#because Impact Man needs to be bombastic too every once in a while

[scribblestatic]

Katsuki wakes up with a start in the middle of the night, hands burning from overuse, right wrist aching with strain, the smell of scalded paint and cotton strong cloying and blocking his nose, his body shaking with a terrible, cold sweat, and his father’s arms wrapped around him.

“You’re okay, son. You’re okay. Just breathe, Katsuki...breathe.”

He tries to follow his instructions, but it’s a struggle. He has to fight against himself, against his memories, to get his body to stop hyperventilating and suffocating itself. But it’s much easier to do with his dad’s warm body against his, Masaru’s heartbeat and lungs working much less strenuously than his own were.

Slowly, he’s brought down from his nightmare-induced panic attack, and, exhausted, he doesn’t try to wipe away the angry, scared tears in his eyes. Katsuki sags against his dad, not hugging him back, but not protesting the hold either.

They stay like that for a while, Masaru whispering slow, calm words to him like he did when Katsuki used to have really bad tantrums. As he does, red-eyed and exhausted, Katsuki takes stock of his room.

He’s burned up the wall next to his bed pretty badly. His sheets are still smoldering a bit, but the little burn spots aren’t yellow anymore. The lower left edge of the single All Might poster he has up on his wall is unsalvageable. When he strains his eyes to look upwards, he spots a darker, more burned spot on the ceiling right above his bed.

As a child, nightmares used to be accompanied by involuntary quirk usage. He remembered the scratchy, heat-resistant sleep gloves he used to have to wear. Back then, he’d hated them with a vengeance, so he trained himself to work through his nightmares quietly. To take the brunt of his terrors and kick their asses in his dreams rather than in reality. His efforts had paid off then—at eight years old, he was finally allowed to sleep without the gloves.

He doesn’t complain the next morning when his old man silently presents some new sleeping gloves to him.

These aren’t flashy or full of cool designs like his kiddie ones had been, no exploding red and orange on a black background, bombastic enough to hide the buckles that would be strapped around his wrists to keep them on. These are a simple black on the backhand, orange on the front, the buckle plain to see, but not nearly as daunting to look at now as it had been as a kid.

“I’m sorry, Katsuki,” his old man says as he takes the gloves without protest. “I know you hated these as a child, but—”

“I get it,” he replies, stuffing his hands—the left one free, the right wrapped in a fresh ACE bandage—into his pockets as he turns to head back to his burned room. “I get it.”

Before he’s completely out of the living room, he hears the dining room chair slide back.

“Maybe...maybe if you talked to the counselor at school, it would help you work through those nightmares. Or, well, you could tell me.” Katsuki stays staring at the floor, back to his dad. “I won’t be able to fully understand what you’ve been through, but son, you...you have to talk to someone. You need someone to help you.”

Help…

Katsuki clenches his teeth tightly. Not out of anger, but out of the pang of panic that strikes through him at the mere mention of the word.

Help.

He’d cried for help.

Begged for it.

As that sludge clogged his lungs and slowed his heart, he’d pumped as much adrenaline into his body as he could to keep exploding, keep moving, keep trying to force it out, don’t drown, don’t drown, don’t drown—

He’d needed help. He’d looked out into the crowd and begged for it.

And not a single living soul reached to help him.

The crowd had stood stock still, looking around for heroes to come help. Hell, the heroes who were there didn’t...they didn’t even try. They didn’t reach for him, didn’t use what the could to help him. Nothing. They were going to watch him die, they were ready to watch him die, he was dying and they…

But he’d felt it.

A cold, clammy hand forcing his wrist back into the sludge, backwards, straining, before forcing a solid kick against his back. It had shoved his face out of the sludge long enough to breathe, long enough to make a good explosion, long enough that the hand forced backwards let out an explosion big enough to send him flying out like a rocket. He’d had a rough landing, a solid slab of concrete hitting him in the stomach on his way down before he collapsed and began throwing up food and drink and sticky green from the harsh hit.

He barely understood what happened after that. His hearing was already shot from having sludge shoved into him, the fucking monster of a man trying to force himself into his body in the most disgusting, horrendous ways possible. He’d still been throwing up and coughing, trying to crawl desperately away from the sloughing sludge behind him, and still, the heroes weren’t close enough to help. Were refusing to help.

It wasn’t until All Might wrapped an arm around his waist as he threw a punch that changed the weather that he felt even remotely like things would be okay. He hadn’t even realized it was All Might at first, but the body was not cold and wet and curling and forcing itself into his body, so he didn’t struggle against it.

Paramedics quickly took him after, gave him a general check up and quickly diagnosed him with pneumonia, doing their best to tell the media to fuck off as a nurse with a healing quirk—something about toxin expulsion—helped expunge him of the physical residuals from the attack. (Had it not been for her and those nurses, he’d probably have died of bacterial aspiration pneumonia, lactic acidosis, and flat-out blood poisoning. Thank fuck some actually thoughful pricks were around.)

The nurses couldn’t conceal him forever, and after a solid jar-full of extra sludge coming out of his body, another check, and a watchful bill of health with an ACE bandage for his mysteriously sprained right wrist, they were forced to throw him back to the dogs as the media, police, and heroes hounded to hear something from him. But he’d barely said a word. The only thing he’d really managed to say occured when a crowd of heroes tried to congratulate him, cooing over how strong his quirk is, how they’d love to have him as a sidekick. Same shit he’d been hearing all his life.

Only this time, while usually it brought him a sense of pride thinly concealing an overwhelming ball of anxiety, now it just fell flat. Numb. Like something was trying to tickle him but it couldn’t get a response. 

He just stared off to the side, where the nurses were gingerly concealing Deku’s dead body from the rest of the world. A single casualty that none of the heroes surrounding him were paying attention to. No. Only All Might acknowledged him, standing over his long cold body with slightly slumped shoulders, his body also a guard against a bunch of nosy gossip mongers from taking Deku’s slack-faced picture and posting it all over the web.

No...Deku’s face was slack. It was, but not the way the dead tend to look.

He’d seen it as the nurses covered him. Nah, the dumbass seemed like he was just sleeping. Just a little opening of the mouth, the lack of chest movement and the severe impact scar scraped into his chest the only indications he was dead. Yet, his face hadn’t been scrunched in pain. No, he was serene, like he was having a good-damn dream.

He stared as the nurses covered his red shoes, and slapped one of the heroes’ hands off his shoulder as they touched him.

“Keep your paws off me. It’s too fuckin’ late now.”

Apparently his face said something his mouth didn’t, because none of the heroes followed after him as he left.

Katsuki kept it together all the way till he got home, right up until his dad rushed in his room and held him close, thanking every Shinto god he could think of that his son was alive. Then Katsuki pressed his face into his dad’s shoulder and finally shattered to pieces, not caring that the old hag hovered in the doorway, unsure and concerned.

She ended up occupied anyway. Had to console her best friend during the loss of the woman’s only son. But just hearing the call start up opened up another can of beans because he’d seen Deku’s face last. Before the silent, sleeping face, there had been a terrible, teary-eyed, wide-pupiled grin before Deku’s dead maw had opened, peering eyes peeking out from his already cold body, spewing forth death that quickly surrounded Katsuki and tried to invade his body and take him with it.

But even that isn’t what haunts him most. Haunts him so much that he can’t yet bear to talk about it, because he’s sure if he tries, he’ll be admitted to the nearest psych ward and he’s not sure he could take that.

So instead of answering his dad back, he just keeps walking forward. Keeps heading to the stairs and shuffling to his room. Silently closes the door and stares at his charred wall and the new bed sheets that have replaced the newly burnt ones. Stares at the crispy All Might poster that he’s still going to leave up on his wall.

Then, once he’s sure he’ll be left alone, his gaze shoots to his closet.

See, in his time off school, he’s had time to think. Time to process some shit and really get his head into gear. Actually use his brain after it had been so rudely thrust out of its usual orbit. And he’s still not quite back, but he’s aware enough. Thoughtful enough. Observant enough.

And he’d observed something he’d thought he’d imagined, but still has proof of, and has vigilantly kept it hidden in the ice box in his closet.

He shoves his hanging clothes aside to reveal the ice chest and pulls it out, a strange mixture of sewage and car air fresheners seeping just the tiniest bit out of the corners of the top. He shoves the top off and pulls out its contents, ignoring the rush of smells with only the scrunch of his nose.

He stares.

It’s still there.

On the back of his gakuran is a single dirt stain. The thing stinks like sewer sludge, but he just contains it by wrapping the jacket in plastic and spraying Febreeze on it until he can’t smell anything but Bamboo Essence. Cloying and flowery, but better than sludge. But see, he has to save it. Has to save his gakuran as his proof. 

Because the single dirt stain is of a shoe print. And that is enough to convince him that he’s not crazy.

He can still see the stain where an already dead Deku had kicked him in the back to save him.

#a story from a new perspective #dead deku au #static writes

[gojira007]

Movie Meme

Took me a bit of time, but I was tagged by @bunnikkila to list my nine favorite movies, and since I can’t help but be ridiculously verbose about that very topic, you can see them all under the cut 8D

As for who I tag?  Well, as always with the caveat that you are free to ignore if you don’t wanna, I’ll go with: @elistodragonwings @kaikaku @donnys-boy @robotnik-mun @sally-mun @fini-mun @werewolf-t33th  @cviperfan and @wildwoodmage​

and don’t worry, if you DO go for it, you don’t have to get as Extra as I did about it XD

9.) 

Look, the meme is about Favorite Movies, not necessarily the BEST Movies, OK?  And for the most part this list consists of films where that division is less meaningful in terms of how I evaluate the other movies on here.  But in this specific case, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”, which is ultimately not all that different from the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ TV show it spun off from and thus not particularly impressive as a work of Cinema Qua Cinema, makes the cut primarily because it’s a movie I know so well and have enjoyed so often that I can practically recite the whole thing to you by rote; I quote it all the time in my day-to-day life, I think about it often when I need a little smile, and it’s also become my favorite tool for introducing newcomers to MST3K as a whole since it was designed with a slightly broader audience in mind than the more willfully-eclectic series.  And given how much I love MST3K As A Whole, that’s an especially strong factor in its favor.

