#no mention of sonny?????? who presumably lives with him???????

[regina-cordium]

Okay but did usnavi intend to bring sonny with him to the DR?????? Because all but ONE of the lyrics where he talks abt it do Not mention sonny

#96000 and carnaval del barrio both imply he’s ditching the shop and leaving w abuela Claudia #no mention of sonny?????? who presumably lives with him??????? #shut up alex #sorry for the random ith posting. back to ur regularly scheduled programming.

[procrastinatorimagines]

I Want Us Part 8

Fandom: Chicago PD / SVU

Series: I Want Us

Part 1 //  Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 // Part 9 // Part 10 (Final)

Pairing/s: Sonny Carisi x Intelligence!Reader

Warning/s: tw rape, murder, assault

Word Count: 1,269

Summary: The Intelligence Unit’s last case with Manhattan SVU had them flying out to New York to track down an abducted boy, and had Dectective Y/L/N and Detective Carisi growing close in the process. Now, a string of rape-murders in Chicago has SVU boarding the next flight out, believing the suspect to be the same man responsible for a set of identical crimes 10 years prior. As the case unfolds, Y/N and Carisi are brought back together, reigniting the spark between them.

Tags: @the-baby-bookworm​ // @inlovewith3​ //

The call came while you were still driving to the address you’d been given on Tate, now your prime suspect - Billy’s alibi for the first murder checked out easily, he was at a track meet with over a dozen witnesses, and there wasn’t exactly any point in checking his alibi for the New York murders, he’d been 7. 

Almost as soon as that call ended, you got a text on your phone. “You mind?” You nodded to your phone, giving Carisi permission to check it as you drove.

“It’s Jay, he says neither families have seen Billy or Tate before,” he relayed, “but that doesn’t mean Tate isn’t our guy, it’d make sense with what we’ve heard so far.”

“Still,” you sighed, turning Tate’s road, his apartment building just up a head, “we’re going to need something more to go on if we’re even going to get into his place, let alone arrest and charge him.”

Carisi couldn’t agree more as you both climbed out the car, making your way towards the building with your badges on hand. They’d get you through the main doors no problem, but getting further...

“Do you have a warrant?” What had you expected, honestly? Standing before the landlord in the main lobby you were greeting with the question you’d seen coming a mile away. 

“Is he here?” Carisi asked anyway, hoping you’d at least find out something useful, even if this turned out to mostly be wasted trip.

“Nah, he hasn’t been back here since yesterday, I’ve got some mail waiting that I need him to take off of my hands,” the landlord explained, sounding bored and impatient with the conversation already. He’d given you something, at least; Tate hadn’t gone home after he’d given his statement to you, he must have somewhere else to lay low - but where?

“You ever seen either of these women before?” Carisi tried, holding up photos of the two Chicago victims on his phone. The landlord shrugged and shook his head.

“Okay, thanks for your time,” you told him, pulling your card out of your pocket, “but if he does come back, at least give us a call?” He grunted in what you couldn’t tell was agreement or not, but he took the card and walked away, which presumably meant you could both see yourselves out.

You grumbled in frustration as soon as you were outside, knowing you’d been this close to your killer and let him slip away, and now you didn’t know where he was. “We’ll post some unis outside in an unmarked car,” Carisi told you, already making the call as you wandered once again back to your car, fresh out of leads to follow.

“Let’s call Benson, see where Tate lived the time of the New York murders, maybe it’ll be enough for a judge to issue a warrant,” you said, casting a glance back at the apartment building. 

“Food?” Carisi suggested once you got to the car. It had been a while, you realised, all this running around you’d been doing hadn’t really left any time for breaks - food was definitely not a bad idea.

“I could eat,” you replied with a smile, dialing Benson’s number as you got back behind the wheel.

“Tell me you have more than we do,” she answered by way of greeting, sounding as frustrated by this case as you. 

You explained the situation as concisely as possible. “Do you think you could find out his old address?”

“Yeah, should only take a moment, stay on the line?” You hummed in agreement and put it on speaker as you heard her place her phone down and begin to type on her keyboard. 

“New York,” Benson confirmed after a moment, “want to try for a warrant?”

“That’s circumstantial at best, I can’t see a judge signing off on that,” Carisi noted, not being happy about saying it though. He was right, but neither of you liked it.

You clicked your tongue, hesitating before saying: “I could ask Voight to maybe-”

“No,” Benson cut in quickly, “we do this by the book, if this is our guy, which I think it is, I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise putting him away for good, understood?”

