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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 311: Hand Gun

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “thinkin’ about dropping in some woke analogies of the very real and very presently relevant issue of racial profiling idk what do you guys think” and then shrugged and did it without waiting for an answer, and ngl it was a bit sudden, but I’m here for it. All Might was all “DEKU YOU NEED TO EAT” and Deku was all “OKAY” and took his hero bento and went to go stand dramatically on a tower in the rain whilst having some highly anticipated Vestige flashbacks. OFA II was all, “sup, I guess I’m not Kacchan... OR AM I,” and ngl I think he is?? Alternate universes anybody?? Hello??? But anyway, so OFA the First a.k.a. Yoichi was all “remember that time you guys rescued me from my evil brother and Two took my hand and we Had A Moment?”, and Two and Three were all “ahh yeah good times”, and it was very nice and very, very gay. The chapter ended with it being very unclear if Two and Three have actually lent their power to Deku yet or not lmao. Y’all need to get your shit together dudes.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “what if I gave a random bad guy a fucking tommy gun that shoots nails” and jesus christ calm down son. The Hawksquad, a.k.a. SQUAWK as per @hotchocolatier, are all “time to drive aimlessly around town acting like Deku has a restraining order on us because that’s literally the best plan to combat the League we could come up with,” and I have no further comment. Hawks is all “idk about you guys but I want to know more about AFO and Tomura’s whole deal” and I can’t remember the last time I identified so strongly with one of these characters. All Might is all, “[EXPLODES???]”, and the chapter ends with that mysterious hot girl from the Tartarus breakout being all “HELLO I CAN TURN INTO A GUN AND I LITERALLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK” and (1) WOW, and (2) IT’S TRUE, SHE CAN, AND SHE REALLY DOESN’T. GODDAMN.

(ETA: so this wholly escaped my notice on the first go, and also has nothing to do with the chapter itself, but I only just realized that this chapter was scanlated by a new group, TCB Scans. they actually did a very good job, and I’m curious if they’ve found a new RAW provider, because the quality this week is actually crazy good in comparison to what we’ve been dealing with for the past few months. I’m gonna have to get caught up on what exactly happened here lol.)

so what will it be this week? more Vestige antics? more of Sad Nomad Deku standing on buildings and pretending like he’s some cool aloof antihero, as if he could fool us when we all know his hero backpack is secretly stuffed full with his nerd diaries and the remnants of all the hero bentos that All Might keeps giving him?? or, just putting it out there, just a crazy thought, but you don’t suppose we might actually cut back to U.A.? mmm. side-eyes emoji

maaaaaan I’m starting to get tired of this trend of beginning chapters by dropping in on random power-tripping civilians and/or Shindou lol. just once can we get a chapter that opens with someone I actually give a fuck about

oh at least Endeavor is here

A WHAT SUPPORT ITEM!??! HOLY SHIT DDLKJSLFKJL

lol somehow that’s more terrifying than bullets for me?? like I’m fully aware that bullets will fuck you up way worse and that in real life nail guns probably don’t work like this AT ALL and only have a range of like... hold up let me just google... up to 100 to 150 m/s and distances of up to 500m wait WHAT

okay wait. hold up. like I was expecting google to tell me nail guns only shoot a few feet at most, and instead the first search result is some CDC blog article that’s “dispelling” the “””myth””” -- please note my repeated sarcastic quotation marks -- that nail guns can fire 1400 feet per second, by explaining that actually they can fire anywhere from 315 ft/sec to 1,295 ft/sec, and that “it is in the pneumatic nail gun user’s best interest to handle these tools as if they were a firearm despite having a lower velocity” dlkjdslkjflkl

SO THAT SCENE IN IRON MAN 3 WHERE TONY RAIDS A HOME DEPOT AND BUYS A BUNCH OF RANDOM TOOLS AND SHIT AND GOES ON TO STAGE A ONE-MAN INVASION OF AN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST’S FLORIDA MANSION HQ IS ACTUALLY TRUE. YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THE FILM “HOME ALONE” IS ACTUALLY A DOCUMENTARY. “the Discovery Channel television program “Mythbusters” compared the penetration capacity of an airborne projectile shot from a pneumatic framing nail gun to that of a 9mm hand gun” HELLO YES AND A MERRY “WHAT THE FUCK” TO YOU AS WELL

anyway, so. there’s apparently a reason why the Number One hero, who can burn people with the intensity of a sun going supernova, is hiding here behind this concrete support column making frowny faces. nope. nuh uh. he ain’t about that. I don’t blame you buddy

so now he’s barrel rolling out of his hiding place and setting this dude THE FUCK ON FIRE because HELL NO. BAD ENOUGH I HAD TO WATCH THAT FUCKING MUSHROOM EPISODE LAST WEEK! YOU TAKE THAT SHIT SOMEWHERE ELSE

LOL look at his face

I know the context is actually him being all “I know I’m responsible for basically everything that happened and so that’s why I’m so grim and serious about this mission to set things right piece by piece,” but in my mind this pissed-off face is 100% all because this dude tried to shoot his eye out with a nail gun. look at that. you made him go full flame face again. beard and all. protecting his face so that it can hopefully melt any stray nails that get too close. nope nope nope

good lord. so what’s up next. let me guess the guy fighting Best Jeanist has like an atomic chainsaw or some shit

lol nope we’re just cutting back to Hawks and Jeanist chilling in the Jesla after they’ve wrapped things up

Jeanist has got some serious Groot energy you guys jesus christ he’s like 12 feet tall

oh snap someone threw a pipe at him now

today is just the chapter of Endeavor being assaulted by random DIY tools I guess

I mean, I get why they’re pissed at him obviously; I would be too lol. but tbh I also don’t really understand the “get out of here we don’t want your help” attitude that all of these people suddenly seem to have?? like it if were me, I would be fucking DEMANDING for him and the other heroes to be working round the clock to fix their stupid mess. I mean who else is gonna do it?? it’s their mess, I sure don’t want to be the one to clean it up instead. anyways but whatever lol

oh shit?

so they haven’t dropped the whole “OFA secret potentially gets revealed to the world” thing yet after all. that makes sense I suppose, it did seem like that whole thing wound up playing out a bit too easily

anyway so yeah

the locals are definitely none too happy. well at least Dabi’s got something to be cheerful about I guess

so now we’re cutting to the interior of the Jesla and they’re chitchatting about the current investigation

oh wow this actually makes a bit of sense now. so there was a reason they were keeping their distance from Deku

please note that even in this abstract Endeavor’s-Mental-Image-Of-Him panel, Deku’s eyes still don’t have the light in them anymore :( my poor son

also ftr I still think using Deku as bait in this particular sense is the shittiest idea ever ngl. like sure, let’s let the sixteen-year-old run around battling miscellaneous escaped prison convicts while we stay several kilometers away ON PURPOSE despite the fact that you’re using him as bait to draw out the Big Bad, who just a reminder can destroy anything with a mere touch and who you were all basically helpless against. what exactly are you all planning to do if Tomura or one of the other League VIPs actually shows up to retrieve him?? are you even keeping tabs on him at all in real time?? jesus

(ETA: well that escalated quickly lol.)

Horikoshi is all of a sudden dropping whole pages of exposition here and I can’t be bothered to summarize this lol so just,

a big fat YES to what Jeanist said, though. that’s why imo they would have been better off laying a trap at U.A. rather than just wandering around out in the open. I assume they’re trying to cut their potential losses because U.A. is full of students (and civilians), but those students also happen to be more capable than pretty much anyone else in the manga at this point. and tbh they’re already in life-threatening danger regardless of how things play out from here on, so they might as well at least try to use the few advantages they have right now. U.A. is almost certainly going to come under siege at some point anyway, so they might as well prepare for it

lol I don’t think I’m explaining this very well because I don’t have the patience right now to break it down point by point like it really ought to be, so for now I’ll just say that imo “U.A. siege” stands a good chance of being the eventual endgame even now, and so this whole “Deku runs around being bait” arc is really just killing time until then lol. like and subscribe for more rambling nonsensical takes such as this. maybe next time I’ll even put it all into one single sentence for maximum meandering senior citizen rant value

well it’s nice that they’re finally talking about all of this I guess

we readers have known all of this for months now but this confirms the heroes are finally caught up. ALSO, Hawks is so fucking smart, as always. kinda wonder if things would have played out differently if All Might had let him in on the secret a bit earlier. probably that’s why Horikoshi made damn sure they didn’t find out until after the War arc lol

OH MY GOD YOOOOOO HAWKS OUT HERE ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

“anyone else wondering why AFO bothered to raise Tomura as his fake heir for fifteen years when he was secretly planning on taking over his body the whole time” YES, [raises hand] lmao Hawks where the hell were you when I was debating this “AFO is the final villain and Tomura is just his pawn” thing on multiple occasions over the past several years lol

lmao seeing them debate the metaphysics of OFA and all of its mystical bullshit is seriously surreal you guys

JEANIST HAVE YOU CHECKED OUT MY META TAG I HAVE WRITTEN SO MANY ESSAYS. I ACTUALLY WAS PLANNING ON WRITING ANOTHER ESSAY ABOUT THE THING THAT I’M PRETTY SURE HAWKS IS ABOUT TO BRING UP, BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO IT WHOOPS, BUT MAYBE I WILL NOW LOL LET’S SEE HOW IT GOES

yes!!

WHICH AFO FUCKING ENSURED HE WOULD BE BY LITERALLY PLANNING OUT EVERY LAST DETAIL OF HIS FAMILY TRAGEDY, FROM SECRETLY GIVING TENKO THE QUIRK TO MAKING SURE NO CIVILIANS OR HEROES WOULD HELP HIM UNTIL AFO FINALLY STEPPED IN. I’M 1000% CONVINCED THIS IS THE CASE YOU GUYS. NOT JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT A FAN OF “THE WORLD IS A FUNDAMENTALLY SHITTY PLACE, ACTUALLY” TAKES BECAUSE MISTER ROGERS TOLD ME TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE HELPERS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT LITERALLY JUST DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE OTHERWISE. THEIR ENTIRE HOUSE CAVED IN FFS, YOU’RE TELLING ME NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS FUCKING OVERHEARD THAT SHIT AND WENT “UMMMMMMMMM” AND WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON?? “DIDN’T THERE USED TO BE A HOUSE HERE, AND LIKE A WHOLE FAMILY, AND SHIT?”

LIKE I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S ONE THING TO SAY IT’S REALISTIC THAT NOT A SINGLE PERSON WOULD ATTEMPT TO HELP THE WANDERING TRAUMATIZED CHILD AFTERWARDS (WHICH I DISAGREE WITH AS WELL BUT AT LEAST THAT’S MORE SUBJECTIVE), AND IT’S A WHOLE OTHER THING TO ARGUE THAT IT’S REALISTIC THAT NO ONE WOULD BE FUCKING NOSY. LIKE THAT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL OF “THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS” ENTIRELY LOL. anyway tl;dr AFO is a piece of shit and Tomura’s entire worldview is based on a magnificently intricate and savagely cruel lie more at 11

anyway so after all that ranting it looks like that wasn’t even what Hawks was talking about after all lol. I just went off for absolutely no reason lol oh well. instead it seems that Hawks is suggesting that Tomura’s carefully cultivated hatred might not yet have actually reached “can defeat OFA” levels even after all of that trauma. interesting!

don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here while my brain furiously scrambles to put together all the parallels between Hawks and Tomura that it never noticed before until exactly this second. like I’m not even sure that was the intent here at all (I need to check out another translation or two lol), but regardless my mind decided that now would be the perfect time to make the connection between these two twenty-somethings who both had horrific childhoods and spent years being molded by their respective manipulative guardians, and developed eerily similar “laugh at everything because what else can you do” coping mechanisms to deal with it all hmmmmm

anyway so they were talking more about their strategy, but now all of a sudden Jeanist’s phone is beeping??

AND NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO ALL MIGHT AND HIS MIGHTMOBILE DAMMIT so that means the call to Jeanist was actually something important then!! WAS IT BAKUGOU OMG. DOES YOUR INTERN WANT A WORD FFFKLFSJK please it’s been so long I just need a little crumb or two to tide me over lmao have mercy

anyway so All Might’s following the GPS tracking device he’s apparently got planted on Deku (which in my conspiracy headcanons he’s actually had for a long time now, like since before DvK2 lol because HOW ELSE WOULD HAVE HAVE KNOWN THAT THEY WERE FIGHTING EACH OTHER IN GROUND BETA, PEOPLE) and thinking angsty thoughts about Deku’s sucky life

AND NOW ALL MIGHT’S PHONE IS RINGING TOO?? BAKUGOU HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU CALLING. “WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THE NERD GODDAMMIT”

OMG

lol is he under attack or is he just finally giving All Might the slip like we all know he SECRETLY PLANNED TO ALL ALONG oh my poor dumb angstmuffin

OMG AHHHHHHH WHAT

DID ALL MIGHT JUST FUCKING DIE LMAO NO OF COURSE NOT, BUT WHAT

WHAT IS HAPPENING OMG

THE FUCK IS THAT. AT LEAST IT’S NOT A NAIL

OH IT’S A SPEAKER!! OMG DID THEY TAKE ALL MIGHT HOSTAGE

“THEY’RE HERE” WELP, TIME TO SEE JUST HOW SHITTY THIS SHITTY PLAN REALLY IS LOL

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE!!!!

omg. AND OVERHAUL JUST CHILLING THERE IN THE BACKGROUND ALL “WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO DO I’VE GOT NO FUCKING ARMS” YEAH GOOD RIDDANCE LOL

DOES THIS GIRL HAVE ONE GIANT LEG OR WHAT, LIKE WHAT’S THE DEAL HERE

-- HOLD UP WAIT, THE GUN IS HER ARM, HOLY SHIT SHE CAN TURN INTO A GUN -- OKAY HOLD UP BECAUSE I NEED TO SAY THAT IN BIGGER TEXT BECAUSE !!!!

YOU GUYS, THE COOL TARTARUS GIRL IS BACK AND HER QUIRK IS “CAN TURN INTO A FUCKING GUN.” THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! MY BEST GIRL MT. GUN IS FINALLY BACK ON THE SCENE WITH HER QUIRK “CAN DO ANYTHING A GUN CAN DO.” “I HEARD Y’ALL WENT AND NAMED ONE OF YOUR HEROES ‘GUNHEAD’ EVEN THOUGH HIS HEAD ISN’T EVEN A GUN, LIKE WTF IS UP WITH THAT LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE” DANG OKAY

lmao only fifteen pages this week, and STILL NO KACCHAN (THEN WHO WAS PHONE!!!), but man I don’t even care because finally we’ve got a cliffhanger that’s actually deserving of being a cliffhanger! hot dog. okay then

#bnha 311 #endeavor #hawks (bnha)#takami keigo #shigaraki tomura #best jeanist #all might #midoriya izuku #cool tartarus gun transforming girl #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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innuendostudios · 3 years

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Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

#film noir #neo-noir #criterion channel

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lovelyirony · 3 years

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Maybe 60 and 46, Pepper / Natasha? (Based off our conversation from the other day :P )

“Dance with me.”/“You look like you could use a hug.” introducing: evil businesswoman pepper and her lovely assistant, natasha

Pepper didn’t like dealing with other businesses early in the morning. In fact, she usually didn’t. She did her worst in the mornings, and it was clear to see.

There was a man still lying in his chair when she comes out of the meeting room, and asks for a clean-up crew.

She hates tech start-ups.

Her assistant didn’t last. They never did, although this one had shown promise: he was with the company for five months.

She was sad to see him go, in shock at another mess she had made.

“Maybe you could stop killing other businesses,” Tony tells her while they’re eating lunch. It’s a nice place, where they’re at. They have a good balsamic vinaigrette.

“I could, but then where would the company be?” Pepper asks. “They need to know that I like to be impressed. I want success. That’s how you get what you want.”

Tony makes a face.

He wants to say something, but he can’t. Not when he signed the company over to her, and she’s improved it, been allowed to make her own choices, bring everything up to her standards. She’s put everyone at her heel, and by god has it been satisfying.

But she still needs a new assistant.

Natasha Romanoff is not liking the current assignment. Then again, she doesn’t like a lot of SHIELD’s assignments.

She likes the company, really. They’re altruistic as hell and like going through the proper channels to get the proper work done.

But she misses the feeling of getting yourself immersed, getting your hands stained beyond belief.

An assistant.

They want her to be a damned assistant for Stark Industries. Investigate the CEO, figure out what kind of dirt they can dig up and get out.

It’s insufferable. She should be doing high-speed car chases and seducing oil barons to make sure their finances get drained.