8.) 

Looky looky, @bunnikkila, we (unsurprisingly) have a pick in common!  I’m sure this is the one and only time THAT’S going to happen on this list. 8D

Y’know, nearly thirty years (and one fairly useless remake >_>) later, I think the thing that impresses me about “The Lion King” is just how much it is still able to grab me emotionally.  Some of that is unquestionably tied up with how strongly I associate this movie with my family, all of whom it became very special to as a Shared Experience.  But I also don’t know of a lot of people who haven’t had that same emotional experience with it, and that to me suggests there’s more going on here than just Nostalgia.  The mixture of Shakesperean plotting with Disney’s signature strength of Character, for one thing, granting the movie’s story an Epic Scope that never forgets the emotional inner lives of its cast.  The music for another, not only its instantly-iconic song-book but also its memorable score, armed with both Big Bombast and Gentle Sentiment.  And the unforgettably gorgeous animation, rendering every last element of its world with believable naturalism and strongly-defined personality.  All of it, together, makes for what I still personally consider the Crowning Achievement of the Disney Renaissance.

7.)

I think, if I had to name the thing I find most lacking in far too many modern Action Movies, it’s Clarity.  They all tend to lard their plots up with a bunch of unnecessary contrivances and complications in hopes of making themselves appear more clever than they actually are, and all it usually does is just dilute the impact of the whole thing.  “Mad Max: Fury Road”, by contrast, is all about Clarity.  I could sum up literally its entire plot in a paragraph if I wanted, because it is basically One Big Chase Scene from start to finish, never really deviating from that structure for more than a few minutes at a time.  And that, combined with its exceptionally well-crafted Action Sequences, means that the full weight of its visceral power hits you full force every time.  But don’t be fooled; that simplicity is not to be mistaken for shallowness.  Indeed, precisely by getting out of its own way, knowing exactly what it wants to do and why, “Fury Road” also delivers a story that is, in spite of what you might guess, genuinely subtle and smart.  Every character is immediately unforgettable and compelling because their role in the story is so well-considered and their personalities all so stark.  The world it crafts feels at once fascinatingly surreal and yet All Too Real at the same time because even its most Fantastic elements are ultimately just grotesque reflections of things the audience knows only too well.  And most of all, it tells a story with real, meaningful Themes that are deeply woven into each of its individual elements, such that the whole thing is deeply satisfying emotionally, but also piercingly Relevant in all the best, most affecting ways.

6.) 

Oh look, another pick I have in common with @bunnikkila!  This must be the last one, right?

But yeah, this is just a legitimately great movie, at every level, in every way.  Stylistically, it is one of the most radically inventive things to have ever been made in the world of Western Animated Movies, gleefully mixing together a vast array of Aesthetics and Techniques that are at once viscerally distinct and yet coherently connected, all rendered with a fantastic eye toward the world of Comic Book Visual Language that keeps finding new and extremely fun ways to play with that instantly-recognizable iconography.  For that alone, I would call it one of the greatest triumphs of 21st century animation.  But then, on top of that, the story it tells is one that is simultaneously Arch and self-aware, delivering some of the most fantastically hilarious punch-lines imaginable more than a few of which are at the expense of the very franchise it is working within...but also entirely earnest, sincere, and emotionally affecting.  It is, at once, a movie that manages to be about The Idea Of Spider-Man in its totality while also being about just one kid coming to grips with who he is, what he can do, and what his life can be.  I don’t know that I can remember the last time a movie so immediately and unmistakably marked itself as an Enduring Masterpiece, but “Into the Spider-Verse” absolutely pulled it off.

5.)

Ordinarily, I would cheat and give this slot to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in its totality.  But somehow, the fact that this is about “FAVORITE” movies instead of just what we think the BEST one is compels me to narrow it down to just one.  And if I had to pick just one, it would be the first of the three, “Fellowship of the Ring”.  It’s not necessarily anything that the other two movies get wrong, either.  All three of the LotR movies possess many of its keenest strengths, after all.  For a starter, there’s the keen understanding of how best to adapt the source material without being enslaved to it; capturing many of its most iconic moments while cleverly tweaking elements to make them more cinematic, knowing what scenes to focus on for the sake of more clearly focusing the emotional through-lines of the story, and knowing what scenes, no matter how good on the page, ultimately don’t fit to the shape the adaptation has taken.  There’s also its pitch-perfect casting, each and every actor doing a fantastic job of embodying the characters so well that even as your personal vision of them from the books may differ radically from what is on-screen, they nonetheless end up feeling Right for the part and a strong, compelling presence.  And there’s the deft visual hand of director Peter Jackson, who knows exactly how to craft a Middle Earth that feels at once lived-in and real but also Fantastic and magical.  “Fellowship”, for me at least, thus wins out mostly because it has the good luck of being adapted from the strongest of the three books, the point at which the narrative is at its most unified and thus has the strongest overall momentum.  But also because so few movies have so swept me away with the sense of stepping into a world I have always dreamed of in my mind’s eye, and that’s the sort of thing that can only happen at the beginning of a journey.

4.) 

Now here’s a movie that is literally sown in to my very being.  It’s the last movie my mother saw in theaters before becoming a Mom.  I grew up watching the “Real Ghostbusters” cartoon all the time and playing with the attendant toys; I had a “Ghostbusters” Birthday Party when I was, like, four years old.  It has been my annual Halloween Tradition to get myself a big Cheese Pizza and watch this movie for about as long as I’ve had disposable income to myself.  There is, quite literally, no point in my life where I don’t remember “Ghostbusters” being a fixture in it.  And as a nice bonus?  It is, legitimately, a Genuinely Great Movie.  I realize that isn’t quite as universally agreed upon these days as it was even a few years ago (thanks, Literally The Worst Kind Of Virulently Misogynist Assholes lD; ), but I still feel pretty confident in saying this one really is That Good.  I still find basically every one of its jokes hilarious; even now I could quote just about any one of them and get a laugh.  I still find its central premise, What If Exorcism Was A Blue-Collar Business, a brilliant, almost subversively clever one that takes The Supernatural out of the realm of The Unknowable and into a world where even you, an ordinary person off the street, can in fact fight back against it.  I still think it’s one of the all-time great examples of how to balance Tone in this sort of High Concept Genre Bender, by allowing The Story to be played relatively straight while allowing the comedy to flow naturally from the characters’ reactions to that story, allowing its Ghostly aspects to land as Genuinely Scary (or at least Worth Taking Seriously) without getting too Stern and Serious about it.  And I still listen to that unforgettable Title Song all the time!  So yeah, even if I could be more objective about it, “Ghostbusters” would almost certainly make this cut.      

3.) 

And so we come to the third and last pick I have in common with @bunnikkila, not coincidentally a movie that played a key role in solidifying our friendship, as bonding over our shared love of it was a big part of how we got to know each other on deviantART waaaay back in the day <3

By 2008, I really didn’t think it was possible for a movie or comic or TV show to really become “part” of me anymore, the way things like Sonic the Hedgehog or Marvel Super Heroes or Some Other Movie Character Who Might Be At The Top Of This List had.  And then “WALL-E” came along and proved that to be completely, utterly wrong.  I didn’t just love this movie, I was inspired by it, to a degree of strength and consistency that I’m still not entirely sure has yet been matched.  And to be sure, some of that is undoubtedly because the movie had already basically won the war before I’d even bought my ticket; Adorable Robots In Love is something like My Platonic Storytelling Ideal, after all.  But even setting that aside, “WALL-E” is a movie where even now I can’t help but be keenly aware, and gently awed, at the beauty of its craft; indeed, watching this movie in a theater did a lot to make me better understand why movies work on us the way they do, because I left that theater chewing so much on every last one of its elements.  Its gorgeous animation, the way it conveys Character through Actions more so than language, the dream-like quality of its musical score (even as i type this i get teary thinking about certain motifs), the clear and meaningful way it builds its theme and story together so harmoniously, and the particular perspective it takes on our relationships with each other, with our environments, and with our own technology...all of it speaks to me deeply and profoundly, and it’s no coincidence that I have seen this movie more times in theaters than any other on this list (twelve times, for the record, and I still remember each and every time XD).

2.) 

This one needs no personal qualifications, to my mind.  Yes, I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to it for having seen it relatively young with my brothers and being deeply moved by it then, but it’s not at all like the kind of Nostalgia I have for “The Lion King”.  “Princess Mononoke” is just flat-out, full-stop a complete Masterpiece, not just my personal pick for one of the single-best animated films ever made, but one of the best films period.  It’s almost difficult for me to put into words how great this movie is, certainly in a way that hasn’t been repeated to death by thousands of other smarter people, because no one of its elements quite answers the question of why it is so great, to my mind.  Yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous with a design sensibility that brings Ancient Mythology to life so vividly that its influence can still be felt today (The Forest Spirit alone has been homaged all over the place).  And yes, the music is hauntingly beautiful, at once capturing the gentle rhythm of nature but also the elegiac tone of Life Moving On.  And yes, the story is an incredible mixture of the Broad Mythic Strokes of an Ancient Legend grounded in all too human Emotions and Ideas about the balance of nature, the full meaning and cost of Warfare, and perhaps most important of all, about how we determine Right and Wrong when everyone involved in a conflict is fighting simply for the right to survive.  But all of those things add up together to something even greater than a simple sum, because each one isn’t just good in its own right but because each element so perfectly reinforces the other.  And even having said all that?  I really could just carry on singing this movie’s praises.  Just...an absolute masterpiece, top to bottom.

1.) 