“Loud and clear Captain,” you promised genuinely.

“Good, Kat and I will look into Tate’s history in New York, maybe we’ll find something we missed now that we know who we’re looking for, we’ll keep you posted,” she informed you both.

“Thanks Cap, we’ll be in touch,” Carisi signed off and you leaned your head back on the seat’s headrest, eyes closed. You only opened them again when you felt Carisi’s hand on your leg.

“Come on, let’s go eat, re-energise and re-focus,” he said, somehow always managing to make you feel instantly better. You nodded and turned on the ignition, knowing exactly where you could grab a quick bite nearby.

You were half way through your sandwich, feeling a bit more self-conscious than usually about how you were eating in the presence of a guy you liked - not that he’d care - when you got yet another phonecall. 

“Hey Kev,” you said, pressing answer with your little finger and hurriedly swallowing what was in your mouth. 

“Hey, Voight asked us to go back through the CCTV from Lily Hamilton’s murder, we’d been looking for the bentley the first time around, but this time we were looking for Tate’s car, just incase.”

“And?” You asked, alert, putting your sandwich down and brushing your hands together as you shared a hopeful look with Carisi.

“We got it,” Kev answered. Was this is? The breakthrough you needed? "Now, the main street cams don’t catch enough, but Vanessa found a private security system set up nearby the cite where her body was discovered. I’ll send you the screen grabs, you tell me how guilty you think this looks.”

Two pings on your phone came a second later, images of a man emerging from Tate’s car carrying a very large bag - definitely large enough for a body. “We got him,” you said triumphantly.

“It gets better,” another voice joined the call from the other end, Hailey’s. “We did some digging into that date the second vic’s sister mentioned and get this, both girls had dates, I’m sending you both the dating profiles and messages we found now-”

Carisi got them up on his phone, showing you briefly and nodding.

“-and it’s pretty damning. They look like different guys at first, but the script is the same, prince charming, true love, you get the picture when you read the messages, anyway, it looks like both girls went to meet up with their mysterious date the nights they went missing.”

“Can we track the IP, see where the messages came from?” You asked, already turning on the ignition yet again, ready to catch this guy once and for all.

“They came from the same location,” she confirmed.

“Tate’s apartment?” Carisi asked hopefully.

“No, a storage facility basically between both the current crime scenes,” she explained, “it’s not under Tate’s name but we called the owner, the man who rents the facitily matches the description, right down to the scar.” 

Another ping on your phones had Carisi showing you the address of the storage facility. “I assume that’s enough for warrants now?” You asked.

“You’ll have everything you need by the time you arrive,” you heard Voight confirm from somewhere else in the room, “I want you and Carisi at the storage facility, Burgess, Dawson and Ruzek will meet you there with Benson and Tamin, the rest of us will head to the apartment.”

“Let’s finish this,” Carisi told you after Voight hung up. You certainly didn’t need to be told twice.

#sonny carisi #svu #law and order svu #chicago pd #one chicago #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi imagine #svu imagine #law and order svu imagine #chicago pd imagine #one chicago imagine #sonny carisi imagines #svu imagines #law and order svu imagines #chicago pd imagines #i want us

[stages-of-mania]

Lord Huron Timeline Masterpost

Disclaimer: A lot of this information is speculation and consists of a lot of theories. Feel free to take things with a grain of salt.

Lonesome Dreams: 

Setting: 19th century Wild West (some theories suggested could be the Middle East in the mid-20th century) 

Characters:

Huron (main character)

Blaquefut (Huron’s best friend)

Helena (Huron’s girlfriend)

nameless Helena’s Ex (we're gonna call him Sonny for convenience)

Story: (I’m sure that most of the songs are in chronological order from the album but a few of them I believe are flashbacks so I had to move them around.)

She lit a fire/one of the best love songs ever written: The story goes earlier in the timeline technically, as it’s flashing back to how Huron met Helena. This is how the pair met. She lit his fire to travel the world or something.

Ends of the earth: early on in Huron and Helena‘s relationship. He wants to travel the world but she doesn’t so they’re kinda like “let’s split up for a bit”

Setting sun/the most mindfucking song (yes this bonus track is played at the end of the song, but hear me out ): Sonny has noticed that Helena has found someone else. They both know that Huron is better for her, but Sonny’s still pissed so he goes full yandere and chases after Huron. This story was put at the end and made “unfinished” because Sonny will always have a vendetta while Huron’s alive.