She shouldn’t be asking what kind of creamer goes in coffee and what kind of pens they want to be ordered.

But here she is for the interview process, and she’s wearing her best office dress, which is still a bit risky for what an office job is, but she pays everyone else no mind. She taps her heel on the floor.

Pepper hates interviewing candidates. But she has to observe who is going to be working with her, who can handle what they’re going to throw at her.

There’s a woman in the middle of it: Natalie Rushman.

She’s been abroad with various companies, used to do some amateur modeling, and is wearing a dress that would probably get her in trouble with HR if Pepper didn’t appreciate it so damn much.

She’s interesting.

Her eyes flash when Pepper asks her how comfortable she is in slightly dangerous situations.

“What, like copy paper being out?” she asks. Pepper laughs.

“Something a touch more dangerous than that, Miss Rushman.”

The interview ends.

Pepper thinks about her through the whole thing.

Natasha is excited.

Finally a job where she can use her skills. Where she can do what she needs to do, and it will be wonderful.

Natasha shouldn’t be excited.

But she can’t help herself as she buys four new pairs of shoes and debates on a skirt that she should bring.

After all, she will be getting the job if Ms. Potts’ posture gave any indication.

Miss Rushman starts officially on a Wednesday after two days of training. Usually it would take anywhere from one to two weeks. But she’s scarily efficient and has apparently worked with the same kind of things.

Pepper finds that she’s the best assistant she’s ever had. She’s already taken notes on what Pepper does throughout the day, knows when she needs to take a break for a headache, and also knows the extremely specific coffee creamer that she uses.

It would almost terrify her, if she could still get terrified at the mundane details that people could know about you.

But Miss Rushman makes it seem easy, and so she lets it slide. After all, it’s not like Natalie can just leave. She’s signed four different sets of paperwork that basically say if she so much as breathes wrong, Stark Industries gets her soul for eternity.

She’ll be trapped.

Natasha finds that aspect exciting.

She shouldn’t find the act of Pepper Potts holding a letter-opener to a business associate’s neck hot.

It shouldn’t be.

But Pepper got a lovely crimson-red manicure, and she’s smiling so sweetly as she discusses what they agreed upon versus what’s happening.

It takes Natalie Rushman a moment to process.

“Miss Potts?” she interrupts.

Pepper’s head slowly turns. Her strawberry-blonde hair moves smoothly over the letter-opener, over the hand clutched, trying to hold onto a way to live.

“Yes, Miss Rushman?”

“I have some paperwork for you to sign. Regarding the new hospital tech installment.”

“Set them on my right. I’m finishing up some...loose ends.”

Natalie doesn’t react to the loud noise other than a displeased hum and asking the other members in the room if they want lemon-water.

It’s refreshing in the afternoon, and she needs to clean the cabinet behind them anyways.

Pepper gets adjusted to her assistant. And Natalie gets adjusted to her life.

She’s comfortable with it. It’s easy, to lean on who she had to be.

It’s a rude wake-up call when she gets lunch with Clint, and he asks how the mission is going.

“You any closer to taking her down?”

She blinks for a moment. Pokes at her cake.

“Nat, come on. You know she can’t keep getting away with this, right?”

“Why does the world need more businessmen?” Natasha murmurs.

Clint stares at her.

“Come on. You told me when I brought you over here that you didn’t want to turn into who they made you into again. Just because it’s easier doesn’t mean it’s worth it.”

He’s right.

Of course he is. Clint usually is about this type of thing.

Pepper Potts is...well. Natasha can admire the dedication she takes with her success.

But usual bosses don’t really kill the competition.

Literally.

Pepper’s noticed a change in Natalie Rushman.

She doesn’t like it.

She doesn’t watch for as long, doesn’t talk as easily with her anymore.

Tony says maybe all of this terrible shit is catching up with her, her conscience finally clueing her in on the situation.

No, that’s not it. That can’t be it. Not after how she stared at Pepper, not after her smile, not after those nights where they stayed late and both gazed but never said anything.

Natalie is in the breakroom, staring into a coffee mug that has nothing in it.

“You look like you could use a hug,” Pepper says dryly, sidling up to her. She takes a step away.

Hm.

“I’m fine, just a busy day,” Natalie says.

God, she’s not even trying to lie. That’s infuriating.

“Your days are about to get a little bit busier,” she starts in. “I’ve decided to host a little celebration for all of the companies we’ve worked with over this past year. We’re going to have a real ball of a time, and I want you to help plan it. And attend.”

Natasha looks at her. Really looks at her.

Shit.

Pepper’s onto her. She knows something is different, something is off.

And if Natasha’s to get away, she’s still going to have fun toying with her. She’s going to make life hell.

The saying goes that if you can’t handle the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Natasha’s been cooking for a much longer time than Pepper, and she’s known her way around more kitchens than most.

Bring it.

Putting together an honest-to-god ball for an eccentric, threatening CEO is fun. It shouldn’t be fun, but it is.

The caterers are scared into arriving early, the invitations are embossed with actual gold, and the music costs way more than it should.

Natasha is having so much fun with it that she completely forgets about her dress.

She’s cursing as she’s tearing through her closet, looking for something that would be remotely appropriate for a ball for a sadistic CEO that she kind of has a crush on.)

There’s a knock at the door.

She rips it open, expecting it to be Clint or Maria to make fun of her, but it’s not.

“Um. Delivery for Miss Rushman?”

Oh.

It’s a midnight blue ballgown, long-sleeved. She never would have chosen it for herself.

The notecard attached said:

Wear this one. I know you best. -Potts

A shiver runs up her spine.

She’s not sure for what reason she’ll assign it to.

But she puts it on, and it fits perfectly. She doesn’t want to think about how much it will cost.

Pepper, of course, looks like a dream. Or a nightmare. A terrifyingly beautiful nightmare.

Her dress is burgundy, her lipstick matches. Her hair is loose, not kept in the high ponytail that is customary.

Her eyes are a brilliant blue. They see right through her.

“You look gorgeous, Miss Rushman,” she says, looking her up and down. “As to be expected, of course.”

“Of course,” Natasha murmurs.

The night will be long.

They mingle. Natasha dutifully informs Pepper of who the lesser players on the field are, and fetches drinks.

It’s...odd.

It feels like something big is going to happen. And maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

“Dance with me,” Pepper asks her. “Please.”

She’s adding the last part in so that it sounds nice. But it’s a demand all the same.

Natasha takes her hand, and maybe she should be more reserved about it, but she can’t help it.

It’s captivating. It’s dangerous. But she accepts all the same.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Pepper murmurs. “You far outshine every other woman here.”

“Even you?” Natasha asks.

Pepper rolls her eyes, but smiles.

“Obviously, Natasha. Who else would?”

She doesn’t notice that slip-up. Maybe it’s because she’s blown away at their close proximity, maybe it’s because Miss Potts’ perfume is absolutely intoxicating. But she doesn’t notice.

They dance and they talk.

“I’m happy you wore the dress.”

“It’s not like I had anything like it in my closet,” Natasha says as Pepper smiles.

“I figured. Not many host balls anymore.”

“You’re a different sort.”

“I am, aren’t I? But I think you and I are one and the same.”

They’re isolated.

And Natasha realizes it too late. She was a fool.

“You haven’t quit after a year, after everything we’ve been through. Everything that I put you through. A regular person couldn’t do that, could they?”

“You’d be surprised at what people can handle,” Natasha says.

Pepper smiles.

“You and I both know you’re far from an average person...Romanoff.”

She tenses.

“You knew?”

“It’s a relativity new tidbit of knowledge, but having a tech genius as a colleague is...nice.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Reveal you,” Pepper says. “You’re a spy. You make your bread and butter off the fact that no one knows you for very long. And me? Well, you can’t kill me. The only thing that could possibly have an effect on me is if you killed the business. Which you don’t have the infrastructure for.”

“And if I don’t want that? What do I have to do?” Natasha asks.

Secrecy is her safe spot. It’s the only place where she’s ever been secure.

“Stay. Leave that Strategic-Homeland-Whatever, and come with me. Stay with me.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Natasha says. “Your life and mine are too similar for that.”

“But think of all we could do together,” she says. She brushes a hair back from Natasha’s cheek.

It’s unbearable, that feeling. It’s a feeling that Natasha will spend all her life denying that she’ll chase.

“I can’t.”

Pepper looks at her. It’s a look that’s chilling.

“Very well, Miss Romanoff. Then that will be all.”

Pepper won’t fight her physically. She would lose that way, especially with how well-tailored the dress is on her body.

But she has other ways of fighting.

And god help Natasha, she knows she’s doomed.

The worst part?

She doesn’t exactly mind.

#lovelyirony writes #blackpepper #natpepper #peppernat #black widow #natasha romanoff #pepper potts #alternate universe: villain #villain au

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woulddieforperrytheplatypus · 4 years

Note

My mind was plagued with thoughts of the episode where the kids think Perry laid an egg and the comic where Perry saves a baby platypus from Doof, and that got me thinking: what if Perry was actually a dad to a baby platypus? One possibility is that Perry wouldn't want his child to become an agent at such a young age and would rather have his kid decide if they want to do it when they're older, but I believe that either way, the young platypus would inherit Perry's anthropomorphism.

oh my god I’ve never even thought about Dad!Perry before 🥺 I thought his relationship with the Flynn-Fletcher kids was wholesome but that has some real potential to become the superior relationship

obligatory “read more” to save everyone who doesn’t care how I feel about Dad!Perry

Okay first I gotta ask how we think this would happen. Is it the egg from Perry Lays An Egg that hatches, except it really is a baby platypus and Perry ends up taking it in because no one else can? Or is it Perry taking one of Doof’s platybabies home? Or is it trans!Perry laying his own egg? Or Perry has sex with another platypus (that’s such a weird thought lmao) and somehow he becomes the sole guardian of the egg? As the numero uno “Perry is an asexual demibiromantic platypus” stan, I kinda like the first or second one, but I also feel like the platybaby should be related to him? But at the same time Phineas and Ferb is all about how family don’t end in blood so maybe that’s not important?

Anyways onto Dad!Perry because holy shit I’m excited to explore this

I’m gonna start at the end of the ask by saying that I feel like anthropomorphism isn’t genetically inherited; I feel like it’s something that’s taught. It’s kinda a nature vs nurture type thing so I guess it’s more a psychological debate than anything, but if I had to channel my inner English teacher and draw evidence from “the text” (aka the show), I gotta bring up the koi from Attack of the 50 Foot Sister that were just kinda vibin in the neighbors’ pond at the beginning of the episode and then Monogram had to make them agents to avoid a lawsuit and by the end they were saving Perry’s ass? Which is relevant to literally nothing except that I think any baby animal Perry raises, regardless of whether or not they’re related to him by blood (or even by species), will probably turn the lil baby into an anthropomorphic lil platybaby just because of all the human and human-like influences

And now the elephant in the room (cue OWCA Files Agent E joke): how does OWCA react to the news? Which I guess is really a follow-up question to how OWCA finds out in the first place. I think we can all agree that Perry won’t want to tell them. It’s not like he sees the other agents as friends that he wants to invite to the baby shower. But Monogram would want to know if there’s a new player in the Flynn-Fletcher house not that he knows who lives there now; that’s Carl’s area of expertise. Would he have to tell them? Is there a protocol for that? Especially if it’s just an egg he picks up from The Tree™ in the backyard. That’s basically just getting a new pet, right? And sure, Monogram would want to know, but is Perry legally obligated to tell him is the question.

But Monogram has to find out one way or another, and given that Perry is the best of the best, Monogram is going to want his kid in the club. Perry would 100% say no, too, but I don’t know if it would be because he wants his son (yes it’s a boy platybaby no I don’t know why) to have his own say in his future; I think Perry would consider OWCA too dangerous for his son. I mean, we saw what happened when Phineas, Ferb, and Candace got mixed up in his job: they were almost eaten by a goozim and the tri-state area was almost taken over by an evil dictator. He would definitely want to keep his son out of that scene if he could. At least all the dangers at home are Phineas-and-Ferb-sponsored, and unlike OWCA, they would make sure he didn’t get hurt.

Buuuut Monogram is also a dumbass and doesn’t know how to take no for an answer, so he’d keep pushing. It has to be a well-known fact around OWCA that changing Agent P’s mind about anything is not an easy feat, so maybe when Monogram realized it was a lost cause, he’d try to go around Perry’s back? Maybe while Perry was at work, he’d head to the Flynn-Fletchers’ house (or send Carl again like Undercover Carl) to try to get the platybaby alone? He could explain what OWCA is and that he would make a perfect candidate. I doubt Perry would have told his son about OWCA in any detail yet other than the fact that he works there and that’s where he goes every day, so this would all be new and interesting. And then Perry either comes home when Monogram or Carl is talking to his son about OWCA or his son brings it up himself, and Perry is fuming because he made it very clear that he didn’t want OWCA anywhere near his family.

And now I can’t help but wonder if that would cause bigger problems between him and OWCA? What if that’s his breaking point, and he just flat-out quits because if they can’t respect his very few boundaries, he doesn’t owe them anything? And assuming the platybaby didn’t come from Doof, maybe that’s how they meet? Somehow he finds out that the reason there’s a new agent working his case is that Perry’s out on “permanent paternity leave” or something, and word gets back to Perry somehow (maybe Pinky heard it through the grapevine and told him? idk) that Doof wants to meet him? And Perry’s kinda wary buuuuut at the same time, Doof isn’t his nemesis anymore. If you take OWCA out of the equation, aren’t they just friends?

WAIT A SECOND

IMAGINE HOW NORM WOULD REACT TO SEEING A BABY PLATYPUS

I DON’T KNOW WHY

BUT NORM WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BABY PLATYPUS

and Doof would get kinda annoyed because “He came here so I could meet the baby, you know,” and usually that’s enough to convince Norm that he’s doing something wrong, but this time Norm is just like, “But I love him?” And Doof expects Perry to back him up and he probably should but at the same time, his son looks so happy with Norm? Without OWCA’s training, he still has that platypus aspect to his personality that comes from both his animal instinct and how the Flynn-Fletchers treat him, so he’s just kinda snuggled up in Norm’s lap and Norm is just petting him?

And this is probably after he’s shown some human-like features and Doof knows that he’s about as human as Perry, so he asks, “Does he like being pet?” and Perry nods because duh of course he does and Doof just kinda looks at him for a moment and he’s like, “Do you like to be pet?” and Perry just fuckin decks him because no he does not yes he does and Doof just nods like, “Okay, fair enough.”

AND THEN VANESSA WALKS IN???

and she had absolutely no idea this was happening she’s about to go drop her stuff off in her room for the weekend and Norm’s like, “Look at my new friend!” and Vanessa thinks it’s gonna be something stupid but she walks over and sees the baby platypus and she starts freaking out because holy shit Perry is that yours? and obviously she needs to know literally everything there is to know about him because this is her nephew now and she will not take no for an answer.

And I feel like OWCA really wouldn’t like this? I mean, Perry completely severed ties with them over this platybaby, and now he’s bringing his son over to DEI at least twice a week to see his former nemesis? And idk what they would do about it because I don’t think there’s an actual protocol for this, but Monogram is Very Sensitive™ and he won’t stand for this.

Also and I’m totally just spit-balling here but what if, because the platybaby is kinda also being raised by the Doofenshmirtzes (and the Flynn-Fletchers but idk if that would make much of a difference here bc he has to pretend to be a mindless pet around them like his dad), he gets the best of the human and animal experience all in one, without all the shit Perry had to deal with from OWCA? And what if that somehow leads him to be able to speak? I don’t quite know how that would work, mostly because I don’t really know what prevents Perry from speaking, but we already went into that back in May so I’m not gonna go there again lol

okay I’m pretty sure it’s been over two hours since I started working on this ask but I can’t help it because this is literally such a cute idea fjdshflakfa I don’t even know if I’d be content reading this like I feel like this is just something I want to write. I kinda want to see how Phineas and Ferb would treat him, and if they’d treat Perry any differently now that a) he’s a dad and b) there’s a new platypus for them to love. I also want to see how Candace would handle probably falling in love with the platybaby but still getting annoyed by Perry. I really want to see what Vanessa and Norm’s relationship with the platybaby would turn into. Idk so much about the Doof/platybaby relationship though; I feel like I’d be more interested in how this affects the Doof/Perry dynamic instead. Something about Doof makes me think he wouldn’t be as easily swayed by the platybaby as everyone else, but the fact that Perry would now be a dad just like him would probably make him unreasonably happy. And that’s not even touching upon how different life would be for Perry now that he has a son, and he would obviously adore the little guy with his entire being, but, like, he has a son? How is he supposed to deal with that?

also I really should’ve given the platybaby a name to make this more readable and it’s a little too late for that but I hereby decree that his new temporary name until such time as this fic gets written is Horatio (unless y’all wanna hit me up with your platybaby name ideas because I would love to see them?) so welcome to the Dwampyverse, Horatio :,)

#not gonna lie i don't remember what Horatio was up to in Hamlet but I do remember that he was my favorite character in the play lol #look i have an ask #fic idea?#perry the platypus

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momo-de-avis · 3 years

Note

what are 2 books you feel you should be financially compensated for reading (beyond reimbursement for purchasing them)?

hard mode: nothing by zuzas.

now those are high stakes

first of all, this is hard for me to answer because I genuinely cannot read a book through to the end if I don't like it. I won't go past fifty pages if it's annoying me. So there are only a handful of books I can say I hated because I wasted time reading them, and even those I didn't finish.