I don’t imagine any of you are terribly surprised at this, right?  I almost feel like it’d be redundant to explain my love for this movie, given how self-obvious I imagine it is to basically everyone who knows me Literally At All.  But heck, I’ve rambled on this long, why not go all the way?  Because the thing of it is, “Gojira” (to be clear, the original Japanese movie from 1954 rather than its American edit, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” from 1956) doesn’t just top the list by being a Great Movie.  Though to be clear, it really is.  Flawless?  No; there’s a reliance on puppetry that even for the time can be a bit chintzier than the movie can really afford, in particular.  But brilliant, even so, a heart-wrenching example of Science Fiction Storytelling As Allegory, one that, in a rarity not just for its own genre but indeed for many movies in general, very meaningfully lingers on its deepest, darkest implications.  Many a film critic has pointed it out, and it remains true: the stark black-and-white photography heightens the sense of Implacable Horror at the core of the story, and the way the central Melodrama, a tragic love triangle that carries with it many aspects of Class Conflict and Personal Desire VS. The Collective Good, ties back into the main story is truly beautiful in its elegance and emotional impact.  Still, for me personally, it tops the list, now and always, because it is a movie that affirmed something for me, that the character I had fallen in love with as a child convincing his family to watch a monster movie with him on television to prove his seven-year-old bravery, really was as genuinely as powerful and meaningful a figure as I had always imagined him to be. 

#movies #meme #gojira007

[iam-back]

Impact Man: Do you, want to drink... MMMMMMMMMIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Block Man: ...k

#source: sanity not included #i was inspired by romwatt's Undertale animation using the same audio #because Impact Man needs to be bombastic too every once in a while

[metalgearkong]

Avengers: Endgame - Review

5/6/19 **SPOILERS**

Directed by Joe & Anthony Russo (Marvel Studios/Disney)

The original Iron Man came out a year after I turned 18 and graduated high school. Effectively, the Marvel Cinematic Universe began as soon as I started my adult life, each film acting like 2 or 3 checkpoints every year, always giving me something to look forward to. While I haven’t loved or liked every movie so far, the MCU has been incredibly consistent, slowly increasing in quality on average as time goes on, not to mention having that sentimental factor of facing the world along side it. Scale has also increased in these films over time, seeing more and more team-up movies with larger and larger casts crammed on screen. Endgame is the biggest super hero movie of all time, and not just based on box office earnings, but based on fan expectations, concluding such an incredible saga.

The Russo brothers have been a godsend to the MCU, directing what are most of the top tier entries so far, including The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and now Endgame. While Infinity War was essentially Thanos’ story, Endgame shifts perspective back to the heroes, picking up the pieces and desperately trying to undo what Thanos accomplished. Endgame is sometimes overwhelming (in a good way), with several instances catching myself holding my breath. One of the best things about this film is the level of pay-off it gives for those who have followed the series since the beginning. While I don’t think I enjoyed it more than Infinity War, Endgame is certainly one of the biggest super hero movies of all time, but sometimes the logic of the story detracts from the emotion and memorable moments of the film.

The movie picks up 5 years after Thanos’ genocide. The remaining Avengers discover a possibility to use the quantum realm (Ant-Man’s shrinking machines) to go back in time and collect the infinity jewels before Thanos does. While this is a “time travel” movie, I like the explanation that Bruce Banner gives that you simply cannot just go back to an earlier time and change the current present; going back in time is like visiting an alternate dimension where what you do does affect that timeline, but yours when you go back continues as its been. This essentially takes care of the “grandfather paradox” of why you couldn’t just go to the past, kill Hitler, changing history for the better. You could tell the writers of this film anticipated question most theater-goers would ask, like “why not just go back and kill Thanos as a baby?” and things like that. 

After being rescued from space by Captain Marvel, Tony Stark has officially retired from being an Avenger. He understandably has lost the battle, and resides to live his life with Pepper Potts and their 5 year old Morgan. Tony’s home life and dynamics with his daughter are some of my favorite moments in the movie, as it further humanizes Tony, and offers even more deconstruction of super heroes this series is known for. When the other Avengers think of a possible way to fix everything, I actively wanted them to leave Tony alone and let him have his earned life of peace, even if half the universe was killed off. But, being the guilty genius he is, he can’t fully let it go, and works with quantum tech to make a time machine for the heroes to use. Quickly, they develop a plan to split off and go to different teams and time periods, and retrieve the infinity jewels from their original known locations.

Seeing the current Avengers physically revisit famous scenes from prior movies was incredibly satisfying and felt like an appropriate use of fan service. Some of the best scenes of the entire movie are current heroes accidentally meeting up with themselves in the past, or accidentally coming across people they miss dearly. One of the scenes that come to mind are Steve Rogers meeting his younger self during the events of The Avengers (2012), and the ensuing duel. It instantly reminded me of playing a fighting game with your friend, but you’ve both picked the same character. It was one of the most and creative and clever moments of the movie. The other best time travel moment easily goes to Tony revisiting the 1940′s and having a hear to heart with his unwitting father, getting closure and a feeling for full circle his character didn’t even know he needed.

One one the complaints I do have about the story is that Thanos is no longer the same Thanos from Infinity War. When problems emerge during Nebula’s trip to the past, Thanos from that time period learns that someday he is successful in using the infinity jewels to wipe out half the universe. Through convoluted events, he is able to travel to the future (Endgame’s present) where he faces the Avengers head-on for trying to spoil his plans. This means the Thanos of this film (B) isn’t the same Thanos as in Infinity War (A), as he hasn’t done anything from those events yet, nor has any history with the heroes. Thanos B also seems to have a more malevolent and less complex attitude about using the infinity jewels, and comes off more as a typical bad guy, and less of a complex emotional psychopathic environmentalist, which is what made his character so interesting in the first place.

The other major issue I have with the film is its seemed to shoot itself in the foot with all the time travel multiverses. The movie feels like it breaks its own rules for the sake of the big emotional character scene at the very end. I’m of course referring to “Old Cap” and how he somehow went back to the past to live out his life with Peggy Carter, yet was able to show up back in Endgame’s timeline as an aged man to pass off his shield to Falcon. Once he went into the past, he, by this movie’s own rules, cannot appear back in the regular timeline because visiting the past is basically a parallel universe. What makes it doubly bad is that it’s not in Cap’s character to simply allow the world to go through the turmoil it did while standing aside through all of it. Don’t even get me started on how this would have affected Peggy’s life and the entire conception of SHIELD. If someone can explain to me how this was all possible, please do, otherwise, it felt like either a genuine mistake, or more likely, the movie bending its own rules for the sake of a payoff (which left me scratching my head and took the emotional impact completely out of the final scene of the movie).

However, I’m extremely happy with the rest of Captain America’s scenes. Aside from the scene mentioned earlier (Cap vs. Cap), his use of Thor’s hammer in the end battle was incredibly satisfying and cathartic. I’ve always felt that if anyone was “worthy” of being a good person and warrior, it was always Captain America. Why he could barely budge Thor’s hammer in Avengers: Age of Ultron is beyond me (unless he was faking it to protect Thor’s feelings). Hell, if Vision could lift the hammer, why couldn’t Cap before now? Cap also gets a lot more time on screen in general, which was nice after barely having any lines or presence in Infinity War. Hawkeye, Black Widow, and other side characters also get their best moments of the entire series combined, and it was nice to see the regular people among the Avengers still have emotionally and plot poignant scenes as good as the super heroes.

Thor’s story arch could be seen as criticisms of the film as well. While the universe in its throws of coping with half of all life disintegrated, and how that would affect hugely every aspect of life, Thor meanwhile settles for comically getting fat and doing absolutely nothing. While I still found Thor in-character and funny in this film, upon further speculation, I really wish Thor continued the high he rode after passing what was his darkest chapter in Infinity War. I thought Thor finally settled into his own, and was confused why he regressed into a gag, even if I found it humorous at first. But, I was thankful certain other characters didn’t steal the limelight, especially Captain Marvel. I still find her way too powerful and her personality wildly unlikable and inconsistent. I tried to defend her character in her own movie back in March, but seeing Brie Larson once again strutting her ego made it impossible to root for a supposed underdog. One of my greatest fears of Endgame is she’d use her power to steal the show, and overshadow the legacy of the original characters in their fight against Thanos.

Summing up every great scene or character moment in this review is impossible, and they certainly outnumber the scenes or concepts I disliked. Almost every character gets some resolution or moment in the spotlight by the end of the movie. The final words of Tony Stark, “I am Iron Man,” was a triumphant moment as it capped off the entire series so far, further establishing Tony Stark as the heart and soul of the MCU. While Tony has never been my favorite Avenger, Endgame pays huge respects to him and his accomplishments, and I was a bigger fan of him than I ever was before. Its too bad that the plot raises so many questions in my mind, especially related to time travel and alternate dimensions. Endgame has too many conveniences for the sake of a big bombastic super hero climax, and I wish some of the logical issues with the plot or characters could have been executed differently. If you have any affinity for this series, you owe it to yourself to see Endgame, and while it has many moments of pay-off and awe, it isn’t the series’ most airtight film.

8/10

#endgame #avengersendgame #thanos #joshbrolin #scarlettjohansson #blackwidow #hawkeye #jeremyrenner #incrediblehulk #brucebanner #markruffalo #tonystark #ironman #robertdowneyjr #captainamerica #chrisevans #steverogers #rocketraccoon #groot #doctorstrange #drax #gamora #loki #starlord #chrispratt #thor #chrishemsworth #fatthor #mcu #marvelcinematicuniverse

[thedeaditeslayer]

Ray Santiago On the End of Ash and the Future of Evil Dead.

Ash vs. Evil Dead was a beautiful, disgusting, hilarious and horrifying show that deserved a much bigger audience. With Bruce Campbell reprising the role of Ash Williams for what would turn out to be the last time, the show followed an aging has-been stumbling his way through a demonic assault on Earth. Along the way, he and his companions covered in blood, guts and pretty much any other fluid you can think of. If you haven’t been watching this show, you’ve been missing out. And hey, now’s the perfect time to fix that. With the first two seasons on Netflix and the third out on blu-ray and DVD today, you don’t even have to have a Starz subscription to see the whole thing.

Though Bruce Campbell was the biggest star of the show, Ray Santiago’s Pablo is the heart. Over the course of three seasons, you get to watch him grow from a nervous, directionless kid into a full-fledged horror-action hero. Santiago talked to us about his character’s growth and how he looks back at the show now that it’s all over.

