it just depends a lot on how you want to interpret her situation from her perspective. and they don’t give us a lot of insight into her perspective.

patterns of intense & unstable relationships w/ others; particularly characterized by views of others that switch back & forth between extremes. characterized by splitting. this one is hard to judge since betty, very noticeably, only really has one relationship: simon (though she's seemingly also friends with magic man & tiny manticore, these relationships aren't explored much). and we don't actually see much of her & simon interacting. betty only really tries to directly rekindle her relationship w/ simon in elements. i think the sudden transition from betty seemingly getting along with simon as ice king to acting antagonistically towards him at the end of elements could definitely support this point (although it's worth noting that it may seem more sudden to the audience, as her change of plans was reveled through her betraying finn; we don't know how long she was planning it for). but this is just one example, at not a pattern of behavior.

whether Betty displays splitting is more debatable, but I feel like she definitely displays some form of dichotomous thinking (in short: thinking in extremes; struggling to see the complexity in people & situations and recognize nuance) - which is symptomatic of BPD, whether or not splitting is present, and then is able to lead into splitting. i think her sudden turning on simon in elements is a potential example of this. she tries to reconnect with Simon, but when he fails to be the person she remembers him being, she is unable (or unwilling) to comprehend the fact that he is still the same person, just under a curse, and instead starts to talk about “simon” and “ice king” like they are 2 separate people: "things will be back to just me and simon, and you won’t exist!"

dichotomous thinking can lead to splitting - the inability to maintain a cohesive set of beliefs about things - i.e. beliefs constantly switching back and forth from two extremes. behavior resemblant of splitting can actually be very commonplace, but splitting as a symptom of BPD stands out as being extremely consistent, pervasive, and often causing a person extreme difficulty on a regular basis. it is also usually accompanied by other symptoms, primarily:

acting impulsively, without consideration of consequences, as a result of thoughts/ideas caused by splitting - betty's actions in elements could count as this - although they were definitely at least somewhat premeditated. still, her newfound idea that Simon and Ice King are separate and therefore it is not possible for her and Simon to be together currently, makes it so she’s willing to openly say she’s going to “obliterate” him + allow oo to be destroyed, in order to restructure time so that she can be with the him that she remembers.

denial; ignoring a fact or reality because it challenges a viewpoint that is not given room for nuance due to splitting - betty’s attempts at ignoring what simon is saying during the end of elements, where she tells herself “i'm doing the right thing” and “It will be over in a second” while appearing visibly distressed and trying to not listen to what simon is saying.

emotional hypochondriasis (trying to get others to understand the severity of your emotional pain) - not present from what i remember

perceived omnipotence; the belief that you have intelligence or power that is superior to others - leading to your perception being correct & theirs being false - i think this is something betty’s character has hints of displaying. i feel she exhibits behavior wherein she refuses to listen to or consider the viewpoints of others, while adamantly maintaining that she is correct. there aren’t many examples of this though, with her interactions with other characters in the show being unfortunately limited. still, there’s a basis in canon for this trait that can definitely be taken & built upon.

passive agressive behavior - potentially the way she acts towards finn & jake in elements at times? again, there’s not nearly enough of her interacting with other characters for there to be a lot of foundation to work off of, but there’s potential hints of this trait.

Projection of undesirable emotions onto others + projective identification - seemingly not present, but doesn't seem like it would be out of left field for her to display.

POINT 2 SUMMARY: Not enough relationships w/ others to establish a pattern, but her relationship with Simon in Elements somewhat resembles forms of relationship instability often present for those who have BPD. Dichotomous thinking has some evidence in canon, splitting could be extrapolated from examples of potential dichotomous thinking. She exhibits a lot of the symptoms that often come with splitting that is specific to BPD.

Identity disturbance; typically in the form of markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self - identity disturbance is a key theme of Betty’s character - although it’s prompted by her loss of her relationship with simon & her being transported a thousand years into the future. betty does seem to exhibit an unstable self-image & sense of self, and her level of codependency on simon + her assertion that she doesn’t know if there “any more of [her] left” after how much she’s focused on Simon would support the idea that her sense of self is tied to how others perceive her & exists mainly in conjunction with her relationship with others, rather than on its own - which is part of the identity disturbance in BPD (and in NPD as well). It makes sense within canon that betty’s self-image & feelings of self-worth may be intrinsically & directly connected to her relationships with others (aka, simon).

POINT 3 SUMMARY: Identity disturbance is a key theme of her character. Some portion of the way her feelings of identity is portrayed in the show absolutely fit into how identity disturbance tends to present itself in BPD.

impulsivity; in at least 2 areas that are self-damaging - “Impulsive” is one of the very first personality traits Betty is given, seeing as she makes the very impulsive decision to jump through a portal to the future. She also behaves impulsively later on in the “Betty” episode. It’s debatable if she exhibits it recurrently in at least 2 areas that are self-damaging.

POINT 4 SUMMARY: Behaves impulsively at 2 major points in her introduction episode. Impulsive actions are less present in the rest of the show from what I remember.

suicidal or self-harming thoughts or behaviors - Betty doesn’t engage in these behaviors, though she does show self-sabotaging behavior, which can be a trait of BPD. This can include: oversharing, misplaced anger, lashing out at others, impulsive behavior, devaluing one's partner. betty displays impulsivity, as mentioned before. she also displays anger & irritability, and the rant she went on in skyhooks 2 certainly qualifies as “devaluing her partner”.

She also potentially could be argued to engage in self-destructive behavior, with her willingness to be part of Magic Man’s potentially dangerous experiment and her willingness to fuse with Golb at the end of the series - in both cases she does something extremely dangerous because she knows it could help Simon. But nothing straight up suicidal or self-harming, from my memory at least.

POINT 5 SUMMARY: Not really present, though she does potentially display some self sabotaging and self destructive behaviors, which are often present in BPD.

emotional instability & dysregulation, featuring erratic mood swings, including intense episodes of emotion usually lasting a few hours, sometimes up to a few days at a time and involve depression, irritability, or anxiety - At least after gaining Magic Man’s powers, a defining part of Betty’s character is her erratic & neurotic behavior, and to a lesser extent her mood swings.

She acts irritable and depressed at points, but not very anxious. most of the time she exhibits symptoms of mania - she displays rapid speech, high energy, racing thoughts, excitement & joy, grandiosity, impulsivity, and agitation. mania isn’t super common in BPD, but is present. betty definitely struggles w/ emotional regulation, i think.

POINT 6 SUMMARY: erratic behavior & emotional instability + dysregulation are definitely present to some degree; less so mood swings. The way she presents these things doesn't totally fit into the way they are usually presented in BPD

Chronic, perpetual feelings of emptiness. “Emptiness” can manifest as:

feelings of loneliness & melancholy - betty being lonely is kind of part of her whole thing. she misses simon. a lot.

confusion about one’s life & goals - displayed, particularly in the start of elements, where she starts to doubt her ability to cure simon.

Lack of motivation - Her behavior while on Mars

Feelings that you lack clarity on who you are as a person, who you want to be, & your sense of identity - feeling that you are “losing touch” with yourself - Absolutely present in, and important to, her character. Particularly touched on in Temple of Mars.

Not caring about much, not feeling interested in things, not being fueled by anything in particular - Also somewhat shown during Temple of Mars.

Feelings of emptiness can be triggered or exacerbated by things. Things present in Betty’s story that can do this are:

Not taking care of oneself - including taking care of others over yourself; putting your own needs aside for a long time can cause feelings of emptiness.

Not talking or exploring emotions that have been affecting you for long periods of time can lead them to manifest in other ways, including feelings of emptiness.

Not having/maintaining significant/meaningful relationships. When things like emotional intimacy, support, active listening, and companionship/company are not present in a person’s life, this can lead to feelings of emptiness - this can be especially true for BPD, where relationships with others are often given more importance than the innate self is.

POINT 7 SUMMARY: She is implied to experience feelings of emptiness in the show. She also experiences events that are often triggers for feelings of emptiness / tend to worsen feelings of emptiness.

Anger issues; including intense anger, difficulty controlling anger. Sometimes results in intense violent/angry outbursts, often followed by extreme guilt or remorse. Betty’s angry outburst at Simon at the end of Elements comes to mind. Other than this she does not have any angry outbursts from what I can remember, though she does behave irritably and on-edge. Personally, I interpret her as having anger issues

POINT 8 SUMMARY: not super present in the show, though she does behave irritably & have an angry outburst at one point. I have anger issues and want to project onto her, though.

stress-related paranoid ideation - betty doesn’t openly exhibit these symptoms in the show, though the fact that she reaches out so little for help could be indicative of distrust of others. i feel like paranoid behavior would fit right in with betty’s character, though I don’t remember there being any actual examples of it in the show.

dissociative symptoms; such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside your body, feelings of unreality. betty expresses feelings of being disconnected from herself and her identity, though not necessarily her physical body. the scene where she watches her younger self has visual parallels to dissociative experiences. her experience when gaining her magic powers could resemble a dissociative experience.

the latter two would not exist as examples of her actually experiencing dissociation, so much as they could be representative of it while using the fantasy elements of adventure time, similar to the way simon & his crown is a fantasy element, but is used to represent mental health issues, even though in canon what’s technically going on is magic. other than this there isn’t really anything in canon to support the idea of betty having dissociative symptoms, although again, it feels in line with her character.

POINT 10 SUMMARY: potentially could be extrapolated from her words in the show + the way her mental health struggles are represented visually, but does not have much basis in canon

CONCLUSION: does betty have BPD? probably not intentionally, but also probably. obviously it's up to individual interpretation, but i think it makes a whole lot of sense! sorry for how long this is, just know the version in my google docs is a million times longer. also, i didn't re watch episodes to make this, so feel very free to tell me my interpretations don't work LOL

i used multiple articles frm each site, but heres the sites i used: Verywell Mind, National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Institute of Mental Health, Psych Central

#text

17 notes · View notes

riverdale-retread · 10 months

Text

Riverdale S7 E 11 (Chapter 128) Halloween 2

Jughead has found some sort of closure with the death of Rayberry though no answers yet about his potential murder, so he’s back to narrating. Except - you know how Veronica said that his storytelling had troubling sexual politics (i.e. misogynistic)? Well, he disappointed me by casually using the very unexamined & cliche misogynist phrase “crazy cat lady” about that woman who wanted to know if there was some milk she could borrow.

He is not showing his usual acumen at sussing out the weird. Because her obsession with filching milk from the associates of a known suicide is very intriguing. Some questions, such as: Is this area some place that is impossible to get milk delivery? Has she ever seen the milkman or is this a place the milk man never came and suddenly showed up for Rayberry? Is this residence in a food desert where getting basics like milk is difficult? Jughead is usually sympathetic to the underprivileged and yet- 1950s Jughead casual misogyny! #disappoint.

Anyway, after failing to follow up on that potential lead, he nevertheless goes charging over to Sheriff Keller’s house to bother him in the middle of a not great work month to tell him he’s doing his job badly. Unsurprisingly, Keller’s reaction is not amused. Jughead thinks that the milkman is important - “a killer milkman at large” he says, even though he doesn’t like saying it. He literally cringes at himself (decade upon decades ahead of his time) in having to say the words A, Killer, Milkman, At, Large. His hands are up in a very defensive, hands-up pose, begging Please don’t kick me out and Please don’t think i’m crazy. Keller is being very courteous. He says it’s already established that Rayberry suicided - which Jughead vehemently disagrees with.

It’s very hard to get law enforcement to redo homework they’ve already turned in. Keller is not at all an exception to this rule. He wants Jughead to produce someone who actually SAW a milkman, before he opens Rayberry’s case again. He tells Jughead to stop being annoying, trying to give him work and such, then segues immediately into exposition for this episode: Halloween is “not for teenagers looking to make trouble,” so he wants Jughead, a known trouble maker in Keller’s eyes because of his obsession with making Keller do proper policework, to remember “our ban.”

He has Jughead all wrong, does Keller, and always has across all universes. Like, the narrative shows that Jughead liked, at minimum, and probably adored (for unspecified reasons) Jason Blossom but Keller accused Jughead of somehow obtaining a gun, shooting Jason at point blank range in the forehead and then transporting his body all the way to the river to dump it there. Jughead for the past several episodes has been entirely isolated from anyone who does anything social in Riverdale right now (Archie, Reggie, Betty, Veronica), is trying to nurture a romantic friendship with Tabitha Tate, and is also revealed to be someone who has milk as part of his nutritionally complete breakfast - he’s as buttoned up and wholesome in his daily habits as anyone can be, in short - but Keller feels compelled to tell him to not get into trouble on Halloween.

We’re at the very fancily done traincar (Seriously, is that ceiling really like that or is that clever trompe l’oeil hollywood magic via Veronica??), where Jughead, who still manages to sleep with his felt crown without crushing it, contemplates a very full bottle of milk like it’s the skull of Yorick before smelling it then pouring it down the drain.

Many questions again - Does Jughead’s *train car* get milk delivery service? Also he has a drain? It connects to a sewage system somehow? (I also wonder this all the time about the OG Universe Dilton’s Bunker which has a flush toilet.) In any case, he just pours what he thinks might be poisoned straight into the sewage system.

While Drac’s Back (the song) is playing, Veronica is having breakfast at the Babylonium, which has on its marquee “Science Fiction Double Feature.” I have long black hair and bangs. Why can’t my hair look like that? How does she do that? She’s excited because she’s going to wear a whole dominatrix witch outfit to school.

Veronica’s outfit is EYE POPPING. Super high heels, large-gauge fishnet stockings, a boudoir chiffon skirt over a gem encrusted bodysuit, bare shoulders and arms, studded collar, an excellent broom prop and a fantastic witch hat. Her lipstick is black even. Everyone is completely agog, then it turns a bit mocking. As she walks down the hall, Veronica realizes these people don’t do Halloween costumes at school. At all.

