#I know 1984 didn’t live up to the hype but Wonder Woman was still a fan favorite

[lookstairs]

Listen I wasn’t a huge fan of Man of Steel or Henry Cavill but what WB did was an asshole move

They had him take time out of his schedule to film a cameo for Black Adom and announce his return just to dump him

Idk if they’re just trying to shoot them selves in the foot or if they really thought doing things this way would be best but after the shit show that was Batgirl (which frankly I’m still pissed about) they could’ve handled this WHOLE thing better.

I’m just so worried about where the DCEU is heading from here

#and now I’m seeing things about Wonder Woman being scrapped to like ??? #I know 1984 didn’t live up to the hype but Wonder Woman was still a fan favorite #this whole thing has been a shitshow #dceu cast #man of steel #henry cavill

[casicroaks]

Tiffany Valentine has two things in her mind: love and murder. The origins of the brains behind the infamous Lakeshore Strangler and the string of broken hearts she left along her way to Chicago, interwoven with the development of the tempestuous relationship between her and a certain Charles Lee Ray.

CHAPTER 2

[ CHAPTER 1 // CHAPTER 2 // CHAPTER 3 // CHAPTER 4 // CHAPTER 5 // CHAPTER 6 // CHAPTER 7 // CHAPTER 8 // CHAPTER 9 // CHAPTER 10 // CHAPTER 11 // CHAPTER 12 // CHAPTER 13 // CHAPTER 14 // CHAPTER 15 // CHAPTER 16 ]

NEW JERSEY, 1984

“Honey, I’m home!” I said in a sing-song voice as I stepped into my apartment. Not that anyone would answer. I lived alone. I just liked saying that out loud.

I hung my coat and threw my heels off to the side, groaning from having to walk all the way from my workplace to my home. It wasn’t that far, but my last good pair of shoes had fallen to pieces a week ago, and I was still softening the new replacements. I knew I needed to go shopping one of these days. I had only three pairs of shoes: the new red heels, some indoor slippers, and the old leather boots which I was still figuring out a way to wear with my everyday outfits. I really had no excuse not to go get myself some new shoes… Especially since, once a week, I passed by the big shopping malls on my way back home, when it was all lit up with its neon lights and looking real pretty. I admired the clothes, the shoes, the jewelry in their glass cases, trying my best to hype myself up to at least consider buying myself something, like a little present from me to me… But there was nothing I really wanted. Despite working at a beauty parlor, I didn’t care much about looking beautiful anymore. I had the same dresses as before, and I was content with them. Not happy, really. I was never truly happy with the way I looked. Just content. And spending that money I was saving (and that I always ended up spending on groceries and rent) on dresses I didn’t have any interest in just seemed like a stupid idea. Still, I went to the mall every week, like a parishioner returning to the church. It was just something to do.

The little mirror I had nailed to the wall beside the front door gave me back a blur, and I silently chided myself for not stopping by to fluff my hair and check on my makeup. Just like the shoes, even if I had gotten my hair styled quite some months ago (as soon as I had my last break-up, actually) there was still a slight discomfort to seeing it. Like I didn’t quite recognize myself yet, and I didn’t know when I would. I had tried a new hair dye, for once: I had already been blond, brunette… Anything but going back to my original black color. So, red it was. Bright red, like my mother’s.

I read once that the reason women use red lipstick instead of any other color was to attract attention to the lips, since red’s the most eye-catching color in the spectrum. Going into my little kitchen I wondered, was I desperate for attention? Yeah, probably. Was I horny as hell, already tired of my own hand and too broke for a battery-operated alternative? That too. If there’s something I learnt from working at a beauty salon is that a change of image does wonders for a woman. Even something like dyeing your hair can help you feel like a whole different person. And for the first few days, it felt like that. I tried being happier, smiling more, adding a little skip to my step, doing all the bullshit self-help articles, radio therapists and motivational speakers on TV said one should do to be happy. Tough luck. I kept wanting to leave everything, my job, my apartment, change my name and start over somewhere else again (as if that would really change anything), or just skip town and scream in some field or abandoned grounds until my lungs gave up. Like that had worked so well last time. I was so goddamn pissed at everything, and there was a point in which I couldn’t just chalk it up to my breakup. The money always ran out, even when my pay wasn’t that bad, even as I tried to eat less, watch less TV, stop going to the movies, cut down on everything but the most basic expenses. And then, then I felt like I was starving, and it was a constant pull and push between spending my week’s earnings on convenience store snacks or loading it all inside my mattress, saving up for… Something.

Really, I simply had nothing to look forward to.

Maybe I should get a cat, I thought, opening the fridge and having a gulp of milk straight from the carton, before realizing it tasted sour and spitting it out. Well, maybe a dog, then… But I remembered what Arlene had told me not too long ago. A dog, a cat, a bird –they can and will all just up and leave when they get the chance. So much for loyalty. And cages were not cheap.

I remembered I still had some discount tequila left. I had been smart then, and bought two bottles. I was about to pour myself a glass, ready to change into my nightdress and spend the night watching TV, maybe order some Chinese food, and fall asleep in the couch, and do the same the next day, though most likely without the tequila. Or I could go straight to bed (I had heard that sleeping early did wonders for one’s skin) but I wasn’t tired, just exhausted… What I wanted most was to turn off my brain. Turn off my brain, and have a good screwing. By lack of a warm body to share the place, though, the best option I had was to lock myself up in my drab apartment, find the energy to try and finger myself, and watch TV. What else was I gonna do that night, and the weekend after that, after all? Listen to my mother’s voicemails? Eat three bowls of cereal for dinner again? Try to hook up with some rando who might just keep me occupied for a couple hours?

Yeah, that was exactly what I did.

I sighed, leaving the bottle on the cabinet, and went back to put on my coat and my shoes.

“Another night, another day goes by… I never stop myself to wonder why…” I hummed to myself, giving my lipstick one last touch up in front of the bathroom mirror. “You help me to forget to play my role…”

One could say I was looking for love in all the wrong places. And that was probably right. I knew I was looking for some sort of commitment, but… Let’s just say that searching for Prince Charming in a pig pen just isn’t the best way to go about it. I was ashamed of it, I’m not gonna lie. I had hoped I would never have to get into that sort of situations. After all, I was never interested in short-term-relationships, and I liked to think that I was better than casual sex… Not that any of the people I met up with were particularly, interestingly nasty anyways. I knew what I was getting myself into, what sorts of places I became a regular of. And, admittedly, I met some handsome men, a few pretty girls. Don’t get it twisted, though; always used protection, always checked they didn’t have the shadow of a wedding band. I was killing time, but at least I was gonna be careful about it. Just because I dyed my hair red and was feeling blue didn’t mean I became someone else completely. It just meant now I was a redhead, and feeling blue.

“I, I live among the creatures of the night…  I haven’t got the will to try and fight…” I sang quietly, biting down on my cigarette’s filter to keep it from being blown away by the wind on the street.

It was a cold October night, and I felt the upcoming winter on my bare legs. The shops were already decked out in their Halloween décor, to my delight. I had made paper garlands and a few other decorations to make the beauty parlor extra spooky for the festivities, but Shelley had told me that it wasn’t necessary… That people didn’t really care about all that when they went to have their nails done. What a bunch of bull. Everyone loved Halloween! And those who didn’t, they were just buzzkills. I hang the decorations anyway. But not even Halloween managed to lift my spirits.

Not too far from the dance floor of the club, just enough for me to people-watch comfortably, I nursed something called a Blood and Sand instead of my usual margarita, having decided to treat myself for once. All things considered, I was simply expecting a mediocre screwing, to be kicked out of some guy or gal’s house which I would never set foot in again, and to head back to my apartment just in time to eat Chinese and cry while watching All That Heaven Allows on the late-night programming.

I had no idea that this was the night that would change my life.

“Hey, Red –what’s new?”

I was approached by not one guy, but by a guy and his girl.

“… Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked the man who had made the question.

Of course, though, I knew what they had in mind. The blonde was kinda cute, with her big eyes and smug grin like a Barbie doll, in an easy-to-forget eye candy, background-dancer-in-a-music-video kind of way. But the guy, with the triple whammy of rather long hair, black suit and tie, and having somehow both childish and sharp features, had a much more interesting sort of odd charisma to him. He was a weirdo, no doubt about it. But I liked his style. I never told him this, but he reminded me a little bit of Heath. Maybe he just happened to be a bit high when we met, like Heath used to be constantly. Maybe it was the hungry eyes, or something in the smile… I didn’t know why, but even as I kept my sight on the girl, I was always aware of his presence, even as he walked behind us on the way to the hotel.

The blonde (I think her name was Leah, or something?) was clearly a newbie. It seemed like she had learnt anything about fucking a girl through some porn movie or something. She kissed me, but not much else; she moaned and sighed and giggled as if she was having a ball, writhing around me, rubbing herself against me. I had barely even touched her. All tease, no action. I knew her type all too well from maybe two or three bi-curious girls I had met through the same methods. Too overexcited, too self-conscious, too eager to please… Please herself, that is, and in this case, please the guy watching. She turned to glance at him every few seconds, as if she needed constant approval to continue. Didn’t seem to be thinking about me at all. It was easy to assume how that would translate when we actually did something. So much for the red hair, I thought, but I tried to have fun, regardless, as I pushed her down and climbed on top of her, pulling that tacky necklace off of her, showing her how it was done. I was a bit disappointed the guy had decided he was just gonna watch, but to each his own, I thought. Maybe he’ll come in later, when we’re already turned on, I guessed.

So… Well, if I was surprised by being approached at the bar by the two of them, I was straight-up baffled when the guy grabbed my shoulder and pulled me off the bed and onto my knees.

“Hey—!”

For a second I thought this meant we would be switching, which honestly was a relief, since despite my best efforts I was getting a bit tired of her. But then he put his hand on my nape and stood over me, and I saw what he had in his right hand. The least subtle knife I’d seen. Where and how had he managed to smuggle it in? I smiled. So that was the plan, I realized. I glanced at the blonde, letting it all sink in. Had I stepped into some kinky Bonnie and Clyde situation? Were they into some fetish stuff we hadn’t discussed beforehand? But then I looked back at the guy, into his cold blue eyes, and I finally understood this was no roleplay. He wanted to kill me, stab me until I dyed the carpet deep red with my blood. So that was what turned him on. No wonder he had seemed as bored as I was feeling so far.

And I was feeling rotten enough to actually be thrilled by this.

“Do it,” I told him, as soon as he held me by the back of my neck, pressing my throat with his thumb, before I could even think it over. And when I did, I just smiled wider. I really wanted it. After all, if he killed me… Well, at least that would spare me having to wash the dishes that night. And if my life was really going to be what it had been for the last year or so, then I didn’t care much if that was how it ended. And, if he didn’t kill me… Then –what a chicken, right? Who goes ahead and pops out a big-ass knife, ready to charge, with another woman egging him on, only to not do it? What can I say –I was curious. Besides, it would be almost hilarious; what would we even do then, if he didn’t kill me now? Would he apologize for the inconvenience and leave? Would we just go home, like when bad weather cuts a ball game short?

Did this guy really have that killer instinct? Would he actually go through with it?

And he still doubted. He kept looking at me all confused. I wondered if he had done this before, and whether he thought I was special, in some way.

“Do it to me, now,” I insisted, keeping the grin firmly drawn on my face. But I kept staring back at him, watching how he faltered. Seemed like there were a hundred thoughts rushing through his head, his hand unsteady, his eyes shifting, and yet they always went back to mine. It was strangely intimate, that balance we had going, him holding me down on my knees and threatening me, but with me having a kind of control over the situation. I wasn’t screaming nor whimpering, I wasn’t intimidated at all, and that clearly threw him off his rhythm; and it was all truly much more exciting than whatever whatshername had been trying to pull in the bed.

And, because she was being ignored and she just needed to hog the spotlight, Blonde started whining. We both glanced at her, having forgotten she was there at all. The man looked back at me for a moment. She was getting in my nerves, and it was likely she was getting in his, too. If he wasn’t gonna kill me, then I might just ask him to borrow his knife and get that woman to shut up—

But then, as if he had just read my mind, he turned towards Blonde –pushed her against the floor –and stabbed her once, twice, thrice, nice and deep, right between the ribs, with the quick, confident pull and push of a professional. Oh, he had killed before. He was not a newbie at all.

And without missing a beat, he turned to me, actually smiling. “Hey, Red, wanna play?”

This had been a test all along, I thought, barely containing my giddiness. He offered me the knife. He really trusted me with it, to go on with it… Even though Blonde was gasping her last breaths already. But still, even if it was just scraps, it was hard to say no.

I let out a giggle when I got my hands on it. With both hands, like I used to. I got closer, still on my knees, and looked down at her body spread beside us. Blonde sure didn’t look as smug anymore… And then I stabbed her. Push in, pull back, with that nice wet sound, with that warmness that came with the splattered blood. My hands remained away from her, grasping the handle, but it was as if the knife had become an extension of myself –yes, I could feel her guts, sinking a bit deeper with each stab, pushing harder and carving a space inside her for me to dig through, making sure to go as far as possible, to the other side of her torso, to let the blood flow freely out of her, for it to splash all over me…

Boy, had I missed it. And even as I focused entirely on my task, becoming more and more excited, I noticed him (Charles, Blonde had called him) out of the corner of my eye, moving along with me to the thrust of the knife as I stabbed her over and over and over –and the way he did so, back and forward, tensing when we went back, letting go when I pushed on, as if guiding me from the side…

I closed my eyes and let out a euphoric laugh in sheer exhilaration, covered in Blonde’s blood. What a pleasure it was. The coldness of the night was gone, I felt my skin burning, my heart pounding, and I had forgotten all about Chinese and TV night. My lust for life had returned. God –I felt alive.