“Overall, I’m just so happy that everybody sort of welcomed me into the franchise, and that Pablo made such an impact on the story,” he said. “He started as this naive loyal sidekick, and we got to really see him evolve and become his own hero. And in a weird way, it’s all because of him following Ash and idolizing this bogus guy.”

On the show, Pablo grows into a hero because he follows Ash. Things weren’t that different on set between Campbell and Santiago. The difference is real-life Campbell sounds like a much nicer guy than Ash. If you’ve ever seen Campbell speak in an interview or at a comic con, you know he always brings a show. His bombastic personality fills the stage, and it’s almost enough to make you believe he is Ash. When you work with him, Santiago says, that’s not so much the case.

“Bruce tends to amp up the personality when he’s doing the cons and interviews. He is that way, but he’s also such a warm father figure, and such a great leader. He took such good care of us, and I learned so much from him,” he said. Campbell taught Santiago technical things, like how to hit his mark so the camera could pick up what he was doing, as well as some general acting advice. “Little things like if you’re not having fun, then you’re doing it wrong. I’m so glad I got to work with Bruce on this TV cult classic.”

Santiago clearly loved being part of this show. He described filming with the rest of the cast and crew in New Zealand as feeling like being at camp. He learned not to take horror too seriously and, as we all did after the show’s sudden cancellation, that nothing good lasts forever. Playing a character like Pablo, and growing into a hero, also meant a lot to Santiago.

“As a kid, I grew up watching horror films, and I wanted to be the person being chased by the monster, and I wanted to save the world from evil. On Ash vs. Evil Dead with Pablo, we got a chance to see me become my own superhero. As a latino actor, and Pablo being an illegal immigrant, we got to see… well, I feel like both of them are heroes in their own special way,” Santiago said. “I was really happy to have that, Pablo in general, having him out there so somebody who’s younger could turn to the show, as fun as it is, and see somewhat of a role model. See that it doesn’t matter where you come from, how naive or vulnerable you might be, you might be able to save the world one day. If you believe in yourself.”

And that all comes after the show subjected Santiago to some pretty disgusting stuff. For him, nothing was quite as gross as something that happened all the way back in Season One. “I birthed demons out of my mouth,” he said.

I’ll give you a second to let that image fully form in your head. Got it? Good, because Santiago went on to describe exactly what that scene entailed. “So… never in my life did I think I’d call my mom and say, ‘hey mom I just finished doing my birthing scene.’ But on Ash, we did. And the way that it went down, they were like ‘OK, sooo your mouth’s a portal for the demons, the baby demons, and we need you to put this in your mouth, and we need you to spit it out slowly.’ And I was like, ‘What? That was definitely not in my job description, but uh OK?”

Despite all the gross things that happened to him, Santiago says he had the most fun doing all of it. Including the time he was a Deadite and they took his fingers away. “It takes about an hour to put each hand on, so once they put those hands on, you’re not going to the bathroom,” he said. Santiago didn’t even get the worst of it. Though he feels like everyone got their share of blood and “gross torture” on the show, nothing really topped Bruce’s morgue scene in Season Two.

“Bruce was covered in shit and cum, so you can’t really beat that, can you? I almost didn’t say it, but it’s the truth! You know what? Season two, shit happens and Season Three, we blew our load.”

SPOILERS

If you’ve seen the show, you know it has a very Army of Darkness-like ending. Spoilers from here on out, so be warned. Ash ends the season by waking up in a post-apocalyptic world. Sadly we won’t get to see what Season 4 would have done with it, but Santiago told me what he was envisioning. First of all, yes, Pablo is still alive. Santiago said IO was the second person to ask, and his first reaction is “Why wouldn’t he be?” He explained what he meant.

“I think Pablo and Kelly are definitely still alive. I think what you saw was Bruce (Ash) has been taken to the future, but I still think that we exist in the present day or the past. What you would have seen in Season Four would have been the journey to get back to the same time zone. Whether it’s Bruce coming back to save us or us trying to find him,” he said.

Santiago said we’d see Pablo trying to fill Ash’s role, which would have made for great TV. “I think there would have been two parallel universes going on. You would have seen Pablo leading the Ghost Beaters in his own way, trying to keep what Ash taught him alive and doing his own thing.” He also hinted at where the love story would go, which I’m always a sucker for. “And maybe you might have seen a little Pablo and Kelly baby with, like, Pablo hair and Kelly’s voice.” That would have most likely happened in the future timeline. Man, why did Starz have to deprive us of that?

Their ideas for Season 4 got real weird too. If you wondered what Pablo would have looked like in the post-apocalypse, Santiago has an answer. “We had this idea of me in a glass case. It would just be my head and hair in a glass case. And I was like, ‘uhhhh… OK, that sounds fun.'”

It’s not quite the post-apocalyptic Mad Max version of Pablo I envisioned, but when I mentioned that, Santiago appeared to have given the matter some thought as well. “We could have gone so many different ways. In the future when we see Bruce, he could get in his car, drive somewhere and then we’re there. And we could explain how we got there, so you might have seen a Mad Max version of Pablo.” Santiago even knows exactly what that would have looked like. “In my head, if that were to happen, I would have completely shaved my head and gone full blown warrior mode. Shed the young, innocent version of Pablo and be more, sort of, kick ass.”

SPOILERS END

While the show is ending though, Santiago doesn’t necessarily think it’ll be the end for the Evil Dead franchise. “It’s been really nice to be part of a franchise that will live forever. It’s been 30-something years, and I think that we’ll, you never know, we’ll be wheeling Bruce out in 30 more years. You never know what will happen.”

Though Bruce Campbell is retiring the character of Ash, that doesn’t mean the end of Evil Dead. As the excellent 2013 remake proved, Evil Dead can (and probably will) continue on without him. “[Bruce retiring Ash] doesn’t rule out Dana and I, and the Fede Alvarez version with all the people in the remake,” Santiago said. “You never know. I think what’s going on right now is basically what happens in the Evil Dead franchise all the time. Which is giving it some time to breathe and then something will definitely be coming your way soon enough. No one’s ever truly dead in this franchise, and the franchise itself is never truly dead. I would say keep your eyes open for another version of what you might want out there.”

As far as a spinoff goes, it’s definitely a possibility. The show has been performing well on Netflix, and we know how much they like to bring back shows with dedicated cult followings. Santiago says Campbell, though he wouldn’t be in it, is all for the idea. Bruce has given us his blessing to move forward and do a spinoff if we want. I think right now, I’m working on another show and I’m working on two films. It’s nice to sort of do a different thing, but I do miss Pablo… If the offer came in for me to revive the Ghost Beaters on Netflix, I’d have a really hard time saying no,” he said.

For now, you’ll be able to catch Santiago on a new Hulu show from horror production studio Blumhouse called Into the Dark. Santiago describes it as an anthology series where every episode is basically a horror movie, each one with a different cast. Santiago is one of the leads in the first episode which premiers October 5. Despite it being a very different character from Pablo, Santiago couldn’t help bringing some of his Evil Dead mindset with him.

“I was on set and I was like, ‘We need more blood, this isn’t enough blood,’ and they were like, ‘this isn’t Evil Dead man,�� and I was like ‘yeah, but still we need more blood.’ So I’m still traumatized, and I’ve become very masochistic with blood,” he said.

Ash vs. Evil Dead may be gone, but its spirit isn’t going away anytime soon. Season Three was the wildest season of a show that went all the way from the very beginning. If you missed out, or if you just want to watch it again, it’s available on Blu-Ray and DVD August 21.

#Ray Santiago #Ash vs. Evil Dead #Ash vs Evil Dead #Starz #Lionsgate

[hauntedfalcon]

TLJ reflections now that I’ve finally seen the damn movie

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS and LONG POST

I want to preface this by saying that we as fandom, any fandom, have thoroughly sold ourselves that line about how fanworks are the reclamation of our modern myths now that said myths have been fully commoditized. I felt powerful the first few times I saw that quote circulating. Then I started to feel tired, because every Johnlock shipper from here to space was using it in part to imply that they were, like, super progressive and important. Also, it has been used to justify some notion that fandom creates canon, and I’ve never agreed with that. 

And now I just feel hollow. Is there a bigger modern myth than Star Wars? Could there be more thorough reminder than The Last Jedi that no, modern myths do not belong to us, and if we try to stake any claim on them they will be put into the hands of someone who is wholly disinterested in any aspect of them that we value, and they will be fed to us in a form that defies us to create any fanworks about it at all? 

This is the first time I am watching a Star Wars trilogy as it unfolds where I actually care about most of the characters. For better or worse, and probably largely because of the impact of that idea of reclaiming our modern myths, I feel incredibly protective of them. I recognize that my basis for what I expect from those characters is one prior movie and a handful of expanded universe materials, so I wouldn’t say “the real [character] would never [heinous act],” because unfortunately the content of the movie I just witnessed is canon, but I can certainly say that my versions of those characters wouldn’t. 

All that being said:

Paige

Paige

Paige Tico

Paige didn’t even get to speak a line

would it have killed them to have her say “I’m on it Poe” as she went to drop the bombs 

with urgency and resolve and just a hint of fear in her voice 

Paige Tico is a hero 

Poe 

Poe Dameron

Poe was right

#PoeWasRight

Finn and Rose and Poe’s plan actually would have worked if Holdo had spoken to Poe in good faith and given him cause to trust her with that information

I’m still not sure what Holdo’s plan was, she died as she lived, with hair full of secrets 

Poe’s characterization was cocky, for sure, but people have been calling it chauvinist and I didn’t actually pick up on anything despite the efforts to play his concern when speaking with Holdo like a subtle wink wink nudge nudge to all the overqualified women in the audience who have ever had a dude tell them something they knew already 

(also can someone tell me where the line was where Holdo and Leia objectify him? because I was watching and all I heard was “He’s a troublemaker. I like him.” which was... not at all the sort of thing that people were talking about) 

I believe that Rian Johnson believes that Poe is the Han of this trilogy and I believe Oscar Isaac deliberately played all his scenes the opposite of how he could have played them and how Rian probably wanted him to play them 

that being said, my Poe would never get his fellow soldiers killed with recklessness

you could absolutely get Poe to the place he needed to be at the end of this movie without bloodying his hands 

“how did you two meet” was the most Jealous Boyfriend thing I have ever. heard. 