Time to run: Huron and friends are being chased by Sonny’s goons. Blaqufut gets shot in the head while helping Huron escape.

lonesome dreams: now this is a bit of a stretch, but from this theory, LD is basically purgatory and Huron travels to it to rescue Blaqufut from death.

Ghost on the shore/best song: nothing too significant to the story, it’s just Huron talking about how he misses home/the Great Lakes

I will be back one day: again, nothing much, just Huron reminiscing over Helena in pursuit to find her.

Man who lives forever: again nothing too significant, just Huron not wanting to die.

Brother: this is possibly the aftermath of an altercation between Huron and Blaqufut that they resolve. It pretty much just reaffirms their friendship.

In the wind: this one actually occurs while Huron is still on the run but from Helena’s perspective. It’s basically her reminiscing over him. I think they put this one at the end because it’s spiritually the end of the album, as it discusses how long distances and death can stop love.

Lullaby: Huron finally makes it back to Helena. He’s a complete wreck but Helena’s just happy he’s back

Sidenotes: Lonesome dreams are a collection of stories from Jorge Ranger Johnson, a writer character that Ben made up. Because of this, some of lonesome dreams might not actually be real within the universe of Lord Huron. Or they might be real events and just happened to be written about by an author. 

Alternate theories suggest that Setting sun was actually about Huron the entire time and it did take place at the end of the album, causing Helena to find someone else and Huron to becoming a murderer. 

One last important thing, because these are stories and might not actually occur within the universe of Lord Huron, it is possible that there is no afterlife, as suggested in later albums.

Strange Trails: 

Setting:

1950s, somewhere in America.

George’s: A bar that several characters tend to spend time at (probably in reference to George Ranger Johnson)

Characters:

Frankie Lou: washed up singer who presumably had a failed romance that fucked up bad. Probably an alcoholic. Sings at George’s

Cobb Avery: zombie brought back to life out of vengeance. His family was killed because his boss gave him a piece of land on a sinkhole. leader of the “World Enders” gang. Basically a bunch of terrorists. Kills everyone from the company that sold him the house. Hangs out at George’s

Jonnie: member of the world Enders. Kind of trigger-happy in a thrill seeker. Probably one of the less malicious members of the group. Probably 19.

Buck Vernon: I also think another washed-up singer. What’s important though is that he suffers from hallucinations and is desperately trying to find the girl of his dreams.

Lily: some girl that every guy in town has the hots for. Hangs out at George’s

Jim: Lily's boyfriend. Hangs out at George’s.

Danielle: Young girl. The only child character, I’d say 11-14. Best character. You’re never too young to have an existential crisis.

Justine: not really important, presumably a writer.

Louisa: some random girl (Assuming that this theory is true, she might also be a witch and might’ve started out as an asshole, might also hang out at George’s)

There’s also some other guy but he was part of one song and it wasn’t significant so disregard him.

Story:

Love like ghosts: this is Frankie reminiscing over her failed relationship

When the night ends: Jonnie talking about appreciating the finer things in life while everything’s going to shit

Dead man’s hand/also best song: buck finds Avery presumably dead while wandering the desert. He buries him only to find out that Avery is still alive. Avery says that there’s no afterlife for him and he doesn’t want to go back in the grave. The pair become friends and go their separate ways.

Hurricane: just Johnny talking about living life on the edge

La belle fleur sauvage/the beautiful wildflower: just the lead singer gushing over Lily. The guy singing this only shows up in this song, but it’s just meant to establish that everyone has the hots for Lilly. The song could also be talking about Buck in his pursuit.

Fool for love: Buck goes to George’s to win over Lily, but Jim is already with her. Being delusional, buck tries to take on Jim (in the music video he gets Avery to fight him), he trashed the place and because of this is kicked out. He’s pretty optimistic but after this, he feels kind of defeated. (*Post-Rejection Depression Time*)

World ender: focuses on Avery‘s story. Follows him as he seeks vengeance and kills the people from the company that sold him the shitty house.

Meet me in the Woods: more of Frankie reminiscing over her failed romance

Yawning grave: (OK so this is the first big roadblock in the story, so the character that this song is about is very much left up to interpretation) I assume Avery has kind of calmed down But still intends to pursue the people that have wronged him.