“Wow… It’s never happened like that before,” I admitted with a giggle, looking back at the guy. It wasn’t my first time killing, of course, but this was certainly different. I never had someone beside me, warming it up for me, for starters. Never had a partner in it. Maybe I never saw it as a bonding activity before. It always had been just a slipup, an accidental thing, sometimes a way to blow off some steam, perhaps even a bit of an embarrassing little secret. And there I was, thinking I had left it all behind me a year ago…

But now there was Charles, kindly inviting me along. How could I possibly refuse?

I put a hand on my chest and I frowned when I realized just how different I sounded. “Is that me?” The pure glee of it had probably caused me to slip. Shit… I thought I had managed my voice so far. Found that perfect balance between cute and sultry and kept it up for years. Now, my original voice, my annoying little voice, was back. Shit, shit, shit. Just when I had found a guy I could be truly myself with…

“Oh, it’s definitely you,” he said with a grin and a snicker, coming closer, embracing me. I smiled again, biting my lip, tasting the fresh blood. He picked me up and took me to the bed, and finally, finally I felt that great special rush of adrenaline, that kick I had been looking for for years, there, kissing him, tasting the blood on his own lips. I pushed his hair back, slick now, wanting to see his face. Charles. His cheeky grin, the devious twinkle in his eyes, his boyish charm… I could see myself getting used to it. I could see myself growing to love that face of his.

“Boy, you really know how to show a girl a good time,” I chuckled, and he joined me with his own. He leaned forward to kiss me again, but I wanted us to be properly introduced to one another, to get that out of the way. “I’m Tiffany.”

“I’m Charles,” he replied, now in a different voice, a low snarl that sounded almost menacing. But I wasn’t afraid of him. Why, after that whole display, he couldn’t scare me even if he tried.

“Know what, Charles—” I said, taking a moment to catch my breath. “You should be Chucky.” It went without saying that it would be on account of how much he liked to laugh. And besides, Charles was far too formal. And now that we had shown each other the wickedest parts of ourselves, I felt it was only natural to become more familiar with the other.

“You know what, Tiff…?” Chucky said, raising his eyebrows, giving the body on the floor a quick glance. “… You should be blonde.”

Well, good news for him, then, I thought with a smile. Bleaching black hair was a lot easier than going full red. However, as I gripped his blood-stained shirt and pulled him back in for the kiss he’d been wanting, feeling just how eager he was to keep going, he would be stuck with a redhead for the time being.

You know that one song that was all the rage that October, Like A Virgin? It was like that. Shiny and new, indeed. Best fuck I had in a very long time, truth be told, if not ever. Not that I was gonna tell him that, get his ego that blown. I would have never guessed the weirdo with the hair and the suit had it in him… But Chucky was always full of surprises.

I’m not sure how long passed then. During the eventual cigarette break, bathroom pause, and one moment in which we raided the minibar, I noticed that there was light out the window, but when I checked later, it was pitch dark. Neither one of us checked on the time at any point. I guess neither of us had anywhere better to be than there. And it suited me just right.

Apart from the pit stops, though, we truly managed to keep ourselves entertained for quite a while. What broke the spell was, because it couldn’t have been any other way, Blonde’s natural decomposition. We had switched again and now he was on top of me. I was taking him in and kissing him back, sinking my nails in his back, not a care in the world –when there was the weirdest squeaking noise, loud enough to make both of us stop right then and there. Chucky and I exchanged a quick awkward glance, but decided to simply ignore it. We went right back to what we were doing –and there was the sound again, not a squeak anymore, longer than before. He moved back and let out a deep frustrated sigh.

“Hey… I promise I won’t judge you or anything,” I said, drumming my fingers on his thighs, looking up at him as he kneeled on the bed. “… But did you just rip one?”

“What? No!” he exclaimed. “Thought that was you—”

“It wasn’t me—!”

He let out a bitter chuckle. “Right, won’t judge you or anything…”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” I insisted, leaning on my forearms to prop myself up. “Y’know, it’s… It’s totally natural and stuff, I guess… But it wasn’t me—!”

There was the noise again, and now that we were both aware of it, we noticed the direction it was coming from. Blonde had gotten bloated and her skin was turning waxy. And, in the silence we kept for the next few seconds, we got another toot, clearly coming from her body.

The two of us burst out laughing. I had heard of bodies becoming gassy after death from some documentary on TV, but I really wasn’t expecting it to sound exactly what gassy sounded like. And apparently it was the music hour, because she kept passing wind for a while –to both our disgust and amusement.

As funny as it was, we did have stinky worm food in our hands. Once we finally calmed down, he suggested stuffing it into the closet and forgetting about it. The issue kept turning in my mind though. And what a pity it would be if we were forbidden to return to such a nice hotel some other time, if some other time could become a possibility… So, I proposed to use his handy knife to chop it up, put it into a laundry bag and throw it into the garbage. That way, at least, there wouldn’t be a dead body to link us to it. Even if it would still be hard to explain the amount of blood.

We dragged Blonde into the bathroom and took turns to hack her up. Once that was done (and it took quite a while, since we also had to break a few bones) Chucky stuffed the slabs in the laundry bag while I hosed the bathtub to get it as spotless as I could. I also took a moment to rinse Blonde’s nice purple corset. I could easily mend the stabbing holes, she was more or less my size (maybe a bit smaller), and it would’ve been a shame to throw it away along with the meat. Only then, with Blonde’s parts finally packed up and ready to go, we realized that it would seem a tad suspicious to leave through the front door while missing one person, and now carrying a big stinking bag.

“What d’you suggest, then?” Chucky asked me. I looked at him, and then at the window behind the messy, blood-dotted bed, and smiled.

I opened the window, the two of us picked up the bag and, with some effort, raised it and tossed her out into the street where it fell on the pavement with a crunch! Luckily it was either really late or really early, and there was nobody on the street to notice our suspicious behavior.

“Did it rip?” he asked, peeking out the window, lighting a new cigarette.

Hard to say with the little light. Since no blood pooled around it, though, we concluded the first half of the operation was a success. Chucky gave me an impressed little glance as he put on his coat. I put on mine, smiling wide in my satisfaction, dangling my heels in one hand.

The second half of the operation was to run like hell out the emergency exit. We giggled like schoolkids as we rushed down the stairs. He was a bit faster than me, since I was practically bouncing barefoot on the concrete steps. I gave him a couple light kicks to tease him, slipping my hands on the handrails. We weren’t rolling around naked anymore, but I was still dizzy with excitement, unable to wipe the smile off my face. Once we got to the backdoor, which was partly locked (that surely had to be a safety hazard), it was Chucky’s moment to impress me. He handed me his cigarette for safekeeping, and with a sniff and a quick rub of his nose, walking a few steps backwards, he got the momentum he needed –hopped for a bit where he stood, as a sort of warmup –and ran towards the door –and gave it one hard kick –managing to get it wide open. He grinned proudly, turning back to see my reaction, and I laughed and clapped. We hurried back to the street, to the bag that was waiting for us, circled by curious stray dogs, which fortunately hadn’t managed to open it and which Chucky swiftly shooed away. He waited politely for me to put my heels back on.

“I’ve never been around a dead body long enough to see it rotting,” I admitted as we both dragged the heavy bag towards the closest dumpster.

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said with a little chuckle. “And… Well, it was pretty warm in that hotel room.”

I snickered, standing on the tip of my toes, holding the lid of the dumpster as high as I could. Chucky picked up the bag with a grunt, swung it and tossed it into the dumpster, where it landed with a thump!, and I dropped the lid, and the operation was then done. We had both now created and disposed of a dead body. Quite an achievement.

With a long, satisfied sigh, Chucky leaned back against the wall of the alley. He took a drag of his cigarette and then offered it to me. By the faint yellow light of the lamppost beside us I noticed the pinkish lipstick stains I had left on it. I gazed at him as he blew the smoke. It could just have been some leftover smudges of blood, but judging by the shade it seemed to be that he actually had my lipstick all smeared on his mouth. Something about that sent a chill down my back.

I smiled at him, giving his cigarette a puff. He smiled back.

“D’you have the time, Chucky?” I asked him, leaning against the wall beside him.

“No, I lost my wristwatch a couple weeks ago,” he said, sinking his hands in his pockets. “Why’d you ask?”

“Wanted to know if it’s Monday already.”

He snorted. “Busy day, Mondays?”

I smiled and looked down at my worn shoes. I should have brought the boots instead, even if they didn’t match my skirt and jacket. “… Amazing, isn’t it?” If they had any traces of blood, I couldn’t tell. “All you can do in just one night.”

Chucky sighed and nodded. He handed me the cigarette again.  “Yeah, well, the night’s still young, Tiff.”

We both had to take a moment to catch our breaths. We had run a few floors, dragged a whole person in a bag, been fucking for an unspecified amount of time. Exhaustion was finally kicking in. We shared a cold but comfortable silence, and I closed my eyes, feeling the roughness of the brick against my back, the light sting of the bruises on my legs, the quick but steady beating of my heart, and listening to his breathing, and, far away, the sounds of police sirens and ambulances, of cars and trucks speeding by, completely oblivious to us and to all we had done. There really were no people on the streets, only the eventual flashing lights of a passing car. Somehow that made it feel like Chucky and I were the only two people in the world.

I returned him his cigarette. He took one last puff and flicked it into the curb. I wrapped myself a bit tighter in my coat, rubbing my cheek against its fluffy collar, shivering at a cold rush of wind, my knees trembling just a bit. Chucky looked out into the streets, stretching his neck, checking if someone would come near. Then he sighed, turned back to me and looked me in the eye. A moment passed. It seemed it was time for us to say our goodbyes. And neither one of us wanted to be the one to start.

“… I had fun,” I finally said, trying to hide my… My what? My apprehension? My sadness? My curiosity? I’m not sure. I just had this sinking feeling at the idea of never seeing him again.

“Yeah… Me too,” he admitted gingerly. If we hadn’t spent what seemed to be at least one whole day together I would have thought Chucky might have been lying. “It’s… It was an interesting surprise, I guess.”

I nodded, wringing my hands. “Same here.”

He nodded, rocking on the balls of his feet, glancing awkwardly at the sides, as if that were a particularly fascinating alleyway. “So… Well…”

I didn’t care if it made things weird, I wasn’t gonna be the one to say goodbye. I didn’t want to. And I had the feeling he didn’t want to, either.

His face lit up out of a sudden. He rummaged in his pockets and fished out an old receipt and a shaved-down pencil. “Hey, uh, I don’t know if… I mean, maybe…” He chewed on his lip, looking down, clearly embarrassed. “… I don’t know, we might… Get together again, one of these days, or something…”

“Oh—”

“You got a phone?”

I snickered. “Don’t most people?”

He laughed, dropping his shoulders, loosening up a bit. “Shit, you… You know what I mean.”

I chuckled, taking the little flimsy piece of paper, holding it against the dumpster’s lid, and scribbled my phone number in the biggest, clearest numbers I could write. “Here you go, mister.”

Chucky gave it a glance, still grinning, and stuffed it back into his pocket. If there was a good moment to declare that encounter over, it was then. I waited for him to take it. There was already a promise of a future meeting. I gazed at his face, examining it, putting all my efforts into remembering every part of it. He looked back at me, still smiling. He reached out towards my face –and gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

That was it. I think that was when I really fell for him. My hair was caked with dry blood, my makeup was a mess, I was exhausted from the effort of running down stairs and pulling a bag with a dead body inside, and the late-night cold had me trembling like a shitting Chihuahua. But he looked at me, and I felt beautiful. I knew that, by the way he looked at me, he thought I was beautiful.

“Um… My place’s just a couple blocks away, you know,” I managed to blurt out.

Chucky’s eyebrows shot right up.

“I mean, if you’d like to wash up,” I said with a shrug. “We’re both looking like butchers, here.”

There was a pause. He seemed to be considering it. Maybe he was wondering if this could be his chance to try and kill me again, in a more intimate setting, somewhere where he might be able to pass it up as a gruesome suicide. Which I wouldn’t oppose, since, after all, anything would be better than to be unceremoniously killed in a random mucky alley. Maybe, though, he was just wondering if it was worth it.

“… Sure,” Chucky finally agreed. I grinned, noticing the smallest hint of a smile in his lips.

And with that, only stopping by the drugstore to pick up a few more condoms for good measure, I showed him the way to my apartment.

We didn’t really wash up, unsurprisingly. Once in the elevator he pulled me to him and kissed me again, and I held on to his shoulder and buried my fingers in his hair, and both of us already knew where this would end. I don’t know how we made it to my bed, but we did, and at least we didn’t have to share the room with a rotting farting corpse anymore.

At some point we did fall asleep, though. I saw Chucky’s eyes closing as he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. I had bitten him at some point (well, more than once) but that bite was probably most likely because I had been nodding while dozing off in the middle of a kiss. He let out a sigh, and there was the little glow of the cigarette butt he left on the ashtray on my bed next to his leg. As the smoke went up towards the ceiling, I could hear him breathing softly. It was strange, to think of him as anything near the word soft. I huddled against him, covering him with one arm, smiling to myself. I felt a warm hand setting on my shoulder. It was so comforting… Then, I finally fell asleep.