Finn

Finn

why was so much of this movie about Finn being in pain

I don’t like that 

his panic when he couldn’t move after being stunned? I don’t like that 

Rian Johnson is great at writing abuse, both physical and emotional

he’s terrible at knowing when to stop 

like when it’s an interaction between two people who are both supposed to be protagonists :) :) :) 

why wasn’t Finn given anything meaningful to do 

there was an interesting comment somewhere about how this is a movie about heroes failing, all the plans fail, every single one 

but that doesn’t actually make it any less tedious to watch, and as my husband pointed out it’s not what people want in a Star Wars movie

also while this is supposed to be the Empire of the trilogy and there were many call backs, Empire never backed down from the mood it established, while Last Jedi suffered from wildly disparate moods and tried to end on a high note where Empire embraced the low and still made us feel like there was clear forward momentum 

Rian Johnson had no idea what to do with Finn, just no clue how to handle him 

why was he excited about Canto Bight? we just don’t know

on the upside Finn’s immediate concern upon waking being getting to Rey was A+++++++++++++ consistent characterization 

as was the line “Rebel scum,” which indicated not a commitment to the Resistance the way I’ve seen people claim, but a commitment to rebel and as you might guess, I am one thousand percent HERE FOR IT

Rose 

Rose 

Rose Tico

you know how PacRim was in part such a big deal because for once the Asian woman didn’t sacrifice her life to further the white man’s story? TLJ gave us Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself and she didn’t have to die in the process 

I can’t believe Rose and Finn doublehandedly destroyed war profiteering 

Rose’s sense of wonder and her jadedness are my two favorite things 

Rose gave away her necklace and her vintage Rebellion ring without hesitation in order to further the cause so I think it’s only fair that in Episode IX someone gives her jewelry 

and by someone I mean Poe Dameron and by jewelry I mean one quarter of his mom’s ring because that my friends is a polycule in the making 

Leia 

why

why what? why everything honestly

why did they go to the effort of keeping her alive when she actually gets blown up in this movie, that was in the plot before Carrie Fisher even died 

what the fuck are they going to do now 

episode IX clearly would have been Leia rebuilding the Rebellion from scratch but uhhhhhhhhhhhh first they have to figure out what to do with the fact that they’re out of Carrie Fisher footage! and solving that problem is clearly going to require them to do one of the several things they’ve already said they wouldn’t do!

I surprised myself by not crying in any of Carrie Fisher’s scenes, but when R2 showed Luke the original message? HOO BOY it was raining on my face!!!!

no but the Confirmed Very Powerful Force User Leia Pulls Herself Back from the Cold Dark Vacuum of Space thing? gorgeous! gorgeous scene. gorgeous, breathtaking 

but I’m just operating on the headcanon that she died in her coma and what remained was a tangible Force ghost 

(Yoda bopped Luke on the snoot)

(the dice were a tangible Force projection what the fuck) 

p.s. why didn’t Leia move the damn rocks 

Rey

Rey spend half this movie talking to Krylon in her head but she didn’t even get to speak a line to Finn

they done you dirty Rey

I’m sorry Rey

the thing about this movie is that the people who are going to believe what they want to believe, no matter what, are going to find a way to say “that was misdirection!” 

and for once I’m not (just) talking about Re/ylo, I’m talking about the bit with her parents 

yeah Krylon doesn’t know shit about her parents and he was taking up the mantle of emotional manipulation and abuse that Snoke had just bequeathed 

but Rey coming from literally nowhere is SUCH A GOOD and I’m saying that as an avowed Rey Kenobi supporter 

let her come from nowhere and no one

let her be an example of a hyperpowerful hero in this series who didn’t get that way with midichlorians or bloodline 

let her strive to be great for her own sake, not in relation or reaction to what came before her 

Gareth Edwards

I SAW YOU GARETH EDWARDS, I SAW YOU IN THE TRENCHES, STICKING WITH STAR WARS TO THE BITTER, SALTY END 

that came out wrong 

Luke 

damn Mark Hamill threw everything he had into this and I really respect that when it’s clear from his interviews that he hated everything he had to do

hate that the character was in that position, hate the shitty writing of the intervening time, love the resolution, but tbh if he was just gonna die why not actually physically show up  

the total silence when Holdo jumps to light speed and everything gets reduced to stark iconic images: gorgeous, breathtaking

the hug: gorgeous, breathtaking 

vulptices and fathiers: gorgeous, breathtaking 

the Caretakers: I’d die for them 

Rose converting her FO uniform to biz caj chic on Crait: gorgeous, breathtaking 

Luke and Yoda cracking open a cold one while the Book Tree burns: gorgeous, breathtaking 

everyone’s makeup: bad, they looked either ill or painted

(I don’t actually know anything about makeup but I know I grimaced a lot)

all the many, many moments of bombast that covered over or otherwise distracted us from the few instances of nuanced ideas or potential plot progression in this film: gorgeous, breathtaking 

for half a second Luke was talking about how the light can still exist without the Jedi and I leaned forward in my seat like yes, yessss, but then we had to cut to Creepy Dark Cave on Training Planet Where You Go for Answers But You Only Find Your Own Face 

like Jesus just let the philosophy professor ramble for a little while, it won’t hurt anything and he’ll be in a good mood at test time

anyway this movie sure gave my eyes a lot to absorb and occasionally it activated all three of my feelings

but all it actually accomplished in the context of the trilogy is to kill some people and take some stuff away 

it occurred to me toward the end that there wasn’t anything in the movie I would have to edit out for my kid to watch it, but there’s no way she’d be able to sit through the whole thing

two and a half hours is too God damn long for a Star Wars movie, full stop

ten minutes of concrit from the story group could have led to some interesting avenues to explore and probably tightened it up a lot 

but instead it was painfully clear that no one said no to Rian at any point and what that got us was a movie that was extremely fatiguing to watch

#TLJ spoilers #Star Wars for ts #The Last Jedi for ts #SPOILERS #long post

[polandspringz]

Predicting for Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu 2 (LONG ANALYSIS)

Alright, so I finished season one tonight and watched episode one of season 2 and the new opening theme, and after reading some other theories I think I have an idea about what is happening in the opening theme.

So, the entirety of season one was focused around the need for art to evolve to live, and in rakugo’s case, all the characters had their own opinion on how they would keep it alive, but none of them really offered how to help it evolve. Sukeroku said he would do it for the people, and although he did stress the need for the stories to change to get more people to come to theater, he never did much to change it other than how the stories were told. However, even then, rakugo was changing in that it was being broadcasted on radios and possibly on tvs at the time, so the way Sukeroku’s style changed the presentation of it was not bold enough. He was sharing it with a different tone or overall mood, but because technology was making its presentation different too, he was more adapting to rakugo being changed than changing it himself. His more bombastic dialogue worked well in the theater, but his strong voice would work for broadcasts, while Yakumo kept it true to form so it would only work best in theater, his expressions and movements being part of his style.

Thus, we move into season two! Based off the first episode, we can see that rakugo is going to be changed this season. Yotaro and the author (I didn’t catch his name) talked about writing new stories for rakugo, one’s that possibly involve more modern situations or jokes. This is revolutionary, as since all of rakugo is classic stories, bringing new texts into the art would mean even the old generation would potentially have to study these new stories. More so than the author’s tangent about the life or death of art forms, which really existed to hammer in the themes of this season, I was caught more on Yakumo’s reaction to Yotaru’s proposal. He called it “heresy”, which is understandable, but he then told Yotaro that he wants rakugo to die with him. When I saw this, I immediately thought, “Well, that’s a selfish thing to say,” but I wasn’t thinking this because I thought he was being inherently rude or unnecessarily depressing. Yakumo in the last season was always talking about being abandoned, feeling like he had to work twice as hard, believing that even then he didn’t deserve anything. As a character, the way this is only worsened by how he acts with Miyokichi (talking about how he let his love build up inside always) and the death of a man who was his brother, makes for extremely strong development. We can see in the new opening theme countless references to the Shinigami story, however, I don’t think Yakumo is going to die this season. He might come close to it, and the eerie sound the music gives off would certainly warrant it, but I believe that as Yotaru works to actually change rakugo and add to it to bring it to life again, we will see Yakumo become more and more “dead” to the world. 

In the first frames of the opening, all of the characters glance at Yakumo with expressions laced with confusion and a mix of anticipation and displeasure. It looks as if they are bracing themselves for Yakumo to respond to a question they feel he will give the same response to. The only two people with different expressions in the beginning are the child of Konatsu and herself, with the child having a smug grin and Konatsu looking scared but biting her tongue. The child seems to know something, perhaps he represents the new generation’s inability to understand the old’s inability to adapt, and that he is excited to see how this “old man” reacts to such an outrageous change. His expression just says that he is waiting for something, and that he knows something, but it reads with a very smug attitude. Konatsu’s expression ties in more so with the others bracing themselves, but she looks more anxious than the rest of them for some reason. We see Yakumo then shut his eyes and turn away, possibly representing the way he feigns indifference towards the changing world, as he has become a mere tired, depressed old man (His statements in the past season about hanging himself from the tree and the way he kept muttering to himself at the opening performance in the current one show this). Now, most people are assuming Yakumo will die because of how he walks into fire or hell in the next scene, and by the light going out at the end of the song. A lot of people are also worried about what seemed to be the opposite of what happened last season: Last season everyone was worried about how Yotaro was the main character, but it focused on Yakumo and Sukeroku. Now it seems that because Yotaru is our true main, they don’t know how Yakumo’s lingering on Miyokichi and Sukeroku will tie in. We see Yakumo start drawing in something looking like bile or acid, but a drop of rain(perhaps a tear) is what stirs Yotaru to look up to where his master is, which is actually flipped, so even though he is on the ceiling, he is technically on the floor. This was a similar shot to how Yotaru talked of his head being bowed and his feet in the recap in the intro of the episode. (I think that means there is something important in this symbolism about things being flipped or something). We also have seen a shot in which Yakumo is reflected in Yotaru, suggesting his strong impact on the boy at first, or possibly his connection to his master. Yotaru reaches for Yakumo, but Yakumo merely turns away and falls into the acid. He shuts his eyes again. 