When she enters the student lounge, her appearance is greeted with a record scratch sound. Betty can’t stop smiling about how hot Veronica looks to her (“You look- [grin grin grin] everything PLUS.”) Everyone’s reactions are so funny. Dilton is startled but can’t not stare at Veronica’s ass as she walks past him to talk to the people who count. Betty as I’ve said is very happy. Veronica glows so hot Reggie can’t actually keep looking directly at her. Archie is googly eyed with happiness. Why Betty and Archie look at each other to confirm that Veronica is indeed looking very fetching is the question that should launch much speculation about their respective sexualities.

In any case, Archie, then Cheryl, then Toni provide some context rules: Riverdale is uncomfortable about Halloween unlike Greendale which actively celebrates it, to such an extent that teenagers have to observe a sundown curfew. When Archie explains finally that a bunch of teenagers died in a tragic car accident on Halloween a few years back, Clay also looks intrigued. Veronica is bereft about not being able to do anything much on Halloween. Also nobody is allowed to say “hell” - Archie says “raising Heck” and Kevin says “raising Cain.” Reggie won’t even miss it - he’s never celebrated Halloween.

Veronica gives a little speech about all the ways Halloween can be liberating - for sexual exploration as well as to “honor the dead.” When Veronica says “back in Los Angeles” and describes what sounds like a normal Hollywood party, Cheryl has a really bad reaction. Why is Cheryl so enraged every time Veronica talks about Los Angeles? In any case, Veronica says the Lodges had “a family altar” where they lit candles for the dead. Im’ curious about the insane amount of Halloween related decorations that are up in this room anyway - no fewer than five carved Jack O Lanterns, a witch decal, more pumpkins, a couple skulls and ghosts and bats.

Veronica announces that nothing shall hold her down. She also uses the word “gatekeepers” and I don’t know if that means anything. Just in time to her saying, “Just when you think this town couldn’t get any kookier” in comes Jughead. Who immediately starts freaking out about milk. He starts screaming to NOT DRINK FRESH MILK ANYMORE. He slaps Dilton’s milk carton right out of his hand. He advises everyone to Drink Powdered Milk. Veronica is so tired of his silliness. I wonder if she’s going to do anything about it, because she is the only who is shown having a reaction.

We cut to Ethel, on the phone next to a very overbearing Mother Mary statuary AND a crucifix on the wall, telling Jughead she’s OK. Ethel says she misses Jughead (aww) and she misses school but this all just sails right over his head because he is still in his manic episode about the milkman. He tells Ethel, incarcerated in an insane asylum for claiming a milkman killed her parents, that he doesn’t want to upset her further but then directly proceeds to tell her his theory that his favorite author (which she knows! Because they’re actually really friends!) was murdered by “a” milkman at the very least. Then she has a great insight- that it would be useful to talk to whoever wrote the originating Killer Milkman comic. Just as Jughead is about to exult about this idea, Ethel hurriedly says that she has to go because the nun is giving her the evil eye, ending with a meaningful “hopefully I will see you soon.” Jughead wonders what she meant.

At the shop class facilities at school, Archie has successfully involved himself in Betty and Reggie’s twosome project to make Bella a usable car. Reggie and Archie are wearing matchy-matchy his-and-his T shirts smudged just the right amount with gunk (Reggie in white, Archie in green). The two of them flexing their muscles side by side doing car fiddly things makes Betty, who is dressed like Rosie the Riveter but with a pink paisley bandana that leaves most of her hair free, falls immediately into an erotic fugue. Her fantasies are really very specific - a threesome when the two others have eyes - and lips - only for her. Archie wants to give Reggie a “real Halloween” because all he’s ever done is cowtipping.

Betty defines a real Halloween as 1. trick or treating, 2. visiting a graveyard and 3. necking in a haunted house. Archie is familiar with 1 and 2 but she just made up No. 3, I think, because his eyes are bugging out of his head. He looks over at Reggie to see if he’s into it. Reggie is all about it.

Meanwhile, Veronica is flipping through the scrapbook of the Babylonium’s events of the past. There was in 1942 a Halloween Ghost Show at this theater, where a Phantom Polka Dancer would “appear in person” for “one night only.” The phantom polka dancer looks a lot like that possessed girl from The Exorcist. Veronica wants to recreate this ‘Halloween Ghost Show’ but before she can complete her smirk of satisfaction she hears thudding from what should be the empty projection room.

Very bravely, she goes to investigate. In it she discovers the gays necking. Clay pretends he left keys in the room. Veronica wants to do a 1920s glam themed ghost show for a Halloween night indoor event for the teenyboppers - staying with the letter of the law in order to flout its spirit. She’s so ambitious - it’s gonna be “monsters, movies, burlesque” ending with a “raising of the dead at midnight.”

Is Jughead even going to school anymore or does he just pop in and out of the publishing house at lunch time? In any case, his editor in chief keeps zero track of who has written what, so he doesn’t know who wrote the Milkman comics. But he does invite Jughead to the staff party for grown ups.

I guess Betty has completely subdued the school principal as well as his child psychologist boyfriend because the sheer amount of school real estate that Veronica’s promotional activities for her business is allowed to take up in its halls is astonishing. For a town that supposedly has a lot of trauma about four teenagers that died on Halloween, the booth she’s erected is enormous and spectacular. Clay and Kevin shout things like “There will be mayhem” but there isn’t a single disapproving adult in sight. Veronica is brazen. She promises that the four dead Riverdale students will “return from the dead before your very eyes.”

Later, Toni approaches Cheryl to show us that she’s back to her old bullshit. Here she is, drawing Cheryl ‘out’ again, to participate in a gay-backup-dancers-only floor show choreographed by Veronica. Cheryl isn’t so sure about any of this, and in any case, she has Vixen duties. After giving Cheryl (and only Cheryl) an inexplicably hard time about race dynamics, now Toni brings up the need for LGBTQ solidarity in order to force Cheryl into doing something that Cheryl isn’t sure about, that will also cause her to renege on an obligation she feels is a “tradition.” “People like us” is what Toni says. She is so manipulative.

At the end of basketball practice, Uncle Fucking Frank wants to make sure that none of his boys is gonna “go out wilding.” The locker room is also festooned with Halloween paraphernalia. Who put it up and why?

Julian starts to immediately make trouble. He has a little towel draped around his lower half, and I wonder if he’s in the same erotic fugue about Reggie and Archie, because he unnecessarily spread his legs to put one foot up on the bench to show both of them his junk as he invites the two to go ‘wilding’ with him. Reggie says no. Julian starts bark-hooting to get the other boys riled up after announcing that the ‘wilding’ is going to begin in the school parking lot after sundown on Halloween. Archie disapproves, turning his back on everyone to open his locker.

WE HAVE A VERY COOL LOCKER TO LOCKER TRANSITION as Archie closes his locker which then turns into Veronica’s locker door in the girls’ locker room, which she opens. She and Betty are talking about Reggie’s virginity (about Halloween) and how unbelievable that is. Veronica knows that Betty has the hots for someone, so she asks about it. Betty confesses that she has the hots for both Reggie and Archie. She advises Betty to use Halloween night to figure out which one makes her clit tingle more (“figure out which way your love compass is truly pointing”). Veronica’s skin in this game is that she wants to be told all about it the next day.

At the Blossom mansion, Penelope is drinking some red liquor. Her hair is amazingly ridiculous and it looks like a bitch to maintain it so it looks that exact degree of wrong and unflattering. Omg she’s so hot. Anyway. She thinks that Cheryl is less likely to gayly molest the other cheerleaders if they “decamp” the sleepover to “the grand hall.” Julian apparently is fully aware of what is being discussed, enough to object to his mother putting images of his sister engaging in “hanky panky” into the dinner conversation.

Adult supervision finally catches up with Veronica just as she’s putting the final touches on the decorations for her Halloween show. Alice Cooper appears, bristling with insecurity about the new competition in the Halloween entertainment of Riverdale of which she’s had a monopoly so far (“It’s not going to affect our ratings.”) Hence the whole Halloween taboo is partially revealed to be not so much about lowering teen mortality nor in honor of the dead. It’s about ratings & eyeballs on advertisers. Alice says that she will “allow” the event to proceed, but tells Veronica that she has been “put on notice.” About what? That Alice disapproves of Veronica?

After stocking up on Powdered Milk, Jughead hears someone walk directly up to his (very insecure) residence. He’s immediately terrified. He hides after grabbing some sort of hammer or poker or something.

It’s Ethel! She’s all smudged with dirt, wearing a very disheveled inmate uniform.

Jughead wants to know how she escaped from the asylum. She says that she’d heard about the escape tunnels, so she spent all her time looking for them. Having located them, it was her truncated call with Jughead that “gave me the push I needed to make a break for it.” Because she is alone that absolutely nobody ever calls her (not Betty, not Alice, not Dilton, not Ben) that she clung on to the one slight indication she was entirely forgotten! The two of them exchange a tender look. I like them together. Ethel says her keepers were cruel and abusive, so she just needs to make it a “couple months” until she’s 18. Jughead wants to invite her to stay with him, but it’s not safe. He offers Rayberry’s apartment, because Rayberry had the very useful foresight to pay rent through to the end of the year.

Jughead is just the nicest. He is concerned that she might be too afraid to stay in a dead man’s apartment, but Ethel is stalwart. He also invites her to a party her first night sprung from jail.

In the bathroom at school, Midge seeks permission to not have to go to the slumber party from Cheryl. Cheryl responds at first with the party line - the slumber party is “a Vixen tradition” and “the center must hold.” Midge folds immediately.

Cheryl is, I will note again, incredibly powerful in this timeline. Archie really, really didn’t know what he was talking about when he said people don’t listen to Cheryl. He’s simply protected from her wrath by dint of having the ginger gene.

But then, Cheryl realizes she wants to go to the Veronica-led event, so she comes up with the idea to let Evelyn (“that witchy witch”) to host the slumber party instead, so she and Midge can go to the Babylonium instead. The two girls (the gay one and the pregnant one) sweetly affirm to each other how discreet each of them are, and promise to reveal a big secret on Halloween night.

So even though he allowed (or was powerless against) Veronica to do whatever she wanted in terms of her commercial activities, Featherhead and his boyfriend still have hard-ons for giving Jughead Jones a rough time. Jughead is subjected to questioning by the pair as well as Keller and Sister Woodhouse about the missing Ethel Muggs. Being a smart boy, Jughead has learned all the right lessons from Rayberry about how to deal with these people’s pressure tactics. He responds with sarcastic amazement that they’ve essentially ‘lost’ Ethel - that is, he avoids lying but simply neglecting to answer an unstated question. Then when Keller threatens him with another home invasion, Jughead directly asks him not to ‘trash’ the place with a smile, which he wipes from his face immediately to demonstrate his disdain. As he takes his leave, a very Halloween ghost cackles for him as part of the soundtrack transition to the next scene.

At home, Archie and Reggie are putting themselves into the costumes created by Mary Andrews (who can’t stand to be seen now that there are THREE men in the house.) Reggie and Archie discuss Betty. The boys boast to each other about “getting vibes” from Betty. Archie suddenly wonders if Betty might want to “make it” with one of them this night. Made entirely of cheekbones, pouty lips and pecs, this causes Reggie to very homosexually get super close to Archie to say that it wouldn’t surprise him if Betty had such horny plans, since “she ain’t blind.”

It’s very ambiguous actually if he means only himself, or Archie, or both of them. In the mirror, he’s looking at himself frontwise, but he’s also looking at Archie’s sculpted arms and chest and the rest of him in the all american white T and jeans. Archie either genuinely doesn’t (he is just not smart in this universe) or pretends to think that Reggie meant only himself. So they stand shoulder to shoulder in the mirror, because that’s a very heterosexual thing to do, while Archie says that “she might wanna get with me, Reg.” Having been thus rejected, Reggie walks away from him. Unholstering his big gun, Reggie suggests that if either of them get the feeling that Betty has chosen either one of them, the unchosen will “vamoose.” Archie agrees, which leads to the two of them pointing their guns at each other. Twice.

Ethel and Jughead arrive at the Halloween party. I wish I knew what they were dressed as. Jughead is wearing a huge stovepipe hat. Ethel is in the mask that Jughead promised her. The extraordinarily elaborate costumes that all these comic book industry people are wearing would put a lot of cons to shame. Bernie screams for Jughead, launching himself into an embrace. Jughead looks extremely happy to be embracing Bernie. Bernie says “It’s gonna be a crazy night” so Jughead and Ethel enter the fray.

While her parents are hamming it up on tv, Betty’s three suitors (Reggie, Archie and for some reason Dilton) are waiting for her to appear at their home. When Archie and Reggie (meanly) imply that Dilton is there as a form of hero worship for the two of them in his role as “the water boy,” Dilton stands up for himself to let them know that Betty invited him in particular to be here.

When she appears, Betty’s cleavage looks absolutely amazing. It brings Reggie and Archie to their feet. Dilton is so agog that he doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be. Betty has really thought of everything about this entrance, from the costume to the perfect thing to say. She’s Goldilocks because “she couldn’t decide on a bed so she tried all three. Dilton has a really huge pumpkin head as his costume.

Reggie is having the best time trick or treating. He cocks out a hip and deploys his dimples to maximum effect. Of course, the good times can’t last. The four of them witness Julian and others bashing pumpkin decorations with baseball bats as they drive by, hollering. Of course, the cops are nowhere to be seen when it’s Julian Blossom flouting the rules and causing actual property damage. Dilton wisely decides he’s had enough, and goes home.

At Veronica’s event at the Babylonium, things look very “Cabaret” to me, which is 1930s not 20s, but it doesn’t matter. People look very sexy here. The costumes for this are eye popping as well - one girl has a whole 3 foot tall headdress and everything. As soon as Cheryl and Midge enter, Toni is all over Cheryl.

I was so happy they didn’t make me listen to Fangs singing at his big gig, but Riverdale betrays me by forcing me to listen to him at this party.