He woke up before I did. I yawned and dragged myself out of bed, my eyelids still half-shut by the smudged mascara, when I saw Chucky standing in his briefs and tee, holding his blood-stained shirt in one fist and a cigarette in the other hand, with his back to the bedroom. I walked up to him, just a little surprised at this.

“Trying to sneak out?” I asked him with a sleepy giggle, taking the cigarette from his fingers.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. I looked towards where he was looking, the chimney mantle, where I had set my doll collection. It was the best place to display them –as if I actually had anyone to show them to. It was small, but I was proud of it. All of them from garage sales, thrift shops, one or two found just lying around in the curb or in a dumpster, waiting for someone to pick them and fix them up. I had only gotten to gluing one of them back together, and the cracks were still pretty obvious: they would be, until I got some new paint to cover it…

I leaned my head on his shoulder. He had his eyes wide open, wide awake, his brow furrowed, staring at my dolls. He seemed to be trying to understand something. For the briefest moment I was nervous Chucky thought I was a psycho or something.

“You like them?” I asked quietly, slipping his cigarette back into his hand.

Chucky remained silent for a moment longer, looking at them carefully, and took a drag, taking his time to answer. I couldn’t read his face. I swear he knew I was anxious about his answer.

“… If that’s your thing, Tiff,” he finally shrugged it off.

I let out a little happy squeak and hugged him tight, giving him a loud smooch on the cheek.

“Well, we all need a hobby, right?” I said with a wink.

He chuckled, and gave me a little kiss on the temple. “Ain’t that the truth…”

Sunlight was already streaming through the window. I went back into the bedroom and put on my nightdress and slippers. There was the buzzing of the radio, and the voice of a newscaster announcing the day’s weather forecast. He already made himself right at home, I thought.

“You got yourself quite a nice little place here,” Chucky commented when I came back to the kitchen.

“Yeah… I’ve been meaning to paint the walls purple,” I said, pushing my hair back. “But my landlord won’t allow it. And I can’t afford to piss him off with rent being what it is…”

“Purple… I can see it,” he said approvingly, glancing around him.

“Where’s your place?” I asked him, letting the hot water run over the dirty dishes on the sink, hoping he didn’t mind the mess too much. “D’you live far?”

“Ridgefield Avenue, other side of the river. By the S46 Bridge.”

“Quiet part of town,” I said with a smile. “I assume there’s not a wide offer of clubs by those parts.”

“You’d be assuming right,” he snickered, fidgeting with one of the buttons of his shirt, scraping the dry blood with his nail. “It’s just where I’m staying for the time being, though. I want to move closer to where the action is, leave the sidelines.”

I nodded and let out a sigh, taking in the sight of my little apartment. It wasn’t that messy, I told myself. I had a couple bags and boxes lying around from when I moved back in after my last breakup, but mostly everything was in its proper place, and it was pretty clean, all things considered. The only issue was the kitchen, the dirty dishes that had piled up, all greasy and grimy and nasty. Chucky didn’t seem to notice; or, if he did, he didn’t seem to care.

“… What time’s it?”

We both turned to the clock. Two in the afternoon.

“Fuck, I’m starving,” he groaned, hanging his head backwards on the edge of the chair’s back.

As if agreeing with him, my stomach let out a low grumble. “We got some… Some cereal…” I said before taking the box out of the shelf and realizing there was just enough for a spoonful. “We had some, at least.”

He got off the chair and picked up the rest of his clothing. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, shooting me a sideways glance while I opened the fridge, bent over and checked if there was something for us to eat.

“There’s nothing in the fridge save for expired milk, one moldy tomato and some stale bread…” I sighed.

I really wasn’t expecting any visits, after all. Even less a visit that would be staying for a meal. Best I could do was some coffee, but that wouldn’t cut it on an empty stomach.

“Do you, uh, happen to have any money on you?” I asked him, closing the fridge and looking at him over my shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said, zipping up his pants. “What d’you have in mind?”

I opened my eyes wide. Was he inviting me out? “… There’s a nice burger place ‘round the corner,” I suggested.

Before leaving the apartment and venturing out into the streets, though, we did have to wash up. I had forgotten about it already, but the two of us were covered in bloodstains, from the face to the chest to the arms and even some handprints on our legs. I wet a rag on the sink of the bathroom, sat on the toilet and washed myself off. Chucky leaned over the bathtub and rinsed his arms, face and neck, avoiding the shower just barely to keep his cigarette lit between his teeth. His stained shirt was a whole issue, which we ended up solving by me lending him an old Black Sabbath tee I had from my New York days that I wore to bed when my nightdress was in the laundry bag.

“I’ll take it with me next time I go to the laundromat,” I told him, examining the stains. They were pretty dark already. The cotton had probably already absorbed it fully. “And if that doesn’t take it out… Baking soda has never let me down before, at least where period blood is concerned.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve walked ‘round the street in broad daylight, red from head to toe, without anyone giving a shit,” he said, checking the tee’s fit, while I brushed the dry blood flakes off my hair. “It’s amazing what people don’t see.”

And so, finally looking like model citizens, we went out and had burgers and milkshakes. We were both pretty damn famished, it had to be said. We barely talked while we ate. Soon enough there was nothing but some dropped onions on our trays and ketchup leftovers on our fingers to lick off.

“I didn’t know about this place,” he said casually as he wiped his mouth. “It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?”

I smiled and nodded, tapping my nail against the half-empty cup. I watched him while he sucked on the straw of his strawberry shake, wondering what would happen now. Now that we both had cooled off for the time being, I was half expecting Chucky would decide that I was a loose end, and would try to find a good moment to tie that up. So far, though, everything seemed normal. Too normal. It was like an average date with just some guy. Seeing him no longer colored by the red glow of the club, nor by the bright yellow light of the hotel room, no more blood splattered across his face, and now enjoying a burger like your average Joe, wearing my old tee, it was almost as if everything that had happened had just been a weird wonderful dream.

Though, I have to admit, I was still kind of thrilled at the fact that I had met someone who shared my specific interests.

“Hey, uh… Hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said after swallowing my last bite. “… What’s your body count?”

“Boy, I lost track years ago,” he laughed as he leaned back. “Why, do you still have yours?”

“Um… Let me think,” I said, and got to counting with my fingers. “… Hm, Heath, Jordan, Maxine, Mimi, Kenny, Tony, Carole, Roy, Leanne, Gavin, Ronnie, Elliot… Mark… Uh, I think this one’s name was Zach… I must be missing someone, but I think those are the ones I remember the most… So, say around fourteen, fifteen. What do you think of that?”

Chucky hummed, resting his head on his hand. He thought about it for a minute. “… I mean, you know all their names, for one. So you clearly keep it personal.”

“Well, yes,” I frowned. “I’m not interested in total strangers—”

“But our first shared one was with a stranger, though,” he noted.

I blinked, a bit surprised by him specifying first. “Yeah, well—”

“Was that your first time with just, you know, a random person?” he asked, leaning forward, barely holding back a grin.

“I’m not telling you…!”

He let out a short but loud laugh. “So it was!”

I huffed. “So what if it was?”

“You’re, like, in your mid-twenties, right? So fourteen, fifteen’s not that bad,” Chucky shrugged. Now I was really curious to know his death count. I had the feeling he did remember it, but had decided that leaving that to the imagination was more impressive. “But you could do better. If you opened yourself to other options…”

I scoffed. I was thrilled, I was into him, yes –but I wasn’t that much into being talked down to. “So you say I should just go around and fuck up the first fella I come across?”

Chucky smiled even wider. “You did. I just gave you the chance. And hey, I’m no hypocrite, I won’t fault you for that. I’m just saying…” He leaned back on his chair, picking his cup and offering a toast. “It’s not exactly impressive, but you got promise, Tiff. Fifteen’s nothing to sneeze at.”

He probably knew I wasn’t really that offended, and soon enough I smiled back at him. Nobody had complimented me on my death count so far. We clinked cups, and I finally realized that Chucky wasn’t gonna kill me. There was something he saw in me that he liked. Or maybe he just wanted a side piece. I’m not a mind reader, I couldn’t know for sure. I just knew that I had fun with him –more fun than what I had had with anyone else –and that I liked the idea of staying around to see what happened next.

“I’d love to… You know, do something like this again,” I said, twirling my hair. “If you’re up to it.”

He tilted his head. “Go out for burgers?”

“No, silly,” I chuckled. “To… Meet again. Do something…” I just couldn’t blurt it out. I giggled, despite myself, becoming a bit flustered. “You got my number, so… If you ever, say, wanted to… To do something…”

“Are you talking about—?”

“Both,” I interrupted him, just as a mother and her child passed us by. “Both… Both would be great.”

Chucky looked at me, slowly realizing what I meant, and nodded. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, remembering when he did that, and fidgeted with my earring. We were no longer alone with each other. We were surrounded by other patrons at the burger place, by families with their kids, by people chatting on the street… But none of it erased what had happened when we were together.

I noticed that Chucky still had a little cut in his lower lip, where I had bitten him.

I smiled. Yes –it had all been real.

“What, do I have something on my face?” he asked me, scratching his cheek.

“No, it’s nothing,” I said, looking down, still smiling. “I’m just… I’m just happy I met you.”

We had already paid. It was about to be three o’clock. It felt like we had been together for a whole week. And still, we didn’t know how to say goodbye.

“Well…” he said, shifting uneasy in his chair. “… What’s next?”

“I –I got a job,” I blurted, immediately regretting it. “And, uh… I guess that—”

“Right.”

“So… Besides, you surely got your own stuff, your own life to go back to—”

“Yeah,” Chucky nodded quickly. “I’m a very busy man.”

I just barely stifled a laugh. “I bet you are.”

He shot me a glare, but then he smiled, too.

We got off the chairs and back onto the street. We walked a bit, just to get the circulation going. I wanted to take his hand, but he had both of them in the pockets of his coat. I already felt the sadness creeping in. I wondered for how long we would keep walking (hopefully all the way to Ridgefield Avenue on the other side of the river) but we stopped by my apartment.

“Well… See you around, Tiff,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair, pushing it off his face.

I smiled. “See you around, Chucky.”

He smiled back. I looked down at his mouth, at the little cut. Even at the risk of staining my teeth with lipstick, I bit down my lower lip, as if I was trying to give myself that same cut. I looked back into his big blue eyes.

And, somehow, we both knew. At this point, even if we hadn’t talked a lot to each other, I felt I knew him inside out. I knew him without saying a word. We moved towards the other –and kissed –and we embraced like that first night on the bed of the hotel room, not too long ago, but which felt like ages –and we kissed. Everyone else in the street disappeared in a blur. There was only us, and the warmth of our bodies, and the white light of day. I knew, right then and there, that this was love.

#childs play #chucky series #fanfiction

[popculturebuffet]

Wonder Woman 1984 Review “The Monkey’s Paw Wish of Superhero Movies”

Before we dig in,  I just want to properly frame how much of a fucking disapointment this film was to me. It was thanks to the first film that I became the massive Wonder Woman fan I am today. Thanks to that movie and it’s accompanying sale, as Comixology likes to put sales on to tie into things as you’d expect, I tried Greg Rucka’s run on the title.. and quickly bought the second volume and will buy the third which didn’t exist yet at some point, as it’s easily one of my faviorite comics of all time, one i’ll undoubtly cover, and one that throughly sold me on the amazon princess, and throughly defined what she is to me: a compasionate warrior. Someone who WILL fight, who will take on the bad guys without hesitation, and who WILL kill if she has to.. but also someone whose compationate. Who will genuinely try to reform foes, who only kills as a last resort and not as a first option like some adaptations and the new 52 seem to think. She’s someone who in said run went out of her way to help her old friend and currently brainwashed foe Vanessa Kapetlis get cured of being the silver swan. She’s someone whose wholhe purpose for writing a book wasn’t money but simply to spread her people and her gods teachings. Someone whose , kind, noble, badass, smart and easily every bit the pure soul superman is. The run sold me on the character throughly and made me a fan to this day, one currently pouring thorugh both Rucka’s second run, and George Perez’ equally good run and one who hopes the upcoming dc relaunch means she’ll stop swapping writers every few months and get the run she deserves.  I just wanted to sell how much I treasured the character now thanks to the first movie and thus how hyped beyond hype I was for this movie. It had a great cast, a great setting, cool trailers.. sure they didn’t show off the plot but it had to be good right? This couldn’t be say.. a giant, overly long mess of tangled plots, padding, terrible pacing, unfortunate implications and pedro pascal devouring the scenery in a manner galactus would be proud of right? 

Well that’s what we got. After a year of hoping it’d come out some way this year, after having it delayed and after a year where MANY projects I loved were necessarily delayed due to covid... I got what I wanted. I got the movie i’d been hoping to see for months and months and months... and just like the wishes in the movie itself... it went horribly, horribly wrong. What I expected was something great as the other recent DC Movies.. what I got was a huge disapointing mess capping off a huge disapointing mess of a year. So while i’m a bit late due to contracting Covid and all the “FUN” that comes with that, I still felt like tearing into this film to figure out why I didn’t like it, what good parts it did have, and what the hell went wrong here. Spoilers and full review after the cut. 

The Plot:  Unlike my usual summaries I do, i’m keeping this one short and susicnt for those who haven’t seen the film: After a cold open flashback to diana’s childhood that was an omen of the boring padding to come, we get our main plot: It’s 1984 and Diana is acting in semi secret and helping out where she can. After some artifact thefts she takes a job at a museum and meets meek nerdy nerdy and office punching bag Barbra Minerva. The two strike up a kind of friendship, with Barbra wishing she could be as cool as diana especially after Diana saves her from being assaulted by a creepy random asshole. 