But there are two, and one of them I actually talk about it all the time

First of all, fuck you, Flaubert. Fuck Emma Bovary. Fuck that book. Not only financial compensation, but emotional of some sort, cause you go through the 7 stages of grief reading that piece of garbage. Not after, during.

Like, every time I try to explain why I hate Madame Bovary so much I tell this little anecdote about my life. It was probably 2AM, I was still living with my mom, and I was in the living room. Back then, the History Channel---before it became exclusively devoted to Aliens, Hitler, and World War II---had a super interesting show called, I believe it was, Great Books. I caught only a few episodes, there was one on Janes Austen, another on Dostoevsky---and yes, one for Madame Bovary. Which was the one I saw that night.

And on that night, I was just chilling on my ass, and there was this expert on Flaubert explaining how the guy came up with the idea for the book. This woman had a PhD in literature. She studied Flaubert's life and history down to the letters and his intimacy. And I chuckled to myself, completely alone---and listen, you're free to believe whatever the hell yall want, but I swear on my cat this shit is true---and said to myself: "I bet this guy ran away to a cabin and dressed himself as woman to write this book." In fact, I hate Madame Bovary SO MUCH I've making this joke for YEARS, and it's why I call that pile of regurgitated french trash "literary transvesty" because it is literally a man playing dress up with no counter-balance to the absolute derailment of this woman's down-spiral. It's just the story of Emma Bovary going off her rockers, and there's no point where there might a slight indication of societal criticism. She's just a piece of shit. You know, at LEAST Tolstoi gave us Kittie and Levine as a counter-point. At LEAST Tolstoi built-up an immense backdrop with Stepane's adultery to understand the horrid treatment Anna is subjected to. At LEAST we are given a good characterisation of Karenine enough, whereas Charles Bovary is limper than a soggy sock. The only Ken doll I owned as a child had more charisma, and that bitch had no clothes.

And AT THAT POINT in the documentary, that lady expert with a whole PhD says something to this effect: APPARENTLY, Flaubert DID run off into a cabin in the fucking woods or some shit, and he did so with a locket, and what was in that locket? The hairs of his lover. Like, oh my God, I hate you so fucking much.

What I hate THE MOST about Madame Bovary is that despite being a shit book and shit story, and having been written by a guy who purposefully isolated himself from the woman he loved in the ass of the world, with a piece of her hair, as he dead ass attempted to "become a woman", whatever the hell that meant (but then again, so did every romantic writer back in the 19th century), this motherfucker was trialled in a court of law for this book (because adultery, women are frail, scandal, blah blah blah), and his defense was so amazing he actually coined a very important term in writing called Indirect Free Speech. Like, I genuinely hate this motherfucker but this absolute genius final take on his shit book just makes me hate him more. (For reference, this is where I learned this, Hans Robert Jauss explains this in his book Reception Theory)

The second book I think I deserve financial compensation for wasting the like, 3 days I wasted reading those first 100 pages or so, was Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest. Oh my God. Listen, back in the day, like every teenage girl in the early/late 2000s, I was discovering paganism and that kind of crap, so I had a lot of wiccan friends. And there was Charmed. Not the rebooted crap, the OG Charmed, when Rose McGowan was closeted terf and we believed she was cool. Everyone loved Charmed. And everyone who bought into the new-pagan stuff and wiccan stuff, they were all introduced by one of two ways: either it was Charmed, or The Mists of Avalon. Either or. No other way. At least around my circle, that is.

So I had a lot of friends squealing over this one book from Marillier. I was absolutely obsessed with Arthuriana because of Mists of Avalon, and my wiccan/goth friends were all over me telling me "OH you GOTTA read Daughter of the Forest if you love Mists of Avalon". It's comforting to know the one wiccan friend who persisted with that crap went wacko and literally vanished into the horizon because I wanted to smack her in the face with that stupid book.

Basically, at the time, I was balls deep into Irish Mythology. And as I read it, I thought it was EERILY SIMILAR to the Children of Lir. Evil stepmother transforming her step-children into swans? Hm? The one thing that threw me off was that, in the story, the hero had to sew these shirts from some godawful plant that fucked up her hands, and that ISN'T in the original Children of Lir story. Then again, Children of Lir is genuinely not a compelling story. Of all Irish myths, it might be the least compelling.

However, I recently learned that IT IS the same tale, despite what Marillier sold as being "inspired by the Brother Grimm". It turns out the Children of Lir is a tale known throughout Europe, spanning from Spain to Ireland, with some variations, and it exists in Germany, where the sewing of the shirts with that weird plant is a plot point. So I guess that was a determent, considering the story is set in Ireland. Also, you can tell the story was written by a herbalist because, oh my god she goes off about plants all the time.

I basically stopped reading because the heroine is a bit obnoxious and it felt like the plot was going nowhere. And at some point, it was literally a book about plants. Like, Marion Zimmer Bradley's books can be boring (take the Forst House, which is one of my favourites, there's gotta be like 100 pages in there about Eilan's boring life picking flowers, but it builds up to her character, at least). But this one, it was going nowhere, while at the same time, Bretons were landing in Ireland? What? My anger came from when I checked the wikipedia page before I gave up because I wanted to see if there was something redeemable in that shit, like, come on, motivate me. And when I read that there's a fucking rape plot thrown in there that bears no relevance for no other reason than... I don't know, fear of men? I gave up. That was definitely when I stopped reading and decided to set it aside. It's weird cause, from what I remember, I think the author wanted to write it in pagan Ireland, but I don't remember a single mention of a pagan god? It was so convoluted, man.

And why the Children of Lir??? I 100% share the opinion of Sorcha Hegarty from Candlelit Tales regarding the Children of Lir: it is THE LEAST interesting tale in Irish Myth, and also---and these are her words, not mine---the least Irish lmao

Honourable mention: Thérèse Raquin by Zola is another one that made me SO FUCKING PISSED OFF that piece of shit book REQUIRES psychological counseling. Like, financial compensation isn't even enough to go through that crap.

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lesbianmarth · 4 years

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it’s been a while since i posted about aa but i just finished soj in its entirety tonight. here’s my new list so far

i still have to give thoughts on cases 4 5 and dlc so that’ll be under a cut. spoilers!

6-4: this was such a filler case, almost shamefully so. i don’t know why they thought they could manage to do this in the 4th case when every game with 5 cases has been pretty consistent about making the 4th case plot relevant, sometimes literally just a preamble to case 5. so yeah i think this one was kinda ass

the two things it had going for it: one, athena. in 6-2 i actually got confused about why i ever liked her, because in that case she felt like she was just acting the part of the Peppy Teen Girl With a Rowdy Streak that makes up almost every assistant character. But then as SOON as she started bantering with Simon in 6-4 i was like “oh, THAT’S why i liked her!” was nice to take control of her again.

two, uendo toneido. while i don’t think you can say the DID was portrayed with quite the necessary respect or kindness, it was handled better than i’ve seen other media handle it-- at least it’s not completely demonized. other people have written more on that in better detail so i’m not really the judge, but the basic point is that this witness was mad fun to read, and even the dumb jokes like the changing number of floor cushions were entertaining. thus why this case is in the “hard carried by one side character” tier.

especially since there was like nothing else going on. no connection to the main plot, only two other characters besides uendo, and for some reason the clown tits girl was here instead of the magic show case (and to be honest, she wasn’t enjoyable for me even BEFORE she did the standard aa female villain thing and changed her speech pattern as soon as she fell under suspicion). just a weird, nothing case stuck right around the point aa games usually enter endgame. And especially weird because...

6-5 part 1: inexplicably there are two separate cases in the final chapter and each gets one day of investigation and trial. such a weird setup, and it really shouldn’t work... but i think it kinda barely does. barely. it would still have been better to split it into case 4 and case 5 though.

i have a hard time articulating much on the first case bc it sort of blends together for me. the main thing is that the concept of it being a civil case where apollo and phoenix face off is really good. it was a good change of pace, even though you knew it was gonna be a murder somehow anyway. sarge was reasonably nice, i guess, paul atishon had some good animations and quirks (my favorite being when he tries to just walk away from the stand to avoid answering a question), and the logic of the actual murder was good enough.

but i especially got those strong “oh this is a FINAL case!” vibes during the segment in the cave, and that added so much to it even if not much of it was relevant in the first half of the case. the adventure feel reminded me of some of the (out of context bc i still havent played it) scenes i know from 3-5, which is a good association to invoke imo. and it did a lot to give apollo and dhurke time to bond.

speaking of which, dhurke, holy shit. what a KING. i don’t think i’ve ever liked a dad character in ace attorney this much. he’s so genuine and like down to earth that it’s impossible not to start liking him and believe how much he cares for his sons. the bit where he rescued apollo from the cave flood... i felt it in my heart

6-5 part 2: let me just get this out of the way: ga’ran sucks. her design after she goes full evil is so bad, she’s so malicious that it’s immediately obvious she’s going to be the culprit, her breakdown is ridiculous and just embarrassing to watch, and inga had already established way more charisma as a villain when he did the “those were orders of execution actually” bit in 6-3. with that said,

i actually liked it for the most part. the spirit channeling stuff was excellent imo-- they probably use it to similar or greater effect in 3-5 but as someone who again has not played that, i was surprised and almost impressed by how well it was applied. maya was relevant for something! it feels like it’s been ages!

rayfa was a little underutilized, i think-- her moment of determination where she stops letting ga’ran have control over her was alright but it fell flat bc it didn’t have any weight during the moment. i kept hoping she would like, wordlessly take of her shawl and do the little verbal preamble to the divination seance while ga’ran kept yelling at her to stop, but no, the script can’t be good like that, i guess. and since she didn’t get to be the investigation assistant for long, none of her charm in that role carried through.

but DHURKE!! oh my god! in a game almost devoid of emotional impact, his involvement in this case really hit. the way they painstakingly animated his death, the scene where he makes a promise with maya, and then the weight of knowing in hindsight that everything he did in the first part of the case was after he’d already died and just wanted to see his son again before passing on for real....... it hurt. i felt something during that section. this case would also be hard carried by him if not for the fact that i really liked the murder bits.

amara was good too--liked how they made her suspiciously serene and accentuated it with the lightning strikes to make her look like a hidden murderer character about to reveal herself, only to walk it back and confirm she was being forced to act that way. i thought it worked. nahyuta was boring though, i’m sorry-- i get the motivation with having to be a bastard bc his sister and mom were basically held hostage, but the only time i found him compelling in that mess was the bit where he removed his one fingerless glove and revealed he still has the dragon tattoo. that was it. athena was also completely unused the whole case (not even a single mood matrix? really?) and trucy one again went without any role of importance.

the ending also... yknow, a friend said they had to end it this way bc they never figured out what they were going to do with apollo (since following up on what they started in aa4 clearly wasn’t an option???) and just threw him on a bus to get rid of him. i agree with that-- he really feels thrown to the side, and with that i think trucy’s officially stranded with no hope of any character advancement. and the way they ended the game with phoenix and lamiroir deciding “yeah, maybe NOW we should finally tell those two they’re related” honestly felt insulting lol

but maybe the dlc case will let things go out on a high note...?!

6-6: it was okay.

it would’ve worked pretty well as a filler case in an older aa-- honestly i think it’d be one of the better filler cases, certainly worth replacing the shitty ones like 2-3 or 3-3 or, hey, 6-4. but whether i’d say it was worth paying for... eh.

the time travel conceit was done well enough, i think. the way they tied it back to sorin and pierce’s backstories was nice, and the twist about having two receptions was good, although they needed to treat that as a real twist with much more gravity. when the truth comes out it just feels like “oh of course that’s what happened” rather than a big surprise worthy of the Confessing the Truth theme. it’s sort of important because the case becomes a lot less interesting when you take out the time travel element.

far as characters are concerned, i think they needed more side characters to sell the whole thing-- another sprocket family member or another servant of the household. it felt a little limited-- sorin and pierce are pretty good witnesses and i like their quirks and their secrets, but the only alive woman (ellen) has very few traits and no connection to the deeper story of the case, so she falls really flat. the old aa characters didn’t add much- maya and edgeworth were just there for fanservice, ema didn’t get to do much other than acknowledge for the first time in years that she’s a big edgeworth fan, and larry is annoying as hell like he always is.

and oh my god i actually forgot while i was writing that, how they put in athena and trucy but only used them for brief slapstick where trucy would try to set athena on fire and shit. again-- no mood matrix? couldn’t even try once to fit those two characters into something?

i did like pierce’s transformation into his surgeon form though-- that was really cool. loved him doing surgery on a robot, taking xrays of the lawyers, and his breakdown was fantastic-- he would make a really good culprit if they didn’t whiff the last bit of pathos at the end. i don’t think he should’ve been aiming for revenge on sorin; it would have hurt much more if he was still loyal to the guy and never intended for him to be in danger, but the final “why’d you do it?” talk in the trial just felt flat and one-note, much like the one in 6-4.

... so that’s spirit of justice! not a super positive experience but i’m happy to say it’s done. as much as i want to go and replay dgs, i think when i do go back to ace attorney i’ll be replaying the trilogy for the first time since high school

#ace attorney #aa playthrough

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years

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Phantom’s A Menace - PhannieMay - Day 17 Seance

Summary: Don’t try to communicate with ghosts, kids. You don’t know who’s on the other line.

Warning: discussions of Dan’s actions, mild attempted murder

“Dude, how’d you even get this?”

“Snuck it from one of my parents' bags”

“Dude, you are in so much shit”

“Oh, who cares? How could any parent keep a freaking crystal ball that can actually communicate with the dead, and expect their kid not to fiddle with it”, both Tucker and Danny nod at her. She had a damn good point and Danny doesn’t really care that his parents claimed doing this was dangerous; especially for a Fenton.

Danny shrugs, “and you’d think, with the amount they go off about ghosts, they’d want me interested in this stuff”. Both his friends nod as they set up the weird green ball in the centre of the basement floor. Surrounded by old books and various charms, all things the Fenton family had been using for ghost communication, divination and psychic wonders for generations.

Of course, Danny’s going to play the part of the medium, with his family heritage and all. Plus, even though Sam loved all things spooky, she didn’t appear to have any gifts. Which were kind of needed here. Danny’s ghost sight was his, able to make green light glow around the edges of his blue irises, easily seeing any ghosts around.

Danny shakes his head as he lights the Sage, slightly annoyed that they’re out of lavender but there’s no way he’d get another chance to fuck around with the Zone Crystal. While Sam lights purple and green swirled candles, she did always get a kick out of her second favourite colour representing spirit, and green was her third favourite colour.

Sitting around the crystal ball, Danny goes to touch it, all three jerking a bit at green energy zapping out to meet his fingers, “damn dude! If you showed that at school literally, no one would think this was all hack job shit anymore”.

Danny just rolls his eyes, sure the heckling and jeering was annoying but he didn’t exactly care. Placing his hand on the crystal and rubbing them around slightly, because of his Fenton genes he didn’t really have to bother with words; any ghosts would simply be drawn by his spiritual essence. Apparently, the smell and feel of it was extremely alluring to ghosts.

Sam and Tucker had seen their friend form a link with ghosts before, heck, he did it somewhat often. Able to let them talk through him but still very much the one in control. The reason this was different, a full seance with his parents' most powerful creation, was the goal of flat-out possession; instead of just linking. The ghost would be in control and they’d actually be able to see what the ghost looked like, Its form layering transparent over their friend's body. Hence why they needed all the herbs on the ground and circle of candles, a ghost barrier, should this ghost attempt to take their friend for a joyride.

The two of them really don’t care about the lack of lavender, sure there are evil ghosts and powerful ones but from what they’ve seen, getting those ones was hard as hell; so getting one now would be one serious case of major bad luck.