Now, in most forms of literature, eyes shutting would be someone dying or something connected to that, but we see multiple times in this opening that the characters stare at Yakumo, but the second time someone reaches for him(the scene where all of them are reaching) all of the characters no longer have uncertainty etched on them but rather determination and are smiling. They want Yakumo to come to them and to leave his depression. When Yotaru reaches, he looks to the ceiling with an unwavering expression and extends his arm with his brow furrowed and mouth slightly parted, not straining for Yakumo but merely making a stronger effort to get to him. Yakumo gives a pained look in return ducks under the acid, even though he had popped above the surface a second ago in a previous scene. This could be a part in the story where he starts to come out of his depression, but ultimately something makes him fall backwards. The way the pool of yellow turns to Miyokichi and then to a record is also important, as the fact that its spinning could be a representation for how Yakumo still ultimately revolves around her, and the way the music kicks up when the needle hits the track reminds me of how Yakumo is literally playing a broken record. It’s depression, so we cannot blame him for it, but he cannot escape the same things that we heard before, specifically Miyokichi’s dependency that damaged him when he tried to teach her about abandonment. I already addressed the next scene, but I like how all the characters are floating a top the record, not attached to it, even Yakumo who is in the center of it all, is not touching the record directly. They are above it, literally. However, when Yakumo looks at them, they are spinning, despite not touching the disc, showing that he must be turning, and that he is still confused about the events of his past. Yakumo glances at everyone but ultimately turns away once more, his expression not saddened but empty before everything becomes ash and Sukeroku appears.This is one of the other main Shinigami references, as Yakumo is revealed to have a mere skeleton underneath his clothes, perhaps a skeleton of who he once was, but the way we zoom in on where his heart would be says otherwise. It could be what remains of his rakugo, the one thing he holds so dearly and despises so much. Sukeroku could be revealing to him what he already knows, that his rakugo means nothing now. When the video rewinds fast, the faces all turn away from him now, and their expressions don’t show waiting or anticipation but frustration and disappointment as they give up on him and essentially walk away. 

Now, here is why I think Yakumo is not going to die, DESPITE ALL THAT.

Right before the candle goes out, we have a few frames of Yakumo smiling at something, looking down. His eyes start to widen, and he goes from a look of bittersweet happiness at being left to “perhaps” die to one that shows something almost like regret and realization. Then the light goes out. We also see when Sukeroku opens up Yakumo’s chest that he eyes him from over his shoulder strangely. There is a lot of evidence against me, yes, but I do not think Yakumo is going to kill himself in this season or die from some other reason. Mainly, I want to know from this season why Konatsu’s child seems to know something.

I feel as though it doesn’t seem right for Yakumo to die. Last season, Sukeroku and Miyokichi had to die, they both were victims of a post war world in which they had no families and grew up with dependency issues. Miyokichi had to die for a changing world to occur because when Yakumo brought up how women and men were going to live independent of one another, she became outraged and upset, because she only knows how to survive of a system in which men use women. Sukeroku was not what I would argue too avant garde at the time, even though he tries to play himself up that way in the show, he is stuck in a constant spoiled rebellious phase that got played with and manipulated with by Miyokichi when his world was turned down. Now, we’ve got a lot of small characters from last season popping up now, the author, and the boy who seems to be the son of that man who showed Yakumo the picture in one episode. These guys could be ghosts of the past, and with every sentence I sound like I’m making a bigger and bigger case for Yakumo to die but I SWEAR I THINK HE IS NOT.

It’s really hard to work with limited information for this season, but I feel this way(and I’ll try not stray into digging my own grave again). Yakumo doesn’t have dependency issues, he has independency issues. We see him tell others not rely too heavily on people and to find ways to survive on their own, now he has Konatsu, a child, and Yotaru again living under his roof. He is going to have to learn to depend on people, especially in his old age. I first thought Yakumo might end up being the villain of this season, but then I also felt bad vibes from the author. My main theory right now for Yakumo not dying is based on what Sukeroku said in season one, that there needs to be the old rakugo and the new rakugo simultaneously, and Yakumo’s selfish desire to take rakugo to the grave with him cannot happen. As he is the last of his generation, he truly is all of what rakugo is. If he dies now, it dies with him, but then Yotaru cannot build new rakugo off of it, for new rakugo to exist they must identify it and guide it using the old form so it still is what rakugo is. The story cannot continue without Yotaru managing to move forward in the rakugo world, and if Yakumo dies, then Yotaru will not be able to move forward without damaging his character. He has neither dependency nor independency issues, but if Yakumo dies then Yotaru will end up either falling into depression or acting like every cheap anime character and powering through it regardless which is not realistic. The opening does show a lot of death symbolism, but that could be Yakumo’s near death I discussed very early on and just symbols of his depression instead. A lot of the opening involves him standing above it with others and them looking towards him offering him a chance. 

WHEN WE GET MORE EPISODES AND INFORMATION ILL REPHRASE IT BUT IT WOULD FEEL WRONG FOR YAKUMO TO DIE IM SORRY

#shouwa genroku rakugo shinjuu #sgrs #poland is in denial #poland posts

[thismoviefucks]

THESE MOVIES FUCK - JANUARY 2020

I watched ten movies this month. Let me tell you what I thought.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, dir. Sergio Leone) is a movie that tells you who it is right up front. The opening 15 minutes of this legendary spaghetti Western are paralleled in their perfection only by the other 150, establishing the tone for the whole movie; an excruciatingly slow, tense and beautiful crawl through the arid, picturesque blank slate of the desert. There is very little action in this movie, and not much in the way of dialogue. There doesn't need to be. Sergio Leone's direction, Ennio Morricone's music, and the subtle performances of a young Charles Bronson and a playing-shockingly-against-type Henry Fonda, among others, all congeal into a movie you could probably watch and love even if the dialogue wasn't there at all.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964, dir. Sergio Leone) is one of those movies that's more influential than it is good. It's undeniable how massive of an impact this movie left on film, from practically inventing a lot of what became the Spaghetti Western to launching the career of a young Clint Eastwood, but in my eyes this is a pretty weak movie. A low-budget remake of the classic Kurosawa jidaigeki picture Yojimbo, there's definitely a lot of charm here -- you can already see Sergio Leone's style in its infancy, and Clint Eastwood is as fantastic as ever in his portrayal of the Man with No Name here -- embodying that classic mysterious drifter archetype seemingly effortlessly -- but to my eyes there's just a lot missing here that makes it a sort of drab experience, unfortunately. Still worth a watch, and still very much recommended if you're interested in the history of low-budget film or the history of the Western in general.

Rambo: Last Blood (2019, dir. Adrian Grunberg) is a movie that left me massively conflicted; on the one hand, I want desperately to love the unapologetic throwback to '70s exploitation cinema (in particular, vigilante movies, low-budget spaghetti Westerns, and good old-fashioned splatter) that this movie clings to -- but on the other hand, it fully embodies all the worst elements of those movies and combines them with a pathetic excuse for a plotline, underdeveloped characters, and shoddy effects work. When I think Rambo, I think "Sylvester Stallone in the jungle, mowing down hordes of nameless mooks; this movie, conversely, feels more like a Chuck Bronson Death Wish movie than any of the previous Rambos, and carries all the baggage of that wave of '70s vigilante movies, the good and the bad. The way this movie portrays Mexicans makes me think it was written by a Fox News boomer, and given that Sly is in his 70s it totally might be; to be slightly fair to him this movie was apparently written before the excellent fourth Rambo movie, and its already-tired-in-2010 plotline has aged like milk since then. Not to mention the women characters in this, which are little more than props and only serve to give John Rambo a reason to kill everything in his line of sight, and have no personality beyond "morality pet for 70-year-old veteran guy". So I'm not sure how I felt about this movie on first watch. It is a love letter to all the great low-budget cinema that made loose cannon cowboys and renegade cops cool again, but doesn't seem to have learned at all from the 40 years since then.

For a Few Dollars More (1965, dir. Sergio Leone) is, for my money, the definitive spaghetti Western. Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood turn in classic performances as the quintessential badass bounty hunters kicking ass on the Mexican border. I love, love, love bounty hunter stories, and this is one of the great bounty hunter stories of all time -- though, don't try to follow the plot too closely, as it is definitely a bit of a mess, though it's at least a fun one. The first hour or so of this movie is basically all setup, whether that's setting up Clint Eastwood's character, setting up Lee van Cleef's character, them meeting in the bar, them trying to one-up each other, etc. But, once the plotline does kick in, it's a great time, with the villain El Indio being played by the great Gian Maria Volonte (who was also in A Fistful of Dollars), a giggling madman who leads a gang of bank robbers and has a brutal quickdraw hand. The scene in the church, where El Indio murders a man's wife and baby offscreen for selling him out and then forces him into a quickdraw duel, is one of the truly great scenes in Western history; this, also, is where you can see the classic elements of Sergio Leone's style begin to play out -- the extreme close-ups, the drawn-out tension, and of course the bombastic score by Ennio Morricone. And that, finally, is another thing that needs to be noted: this has perhaps one of Morricone's greatest scores; the main title theme is a classic piece of spaghetti Western music, up there with his similarly-incredible scores for Leone's next two pictures. To put it simply: if you like cowboys, if you like Clint Eastwood, or if you just plain like badass motherfuckers doing badass shit, this movie is a must fucking watch. Highly recommended.

Reviewing Parasite (2019, dir. Bong Joon-Ho) without spoiling it is pretty much like holding a hand grenade in your bare hands, so I am going to keep this as short as possible: This movie is at once hilarious and tragic. This movie is a sometimes-brutal satire of capitalism that pulls very few punches. This movie has convinced me that I need to watch Bong Joon-Ho's other stuff as soon as I can, and finally the important part: This movie deserves all of the hype it's been receiving. Highly, highly recommended.