Diana hasn’t moved on from Steve Trevor’s death in the previous film, and thus when encountering a mysterious stone wishes for him to come back. Barbra likewise wishes fto be just like diana. Meanwhile Maxwell Lord, a conman who has sold a bunch of bogus oil plots, plots to steal the stone himself and does so by seducing Barbra, and instead of wishing for more wishes, wishes to GRANT THEM instead, thus overnight making his buisness a sucess and using the inevitible monkey’s paw consequences of said wishes to benifit himself.  Meanwhile Diana is reunited with Steve who for some reason has hyjacked someone elses body, and even has sex with Diana in it which is all kinds of creepy and wrong that we’ll get into soon enough. Meanwhile everyone now notices Barbara.. and she’s also gaining Diana’s powers but slowly loosing her empathy.  Diana eventually finds out with Barba’s help that the stone is dangerous and it’s wishes backfire horribly, while Max continues to gain power with his as Diana chases after him, slowly loosing her own power as her consequence for the wish. You know instead of the fact her lover took someone elses body and life and they have to live with that. Eventually Max gets the power of a soverign nation and the satilte codes off the president, and plans to broadcast himslef the the world to offset his own wish consequence, his body slowly failing, by taking other people’s health.  Steve urges Diana to renounce her wish and give him up to get her power back, she reluctnantly and painfully does so, and then goes after Max. Barbra however has sided with max and has him give her even more power turning her into a cat person as you’d expect. Wonder woman and the now fully cat Cheetah battle, it’s really cool looking, but Diana barely wins. We do get a decent climax with Diana not fighting max, not that she can with how powerful she’s become, but using the lasso of truth to get him to see the damage he’s done, give up and go back to his son. The world is saved Diana is moving on and also Linda Carter is there for some reason. 

So now you have  general idea of what happens, I can dig into the films faults, and it’s one or two strengths, one at a time, ONE AT A TIME. First off the film’s biggest issue by far and one that wouldn’t come through in the recap Padding and Pacing: THIS FILM DID NOT NEED TO BE 2 hrs 41 min

I said it once before but it bears repeating now:

THIS FILM DID NOT NEED TO BE 2 HOURS AND 41 MINUTES LONG

I am a firm belivier a film should be as long or short as it needs to be. If it’s under the standard 90 minutes, that’s cool, if it’s say three hours like avengers endgame that’s cool too. After the theater it’s easy enough to watch it in chunks, and sometimes a film just NEEDS that space and scope. 

This film.. did not need that. This is not the cumilation of 10 years of storytelling, as slapdashidly planned as it was till phase 3, this is a film that feels painfully long to watch due to how padded it is. You could’ve cut those 40 mintues from this film EASILY and while you wouldn’t of had a good film, sadly, you would’ve had a way more enjoyable cheesy superhero movie. I”m tackling this one first because it just.. oozes all over the film. For every great and memorable bit in the movie and every questionable one we’ll get to, for every gloriously so bad it’s good moment... there’s about 10 minutes of scene that did not need to be there. It slows down the film to a crawl and given the original had pitch perfect pacing I do not get how Patty Jenkins screwed this up. 

I do think Patty Jenkins is a good director. I did like the first movie, I do think a lions share of the credit goes to her writing and direction for that one. And a LOT of the sequences in this film are utterly goregously shot and fun to watch. I also, even if I don’t like this film, am extastic she forced the stuido to pay her more money to work on the film, as she deserves as much as any male director, it’s bullshit they tried to short change her, and again she was the reason the first film was so good. She deserved equal fucking pay for making Warner money hand over fist. 

But I also say this because i’m disapointed in HER. She CAN do better, she already did the first time and the only real down spot, the spotty cgi climax, was not her fault. And hell here she did get the climax she wanted, and wrote one hell of one. I”ll go into it more later but the finale of this movie from the pitch perfect fight with cheetah, dodgy face work nonwithstanding, to the final speech to the world is just gorgeous to watch. Even in this mess of a film there are some really good really tightly shot sequences that i’ll get to.. but their broken up by padding and padding nad more padding. This film is bloated, it needed to be edited down but she clearly REFUSED TO, gunshy after the whole Ares thing last time... and thus shot herself in the foot repeadtly. I sitll have some hope for the next movie and Rogue Squadron, but Jenkins rightfully lost any blind faith I had in her this film would be good just as the directors of it chapter 2 lost it by.. making a terrible sequel to a great movie. Given this happened in the span of a year you’d THINK i’d of prepared myself for that.. but no. Sadly.. no. 

But back to the point of this section: the film is just really padded. A lot of it is just scenes going on longer than they need to but there are some specific bits, some recurring others all in one go, that just really get tedious and pad things out. Let’s rattle em off shall we? The Opening: Now the opening is gorgeously shot, and it is nice to see Thymesicra again.. but the sequence is twiece as long as it needed to be, often just devolves into frantic shots of running.. and really dosen’t need to be here. I love Thymesicra, I love Hipolita, I love this damn beautiful island.. but we did not need it for this one. I THOUGHT it was there because the climax would be Max and Barbra invading the island or something.. but no. It has nothing to do with the main plot other than selling the film’s message “Nothing good comes from lies and shortcuts” which is a good message.. but the film already conveys that well. For all it’s flaws it well conveys the fact that the easy way to get what you want ALWAYS comes with a cost. That you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. So we didn’t need 10 minutes of amazons running around just to make a point that the film already makes and it wreaks of Warner wanting to put the amazons in the film because “that’s what people expect.” 

Steve Trevor Dinking Around for 20 Minutes: I will admit as dumb as it was.. I really loved the Steve Trevor 80′s fashion show. Oh it was dumb.. beyond belieif.. but it’s REALLY hard to hate a good 5 minutes of chris pine putting on stupid 80′s outfits. I do think like a lot of this film it was longer than it needed to be and it defintely needed a good catchy 80′s tune alongside it, just go full bollocks if your doing this, but otherwise it’s just hard not to joy, even if in a so bad it’s good kind of way, this kind of lunacy in a major stuido film

That goodwill died quckily as the next 15 goddamn minutes, 5 for the fashion show which while i liked it did not need to be in the film as long as it was, were just steve getting used to the new world of the 80′s. While I like the idea of Steve now in Diana’s roll as stranger in a strange land, instead of using it cleverly or having him ruminate over all his friends being dead Captain America style or .. a billion other things we could’ve used this time for if you really needed it, we instead just get Steve and Diana farting around for 20 minutes and Chris Pine making stupid faces. Chris Pine deserved better than this. He seems to be a steerling person in his personal life and I seriously doubt he’s done any movie bad enough to have earned this.. I mean he did do Star Trek: Into Darkness but NONE of those films problems were his fault. It’s just really, REALLY terrible, and even more boring in padded in places than this film but without the good bits or the haminess of pedro pascal to make it even remotely watchable. Point is i’m doing a blind look, and this is blind I just came up with tihs bit while I was writing and have not looked at chris pine’s filmography before, to see if there’s anything really bad enough to justify him being put through this buffonery. 

Turns out .. yeah yeah he did. Two films in fact are just bad enough that he did in fact sign on to something bad enough to justify this. There were one or two other contenders but Princess Diaries 2 was earlier in his career, Into The Woods much like Into Darkness was not his fault and honestly if I were offered a part in a glitzy hollywood adaptation of a beloved musical i’d sign on too without heistation, and while Wrinke in Time is kind of a mess, Chris Pine is easily one of the best parts of it.  No the two films that make him DESERVE the goofy terrible fish out of water stuff are this means war, a film I saw throughly savaged by Matthew “Film Brain” Buck, which is about two douchey cia agents competing over a woman without thinking that MAYBE the choice is hers, and also setting up CONSTNAT SURVILENCE over her and basically stalking her to sabatoge each others dates. And while I did mention that review, because it did give context.. even from the trailer I could tell this was sexist, bro douchey, and stupid and wanted no part of it. So yeah signing on this this, post star trek’s success where he had his pick of projects and was at the hight of his fame.. is inexcusable.  The other is just... the kind of embarassing dtv film a person does before they get famous but is so horrendously premised that I still can’t give it to him. Like I get needing work, I do comissions 10 for movies now and 5 for tv show episodes and issues of comics if you were curious, so I understand that.. but even at his most desperate... why would you possibly take... this?

.. wait is that Stephen Tobowsky in the credits? Good god his career is depressing some time.. but at least unlike chris I GET him being in this as he needs money and despite his long and storied career, has to take what he can get. Wheras Chris was a promsing young star who while needing a break, CAN’T of thought this would be remotely sucessful and can’t of paid that well. But since the poster might not convey the premise.. the premise is Chris is a Blind Man looking for love set up on BLIND DATES. 

It sounds like a fucking Adam Sandler film premise. I’m honestly suprised he hasn’t remade this film with himself, david spade, or rob schinder, whose apparently on good terms with him again, god help us all. And DON’T. TELL. HIM. He still hasn’t made that worst film imaginable he promised for getting Snubbed for Uncut Gems. Yes I know, Hubie Halloween came out but that was in production long before the promise and not that bad. Not great, pretty average, but not terrible. Point is do not tempt Adam Sandler to remake this film. He still owes us the worst film he can muster INTENTIONALLY, as Pixels, Rediculous Six, That’s My Boy? That was all him trying to make  GOOD movie. Be afraid be VERY afraid. The other point is this premise is just really bad, REALLY offensive to blind people to make being blind into a stupid punchline, and I.. will probably watch this at some point because i’m bafflingly curious about this terrible terrible thing Chris Pine probably wanted us all to forget about, but will now never have that luxury as long as I live. The Fireworks Scene: This one is just..really dumb. Like really dumb. Every bit of this scene was dumb and we could’ve just.. had them get on a plane to egypt like normal people or steal a jet off screen. So to get to Egypt, Diana and Steve steal a jet which Steve can somehow fly despite decades of progress in how planes work at this point and him not knowing what radar is. He also gets shot ot at because Diana FORGOT, somehow, that radar exists and didn’t tell him. They also steal a jet instead of just taking an airliner or her calling in a favor since while it’s been a good few decades and Etta is sadly long dead, the candy family probably knows and loves her well enough and probably still has some military personal who could pull some strings and bring a jet over from london. It’s a stretch.. but not much more than “let’s steal a plane and hope we don’t die. “

Why this is in the padding section is because we then get a way too long bit of the two flying through a field of fireworks.. which also apparently existed LONG before steve was even born, so I donn’t quite get why he’s so shocked. And while i’ts not a bad CONCEPT for a scene the fact the two are being persued by the military for stealing a jet AND have to get to egypt so urgently they had to steal the jet in the first place lest Max do something horrible, which he ends up doing anyway... to take 10 minutes to gaze at the pretty fireworks. It’s just.. a waste of time in a movie that wasted already too much time. 

Some of the barbra scenes: We’ll dive more into Barbra in a bit, and this is easily the least offesnive on this list, but a lot of the scnees of her discovering her new power could’ve been compressed. There are seperate scenes of her discovering she dosen’t need glasses anymore and picking up a ton of weight at the gym, while in 80′s workout clothes because of course she is. Both of those could’ve been one, either having her pick up something heavy like nothing casually or just having her glasses fall and break at the gym, have some cute guy help her up to help sell the wish making her feel noticed, and realize she don’t need em. It’s minor in comparison, but a good chunk of her plot badly needed to be streamlined. 

And those are just the main offenders. The film’s pacing in general is just attrocious. It takes half an hour for the plot to move along most of the time.. there’ ssome good character stufff but they could’ve better weaved it into the plot and in some Barbra scenes and most of Max’s they DID. It’s just for the most part there’s a lot of repttition of stuff we already knew and figured out and it takes forever for the plot to move to the next phase until the last half hour. And by then my niece was already in the kitchen playing with her new slime having enitrely checked out, my mom was asleep and my brother just wanted this film over already and both of us were only hanging in out of obligation. This film blows most of what little potetial it has taking too damn long to get to the point. As I said it’s fine for a film to be long.. but while Endgame had laggy sections and some of it’s own problems.. it USED the huge runtime effectivey, using the first hour to both show our heroes had truly lost, then to set up the post-time skip world and just what had become of our heroes and their arcs for the movies. The second hour is mostly the time heist, a fun tour through the mcu’s history that also helps progress arcs and the final act is basically one MASSIVE glorious battle featuring every single hero who hadn’t suffered a non-snap related death in one of the best big action scnenes i’ve ever seen. It was well crafted and it’s slower moments were for character stuff and not because they felt the film needed to feel as long as the rest of the year had felt.  But while it was the film’s main flaw and the main reason i’ts bad instead of mediocre..there’s one other massive flaw that utterly sinks the damn film and robs of it of a lot of it’s emotional weight The Character Assassination of Diana Prince:

Now we get to the part that really pisses me off one that was already kinda bad while watching but just got worse the more I thought about it: Diana’s Charcterization here. Despite being flawless in the first film.. here it’s just bad. It’s bad and it should feel bad. I can’t fathom how Jenkins lost touch so badly with the character, and I don’t think the Co-Writer Remotley helped.  The Co-Writer for this film was Geoff Johns, a dc wunderkind whose reinvented the flash, green lantern, the justice society of america and aquaman, all brilliantly. The last one was even largely the basis for his damn fun movie. I have a lot of respect for the man... but like a lot of creators he’s not immune to screwing up and has made a LOT of mistakes, the biggest being forcing Cyborg away from the titans and into the justice league not for diversity’s sake like he probably claims.. but really because he didn’t want to use John Stewart instead of Hal Jordan, who he has an odd obession with i’ve never gotten, something the incoming writer of Green Lantern, Geoffry Throne, turns out to have complained about for years, as well as apparnetly giving out about Jordan SO MANY TIMES, that an entire artcle was made revealing this... and I’m perfectly fine with that as it should be clear I don’t like Hal Jordan all that much and while he’s been in some good runs, the other earth lanterns are FAR more intersting than him and far more unique. Thankfully the new series seems to be focusing on multiple of them and while hal seems to be getting some focus, Simon and Jessica are the main stars of modern day. So hell yeah to that. Let’s get back to the actual point. 

