Threat or menace?
What a month, huh? I land on the island from Lost's Jurassic Park-themed cousin -- let's call it Isla Lostar, and see if anyone gets a reference that hyper-obscure -- and then a space station almost lands on top of me. Actually on top of me, specifically, mostly because I put myself right in its path. They should kick me out of school, because I'm an idiot.
Oh, and I go to school, because they have one, staffed like it's something out of a sketch comedy. In between near-death experiences, this is where I am, that's my day. And if Peter's to be believed, there's only two or so of those a year, which used to be my quota for a week. I suppose I should look forward to not being in fear of my life, but I still don't entirely believe it. Like I said, one month, one space station, and I think Isla Lostar counts as a life-threatening situation in and of itself, what with the dinosaurs and mysterious forces at work doing who-knows-what. Distributing chickens. So that's two, and I just hit the one month mark today.
Appropriately, the gift is paper-themed. Okay, I think paper is one year, actually, but the number is the same. It's not really a gift, anyway, that was just an elaborate way of- never mind. Where was I?
Right, so, there's a newspaper. I knew there was, because the editor came and tried to talk to me and I told him to talk to my press secretary, and then he asked who that was.
He was then very apologetic about the fact my named press secretary, C.J. Cregg, was no longer on the island, and hadn't been for some time. I really gotta watch those references, they're going to get me in trouble.
So I knew there was a paper, I just half-expected it to be written on the back of a large leaf. It's not.
There's a masthead and everything. It says, under the adorned text declaring it The Tabula Rasa Times, that The truth shall make ye fele, so that's very inspiring. That's a motto to remember. This is followed by about three headlines for the same event in ever-smaller letters, as if the editor came up with all these headlines and couldn't pick just one.
STARK'S SPACE STATION SPLASH is my favorite, though. It's just so catchy and old-school, as, indeed, the sensibilities of the whole exercise seem to be. I find myself a comfortable perch to read on one of the wooden towers in the playground, the one with the slide. Lots of mentions of valiant efforts and intrepid adventurers fighting off ruthless revenants. That's actually in there, 'ruthless revenants.' It's around then I start to figure that the editor is probably from a time period a little earlier than I'm used to. That, or he just likes being colorful. At one point he refers to Iron Man as a paladin, like, just in passing, as if he got sick of typing Iron Man and Tony Stark -- and to be fair, those are words that are in this thing a lot -- and just started throwing out words for dudes in armor.
Then I hit the name Peter Parker and nearly fall off the tower out of sheer reflexive panic that we've been found out, that the gig is up. On calming down and reading closer, I find out that's not exactly the case.
Stark was aided in his efforts by council member Peter Parker (29), who he describes as having been instrumental in the effort to prevent the machinations of the blackguard GLaDOS from coming to deadly fruition. "Mr Parker was there in his capacity as a council member and scientist," he said, "and his intellectual input proved invaluable in solving the neuorotoxin issue and in formulating the plan that kept the space station from impacting the island."
Parker seems to be somewhat of a magnet for trouble, having landed in the island clinic on two previous occasions, one of those as a result of an altercation with Stark himself, but managed to avoid coming to harm in this instance, despite the formidable gauntlet that faced the tenacious trio as they made their way to the dark heart of the station.
I have to take a break again. This time I'm gripped not by panic but by laughter, though. Somewhat of a magnet for trouble. "If you only knew, de Worde. If you only knew."
Mostly, though, Stark gets center stage, although he seems a bit more prone to sharing it than I might have expected; there's Peter's mention, but also a fair bit of time devoted to a man named Duo Maxwell, who sacrificed himself to allow Stark to get back control of the station. It gets pretty effusive. Lots of complimentary adjectives. And then there's Stark's contribution.
"Unquestionably a hero," is Stark's estimation, the accuracy of which can be in no doubt. "If there are any potential heroes out there trying to figure out how it's done, here's your yardstick. Whatever synonyms you find in your thesaurus next to heroic, those probably apply." The Times would note that these might include bold, classic, courageous, daring, dauntless, gallant and gutsy, among others. Stark emphasized Mr Maxwell's humor in the face of adversity, and that he "was a great kisser. And he didn't look at explosions. You don't have to put that one in, but definitely the great kisser part, that has to go in there."
Well, that's a thing. I wonder how many universes they had to go through to find that Iron Man? I'm not judging, I mean, I'm the girl Spider-Man, I just wouldn't have figured it of Tony Stark. Any of them.