I recently rewatched Kill Bill (2003-04, dir. Quentin Tarantino), and while it definitely isn't one of my favorite Tarantino joints, it's aged pretty well over the last 15, almost 20 years. A doting pastiche of all the '70s exploitation classics Quentin has made a living off his love for, everyone knows what Kill Bill is: A wedding rehearsal in Texas gets shot up -- massacred, in fact. 4 years later, the Bride rises from her coma and decides to get revenge by killing every one of the people that did it: members of an elite assassination team, led by her ex-lover Bill. There's a lot to love here: arterial sprays, limbs flying, white-bearded asshole kung-fu masters, entire scenes in Mandarin, the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, and all the rest. There's also copious amounts of gratuitous shots of Uma Thurman's feet (because, you know, Quentin Tarantino is a bit of a creep), and some absurdly campy dialogue writing (Uma Thurman calling everyone "Bitch" is the big one, it sounds so unnatural) that I can't quite tell whether it's intentionally or unintentionally cheesy. But overall I think this movie is still worth watching in 2020. It's at least as good a use of four hours as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is, and unlike Hamlet this has a decapitation in it.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019, dir. Quentin Tarantino) may not be my favorite Quentin Tarantino film, but it's almost certainly his best one. It's unlike pretty much anything he ever did, a slow-burn character-driven drama that barely has a central plot at all. Some people say this movie is "about" Charles Manson, but that couldn't be further from the truth; largely, this movie consists of a slice-of-life examination of the late career of an "aging" (read: in his thirties) actor and his best friend and stunt double, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt respectively. Manson and his acolytes only figure into maybe 25 minutes of the movie, 15 or so of those being the climax of the movie where the only real "action" in the movie takes place. I think the slow, low-key nature of this movie plays to Quentin's strong suits far more than just about any of his other movies do: he is at his best when he's writing conversations between the characters he puts so much love into creating, and as far as that goes I'd say this movie puts him in the same league as Mamet. So, if you have 3 hours spare, I'd say this is worth your time and attention for those 3 hours. Check it out.

The Lighthouse (2019, dir. Robert Eggers) is one of those movies that I really am going to need to watch again, but just on first watch: This is abjectly horrifying, and one of only a few movies to genuinely make me uncomfortable and uneasy watching it. To call this movie "scary" would be sort of a misnomer: I'm not "scared" watching these two men going insane, but I am filled with a deep and utter sense of dread as the whole thing proceeds. The atmosphere reminds me most of Vargtimmen, Ingmar Bergman's classic psychological horror masterpiece, with some definite Eraserhead elements thrown in the mix too, along with the period-accurate linguistics and creeping unease of Eggers' last movie, The Witch, which was his debut. We live in a damn great time for horror cinema if people like Robert Eggers and Ari Aster can put out their first two features and have all four of the movies be the magnum-opus level masterclasses in misery and terror that they are. There's clearly some stuff hidden deeper in this film's cracks and crevices that I couldn't glean from my first watch, but even without the stuff I inevitably missed, I highly recommend this movie.

The Irishman (2019, dir. Martin Scorsese) is Scorsese's masterpiece (I think I *like* Goodfellas more, but this is clearly the better movie), and possibly the greatest gangster movie, full stop. At turns an epic, a subtle, quiet drama, and a crushingly dark portrayal of the Mafia, I have never felt more tense watching a movie that isn't trying to scare me in my entire life. There is no romanticisation or pulled punches here. The violence in this movie is few and far between, and it is always, always shocking. Gunshots in this made me tense up and jump, a reaction that I cannot say I've had to guns in any other movie. And the last hour of this movie -- chronicling the demise of Jimmy Hoffa and its repercussions -- is the best thing Scorsese has ever put to film. An unbelievably beautiful work of film. Highly, highly recommended.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966, dir. Sergio Leone) is not the perfect masterpiece I expected it to be, but is certainly a damn great film nonetheless. There are some who would call this the greatest Western ever made, and I certainly can see some reasons why that would be the case: fantastic performances from Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, an iconic and classic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, and one of the greatest final 20-30 minutes of a movie of all time. The hype kinda overblew it for me, though, because even with all the great stuff going for it, this movie has some slightly damning flaws that bring it down a little bit for me, namely the second act being as sluggish as it is; this movie is 3 hours long, and it starts to drag a little bit during the second act. Additionally, I thought it was a strange choice to not develop any of the characters other than Tuco beyond a few key aspects: Clint is calculating, stoic and the fastest gun in the West, and Lee is a sadistic, greedy monster. Tuco (Wallach), at least, gets some more character development, in the scenes where Eastwood and Wallach are at the church nursing Eastwood back to health. I'll definitely need to see this one again sometime soon, but in my eyes I'd rather watch either Once Upon a Time in the West or For a Few Dollars More than this one. Still though, undeniably massively influential and still definitely worth watching. Check it out.

There’s my opinions. See you next month with ten more.

#film review #capsule reviews #movie review #once upon a time in the west #sergio leone #a fistful of dollars #rambo: last blood #adrian grunberg #for a few dollars more #parasite 2019 #bong joon ho #bong joon-ho #parasite #kill bill #kill bill vol 1 #kill bill vol 2 #kill bill volume 1 #kill bill volume 2 #quentin tarantino #tarantino #once upon a time in hollywood #ouatih #the lighthouse #robert eggers #the lighthouse 2019 #the irishman #martin scorsese #the good the bad and the ugly

[nervousinpublic-blog]

A MIRROR; A WITNESS

I began avidly attending the Christian youth group in my Littleton, Colorado neighborhood a few months before the Columbine shootings in the spring of 1999. I was only 13, but I’d already been baptized twice by that point: once in a Catholic ceremony to please my Dad, and then again in a Mormon Temple at the insistence of my Mom. Both baptisms happened within a year of my 7th birthday.

After a terrible divorce that dragged on for years, my parents each decided that my siblings and I should be baptized into the religion of their upbringing. My Dad, who was raised Catholic, decided he’d give Mormonism a try in a move to please my Mom’s conservative family. A few years after the marriage went south, he decided he was definitely Catholic again and that my siblings and I should be too. And so, every weekend from the time I was 7 to 12 years old, we bounced from Catholic mass to Mormon service; from my mom’s spotless house in the suburbs to whatever friend’s basement or apartment my Dad happened to be renting that month. I am aware now that we were used as ammunition in my parents’ war against each other, and that’s probably why I clung to the things I did so desperately in my youth. When your family is broken, it makes sense that you would try to cobble together a new one out of the materials around you.

My neighbor Chris was the one who first invited me to youth group. Imagine how awkward you were when you were 13. Now imagine someone much, much more awkward. 6-ft tall, braces, unfortunately-bleached hair and perpetually unsure of what to say and where to stand. I had no idea how to live in my own body back then, so I thought the best thing to do was to stay as quiet as possible. For some reason, I had it in my mind that I wouldn’t live past 15 or 16. Some dark fate was patiently waiting to have its way with me; I was sure of it. I had no friends, so when Chris offered me the prospect of his company, I jumped at it. He was the first person I ever really trusted and something about his honest nature won me over immediately. He skateboarded, so I skateboarded. “I’m going to this thing at my church tonight,” he said. “We can skate on the stairs there.” My friendship with Chris led to other friendships, and I began to feel at home at the youth group.

Later that summer, I was convinced I heard God talking to me in my bedroom. I remember feeling loved, understood and called to something. I’m tempted now to write off the whole experience and claim that a high of happiness from finally attaining friends and a sense of belonging caused me to blindly follow my new church’s urging for non-believers to accept Christ into their hearts, but I think it’s more complicated than that. Whether what happened that day occurred within the confines of my mind or not doesn’t matter because the experience was vividly real to me. In a single afternoon, I absorbed the unshakable belief that there was a God who knew and loved me. Can you really call it faith when you’re completely convinced of something? The next day, I announced to my family that I’d become a Christian. I scheduled a 3rd baptism, this time in the religion and location of my choosing.

I loved the portable God the youth group would preach about. It was a God who listened and loved completely; an omnipotent force vaster and older than the entire universe itself that could shrink down small enough to fit inside your breast pocket. It was a God that could intervene between you and death if you could find enough faith to let it to. I took my portable God everywhere. I told it all my secrets.

For the next 5 years and throughout my time in high school, God and the youth group became the center of my life. I started going to youth group on Sunday nights and then for bible study on Tuesdays. It wasn’t long until I found myself hanging out in the church youth building every afternoon after school. I learned to play the guitar and joined the church band. My friends thought I was funny, so I traded in my silent demeanor for one more raucous and bombastic. I had learned to adapt. I was never cool, but everyone knew me and I knew everyone.

Everyone in our youth group idolized the youth leaders, and I dreamed about becoming one and working at the church after I graduated from high school. You were only asked to be a youth leader if you were attractive, well liked and spiritually pristine. “Jesus didn’t want to hang out with the flashy, popular people,” they’d tell us. “Jesus hung out with the dregs of society. If he were here, he’d want to hang out with the losers; the kid stacking chairs after service when nobody sees. That’s how you store treasure in heaven, guys. You should ask yourselves if you’re someone that Christ would want to hang out with if he were here walking around today.”

At home, my mom would tell me that I was spending too much time at church and that I needed to spend more time with the family. My response to my mom’s concerns always touched on the fact that I was a good, solid kid who was staying out of trouble. “I don’t do drugs, I don’t have sex and I’m a good person. You don’t have to worry about me,” I would tell her. The church is my real family, I told my portable God. “I don’t like this new church you’re going to,” my Dad warned. “You spend too much time there. You’d better get confirmed by the Catholic church or I’m afraid for your soul, Patrick!” Considering myself to be the moral leader of my family, I saw the concerns of my parents as nothing more than obstacles to my happiness and spiritual fulfillment. When I was 15, I wrote a letter to my older sister living in New York explaining that I was concerned about her “decision” to be a lesbian and that she should try to seek God and his forgiveness; an act that remains one of my largest and most embarrassing regrets to date.