At the Pep Comics party, workaholic artists gonna art, apparently because sketching is going on - with Ethel participating! Jughead interviews a series of very interestingly wonky-looking people. One guy in a silk top hat who says he doesn’t know who wrote the Milkman story but is seething with jealousy over it. Jonah, in smudgy eyeliner, doesn’t think it was that great. Then Jughead talks to the devil, who tells him that it was “Ted Sullivan, a journeyman writer.” (Ted Sullivan is on the writing staff at Riverdale, and wrote among others, the “Killing Mr. Honey” episode.) After saying his name four times, Riverdale drops the bomb that this Ted is dead, died the same way as Rayberry, because he didn’t think he could live up to the masterpiece that was the Milkman Comic. Then the devil launches into a speech about “the enemy is here, at home” and “we’re the enemies.” Jughead is very startled.

After lighting a truly huge number of candles at the graveyard, Reggie and Bettie are howling at the sky. Reggie says he knows a lot about wolves because he’s a fellow alpha who grew up with them. His way of showing off is so cute and so dumb. “Is that what you think you are? An alpha?” Betty asks in a butter soft voice.

I know they’ll deny it, but Riverdale writing team has read at least some of those werewolf-Serpent fanfics, because this set up - howling together ‘as a joke’ in a graveyard on Halloween then having Reggie and Betty talk like this is almost a fricking prompt for some Retty/Beggie werewolf AUs to be drafted.

What could be a very interesting alpha-omega discussion between this pair is interrupted by Julian and a couple Bulldogs still whooping it up as they cruise around town being a nuisance. Seeing Julian breaks the mood between Reggie and Betty, causing her to go seek Archie out.

Of course, Archie is sadly contemplating his father’s gravestone. Betty starts to apologize immediately. Even though he clearly isn’t, Archie reassures her that he’s fine and that it’s ok and it’s fine. Then he demonstrates how haunted he is by this father’s absence -he immediately launches into a memory. The two used to do a lot of trick or treating together as kids, even doing Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher. Then I realize that I fell for it - THIS WAS ALL A PLOY. Archie’s plan was to tug at her heartstrings so he could bring up that he was the OG hotstuff. Well dang, Archie!

Reggie tries to interrupt but his face already admits defeat. He asks to be taken to the haunted house. The three of them go to the murder house. Betty is not at all spooked, so she wanders further into the house to look for “eleven up.”

Reggie is really the most honorable, because he takes this time to discreetly tell Archie that he’s going to vamoose as he originally proposed. Archie is nice too, telling him he doesn’t have to do that, but Reggie is a man’s man (and a genuine ladies’ man) because cock blocking out of spite is just not something he’s willing to do no matter how enticing the girl. Betty comes back with orange sodas. Archie grants Reggie a good enough exit, by telling Betty that Reggie was tired. Betty, despite her earlier threesome fantasy, doesn’t much care which of the pair she gets. She smiles at Archie.

Veronica so loves giving speeches and hosting events. She looks so happy in her black lipstick, standing in front of four coffins. I still can’t believe that this event is going to go forward in this way. This is so callous it’s kind of funny. Anyway, Veronica is going on about the midnight feature, dropping the fact that Boris Karloff is her godfather.

The music number is from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Which is very timeline busting. So are we doing like a backwards-reverse Back to the Future thing where instead of a fictional white guy taking credit for a real-life black musical invention from his past ( Rock ‘n’ Roll) we have a fictional Latina woman taking credit for a real-life musical written by a white man in her future? The twisty turny of all this is also breaking my brain because the singing in the actual movie of the real musical (Rocky Horror Picture Show) was very very imperfect except for Tim Curry and Meatloaf, and intentionally so. The singing in the musical numbers of Riverdale also have this same trait - it’s intentionally imperfect except when Josie and Kevin were singing. The overall technical quality of the singing is better than in that musical film (Susan Sarandon can barely sing, which places the Cheryl, Betty, Veronica and Archie actors in a higher competence category). But for some reason (oh fine, because I love Rocky Horror Picture Show) this marmoreal smoothness of the singing by everyone involved is very very horrifying to me. I’m getting literal shivers of distress. There’s just too much camp happening. When it meets the airbrushed camp of Riverdale, the rough-around-the-edges camp of Rocky Horror evaporates, leaving only raunchiness. Riverdale has highly sexual teens, and always has, but at the same time it gets very coy with how it describes sex, sexuality and sexual activity, so I was a bit startled at Clay belting out “orgasmic rush of lust” like that.

Kevin calling for “mommy” when we’ve never seen her but has caused him to be, well, how he is by calling him fat one time because he actually was and he never got over it, is a lot. But then they pan away as he sings “what’s this? Let’s see” as he starts to look at his own crotch I REALLY WANT TO KNOW what the choreo was implied to be. Did he look into the contents of his own crotch pouch? Why is the audience reacting like that??

Cheryl then comes out with the most on the nose bit. She scream-sings: I feel released/ Bad times deceased - and so on. Cheryl has ballet training, and again the technical competence which doesn’t at all cover up the extremely clunky nature of the steps she’s being made to do is horrifying. At the end of her number, she pulls Toni close to kiss her in front of everybody.

We cut to Veronica doing Frank’n’Furter which is a bit like Nicole Kidman being made to sing Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. There are certain songs that can never be sung by anyone other than that one singer, and “Don’t Dream It” is really one of those songs. The topsy turvy un-doing and re-doing continues, because for a woman (and a very cis, very pretty one at that) wanting to be “dressed just the same” as Fay Wray has zero subversive energy compared to Tim Curry as the transsexual alien doing it, so there’s a neutralizing of the power of that song. In order to make up for it, they put Veronica in a Marlene Dietrich tuxedo-for-girls from Morocco (where Dietrich sings a floor show and then kisses a girl on the mouth in front of everyone to general delight and applause). It’s not fair to pit Veronica’s Riverdalian version of this song (and the screechy belting they make her do given the key choices) against the true blue one by Tim Curry, but it must be said: There’s nothing sensual about the way Veronica is saying things like “give yourself over to absolute pleasure.” Everything she’s doing - the volume of the singing, the thinness of the voice, the effortful meaninglessness of the choreography - is the opposite of giving yourself over to anything.

Into all this, Alice, looking like a bomb has hit her, enters the theater. She reacts with horror. I don’t know if the horror is supposed to be about the nature of the song she’s hearing or it’s from being turned on by Clay dancing gayly in just his shorts. Kevin articulates her shellshocked reaction with yet more exactly on the nose misappropriation of the lyrics (“It’s beyond me/ Help me Mommy”).

All the extra give the hardworking main cast of Riverdale a standing ovation.

Elsewhere, Reggie is walking home all lonesome along the deserted road when very ominously, Julian and two others in death masks stop beside him. Julian says that Reggie should “join the fun unless you’ve got something better to do” because he is “going across the bridge to Greendale to raise some hell.”

OOOH HE SAID THE FORBIDDEN H- WORD!! Was - was the strange word choices in Raising Cain and Wilding and all that leading up to this moment?

Reggie isn’t going to make it with Betty today, so he hops into the car of destruction.

At the haunted house, Archie finally makes a move to Betty, telling her he wants to kiss her. She says she feels exactly the same way. Unfortunately, they are cockblocked by a milkman who peers in on them. Betty is smart - she isn’t afraid of no ghosts, but a real-life white guy being creepy is very good reason to run the heck away.

After the event, Clay and Kevin are cleaning up like the good theater people they are. Veronica wants to do a weekly midnight event at the theater that is “Fun and Campy.” We are being extraordinarily on the nose today. Anyway, the gays are worried about Veronica’s homelessness after parental abandonment, leading to her having to live in the movie theater. Veronica lies about all of it (“everything’s peachy”) because she can’t stand sympathy or pity from others.

At the Diner, Midge and Fangs have told Cheryl and Toni their big secret (her “honeybun” in the oven). Midge then remarks on the fact that Cheryl and Toni have effectively come out to all the teenagers who were there at the Babylonium. Toni is so glad that they’ve all put away their masks.

I don’t know how loud they were speaking or if Evelyn just has superhuman hearing capacity, but she is there at the diner (somehow? why? how? isn’t she supposed to be hosting the sleepover? Is she there to pick up a midnight snack??)

Archie and Betty are safely back at home. They tell each other that they had the “best” time ever. Now, they are cockblocked by Alice, who takes out her distress at finding Clay very hot by yelling at her daughter in front of the whole neighborhood.

With a quiet moment to herself, Veronica lights a votive candle to… Rudolph Valentino. Why is he on the altar with her grandmother? Where’s Boris Karloff?? There’s a Jughead amount of candles lit in her small living area she’s made in the movie theater. Veronica sleeps with a photo of herself with her parents. Oh the poor baby. She’s very upset.

Jughead has walked Ethel to Rayberry’s apartment. Jughead is not wearing any sort of headgear - no crown, no jokey hat. I - I feel like he’s en déshabillé. Unable to resist the hair,

Ethel invites him in, using a tone of voice that sets all my shipping urges tingling. Except -oh poor Ethel. This is the universe - THIS IS IT! - the one where she could totally have a thing with Jughead, but there’s Tabitha! Tabitha the Real is out there saving all of the multiverse and Tabitha of this world is out there on the bus tour against racism. No dice. Jughead says he’s tired and that he needs to feed the dog. Sigh. Ethel totally reacts like this is a rejection of her invitation to an assignation, but she’s nice about it. But come on Jughead, live a little! (Sorry, Tabitha, but Ethel was here - in my heart - first.)

As soon as Ethel enters the Rayberry apartment, dun dun dun, that weird guy in the milkman outfit is totally in there waiting for her.

Jughead is walking out when he gets accosted by that very plot-important lady obsessed with forcing her neighbors to make a milk donation to her cat. She says, “Oh I thought you were the milkman” because she heard the bottles again. There’s both a Dutch Angle AND dolly zoom happening as Jughead puts it all together, before rushing back to the Rayberry former residence shouting for Ethel.

Jughead breaks down the door! He falls faceforward into the apartment, only to make direct eye contact with the corpse on the floor. “Jeepers” he says and - seriously, truly, this was wonderful line delivery. I mean it.

Ethel is having HER MOMENT. She’s so super tall to begin with, so she looks totally magnificent, holding a bloody knife, standing victorious over the dead milkman, as she passionately tells Jughead, “I told everyone it was a milkman!” Jughead looks so scared.

Archie is woken up in the middle of the night by Uncle Frank, who seems very upset. He says a carful of Bulldogs went over the bridge into the River. Archie stares upset at Reggie’s very empty bed.

If they made Reggie die in the racist’s car I will be pitching a FIT.

#too many thoughts about Riverdale #Riverdale episode 128 #riverdale 7.11 #riverdale s7 recap #riverdale s7 #riverdale episode recap

13 notes · View notes

the-rewatch-rewind · 7 months

Text

What a glorious feeling

Script below the break

Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be discussing number four on my list: MGM’s 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds.

It's 1927 and silent film stars Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) have just premiered another smash hit. To escape from a mob of fans, Don jumps into the car of Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds), who is surprisingly unimpressed by him, which he is both insulted and intrigued by. Weeks later, when Don is still focused on trying to find Kathy again, and his friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) is running out of ways to get him to snap out of it, the success of Hollywood’s first talking picture prompts the studio head to turn the next Lockwood and Lamont film into a talkie, and Don’s life – and Hollywood itself – will never be the same.

This is a very important movie to me because in a way, it’s the one that started it all. My love for Old Hollywood began in a movie theater at a 50th anniversary screening of Singin’ in the Rain. I’ve mentioned in several previous episodes that I started getting into Old Hollywood in 2002 – this is why. My mom took me to see it, and then based on my reaction started introducing me to more of her faves from around this era, and here I am, 21 years later, still loving these films. I can’t remember exactly when I watched Singin’ in the Rain the second time; I might have seen it again in 2002, I don’t know. But I believe it was 2003 when we bought it on VHS while on a family road trip. We had a little TV/VCR that we used to set on top of a cooler behind the front seats, held in place with bungee cords. I could not get enough of this movie and insisted on watching it probably way more times than my siblings wanted on that road trip, although I think they enjoyed it too, just not quite to the extent that I did. I watched it seven times in 2003, six times in 2004, three times in 2005, once in 2006, once in 2007, twice in 2009, once in 2010, once in 2011, twice in 2012, once in 2013, twice in 2015, once in 2016, once in 2019, once in 2020, once in 2021, and twice in 2022. I can’t remember when, but at some point I ended up with a DVD in addition to the VHS. And one of my 2022 watches was in a theater for the 70th anniversary. While in many ways that was a very different experience from the first time I saw it, since every moment of the movie was deeply familiar rather than fresh and new to me, it felt no less magical. I still love this movie just as much as, if not more than, the first time I watched it, and I am so grateful that it introduced me to a world of films from generations before my time.

There is so much to love about this movie that I don’t even really know where to start. The dialogue is clever and delightful, the casting was perfect and the performances are brilliant, the costumes, sets, and lighting are gorgeous, and the music makes you feel like you’ll never be unhappy again. In some ways, it’s actually kind of similar to Mamma Mia, in that it’s a jukebox musical. Like how Mamma Mia took popular ABBA songs and loosely draped a story around them, Singin’ in the Rain took a bunch of old songs, mostly written by MGM producer Arthur Freed (who came up with the idea) and Nacio Herb Brown, and tied them together with a story. I will say I feel like the story of Singin’ in the Rain works quite a bit better, mainly because the subject matter fits the songs so well. It was a stroke of genius to make the movie that would feature songs from early talkies be about early talkies. Freed and Brown did write one new song specifically for this movie, “Make Em Laugh,” but it bears a remarkable resemblance to Cole Porter’s “Be a Clown” from the 1948 Freed-produced film The Pirate. Screenwriters Comden and Green wrote the “Moses Supposes” song based on an existing tongue-twister, but all of the other songs in the film had been featured in at least one previous movie. These days, Singin’ in the Rain is such a beloved, iconic movie that many of the songs’ origins are all but forgotten, and they’re generally associated with this picture. But it’s always kind of fun to be watching some random old movie that predates this one and hear one of these songs pop up. Probably my favorite instance of this is in Adam’s Rib, which was number 27 on this list and made in 1949, when Tom Ewell’s character is going to visit his mistress, played by Jean Hagen, he’s whistling “You Are My Lucky Star,” and I love that both that song and that actress ended up in this movie three years later.