Frozen Pines: (disappointingly) The only song about Danielle. Her parents were abducted by aliens in front of her. She is sort of in denial and refuses to leave where she is in the middle of the forest out of the delusion that they’ll come back. The song ends with her realizing that she has to move on as she attempts to leave the forest. (also, frozen Pines is the name of the motel so it could also just be that maybe Danielle is stuck at a motel which would honestly be kind of funny.)

Cursed/best love song ever written: Buck has found himself a new girl. However, due to previous failed romantic endeavors and hallucinations, he thinks that she’s an asshole trying to put a curse on him. (The song is presumably about Louisa. It’s entirely possible that Louisa was being manipulative but they sort things out)

Way out there: (The most difficult song to figure out) presumably about Avery. I can only best describe it as him having an existential crisis and him missing his dead family.

Louisa: after Buck was tempted to kick bricks, Louisa helped him out and gave him a newfound appreciation for life. Now they’re happy =]

Night we met: last song of Frankie reminiscing over her ex. Also, the lyric video confirms that Buck & Louisa either broke up or she was just a figment of his imagination, so uh, ya. Hopefully you weren't as emotionally invested in these characters as much as I was because that tore me a new one.

Sidenotes: this album definitely had the most interpretations. The biggest issues are the stories of yawning grave and way out there, as I am unsure that it is even about Avery. The real issue tho is the lack of songs about Danielle. Ben Come On!

There are also a couple connections between this album and the next

Vide Noir: 

Setting: 1960s. Detroit & Los Angeles. 

Background info: A drug called vide noir has recently been legalized. It’s basically just a hallucinogenic that destroys the fabric of reality, good times.

Characters:

Buck Vernon: Christ Ben just can’t seem to give this guy a break.

Lee Green: Buck’s new girl. Probably wants to be an actress or something.

Lady moonbeam: A medium/psychic. I think she’s black but it’s hard to tell because of the lighting.

Cobb Avery: Best Boy Electrician on “Products of the Universe” TV show. (only mentioned in 1 song)

Marsha Tanley & Dale Frander: “Products of the Universe” host; guy selling vide & its derivatives. (not in the songs)

Story:

Lost in time and space: Buck is upset because Lee left. He decides to chase after her nonetheless.

Never ever: Buck's spirits are lifted as he heads out to find Lee.

Ancient names: Buck goes to Lady Moonbeam For advice but she sees into the future and sees that Buck will become a drug addict. He’s in denial but she knows otherwise.

Wait by the river: just Buck talking about how you would do anything for Lee. Also reveals the potential of an altercation between the two of them, presumably the two of them having a fight before she left.

Secret of life: (OK this one’s a little hard, the singer is clearly Buck, but it’s hard to tell if he’s confronting either Lee or lady moonbeam) either way, whoever he is confronting has allegedly made a pact with Avery that will cause something bad to happen to Buck. Because of this, he downs a bottle of fukitol/vide noir.

Back from the edge: the MF dies but comes back (where have we seen that before)

Balancer's eye: Buck runs into God and is denied access to heaven. Either because he wasn’t supposed to die or maybe people who take drugs aren’t allowed in. Or God has really high standards and no one‘s allowed in (again, weird knowing that Blaqufut experienced purgatory and Avery said there’s no heaven at all)

When the night is over: realizing the effect of VN, Buck is becoming worried for Lee that she might overdose if he doesn’t find her soon enough

Moonbeam: Like with Louisa, Buck ran into a girl that saved him from a bad place. Hard to tell if it’s Lee (it likely isn’t because of later in the story)  or lady moonbeam.

Vide Noir: Buck talking about the effects of the drug.

Emerald star/The most depressing song ever written: after doing everything he can and fucking dying, Buck finally finds Lee but he is turned down as she would rather be a junkie. It’s also possible that she might die or be dying, judging by the fact that the second half of this song is just instrumental followed by a sudden halt at the end. {Yay, I get to experience “close to you” all over again}

Sidenotes: George ranger Johnson is a spiritual advisor for the show that Avery works on.

The events of the film are claimed to come at the end/after the album.

--------------------------------

All information was aggregated from the albums, interviews with Ben, music videos, articles about the film, Products of the Universe, & whatever else I could scavenge from LH’s YouTube channel.

I’d also like to give a huge thanks to the fanbase for their theories and research. It really helped out a lot piecing this all together. I had a lot of fun discussing this with fellow Wanderers and Enders and really appreciate being a part of this fanbase.