In the years after Columbine, the youth group ballooned from 50 kids to over 300. An intangible urgency seemed to penetrate everything we did back then. You heard this a lot from Littleton residents, but it was absolutely true that Columbine High School was the last place in the world you’d expect for a massacre to happen. This was years before Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech and the thought of kids murdering other kids inside a suburban public high school was unfathomable. Everyone in Littleton knew someone impacted by the shootings, and a girl from our church named Cassie Bernall was killed.

Columbine happened while I was still in middle school, and I went to another Littleton high school near my house my freshman year. Cassie was a few years older than me, so I never met her. After the shootings, the news started reporting that one of the shooters asked Cassie if she believed in God and then shot her for saying yes. Cassie’s mom wrote a book about it called She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie BernallOver the next four years, our church traveled to major cities all over the US to give away copies of the book to anyone who’d take them. “Walk up to people and just tell them, ‘This is a book about my friend who was killed at Columbine’,” our youth leaders enthusiastically instructed us on a trip to New York City in the Summer of 2000.

“This is a book about my friend who died at Columbine High School for believing in God,” I said while approaching a bookish man in Central Park. “I read about this last year,” he said, backing away from me slightly. “I’m sorry about your friend, but this didn’t happen. They were just shooting people at random whether they were Christians or not. What you guys are doing out here… it isn’t right.” He walked past me, leaving the book in my hand.

I hated the man for what he’d said. Yes, I lied when I said that Cassie had been my friend, but why was he going out of his way to tell me this? My church was heavily invested in making sure we knew that the people who didn’t follow Christ would hate us for our devotion to God, and I was sure that the man represented the world and its disdain for me and everyone who followed Christ. Though the early accounts of Cassie’s martyrdom were discredited by major news outlets just months after the massacre, I didn’t accept what the man said as truth until I was well into my twenties. Later that day, we went to the top of one of the World Trade Center buildings. I leaned my head against the glass and looked down, wondering what it’d feel like if I had to jump.

The church taught us to believe that a lust for anything other than God was perversion, and I really believed it. I loved my portable God and I wanted to do right by him. “You can have all the sex you want,” our carpenter-ish youth pastor used to tell us, “once you’re married.” I hated the idea of sex. I didn’t understand it; what it meant and why I wanted it so much despite my best efforts to put it outside my thoughts. I didn’t understand why I had to engage in an act as permanent as marriage just to experience it. I found it easier to deem it a toxic threat than to try to see my sexuality as something positive.

I’d decide that I liked someone and would go out of my way not to look at or talk to her out of fear and resentment, taking note with joy and annoyance whenever she’d walk into the room. Like many conservative Christian churches, ours taught a message of all-or-nothing abstinence before marriage. When I was a 16, a pretty senior in one of my classes wrote me a note explaining that she thought I was funny and cute, and that she wanted to sleep with me before leaving Colorado for the summer. Normal high school boys would’ve jumped at this opportunity, but not me. I threw away the note and didn’t talk to her for the rest of the year.

Guys in the youth group were encouraged to read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, a book arguing that unmarried Christian men should court girls rather than date them. The book preached a similar message to the one I was hearing in church, claiming that masturbation and premarital sex were covert ways for Satan to gain a foothold in our lives, and that God would give us everything we needed to remain pure in our young thoughts and actions. I liked the categorical nature of these teachings and was more than happy to put sex in all my bad categories. Years after I finally left my church and religion altogether, a friend told me that a group of young guys from the youth group were researching chemical castration online; a sure-fire way to drown out every sexual feeling with pristine, medicinally-induced white noise. The hatred and fear of my own sexuality still loomed large in my thoughts for many years after I stopped believing that sex was a curse to be avoided. I couldn’t see it right away, but a deep shame had taken residence in the inaccessible corners of my mind. Guilt, not Satan, had gained a foothold in my life.

I’m still good friends with most everyone I knew from my youth group days, and it’s interesting to see us now as adults. It’s like we all experienced everything a normal person does in high school, just years later. Many of us succumbed to the world and its vices in our twenties rather than our teens: drugs, premarital sex, and drinking. I eventually drank alcohol, tried pot a few times and then a long, long time later had sex out of wedlock on a rainy March night when I was 24 years old.

I remember the night I finally lost it. The kiss. The offer. Whole body shaking on the walk up the stairs. The freedom and relief of it. The subsequent terrible relationship that I stayed in for more than a year because I didn’t have enough experience to know better. I haven’t asked around or anything, but I don’t think it’s normal for a consenting adult to shake out of fear when they have sex for the first time. After it was over, it felt like — and I truly remember thinking this that night — like I was finally joining the human race. I doubt I’ll ever feel so much relief and ease again in my life.

Chris was the first one of us to leave the youth group. He told me that God didn’t want him there anymore, and I was shocked. When the youth leaders heard the news, they took me aside after the service one morning and cried. One of the youth leaders blamed his departure on his strained relationship with his alcoholic father. A few months later, I left too. In the spring before my high school graduation, my friend Ryan died in a car accident. In the wake of his death, everything began to seem small to me: the church, its teachings and the categorical world I’d curated for myself. Sometimes our youth pastor would pace around the stage and say, “I’ve got some really profound lessons I could teach you guys, but you’re just not ready for it.” One night, in lieu of the normal Sunday night sermon, a different youth pastor talked for 45 minutes about how he flew to Hawaii to meet Scott Stapp, the lead singer of Creed.

No one could articulate it at the time, but my friends and I began to realize that there was something off about our church. A rumor had gone around Littleton that our church was a cult, and I finally understood why when I left. Sometimes you need to be far away from something in order to see it for what it really is. I graduated, moved to Seattle for a few months and began feeling spiritually desperate and anxious. Not sure of what to do, I signed up for classes at a Christian university in northern California.

The Christian college I attended was the kind of place where people would walk up to you and say, “Hey bro! You’ve been on my heart lately. Can I pray for you?”, and then they’d lay their hands on you and other people would lay their hands on you and then everyone would start praying out loud right there in the middle of campus even if you were late for class and didn’t want to be touched. Students were required to adhere to a strict curfew even though they were adults. Being found in the dorm room of someone from the opposite gender was a serious offense. I agreed to these rules because in my mind limits and boundaries were tantamount to faith and righteousness. I needed rules. Ever since I’d left my church in Littleton, my faith had begun to slowly creak, fracture and break apart like an old wooden ship in a hurricane. Christian college was my Hail Mary Pass; my last chance to stave off my doubts, questions and anger about what people did in the name of God.

“Hey, Pat McCrotch. Looks like your boys are losing,” said my college roommate while watching coverage of the 2004 election. By “boys” he was referring to the democrats. We never talked about it, but he sensed that I was one of those liberal kids who didn’t like George Bush and the war in Iraq.

“You know man, I just hate how ‘cool’ all the liberals think they are. It’s like, you’re not cool unless you hate George Bush or something. Bush is a good Christian, and he’s just doing what’s right for the country. Of course people aren’t going to like him for doing the right thing.” Choosing not to waste my energy on a useless argument, I responded with a “hmmmm” sound and left the dorm.

On a walk around the drab campus, I prayed. I asked my portable God to help me fight my body and its impurities. I asked it to help keep me company, and for guidance. I prayed for the faith, fortitude and clarity to do the will of Christ and I apologized for being such a disgusting, wretched human being. Mid-prayer, my thoughts began to float off to some other place. I was finding more and more that the emotional well of prayer was running dry for me. The dramatic inner ritual of self hatred, pleads for forgiveness and a promise to do better and was beginning to wear me out. It didn’t feel genuine anymore. Without the emotional payoff or prayer, I couldn’t keep from questioning the nature of my relationship with God. I had begun to ask myself questions I couldn’t answer. Why would God specifically design a person to be gay and then later condemn them for it? Why are there children who die of cancer? Suffering is understandable if it leads to growth or good, but what about when it doesn’t?

Late one night with some friends at a Denny’s near campus, I casually mentioned the odd religious makeup of my family: Mom was now agnostic, Dad was still staunchly Catholic, and everyone else ranged from casual Christian to atheist. My friend Josh looked down at the table and sighed. “Pat, you know what this means, right? Your family….they’re not saved. They’re going to hell unless they accept Christ fully like you have. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that. But that’s why being a witness is so powerful and important. You’re the light of your family.” I was stunned. The version of God I’d constructed for myself was a force filled with love, patience and understanding, not a terrifying entity with a penchant for sadistic punishment. If God was love, why would he punish my family for not being Christians or Christian enough by throwing them in hell forever? Where is the lesson to be learned in that? My church was conservative, but not “Your-family-is-going-to-hell” conservative.

“That’s a lot to think about,” I said, looking down and stirring my coffee. Everything began to seem absurd to me. Maybe God and conventional religion were really just mirrors; powerful vehicles for the things you already believed to be sent back to you renewed and unshakable.

Shortly after the beginning of my second semester, I decided to come back to Colorado to finish my degree at a public university. I began to finally admit to myself that I just didn’t believe in God anymore. Those were dark times. Without a God, I had no identity; spiritual or otherwise. My faith had been my shield, and without it I felt vulnerable and deeply sad. It’s weird to go from thinking you can cheat death to accepting the finite nature of your own life. “Dying is the one thing we all must do,” as my sister says.

The last time I remember praying was when I was 22. I was drinking with some friends downtown, and every time I left the table or looked away they’d fill my glass up to the top with vodka. I knew what they were doing, but I pretended like I had no idea. It was the beginning of Summer, and after being dropped off I ambled toward the lake near my house through the tepid night air. “Y’know what?,” I slurred aloud, “I tried to be what you wanted. And I was fuckin’ good. Really good.” I fell down on the grass and laughed. “Don’t you have anything to say? D’you even miss me?” Everything was quiet other than the low hum of my own shifting thoughts. The night, God and anything else that might’ve been listening was indifferent to me.

This essay was originally written for the Nervous In Public blog in June 2016

#personal essay #christianity #columbine #atheism #storytelling #writing #creative writing #patrick mcguire