A big part of what makes Singin’ in the Rain such a perfect introduction to Old Hollywood is that the songs are from Old Hollywood and the story is about Old Hollywood. It’s so fascinating to watch the characters figuring out the technical aspects of adding sound to a medium that modern audiences automatically associate with sound. But even beyond that, this movie breaks the illusion of Hollywood glamor while still sort of trying to hide behind that illusion, in a way that almost feels like it’s laughing at itself. So much of the story is about how movie magic relies on facades and deception. The movie starts with a red-carpet interview where Don tells of his rise to fame and his motto: “Dignity, always dignity,” while the audience sees flashbacks of his very undignified beginnings. Lina is on screen looking quietly glamorous for about 10 minutes before she finally speaks, revealing what the silence of her films has concealed: her voice is almost unbearably squeaky and obnoxious. So in order to make her presentable in a talking picture – which eventually becomes a musical – her voice is dubbed by Kathy. Initially the plan is to credit Kathy as Lina’s voice and use this to help launch her to stardom, but Lina threatens to sue the studio unless they force Kathy to be her voice indefinitely without credit. I don’t think it was usually quite that dramatic, but uncredited dubbing happened all the time. In previous episodes, I’ve mentioned Marni Nixon, who dubbed the singing for many iconic performances, such as Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood in West Side Story, without credit at the time, although now her contributions are kind of general knowledge, at least among movie buffs. But we don’t even have to go that far to find an example: it happened in Singin’ in the Rain itself! Betty Noyes, also known for singing “Baby Mine” in the Disney movie Dumbo, sang for Debbie Reynolds in a couple of her songs without credit, notably including “Would You?” which Kathy is meant to be dubbing for Lina. So Betty Noyes sang for Debbie Reynolds when she was singing for Jean Hagen. (Part of the time, anyway. The “Singin’ in the Rain” reprise that Kathy sings for Lina behind the curtain was definitely Debbie Reynolds’s voice.) Even more ironically, when Kathy is dubbing Lina’s dialogue (“Nothing can keep us apart, our love with last ‘til the stars turn cold”), that was Jean Hagen’s normal speaking voice, so Jean Hagen dubbed Debbie Reynolds dubbing Jean Hagen. I just can’t get over how blatantly these filmmakers went, “Hollywood is fake and yes that includes us” – although I suppose it was much less blatant at the time, I’m not sure at what point all of this became so well-known.

Learning about the dubbing didn’t decrease my love for this movie, although some of the other behind-the-scenes trivia kind of did – specifically the fact that nobody seemed to have a very good time working with Gene Kelly because he was so demanding and impatient, particularly with then 19-year-old Debbie Reynolds, who was not a very experienced dancer, which Kelly found exasperating, even though he knew about it when she got the role. Apparently at one point Fred Astaire – also a notoriously demanding perfectionist – found her crying under a piano at the studio and offered to help her with her dancing. She learned fast and committed hard, literally bursting blood vessels in her feet during the “Good Morning” number. Reynolds later famously said that Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things she ever had to do. Not that she was the only one who worked hard. Gene Kelly was sick with a 103-degree fever when he performed one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history, dancing and singing to the title song. I used to view this as admirable, but now I’m like, maybe they could have waited to film it until he got better? Similarly, Donald O’Connor, who was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day at the time, had to rest in the hospital for several days after filming the “Make ‘Em Laugh” scene, and again, it’s like, it’s an incredible performance in a great number, but was it really worth going to the hospital for? Both the story within this movie and the story of how it was made raise some very interesting questions about the “point” of motion pictures – as art, as entertainment, and as an industry – that are still being wrestled with today. Personally, I don’t believe anyone should be forced to risk their health for their job, but at the same time I appreciate how dedicated everyone involved was to making this masterpiece the best it could possibly be. It certainly paid off in this instance. It’s easy for me to say now that it would have been worth making a slightly worse movie if that meant protecting the well-being of the actors, but maybe if it was worse I wouldn’t have quite fallen in love with it to this degree and my life would look very different. So I still don’t know how to feel about all this. And I don’t even know how much it matters anymore, given that the only major cast member still alive is Rita Moreno, whom I absolutely would not have recognized without seeing her name in the credits, and I don’t think she personally was injured on this set – although she was originally supposed to sing “I’ve Got a Feelin’ You’re Foolin’” which then got absorbed into the “Beautiful Girl Montage” that she wasn’t part of, which is a major bummer because she deserved a bigger role in this.

Anyway, speaking of complicated feelings, let’s talk about the romantic aspects of Singin’ in the Rain. The romance between Don and Kathy is an important part of the story, and while that’s a little disturbing knowing how terribly Kelly treated Reynolds on set, and that he was approximately twice her age, their characters’ relationship within the movie is mostly very sweet and I don’t really have a problem with it. And I appreciate how much screentime is devoted to the friendship between Don and Cosmo, which Don is shown continuing to value just as much as he always did even after he starts seeing Kathy. It’s always great to see characters refusing to follow the amatonormative idea of a relationship hierarchy, with every other relationship falling far below one’s romantic partnership. I love the scene in Don’s house that leads to the “Good Morning” number partly because it’s an important turning point in the story and it’s a great song, but also because it shows Don and Kathy and Cosmo as a trio, not a couple with a third wheel, which is so lovely to see. But though Don does his best to resist amatonormativity, it still pursues him rather relentlessly in the form of his costar, Lina Lamont. The studio leaks rumors that Don and Lina are romantically involved to increase publicity for their films, and Lina seems to believe them, despite Don’s adamant assertions that, “There is nothing between us. There has never been anything between us. Just air.” Their relationship is yet another example of a Hollywood façade, and one of my favorite scenes is when they’re working on a silent film and pretending to be madly in love when they’re in the middle of a fight. Their scene ends with a kiss, and as soon as the director yells, “Cut!” Don pushes Lina away in disgust, but she is so sold on their romance that she says, “Oh Donny, you couldn’t kiss me like that and not mean it just a teensy weensy bit!” to which he retorts, “Meet the greatest actor in the world! I’d rather kiss a tarantula!” It would be easy to attribute many of Lina’s actions to jealousy after Don falls in love with Kathy, which was definitely an important motivation, but it wasn’t her only motivation. Because while she is portrayed as relatively clueless, she has to know that the rise of talking pictures is bad for her. It’s not just that she’s losing her man, she’s also losing her career. When she tries to use her star power to force Kathy to work solely as her voice, part of that is certainly to get in the way of Don and Kathy’s happiness together, but I would argue that more of it was a desperate attempt to remain in an industry that was moving on without her. Lina is portrayed as the villain, and granted some of the things she does are pretty awful, but at the same time one can’t help feeling sorry for her. She was taken in by the glamor of Hollywood, unable to see that everything from her romance to her popularity was make-believe, and suddenly her entire life is crashing around her. We cheer when the curtain opens to reveal that Kathy is singing for Lina, but we also cry for her a little – at least, I do. I find Lina to be a thoroughly fascinating and compelling character, and Jean Hagen gives one of my all-time favorite performances (she was nominated for an Oscar and absolutely should have won), and I really want to know what happens to her after the events of the movie. Hopefully she realizes that she doesn’t need a man, least of all one who hates her like Don does, and finds a new career that makes her happy.

If being a Lina Lamont apologist doesn’t get me kicked out of Old Hollywood fan circles, this might: I don’t understand why Cyd Charisse is in this movie. I get that the “Broadway Melody” number is a gorgeous spectacle, but it doesn’t have anything to do with anything and it goes on way too long, and in world it makes zero sense. First of all, they have six weeks to basically remake their entire movie, and that number alone would have absolutely taken more than six weeks to put together. Secondly, a big part of the appeal of that number is how colorful everything is, but their film is in black and white. And like, okay, we can suspend disbelief and just accept that, but there is absolutely no way that Lina Lamont would put up with a 15-minute musical number in the middle of her picture, in which, not only does she not appear at all, but Don is dancing very suggestively with another woman. Like, come on. I know that having a random ballet toward the end of a musical was a major thing back then, especially in Gene Kelly films, but that has never made sense to me and it never will. And like, why did they give Cyd Charisse a very distinctive look for most of her part and then change it for the ballet so that she’s barely recognizable? It’s so confusing. Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to Charisse, she was a wonderful dancer, and I think it’s great that her appearance in this movie helped put her on the map and lead to bigger roles for her, it’s just that that scene is my personal least favorite part of the movie. Although I guess the message of that whole number can be boiled down to, “when romance fails, turn to your hobbies,” which is something I can definitely get behind. So maybe I wouldn’t cut it out entirely; I would just make it significantly shorter so we can get back to the main story faster.

The thing I find so compelling about this movie is that while it exposes Hollywood glamor as a sham, it also shows that when you see through that, there’s often still something valuable underneath. The smoke and mirrors of movie magic add to the entertainment value, but fundamentally, movies are stories, and storytelling is a deep-rooted feature of humanity. Sometimes when I tell people that I enjoy old movies, they assume that means I’m into the fancy costumes and larger-than-life stars, and like, I guess that’s part of it, but mostly I just really enjoy good stories that are told well, and that’s what a lot of old movies are. And it’s not just Hollywood that tries to glamorize people and their stories; our whole society does it, too, only to a slightly lesser extent. Just as Lina needed to conceal her unpleasant voice and the studio felt that Lockwood and Lamont would sell more tickets if people thought they were actually dating, or just as people thought Debbie Reynolds’s voice wasn’t strong enough for all of Kathy’s songs, normal people in everyday life feel the need to disguise facets of their identity that are less socially acceptable. Don’t act too queer, conform to your assigned gender role, don’t infodump about your hyperfixations; in short, put on a show to pretend to be “normal.” But just as nobody is really as glamorous and flawless as movie stars’ personas pretend to be, nobody is really normal either. Hopefully our society will someday get to the point where people don’t have to keep up this façade, and perhaps future movies will reflect that. But for now, it’s difficult to imagine a more perfect illustration of how the film industry reflects society than the layered deceptions of Singin’ in the Rain. It’s sort of halfway between satire and an honest reflection, and it works remarkably well as both. But it’s also very easy to just watch it as a fun musical without thinking too hard about any of this. I just happen to greatly enjoy overthinking the stories I love, and this happens to be one that lends itself to much overthinking, which is one of the many reasons why I love it.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. It’s getting to the point where I know these movies so well that I’m not really sure how to talk about them to people who haven’t seen them, so if you’ve never watched Singin’ in the Rain and still managed to follow this episode, I’m very impressed. Next up is a movie that I’m pretty sure would be number one on this list if I’d started keeping track about two years earlier because I already had it completely memorized before 2003, but in the 20 years I was tracking I watched it a mere 35 times, leaving it at number three. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “Well. Someone’s got to break the ice and it might as well be me. I mean, I’m used to being a hostess, it’s part of my husband’s work, and it’s always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time, to get acquainted, so I’m perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling. I mean, I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing here, or what I’m doing here, or what this place is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself, and I’m very intrigued, and oh my, this soup’s delicious, isn’t it?”

#singin in the rain #stanley donan #gene kelly #donald o'connor #debbie reynolds #jean hagen #the rewatch rewind

6 notes · View notes

paragonrobits · 5 months

Text

additional fic idea to continue on something from my old adventure time fanfic days: so long time mutuals might remember that WAY back in the AT fandom days around 2012 and onwards, I had an on going fic idea based around Ooo being broadly in the Marvel universe, with a bunch of ideas I never had the chance to follow up on, but the big one was that Finn was the latest incarnation of Thor (written more akin to Norse mythology rather than his Marvel depiction) and the Hulk being present in the background as the last hero of the age of marvels and forefather of giants like Billy

I called it Finn-Thor on my blog at the time, @hvkryter (and this was before I knew that hyphens screw up tagging, so if you try to find the stories I wrote for it, good luck to you, and let me know if it works out!), focusing on Finn gradually relearning his true nature and embracing it; at the time I had Magic Man as the Loki figure, and this was before Betty came back and became Magic Woman, and I had him firmly set as Loki in full 'tragic antagonist stuck in his narrative role' mode. Nowadays, I would probably instead make JAKE the Loki figure because... well, it fits, and its closer to my actual take on Loki nowadays.

But anyway my point is this: one plot bunny idea I have involves returning to this role, but with a twist: focusing on Finn's cycle of reincarnation and his worries about what the perpetual cycle of inevitably becoming a destroyer perhaps not so different from the Lich (which has been an idea in my mind regardless), and as Thor he was specifically more like God of War's take on Thor; a destroyer and a warrior, shaken by the blood on his hands and the death on his conscience, driven to fight and kill because he believed it was all he was good for, embracing his destiny to die fighting the Midgard Serpent because he saw it as a good death for his lifetime of torment and the horrors he had done.

A monster, inside and out; with hands of iron and a heavy heart so filled with rage; rage at the world. Rage swelling up at every little word or insult, consuming him as he feared he couldn't control his own mind, and he was a vessel for that rage, and most of all rage at himself. Doomed to be a monster.

And as Finn's memories of past lives come to him, he remembers a statement, or perhaps a prophecy, or a warning. Amid the booming of thunder, and the splatter of blood, he remembers: "You will always be... a monster."

He awakens, and agian and again he keeps thinking about this. All the lifetimes he's had in this particular continuity: of fighting and killing, or hurting others (as Shoko hurt PB, even his most long lasting friendship being made because he betrayed her in a past life, because he hurt her).

He asks himself: Is this all I have to give? Is this all I can really do, in any life? Hurt people?

He looks in mirrors and he worries one day he'll see the Lich staring back at him. Am I that different from him?

Are we both destroyers?

So from there, we switch from Finn's POV, to PB and Marceline; both centered in the now, products of the world of Ooo, distinct from what's come before. So they see what's going on with Finn, and somewhere in the background there's Jake, who is remembering things himself, and trying not to think about them as much as Finn is thinking TOO much about them.

So, they see friends stuck in bad thoughts, and they go to rescue them, however they can; because even if Finn thinks he is a monster as much as the Lich, or lifetimes of memories persuade him that's all he can ever be, they know otherwise.