The point being that one of his weaknesses as a writer.. is he really dosen’t get Wonder Woman. He just dosen’t. During Justice League he wrote her as a violent warrior and during Infinite Crisis, as expertly pointed out by LInkara during his review of it a few years back, he had her “not understand what being human is” .. despite this being at the SAME TIME as that Greg Rucka run I mentioned, meaning at the time of Inifnite Crisis, she had her own embassy for her people set up, had written a book, and had just spent a good chunk of that run trying to free an old friend who’d been brainwashed into a psychotic killing machine from her mechanical inhancments killing her and driving her insane. She willingly blinded herself with fucking snake venom to save the world from Medusa’s gaze and avenge a child THEN went on a long and arduous quest for the gods simiply to ressurect said child, with no intent of getting her sight back and only getting it back because Athena willingly gave hers up for being so noble. She is someone who is compatsionate, empathetic and noble. Not a kill happy warrior who loves fighting and blood. She fights because she has to, she does not hesitate and she does kill when needed.. but she is not some weird enigma to humanity. She’s throughly human despite being made of clay and not raised among regular humans. She’s a person, and Geoff just dosen’t get that. He get Superman, the flash, batman, other heroes just fine. He redefined aquaman well like I said. But for some damn reason he just dosen’t get Diana and can’t get a good grasp on her and while a good choice of co writer for practically any other dc movie and a good choice to right the ship for the dceu, he was the second possible worst choice to handle this character and likely is at least partially responsible for her character taking such a nosedive. By the way just in case you think better of him for only being second worst.. this is the worst. 

Yes that actually happened.. thankfully not in the main canon and likely because Frank Miller really REALLY needs to get some help. 

Point is he was a bad choice and while I still give Patty Jenkins some discredit for helping with this, I do feel Geoff easily could’ve agreed with or came up with some of the worse ideas here without really thinking them through because this simply isn’t a character he cares about what happens to her or knows that well.  Things START fine: in present day we get a pretty fun action sequence in a mall with what my brother called Dollar Store Micheal Keaton.. but because Max was already perfectly cast, there wasn’t room for this screen legend. Plus he was probably busy shooting Morbius for.. whatever his role is there. I hope it’s the vulture. My point is DSMK is delightfully hammy and weird and helps kick up an already fun mall sequence.. while I was apparnetly the ONLY one who enjoyed this cheesy but awesome sequence in my family aside from my niece, she hadn’t rightfully checked out at this point, I still love it. It does bring up the slight problem of Diana being active years before... but given The Suicide Squad with it’s vast colorful cast of supervillians and the fact the freaking Justice Society are getting introdcued and given their gimmick even if WWII isn’t involed this time they had to have been active for some time before they presumibly vanished. My point is the whole Zack Snyder thing of “Metahumans are new and you should fear them” has been quitely retconned out and this will all likely be explained with the whole flashpoint thing... (Shudders).. not the retcon the DCEU needs a good coat of paint and unlike the XCU I dont think their going to waste a second chance, I just want a flash film that’s actually about barry and not another adaptation of a storyline few people liked ot start with. Point is that’s not really a huge issue and I prefer DIana being active than the implication she did nothing and her doing small bits of heroisim, like saving a woman from getting hit by a car or resucing pets and bigger ones like the mall just .. fell like Diana. It’s all downhill from there though. For starters there’s Barbra. It starts well: Diana is the only person to not only notice Barbra but treat her nice, and the two strike up a friendship.. which I honeslty wish was more as there was a lot of potetial there and both have great chemistry, not to mention showing Diana’s bisexuality on screen would be a really damn good move forward for representation, but that’s more on me and given how homophobic big companies can be, i’m unsuprised Warner wouldn’t let Patty take that route. 

Point is it starts well enough.. but instead of the two actually having a deep freindship and possible relationship that is heartbreaking when it’s broken.. Diana just sort of forgets about her except when she needs her for the plot, and thus what should’ve been an emotionally breaking subplot leading to an utterly heartbreaking fight at the climax.. was just Diana being a dick, taking advantage of someone, and then getting a bit self righteous when the person you basically abandoned and didn’t notice made a wish till it was too late wants to keep the one thing that’s ever made her feel special. 

It dosen’t help the comics did this whole thing better and is likely where Jenkins got the inspiration: During Rebirth Barbara Minvera was converted from a vicious ruthless bitch and a half, if still a brilliant character, to a tragic figure: one who while a bit cold and standofish, was genuinely diana’s friend, tricked into thinking she was abandoned, then became the bride of a horrifying god who punsiheed her for the “crime”.. of not being a virgin. While removing the whole cat god thing is understandable.. they removed pretty much everything that made that intresting and Rucka worked hard to make for a cliche “Nerd becomes evil” plot that’s been done a milion times nad makes dsiana look horrible.  But while this is bad.. it PALES in comparisoin to the elephant in the room here. 

No no elephant sweetie not wild pig. No.. it’s once Diana makes her wish on the magical wishing stone form the trickster god.. and brings steve back. See her bringing him back only for her to have to give him up to save the world.. that’s not bad. It’s a great way to bring chris pine back, ratchet up tension and ultimately give her proper closure for steve so she can move on.  The problem.. is HOW steve comes back and how the movie handles that. Steve comes back.. by possesing some random guy. That itself is not a bad idea, as while it’s weird, A) I’m a weirdo and proud of it so i’mf ine with weird and B) it gives us a price to the wish like the other wishes: steve comes back.. but he has to take someone else’s life to do so. Diana has to sacrifice an innocent man she dosen’t know anything about in order to get her happy ending. That could’ve lead to some great drama, with Diana realizing how wrong this is and forcing herself to give him up with Steve’s blessing, as Steve would likewise not feel right about this. He could’ve had family or a girlfriend or something that were jeaporadzied if Diana kept Steve.  The problem.. is they handled it horribly. really horribly. Diana and Steve.. almost NEVER mention the fact that he’s basically taken a life. They don’t ask if the guy is dead, they don’t ask who he was and they don’t try to find a way to get him a new body or a dying one or some other ghost can’t do it style shenanigan. And the fact i’m comparing this subplot to ghost can’t do it should tell you this is very bad. And it gets worse as the two have sex.. and whiel I dind’t think about it while watching the movie... afterwords? Yeah.. that’s.. that’s rape. The guy didn’t consent to letting them use his body. Now granted if Steve could leave the body at willand the guy was like “Sure why not” then that’d be fine.. but he has no way of consenting. Sure STEVE did.. but this ain’t his property. This isn’t his body to decide who he fucks. It’s random guy whose body he stole. Hell they didn’t even stop to consider if this guy might be gay which given Diana is bisexual makes no goddamn sense. So that’s another possible layer of wrong on this sundae of what the actual hell. I mean.. how do you bungle writing so bad your main character ends up as a rapist? That’s a special kind of incompetence in 2020 I tell you. 

It just turns Diana from a kind noble woman who looks out for everyone.. into a creepy asshole who willingly sacrifices some guy she dosen’t know, something a well written Diana would NEVER do, to get what she wants. This is not diana prince. This is “out of the way sperm bank” levels of charactera assasination” and the fact steve has to talk her into letting him go just makes it worst. Diana here is selifhs, unsympathetic and terrible and it brings the whole film down despite Gal Godot’s best efforts to try and make this work. She fails.. but it’s not on her as an actress, she’s terrific, but on the writing for Diana being so bad. She just comes off as selfish and irredemible and i’ts horrifying to see. As one last note Steve is reduced to more of a cutout this time, so any possible emotinal weight not already destroyed by the rape is entirley missing. Just good god they did Diana dirty for this one. And it dosen’t help her villians.. are done much better. Speaking of..

Barbra: A Mixed Cat Out of a Mixed Bag As the title should make clear Barbra is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand.. Kristin Wiig is fantastic. Like holy crap I had some small doubts about her being cast in the role but she nailed both the sweet put upon nerd at the start and the ruthless individual desperate to stay special at the end really well and the reason her scenes aren’t as draggy despite a lot being padding are Wiig just really sells the transformation, going from being giddy at a sudden influx of attention to feeling powerful.. to feeling dangerous and being deseprate to do whatever it takes to hold onto her power and being furious when she looses it.  The problem is.. it’s all in the acting. Writing wise the story is horribly cliche. It’s why her having feelings for Diana was a suggestion that popped into my head: that’s actually intresting. A put upon nerd who envy’s a hero but ends up instead resenting them and wanting to kill them isn’t new. Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I thankfully haven’t seen but has that plot, Incredibles, and the one that the movie steals from the most.. Batman Returns. While wanting to kill the hero wasn’t part of that one, the whole “blonde whose still attractive even before the makeover has some supernatural thing happen to her and turns into an extrovert with a cat motif who is determined to take what she wants despite the cost.” While i’ts not 1 for 1, mostly becasue Catwoman actually had a romantic relationship with the hero, it’s REALLY hard to ignore just how much it seems to curb from Returns. And I haven’t even seen the movie the whole way through, just about half, really need to, not the point. Point is, it just feels like a rehash of a better done version of the plot.  And the sad part is the comics GAVE Patty and Geoff two much better versions that could’ve followed the same path. Pre-Rebirth/Flashpoint, she was a ruthless woman from the getgo and simply could’ve been that, being friends with Diana.. but being too selfish and envious to truly let her in and thus relishing in her new power and showing off who she really was. The other, and better option for the narrative is the previously mentioned rebirth one: A sarcastic and hard but likeable woman who has had to scrape and claw to do what she loves, which is archelogy, despite her father being vastly against it because he’s a dick. Someone who through tragic misunderstanding becomes a tragic monster. That latter version would’ve fit in perfectly, having her like diana and just want to be her.. but a combination of her own inseucrites and the stone strip away her empathy and increase her jealousy and Diana neglecting her could’ve been a concious choice: Diana being too busy with steve and stopping max to see what was happening and thus be heartbroken to fight her true friend. Instead we just get.. catwoman but less good. Wiig tries her best and often succeeds but even she can’t really fix this.  It also dosen’t help that selfishness aside.. Barbra is far more sympathetic. She’s contantly put upon and ignored by her cowowkres nad even her boss, who oftne forgets she works there, and finally meets someone who seems to care.. onlyf or that person to ignore her and go off and have adventures and really horribly implicated sex. So she wishes to be like this person, to be confident and loved and able to walk in heels and strong and gets it and slowly looses who she was to it. Hell the moment where she apparently CROSSES THE LINE by possibly killing some guy.. is entirely ruined by picking the wrong target. Instead of it being her boss or one of her co workers who mockeda nd humilated her.. i’ts the same guy who tried to assault her out for revenge. She’s beating up.. a bad person. She’s doing what Diana would do in a good way..

Sure she does take a turn for the evil, after hearing about the wishing stone destroying civilizations.. she sides with max.. but she’s still more sympathetic. Her resintment of Diana which should just be the meta commentary Jenkins intended on relationships between women where it becomes competitive due to societal bullshit, instead comes off justifed. Diana abandoned her, Diana is also being selfish with her wish, diana raped a man, Diana wants Max to stop.. but has to be TALKED into letting her wish go. While Diana is trying to save the world you can’t fault Barbra for not trusting her. For someone who preaches honesty, all Diana is to Barbra is a liar. While she does side with Max who earlier manipualted her by seducing her and stealing the stone... she KNOWS he’s not a great person, and this time instead of being the used, she’s the user. She knows he can make her even STRONGER, knows he can let her keep being who she wants to be if not BETTER, and knows he needs someone on his side.. and knows he won’t screw her over with her wish since he needs Diana off his back to become powerful enough to face her. Barbra comes off as cunning, manipulative and way more likeable than the hero, instead of the tragic villian she was inteded as. If nothing else, if she shows up in the sequel I will watch it even after this one was pretty damn bad and hopefully sh’ell be better written next time to match Wiig’s hard work. Now.. i’ve saved the best for last as while i’ve compalined a lot.. there is ONE aspect of the film that is genuinely good and while I get not everyone liked it.. Is urea s hell did

Maxwell Lord: Perdo Pascal Saves this film by eating the set whole like galactus. 

Maxwell Lord.. is the best part of this movie. Easily. Unlike the other main characters, he’s written well, acted well if hammy as all hell, and is true to the comics. Part of this I freely admit is that when I heard Max was a villian here I expected none of his JLI version to survivie. I should explain.. in the comics Max is defined by two diffrent phases of how he was written; The first was in Giffen and Demattis run on justice league, which was more of an action comedy with emphasis on the comedy> There was still serious stuff and villians to face, it’s just our heroes were a bunch of likeable misfits and b-list heroes doing their best while cracking jokes and disfunctionally clashing with one another. It’s good stuff.  Max was the heart of that: a selfish manipulative buisness man who grew to like the league and rebelled against the robot intellegence that got him that far, earning him a fair spot on the team. Sure he was a sleazy, shady 80′s buisness man, but he has a good heart underneath the opprotunsitic nature. 