Then, just as I think this article can't get any weirder, it does, because there's my name. There it is...
...carried to the top of the water tower by Jessica Drew (16), who valiantly activated the ZPM despite being placed in great personal peril as the space station hurtled towards the very spot she stood, stalwart.
...in black and white. All the news that is fit to print. Apparently I am fit to print.
"Oh, god, what," I say. It just slips out, because oh god, what? I didn't valiantly anything, I just hit a button in a panicked fashion! Okay, okay, I was part of the, where is it, it was earlier, the 'resourceful and inventive team of scientific prodigies assembled to find a solution to the precipitous threat,' I'll accept that one -- although I'm not too sure about 'prodigy' -- but it makes it sound like I stood up there, sneered at the giant space station that was about to knock my face off, also the whole rest of me, said something clever, and then didn't even turn around while it exploded behind me.
Maybe I should have talked to him. I expected something more along the lines of the old JJJ, I guess, I don't have great experiences with the press. Then again, I don't know if I'd want how terrified I was on record. Should I be happy? I'm mostly just unsettled. There I am, my name. Not Spider-Woman -- or Spider-Girl, since some outlets just can't get that straight -- but Jessica Drew. The name I was given, the one I choose to use.
I honestly don't know what to do with this. I turn it over and read the rest of the articles, as if not looking at it will make it go away. Turns out the reason I got stuck in the most awkward sleepover in history was that some people were busy re-enacting the plot of Jumanji, so... that weekend could have been worse, that's nice, I suppose. Someone opened a bakery, so there's that fresh bread crisis solved. Community service auction, that's... civic. There's a lengthy profile on Duo Maxwell, that looks a bit like the editor settled on it as a compromise since it's not really clear if he's dead or not. A straight up obituary for a Mike Pinocchio, a lot of notices about people who have disappeared. And oh, look, a list of new people on the island, there's my name again. Just put that thing all over the paper, shall we? I'll just write it in the crossword, too.
Maybe I should get off this slide. It doesn't go into any great detail about my climbing up the water tower, fortunately, but still, maybe getting a reputation as 'that girl that climbs things' isn't the greatest of ideas. I figured the slide was pretty harmless, since it's a playground, but in retrospect, maybe not.
I don't, though, not right away. First I turn the paper back over and boggle at my name in print some more.
[ST/LT welcome, all the tags, give them to me. The paper came out around today, this is my solution in lieu of mocking them up.]
Oh, and I go to school, because they have one, staffed like it's something out of a sketch comedy. In between near-death experiences, this is where I am, that's my day. And if Peter's to be believed, there's only two or so of those a year, which used to be my quota for a week. I suppose I should look forward to not being in fear of my life, but I still don't entirely believe it. Like I said, one month, one space station, and I think Isla Lostar counts as a life-threatening situation in and of itself, what with the dinosaurs and mysterious forces at work doing who-knows-what. Distributing chickens. So that's two, and I just hit the one month mark today.
Appropriately, the gift is paper-themed. Okay, I think paper is one year, actually, but the number is the same. It's not really a gift, anyway, that was just an elaborate way of- never mind. Where was I?
Right, so, there's a newspaper. I knew there was, because the editor came and tried to talk to me and I told him to talk to my press secretary, and then he asked who that was.
He was then very apologetic about the fact my named press secretary, C.J. Cregg, was no longer on the island, and hadn't been for some time. I really gotta watch those references, they're going to get me in trouble.
So I knew there was a paper, I just half-expected it to be written on the back of a large leaf. It's not.
There's a masthead and everything. It says, under the adorned text declaring it The Tabula Rasa Times, that The truth shall make ye fele, so that's very inspiring. That's a motto to remember. This is followed by about three headlines for the same event in ever-smaller letters, as if the editor came up with all these headlines and couldn't pick just one.
STARK'S SPACE STATION SPLASH is my favorite, though. It's just so catchy and old-school, as, indeed, the sensibilities of the whole exercise seem to be. I find myself a comfortable perch to read on one of the wooden towers in the playground, the one with the slide. Lots of mentions of valiant efforts and intrepid adventurers fighting off ruthless revenants. That's actually in there, 'ruthless revenants.' It's around then I start to figure that the editor is probably from a time period a little earlier than I'm used to. That, or he just likes being colorful. At one point he refers to Iron Man as a paladin, like, just in passing, as if he got sick of typing Iron Man and Tony Stark -- and to be fair, those are words that are in this thing a lot -- and just started throwing out words for dudes in armor.