#adventure time #finn mertens #marceline abadeer #marceline #princess bubblegum #fic ideas #finn thor AU #queued

5 notes · View notes

ghostfacekickasshero · 2 years

Text

FINALLY

after 3 months of dedicating my time to Homestuck, I finally finished it.

and I’ll say it’s worth it

i’ll spoiler it, just in case you’re not finished with homestuck yet

At first I was confused when the trolls would appear, but I wanted to read the entire thing, since I don’t like missing out on stuff.

The first Act was entertaining enough for me to keep reading it, like with John trying to get his b-day gift, his posters, his dad. Not to mention captchaloguing. The captcha thing was confusing, but eventually, you get used to the term.

Act 2 got more interesting, with new characters introduced, new outfits John wore, John being commanded to do stuff, and I wanted to see the protags win the game of Skaia. And I was foolish enough to think the plot wouldn’t spiral and spiral until the last page was placed precariously.

I think I started to laugh at some jokes in Act 3 - Midnight Crew Intermission. The Betty Crocker joke was reaaaally funny since I learned John hated that cake, and Midnight Crew was just really fun to watch. I think John descended down at the end of this Act, and Jade might have been introduced too. Anyway moving onto Act 4.

Act 4 was interesting because the lands each player was on was assigned specifically to said person. At this, point, I had no idea what the goal was, but I kept reading anyway. I think this was where the trolls became more involved, like they were hinted here and there in Acts 1-3 I think, but now we sorta see them text to John, Rose, Dave, Jade, mostly we see John’s interactions I think. Oh and I can’t forget the moment GC (Terezi) sent John to the death entrance before Dave from the future saved him. THAT was fucking something 💀💀Oh and I can’t forget about how PM and AR helped distribute John’s present

(I forgot where exactly in the Webcomic Wayward Vagabond had the goofy moments when he drank so much soda and drew on the walls. And how Peregrine Mendicant was dealing with ships and stuff, and when Aimless Renegade tried to shoot WV and maybe PM, but it happened.)

And then we have ACT 5, or ACT 5 Part 1. This was literally the troll’s session handed over to us to enjoy. (This probably was the Act that might have been a fan favorite and the one people skipped too—) I never expected 12 trolls to be present before, but I definitely did learn about their love interactions, interactions all together, and blood rankings. Now that I’m thinking about it, I liked the Nepeta and Equius moments. I like how Equius is stereotypical and un-stereotypical at the same time, it was interesting to know there were handicapped trolls like Tavros and Terezi (maybe Vriska if you count the arm) There was even a kissing joke (that I mentioned eariler) that made me shaking my arms until they turned into funny bones. THAT was the best part

oh and I learned the trolls were the creators of John’s universe

Act 5 Part 2 was where things went chaotic. Gamzee apparently became a murderous troll because Dave sent a clown video I think? Jade’s dream self was dead at this point and she started becoming more active in the game. I think everyone got upgrades (Rose with magic, Dave with time and a Welsh sword) oh and the four human players died. In order to become God Tier, which was intriguing. I know John was trying to find his dad by letting WV take the drive, which was adorable! ^_^. And John’s dad was in love with Rose’s mom which was quite adorable, but dad and Rose’s mom died. They died from Dog Jack, who is basically Jack with a ring that affects his form due depending on what or who is prototyped. Prototyping Becquerel was a mistake because he was a powerful being. and that caused WV and AR to die in the future (after the session) died. He also killed Dave’s bro, WQ, the king character, some others I may forget. (Idk when the author the ACTUAL AUTHOR dies 💀💀) PM became a dog and she fought Dog Jack for a long time.

idk what was going to happen after this, but I saw a Doc had Act 6 tucked away. And I never expected Act 6 to be John and his friends but paradox forms of their elders. Jane, Jake, Dirk, and Roxy. They all had their unique vibe compared to the og cast. Jane focused more on pranking and got in trouble with her dad more. She was also connected to the Crocker Corp. Jake was a silly goofball who loved adventures, any movie, and blue alien girls. He also had a skull helmet to respond to his friends with. Dirk was as cool as Dave; but he made robots. Rap robots, autoresponders, a teleportation device. And Cal was his first and best friend. Roxy was freaking drunk all the time, but she loved wizards, a thing Rose hated. Dirk and Roxy were basically from the future where their ancestors (Dave and Rose: thought off clown mayors who were part of an evil fish woman, but civilization was destroyed. There was also GCat who was a strange occurrence. And there was UU and uu messaging the players. I know I laughed a lot in this Act. From Gamzee selling blood, to Jake kissing Dirk’s decapitated head, to a whole lot other things.

Uhhh what else do I have to say (man there’s so many things that happen in Homestuck It just keeps happening. I’ll have to skip some parts. I never expected cherubs to be a thing. I never expected that cherubs looked like skull people either. I know Jane and Jade became part of the evil fish lady is is basically a grown up version of Meenah who is one of the older trolls who created Karkat, Sollux’s, ect. universe. People got involved in the fight and died. John, at some point got goofy ahh time travel powers, so he had to go to his denizen to get that helped out. Roxy had to go to her to learn more about her voidy powers. Terezi also asks John to fix stuff in her session that she thought would make a better timeline, a not doomed timeline. So he does, and John and Roxy go to the universe where things went better (almost forgot about the Intermissions in each Act Act, those were a little sad to watch) but not in the timeline J and R are in. People just talk a lot about stuff before Vriska puts them in groups to fight different foes, Lord English, Dog Jack, Robot Jack, Lord English Jack, Batter Witch. V also sends Karkat and Kanaya to go off to Echidna who is a denizen.

I think, more conversation happens, Jane meets Nannasprite who is the adult dead version of Jane. Oh and Sprite^2 becomes a thing. Dave and Dirk are (thankfully) chill with each other. Then the fights happen, the fights with all the foes I mentioned. Some people die (when i mean some people, i mean some of the main cast who died and got healed by Jane and Nannasprite and the ghost trolls who double died from Lord English and did not get healed.) At this point, I loved the art, and it got even MORE detailed after I watched the 15 minute video that i’m trying to summarize here.

But It turns out, the enemies are all defeated. The power of exceptional art shows the main characters happy with each other, all happy back on the lilypad. But one villain is still there.

Lord English

I believe he gets captured by Vriska with the secret weapon that was used to defeat him. I also have a theory that Calliborn and Doc might be the same person, who knows the last part might be pretty interpretable *shrugs*

I never expected watching an anime frog develop into an anime universe in the anime video I watched. Big props to whoever animated the last part in Act 7.

After reviewing this, I can see why people would want more of Homestuck, because I heard the ending got mixed reviews for some reason. Oh well. At least the Homestuck Epilogues exist

oh boy this was long. But i’ll say this, thank you Andrew Hussie for making Homestuck. Thank you for dedicating your time in making each page count while dealing with a rabid fanbase at the time. I’ll promise to give your other comics a go. (i really do hope i do haha)

2 notes · View notes

marvel-and-dc-geek · 2 years

Text

Thor: Record of Ragnarok

Chapter 7

The raven haired god quickly search for his brother; he needed to speak with the asgardian king, as it was a subject of great urgency. Loki pretty much a tan through the hallways, not even bothering to use magic as he was too distracted looking for his brother. Of course, he crashed against someone familiar

“I’m s-“ Bruce was going to apologize, but then saw who it was “oh, it’s you “ he and the other guy weren’t particularly fond of Loki, for many past experiences.

The god couldn’t even bother to be scared of the Hulk, if he was honest. There was someone else that terrified him even more.

“Have you seen my brother ?” Loki even spoke calmly, something odd as he wasn’t usually that way around the scientist.

“He went to speak to another goddess “he had been busy practicing with the Valkyrie, tho it was hard to tell: the scientist looked quite normal, well, as much as he could in any case.

“Where’s the other guy?” Loki questioned, and “more importantly, where is Kara ?”

Bruce sighed “they both want to have a good entrance “ while he wanted something discreet, he lost the voting against the big guy and the Valkyrie.

Loki chuckled “need help with that?” Hey, he could give Heimdall some tips.

Bruce wanted to say no, but hey, why not give the other guy and him a good entrance. He just nodded.

Loki smirked and disappeared, there was some things he needed to tell to narrator, tho he sure hoped that Heimdall wouldn’t be angry at him .

“Is that really a good idea?” Kara asked as she came through the door, holding a bottle of some unknown asgardian ale.

“Hey, Loki knows better than other gods that he shouldn’t mess up with the other guy” if someone could give Heimdall a good tip on how to describe Hulk, that was Loki

~Puny god is still scared~ Hulk chuckled.

Kara smiled “I gotta thank you for making him shake like a wolf pup on the middle of winter “ just like one of Loki’s son, when he was small and cute.

“Don’t encourage him “ Bruce pleaded

“~but big girl is proud of Hulk~ “the other guy argued

“I sure am!” The valkyrie stated as she took a sip of the liquor, not bothering to use a cup.

“Can we fight if you do that?” Bruce asked, he would rather not take risks.

“We can’t if I don’t do this “ hey, she had escaped her home after Odin had pretty much forced her and all her sisters to serve to the other gods, maybe there’s a reason she drank “never expected to be back here, honestly “

“Bad memories ?” Thor had said that the Valkyries were the elite fighters of Asgard, but the other pantheons didn’t seem to view them as such.

“Like you can’t imagine “ she mumbled as she drank more.

“Was Sakaar really a better option than this ?” He couldn’t seem much of a difference, if he was honest, except that maybe, this place had some actual technology. That was when the big guy had met her, and he somehow had good memories of the place

“At least there, they didn’t threat me like in here…” being honest, she had even considered bringing some of her younger sisters there, but that hadn’t been a possibility “anyways, the big guy never lost a fight, and we aren’t going to start now, are we ?” The Valkyrie asked

‘Hulk, big girl and punny Banner won’t lose !’ The emerald giant promised

Kara smiled: if she was honest, Hulk was probably her best friend

“Then let’s get whatever punny god gets in our way “ Bruce suggested. If he was also honest, the Valkyrie was definitely hot, but his situation with Betty was complicated

‘punny Banner thinks big girl is pretty!’ Hulk chuckled ‘Punny banner is right!’

Bruce blushed to the point that if he were to Hulk out, the other guy would definitely look like the Red Hulk instead of his usual self.

Kara nearly spat her drink and tried to look away: pretty wasnt exactly what many gods liked to call her or several of her other sisters. ‘Thanks, you two ‘ she said awkwardly.

Welp, hopefully that situation could be left on the side until their fight ended…

“Would you stop drinking for one second, you damn buzz head ?” It seemed that Brunhilde wasn’t impressed with her sister’s habit

Kara rolled her eyes “Hey Geir, has our beloved older sister already stuffed her face with cake?“ she asked to the younger (and quite shaking ) Valkyrie, who shyly nodded

“Can you take this seriously ?” Brunhilde didn’t have times for any games “you two are next, so you better be ready”

“We are, miss Brunhilde “ Bruce answered politely

‘Let’s smash the gods !’ Hulk said cheerfully

Geir nervously went to her other older sister and hugged her “good luck, Kara” she hadnt seen her sister in centuries, and hoped that wouldn’t be the last

Kara smiled and pet her hair: she had hoped that her eldest sister had enough sense to avoid sending Geir to fight, but Brunhilde certainly had been heartless enough for that “thank you, sis. Go and get the best spot you can, our fight will be the best “ she promised, luckily that wouldn’t offend the purple haired child

“I will leave you two: Loki said he had a surprise for your entrance “ that couldn’t necessarily be a good thing, but hey “let’s go, Geir “ she took her youngest sister’s hand and left the room

Kara sighed and drank another bottle

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked, because it clearly wasn’t the case

“As long as Geir doesn’t have to see a fourth sister die next, I will be “ part of her wished she could fight whatever stupid god was next with her bare hands “let’s get going, our entrance has to be good “ her armor at least still shined well “I’ll see you on the arena, you know what to do “

After seeing the other ones, and hearing Loki was doing something about theirs, Bruce and Hulk sure didn’t know what to feel.

There, however, was only one good way to make their entrance: the scientist skin and eyes slowly changed to a green tome, growing quite tall in a matter of seconds.

“‘HULK SMASH!’” Both the inner and outer voice roared: they couldn’t afford to lose. Slowly, the ‘duo ’ walked towards the arena; their entrance was going to be well remembered, but so would their fight.

#shuumatsu no valkyrie #thor: record of ragnarok #record of ragnarok #madg fanfic

2 notes · View notes

thesimpsbasement · 2 years

Note

Request for Mod Betty! Can I ask for headcanons about how would Edgeworth, Apollo, Phoenix, Godot, Simon, and Klavier react if they accidentally saw their shy crush drawing them please?

ℭ𝔞𝔱𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔯 𝔰𝔥𝔶 𝔠𝔯𝔲𝔰𝔥 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔪 𝓅.2

_______________________

Fandom: Ace Attorney

Characters: Miles Edgeworth,Apollo Justice, Phoenix Wright, Godot, Simon Blackquill, Klavier Gavin

Author: Mod Betty

Warnings: none

Reader is gender neutral

A/N: I don't know German so I had to use Google translate on Klavier's part , apologies if I offend anyone (also translations :mein kleiner künstler= my little artist,mein mein=my my)

Words count: 1,517 words

________________________

𝕄𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝔼𝕕𝕘𝕖𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕙

-He's the type to go on museums I feel like so he noticed your knowledge in art on how you analysed the different paintings and told him about what method was used to draw those images

- He respected your knowledge about art and often enjoys listening to you ramble about it especially how you're always s quiet not that he necessarily minded, he did enjoy your company

-He's often busy with being the chief prosecutor so he didn't notice you sketching away in your sketchbook

-The most likely scenario where he'd see the drawing of himself was when he was organising evidence for an upcoming trial when he noticed a sketchbook, he didn't remember having a sketchbook in his evidence but decided to check it to make sure and oh boy he's surprised to see his own face on the piece of paper

-His cheeks quickly turned pink as he stared at the drawing , he looked at the signature and recognised it as yours, so this was yours

-He shut the book and put it on his desk to give it to you later

-Yet his cheeks still had a pink tint to which his fellow detective noticed

-"Uh Mr. Edgeworth are you feeling alright pal? Your face is sorta red" Gumshoe asks the prosecutor, worried about him working when he was sick " Nghh.. I'm fine Gumshoe.. let's get going " Edgeworth says with an annoyed look on his face.