Come the run up to infinite crisis despite being a metahuman, he started irationally hating metahumans, claimed to have always hated them, and set up a vast conspriacty to kill em all. He also hyjacked superman, which lead to Wonder Woman being forced to snap his neck and being booed for it by superman despite the fact you know.. she was trying to stop him from killing batman and had no other cohice. The rest of the world got the clip out of context.. but even then she’d already killed months ago for the medusa thing I mentioned before, and despite Medusa only speeking ancient greek, the world, which tihs was broadcast too hence the danger of medusa killing trillions of viewers watching at home, they got the context that Wonder Woman was the good guy and was killing for good reason. It was just.. kind of stupid even if Rucka did his best with it is what i’m saying. 

Point is there were two maxes: the sleazy and manipulative but well meaning buisness man and semi-con man and the manipulative but well intentioned master mind. So the movie.. combined both beautifully. He’s a manipulator as always, having set up a ponzi scheme and getitng called out on it by what turned out to be Simon Stagg.. who for some reason is the virtious if assholish buisness man here despite in the comcis being an utterly corrupt asshole constnatly ttrying to prevent his daughter from marrying this guy

This is Metamorpho, the element man, archelogist Rex Mason who thanks to the orb of Ra turned into this guy, an embodiment of the elments who can transmute his body into anything on the perodic table. Why HE hasn’t been in a movie yet his nemisis now has been is beyond me and there are better dc businessmen to have used. 

Point is this Max is shady, ambitious and sleazy.. and badly failing his scheme falling around him. But his reason for wanting to be a rich, powerful man after growing up a poor immigrant.. is utterly symapthetic. He has a son in this adaptation and wants to make him proud. I’ts CLEARLY not his only motivation, he also just wants to be proud and the finale reveals hsi father was abusive, and his classmmates alienated him for being an immigrant. He has a chip on his shoulder due to having a rough life and just wanting his moment in the sun. It makes Max relatable: His actions are NOT okay but we get why he merges with the wishing stone: because this is his shot. And most of the people he fucks over with his wishes.. are bad people. he cons some good people sure but Stagg is an asshole and the prince he cons wants to kick foreigners out of his homeland. Max, like Barbra, while not a GOOD person still is more likeable than diana.  He just.. feels like Max. He’s what Max could’ve been if he gave into the power instead of fighting against it. If he'd teamed up with the alien robot thing to take over the world instead of resiting it. So while he’s a bad guy like he’s been sadly turned into in the comics.. he feels like a CONVINCING version of Max as a bad guy. Like he genuinely turned evil of his own will and his own ambition. 

It also helps he’s written compitently. Unlike Diana, whose entirely miswritten to a point NO amount of good acting and no amount of Gal Godot’s talents could save, and Barbra, whose great but only because her character had too little to be great but just enough to give Kristin Wiig room to work with Gal simply did not have. Seriously I feel terrible for Gal Godot, she’s a genuinely talented actress and a genuinely kind and great person whose a LOT like Diana herself when written properly.  But Pedro Pascal? Since his character isn’t too badly written, and he has room to work.. he’s allowed to just be awesome. Since I haven’t watched the Mandolorian yet, I know, I KNOW, trust me.. I KNOWWW. But since I hadn’t this was my first proper exposure to Pedro Pascal..and his talent speaks for himself. In a weak movie, he is the shining star.  He’s also hammy as shit, but it WORKS because the film is redicouls. The Wishin Rock plot line and Max merging with it.. it’s bonkers. But he has just the right mix of bonkers hammy acting that’s fun to watch, and actual character work in the ham. He’s eating the scenery hand over fist, utterly devouring it.. but it fits the character as while Max was more of a subtle ham, a guy who just radiated smug and who more got into histornics when things went tits up like the time Blue Beetle and Booster Gold took the JLU’s funds to build an island resort on an island that turned out to be sentient and didn’t like that much and yes, all of that happened and it was as funny as it sounds. Point is being a showman whose always on, always talking and always got a plan.. that’s Maxwell Fucking Lord, and Pascal’s over the top acting fits that kind of character like a glove. 

It also fits the film well: the film comes off more like a 2000′s superhero film, one that takes itself super seriously.. but is really, REALLY goofy in places. It honest to god feels like one of the Sam rami spider-man films, ones I REALLY need to revisit and the results of that you’ll likely see, but without the self awarness rami had.. for the first two I mean by the third with the whole saturday night fever sequence, he’d really lost it. Love the guy though, still need to watch Army of Darkness and yes you may boo me.  Point is the film is bonkers and cheesy and dosne’t realize it but Pascal does so he just.. has fun with it. His haminess when asking someone for a wish, his great ways of reversing those wishes so he benifits from the consequences, taking them off the board while furthring his own goals. Max is just.. awesome, and so is pascal. He got a life long fan in me from this performance. And of all people he took his inspriation from Nick Cage which is a perfect fit as Cage is fucking great at acting absolutely batshit while still acting his ass off. Pascal really deserves full credit for this film for more than just being lovingly over the top. He’s genuinely good.

And that shines through greatly in the climax. First off the final fight between Cheetah and Wonder Woman is awesome.. just one of the best superhero fights i’ve seen on film and i’ve seen some whoppers. Great back and forth, great coreography and brutal intensitiy the whole way through with Diana being forced to possibly kill Barbra despite not wanting to hurt her. Just a hell of one. But the real centerpice is the wish vortex. Pascal just drops all pretense and goes ultra instinct ham, just letting it all hang out as he ascneds to god hood... but how he’s beaten.. is easily the most brilliant part of the film and one of the few times Gal Godot genuinely gets to show off her talent in this one: Wonder Woman defeats the bad guy not with brute force, not that she can, or some cool fight.. though we did get the cool fight too so that’s nice.. she simply uses her head and her heart. She uses her head by taking advantage of the fact max is broadcasting to the world, as villians tend to, and giving his bogus offers to whoevers listneting. So Diana counters this.. by simply speakking from the heart, enrouging those watching not to give in and to renounce the wish.. so the consequences can be renounced too. Even if it’s hard, even if it costs you.. what your doing will cost others so much more. And she finsihses this by using the Lasso of Truth on max, making him tear down his delusions about himself and see that his actions, which have caused world war III by the way as he maniupated the president.. who for some reason was not Regan. While Regan was a bastard.. that’s exactly the reason I wanted hi mthere as this film would’ve been better had one of the parts of the climax been Diana fighting a 50 foot tall rouge ronald regan. Admit it you’d see that in theaters if it was safe to go. 

POint is max sees he’s only HURTING his son, that this is for HIM not for his boy.. and that if he dosen’t let this power go, if he dosen’t just accept a peaceful life and let the world spin the way it’s supposed to and not emplode jus tso he can be a god... his son will be gone. So he gives it up and goes back to his boy in a touching moment. Though for some reason his son somehow got from Max’s office to the middle of a fucking highway. How is he not dead? I dunno we’re almost done here. Point is max is easily the highlight of the film and the reason it’s not ALL horrible along with Barbra.  Final Thoughts: Wonder Woman 1984.. is a disapointment. What I thought would be an easy film of the year contender.. instead ended up being an ungodly mess with unfortunate implications, a messy slapped together plot and WAYYYYY too much filler. As I said it had it’ sbright spots especially max and barbra.. but hte ultimate product is WAYYYY less than Patty Jenkins is capable of and since a third film is apparently inevitible, I can only hope next time she learns from this and does better. Also get Pedro Pascal his own Justice League international series as Max’s grandson or something YESTERDAY. Seriously even people who didn’t like this film would love it and it’s not like he can’t do this between seasons of Mando. He did We Can Be Heroes for god’s sake.. which was somehow a better film than this one. I guess 2020 had to disapoint me one last time huh? Well we’re in a new year now... and hopefully the Suicide Squad won’t also be a huge diapointment. If you enjoyed this lnog rant on a movie from a week or two ago, follow me for more. I’m currently doing retrospectives on the life and times of scrooge mcduck, scott pilgrim, grant morrisons new x-men, and i’m soon going to finish up a Darkwing Duck one focusing on Just us Justice ducks. And once they come back this year I plan on reguarlly covering Ducktales, Loud House, Owl House, Amphibia, and Final Space. So keep an eye out for that and until then, Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye. 

#wonder woman #wonder woman 1984 #pedro pascal #gal godot #kristin wiig #chris pine #diana prince #cheetah #barbra minerva #maxwell lord #justice league international #dc comics #dc extended universe #hbo max #patty jenkins #steve trevor

[cherryblossomshadow]

Wonder Woman 1984 review

Long, rambly, and spoilery. You’ve been warned. 

I saw WW84. I had thoughts. Let's talk about it. 

I want to preface with the fact that it's amazing that we have another female-led superhero film! I loved Patti Jenkins' work with the first Wonder Woman (and this one too) and I'm so glad she's back for this one. There's obviously a lot to pick through, but first, a couple reminders.

No film will ever be "perfect."

Not every film is made specifically for you. 

It is okay to vibe or disvibe with something. But that does not make it trash. 

Also, please, keep in mind, what I'm expressing are my opinions. I'm entitled to mine as you are entitled to yours. I hope you have a lovely time on the internet, and I hope you wish the same for everyone you interact with. 

Oh, and spoilers obviously. 

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's dig in. 

My overall experience with the film is positive! I had a great time watching it, it got me emotional, and I definitely want to watch it again. That said, I don't think it's better than the first one (although that would have been quite a feat), and that's ok. It's a continuation of a story we've already started, and it doesn't need to outshine the first. 

Okay, after all the hyping up and disclaiming I've done, let's dig into what I didn't like about the film. 

Number one is pacing. The storyline felt very erratic to me? Part of that, I feel, is because we have three (four?) main characters, and we jump between them pretty abruptly. 

Number two is the themes. Now I do like the themes of WW84 (truth and sacrifice), I just don't think they were worked into the film as cohesively as I would have liked? 

Number three is perceived character changes to Diana. And really, some of this is kinda circumstantial, I just thought it deserved its own bullet point. You'll see what I mean. 

So, on Pacing.

We jump between Diana (and Steve), Barbara, and Maxwell pretty frequently. And before I talk about that, I have to talk about my view on the characters. 

a. Now, I love the Mandalorian, but I was not personally invested in Maxwell's arc at all. Again, this is my take, and I know people disagree. Many people feel like Pedro Pascal carried the film on his shoulders. That's cool. He's a great actor. I'm glad he was in it. I just kinda checked out of every scene he was in (when he wasn't with his kid) because I wasn't invested in him. He played a sleazeball on purpose, and it worked. I was sleazed. So the movie kinda dragged for me whenever the camera panned to him. 

b. I loved the focus on Barbara. I don't know Cheetah from the comics, so this is from a movie-only perspective. But I know one of the criticisms of the first film was that Diana didn't really talk to women after she left Themyscira (even though there was a perfectly good villainess sitting right there for her to converse with and have morality debates/fights with! Even Steve Trevor got to talk to Dr Poison!), so I thought it was great that 1) they set up a villainess for her to fight and 2) it was a villainess that she knew, she had talked to, she had formed a relationship with. It honestly surprised me that Barbara was helpful for so long (bc I had seen the trailer and got spoiled that she would become a villain), but I love that she genuinely did want to help Diana, up until she hit her hard limit (giving up her powers). Now, that being said, the Nerd Girl Makeover has been done a thousand times. I knew what her vague trajectory would be from the second she appeared on screen with frizzy hair. I did like that her motivation was not solely "pretty people are mean to me, and I want revenge and/or for this hot guy to like me," but specifically, "I want to be like this really cool girl" and then "I don’t want to be like anyone else; I want to be the best/number one" for myself." But I felt like the absolute inattention that she was shown at the beginning and the absolute worship Diana and later Barbara would get was ... highly exaggerated? And I know this was another criticism of the first film, that yeah "Diana did so well in the real world because SHE'S HOT and that's actually not empowering to women" or something. But like. Watching that part made me uncomfortable instead of seen. Pandered to, instead of impacted. Showing how looks change how society treats you is important, but not to this caricaturized degree. 

c. (and d?) And lastly, Diana and Steve. Or more accurately, Diana and Steve's soul or memories or ??? that has been transplanted into some random man's body with absolutely no one's consent (I don't believe that Diana "consented" when making the wish, because she didn't know 1. That it would even work or 2. HOW it would work.). So ... Yeah. The first problem with this (chronologically, not by importance) is that it's really unclear what's going on? Some rando is reciting Steve's lines from the first film, then all of a sudden he turns into Chris Pine? (Fun fact: my aunt actually recognized the actor from Hallmark 😂 Could you imagine being the guy who gets replaced by Chris Pine for half the movie? Like "yeah, I played Steve Trevor, but they had Chris Pine do all the important parts" 😂😂😂). So, Diana and Steve finally figure out that he's inhabiting some engineer's body because of the wish she made. And then they bang. Or do they bang before they figure it out? Either way, yikes 😬. Not a good look. 

To be clear, the yikes part is that Steve is inhabiting Engineer Dude's body without their consent (without his own either tho so that part's not really his fault), but then he chooses to do things sexually with that body that Engineer Dude didn't consent to (because he's like, literally not home. Whether he's been subsumed into Chris Pine or taken out or dormant or whatever). Oh, and then like, probably doing death-defying stunts with his body is also yikes. I'm not really sure what the rules around body possession are. Cuz you know. 