—In the Ghost Zone—

A large black and white ghost creaks against his chains. White flaming hair lighting up the chamber far brighter than his glow alone could. The name “Phantom” could be read, scrawled in ghost speak, above the sealed closed door to his keep. Sealed and chained away here centuries ago for bringing Hell on Earth and the near obliteration of all life and death. Having earned him the nicknames, All Death, Ender, and The Consumption. Sure, there were probably more, but what did he care what mortals called him. Some revered him as a force of nature itself, a personification or god of death. Most just feared him as a ghost with too much power, banding together to contain him and his destruction. Seals rendering him unable to access his power and chains to bind him to his keep.

But today was a different day, he can tell. Smirking and laughing as he watches soft purple energy vapour, the kind that reeks of a human spirit, coils in under the massive black oak doors. He can tell, as he watches the succulent smelling vapour float through the air, whoever this is tied to, they are young but almost startlingly strong in spirit.

Laughing ominously, fangs fully bared as the vapour coils around the chains, his cuffs and eventually him. Phantom won’t deny feeling impressed, as the chains groan under the force this vapour carries. Strength is one of few things he actually respects and, as his bindings shatter, freedom is a gift he’ll respect some too.

Though firmly not impressed as the vapour does coil around him now, yanking at him to go with it. Someone having the audacity to call on him or pull him to them, was both impressively gutsy and infuriatingly stuck up. But without his power, he could not deny the pull, and he’s more than a little interested to see what human shattered his binds.

His form turning to cruel white and black smoke as the purple spirit vapour pulls him along, out into the human world; his favourite playground of death.

—In the Fenton basement—

Sam and Tucker officially think they might have fucked up, and that bad luck was definitely real, as they see red glowing eyes layer over their friends, rimmed with glowing green, blue ones. Red eyes almost always signifies that the ghost had killed someone or multiple someone’s.

Watching as the black and white swirling smoke starts to take a more solid form around their friend, who’s definitely frowning now; bad sign for sure.

Everyone just sits for a bit, as the two take in the hunched over, but clearly massive and muscular, caped ghosts. Blue-green skin, pointed ears, flaming hair and sharp claws; the two elect to scoot outside of the barrier as it smiles sharp fangs at them, reeking of malice. Danny himself, sees him standing in front of him inside his spirit realm. A place inside himself, only accessible through practice...or a stunt like this. Both him and the ghost nothing more than their spiritual or ghostly essences here. The ghost cackles, “well, I’ve always been inevitable. But this! Well, this is simply luck. I’d say thanks for freeing me and the vessel, but I don’t work like that”. Danny knows for sure he fucked up, as the ghost lunges at him; over taking control of his body. As his name rattles in Danny’s head as soon as their two essences make contact, Phantom.

Phantom stands himself and the boy’s body up, chuckling as his eyes catch the sight of the sage, “forgot the lavender, huh? Now that’s just dumb”. Cackling as the two humans grab at charms and flick their eyes to the barrier they’ve built. He knows full well that’s not going to work on him, having a vessel means he can simply channel his powers through the boy.

Smirking wide as he pulls back his head before releasing his ghostly wail; obliterating the barrier and shattering the charms. But collapsing to the ground as something is wrong, while white energy zaps across him and the boy’s body, before compacting and solidifying into a white ring causing a massive explosion of pure energy.

Sam and Tucker throw their hands over their eyes at the assault of insanely bright white light. Tucker muttering, “oh man, we are so fucked”.

Sam’s the first to notice their unconscious friend, running up him and realising they really really fucked up. Tucker walks up beside her and pokes Danny before talking, “what the hell?”. Both them kneel down at his sides as he groans in an echoy voice. Helping him sit up, “Danny, dude, I, uh, think you should look at yourself. Just what the hell man?”.

Danny doesn’t like the slight quivering in his friends' voice, but he gets why as he takes the guy’s advice. Taking in the black jumpsuit and white belt, yanking his hands in front of his face to see white gloves and more muscular arms. He looks like the ghost, like Phantom, but not quite right. Patting at his hair to find it’s still hair, not flames, “well, what the fuck?”.

Both his friends just nod at him, but flinch as he jerks, hearing a voice in his head, “fuck is right child. But I can work with this”.

Ignoring his friend's worried glances and closing his eyes, he pokes around his spiritual self. Promptly sensing and sort of seeing a strange white chain connected from his spiritual self to Phantoms, very pissed off looking, self; connected together from the centre of their chests. Focusing on his spiritual self to make things more in focus, as Phantom growls at him.

Glaring at the ghost, “what did you do to me?”. Phantom rolls his eyes, “it would seem my seal had something of a failsafe. So I’m not going anywhere and neither are you”. Danny doesn’t even have a chance to fight back as Phantom lunges at him for control again. But this time Danny can feel his eyes lighting up and doing something new, zapping the high hell out of Phantoms essence.

Snapping his eyes open as Tucker pokes at him, “dude, you ok? At all? And this is the strangest way to have a growth spurt”. Looking over his hands again, before looking back to his friend, “maybe? My essence is chained to Phantoms. I think we’re like fused or something”. Sam looks a bit impressed actually, “while that’s kind of cool, I think he’s evil or something. Pretty sure he was intending to kill us”. Tucker nods and points at the obliterated herbs, “scary strong. Is that even supposed to be possible?”.

Danny looks around and hell no it shouldn’t be. Jerking a bit as he hears growling in his head, before a very cocky sounding Phantom informs him, “won’t work on me, human. What're some flowers going to do in the face of All Death”. Frowning some, “yeah I don’t like the sounds of that”. Which just confuses the hell out of his friends.

Rubbing his neck, “pretty sure this guy’s more than just bad news. I think he just called himself “All Death”. Whatever that means”. Sam raises her eyebrow, “first, nice fangs. Second, can you hear him in your head or something? Makes sense but otherwise, that comment makes no sense”. Danny nods as he rubs his tongue over his teeth, not as long as Phantoms but still. All the while ignoring the slightly insulted growling in his head. And he also ignores the cruel laughing as he starts flailing his hands around and floating.

Sam and Tucker grab at his hands, both gaping. Tucker chuckles awkwardly, “dude, fused might be the right word. Fucking ghost powers or some shit”. Before both yelp and let go of him after getting zapped by green energy. “Shit sorry, I don’t think I’m the one who did that though”. Both them glare at him but feel a little worried at the flash of red glow in his eyes, officially worried this ghost can randomly control their friend.

But all of them yelp as a ring of light suddenly appears and Danny falls on his ass, human again.

Danny looks over his hands, utterly confused because he can tell Phantom is very much still here.

Meanwhile, Phantom grumbles and throws his hands up. Knowing damn well he’s trapped in this boy, bound to him. He wouldn’t care that much if he could easily control the boy. But it would seem that his seal, the core chain, and the boy’s natural ghost gift; were enough to trump Phantoms raw power. Not completely of course, but now he’d have to settle for coaxing the boy into becoming like him just so he could play. And of course, if this damn human got destroyed while they were bound, he’d be destroyed too.

Danny goes to grab at some of the older books his parents have. They’ve documented lots of ghosts and ghost lore, so maybe Phantom’s in one. His friends quickly catching on and joining him, muttering at them, “I’m still fucked up just so you know, and I’ve got a gut feeling I’m gonna be staying so”.

Both of them nod awkwardly, before Tucker starts aggressively jabbing at the notebook he’s holding, shoving it at Danny, “dude, more than fucked up. Way more”.

Taking the book and seeing the shadowy side profile drawing of a flaming haired face baring it’s fangs, sticking out a forked tongue and holding up a curled clawed hand. Muttering to himself, “that’s Phantom alright”, reading the page title as “The Consumption”. Shaking his head, “and that’s just ominous”.

Reading the page:

Picture above: The One Who Consumes

The Consumption was a great plague of death, suffering and destruction; happening in the Time Before. Known to be brought about by a creature assumed to be a ghost but whom possessed powers beyond anything else. Capable of destroying any and all anti-ghost devices, fail-safes, or shields; with Its voice alone. Considered something forged of Hell’s fire and ice, burning and freezing everything as It raged against both the living and dead. Most of both species were annihilated, largely destroyed directly by The One Who Consumes explicitly. Multiple accounts of It ripping people to shreds or parading around corpses attests to that.

The Consumption was brought to an end through mysterious means, all that is known is that It was sealed away by a Bound(1), who gave up their existences to do so.

For The One Who Consumes: see The Book Of Null.

Danny breathes out, “oh shit”, as Tucker nods and Sam takes the book. Danny winces as barely visible mental scenes get shoved at him alongside muffled cackling. He can barely make out what’s going on in scenes but it’s more than enough and clearly from Phantoms point of view. Gagging a bit and shaking himself off, before grabbing the books referenced for Bound and more on The One Who Consumes.

Sam shivers a bit after reading the passage, this thing was inside her friend and It apparently couldn’t get out. Sure, that’s probably better for the world or whatever, since Danny’s clearly the one in control here: but still. Hearing Danny groan as he walks back to them, one dark grey book under his arm and reading from a read one. “Alright so I am definitely fucked up”, they both look to the page as Danny tosses it down and taps on the page, reading Bounds. Danny groans again, “a ghost and human bound together through various means. Which means me. The light chain thing is listed as a Core Chain. Notice the whole impossible to break without mutual destruction tag? Yeah, fuck me”.

“Well, the powers are neat. And from the sounds of it they’re strong as hell. Learn to use that shit man”, Danny gapes at Tucker. Tapping on his own head, “Tuck, I have a mass murdering monster inside my head. And I’m pretty sure he can exert control over me if he really tries, at least with my body the way it was before”. Tucker waves him off, “then treat him like a poorly trained dog, a murdering psycho evil dog”. Danny can’t help but laugh at that, especially at the, definitely insulted sounding, muffled growling, “well, he does growl a lot, though he is harder to hear now that I’m normal again”.

“Insolent child”. Danny rolls his eyes muttering as he flips through The Book Of Null, “what are gonna do? Waste me? What happens to you then?”.

“You don’t get it, do ya. I’m still here, I still exist. That means the world still has to deal with me, and so do you”. Danny scrunches his eyebrows up, a bit worried at that. Clearly, this prick likes being an ominous bastard.

Tucker jabs him, “I’d say, you tell him, but I have half a conversation here”. Sam shakes her head, “pretty sure insulting a powerful monster is a dumb idea”. Danny knows she’s got a point, especially as he reads Phantoms entry. Even if it’s under a different, and more wordy, name, it’s clearly him. It’s also clear that Phantom enjoys hearing or reading about himself, and others reactions to him, as his muffled laughter bounces around the back of Danny’s head.

The One Who Consumes

Also know as Ender and The Consumption

A creature with the trappings of a ghost, may or may not actually be a ghost. Capable of destabilising any ghost and functionally immune to all things anti-ghost. Its abilities are largely unknown but, due to Its tendency to show off, many have been documented. It is known to possess all the regular ghost abilities with extreme skill, absolute form manipulation, fire, ice and ectoplasm manipulation, and Its highly destructive Wail. It is classified as an immortal due to Its overwhelming nature.

Its personality is known to be callous, sadistic and manipulative. Fully capable of pretending to be human or friendly, but It's not able to keep this farce up for long. Mostly out of getting annoyed or wanting to show off. It’s highly egotistical and often downright petty.

It is currently sealed away in an unknown location and it is unknown if It even still exists. Under no circumstances should anyone attempt to communicate with, locate, free, help, be in the same place as, or try to fight; this creature. Unless it should become free again.

Danny, coughing a bit, “well, um, we did all of that”. Sam and Tucker shake their heads, “this is one hell of an accidental fuck up”. Danny just nods as his eyes flicker green slightly, spotting the ghost that just randomly showed up. Groaning, “ugh”, and pointing his thumb at the ghost, “what now?”. Hearing chuckling in his head, “don’t you know? My aura’s quite enticing to ghosts of an...unpleasant persuasion”.

Noticing the red eyes and groaning, turning to his friends, “there’s an unfriendly and this asshole just told me he basically attracts them”. Tucker shakes his head, “wow, this keeps getting more fucked”. Danny can’t help but agree as he yanks his friends out of the ghost's path and can feel his ghost poking at him or something.

Clueing in pretty quickly as the ring thing appears again, yelping a little, while Tucker borderline shouts at him, “just roll with it and, I don’t know, kick ghost ass!”. Obviously, they can see his confusion as he starts floating again, Sam sticks her arms out at him, “ghost powers you idiot”.

Sam winces a bit at the red flash in Danny’s eyes, obviously, the monster guy has more influence or whatever when Danny’s like this. But Danny’s a determined bastard so she’s sure he’ll be fine. Watching as Danny pretty well gets decked by something invisible, though officially not invisible now. Then hearing Danny hiss a little before blasting It in the face with an ectoray, eyes more red than green.

While Danny appreciates not getting his ass kicked, he doesn’t appreciate practically be forced to stab someone, even a ghost someone. “Clawless, how weak. Still rather amusing, don’t worry, you learn to love it”.

Danny grits out, “not gonna happen”, as he kicks the ghost away from him. Not really sure how the heck to use these powers or whatever. Which he’s getting mocked for, “oh I’ll meddle again, plenty actually. While you go about stumbling through your pathetic human childhood”.

Jerking as Phantom moves his arm, yanking the ghost back over with green ectoplasm rope or something. Grabbing the ghosts face and dragging it across the ground, somehow blocking the other ghosts ability to become intangible. Danny yanks his hand off the ghost only for Phantom to blast It with his other hand, talking though Danny’s mouth, “I suppose I could let you live for amusing me, but I don’t work like that”.

Danny can feel Phantoms annoyance at the ghost disappearing inside one of his parents capture cubes, letting Phantom land his, their?, feet on the ground as he tries to figure out how to change back before Phantom does something fucked up.

Tucker is just flat out excited, “Danny dude! That was awesome!”. But promptly gets the crap scared out of him as Danny snaps his head, but not his body, around, “actually, that was me”. Before the light ring comes out of nowhere, changing Danny back.

Danny yells a little bit before spinning his head back around, “okay, that was fucked”. Sam and Tucker just nod as they help him stand back up, “okay, so obviously we’re all gonna have to watch for evil asshole randomly overtaking you. But uh, ghost fighting man”.

Danny glances at Tucker, “yeah, no shit. But since this piece of shit is just going to draw more like that here then yeah, I guess ghost fighting”. Snickering a bit hollowly, “god this is like the cliche superhero with a dark side, fucking hell”.

Tucker jabs him, “more like dark half, dude. But hey, it’s three against one so you’ll be good”.

“A pack of humans, yeah those two will sure be useful” Danny opts to just ignore him, but it seems like he’s not really going to shut up, “I'm quite the guy, you’ll find. They’ll be mine too. They’ll follow you and you, well, corruption always gets its way. It’s all a matter of time”.

Danny tries to mentally glare at him, but just gets cackling in return.

End.

#danny phantom #phandom #phanniemay #phanniemay19 #seance #dan phantom #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #accident rewrite #danny gets his ghost pwoers by being fused with phantom #fenton and phantom are seperate people #mild attempted murder #phantomphangphucker #have a fic suck my dick

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happinessinthedarkest-times · 5 years

Text

avengers endgame reaction (spoilers!!!)

**if youre on mobile scroll fast bc idk if the keep reading works

holy shit holy shit fuck fuck fuck

i am an emotional wreak right now

ahhhhh it was so good im crying still

tony fucking stark my heart i guess ill start there

tony stark i love you three thousand. he got his happy ending with morgan and pepper for 5 years they had 5 years together and he knew that the time heist (lol) would jeopardize that and he still went and helped

that scene where he had it out with steve at the beginning fuck my heart was breaking and i was crying .

i cried a lot in this movie. legit sobbing when nat died but ill get to that

that scene was everything i wanted it to be and perfectly executed. of course hes angry and lashing out because they were supposed to do it together and lose together and the emotion behind that ughh rdj killed it

he literally hands steve his heart the arch reactor

tony and howard ugh everything with them together. tony got closure with his dad

everything tony was great.

steve

he got his happy ending. he got his dance with peggy (now im crying again) fuck. and he PICK UP MJOLNIR omg that scene was amazing and everything i never dreamed could happen when the hammer started moving ughhhh omg i was cheering so loud in the theatre and i dont normally do that. that whole scene ugh theres so much to react to

and he got to say assemble.

ok now from the beginning.

i started to cry literally before it even started. the screen was black and i was already tearing up but when clint and his daughter came up and then his family disappeared i was full on crying.

carol coming in clutch and saving tony and nebula yessss

steve and tony’s conversation right when he gets off the ship was everything i wanted it to be. (crying again) everything.

when they go to thanos’s house thing and thor chops off his arm . its what ive been saying they shouldve done on titan

and then he went for the head!

five.......

years later

fuck them. literally when the ‘five’ came up i was like no no no dont you dare do it dont you dare and then they did it. fuck them

five fucking years?!?! they made them live through 5 years of that trauma?!?!?

nat was everything in this film. she became the leader and keeping track of everything and her moment of breaking down was just so human. she couldnt move on in those 5 years and it just shows how much the avengers had become her family.

scott and cassie omg cassie all grown up made me so emotional

tony and morgan i love you three thousand she is the cutest and sweetest thing

tony fucking stark figured out time travel. he did that.

when tony gives steve his shield back my heart could not take it

the scenes where they were trying to pinpoint the exact time to go back and it was like a sleepover sesh and all the domestic avenger fanfics

going back a little bit

clint killing all the people that should have been killed and deserved to be killed and being a total badass showing up all those people who said he was just really good with an arrow and every scene he has with nat.