𝔸𝕡𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕠 𝕁𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕖

-He saw you read his favourite mangas and you sheepishly admitted wanting to inspire your style off the manga art style

-oh he's excited to see your works and might ask you to draw some of his favourite characters

-He's also on the more oblivious side , always keeping himself busy and never notices you drawing

-His boss however does take note of this and teases Apollo saying "You seem to have a secret admirer Apollo" leaving the boy in thought about who this secret admirer was

-One day Trucy dragged him into another magic show practice session, Trucy pulled out her classic " magic panties" as she calls them to perform one of her magic tricks.Reaching her hand in she pulled an open sketchbook with Apollo's face drawn on the page clear as day. Apollo's face immediately turned red just like his suit looking at the page, it was your art style no doubt about it, were you really drawing him this whole time and he didn't notice!?

-" Uh Polly? You OK? You're starting to look like an actual parrot " the young magician asked looking at him confused before turning to see what she lage the sketchbook was on and understood immediately what got the young lawyer so flustered.

ℙ𝕙𝕠𝕖𝕟𝕚𝕩 𝕎𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥

-You 2 where in the same department in university before Phoenix decided to do law so he was aware of your drawing skills

- Unlike him you actually managed to keep your art skills and practiced even after university

- He didn't mind that you weren't the talkative type , he actually enjoyed the quiet times you 2 had together with the occasional pencil scratching on paper sounds

- He was always curious on what you were drawing, he also noticed how you always looked up at him then right back to the sketchbook

-He thought about you posing drawing him but quickly dismissed the thought

- Surely you weren't drawing little old him out of all people right?

-On day he was coming back into his office after a tough trial where you've been waiting for him

- Somehow you didn't hear him come in the room so you just continued adding little details to the drawing of him

-Phoenix walked up to you and peaked through your shoulder to see what you were doing and oh boy was he sur, I mean he was suspecting this but he's still surprised at the amount of detail,he leaned on the couch looking at you before saying " Looks like you're the same ____ from our uni days when it comes to art huh?" Which lead you to yelp in surprise and turn to his direction " H-how long have you been standing there!?" You ask him looking wide eyed with a blush on your face " eh long enough to see myself on that piece of paper " he replies with a smug grin

- Later he would like for you to teach him some art tricks you've got up your sleeve, it felt nostalgic to him to be able to draw again with you by his side

𝔾𝕠𝕕𝕠𝕥

-Probably walked in on you drawing and that's how he figured out about your passion for art

- He likes talking with you over different meanings in pictures over a cup of coffee( or drink of your choice)

-He's another one who's interested to know about art and if you want to you could always ramble things to him and he'll always listen neve turning you down

-You 2 were probably at a coffee shop of a friend of his and you went to get both of your orders when Godot noticed your sketchbook laying there and a page was opened

-Curiously he took a peak to only be met with himself staring at him

-when you come back with drinks in hand you noticed the open sketchbook

Shoot you forgot to close it when leaving !

-You awkwardly sat down , unable to look Godot in the eyes( or well visor ig)

-" Hah seems like you found yourself a muse?" He smirked looking you before taking a sip of his coffee " make sure you drink that before it gets cold, that's what ruins a drink you know " he says as you quickly grab the cup and chugged it down when it had cool down a bit

- He may seem unaffected by this whole ordeal but deep inside he's a flustered panicking mess

𝕊𝕚𝕞𝕠𝕟 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕝

-He's observant enough to figure out your skill

I mean not everyone has a sketchbook and pencil at their disposal all the time

-Honestly he probably knows that you're drawing him before you even realise it, but he decides to pretend he doesn't know

-You left your sketch on your desk as you went home last night and rushed for work tomorrow that you haven't even noticed you forgot your sketchbook as Simon's place

-Meanwhile Simon had a" day off " but you could hardly call it that considering he was at his desk, reading all sorts of paperwork

-His pet Taka flew away from his usual spot on Simon's shoulder to move a bit from his sitting position

-Taka managed to get into the living room to see his master's face on a piece of paper that was sitting on the coffee table

-The bird eyed the paper curiously before taking it into its beak and flying back to his owner's office

-Simon raised an eyebrow at what his pet was holding but as soon as he took it into his hands he realised what he was holding

-The drawing you were always working on and not to his surprise it was himself , though he has to admit it's impressive the level of detail you've put into it

-When you eventually come to visit him because you remembered you forgot something, he turns to you with a smirk holding the paper with the drawing of himself " And how long were you planning on keeping this to yourself hm?" He teases as your cheeks turn bright red and try to stammer and excuse but to no avail

𝕂𝕝𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕣 𝔾𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕟

-He probably saw some of your works as you 2 talked about your passions, even if you did hesitate to show him your art you trusted him to not judge you

-He was pleasantly surprised by your skill and often asked you for help on designing his new album cover

- While practiced on his guitar , on the corner of his eyes he saw you looking at him then back at your sketchbook

-He put his guitar back and walked beside you looking at you with an innocent " What do you have there mein kleiner künstler?"He asks as you keep the sketchbook close to your chest " Uhm nothing important " you mumbled looking away " No need to be shy now " he says as he leans in closer

Knowing Klavier you thought that maybe you won't have to embarrass yourself by showing him what you've been sketching so with a deep breath you shoved the sketchbook into his face, nearly hitting him in the face but Klavier quickly recovers and looks at the page, amazed on how you managed you capture his perfect self on a piece of paper

-"Mein mein, how impressive _____, I'm impressed " he compliments you before talking about how you could use your art or maybe even for his own career, but he will obviously pay you, he knows that art takes a lot of time and he knows he shouldn't just take that effort for free.

#fanfiction #ace attorney #fanfic #ace attorney x reader #ace attorney fanfiction #apollo justice x reader #miles edgeworth x reader #phoenix wright x reader #godot x reader #diego armando x reader #simon blackquill x reader #klavier gavin x reader

377 notes · View notes

amarguerite · 2 years

Text

Once Upon a One More Time

I saw the new Brittney Spears jukebox musical. It was a fever dream. I cannot describe it any better. I will say that I am not convinced that jukebox musicals are good. They are entertaining, but I’ve never seen one where I’ve thought, “wow this had something interesting and original to say!”

This one was... original, I will give you that, but it had the extremely confused messaging of a freshman in Feminist History 101 trying at the last minute to put together a presentation on The Feminine Mystique while still drunk and/or high from the Britney Spears-themed party in the living room her roommates were still at. Our frazzled Freshman pulled up a bunch of Disney movies to drown out the party, and instead of writing her paper, hallucinated this.

What I think actually happened is that the musical writers were given Britney Spears’s back catalogue, told that she likes fairy tales, and then tried to rewrite Into the Woods using only Britney Spears bangers, and Cliff Notes version of The Feminine Mystique.

The plot, such as it is, is that all the popular fairy tale characters live in a pocket dimension together, ruled over by the autocratic narrator, who insists that they endlessly perform their stories, while gaslighing them that they had ever been different or could be different (Cinderella’s Stepmother-- whose performance was just SNL’s Kate McKinnon pretending to be in an old movie-- at once point says, “Don’t you remember how dark this used to be? I used to cut off your sister’s toes!” and Cinderella going, “Oh wow, I totally forgot about that!”). Cinderella is our man character. She wants More, in the traditional Disney princess sense of “vague dissatisfaction with my life” and her fairy godmother (the notorious OFG, who was giving real pop culture Ruth Bader Ginsberg vibes) gives her a copy of The Feminine Mystique, which then inspires all the princesses to take a good look at their lives, realize that the prince they always marry in the end is the same prince, throw him down a wishing well, and go on strike. The narrator then banishes all the princesses to some weird glass holding cell “at story’s end,” which Cinderella then has to break by throwing her shoe at it. The princesses then all storm the castle and tie up the narrator, who magically has his mind changed and lets them write their own stories. Cinderella then thanks the fairy godmother, OFG, for the book and asks how OFG knew it would help. Turns out OFG was not merely an escaped princess, but Betty Friedan! THE END.

This bonkers plot gives the implication that

a) Betty Friedan was a fairy tale princess who somehow gained magical powers and I guess just decided to matriculate at Smith College in defiance of her lack of education in fairy tale land

b) Betty Friedan is still alive (she died in 2006!)

c) Betty Friedan is now a fairy godmother in possession of magical powers

I would DEARLY love to know what her estate thinks of this.

THE GOOD:

-Act I is a real fun romp

-There’s a subplot about one of Prince Charming’s dance entourage, Prince Erudite the Chaste, falling in love with Clumsy the Dwarf and they walk out of Act II with a little girl (the Reader) whom they have presumably adopted. There were like, mostly women in their 30s and gay couples with children at the performance I was at, so I thought, “oh how cute, I bet those dads are sobbing right now.” -The Prince was played by Justin what’s-his-name from season 1 of American Idol and he was really magnificent. Great dancer, great singer, very convincingly played the prince as an idiot fuckboi

-Some real fun uses of the big hits. a. “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” becomes the opening number, “Pick My Once Upon a Time,” which was... not good and the lyric changes were very stupid, but my friend and I shrieked with laughter through the whole thing. b. Cinderella’s “I Want More” song is “Lucky,” which all the princesses then join in on in the next few verses c. In the bit where the stepmother and stepsisters make Cinderella work, they sing, “Work, Bitch” at her d. Cinderella’s ball opens with everyone singing “Boys.” e. The Prince enters the ball singing “Circus.” f. When Snow White and Cinderella realize their princes are the same prince, he sings, “Oops I Did It Again,” in an attempt to get out of trouble g. Cinderella rallies the princesses after this, and they all collectively read The Feminine Mystique to “Scream and Shout.” h. Act I ends with the princesses realizing that Prince Charming is married to all of them and throwing him into the well to “Womanizer,” which is changed to “Princessizer.” i. The Stepmother convinces the Narrator to banish all the princesses to “Story’s End,” i.e. a big glass ball that got projected on the back of the stage by singing “Toxic” at him. j. Once the princesses are freed, they sing “Stronger” together

THE BAD:

-They front-loaded Act I with all the good songs so in Act II there was only “Stronger” and “Toxic.” There weren’t as many songs, and the other ones were like, B-list ones I didn’t recognize.

-Act II drags. They tried to make the plot serious and it doesn’t work

-The prince gets a half-hearted redemption arc in Act II where he complains he doesn’t have a choice either, he’s just written this way, and he just wants to be with Cinderella. Super unconvincing. Would have preferred him to remain in the wishing well for all of Act II or to just be dead.

-They should have killed the narrator like in Into the Woods. Instead he gets tied up, gets convinced of their arguments, and hands over the magical quill that controls their stories so that the princesses write their own stories

The whole thing has an issue I see in a lot of contemporary stuff these days where a piece of art/ a movie/ a musical/ whatever, will have a central idea of, “This Thing Is Bad, and We All Agree It Is Bad,” which is this case is misogyny. Sure that’s bad! What do we do to defeat misogynistic narratives and find personal fulfillment? Write our own stories. That’s... you know, fine, but it feels very like, “Twitter hot take” and there’s a lack of nuance in that answer (one that denies the very real difficulties of even telling one’s story at times, i.e. the professional publishing world, the barriers to entry there, attacks from others, disinformation, capitalism, etc) and weasles out of assigning blame to anyone or having anyone experience negative consequences for abuse of power, and lacks even the nuance of The Feminine Mystique, a very dated book. It fits because Friedan was living the life she was told every woman wanted and isn’t happy, but we’re like... maybe 2 waves of feminism past that. Also her critique of capitalism is ~mysteriously~ absent in the musical.

So, in short: Act I is a really fun hot mess. Act II is really boring. Betty Friedan is apparently magical.

43 notes · View notes

chaoticparker · 3 years

Text

Locked In

Peter parker x reader (kinda hinted at bi reader)

Summary: You and Peter get locked in a hotel room and force to stay together for the night, with only one bed :)

Words: 3.2k

Warnings: extreme fluff, some references to sex (if that even counts lol there are like 3), cheesy plot

masterlist

“FLASH LET US OUT!” You screamed, banging at the door.

“NOT UNTILL YOU AND PETER SAY THE MAGIC WORDS Y/N!” Flash teased back in response.

“How the hell are we gonna know what these fucking magic words are if you don’t tell us?” You annoyingly asked. There was silence from the other side, but soon you could make out faint whispers belonging to Flash, MJ, and Ned.

“You’ll both just have to figure it out yourselves” MJ snapped, but you weren’t sure if it was to Peter and you, or if she was just sick and tired of having to deal with Flash’s annoying behavior.

“Ned please, can you let me and y/n out? We don’t want to play your sick game.” Peter said, jiggling at the door knob.

“Sorry dude this is for your own good.” Ned replied, “and y/n’s”

When you imagined your first quiz bowl tournament of the year to D.C, you never imagined that you would be trapped in a room with Peter, banging at the door to let you out.

Mj had asked you and Peter to get something from the room, and as soon as you two stepped in, Flash locked you and Peter in the room of which you and MJ shared; which leaves you in your current predicament: trapped in a room late at night, with your best friend Peter Parker.

You would have been fine if this happened last year, but recently you discovered your newfound love for Peter. The way his smile made you feel safe and the way that his hugs would linger for a little longer than usual. And of course when you discovered he was spider-man, it only made you fall in love harder, the way he would risk his life for anyone, it made your heart feel things it never has before.

And of course Peter felt the same way about you. The only difference was that he knew from the moment he saw you, well maybe not exactly knew but he most definitely was in love. From the day you met each other in elementary school and still going strong in high school. His love only grew stronger each time you would laugh, each time you would smile, or just any time you were in the same room as each other.