If you have any alternative theories, timelines, etc, be sure to mention them. A huge chunk of this info will probably become obsolete when the film/next album comes along so enjoy this while we can still be optimistic.

Dear Balancer help us.

#lord huron #lonesome dreams #strange trails #vide noir #cobb avery #buck vernon #ben schneider

[ma-gic-gay]

Leaving a former assassin turned mob boss alone with his thoughts and anger about his... Whatever him and Carly are, since that seems to change every ten minutes going through what she went through, is a stupid idea. Especially for two hours.

It's either that or confront the fact they've kissed and had sex in the same 24 hours.

Not exactly the most friendly things to do.

This is exactly what he's not supposed to be thinking about, yet it's what he's thinking about while he's sitting in a chair at the hospital.

Turns out that when he's not doing illegal things, he can actually have time to think and not freak out about the cops finding out what happened. Time to think about them and how he doubts they'll ever go back to normal. A one night stand is one thing, a kiss after you get kidnapped and raped is a completely other thing.

Go figure, the one person who he could willingly discuss this with is the same person who he can't right now.

Maybe talking about this with Sam would work?

Nope, scratch that. Even though she's moved on from their relationship, they're not that close of friends and really only hang out for their kids sake.

If this was a year ago, he'd say he should go to Sonny, since he can't go to Carly about it. But then again, if it was a year ago or if Sonny hadn't vanished, been presumed dead long enough for even Carly to believe it (which meant he, by extension, believed it finally as well), last night never would've happened. Not in a million-

Alright maybe it would've happened but he doubts it. After all, a year ago, he was with Sam and Carly was with Sonny.

Does this count as a betrayal, sleeping with her? Not like conceiving a child on his biological brother's grave with the woman who's the reason he's dead. Or knowing that your best friend is in love with someone but sleeping with her anyways out of horniness.

Maybe he's still a little bit mad about those things.

Or a lot bit mad.

Thinking of all the times Sonny's betrayed him is definitely not helping the fact that anger is just about the only emotion he's feeling right now. Notably, that comes with the exception of confused and that one's only because he's seriously confused about what the hell him and Carly are right now.

Just thinking about what she must be going through right now... It makes him so furious he could take someone out for even mentioning the word. Or something negative even in the slightest bit about her.

That last part might be a telltale sign he needs to do an evaluation of his feelings for her but after this. Probably should right now, but he doesn't want to.

Even the mention of what happened to her, which is spreading through the hospital like wildfire (whoever spread that information first is on his shit list and that is not a good place to be), makes his blood boil.

Cyrus did that to her, he decided to treat her like an object. Like she's some disposable thing, that after he had his fun with her she'll be killed to hurt his business competitor. And the fact that he'd managed to scare her, that he'd managed to do something so difficult he thought it would never happen again unless something happened to one of her kids or him. That part makes him want his head on a stick outside his front door.

And the only reason he did it is to hurt Jason, to make him feel hopeless and in despair and angry and hurt. The only reason she went through that is because of him. That's the worst part, for him, that he's responsible for her going through that, that it's his fault. Even though he knows that's not how it went down, that he's not responsible for Cyrus's actions or her kidnapping and rape, that's sure as hell what it feels like. It feels like everything's getting blurry, like the lines he had drawn in his life are bleeding into each other.

Keep her safe, that was always his number one rule. Even if it meant getting hurt himself (which it normally did), keeping her safe has always been his priority. It's why he tries, unsuccessfully, to shelter her from the mob.

When she needed him, really needed him, he couldn't do that for her. He wasn't there when she needed him the most, when she needed him to save her and get her out of that situation.

No matter how you frame it, what he's doing is beating himself up for something that he knows to be his fault. Maybe if he'd been there, sent someone else to deal with Florence and stayed at the house with her, he wouldn't be dealing with this right now. Maybe then, she wouldn't have been kidnapped and raped.

"Jason?" Britt asks him, noticing he's zoned out. "She's fine. Carly's not pregnant and we gave her a pill just in case to prevent against it. She doesn't have HIV or any other STD's, I ran a full test. As far as I can tell, her uterine health is great right now."

"Thanks, for the update," he thanks her, remembering where he is. "Can I, uh, can I go see her?"

"Yeah, the sedative wore off and she's been complaining and crying for a few minutes. She's in room 3115," she tells him, noting the relief and pain on his face. "You doing okay?"

"What matters right now is whether Carly's okay or not." Jason answers her quickly and his feet take him to the room she's in, somehow. He doesn't even know this hospital that well.