‘dont give me hope’

thor. oh where to start. he really did lose everything and he was blaming himself for all that happened so i get where hes coming from. every time you could see him remembering and tormenting himself about what happened broke me. his scene with his mother (crying again)

also hulk/bruce was an interesting choice (not a huge fan of it but ok)

the time traveling

everything about the new york scenes were amazing. the aftermath of the end of the avengers, loki turning into cap for a second, seeing rumlow and sitwell come out, steve getting into the elevator and channeling that winter soldier energy (i was slapping my sister on the arm so hard at this part) hail hydra and outsmarting them all. cap fighting cap “i can do this all day” lmao i was dying ‘bucky is alive” again dying they really nailed it with this. i was worried beforehand because like it would change how we would see the og avengers but i still think it works

also can talk about how tony (and scott) was checking out steves ass????

“i forgot how that suit did nothing for you ass” (be still my heart) “i like to think of it at america’s ass” (or whatever the line was)

loki getting away with the tesseract (is that in this timeline im confused about that hopefully someone will explain bc does that mean loki is alive in this timeline or not? lol)

them going back to the 1970s (do you trust me? i do) and tony meeting howard and introducing himself as howard potts. again i know i talked about howard and tony already but i loved their scenes. and JARVIS FROM AGENT CARTER MAKING AN APPEARANCE OMG

PEGGYYYYYYY (crying) when steve walked into her office (grabbed my sister again) and when he was watching her through the window and you could feel his pain.

thor and rocket are the pairing that i never imagined but amazing none the less. i loved that we got the return of mjolnir here even though idk what that does to the timeline (again who knows at this point)

rhodey and nebula again another pairing i didnt expect but are great together. everything about nebula in this film. she really has a great arch. i was stressing out so hard when the alternate timeline thanos found out that they came from the past. the scene where peter quill is dancing and singing to no music was great.

clint and natasha. this pairing thie duo the og. fuck my heart. when they started going off to vormir i knew. i knew it and i cannot handle it. the whole scene where they are fighting each other to sacrifice themself i was SOBBING. LEGIT SOBBING. ‘let me go’ i loved this so much and also hated it. she deserved her happy ending too. after everything she gave up everything to save those people. her arch is so good too. im excited for her origin. i kinda want to see her when shes a bad guy and killing everyone and her journey to shield. i hope thats what we’ll see in her movie.

but also that scene emotionally fucked me up hard.

the og avengers (minus nat) sitting on the edge of the lake

thor trying to put on the glove and redeem himself (in his own eyes not my own bc he doesnt deserve the shit he gets for not going for the head)

hulk doing it and the calm before the storm where everything goes back before that missile comes firing down.

steve tony and thor facing off with thanos. everything about this scene. tony getting a juice-up from thor and lightning to max out his powers. steve jump kicking on thanos’s ass. thanos beating up thor and steve coming in with FUCKING MJOLNIR AGAIN CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH I WAS CHEERING AT THIS POINT HE IS WORTHY MY BOY STEVE IS WORTHY

also on that note tony coming up to steve and saying “theres my man” or something and giving him back his shield again.

steve standing there with his broken shield ready to face off with thanos’s army and sam coming in on the comm. and then EVERYONE COMING THRU AND KICKING NAMES AND TAKING ASS

legit cheering and crying so much

valkyrie with her pegasus

shuri with her blasters

peter parker and his reunion with tony was heartbreaking. tony looked so broken and complete at the same time. he got him back.

PEPPER FREAKING POTTS

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (YEESSSSSSSS)

peter quill’s semi-reunion with gamora and how she doesnt know him but he gets her back

also gamora, nebula and still-evil!nebula was a great scene. nebula killing her past self is some symbolic shit right there AND to protect her sister who she hated

CAROL FUCKING DANVERS COMING TO SAVE THE DAY AND KICK THANOS’S ASS

im sad that she wasn’t in the film as much but i get why they did it and it also makes me really excited for her future films

but carol getting the gauntlet and peter saying “i dont know how youre gonna get through that”

and ALL THE BADASS MCU WOMEN COMING UP BEHIND HER READY TO FIGHT AND REPRESENT FOR THE FEMALES (CRYING)

this is something that couldn’t of been done a few years ago because there weren’t a lot of female superheroes in this universe and just the fact that this scene can make such an impression and become probably one of the most badass scenes of the mcu is one of the best things that came out of this movie.

side note: ‘activate instant kill’ great callback

and then we get to the sacrifice.

i knew it. i expected it. i read it in fanfics.

i was still not prepared.

‘I am inevitable’

‘I AM IRON MAN’

FUCKKKKKKKK they really know how to write these movies.

he knew he would die. he knew he would never see morgan again. but he knew what he had to do.

his character arch from a selfish man to a selfless man has been the most profound and powerful story.

rdj and tony stark have really carried this franchise. they were the start. and it makes sense that his death closes out this era of the mcu.

to rdj: i will never forgive my mom for telling me that she didn’t like you way back when. that really influenced how i thought about you and about tony stark for years. and i limited me from really appreciating and loving iron man and those movies and tony’s character. but as i continued to watch more of you in the mcu and in real life and have seen how you have grown and who you are today, i have so much love and respect for you and your character. im just so upset at the time i lost where i could have fallen even more in love with you. thank you so much for everything you have done over the last 11 years for this franchise. thank you for the time thank you for the memories and the laughs. the journey has been amazing.

the funeral scene with ‘proof that tony stark has a heart’

(also was the the kid from iron man 3 in the back?)

VALKYRIE BECOMING KING (queen? i say king but who knows) of new asgard. look at my killing baby all grown up and being the leader they need.

thor becoming a guardian basically.

also was quill looking for his gamora? where was the gamora from this timeline on the ship? she wasn’t there in the scene so idk

also fighting with knives to see whos in charge lol

im glad people mentioned/mourned for nat too

steve rogers

steve.

i knew he wasn’t coming back.

bucky knew it too.

im wreaked

but at least he got his happy ending. he got his peggy (again idk what that does to her timeline)

captain sam wilson america in the house.

(old steve looks like joe biden or is it just me lol)

they ended it with a steggy dance and kiss

it really was a perfect end to his story and it wrapped up his character really well. he got that life he deserved

to chris evans: as this is probably the last time we will see you as captain america let me thank you too for the years and joy that you have brought to my life. youre it for me. you are the reason i became so invested in this world. when you jumped on the fake grenade i was in it with you. chris you are and will always be the best chris in my heart. your passion for this character and understanding of steve rogers and his motivations have created such a memorable performance. steve rogers will always be the og. he will always have my heart. i am so thankful that you took this opportunity and used it and made this character your own. you live up to the standards that steve holds for himself and i am so excited for your future. i am also so glad that you didn’t die in this movie bc i definitely could not have handled it if i had to watch both my favs die. i love you three thousand.

i literally cried throughout the whole movie. there were laughs, cheers, groans, stress, tears, and love throughout this film. i am so grateful that i am alive during this time in cinematic history. there will never be something as great or momentous as this film. a true culmination of 22 films. its never been done and i doubt itll ever be done again

i am also so impressed and amazed by how well this film turned out. it is just amazing how everything fell into place

im sure ill read other people’s reactions and they will bring up points or problematic things that will taint my view on this movie but i dont want that to ruin my own experience

and for me, this was truly emotionally draining and fulfilling. the feeling of being in that theatre with all those people who love the characters as much as i do and experiencing this film for the first time is something i will never forget.

people talk about how they remember lining up for star wars.

well i remember sobbing my eyes out when nat died, cheering along with everyone when cap picked up mjolnir and whipped thanos’s ass with it and when carol and the rest of the badass women of the mcu ready to kick ass, crying with everyone as the light went out in tony’s chest and eyes, watching as history was made in front of our eyes.

and the end credits with the og avengers getting recognition with their photos and autographs.

i love this franchise and these films and these characters i dont know who i would be without them.

one last thing

thank you to the og avengers. steve tony thor nat clint bruce. chris robert chris scarlett jeremy mark. you will always have a special place in my heart. you were there at the start. you were the reason this all could happen you were the reason i became so invested in these movies. you brought these characters to life and embodied them. you are all so much like your characters the casting is perfect. thank you for your dedication to your work to you fans and to your characters. it means so much that you all stuck through this together and that you are such great friends in real life and i can only hope that one day i can be so lucky as to meet you all and thank you in person.

#please dont read if you havent seen the movie i dont want to spoiler anything for anyone #my post #my reaction #mcu reaction #endgame #avengers endgame #avengers endgame spoilers #endgame spoilers #marvel endgame #spoilers #ae tags #ae #the avengers #avengers tags #the og avengers #dont spoil the endgame

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albionjake · 6 years

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Goodbye Big Brother: The Show That Changed Television and My Life