Sure Peter had a few other little crushes here and there, but only because he confused the feeling of friendship and love. Because you both knew each other since you were both young and always called each other best friends he thought that the love he had for you was actually just friendship. But when he had met Liz and MJ, he believed that the feeling of friendship was actually love.

It was not until Ned had told him what his love was like with Betty did Peter realize that the feeling of friendship to you was actually the feeling of true love.

And when he figured it out, he felt like shit; and like a huge fucking idiot.

He started getting more and more nervous around you, scared of scaring you off or by being too boring so when you would talk, he tried to keep things from going off topic, before he could start rambling about something completely random.

You sighed heavily, regretting your last few actions. You didn’t want to make your self look stupid in-front of the Spider-man, but more importantly you didn’t want to make yourself look stupid in-front of Peter, the person you loved the most.

Peter eyed you carefully, not wanting to ruin anything either, then his stomach growled.

‘Oh shit’ he immediately thought. His checks got pink quickly and you looked at him and smiled understandingly, knowing with his fast metabolism that he had to eat more than everyone else just to have enough energy.

“Um what do we do if we are hungry?” Peter asked the others on the other side in the hotel hallway.

“Yeah Peter is right I didn’t have dinner yet and I'm starving.” You added.

“There is some food in the desk drawer and water in the mini fridge that I left for you both just incase.” MJ said.

Peter darted to the desk drawer and pulled out box of goldfish and then to the mini fridge and grabbed the water. He tossed you the water and sat on the bed, and you followed sitting next to him.

“MJ NED AND I ARE GONNA GO, HAVE FUN.” Yelled Flash.

“Wait don’t leave!?” You and Peter yelled at the same time, running to the door and tried to open but it was locked shut.

“Goodbye you two” MJ said in a mocking tone.

You and Peter stayed silent for the next few seconds, listening to their footsteps getting quieter until they were gone.

“What should we do now?” You asked Peter and you looked at him. He had flushed cheeks, and a raised brow. Clearly panicked, trying to think of sometime to do.

“I could-uh kick the door down with my super strength?” Peter suggested. You mulled it over for a bit then realized what the consequences would be.

“If you kick down the door people would wonder how two 16 year olds were able to knock down a door that is bolted. And it would leave me and MJ without a door which would mean we would have to pay for it.” You replied, still anxious and worried you hurt his feelings, but in response he nodded his head understandingly.

Truth is he only wanted to kick down the door to try and impress you. He knew what the consequences would be, but if you told him to do it and if he knew that it could improve his chances with you, he would do it in a heart beat.

But he knew that because you said no, he thought you would give him attitude as he knows how stubborn you are.

“We could try figuring out what these magic words are?” You asked.

“Ok, well the question is how do we approach this problem? Do we think of it as a riddle or more of a memory kind of question?” He was standing up and starting to pace.

“Do we even know if they’re even magic words?” You said, it was supposed to be joke but then you and Peter looked at each other and realized this could all just be payback from your prank war earlier this year.

Last month you, Peter, MJ, and Ned all created ‘The Prank War’. The idea was that you would pick a name out of a hat to be your partner, and you would try to pull pranks on the other team OR try and pull and prank on Flash just because as MJ so greatly said, ‘he’s a fuckin’ asshole that deserves to have his 3 inch dick turn into a 1 inch.” Which you completely agreed with, but it did leave Peter and Ned crossing their legs but they still nodded in agreement.

You and Peter had come up with a prank that would go perfectly, it involved Ned, MJ, and Flash (doubly points baby) and had ended with you and Peter laughing and the rest with stained clothes and flash with a baled spot.

“Shit, I knew Flash would want revenge for that, probably told MJ about it and then they roped Ned into it too.” Peter said.

“But it was so funny! I still have the photo” You smiled at the memory and Peter sat back down on the bed with you, also smiling

“Me too and do you remember the look on his face when he felt the bald spot? It was hilarious” Peter added.

The memory made both of you laugh and before you knew it, both of you were talking about anything and anyone, completely forgetting your fear of embarrassing yourself infant of the other.

“We should probably get comfortable until they hopefully come in the morning” Peter said, eyeing the clock. “Its 2 am and neither of us slept last night and we have to wake up at 9.”

Now that part, ‘get comfortable’ made your cheeks burn. You looked around the room and realized, “there is only one bed” you said. Peter now just realizing this looked around the room and then looked at the ground. And you did the same.

Because this trip was paid by the school, they got the worlds biggest shit-hole of a hotel that looked like it's gone through and survived multiple wars, but hasn’t been cleaned since the first one.

“The floor is disgusting and there is no couch, we are gonna have too...share the bed.” You admitted, hesitating slightly. Someone had to say it but the last few words didn’t sit right with you so you jumped up, “I’m going to get ready for bed and brush my teeth, and there are some sweatshirts of yours that I stole from you so you can wear that to bed.”

You grabbed your t-shirt and sweats that you normally slept in and went into the bathroom and closed the door, a sigh of relief filling your mind.

You brushed your teeth, washed your face and gave yourself a pep-talk in the mirror.

This is nothing to panic about, it's just a nap, you have fallen asleep next to Peter before, the only difference is this is intentional and you are not on a subway ride coming home from a concert.

“Y/n? Are you decent? Can I come in?” Peter knocked on the door.

You opened the door and Peter was standing in his sweatshirt and his sweats from before. You moved out of the way and allowed him to enter the tiny bathroom and you went to enter the main part of your room.

You looked at your phone for a bit, then started to spam MJ telling you to let her out but all she replied with was, ‘if you text me one more time I’m going to block you, then you're really gonna be suck in there ’. You sighed tossing your phone aside.

“Were you trying to text Mj?” Peter asked, “I tried Ned a minute ago and realized he’s probably asleep by now”

“Yeah, Mj threatened to block me.” You said. “And knowing her I don’t want to risk it.”

Peter yawned causing you to yawn also. “Maybe we should get some sleep” Peter suggested.

“Definitely, I feel like how I did when we watched the entirety of The lord of the rings and star wars over the weekend.” You said.

“But if I remember correctly you weren’t so tired when Anakin and Padame were on screen”

“Because they're both amazing and I love their characters dynamic. I mean, Anakin went to the dark side out of his love for Padame, and even in the end Padame still loved him because she knew he was doing this because someone used their love agents him and this was not who Anakin really is, just an extreme version of what he will do for their love. But it is still kinda stupid to go to the dark side, the side that Padame is completely against all for her” You stated defensively. You’ve done this rant before but Peter was not believing it.

“I think it's because you have a crush on them.”

“Maybe, or maybe I just like the idea of someone loving me to the point they would do anything to save our love” You dramatically stated.

oh, Peter thought, I would do anything for you too.

“But then again if I were a Jedi I would go to the dark side just to get the cool red lightsaber and to get some cool black clothing with one of those dramatically long capes that make you look like a cool villain so I guess I should not really talk about someones reasons going to the dark side.” You and Peter both started laughing.

“Oh no y/n if I was a Jedi I don’t want to have to dual you” Peter said in return and he walked over to the left side of the bed and sat down. With you sitting down on the right side.

“Oh please you’re just saying that because you know I would beat you in a fight”

“Are you forgetting who the superhero is in this room?”

“Yeah yeah whatever, I would still win because my dramatically long cape would intimidate you too much.”

When the childish bickering calmed down, you just stared at each other.You hesitantly lied down onto the bed and Peter did the same.He pulled down the covers and you both tucked yourselves under.

“Do you think that Ned, MJ and Flash are gonna open the door tomorrow?” Peter asked, trying to make it less awkward

“I don’t think they can compete when not everyone is there so probably.”

You both tried to get comfy and eventually you both fell asleep.

You woke up and the clock read 3 am, you took in your surroundings. You were on your quiz team trip to DC and you had been locked in a room with Peter and your feeling kinda warm and-

Oh my god

In the hour you both had been asleep you both had moved to the middle of the bed your hands were entwined and as you moved your hand and your body away, Peter woke up.

“Hey what’s going on?” Peter said sitting up a bit and rubbing his eyes.

“Oh uh, I woke up and we were close and I felt bad because I move a lot in my sleep and I didn’t want to bother you so I was just trying to move away and-”

You were cut off by Peter resting his hand on yours.

“You never bother me. You can’t, it’s impossible.” Peter asked. His face was a little pale like, he was scared of something, but he was also clearly tired.

“Thanks Peter that means a lot, but I just didn’t want to bother you when your-” you were cut off again but not by Peters hand on yours, but rather, his lips on yours.

You were shocked and could not process what was happening and he pulled away.

“Y/n I'm so sorry I didn’t mean to I just, the temptation was too strong and you look very nice and--well you always look nice but I have wanted to kiss you for a very, very-” and now it was your turn to cut him off.

You kissed him, and he kissed back. Your hands went to his hair and his hand went to your back to hug you and bring you even closer.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for awhile too” You finally said

“Ok, wow, um, I’m really glad I built up the nerve kiss you, I think that was the best thing I have ever done in my entire life.” Peter said smilingly, still holding you close, foreheads touching.

“Are you sure because last time I check I would have thought becoming a crime-fighting superhero and meeting Tony Stark would have been it?” You said sarcastically.

“I could see how you think that but I have really liked you since, I don’t know, I think when we met when we were 7? So I have liked you since I was 7 so I’ve wanted to kiss you for over half of my life.”

“Awe that’s sweet” You responded by kissing him again and then hugging him. “I think that’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard in my life.”

“Yes I am the sweetest guy here. Also... I would like to ask you on a date to be my girlfriend? If you are ok with that?” Peter asked, you both had pulled away from the hug and he was now twiddling with his thumbs, something he only does when he is nerves.

“Yes Peter I would love that.” You replied

He smiled and pulled you into a close and tight hug. “I’m gonna be super pissed if we go back to bed this ends up being a dream and none of this ever happened.” Peter said then realizing, “And I’m not suggesting we do something inappropriate-”

Peter was cut off by your laughter, “what’s so funny y/n?”

“Well, no matter if this is a dream or not, I know I will most defiantly still want to date you. And two at most we are cuddling, it's not like we are having sex, and besides we have know each other since we were 7, so we already know everything about one another. So don’t worry Peter” You looked at him with loving eyes.

Peter pulled you closer and you both started leaning back down towards the pillows. Your head was resting on his shoulder, arms wrapped around each other and legs tangled with one another.

It was blissful,

It was perfect,

It was the happiest place you both could be.

The next day you and Peter were waken up by harsh whispers and giggles. Peter and you looked up, and there standing at the foot of the bed was, Ned, MJ and Flash. All with their cameras out and cheesy smiles.

“Looks like you two had a fun night last night” Flash said, trying and failing to move his eyebrows up and down.

You got a pillow from behind you and threw it at him. It hit him right in his crotch, causing him to bend over in pain. He got the hint and left.

“No but really what did you guys do last night?” MJ asked.

“Y/n and I just talked and then fell asleep next to each other, we do it all the time what’s the problem with that?” Peter asked, he didn’t want to tell his friends group what really happened last night, at least not until after everyone gets back to Queens.

“Also what was the magic words?” You asked, still puzzled by the insane they had come up with while also trying to change the conversation.

“Oh that, it was just a way for you both to confess your undying love for one another.” MJ stated bluntly. “And it worked.”

Ned and MJ smiled, but you and Peter looked at each other confused.

“How do you know?” Peter asked

“Well, first of all how you guys were sleeping” Ned pulled up the photo of your too sleeping together, “looked like you too got extremely close.”

You and Peter stared in shock. Questions coming one after another.

“How did you know we liked each other?” You asked

“Because of the way you talked to each other, you both seemed to be in so much love, you just needed…” Neds words trailed off.

“… a push” MJ finished. “Well, you guys need to get ready for the competition today, so we will see you too love birds down in 10”

Ned and MJ left the room, with Ned dropping off Peters uniform on his way out.

“That was the weirdest shit to ever happen to me” Peter concluded, “and I got bitten by a radioactive spider.”

#peter parker x reader fluff #peter parker fluff #peter parker #peter parker x reader #spiderman #spider-man #spider-man x reader #spider-man x you #spider-man x y/n #peter parker x oc #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n

475 notes · View notes

j4gm · 3 years

Text

Obsidian lore thread!

Sharing this thread of lore, episode connections, and Easter eggs from Adventure Time: Distant Lands: Obsidian, originally written for my Twitter.

SPOILERS AHEAD, WATCH OBSIDIAN ON HBO MAX IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY

Keep reading for the full thread!

1) We've seen bombs scattered around the Land of Ooo before, but this is the first time we've seen the word "fission", confirming that they are nukes. Although we have seen the radiation roundel plenty of times so it's pretty obvious.

2) The "magic lightning" that created the Glass Kingdom could itself have been one of the nukes. Alternatively, it could have been the catalyst comet, although Finn has no connection to this place so that's probably not the case.

3) The subtitles for the first four minutes video suggested that Glassboy was saying "crap" here. However, the HBO Max subtitles confirm he is actually saying "crack".

4) All of Marceline's classic furniture is present, but Bubblegum's influence is very visible; a doily on the couch, a flask underneath, new barstools from the Candy Kingdom, and the pink lamp in the bedroom, just to name a few examples.

5) Lady Rainicorn slippers. That is all.

6) Chocoberry on the cover of a magazine. Looks like she's been dipped in white chocolate for this shoot.

7) This is the first time we've seen Choose Goose since he appeared as "Achoos Goose" in the Elements miniseries. Last time we saw his normal form was all the way back in season five's "Blade of Grass", nearly seven years ago. Is it weird that Choose Goose was the first thing in the episode to make me cry?

8) It appears that Princess Bubblegum has not rebuilt the Gumball Guardians since they were destroyed in the battle against GOLB.

9) There are lots of familiar candy people in and around the tavern, from a variety of seasons, including Kenneth, Dirt Beer Guy, Cherry Cream Soda, a Banana Guard 500, Lollipop Girl, and Smudge.

10) Simon is of course singing "Remember You". He is also using the omnichord that was used in that episode. Interestingly, this suggests he might remember some of his experiences as the Ice King.