Anyway, that is a huge issue that is literally not addressed. At all. 

Again, I think they may have been trying to address some criticisms from the first film about Diana "getting rid of the dreaded V-card so quickly in Wonder Woman and then pining after Chris Pine (lol) for the rest of her long life" and how that sets back female sexuality and stuff. Which I get. They actually lampshaded it in WW84, how Chris Pine wants her to move on because "the world deserves her." Which I know what they were going for in the scene, but I feel like they didn't flesh out the journey from Hippolyta's "the world doesn't deserve you Diana" to Steve's "the world deserves you (to date them)" enough. But I digress. 

I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the possession and that "the world deserves/doesn't deserve you" line in my Themes section, but honestly? From the previews, I assumed that Chris Pine was revived from the dead via time travel or something. Body possession was NOT in the the trailers. I think the Dreamstone could have created a body for him out of nothing. Or like "time-traveled" him into the future. So like. Why didn't they? Why introduce body possession at all? So they could make fun of the dude's clothes? 

Okay, back to the pacing part of the pacing section. These three (four?) characters have completely different things going on in their lives (I actually forgot to talk about Maxwell, but he wants to "be the best," and he's gonna do it by giving people what they think they want (maybe) and then taking from them whatever he wants. Yeah idk). And all three do interact at the beginning (brownie points) even if the attempted seduction of Barbara by Maxwell makes me want to throw up. But the themes aren't worked in as cohesively as I would have liked, and the tone changes were jarring, as the film switched between them all. 

Another facet of the movie is that the Dreamstone is kind of a mystery. And that was a deliberate Choice™, not a mistake. We're guessing at what the rock is doing and how and why and by who and all that stuff, and that's on purpose, but that makes for a confusing experience. Their approach is to throw something confusing at you and then explain it later. Which is great for worldbuilding. But not always for the Movie-Watching Experience™. So to recap, we're switching tracks and characters with their own separate stories while also setting up several confusing plot points that take a while to unravel. This all contributes to the Experience™, good or bad. 

Honestly, I wonder how much Covid affected this movie? My dad felt like a lot of scenes probably got cut for various reasons, and it probably affected the flow of the movie. If so, it could have affected thematic coherence, too. Speaking of... 

So, Themes. 

The themes that I got out of this film were Truth and Sacrifice. Maybe I missed some; I'm not an experienced Media Critic™. But these are the ones I noticed. 

And actually, these themes are really strong. Universally applicable, and used in all three character arcs. It's just tied in a bit ... erratically?

So working backward, knowing that the Dreamstone is giving you a lie, you need to renounce your wish and accept the Truth™. This is echoed in Diana's flashback, where she needed to accept that she didn't win. 

Working backward again, Sacrifice was a big part of the story for all three characters because Diana was willing to sacrifice her power to keep Steve, but he wanted her to sacrifice him so she could save the world. Barbara was willing to sacrifice her "humanity" or "empathy" or whatever she lost for the power and influence she got by emulating Diana, and she was unwilling to sacrifice that to save the world. Maxwell was willing to sacrifice time with his son to "become the best," but he did sacrifice that to save his son's life. 

And then, full circle, he confessed to his son that he wasn't the best, he's actually a filthy liar. Which, yes, kudos for the themes, be honest with your children, but you can still sanitize it a bit. That speech alone would have traumatized the kid. 

Speaking of speeches, Antiope's speech confused me in a similar way? Like, she stops Diana from "winning" the tournament after cheating, and goes on this weird rambly rant which goes from "accept that you're not a winner" to "cheating is bad and so is lying." Which yes, cheating is bad, but it's weird that she wouldn't have been disqualified at this point for not shooting that last target? Like, did she need to be tackled? Idk, I felt like they came up with the line they wanted Antiope to say first, and then just made her say it. (And also, in other stories, Diana would have been praised for being "clever" and "never giving up without a fight." So like, I needed a bit more preparation for which take they were going for, because the anti-cheating spiel felt jarring to me.) 

And again, I wonder if this is a response to a criticism of this first film. (Warning: WW17 rant gearing up) 

When Diana has her big motivational flashback during her fight with Ares, she thinks about Steve, this dude she just met a week ago, saying he loved her. When she could have been thinking about literally any of the women who had raised her. I personally think it would have been cool to hear some of Antiope's words at that point. Since they set up Hippolyta and Antiope to have conflicting ideas over whether Diana should fulfill her humanity-saving destiny, it might have been cool to see her saying something about humans and how they need her or how she should help them or something. They could even have done the whole thing with not being able to hear Steve's last words, but with Antiope since she dies earlier in the film and doesn't finish speaking. I also think it would have been cool for them to expand Hippolyta's earlier line about "They don't deserve you, Diana," here to like "They need you, Diana," or something. And then Steve's line in WW84 could have been something like "They're with you, Diana," or "They could get to know you, Diana," and her character arc could have been about actually living among society and maybe getting to know these humans that she's saved so many times (which they kind of alluded to when she and Barbara had their little date at the beginning of the film). But I digress. 

So, yeah, I found both of these speeches to be ... Not great? Like I can tell what they're going for and how they tie into the themes, but they're so heavy-handed and they don't actually fit in too well to the moment they happen in. Like as soon as the speech starts, you realize that they started going meta on you. The character isn't really speaking to the other character, they're speaking to us, and they're telling us how this scene ties into the greater themes of the film. 

Oh and they have this great quote from Antiope "greatness is not what you think" and then Maxwell's son wishes for him to be "great." And they do nothing with it :(

As promised, I want to talk about the body possession a little bit more. So again, one of the recurring themes is Truth™. Which is a great choice for Wonder Woman, what with her Lasso of Truth. 

But it's tied in a bit haphazardly. They force it into a conversation about cheating in a flashback at the beginning of the film. And then they talk about how you need to accept the Truth™ in order to defeat the Dreamstone. I already talked about the cheating, and how the "accept that you're not a winner" was kind of a weird path to take to get your point across to a ten year old girl. 

But the Dreamstone. Oh, the Dreamstone. I said before that the movie is a mystery. It shows you things but doesn't explain them. Well, this is a bit of a problem. Because they never actually explain that the Dreamstone is giving you lies. To my eyes, the Dreamstone is changing reality. Steve is back, Barbara is powerful, and Maxwell is doing whatever he wants with the powers of the Dreamstone. THIS DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A LIE TO ME. THERE IS NO "TRUTH" TO ACCEPT, JUST YOUR NEW REALITY. And that made the film less thematically strong (to my eyes, anyway. Other people probably picked up on stuff I didn't). But I feel like this might have been an easy fix? Like you already have Chris Pine in someone else's body (oh! So that's why they chose body possession! Because he's a Lie™! ... Still don't like it) I still think he should have manifested his own body or something but whatever. Barbara's appearance hardly changed at first. If they had people reacting to her as if she was hot when she really looked the same as she always does, then I would have bought your "but the Dreamstone only gives you lies." Instead, Barbara gained the power to walk in heels and then hotness and then the literal power of a God™ (a la Diana) which makes me think the Dreamstone is changing reality. Not bringing lies. 

Oh, also, they could have had Diana's Lasso of Truth stop working for her. I thought that's what they were going for at first, but it turns out that Diana is just losing her powers. They also started with "the Dreamstone will give you what you want most," but then Maxwell started using it to clear traffic? Which by the way, is NOT an illusion. That is reality-bending. 

There were just so many ways to make it obvious that "the Dreamstone is giving you lies," but they didn't use them. Or at the very least, they didn't commit. I felt like they used a little bit of "be careful what you wish for" (mostly on randos that Maxwell is duping), a little bit of "what are you willing to sacrifice," and a little of "you can have what you want, but it won't be real." All of which are valid ways to take a Dreamstone kind of story, but if they wanted to rely so heavily on Truth™ as the main theme, then I feel like more of the wishes should have been showcasing that. Instead, it felt like a jumble of all the kinds of messages we're used to seeing with Wish-Granting Objects, with no emphasis on specifically the "it's all a lie" part. 

Ugh, I'm actually mad now, because I'm trying to think of a story I've heard where this magical thing is granting wishes but they're Explicitly Not Real. Like all the money gets turned back to leaves or whatever (kinda like Cinderella's pumpkin lol). Oh, Aladdin does this, too, because yeah Genie is granting wishes and changing reality, but not permanently? Like, almost all of the stuff he uses magic to do dissolves as soon as we're looking away from it or gets fixed by the end of the movie? And the film is very very clear on the fact that Aladdin is not factually a Prince. 

But this film doesn't do that. They make it seem like the Dreamstone can change reality, then berate the characters for not Accepting the Truth™ about themselves. Maybe if they had made a bigger deal out of Steve coming back in someone else's body, it would have been 1) less confusing, 2) less icky (provided they don't do the sex in Engineer Dude's body), and 3) more thematically coherent. 

Lastly, Diana's perceived character changes. 

This one is probably the most subjective. Diana, as a character, in the first film was very morally grounded and motivated. The Diana in this film felt ... different. Again. Subjective. And also circumstantial. 

Diana is still morally grounded in this film. But she's also willing to sacrifice the world to keep Steve Trevor around. Which feels like a jarring change from her characterization in the first film. She was so idealistic and optimistic in that first film, I couldn't imagine her making that choice. It just felt like such a tone change for her character. How did we go from "Who will I be if I stay?" to "Why, for once, can't I just have this one thing, Steve? ... I can't give you up. I can't. So I won't."

Also, her motivation in this film seemed to center around her loss of Steve Trevor and wanting him, and less around "save the world." Which, to be fair, I'm all for women being selfish in film. Give me women of all motivations and desires. I don't want Diana to be Perfect™. I just want her to be consistent. And I didn't think this characterization was as consistent as I expected. Was her life so terrible without Steve (even though they only knew each other for a short time)? Not to say this couldn't be a valid take on Diana (reminder: I haven't read any comics, so maybe it's not in character at all 🤷‍♀️), but if that's what they were going for, they should have developed the journey from naive idealist to jaded romantic more in order to justify this character change. 

Also, the body possession thing. She's really okay with her boyfriend possessing somebody else's body. I did like the "All I See Is You" line, since it's romantic, but up until that point, we as viewers aren't really sure why Chris Pine and Hallmark Dude are both playing this guy. Then we find out in a romantic line that Chris Pine is just Wonder Woman's view of him. He still looks like Engineer Dude because he is Engineer Dude. At first, I thought that they used a different guy for the first meeting because Diana didn't recognize him. That this was her perception of him until she realized who it was. (I thought this was supported by Chris Pine's more rugged look in this film. But actually they were probably matching him to the body he was inhabiting, since the character really didn't look like himself). Leverage does a similar thing in the Rashomon Job. All the characters saw each other at the same event, but they didn't know each other back then, so they had different actors play their parts until it's slowly revealed that actually the random people at the event were the characters we know and love. It's great. Anyway, that's not what they're going for here, and the ambiguous framing along with Diana and Steve's chemistry is supposed to make you forget that he is possessing someone else’s body! Against their will! (Again, Steve and Diana didn't consent to the initial possession either, but they absolutely consented to what they did together. Engineer Dude did not.) 

Yikes  😬

I will say, she didn't kill innocents this time. One of my critiques of the first movie was that she was so willing to kill Germans. And I get it, Nazis are usually an "acceptable" target in American media. But as a character, she believed that they were innocents who had been manipulated by Ares. And yet, she was slaughtering them en masse. But, in this movie, they're really careful to make sure that she's nonlethal. 

And yeah, that's it.

Asteria was of course awesome. That bonus credit scene was 👌

I'm glad they got Linda Hemming back for costuming after the disaster of Justice League. Unfortunately, being set in the 80's, the outfits are not quite so modest as the first movie. But the important thing was the lack of male gaze in those shots.

The movie definitely hit me in my emotions. I cried three times: first during the tournament, watching the Amazon's being awesome. Then during Diana and Steve's fight, and when Steve convinced Diana to let him go. 😭

As I said, I definitely plan on rewatching. It makes me sad to see how much negative press that the movie is getting when it's one of so few female-led blockbusters. A lot of people are comparing it to the original or to the comics or TV show, when those are just not valuable comparisons. Comic books and TV shows are completely different mediums. And a successful sequel CONTINUES a story, instead of rehashing it. And also, not all films are created specifically for YOU. A lot of the 80's references went over my head, but that's ok. They weren't for me. I don't begrudge their existence just because I don't vibe with them. 

Again, no film is perfect! I think I talked through a lot of its weaknesses pretty thoroughly, but I still think it's a strong film, and I want it to succeed. 

Anyhoo, I hope you had fun watching the movie (even though it's not perfect) and I hope you had fun reading my commentary. 