You’ve probably read this title and thought ‘Christ, he really likes Big Brother too much’ and you’d be correct. I definitely do. There’s no denying that. But I would add that you probably think Big Brother is just a trashy, meaningless reality show and I’m afraid to tell you that you’re wrong about that. You have probably come to that conclusion as a result of extreme reality saturation. Reality as a genre is now almost exclusively easy to watch trash that washes over you and you forget about a few days later. Big Brother is entirely responsible for all of it existing but I don’t believe it should be judged the same way as its spawn. BB is the original and it should be treated with respect (yes Channel 5, I’m talking to you). At one time in the UK, Big Brother was the biggest show on television. It was on the front pages of national newspapers and magazines. Housemates became household names. It was watched by four times the amount of people that watched the Love Island final this July. It changed the way TV was made. Before Big Brother, we didn’t have shows where the public called up and voted people off. It wasn’t a thing. Big Brother is the original reality show. The greatest of all time. A show with so many iconic scenes and characters, no other reality can even come close. Try arguing a case against a show that gave you Nasty Nick’s confrontation, Helen and Paul’s romance, Jade Goody’s verruca meltdown, Fight Night, Michelle and Chicken Stu under the table, Kinga and her bottle, Nikki Grahame’s diary room rants. If we go over to CBB, it gave you George Galloway being a cat, “Yeah, Jackie”, Tiffany Pollard believing David Gest had died in the house. No other show could produce moments like this. So why is it being cancelled at the end of this series? Well, nobody is watching it anymore. Has the show changed? Yes, a bit. But not really. The basic premise has always been there for 19 series. What’s changed a lot more is society. We are a very different country to what we were in the year 2000. People have much shorter attention spans and have come to expect shows to be heavily produced and edited. Big Brother is still essentially the same show it always was but it has changed and I’m going to tell you how while also hopefully reminding you why the show is so incredibly important and why it’s an absolute travesty that it’s been thrown on the scrap heap without anyone caring. Series 1 began on the 18th of July 2000. Ten people went into a house, and the first few weeks bubbled away without much fuss, viewers were steadily increasing as people became interested in loud and confrontational characters like Caroline and Nicola and a burgeoning romance between Andy and Mel. We could spy on people living their lives. After years of having to covertly peak through the net curtains or put a glass to the wall to spy on the neighbours, we could do it openly in our homes and then get rid of anyone that was annoying us by calling up and voting them out. The show didn’t take long to become a national talking point. After 35 days, Nick Bateman was ejected from the house for cheating. For weeks leading up, he had been secretly writing names on pieces of paper and showing them to other housemates in an attempt to sway their nominations. The public had also watched him make up stories about things like his wife dying in a car accident and he’d become the most hated man in Britain. On his final day, the other housemates had confronted him, led by Craig who eventually won the show. Nick was on the front pages, he made the show a massive hit, everyone was talking about it. The second series was eagerly anticipated and was full of much of the same arguments and controversy. The show was streamed 24 hours a day on E4 and a sister show began called Big Brother’s Little Brother which would lead to the ‘sister show’ becoming a genre of its own and being a staple of pretty much every reality and talent show on TV. Brian Dowling won the second series after being adorable and hilarious for 64 days. His win told me, a gay 13 year old boy, that young, gay men could be accepted for who they are by millions and that was invaluable to me. Big Brother literally changed my life, so forgive me if I get defensive about it. It’s more than a TV show to me. Over 19 years, it has taught me so much about human interaction, about accepting people for who they are and about a whole host of controversial issues. Watching a house full of different adults every year from the age of 12... I can’t even imagine how many things the show taught me. It’s almost certainly shaped a huge part of me and my personality. Week one of the third series brought the first ever nominations twist as the public were asked to nominate two housemates and then the housemates would decided which one to evict. Of the two that were up, the housemates chose to evict Lynne who had actually received the second highest number of the votes. Who had the highest number of votes to leave after one week? Jade Goody. Sort of proves that letting the public vote for anything might have been a huge mistake all along. Jade Goody would later become the biggest star the show has ever produced. Jade’s story is one of the most fascinating stories in British pop culture history and I’m astounded it hasn’t been made into a film. She made the series unmissable and I believe she’s one of the all time greats. BB3 also gave us Allison Hammond who now presents on This Morning along with a load of other stuff and Adele Roberts who hosts the Radio 1 early morning breakfast show. This series was the most crazy yet, with more twists and turns than before and a more volatile mix of housemates. Following the insanity of BB3, the show tried to get back to basics with its cast and the people chosen were a bit less manic. This was the first huge misstep for BB. It’s a risky format, there’s always a chance that your housemates just aren’t going to work. Always a chance they’ll all pretty much just get on and have a nice life in the house. This is another reason why I love Big Brother. There’s always a risk that it could be a shit series. Sure, producers can intervene and try to spice the show up but, what I’ve learned over the years is, that if it’s a shit series then it just can’t be saved. If those housemates aren’t right then nothing you throw at them is going to fix the problem. BB4 was one of those years, it was perfectly pleasant but entirely uneventful. So Big Brother 5 had to win everyone back. A lot of people had given up on BB4 but the show was still young enough to stir up interest when it came around again the following year. They’d learnt from last year and were telling us that Big Brother was “going evil”. The house was pumped full of loud, opinionated and diverse people. Big Brother was harsher and meaner than ever before. The show was exciting again. The huge argument that is now known as ‘Fight Night’ was one of the show’s landmark moments. Security was sent in to diffuse the situation. The police were called by concerned viewers at home. Housemates were screaming and shouting in each other’s faces. Tension that had been bubbling under the surface for weeks had erupted and it was absolutely amazing to watch. I was watching the live feed on E4 that night and despite mostly only getting to see shots of the garden and hearing the familiar sound of birdsong, the little snippets I was able to see were genuinely thrilling. Big Brother 5 was won by Nadia Almada, the first trans housemate ever. Following Brian’s win a few years earlier, this cemented Big Brother’s important place in the LGBT world. No other show has shown quite as many varied types of queer people in this country. And it doesn’t just show them, it lets an audience get to know them. Nadia didn’t win because she was trans. She won because she had been an incredible housemate. Seeing the leaps and bounds trans rights have made in recent years has been amazing but let’s remember how out of the ordinary it was to see a trans person on mainstream TV in 2004. Not a drag queen like Lily Savage or someone wheeled out on Jerry Springer for a cheap laugh. We got to see a real trans person on mainstream national TV and it can’t be understated how healthy that was for our country and culture. BB was now back on track as BB6 came along and was just as great as BB5 had been, probably better. We had legends like Makosi and Kemal, Craig and Antony’s fascinating friendship and fiery characters like Science, Maxwell, Roberto and Derek to keep the drama going for the whole summer. Kinga and her bottle will probably be the most memorable moment from the series but the whole three months were exceptional. Big Brother 7 was more of the same. Another amazing mix of housemates including Pete, Nikki, Richard, Lea, Aisleyne and Glyn. But BB7 is where things started to take a turn. This series had 22 housemates overall. That is too many housemates. One thing that hardly ever saves a series is throwing in more housemates and BB7 added 8 people across three different twists. Not only that but a very late twist allowing the public to put their favourite evicted housemate back in was the first time BB messed with one of it’s fundamental format points, “Who goes, you decide”. The public had paid to evict Nikki and then she was allowed back in. If that wasn’t bad enough, when she did return she was a lot more knowing, she’d seen how hilarious the public found her tantrums so she was playing up to that and it wasn’t the same. Nikki is one of the greatest housemates of all time but I think letting anyone back in when they’ve been evicted by the public just isn’t right. I would say, though a fantastic series, that BB7 was the beginning of the end for Big Brother as a cultural talking point. The minute they messed with those BB fundamentals, the whole format was up for grabs, they could mess around with anything, the public lose sight of what the show is about when you’re changing the rules all the time. So BB8 came along and was perfectly acceptable. I would argue that it had far too many knowing housemates. Chanelle made several blatant attempts at becoming the new Nikki with some excruciatingly exaggerated tantrums. We had out first ever BB superfan housemate in Brian Belo. We had a weird twist where they only put women in for the first week. Completely pointless. Looking back, there were so many examples of BB losing its way in this series. BB7 had created a small puncture and BB8 was failing to contain the water damage. Then BB9 came along and added several more punctures. I hate Big Brother 9. I think it’s trashy and gross. It’s grubby. The house was full of incredibly unlikeable characters along with some entirely forgettable ones. It was all so crude and unpleasant. There was an incident where Dennis spat in Mohammed’s face and was ejected. There was Alexandra threatening people with her gang friends on the outside. There was Mikey who was vile. Rex who was horrible. Darnell who later appeared in porn with Bex from this series and Billi from BB8. Just grubby and, for me, not what Big Brother should be about. Everyone was crass and loud and fame hungry and dreadful. BB is accused of being that all the time but for 80% of the time, it isn’t. Sadly, this series lived up to critics perceptions and it was awful. I’d say the only good thing BB9 did was give us Lisa Appleton who I am still obsessed with. I could look at pictures of her putting the bins out whilst eating a saveloy all day. After BB9, Big Brother had lost the public. BB9 was the one that stuck a knife in Big Brother’s cultural significance. The show never recovered. Big Brother 10 was a vast improvement but nobody knew because ratings went down by a third. It’s amazing that BB10 was actually on Channel 4. Although I guess ITV keep chucking The Voice and The X Factor on air and nobody cares about those. Telly is weird. BB10 was great, it toned down on the vile people and we had a bunch of genuinely interesting people. It wasn’t as fast paced as the previous 5 series which was actually a relief. The balance was right again but by this point Big Brother was far from the only reality show around. Structured reality was creeping in and BB couldn’t compete with faked storylines. The public’s attention span for watching a bunch of fairly nice people make a few friends, have a few bust ups and a couple of romances just wasn’t there. Society had changed and Big Brother had been left behind. Channel 4 then announced it was cancelling the show. Nobody was particularly surprised. BB11 would be the last series of all time which actually got ratings up slightly. I loved Big Brother 11. Shabby and Caoimhe’s unrequited love storyline was the first we’d seen between two girls. BB superfan Mario being picked at random from a huge group of hopefuls on launch night was great and his task at being BB’s secret mole while having to dress as a mole and wear a sign saying “I am a mole’ showed that BB was back to being silly and fun. There was a talking chest of drawers that gave housemates secret tasks and plenty of really great, imaginative and fun tasks throughout. BB had finally shown what sort of show it could be but, sadly, it was too late. The series’ winner Josie Gibson was one of the best winners BB had and her relationship with the fascinating John James was amazing to watch. To see a handsome, toned, blonde, Australian surfer guy fall for a normal, plus-sized girl from a Bristol farm was something that only Big Brother could give you. Then we had an underwhelming Ultimate Big Brother which was deservedly won by Ultimate Housemate Brian Dowling and BB was gone. I was sad to see it go but I understood why and looked forward to its inevitable return a few years down the line. But then Channel 5 came knocking and the show was reborn. Now, I’m grateful to C5 for giving the show a second chance and brining us a new era of BB. They took Celebrity Big Brother and ran with it, creating a huge number of iconic telly. Kim Woodburn, Perez Hilton, Gemma Collins and so many more completely insane celebrities have made TV gold on C5′s version of CBB and it has been amazing. But, much as I love CBB, my heart is with Civilian and I’m not sure it has ever been quite right on Channel 5. The moment it first began, things were different. The editing, the music, the way the housemates names would constantly come up like I was watching an episode of TOWIE. Big Brother was finally trying to fit in with the modern crowd of reality shows and it looked like an embarrassing dad trying to hang out with the cool kids. Just be yourself, BB. All the show ever needed to be was itself and things would have been fine, this year’s series has proved that. Unfortunately, the show just became less and less itself and completely lost its way. One thing I will say about C5 is that Emma Willis and Rylan Clark-Neal have been absolutely incredible. They both love Big Brother as much as the fans and it’s so appreciated. After a shaky start with poor old Brian Dowling hosting, Emma took his place and did Davina proud. Of course Davina McCall will always be THE host of Big Brother but Emma has done a perfect job and made the role her own. Rylan has been a brilliant Bit On The Side host. Following Dermot O’Leary and Russell Brand as BB sister show hosts is not an easy task but Rylan has been just as wonderful as both of them. Davina, Dermot, Russell, Emma and Rylan all did amazing jobs hosting BB and BB related shows and I’m thrilled to have been there with them the whole time. Of course, there have been moments of greatness on C5. It’s Big Brother for goodness sake. I enjoyed Aaron winning the first C5 series and being the first winner to be booed when he left. I enjoyed Luke A showing everyone that trans men exist too and becoming the second trans winner. I enjoyed a lot and I never stopped watching. The first three series on C5 sort of passed everyone by, including me really. I watched them and enjoyed them but I wasn’t hugely fussed. Then Big Brother 14 happened and BB lost itself completely. Firstly, Zoe Birkett from Pop Idol was in civilian Big Brother. There had literally been dozens of far less famous people than her in the celebrity version. Due to the success of CBB, C5 were clearly mixing the two together and it was awful. The housemates were now being scouted. We had the same people who were also trying to get on X Factor, The Apprentice, Britain’s Got Talent etc etc. People that just want to be on telly. NOT people who want to be on Big Brother. One of those people was the odious Helen Wood. One of the most poisonous and vile people ever to step foot in that house. Due to an insanely misjudged opening week task, Helen won a pass to the final. This meant that her bullying and nasty behaviour was left unpunished for weeks. Nobody could nominate her. Decent people were stuck in a house with her and it was genuinely unpleasant to watch. Without the pass, she would have been evicted very quickly but with it she was able to gain popularity with people who found her bullying “entertaining” and she ended up winning the show. It was BB’s lowest point. The next year, the house was full of reality TV rejects again. It was a weird series and BB seemed to be changing the rules all over the place. Twists were thrown in at an alarming rate. Someone was evicted on the first night. Then on Day 18, 4 housemates were evicted and replaced by another 4... essentially starting the series again because the entire house dynamic changed. This was unbelievably alienating for viewers and it went down terribly. It was completely dreadful. Then, as if the series wasn’t enough of a mess, they put Helen Wood back in the house as a guest. Helen spent her time being vile again, to the point where Brian Belo (another guest) escaped after she drove him to tears. Afterwards, Helen ended up having some sort of fight backstage and she’s since been banned from all BB shows and events. Quite right too. Mental that they ever put her back in. BB17 was a slight improvement but it was still full of reality show rejects and still had weird twists like letting Jason evict Lateysha without a public vote. Madness. But the series did feel like BB was finding its way again and I enjoyed it more than I had for a while. Then we had BB18. I really really liked BB18. Unfortunately, the house probably had the most reality rejects it’s ever had. With about half the house having been on Ex On The Beach or Ibiza Weekender. All these crappy cheap reality shows clearly being the easiest place to grab a housemate from. Easier for producers than sitting through thousands of audition tapes, I suppose! Anyway, despite this, the series was pretty great. Going back to the classic two bedrooms created two camps and I absolutely love BB when it feels like there are two camps. We had Rose Cottage and Thorn Cottage and I was fully Team Thorn all the way. Brilliant housemates like Raph, Hannah, Deborah, Chanelle and Isabelle really made the show watchable again and I loved it. It still had a lot of flaws but it was a really enjoyable series and I was so pleased to see so many of Thorn Cottage in the final week. Then the wait for BB19 began. It was a longer wait than usual as we all heard rumours than Channel 5 didn’t want BB anymore. Celeb BB ended and then another came around and still there hadn’t been a civilian series. The second CBB had been pretty great and BB fans had high copes that the next civilian would deliver and be what we’ve hoped for for such a long time. Then the news broke on the day of launch night. Channel 5 were cancelling Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother. Big Brother 19 would be the last series ever. The news was upsetting but not surprising, it was only made worse when BB19 started and it was so instantly incredible. The housemates had been chosen properly and they were great, the launch night had so many nods to the old days, the house looked wonderful and the launch night twist introducing Big Coins to the game was amazing. Then we were blessed with so many brilliant and inventive tasks. The show was back doing what it should have been doing the whole time. But AGAIN, it was too late. For the second time, BB had been axed and then decided to pull its socks up and be brilliant. Why does it always have to be too late? I’ve loved this final series. There have been one or two issues towards the end but ultimately it’s been a really brilliant bunch of housemates who I think have been worthy of possibly being the final people to call the Big Brother house home. So now it’s gone and I can get on with my life. BB does take up a lot of my time when it’s on and I have watched every single series since the year 2000. That’s a lot of time so part of me is glad, I won’t lie. If it comes back though, I’ll be here and I’ll watch it because I’m a FAN. Being a proper fan of Big Brother means you don’t give up when it’s dull or when the producers seem to be losing their minds or when the rest of the country moves on to Love Island. We love Big Brother, not the genre it spawned or the countless, meaningless reality shows that wouldn’t exist without it. People often label me a ‘reality TV fan’ but I’m not. I just love Big Brother, that’s all. It’s the original and it will always be the best. People may say it’s not what it used to be but those people aren’t watching it anymore so I’ve no idea how they could possibly know. The show has always been the same deep down. It’s about watching and connecting with a bunch of strangers for a few months. Loving them, hating them, learning from them, feeling for them and generally being fascinated by the different ways that human beings interact. There are now hundreds of shows like it but none of those shows do it quite like Big Brother does it. Big Brother is a very special television programme and I love it unashamedly. It’s gone for now but I have a feeling that one day, Big Brother will get back to us.

#big brother #big brother uk #goodbye big brother #bbuk

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electrifyingstitches · 6 years

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MEET THE MUSE .

BASICS !

NAME . “Vicky Stitches!” NICKNAME(S) . “Well we have ”V“, ”Vik“, ”Blue“, ”Stitches“, ”Bolts“ and ”Crazy!“ ALIAS(ES) . “The electric girl~” AGE . “23~ I think… I don’t remember when I was created! Oops~” BIRTHDATE . "Uhhhh.... someday? Let’s say the 28th of August cause I don’t remember!” BIRTHPLACE . "I don’t remember when I was born as a human... I was brought back to life in Germany tho!” GENDER . "I’m a girl!” ORIENTATION . "Panromantic!” OCCUPATION . "I go to school and clean my creator castle!” SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS . "I work for my creator and they are rich! Dunno what that makes me...” CURRENT RESIDENCE . "I live in the castle on top of the hill... my master likes dramatic scenaries... or maybe it’s because people say they are a mad scientist”

FAMILY !

PARENTS . "Just my master, who is also my creator. I guess that makes them my family?” UPBRINGING . "Master and I didn’t always get along. They used to hit me and made me do stuff I didn’t want to do, but at least it’s not so bad anymore. It doesn’t hurt much now when they do those things!” BIRTH ORDER . “I was the first and only successful reanimation!” SIBLINGS . "None. Master tried many times to make me some brothers and sisters but they always fail” PETS . "I used to have a cockroach! But one day it disappeared”

PERSONAL !

MORAL ALIGNMENT . lawful good / neutral good / chaotic good / lawful neutral / true neutral / chaotic neutral / lawful evil / neutral evil / chaotic evil . RELIGION . "I don’t have one~ Master said that religion is all a bunch of poop and that science is absolute” PHILOSOPHY . cynicism / idealism / realism / apathy . SINS . greed / gluttony / sloth / lust / pride / envy / wrath . VIRTUES . chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice . SECRETS . "Master is the only one that keeps me alive... that’s why I am too scared to stand up to them” STRENGTHS . "I am really durable and inmune to electricity! Also it’s really hard to kill me unless you know how to!” WEAKNESSES . "My stitches come off easily and it is really painful if I don’t reattach my body after a few hours”

MENTAL !

KNOWN LANGUAGES . “English and German” EDUCATION . “Spooky High... but I am mainly homeschooled” MENTOR(S) . "My master and Spooky High teachers!” INTERESTS . "I like food and games and... and hugs... and feeling others peoples love for me...”

PHYSICAL !

FACECLAIM(S) . Herself from the Monster Prom game. HAIR . Mainly Black and a White stripe hair EYES . Crystal Blue SKIN . Greenish/Blueish BUILD . scrawny / bony / slender / fit / athletic / curvy / full - figured / herculean / pudgy / average . HEIGHT . 5'1 WEIGHT . Never ask a lady her weight! SCARS / BIRTHMARKS . Vicky has tons of scars all around her body. Mainly because she is made of tons of body parts... others she gained after she was reanimated. CONSTITUTION / FITNESS . She is super active, but she doesn’t work out. She has a butt load of stamina tho.

FAVORITES !

DISH(ES) . All the junk food. DRINK(S) . Soda and Alcohol PIZZA TOPPING(S) . All the toppings. She would literally ask for all the toppings if she could. COLOR(S) . She loves green. MUSIC GENRE(S) . She doesn’t really listen to music. BOOK GENRE(S) . Anything with a happy ending. She wants one herself. MOVIE GENRE(S) . Same as the books

CURSE WORD(S) . “FUCK!”

SCENT(S) . She finds the smell of blood fascinating now... that is not something good. QUOTE(S) . “Let’s fuck some shit up”

FUN STUFF !

TOP , BOTTOM , OR SWITCH . Mainly a Bottom cause she has a rather low self esteem. SINGS IN THE SHOWER . If her master is not nearby, all the time. LIKES PUNS . She was born for puns. HOGWARTS HOUSE . Slytherin MBTI . ENFP TEMPERAMENT . Despite her sad background, Vicky tries her best not to let it affect her daily life. Sometimes its hard, and maybe that is why she calls for the attention of others. For help. But other than that, she goes with the flow, trying to live her life to the fullest. ENNEAGRAM . The Enthusiast ABILITIES / POWERS . She can take any ammount of electricity in her body like if it was nothing and not be hurt by it. She can sometimes channel said electricity to prank or hurt others, depending on the situation.

tagged by . @purpleshopkeep tagging . Whoever wants to do it and hasn’t done it yet!

#purpleshopkeep #🎈♥ ;;about Vicky;; ♥🎈#🎈♥ ;;queue;; ♥🎈

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survivor-iceland · 4 years

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Ep. 2 - “I will not be a little tea pot this time” - Ellie

dylan r

OKAY! New game! I’m excited to start! I’m just kinda trying my best to socialize, I’m horrible at talking to other people, my plan early is usually to just win tribals and form small connections with people

Although I flopped SO HARD during that challenge it’s unbelievable I literally tried that for hours & I couldn’t do it like literally

Not much else, I’m just kinda vibing.

Jack

So Ellie totally spilled that she's gonna send stuff to our tribe so i'm telling my tribe that. I think raffy is gonna do the same. Also im thinking everyone on one so that we mess with them.

Jack

My audio is going crazy and cutting out and im like AM I BEING SPOKEN TO????!?!?

Jack

I'm chatting with maynor and stephen and thats going good. but also Raffy is cool but imma try to put some false ideas about the cookie game on him

Raffy

There was one hinky vote for me which tells me that people think I am push-y and a leader on this tribe which is not ok. I mean I want to win challenges, but I don't want to be seen as aggressive. However, I guess I cannot help it. I need to get into an alliance soon. Otherwise, I'll find myself not within a majority. I guess my social game isn't strong enough so I need to rely on my strategic game.