That's new.

"I woke up a few minutes ago and they told me they were looking for you, where were you?" Carly asks, aggravated.

"I was in the lobby," he tells her, wiping away her tears as they come. There's a look of relief on her face through everything, which doesn't surprise him in the slightest.

"Why didn't they let you in before the sedative wore off? I thought I'd been taken again, I was yelling for you," the blonde complains.

"Apparently I'm a hard guy to find."

"You have seven black shirts, seven pairs of blue jeans which you haven't replaced since the 90s, and a leather jacket. That's pretty much all you ever wear. I can't remember the last time you wore a suit. Or a shirt with any color in it at all. How hard could it be to find you?"

"You're just saying that because you always know where I am. It's a sixth sense of yours."

"True. Maybe it's time to spice up your wardrobe with some colorful shirts. We could start with blue and then ease into colors like yellow or white eventually," she suggests cheerfully.

"Carly," he warns. "I like my clothes."

"I know you do, but you need more variety in your life, Jason," Carly argues.

"You keep life interesting enough, trust me," he assures her. "I'm sorry for what happened to you tonight, you know that, right? It's my fault, if I'd gotten there sooner or I hadn't left you alone, this never would've happened."

"No, it's not. Cyrus would've gotten me another way, or he might've gone and snatched one of your kids. Danny, Scout, Jake, they don't deserve that. Neither did I, but if that happened to one of your kids? You wouldn't be able to live with yourself and he could've killed them easier. At least with me, I'm alive. Severely traumatized, but alive," Carly says, hugging him gently as to not hurt herself.

"Yeah but if I'd been there to protect you-"

"Then he would've gotten to you another way or waited until you went to sleep or went back to your dull apartment where the only piece of decor is a moss bowl. I'm a target, alright? We've known this for years, and what happened to me is not your fault. It's as much my fault as it is yours. No one deserves what he did to me, not even that dirt bag himself, and you cannot blame yourself."

"He did this to you as a way to hurt me!"

"And if Sonny were still around it would've been as a way to hurt Sonny. He hates me, alright? Cyrus hates me so much he wanted to hurt me, just as bad as he wanted to hurt you. It's not your fault that he's a monster." She attempts to help him see that it's not his fault, but he doesn't.

"The only reason you know about this business is me. Practically every bad thing you've gone through, Carly, is because of me by extension," he tells her, feeling a tear slip out of his eyes.

"You didn't force me to be a part of the business, Jason. Hell, it was your worst nightmare. I made that choice for myself, to marry Sonny and, when he died, helping you run his territory. I knew the risks and I did it for me, for you, for my family."

"For me?" Jason asks, confused. "How do I factor in?"

"How do you factor in? You're my family and you needed help. Of course I was going to help you! Even when you tried to talk me out of it," the blonde continues, smiling widely.

"That help could've come with Max or Milo or someone else."

"And there's a reason it came in the shape of me. You trust me more than them, even with this business," she smiles.

To be continued when school ends because FUCK IT'S BACK NO

@ryleighjosephine

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Christmas - New Year’s Edition – WONDER WOMAN 1984, NEWS OF THE WORLD, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI..., PIECES OF A WOMAN, HERSELF, SYLVIE’S LOVE and More!

Welcome to the VERY LAST Weekend Warrior of the WORST YEAR EVER!!! But hopefully not the last column forever, even though I already plan on taking much of January off from writing 8 to 10 reviews each week. It just got to be too much for a while there.

Because it’s the last week of the year, there are a lot of really good movies, some in theaters but also quite a few on streaming services. In fact, there are a good number of movies that appeared in my Top 10 for the yearover at Below the Line, as well as my extended Top 25 that I’ll share on this blog sometime next week. I was half-hoping to maybe write something about the box office prospects of some of the new movies, but after the last couple weeks, it’s obvious that box office is not something that will be something worth writing about until sometime next spring or summer.

(This column is brought to you by Paul McCartney’s new album “McCartney III” which I’m listening to as I finish this up… and then other solo Beatles ditties picked for me randomly by Tidal.)