(Fun fact: I actually ran out of space in my notes app and had to stretch it across two notes)

#Wonder Woman #wonder woman 1984 #ww84 #wonder woman 1984 spoilers #wonder woman review #diana prince #steve trevor #barbara minerva #maxwell lord #pedro pascal #gal gadot #linda hemming #patti jenkins #consent #tw: consent #body possession #tw: body possession #did i get it all? #wow i didn't even mention the fact that they gave Diana the power to fly #yeah my dad was upset about that one #but i didn't know Diana couldn't fly #she's a god #she could do anything and i'd say #yup that checks out #i speak #i post #i watch things #i ramble in the tags #retag #as i was watching i was actually thinking about body possession in some other popular media that i'm into

[itsoktowanttodie-blog]

Thoughts today

It is 2017. I'm a sophomore in college and the president of the United States is Donald fucking Trump. If you're finding this post hundreds of years from now you may be wondering "Donald Trump? The infamous, moronic reality star from that shitty show the Apprentice? The guy with a long history of bankruptcy, tax evasion, sexual harassment, and almost absolutely NO political knowledge or experience? How in tarnation did he acquire the most prestigious position in the country?" Well, future reader, that's a very good question. I'll be exploring that. Now, if you're reading this in modern times, then you're probably my facebook friend and you either hate me for my liberal posts, or you hype me up on my politically poised statuses, to both groups I would like to apologize for the length of this post (if you make it all the way through you're a real trooper). Either way, you probably fall into one of three categories of people who fought the good fight to elect our president for the 2016-2020 term. All three of these categories can be described as bad, there's no doubt about that, but I personally can only find a solid argument in the defense of the category I belong to, and a partial, half-ass defense for one of the others, the remaining, however, I can make almost no excuses for. You either voted liberal (Democratic) for Hillary Clinton, a slanted and shady lady with priorities being placed mostly on her wallet. Hillary isn't a truly good woman, she lies and manipulates people, but out of the two big party candidates, she is absolutely the lesser of two evils. She isn't all bad either, advocating for women and immigrants in America, and whatnot. If you didn't vote liberal then you either fall into one of the two remaining categories. You either voted conservative (Republican) for Donald Trump, a category I refuse to make excuses for, or almost just as bad as the latter of the first two categories, you voted 3rd party (Independent) or you didn't vote at all. Notice that I'm putting 3rd party voters in the same group as the 42.1% of America that didn't vote. The people in this group are just plain negligent. Not that I am usually opposed to 3rd party voting, mind you, I think that the Independent party is important and greatly under appreciated for their values and ideas, but this year a swell of 3rd party voting occurred because, of the 57.9% of America that voted, a majority of people spent months trying to figure out who they hated less and who was slightly less morally repugnant than the other (a clear choice to me but, surprisingly enough, not so clear for everyone else) but, conveniently, just a month or two (maybe three) before the voting took place 3rd party candidates like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson magically got enough funding I guess, to start making their social media and television debuts, to reel in clueless and confused voters looking for a way out of this "hard" decision between two evils. With promises of safe haven and a president with some actual political experience (as if Hil couldn't have given us those things) many new, young and uninformed voters cast their votes for 3rd party candidates, or in other words threw their vote pretty much right out the window. Although they weren't the only ones about 14,000 people wrote in Harambe (a poor gorilla shot down in his prime at the Cincinnati zoo this past year and then turned into a widely famous internet meme), and, as I mentioned previously, 42.1% of America just didn't care enough/couldn't make themselves choose/couldn't be bothered to register to vote for what could very possibly be the most influential and upsetting presidential election of all time. I know some of my closest friends aren't registered to vote and, to quote them, "understand it's a privilege and a blessing that we get to vote, they are just choosing not to exercise their right to vote" for whatever reason it was that they had at the time. I love all my friends (friends who didn't vote, I love you endlessly still, but the truth of the matter is that I am disappointed) and I'm always quick to defend them, but in this case I cannot defend their actions, or lack there of, because if half the people who didn't vote, or all of the people who voted 3rd party, voted for Hilary we wouldn't be in this mess. If you voted 3rd party or you didn't vote at all, I really can't and don't want to listen to a word you have to say about the state of our country or our new president because you are to blame just as much as the people who voted for him. And if that makes you mad or upset then so be it, because if you had been just as mad or upset as that statement just made you before he won we could have prevented that. Now that being said, Donald Trump is the president of the United States and there is nothing we can do but pray for a speedy impeachment, which is inevitable, so at least that's good, but Mike Pence and Paul Ryan are both horrible people as well so the future, at best, has a dim glow to it in my eyes. Trump has been in office for about 2 weeks now. Already he has banned immigration and travel into the United States from 7 "unsafe" and largely Muslim nations, he has moved to put the "gag rule" (regarding nongovernment corporations which offer abortion services being defunded) back in place, he has moved to start planning for the wall which is going to cost us roughly 55 billion dollars, he ordered a millitary raid without sufficient intelligence in Yemen which lead to numerous civilian deaths as well as the death of an 8 year old American girl and a US Navy Seal, he started a fight with FUCKING AUSTRALIA ONE OF THE MOST PEACEFUL COUNTRIES EVER BESIDES SWEDEN AND NOT TO MENTION ONE OF OUR ALLIES, and he announced that he plans to get rid of the law that prevents churches (cough cough Westboro Baptist cough) from political engagement because as if all the other things weren't bad enough he's just gonna shit on the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's expressed intent of keeping church and state SEPARATE. And to top off all of the aforementioned actions, he has tweeted about most if not all of these things in a childlike and unfit manner, further proving that America is digressing instead of progressing as a country. One of the scariest things about this presidency, to me, is the ignorance it is perpetuating. Donald Trump has exhibited most, if not all, of the signs of fascism, for those of you unaware of what fascism is look up Benito Mussolini or read the book 1984 then let me know what you think. There are two kinds of Republicans in America now, there are silent Republicans, those who are conservatives at heart (almost an oxymoron haha) who are freaking out about the lack of control they have over Donald and who really just wanted a Republican life in America but are getting much more than they bargained for; and there are alt-right, die hard Trump supporters. These are the nazis. They straight up are racist, misogynistic (even the women like what the fuck what is wrong with you seriously) and zenophobic. The supporters of Trump range in their degree of support, some silent Republicans just want to hold on to the sliver of hope that they didn't completely fuck their country over and that Donald might do what they want him to do (and not just whatever the fuck he wants to do because that's super likely and he's a super dependable and honorable man, sarcasm intended). But all supporters of Trump not only perpetuate the level of ignorance they assume to defend this man but they so aggressively (and possibly unknowingly, to a certain extent) promote twisted and false propaganda and the silence of others opposed to them, that I have been seeing a new kind of human being that I didn't even know existed. I have been called every name in the book since Trump won (not unwarranted I must add, I'm a very passionate girl with a very bad Irish temper) because I have stood up for my views and morals in the wake of his election. I will not back down from fighting the good fight. I will fight for the rights of women, immigrants, minorities and the poor. I will fight for our homeless population, both civilian and veteran. I will fight for Native Americans whose land is still being ripped from them for the benefit of corporate and industrial America. I will stand up for those with mental disabilities and those who can't stand up for themselves. And because of this I am a cry baby, a pussy liberal, a whiner, a bitch, a spoiled, overprivileged millennial who throws a fit anytime I don't get what I want. I know that I am a loving and compassionate person who cares for everyone and just wants the best for ALL human beings with great respect to democracy (although I strongly identify as a democratic socialist by my own philosophies), but in the minds of the people who call me those names I may actually be all those things, and that's where I have started to notice the problem amid humanity that has arisen (and has been arising in society for quite some time now, with regards to its previous and everlasting existence throughout the development of the human race). This problem being the lack of empathy and understanding leading to the loss of humanity. People are slowly becoming more and more isolated as we are in the new age of technology. The more isolated we become the more humanity we lose. Technology makes it really easy to desert your humanity, especially when the isolationist philosophy is so widely spread by society. The idea that "I am the only one who matters because I am me, I should look out for me and only me". We see this idea everywhere, especially in my generation, the social media generation, with trends like Waste His/Her Time 2016/2017 or most blatantly obvious, the corporate world that America has created within its own society. It's easy to not care about other people's lives and problems because you will never feel the effect of the actions that cause their problems, so how could it concern you? Plenty of philosophers have said it, you really only have yourself since you live alone and you die alone, right? As Aldous Huxley said in his literary masterpiece Doors Of Perception, "From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes." How could you be expected to tend to your own universe while also tending to the 7 billion other universes functioning simultaneously around you? Just don't expose yourself to news and current events that don't affect you directly, and look out for what benefits you and your wallet the most and you'll live a happy, full life (by American standards), right? This philosophy is easy for people to adapt because caring hurts. Because giving all of your love away is exhausting, and because if they were to lose that philosophy, and still live their lives the way that only benefits them, their conscious would have a hard time ridding itself of the everlasting guilt. That is, if they really are human beings, and not sociopaths/psychopaths, which studies by Canadian forensic psychologist Robert Hare show that in comparison to the prevalence rate, 1%, of the general population that can be categorized as psychopathic, 10% of the financial services industry is psychopathic. Who cares that an estimated 1.5 million women are going to lose access to contraception because of the Mexico City policy? Who cares that an estimated 6.5 million unintended pregnancies will happen, who cares about what happens to those kids who are going to be born into terrible lives? We don't have to see them day to day, we don't have to live their hard lives. That's for them to deal with, while we march onwards toward victory for pro-life and conservatism, its not enough to take away just our funding we have to take away all funding so we can be happy and God can say good job guys! Those kids deserved to be born into poverty and famine, that mother deserved to die in childbirth, this is just what I wanted! I'm sure that child who was born won't ever wish they were never born, they'll be thankful your actions brought them into this world to suffer! Sorry this is turning pro-choice, back to the real problem. People don't think about others anymore. I always try to do things I find are common courtesy and proper etiquette, such as holding the door for people, picking up something for someone who dropped it near me, smiling at people, giving people compliments, etc. and most of the time I find that the reactions I get when I do these things are of genuine surprise and sadly enough, sometimes contempt. It's become common policy to ignore those around you, to retreat into yourself and fuss with your phone so you can avoid talking to that person in a wheelchair that just got into the elevator with you or the person sitting next to you at the doctor's office. I realize it may seem like I'm asking for a lot to some people, because not everyone is born with the innate wonder that I have about other's lives, to look at someone else and think "what kind of struggles do you go through everyday? How can those struggles be solved?" It is very easy to ignore the problems of others when we are well-off ourselves, people become blind to the truth. It is very easy to make excuses for politicians, for religious leaders, for "respected" members of society, for the elite, and especially for ourselves. But it's not easy to recognize, acknowledge, and empathize with the trials and tribulations our fellow members of the human race experience. To do that it means you have to feel, you have to open your mind, and you have to try to be able to sleep at night knowing babies are born into famine and war everyday, not only in foreign countries (which we so lovingly refer to as Third World, uncivilized societies) but in our own nation (i.e. gang culture, drug and sex trade culture, racially prejudiced culture, homophobic and zenophobic culture). It hurts, and I know first-hand from many of my own issues dealing with emotional trauma that it is easier to shut yourself off to the world, turn off your humanity and tell yourself that you don't care because it doesn't concern you. I implore you to try your hardest everyday to care about others, to care about who may suffer from the consequences of the actions of not only yourself but those around you and most obviously so now, our nation. In addition, many of the Trump supporters, or just regular conservatives, that I have been interacting with have been enacting tactics of gaslighting and selective prioritization. They attack my views by questioning my patriotism and my morals, "why don't we help our own homeless veterans before we support a bunch of foreigners? Do you not care about our citizens who are dying in the streets here? Do you want to see America attacked on it's own soil again? Are you against America since you say it was never great?" By dividing us as a human race, by telling yourself that our homeless veterans are any more important than the homeless of other nations, you are prioritizing American lives when there need not be prioritization. Both groups of people are equally in need of help, and help can be given in tandem. (I'll bypass the fact that America is literally comprised of foreigners and was started for the purpose of escaping religious persecution and immigration). These are the same people that blissfully ignore the fact that the homeless veterans they believe are more important than refugees will suffer from the economic decisions of the Trump administration, and don't do much, if anything, to advocate for that group of people. They use them as examples, but don't contribute to the resolution of the continual epidemic of homelessness. The same goes for many pro-life advocates and activists. They talk about believing in the rights of each individual human being, but yet neglect the consequences of what they advocate for. How can you be "pro-life" but ignore the lives that are ruined by taking away the option of abortion? How can you be "pro-life" but do nothing for the reform and rehabilitation of the foster care/social work system where so many of these "unintentional" or "unwanted" children end up? You are always entitled to stand up for what you believe in, but that doesn't mean that you are entitled to vilify the beliefs of others or ignore that there are more ideologies than just your system of beliefs, and just because you haven't adapted them, doesn't mean yours are the only valid views. You must take your views into account and you must try, really actively try, to take the opposing party's views into account, then and only then can you attempt to reach any kind of understanding, nonetheless resolution. The solutions to these problems don't come easy, obviously or some of them would have been solved decades, if not centuries ago. But if everyone just talks over top of everyone else about why they are right then nothing gets accomplished and more anger, frustration and hate are produced. This post has been long and drawn out but the core message that I want to convey is this, don't let the ease of apathy take over your life. Care about others, read about what they go through, don't be another silent bystander and don't perpetuate ignorance and cruelty. When you see someone spewing hate or pushing propaganda that supports the division of us as the human race, stop them, talk to them, don't sit idly by while the hate continues to grow. It's certainly hard enough for me to try to keep my temper under control and logically talk to people with such radically different views, I still have to work on it each and every single day, but I'll never stop trying because when you stop trying, when you stop caring and just give up, that is when hate and evil win. You must always be the change that you want to see in the world, no matter how hopeless it seems. Love must, and love will, always find a way.

some sources include:

http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-psychopaths-2012-2

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/netherlands-trump-global-gag-rule/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/politics/trump-johnson-amendment-political-activity-churches.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/politics/us-australia-trump-turnbull.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/world/middleeast/donald-trump-yemen-commando-raid-questions.html

https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-muslim-majority-travel-ban-list-early-warning-signs-fascism-holocaust-museum-7554621