Keith John

Well, its been about three days since the game began, It's going okay for me. We won Immunity so game talk has been on the low. The time difference really screwed me over, I wasn't part of the latest immunity challenge discussion. Even though I wouldn't have contributed much in that convo, Having no input or talk during such moments puts me on the back foot (socially). The saving grace is that I was able to connect to four others through one on one convos. That has helped me built a sort of majority alliance, But as a thumb rule of survivor, unless we don't through a vote together. U cant trust anyone. Hopefully, it sticks and I am able to get through the first few votes. I don't know why but I keep getting a feeling that maybe John and Cormac are telling me what I wanna hear and make me feel comfortable. I hope that isn't true and the alliance is genuine. Cause I feel I really get along with them and can really work with them for a long time. I think both of them are awesome. The only other person I trust is Zoe, we just connected quick. Sierra though in my alliance I haven't yet had a strong one on one conversation with her. let's see what's in store in the coming days

Jack

Were planning to fuck with the other tribe by sending a spy to seed some accidental plan spillage. John’s a smart cookie. MaynorJay. I am slightly sad you split me and Timmy up. The cast reveal and seeing Timmy in that tribe i was like :0. But you did make it one world so i could still talk game with him 😊. Plus i missed being hosted by you. ❤️

John

this plan i concocted could either be really good or really bad. all we gotta do is throw the other side off their scent. but can we do it and make it believable? i guess we will find out tonight.

Ellie

Cookies is chaotic: more detail coming later

Jack

I took a risk for the idol hunt that might cost me my vote at the next tribal. I'm both regretting this decision and thinking it'll probably maybe be worth it...?

John

ok my plan dissolved like an alka seltzer. that’s fun. we love that. i just hope we win at this point. if we lose, that’s going to make things quite interesting.

Ellie

K so lack of communication has officially reached another level, this would be easier if people spoke???? Even Joseph did and he had finals!!!!! Some people have time to try to get on my good side and strategize but not to fucking talk about the challenge???? Some of yall👀👀

Sierra

Sitting out of this challenge was agonizing! I couldn’t be a part of any of the strategy talk for the challenge itself... so I had little to no clue what to expect as I watched. I really don’t want to go to Tribal Council, either. I’m hoping that we can pull out a win and I won’t have to stir the pot and potentially show my cards alliance-wise this early in the game.

Dylan C

I haven't been talking to people enough today and should probably do some of that. Well, I certainly will if we go to tribal but I'm hoping we don't

Jack

Cromac and I chatted for a bit and agreed on a sort of alliance, so that's a thing. Other than that I have fingers crossed for us winning this challenge!

Sierra

So we lost immunity, and I’m PISSED. We fully expected Keith to get 60 cookies from our tribe alone, but he only ended up with 55. That means that somebody on our tribe did not play into the tribe’s strategy. Now my butt could be on the line and I didn’t even have a chance to play in the immunity challenge! I feel relatively safe with my alliance, but anything could happen between now and tribal. Here’s hoping my five stick together!

Timmy

We won!! There was strategy used on the tribe but also people just tried to take control of what everyone else was doing. Like if they try to do that for the challenge they’ll try to do that for votes and that’s not how I’m trying to roll. It kind of sucks that the people I want to work with are on the other tribe. I want to message jack bc they seem chill based on the call last night after tribal. Also there is no way I’ll get an idol bc these slide puzzles are ridiculous.

Sierra

Right now it looks like the votes will be heading towards Stephen. I really like him and think he could be a good ally... but the numbers are against him right now, and that makes it difficult to save him. I don’t want to sink my game attempting to save his... so it looks like Stephen will be the first one voted off of our tribe. I’ll really miss having another literature lover on the tribe, and I’ll miss having some intercontinental diversity, but I’d rather save my own neck right now.

Maynor

So I am now in an alliance with Cormac, Zoe, Sierra, and John. And it is called Maynor’s lovers for some reason. But it now got changed to Maynor’s Angels. 👀 jay came to my host chat and was like ___ is shook. And i died as well. So far the target seems like it might be Stephen that was brought up by John. But we still have until tomorrow so who knows. As long as im safe that is all that matters.

John

hi. i’m john, i’m 20 years old, and i’m absolutely worried stephen has an idol. he just...doesn’t connect. and it puts me on edge. so i want the vote to be somewhat split. we need to put the majority of them on stephen, but have one or two of us worms put down someone else’s name just in case stephen pulls out an idol. no matter what, us 4 (me, cormac, sierra, and zoe) need to get through this vote so we have the majority.

Jack

WOW. Okay so Cormac and I a pretty tight rn. Plan is to vote either Maynor or Stephen. Cormac is closer with Zoe, who i haven'y heard from much. Sierra and I have had some banter with Sierra and opened up private channels with them. Imma check that they're good with Stephen or Maynor, and which they'd prefer.

Jack

Sierra seems to want to keep Maynor around more than Stephen while I'm feeling the other way. I'm down with either so hopefully things work out.

Dylan C

https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/tcQaSg5LL_0-HBuWFPxpguK71TM=/1092x0/2019/06/06/b11ccfac-685e-4cb2-a239-b09af07b1baf/toriflynn2.jpg

Jack

IDOLS EXSIST. And hopefully Stephen and maynor dont have any

Jack

I MADE A DUMB CRAZY PLAN. Like I said to the others it basically, we make a chat with Stephen, tell him heyyyyy lets vote Maynor, then go and actually vote Stephen. I feel a little bit evil but also i totally get the reason blindsides are so popular. I FEEL LIKE A SPY!

Dylan C

I love you, Jay

Jack

The trap has been set, hopefully Stephen falls for the it and nothing goes to shit. And also that Cormac's not pulling a con on me. I doubt he is but pArAnOiA.

Jack

STEPHEN RESPONDED AND HE SEEMS DOWN WITH VOTING MAYNOR AND BELIEVES CORMAC AND ME AND I CHATTED WITH JOHN AND HES DOWN WITH VOTING STEPHEN BUT O MY GOD IM SO NERVOUS. sorry bout the caps lock, I feel like it was needed to covey my FEELiNGS

Jack

All the gears are locked in. Everyone's voting Stephen; Stephen seems to be on board with voting Maynor; Maynor will hopefully stick with going for Stephen; and Keith will maybe hopefully I hope go with what me and Cormac are going for.

That started off so confident and turned into "Hm maybe I'm not sure I hope"

John

ok so here’s the tea sisters. our original target was stephen. he’s more reserved, kinda quiet, but he’s going after less active players (ironic, right), and apparently he is targeting keith. so if an idol is played, it might be him. so the worms are talking to jack and trying to get him to come on board for our plan. jack goes into complete paranoia mode between all of us, and we’re concerned he’s a flight risk. so the vote is shifting to jack. being erratic is more dangerous in this game than silence is.

John

lmao if this blindside on jack completely backfires and i go to EOE, i’d actually scream over how much work is going into it. this is so messy and complex for literally day 4 of this game that it perplexes me. it’s either gonna be 4/3/1 or 5/2/1, i’m not sure yet. but strap in folks, we’re experiencing turbulence. the plane may be going down.

Jack

Other than Keith everyone's locked in to vote for Stephen, even Maynor. Me and Stephen chatted and he complimented me saying that i don't seem like a new player cause I'm so comfortable in chat and I'm here like "hahahah yeah so weird not like in acting all calm and collected at you so you don't know I'm voting for you." I do feel a bit bad voting out Stephen now that I've got a better vibe on him, and I've been leaving little hints of "sorry for voting you out" and "hope you come back from the edge" at him, but doing them as me saying "Oh I feel so bad for voting out Maynor" so that I don't blow my cover but yeah. Here's all my guilt dude ^

Joseph Collins

We got an immunity win which was nice. Apparently Malarkey (Melrakki) played with some type of strategy. And Ulfur went coocoo for coco puffs and won. So I’m happy about that. Putting a plan in motion to get some threats out soon. Need a really good numbers advantage first.

Zoe

GOD okay wow this is so much. We lost the immunity challenge, which is funny because I said that I was pretty confident we were going to win. I'm not concerned about being sent home, I'm almost positive Cormac would tell me if he knew, and I have good relationships with people in my tribe. And very good news: Well, after literally teaching myself how to do a slide puzzle, wrestling with the god-host herself over reference images and website dysfunctionality, I finally reached the end of the idol hunt and located a very beautiful advantage, which is to call a blind vote and then see what people vote even though nobody else can. I read it a few times and then facetimed with Cormac to tell him the good news, and we agreed we would keep it until swap or merge and use it to see where peoples' loyalties lie. We discussed all of our options, our relationships with different people, and who we want to keep close until later. I have a good relationship with Timmy and Maynor, and I think Dylan C as well, so that will come in handy when we swap and after the merge. We also solidified an alliance with us and Keith. FUCKING MEANWHILE, over in tribe Machievelli, the "oh, worm?" alliance has gone absolutely nuts strategizing over this vote. Jack has made everyone very paranoid by asking every person in the tribe who they were voting for. He had never messaged me individually before, and then just popped up and said he wanted to make sure I was voting for Stephen, which is who "oh, worm?" was originally going to vote for. I think it was Cormac who brought it up because Jack keeps info-dumping all of his thoughts onto him, but we all agreed to vote for Jack. Cormac and I discussed how to tell each person, one of those resulting in a final three deal with Keith, entitled "Zoe and the boys" as well as a yet to be titled final four alliance with me, Cormac, John, and Keith, yet to be named, that neither John nor Keith know about. Ultimately we said that we'd check back in in the morning and determine if anything had blown up overnight with Jack, since he seems to be very paranoid.

Jack

MWAHAHAAHHA Stephen believes out plan to vote maynoris genuine but it is a TRICK. Hope he doesn't hate me tho, seems like a nice guy. Those read receipts are just real sus being off man. but he tots believes me, Cormac, and Sierra.

Zoe

It's been more of a quiet morning, though we are all tense about what is going to happen at tribal. We don't think there is anything crazy happening with Jack, and ultimately we aren't telling Stephen about the plan in case he ends up telling a person he isn't supposed to. It should turn out to be a 6-1-1 vote, hopefully none of those going to me. I want to play a low key game here: I want to be making the decisions with Cormac, making tight alliances with other players, and then having them go out and do the dirty work. John seems like a good guy and a good player, and I also feel like he thinks he's the leader of our little group. It's definitely in our best interest to stay tight with him, but we have to be wary of him making alliances on the other side as well.

Maynor

I’m so fucken nervous and I swear if im voted out second. Ugh. Jack can go home. Like i did nothing to you and you just decide to come for me for no reason? Like wow. Jacks the target and I hope the people ive been talking to and aligned with are telling me the truth cuz it would totally suck if they are lying to me. There is really no reason to take me out who is active instead of jack who isnt active and just barely coming on. Fuuuuuuck me. Im be paranoid the whole fucken day arent I.

Stephen

So this tribe is kinda dull, so theyve chosen a dull vote. Maynor. I like maynor but he has been a little silent. The big question is: is there a majority alliance out there? The answer is yes, of course there is, there always is. I make my survivor career on not being in majority alliance then tearing them apart when the tea gets spilled. See: Tashirojima.

Jack

Made a bit of a conection with Ellie from the other tribe, and she seems pretty open to working together if we make it to the merge or if theres a tibe swap

Raffy

I am happy that we do not have to go to tribal. It allows me to be more social with people on my tribe without the threat of a vote looming over our heads.

Justin

This round was a lot more chill. Mostly cuz we won immunity, but I'm still keeping my relations with everyone good. I realized this round that Cormac, whom I have been talking to since last round, is on the other tribe lol. Luckily, I didn't tell him any compromising information, and now I have a connection to the other tribe. Plus, Keith from the other tribe reached out to me and we had a really good conversation. I like him a lot and I see myself working with him in a swap or merge. He is from Pakistan so he is also in the eastern hemisphere as well as Stephen. So, I was thinking I could possibly make an Old World alliance because we are closer to each other in times. However, Cormac has told me that his tribe is most likely voting out Stephen so that won't work out. I would say the only alliance I have so far is with Cormac, so I need to make something official with a player in my tribe before other people get them. Specifically, I want to ask Timmy to be in an alliance.

Maynor

Today has been really quiet. I really hope the people telling me im good are telling the truth. I hope my connections are strong enough to let me survive this first round. Im so nervous and ugh i hate this feeling. Id be extremely sad if I go over an inactive.

Raffy

Truly. Honestly. I'm so lazy. I don't want to do the idol hunt lmao

Jack

I can't remember if i already did a confessional about this but in case i didn't: Ellie and i chatted a bit and she seems open to working together later in the game and Cormac seems down with that plan too. Idk if i cant /trust/ Raffy but he also seems cool too

Ellie

So I feel like Raffy is a tiny bit annoyed with me sometimes cause I do share a lot, but I will not be a little tea pot this time. Raffy and I talk strategy all the time and he’s my closest ally but it honestly feels like I barely know him while my other close ally, Dylan, I have bonded with a lot and know a lot about them while still strategizing with them. It’s weird but I’m not going to push. He told me to stop talking about past games, and I’m like ? If I don’t mention you we’ll be chill

Ellie

Also we bonded with jack 👀

Maynor

Tonight, i may be leaving. Ill just be really sad. Mad at first cuz i tried my hardest in first immunity and then someone decides to mess up in the 2nd if by accident or on purpose. Mostly ill be sad cuz i wont be able to play with Timmy. I finally got to retalking with dylan and really miss them. Mostly ill be sad cuz let jay down for giving me a 3rd chance after my performance in rotuma. Ily Jay. Hopefully i stay. ❤️❤️❤️

Dylan C

I have to choose whether or not to do a part of the idol hunt where if I do it, I risk losing my vote at the next tribal I attend, and if I don't do it then I start the idol hunt over. Heck. I'll probably do it tbh.

Maynor messaged me a few minutes ago to say that he thinks he's getting voted out tonight, and that he enjoyed talking to me again. I don't want to see him go, in part bc I wanted to try to ally with him at some point and also just because I like him. Also I don't know what's going on on the other tribe but? Y'all are gonna vote out the guy who held a cup over his head for over two hours for your tribe? Smh

Jack

I really like Dylan C's vibe. Imma PM them later some more and see if that's a thing

Sierra

The vote switched when Jack started getting paranoid — his name wasn’t even coming up until he started asking everyone if they were SURE that they were down with the plan. It felt really awkward to have to reiterate over and over again that we were on his side... and it made it difficult to believe that HE was really with US. I’m really grateful that Stephen gets to stay around for another few days!

Dylan R

Ok so I did all of the puzzles for the idol hunt & then I FLOPPED on the challenge so: I have my clown outfit on.

I’m trying to make friends but it’s hard 🥺 I think if we go to tribal Joseph will go before be but I got some serious catch up to do if I wanna win

John

i know keith was originally our fifth, but i’m kinda wanting to work with maynor the more i talk to him. i want a fifth that will side with me if needed. and idk if keith could be that fifth that would benefit ME. it’s also just a thought. not tied to the idea yet. stay tuned kids.

cormac marek

Alrighty very eventful times leading up to our first tribal. I have been involved in like 13 alliance chats. Me and Zoe had an hour call last night on how she found an advantage to be kept between the two of us. It was amazing! Keith seems on board for anything. He has a "as long as its not me" gameplay. The core worm alliance was going to vote out Stephen but switched it to Jack after he became insane. It was sad because we were going to include Jack in on the deals. Maynor was told that Jack was gunning for him so that's a vote for Chaos Kass. If all goes smooth it will be unanimous. Stephen asked me right before tribal and I told him Jack was gunning for him and that majority was going for him. Hopefully this means he will be with us. It is really tricky. Let's see how the blood rolls

Joseph Collins

Patiently waiting on next immunityyyyyyy.

Timmy

Jack is trying to get maynor out...so jack can go.

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cromulentbookreview · 5 years

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Binge! Part 2: The Re-Binging

I’m often put off by long book series - considering how often I complain about being suckered into the first book of a series, this isn’t surprising. However, sometimes I’m willing to put in the time to binge a whole series.

Like, for example, the Barker & Llewelyn series by Will Thomas.

So I binge-read the first 10 books of this series (well, 10.5, there’s a novella called An Awkward Way to Die ) in one long, dizzying binge last year. And, lucky for me, there’s a new book out: Lethal Pursuit! Pretty much exactly one year from the release of Blood is Blood!

But! If you haven’t read the first 10.5 books, here’s a review:

BOOK 1 - Some Danger Involved: Your average detective enquiry agent-duo origin story featuring brilliant detective and his new snarky Welsh sidekick!

BOOK 2 - To Kingdom Come: Barker & Llewelyn go undercover and build bombs for the Irish!

BOOK 3 - The Limehouse Text: Barker & Llewelyn face big trouble in London’s 19th Century Chinatown!

BOOK 4 - The Hellfire Conspiracy: Barker & Llewelyn fight human traffickers, secret societies and such!