First up is easily one of the most anticipated movies of the year, or at least one that actually didn’t move to 2021, and that’s WONDER WOMAN 1984 (Warner Bros.), Patty Jenkins’ sequel to the 2017 hit, once again starring Gal Gadot as Diana Prince. I reviewed it here, but basically the sequel introduces Wonder Woman arch-nemeses Barbara Minerva aka Cheetah, as played by Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal’s Max Lord and how an ancient artifact gives them both their powers, as well as helps to bring Diana’s true love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) back despite him having disappeared presumed dead in WWI. As you can see by reading my review, I thought it was just fine, not great and certainly not something I’d make an attempt to see a second time in a 25% capacity movie theater. Fortunately, besides debuting in around 2,100 movie theaters across the nation, it will also be on HBO Max day and date, which has caused quite a stir. Being Christmas weekend with no work/school on Monday, I can see it still making somewhere between $10 and 12 million, but I can’t imagine it doing nearly what it might have done with most theaters only 25-30% full at the maximum and that theater count being roughly half the number it might have gotten during the “normal times.”

Paul Greengrass’ Western NEWS OF THE WORLD (Universal) reteams him with his Captain Phillips star Tom Hanks, this time playing Captain Jefferson Kidd, a Civil War soldier who travels from town to town in the Old West reading from newspapers to anyone who has a dime and time to listen. After one such reading, he discovers a young girl (Helena Zengel) on her own, having spent the last few years with a family of Native Americans who were killed by soldiers. Together, they travel across America as Kidd hopes to bring the girl to her last surviving family members.

I already reviewed Greengrass’ movie for Below the Line, and I also  spoke to Mr. Greengrass, an interview you can read that right here (once it goes live), but I make no bones that this was one of my favorite movies I’ve seen this year, and it’s not just due to the fine work by Greengrass and his team. No, it’s just as much about the emotion inherent in the story, and the relationship between the characters played by Hanks and Zengel.  

I’ve watched the movie three times now, and I’m still blown away by every frame and moment, the tension that’s created on this difficult journey but also where it leaves the viewers at the end that promises that there can be hope and joy even in the most difficult and turbulent times. It’s a wonderful message that’s truly needed right now.

Listen, I’m not gonna recommend going to a movie theater if you don’t feel it’s safe – I’ve already spoken my peace on this at a time when COVID numbers were much lower – but this is a movie that I personally can’t wait to see in a movie theater. I honestly can’t see the movie making more than $3 or 4 million in the open theaters considering how few people are willing to go to movie theaters. Obviously, this isn’t as big a draw as Wonder Woman, but it is a fantastic big screen movie regardless.

Also opening in theaters this Friday is Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (Focus Features), starring the wonderful Oscar-nominated Carey Mulligan as Cassie Thomas, a woman who has revenge on her mind. Cassie spends her nights picking up guys in bars by pretending she’s so drunk she can barely walk, then humiliating them and presumably worse. When she encounters an acquaintance from med school in the form of Bo Burnham’s Ryan, the two begin dating, though he ends up awakening a darker side to Cassie that seeks revenge for something that happened back during their school days. (Honestly, if you’re already sold, just skip to the next movie. That’s all I want you to know before watching it.)

I was ready to love Fennell’s movie when it opened with a disgusting shot of gross stock market bros in loose-fitting suits gyrating in slow motion before one of them tries to pick up a totally soused Cassie at the club. It’s a scene that really plays itself out quite well, and then leads into Mulligan’s character allowing another clear scumbag (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, maybe as a slight-older McLovin?) before turning the tables on him as well.

There’s going to be a lot of talk about this movie after people see it, since it’s one of those great films that begins a lot of conversations. I imagine most women of a certain age will love it, but some men might see themselves in some of the characters (even Burnham’s) and wonder whether Cassie just won’t take crap from any man or if she’s a full-on misandrist. One thing we do know a lot is that she does this sort of thing a lot, and there’s something from her past that has driven her involving something that happened to her female friend in med school. I’m going to stop talking about the plot here, because I definitely don’t want to spoil anything who hasn’t seen the movie, but the second half of the movie is as deeply satisfying as Tarantino’s Kill Bill in terms of the surprises.

You’ll realize while watching what a treat you’re in for when you first watch Mulligan’s amazing transformation from pretending to be drunk to being completely cognizant and just all the emotions we see her go through after that. Of course, we never really know what she’s actually doing to the guys she lets pick her up -- she keeps a notebook with guy’s names and a quizzical counting system, so we can only imagine.