11) This isn't the first time Dirt Beer Guy's tavern has hosted an open mic night. He also held one in "Son of Rap Bear", and even used the same banner, although it's looking a little tattered and worn out now.

12) Simon doesn't look any older than he did in the finale. This might mean that Betty's wish made him immortal, or it simply might not have been long enough for him to visibly age.

13) This is the oversized shirt given to Marceline by her father in the episode "Marcy & Hunson". It's looking a little faded these days.

14) Bubblegum's outfit is of a similar style to the one in "The Vault", but it's not the same. The fact she's not wearing her amulet might suggest this flashback takes place after "The Vault", but nothing is known for certain.

15) There are gravestones outside Marceline's house, but these actually aren’t new. They previously appeared in “Go With Me”. So don’t worry, these don’t belong to Jake or anything like that.

16) Simon's coping mechanism would be funny if it wasn't so sad. It's going to be a long time before he fully recovers. On a lighter note, the magnets on the fridge say "M PB" which is pretty cute.

17) This is our first time seeing the outside of Elise's van. We previously saw the interior in "Everything Stays". Also, we learned from the credits and subtitles that her name is Elise!

18) Previously, it wasn't known whether or not Elise survived the Mushroom War. Turns out she did... but not for long. It's also now unclear whether the flashback from "Everything Stays" happened before or after the war.

19) A nice little timeline detail: Marceline travelling with her mother for a while explains the awkward two year gap between the Mushroom War and the events of "Simon & Marcy".

20) Here's a comparison of the parts of Marceline's song that got corrupted into the current version. The Glass People got really obsessed with the idea of the song being about coconuts for some reason.

21) PB yelling "Scree!" to summon the Morrow is a callback all the way to the season two episode "Death in Bloom", which is when the Morrow made their debut.

22) Disease is added to the long list of things that helped wipe out humanity. I wonder if this disease is related to the one that Hugo and his crew gave to the grays in the BMO special. I also wonder if Marceline is immune thanks to her demon half.

23) The mutant puppy was able to say the word "wassup". Perhaps this is a halfway stage to the talking animals that now populate the Land of Ooo.

24) Turns out Marceline discovered her demon powers before she defeated the Fool. This is the first appearance of these kinds of soulless husks since "It Came From the Nightosphere" in season two.

25) This is the first new candy power we've seen Princess Bubblegum use since she learned how to create mints and soda in "Jelly Beans Have Power".

26) Marceline not caring about the glass people is very in line with her personality in the early seasons, such as when she was happy to let her father suck souls as long as she got her bass back.

27) No Easter egg here, just an extremely good image.

28) Here's the screenshot leaked by Adam Muto last month. Like the gas station in "Bonnibel Bubblegum", the graffiti here tells an interesting story. Seems like the Land of Ooo had a bit of a Mad Max phase while the humans were still around.

29) This is (as far as I know) only the second time an Adventure Time character has ever been shown bleeding. The first was the heart monster in "The Enchiridion", but that was a lot less realistic.

30) The fact that humans survived long enough to construct a whole Fallout-style bunker confirms that the near-extinction of humanity wasn't a quick process. It makes you wonder whether any other groups made it, besides the Islanders.

31) Apart from this being one of the darkest scenes in the entire show, I like the background detail of bank notes being used as toilet paper.

32) Marceline grew up blaming herself for her mother leaving, and says she is like her dad. It sounds like Elise has told Marceline a bit about Hunson Abadeer, and is scared and angry at him.

33) This actually isn't the first time Marceline's bass has been broken. She also snapped the handle during her fight with the Vampire King. However, it's never been completely shattered like this.

34) This might be a reference to the Hall of Egress. That's the only other time we've heard Bubblegum use that word.

35) Confirmation that Princess Bubblegum doesn't have bones. I guess that counts as lore?

36) The gag of the Banana Guards slipping over each other was also done in "The Thin Yellow Line" and probably some other episodes I'm forgetting.

37) Jake’s granddaughter Bronwyn is certainly an unexpected appearance. I wonder what affiliation she has with the main cast now?

38) And of course... FINN! I would estimate he's aged about five to ten years since the finale, but it's hard to tell with Adventure Time's style. He looks younger than he did in Puhoy's alternate future.

39) Lots of people have been theorising that the tattoo implies that something unfortunate has happened to Jake. Perhaps we'll get to know more about that in Together Again. Let's not dwell on it for now.

40) A canon origin story for the shirt, plus a Bubbline first meeting! This overrides the P.B. & Marcy comic, and re-contextualises a whole bunch of the old Bubbline episodes!

That’s all for now! Let me know if you can think of anything I missed!

#adventure time #obsidian #bubbline #lorepost

459 notes · View notes

funnyincorrectmcu · 3 years

Note

Saw you were doing an ask spree so I have a question! What are your ultimate favourite Marvel fanfics? (Ao3 answers preferable!)

OOOH!!!

I ALWAYS LOVE THIS QUESTION!! But it’s also always SOO hard, because I have SO many fics that I ADORE! <3 <3 <3

Okay okay. Since you’re asking for ultimate favorites, but since you’re also in a sense kind of asking for recommendations, I’ll do you a solid and give you a list of fifteen (which is really doing myself a solid because it means there are fewer that I have to narrow down).

That said, if you really want my full list, go to my AO3 account and check out my bookmarks (and some of my works, if you’re interested!). Because there truly are a LOT of AMAZING writers out there. <3 <3

Alright. Here goes nothing.

Also, I am SO sorry this took me so long, but it took me forever to narrow down to fifteen, and even with THAT, I cheated. XD

Also also, fair warning, 95% of these are Tony and Peter centric. <3

Also also also (lots of also’s, oops XD), I’m gonna give a little bit of info on each one for anyone interested, but PLEASE, read all tags and warnings before you actually start reading, because some of these are a little rougher than others. (Btw, when I say “major warnings”, I’m referring to AO3′s “major archive warnings” list.)

1. More Ancient Than Magic by @ironfamjam

This is a mini Hogwarts AU that I absolutely ADORE and think about at least once a week. The way the author melds the two universes is incredible and so well done, and I quote it all the time. One-shot, IronFam centric, featuring Ned and MJ, with special guest appearances from the other Avengers and Peter’s classmates. No major warnings.

2. Everybody Loves Skip by @baloobird

Okay, Kris is my favorite MCU fanfic author of all time, so you’ll see her on here a couple of times. This is by far my favorite story of hers, and it’s what made me fall in love with Interwebs. <3 <3 Multichapter, Peter centric, featuring Ace!Peter and Interwebs, with special guest appearances from Tony, May, and Tracy Leeds. Minor sexual harassment/non-con, but it doesn’t get too graphic.

3. Ohana by @jen27ny

I read this story as a part of last year’s Irondad Big Bang, and let me tell you, I was SOOO invested. I got to the point where I had to send in play by play reactions because I was so emotionally invested. The story is so well told. <3 Multichapter, Tony and Peter centric, featuring Pepperony, Spideychelle, and minor Stucky, with special guest appearances from the rest of the Avengers, HYDRA, and my fast beating heart. No major warnings.

4. Come, My Darling, Homeward Bound by @i-am-irondad

ANOTHER Irondad Big Bang 2020 story that I became OVERLY invested in to the point that I had to send play by plays in to the author. It’s a Room AU, and she NAILS each and every one of the character dynamics. I never even saw Room, and I loved it. <3 Multichapter, Tony, Peter, and Morgan centric, featuring the rest of IronFam, Spideychelle, and adorable sibling moments, with special guest appearances from Quentin Beck and my tears. Minor implied sexual harassment/non-con. (She also has a prequel and a sequel, just so you know.)

5. The Lightning Strike by @booksxtvxsupernatural

Yet ANOTHER Irondad Big Bang 2020 story that hit me right in the feels. This is a canon-divergent post-Infinity War fic, and the way the author shows how events could’ve transpired is so realistic and beautiful. <3 One-shot, Tony and Peter centric, featuring Harley Keener and Nebula, with special guest appearances from IronFam, May Parker, and several other Avengers.

6. Family Doesn’t End with Blood by @baloobird

This is a series of one-shots by my girl Kris based off of the Irondad Bingo prompts, so there are a lot of different prompts and themes, but they ALL rock. Multichapter, Tony and Peter centric, featuring Ace!Peter, IronFam, and Interwebs, with special guest appearances from several other MCU characters. Warnings vary, so pay attention to the tags and read the notes.

7. I love you more than anything (bio dad AU) by @iron--spider

Okay, so maybe this is cheating, because it’s technically a series, but every fic in it is so good that I couldn’t possibly pick just one. I just love the whole series, because I love how the author builds their relationship. It’s so cute. <3 Series of one shots, Tony and Peter centric, featuring the rest of the Stark and Parker family and baby Peter, with special guest appearances from Obadiah Stane, James Rhodes, and Happy Hogan. No major warnings.

8. sometimes, people just die (and sometimes, they don’t) by @snarky-drabbles

This one was for the 2019 Irondad Secret Santa (huh. No wonder so many of them are Tony and Peter centric. XD), and it’s an amazing time loop story that takes place during Endgame and has an ending you might not expect, but it ROCKS. One-shot, Tony and Peter centric from Peter’s POV, featuring Pepper Potts and Stephen Strange, with special guest appearances from a whole lot of fighting. XD

9. A Rite of Passage by @baloobird

Another ADORABLE Interwebs from my favorite person, because she made me obsessed with this ship and now I can’t stop. XD One-shot, Interwebs centric (wait, did I actually find one that isn’t Tony and Peter??), featuring Ace!Peter and Bi!Ned, with special guest appearances from Brad Davis, Flash Thompson, and Betty Brant. Minor sexual harassment/non-con, but nothing graphic at all.

10. Where Dreams are Nightmares in Disguise by @baloobird

This one was actually written for me, by Kris, so obviously, it made this list. I seriously cannot thank her enough for writing this amazing fic for me based on my prompt, and for writing it so well! I LOVED IT! <3 One-shot, Tony, Peter, and Morgan centric, featuring Pepper Potts and lots of LEGOS, with a special guest appearance from a really bad dude. No major warnings.

11. harm and foul by @iron--spider

You know, there’s a lot of Tony protecting Peter out there, but sometimes, I just really wanna see Peter protecting Tony, and this is a GREAT example of that. One-shot, Tony and Peter centric, featuring IronFam, Ned Leeds, and bada** mofo Peter Parker, with special guest appearances from Justin Hammer and a few Avengers. No major warnings.

12. Sugar, Butter, Flour by @doctornineandthreequarters

Another one written for me, this time by the incredible Jaime for the 2019 Irondad Secret Santa, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. She took my prompts to heart and created some BEAUTIFUL sibling bonding and I LOVE it!! <3 <3 One-shot, Peter, Harley, and Morgan centric (whoa. Another one without Tony. See? I have variety! ...kind of. XD), featuring Pepperony and adorable sibling love, with a special guest appearance from a Karen. No major warnings.

13. Bite the Bullet by @baloobird

In case you haven’t figured it out, yet, I love you, Kris. XD <3 Another amazing ace story that gets me feeling all kinds of validated and loved. <3 One-shot, Tony and Peter centric, featuring Spideychelle, Ace!Peter, and Ace!Tony, with a special guest appearance from BFF Ned and lots of lovely ace acceptance. No major warnings.

14. what is stronger than the human heart which shatters over and over and still lives by @lyssismagical

So, I started reading her works solely through Tumblr, and when I finally realized that she had an AO3, I went on there and bookmarked a TON of her stories immediately. This is one of her more recent ones, but it’s one of my faves, even with all the whump (being Whumptober and all). It has a positive ending, I promise. One-shot, Tony and Peter centric, featuring amazing BFF Michelle Jones, protective Peter Parker, and adorable little sister Morgan Stark, with special guest appearances from Pepper Potts, May Parker, and a lot of family love and support. Rape/non-con, but it isn’t super graphic.

15. Peaches by @peterparkrr

This was yet another Irondad Secret Santa 2019 fic, and while this one wasn’t written specifically for me, I freaking loved it. There’s so much tension and mystery in this, and I seriously thought I was gonna pass out reading it from all of my worry. But, luckily, it has a happy ending. One-shot, Tony and Peter centric, featuring canon divergence and lots of references to other Avengers, with a special guest appearance from a terrible government. No major warnings.

And there’s my top 15! But, because I said I was cheating, here are two bonus fics that cannot be found on AO3. I know you prefer AO3, but trust me when I say you cannot pass these up.

1. This fic by @loubuttons

This was posted directly to Tumblr, but I have it saved in screenshots on my phone and I re-blog it all the time because I absolutely ADORE it. I will always be down for Peter and Morgan fics, especially when Tony is involved, and this one touches my heart like no other. One-shot, Tony, Peter, and Morgan centric, featuring protective big bro Peter Parker and Tony being an amazing parent, with special guest appearances from equally awesome Pepper Potts and May Parker. No major warnings.

2. He’s My Intern? by losingmymindtonight (if they have a Tumblr, I don’t know it, so if anyone knows it, please find them and tell them they’re awesome)

This one was posted on FF.net, and it was actually one of the first Tony and Peter stories I ever read, and it BLEW me away. This one is another series of one-shots, but each one is filled with soft Tony and Peter moments and I love it. Multichapter, Tony and Peter centric, featuring Happy Hogan, Bruce Banner, F.R.I.D.A.Y., and all the hurt/comfort you could possibly want, with special guest appearances from Pepper Potts, May Parker, Ned Leeds, and several other Avengers. No major warnings.

Okaaaaay. I think that’s it??

Wow. That took me FOREVER.

And I’m not even sorry, because all of these authors deserve ALL of the credit I gave them.

Thank you so much for asking this! I hope I didn’t bore you or babble too much. XD

All of you should definitely check out these amazing fics! They 100% deserve the praise! <3 <3

Thanks again for asking! <3

#asks #personal #not an incorrect quote #still mcu #fan fiction #fanfic #fanfic recs #mcu #mcu fanfic #fan fiction recommendations #mcu fan fiction

165 notes · View notes