BOOK 5 - The Black Hand: Barker & Llewelyn fight the Italian mafia!

BOOK 6 - Fatal Enquiry: Barker & Llewelyn fight Barker’s almost comically evil arch-nemesis!

BOOK 7 - Anatomy of Evil: Barker & Llewelyn fight Jack the Ripper!

BOOK 8 - Hell Bay: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None!

BOOK 8.5 - An Awkward Way to Die: Barker & Llewelyn solve a case in, like, 20 minutes!

BOOK 9 - Old Scores: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Japonism in Late-19th Century England!

BOOK 10 - Blood is Blood: Barker is put temporarily out of commission by an explosion! Llewelyn must solve the case himself! Who should show up to help but Barker’s long lost brother??

BOOK 11 - Lethal Pursuit: Barker and Llewelyn are hired by the Prime Minister himself to transport an ancient manuscript to Calais. Sounds easy enough! Except Barker seems more interested in investigating the death of the man who brought the manuscript to England in the first place…

So! Lethal Pursuit! It begins with Hillary Drummond, recently arrived to England from Germany (somewhat newly united! Kind of!) he’s on the run from some blue uniformed youths after the satchel he’s carrying, which contains this book’s MacGuffin an ancient, and very valuable manuscript. Drummond almost, almost makes it to the Home Office when, gasp! He’s run through with a sword. Then he walks into traffic and is run over by a cab.

Or, as it’s known in London traffic: Tuesday.

Meanwhile! It’s January! 1892! Llewelyn is a happily married man, as he loves to mention roughly every two pages. Along with being a happily married man (did he mention that he’s married now? Because he is) he’s also now a partner in Barker’s Detective Private Enquiry Agency. Barker has been moving a bit slower since his leg injury during the events of Blood is Blood, but, instead of treating Llewelyn like a full partner, Barker continues to treat him like an assistant. Which rankles Llewelyn a bit but hey, at least he’s married to the love of his life Rebecca. Only they still live in Barker’s house - he’s renovated the first floor for them and everything. Anyway, Barker and Llwelyn receive a summons from Prime Minister himself! The British government has the MacGuffin, and they want nothing more than to have the manuscript sent off to the Vatican archives and forgotten. But Barker is more interested in the mystery of who killed Hillary Drummond and why. Rather than immediately deliver the manuscript to Calais like the Prime Minister asked them to do, Barker hangs onto it. See, this manuscript is, apparently, a new gospel. Which is important because...reasons?

OK, so after 11 books, I’ve noticed that the Barker & Llwelyn series involve a lot more religion than I know anything about. I mean, when it comes to the religious category on Jeopardy, my answer is always “Jesus.” I’ve never read the Bible the whole way through - I read Acts of the Apostles in high school for an assignment, for which I had to actually go out and buy a Bible because the one we had was a family heirloom that couldn’t be opened without falling to pieces. In my lifetime I’ve attended a grand total of two church services - one when I was baptized at the ripe old age of 7 (I guess from ages 0-7 I was naught but a sinful hellbeast) and once in Germany I attended an Easter mass in a thousand year old cathedral because it was literally the only thing open on Easter Sunday in the whole town. Upper Franconia is suuuuper Catholic, you guys. Anyway, I took communion at that mass just to see what the body of Christ tastes like (burnt toast, I was disappointed). Does that mean I’m Catholic now? Hurray for gold-plated everything and indulgences? I mean, I’m not even 100% sure what I was baptized as back when I was a 7-yr-old unbaptized hellbeast…Lutheran, maybe? I think? I do enjoy posting lists of complaints on peoples’ doors. I mean, I could check, but that would require getting up and I both don’t want to and really don’t care all that much. Anyway, long story short: religion is not my strong suit. I don’t know the difference between a Baptist and an Episcopalian and a Methodist. Perhaps I should but honestly…eh. My point is, when Will Thomas writes about a manuscript that might be a new gospel written before Luke or Matthew or whoever...I just sort of smile and nod and go "yeah sure OK" and have zero idea what that might actually mean or its religious significance. I just hear “1000 year old manuscript” and think “that sounds awesome, gimme.”

Back to the book: this manuscript is so valuable, the people after it are willing to kill for it. Which puts Barker & Llewelyn in an awkward position. Even more awkward is the fact that Rebecca’s family, who seemed so cool in the last book, have now decided to shun her for marrying Thomas, a gentile. As usual, Barker & Llewelyn are caught between a rock and a hard place. Can they deliver the manuscript safely to the Vatican? Can Thomas repair the relationship between himself and his in-laws? Will Rebecca ever learn how to make a decent Pain au chocolat? Will we ever, ever meet Thomas’s massive Welsh family? Will Rebecca ever demand to get to know her small army of brothers- and sisters-in-law? Will Barker ever propose to Philippa? Will I ever learn the difference between various sects of Christianity? Find out tomorrow in Barker & Llewelyn: Lethal Pursuit! Same bat time, same bat channel!

I love this series. I am well and truly hooked. Barker & Llewelyn are a more down-to-earth Holmes and Watson. There is just the right amount of action, historical detail, and mystery to satisfy any Sherlockian desperate for some 19th century English mystery. I don’t know of any other book series, save Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series, where I’ve stuck around past the 8th or 9th book. So many books! Not enough time for serieses! I mean, sometimes I entertain the thought of binging all 900,000 Discworld books, but there are so many other things I’d like to read, too…I wish I were a faster reader. Better yet, I wish I could be like the Doctor and just flip through a book and absorb all its contents at once. That’d be awesome.

Still. I adore Barker & Llewelyn - I will absolutely be there for any book they’re in, even if the series goes the full Anne Perry and goes on and on for like, 20+ books. I’m here for it. And I am on pins and needles for the next book. I really, really, really want Thomas to reconcile with his family in Wales. I want Barker to actually acknowledge that Philippa Ashleigh is his girlfriend. I JUST WANT MORE, DAMN IT!

OK, for lack of anything else to say, let’s fancast this thing.

OK, so Barker would obviously be played by Graham McTavish, aka Dougal from Outlander.

Admit it, he’d be absolutely perfect, right? Come on. I mean, just look at that face.

Thomas Llewelyn would be played by Taron Egerton because he’s Welsh and absolutely pretty and tough enough to be Llewelyn

Yesssss.

Mac would be played by Paul Ready because Paul Ready is beautiful and I love him and would cast him in anything. Plus, I could see him as the finicky perfectionist Mac. Plus, I still ship Mac/Thomas, and I think he’d play well against Taron Edgerton. By which I mean they’re both gorgeous and I’d enjoy watching them.

Jeremy Jenkins would be played by Adam Nagaitis because he’s awesome and he’d be perfect as the squirrley / drunk half the time Jenkins.

Ho would be played by Benedict Wong because he would be perfect, though I’m not sure if my fantasy BBC/ITV/Netflix series budget would have enough money to get Benedict Wong. He’s got Marvel money now.

Rebecca Llwelyn nee Cowan nee Mocatta would be played by Jessica Brown Findlay because, eh, why not. I’m still traumatized/pissed off about Sybil’s death on Downton Abbey.

Tchéky Karyo as expert chef Etienne Dummolard because I can seriously picture him going into a long French tirade and throwing shit whenever Barker disrespects his cooking.

Michelle Gomez as Philippa Ashleigh, Barker’s Girlfriend, because I would love to see her and Graham McTavish as Barker snipe at each other.

Gemma Chan as Bok Fu Ying aka Miss Winter, Barker’s ward, because she is the perfect combination of elegance and badass.

Gaten Matarazzo as Soho Vic because I’m absolutely sure he could pull off a British accent and annoy the shit out of Thomas,

And this dog as Harm. Look at this dog!

Awww!

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone fond of a fun 19th century mystery-solving duo.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who dislike mysteries, detective private enquiry agent duos.

OVERALL SERIES RATING: 4.5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED VICTORIAN MYSTERY / MURDERINO FANGIRL RATING: 5/5

LETHAL PURSUIT RATING: 4/5

RELEASE DATE: November 12, 2019

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES: Olympus Mons

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bunnyandbirb · 7 years

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Birb’s B-Movies #2: Pass Thru

Neil Breen is a truly visionary actor/producer/director/writer/editor, and the owner of Neil Breen Films, LLC. You may know him from his previous works, Double Down and I am Here….Now. My favorite masterpiece of his is undoubtedly Fateful Findings, the science fiction drama where Neil plays a magical hacker who exposes all “the most secret government and corporate secrets.”

In preparation for his upcoming film, Twisted (set to release in 2018), I decided to sit down and watch the one film that I’ve never seen: Pass Thru (2016) and trust me, this is a work of pure Breenius. The website for the movie describes the movie as such:

“Artificial Intelligence from far into the future arrives to immediately CLEANSE the human species of millions of humans who are harmful to other humans. A VISIONARY, REVOLUTIONARY FILM which pushes the human species to the limits of controversial, thought-provoking actions.”

I have to admit, this is probably the most confusing Breen movie I’ve seen to date (and that’s really saying something.) I honestly don’t even remember the names of any of the characters, but that hardly matters. It has a very similar message to his other films, which he makes sure to hammer into your head so that even if you don’t understand the plot, at least you end up with something. We’ll get into that near the end, though.

The movie starts with overly long mountain/desert landscape shots that were probably taken an hour away from his house, since he lives near Las Vegas. Then something strange happens.

There’s a rock with white paintings on it, and suddenly a giant ginseng root-looking “hand” comes out and delicately prods the paintings with a stick. It then cuts to a random tiger chilling on a cliff above, and then immediately cuts again to two pristine clocks by the rock with some shitty black smoke effect crawling across the screen.

I don’t even get a chance to try to comprehend what these things mean before another series of confusing imagery: walking legs, a girl in her room reading about space, some old man just sitting in the desert with magazines, and then Neil Breen himself, picking up what looks like trash from a party he threw the other night. A red dot appears in the sky, and finally we get our first real dialogue of the film.

It is at this time that I have the horrible realization that everyone in this movie has received thorough direction from Neil Breen on how to read lines off a script. Each syllable is robotically intonated, each word spoken unnaturally slowly and with an awkward pause… nothing anyone says in this movie sounds real. Breen was debatably the worst actor in Fateful Findings, and it seems like he tried really hard to get everyone on his level this time.

Three kids (names unknown) sit around in a room, and the boy has somehow found the red sky dot (which is apparently some kind of signal.) The two girls try to sound excited but somehow manage to sound even more apathetic as they raise their voices. The boy goes from “I’m following the signal!” to “I lost the signal” in literally one second, so I guess he just sucks.

The next few minutes of this movie are just pure chaos. Each scene is somehow too short and at the same time way too long, and the sequence that they’re placed in just makes zero sense whatsoever. Let me just run through them (keep in mind, these are in chronological order):

Neil Breen lies in a pile of his own filth in his trailer.

Neil Breen lies outside in the dirt while some faceless man with a gun pays him to clean up the evidence of a ‘smuggling site’ (i.e. Gatorade bottles and soup cans.)

Some “immigrants” (who just look like tourists) are led through a ravine

Neil Breen wakes up in the dirt with the garbage still around him, finds a dirty syringe and injects it into his arm. He then dies and we get this great special effect:

The nameless boy calls one of the girls and then proceeds to have an entire conversation by himself.

A random hand bleeds while it touches barbed wire.

I was confused enough at this point, but then I kept watching and realized that the entire movie is edited like this. Let it be known that I tried three times to write this post while reformatting the events of the story to make them more clear, but it was actually impossible. So instead of trying again, I’m just going to run through the four most hilarious parts of the movie. Honestly, you wouldn’t understand the plot even if I gave more information than this, so to hell with it.

1. The Great Immigration

One plotline involves a group of “immigrants” who are being herded along by human traffickers. The “immigrants” all act like a bunch of middle schoolers on a boring field trip (and are dressed similarly), and are constantly whining: “Where are we going?” “Why do we have to walk so far?” “Stop yelling at us.” The human smugglers in the movie are incredibly incompetent at both smuggling and acting, which makes every one of these scenes a pleasure to watch.

The traffickers filter through the immigrants, stopping a few who happen to be hiding plastic baggies (of what looks like cocaine) under their shirts.) One of them is a woman who is pretending to be pregnant, and is clearly not an actor because she can’t stop smiling in what (I’m assuming) is supposed to be a serious situation. They line up these baggies and start handing them out, designating who they’re going to: lawyers, bankers, “the CEO”, etc. Basically all the people Breen talks shit about in every movie he makes.

Their leader shoots some woman and a kid because she “has absolutely no VALUE for you two on the STREETS.” (Uh, lady, you’re in a desert.) Two of the women manage to escape, even as a man shoots at them at point blank range four times (and apparently misses each time.) Nobody bothers to go after them. The rest of the immigrants are “trapped” in a truck and they all freak out because they clearly cannot escape:

2. Neil Breen cleaning up his house

The two women that escaped from the traffickers stumble into Neil Breen’s trailer, and he invites them to stay with him. For some reason, the women yell everything they say even when they’re standing right next to each other. Also, they vehemently don’t want to stay with him - can’t blame them, really.

In order to convince them to stay, Breen insists that he will “clean it” for them. No words can explain the beauty of this scene, so I have to just show you the clip:

youtube

3. Neil Breen “isn’t that corrupt”

Coming to the end of the movie, it’s revealed that Breen is actually an alien artificial intelligence (who has a name, but hell if I remember that much). His mission is to just kill all the humans that he doesn’t like. Okay, he actually said those who “cause harm to other humans,” but isn’t that technically every living human? Whatever, I will not question our lord and savior Neil Breen.

Breen teleports into mansions and inserts himself into conversations with the people that he shit talks all the time (i.e. lawyers, Big Pharma, government officials, bankers, etc. etc.) and just makes everything awkward.

Here’s a transcript of an actual conversation:

A: “I know senior, national elected government officials who I can force my political... *insert pause where she forgets her lines*... bias and influence on fellow politicians to vote my way, for a payoff of course.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: …….

[Breen looks away as everyone else stares at him.]

B: “I know companies that can hack into any government national agency or corporate facility. For the right price, you can get any information that you want. And they don’t need to know why or your reason. These places are so vulnerable and unprotected, and there is no way they can keep up with the technology.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: ……..

This same exact conversation repeats itself until Breen decides to leave, and then the people are like, “Who the fuck was that guy?”

Breen teleports in front of the mansion, fades out of his tuxedo and into his regular janitor clothes, and then waddles away as shitty explosion effects happen in the background.

“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth,” he says. I’m pretty sure those were not ‘truth explosions,’ but you do you, Neil.

4. The Newsroom and Neil Breen

After that shitshow, Neil decides to make his big move by appearing on some news channel to make his traditional monologue. Throughout the movie, the news anchors have been reporting some very interesting news. Serious criminals, lawyers, bank management, and even accountants have mysteriously vanished overnight. According to one of the hosts, “It’s as if all the harmful people on Earth are disappearing.” Oh, he also mentioned that “Ignorant reality shows about families, housewives, groups, individuals… those casts are all gone.” So I guess Breen is now lumping the Kardashians with corrupt government officials on his ‘Evil People’ list.”

Neil shows up uninvited onto the news broadcast, and the hosts rightfully call out for security guards. Breen fires back with, “You won’t need security. You’re gone.”

And so they are:

I won’t even try to recount all of the nonsense the Neil says in his speech, but here are the some select quotes:

“I am not of this Earth. I am artificial intelligence from FAR into the future.”

“Human evolution has ended, and there can be no further advancement.”

“I have eliminated 300 million humans from the planet today”

“Violate laws and regulations”

Breen also really loves listing things, as can be witnessed in this single speech.

Neil Breen lists the things he hates (in order within the speech):

Illegal wars

The abuse of the media systems

Films

Radio

The Internet

Violence

Corruption

Political correctness

Fear of the truth

Excuses

Second chances

Third chances

Warnings

Sympathy

Cheats

Thieves

Criminals

Abusers

Corrupters

Dishonest humans

Abusers of:

Other humans

The planet

The environment

Children & animals

Violence

Corruption

Corporate corruption

Failed political systems

Failed judicial systems

Failed educational systems

Failed environmental systems

There are a lot of other hilarious things in this movie aside from these moments.

Like seriously, what the hell is this:

But I won’t get into any more of the gems from this film, because this has already gone on long enough. Watch it yourself to experience them all.

I’ll be looking forward to Twisted, Neil!

~Stay tuned for nonsense~

- birb

#monday #movie review #movies #neil breen #pass thru #really late #birb #b movies #bad movies #movie monday #thisisbunnyinthetags #birb has a new job #everyone congratulate birb #bunnyandbirb #text post #long post #review

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