Then I hit the name Peter Parker and nearly fall off the tower out of sheer reflexive panic that we've been found out, that the gig is up. On calming down and reading closer, I find out that's not exactly the case.
Stark was aided in his efforts by council member Peter Parker (29), who he describes as having been instrumental in the effort to prevent the machinations of the blackguard GLaDOS from coming to deadly fruition. "Mr Parker was there in his capacity as a council member and scientist," he said, "and his intellectual input proved invaluable in solving the neuorotoxin issue and in formulating the plan that kept the space station from impacting the island."
Parker seems to be somewhat of a magnet for trouble, having landed in the island clinic on two previous occasions, one of those as a result of an altercation with Stark himself, but managed to avoid coming to harm in this instance, despite the formidable gauntlet that faced the tenacious trio as they made their way to the dark heart of the station.
I have to take a break again. This time I'm gripped not by panic but by laughter, though. Somewhat of a magnet for trouble. "If you only knew, de Worde. If you only knew."
Mostly, though, Stark gets center stage, although he seems a bit more prone to sharing it than I might have expected; there's Peter's mention, but also a fair bit of time devoted to a man named Duo Maxwell, who sacrificed himself to allow Stark to get back control of the station. It gets pretty effusive. Lots of complimentary adjectives. And then there's Stark's contribution.
"Unquestionably a hero," is Stark's estimation, the accuracy of which can be in no doubt. "If there are any potential heroes out there trying to figure out how it's done, here's your yardstick. Whatever synonyms you find in your thesaurus next to heroic, those probably apply." The Times would note that these might include bold, classic, courageous, daring, dauntless, gallant and gutsy, among others. Stark emphasized Mr Maxwell's humor in the face of adversity, and that he "was a great kisser. And he didn't look at explosions. You don't have to put that one in, but definitely the great kisser part, that has to go in there."
Well, that's a thing. I wonder how many universes they had to go through to find that Iron Man? I'm not judging, I mean, I'm the girl Spider-Man, I just wouldn't have figured it of Tony Stark. Any of them.
Then, just as I think this article can't get any weirder, it does, because there's my name. There it is...
...carried to the top of the water tower by Jessica Drew (16), who valiantly activated the ZPM despite being placed in great personal peril as the space station hurtled towards the very spot she stood, stalwart.
...in black and white. All the news that is fit to print. Apparently I am fit to print.
"Oh, god, what," I say. It just slips out, because oh god, what? I didn't valiantly anything, I just hit a button in a panicked fashion! Okay, okay, I was part of the, where is it, it was earlier, the 'resourceful and inventive team of scientific prodigies assembled to find a solution to the precipitous threat,' I'll accept that one -- although I'm not too sure about 'prodigy' -- but it makes it sound like I stood up there, sneered at the giant space station that was about to knock my face off, also the whole rest of me, said something clever, and then didn't even turn around while it exploded behind me.
Maybe I should have talked to him. I expected something more along the lines of the old JJJ, I guess, I don't have great experiences with the press. Then again, I don't know if I'd want how terrified I was on record. Should I be happy? I'm mostly just unsettled. There I am, my name. Not Spider-Woman -- or Spider-Girl, since some outlets just can't get that straight -- but Jessica Drew. The name I was given, the one I choose to use.
I honestly don't know what to do with this. I turn it over and read the rest of the articles, as if not looking at it will make it go away. Turns out the reason I got stuck in the most awkward sleepover in history was that some people were busy re-enacting the plot of Jumanji, so... that weekend could have been worse, that's nice, I suppose. Someone opened a bakery, so there's that fresh bread crisis solved. Community service auction, that's... civic. There's a lengthy profile on Duo Maxwell, that looks a bit like the editor settled on it as a compromise since it's not really clear if he's dead or not. A straight up obituary for a Mike Pinocchio, a lot of notices about people who have disappeared. And oh, look, a list of new people on the island, there's my name again. Just put that thing all over the paper, shall we? I'll just write it in the crossword, too.
Maybe I should get off this slide. It doesn't go into any great detail about my climbing up the water tower, fortunately, but still, maybe getting a reputation as 'that girl that climbs things' isn't the greatest of ideas. I figured the slide was pretty harmless, since it's a playground, but in retrospect, maybe not.
I don't, though, not right away. First I turn the paper back over and boggle at my name in print some more.
[ST/LT welcome, all the tags, give them to me. The paper came out around today, this is my solution in lieu of mocking them up.]