Fennell’s screenplay is fantastic but her work as a first-time director in maintaining the the tone and pacing of the movie is really what will keep you captivated, whether it’s the amazing musical choices or how Cassie dresses up to lure men. There’s also a great cast around Mulligan whether it’s comic Burnham in a relatively more serious role, but one that also allows him a musical number. (No joke.) Fennel’s amazing casting doesn’t just stop there from, Jennifer Coolidge as Cassie’s mother to Laverne Cox as Gail, her workmate/boss at the coffee shop – both of them add to the film’s subtle humor elements. Alfred Molina shows up to give a show-stopping performance, and Alison Brie also plays a more dramatic role as another one of Cassie’s classmates. I can totally understand why the Golden Globes might have deemed the movie a “comedy/musical” (for about two days before going back) , but putting so many funny people in dramatic roles helps give Promising Young Woman its own darkly humorous feel. All that darkness is contrasted by this sweet romance between Cassie and Ryan that’s always in danger of imploding due to Cassie’s troubled nature.

The biggest shocking surprise is saved for the third act, and boy, it’s going to be one that people will be talking about for a VERY long time, because it’s just one gut punch after another. I loved this movie, as it’s just absolutely brilliant – go back and see where it landed in my Top 10. As one of the best thrillers from the past decade, people will be talking about this for a very long time 

Promising Young Woman hits theaters on Christmas Day, and presumably, it will be available on VOD sometime in January, but this is not one you want to wait on. If you do go see it in theaters, just be safe, please. No making out with random men or women, please.

Regina King’s narrative feature debut, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI... (Amazon Studios), will ALSO be in theaters on Christmas Day, and though I’ve reviewed it over at Below the Line, but I’ll talk a little more about it here just for my loyal Weekend Warrior readers.

Yet another movie that made my Top 10, this one stars a brilliant quartet of actors --  Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jr., Aldis Hodge and Eli Goree—as four legendary black icons: Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay, on the night after the last of them wins the World Boxing Championship against Sonny Liston in February 1964. The four men meet in Malcolm X’s hotel room to discuss what’s happening in their lives and the world in general, as well as Clay’s decision to join the Nation of Islam, just as Malcolm X is getting ready to leave the brotherhood due to philosophical differences with the group. In fact, all four men have philosophical differences that are discussed both in good humor and in deep conflict as they disagree on their place in a white-dominated world in a year before the Civil Rights Act would be signed.

First of all, there’s no way to talk about this movie without discussing the Kemp Powers play on which it’s based, and we can’t mention that without mentioning that Powers also co-wrote and co-directed Pixar’s Soul, which will be available on Disney+ this Friday. It’s a fantastic script and King put together a fantastic cast of actors who really give their all to every scene. In the case of Leslie Odom, Jr., you really can believe him as Cooke, especially in a number of fantastic performances pieces. Likewise, Goree looks a lot like Clay both in the ring and out, carrying all of the swagger for which he would become more famous as Ali.

I’ve seen the movie twice already and if you’ve looked at my Top 10, then you already know this is another one that made my cut, so I don’t think I need to give it a much harder sell. I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot about this one on its journey to Oscar night when hopefully, King becomes the first woman of color to be nominated in the directing category. Or rather, she’ll probably tie for that honor with Nomadland director Chloé Zhao.

If you don’t feel like going to theaters for this one, you’ll be able to catch it on Amazon Prime Video on January 15, too… you’ll just have to wait a little longer.

Also, the new Pixar animation movie, SOUL, directed by Pete Docter (Up, Inside Out) and co-directed by Kemp Powers (remember him?), will hit Disney+ on Christmas Day, and I reviewed it here, so I probably don’t have  lot more to say about it, but it’s great, and if you have Disney+, I’m sure you’ll be watching it.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a screener for Matteo Garrone’s PINNOCHIO (Roadside Attractions), which also opens in about 700 theaters on Christmas Day. This adaptation stars Robert Benigni as Geppeto, who famously starred as Pinocchio in his own version of the classic fairy tale from 2002. That other movie was “Weinsteined” at a time when that just meant that a movie was ruined by Harvey Weinstein’s meddling, rather than anything involving sexual assault.

Another great movie hitting streaming this week is Eugene Ashe’s SYLVIE’S LOVE, which streams on Amazon Prime Video today. It stars Tessa Thompson as Sylvie and Nnamdi Asomugha (also a producer on the film) as Robert, who meet one summer in the late 50s while working at Sylvie’s father’s record store. He is a jazz musician who is on the rise, but their romance is cut short when he gets a gig in Paris but she refuses to go with him. Also, she’s pregnant with his child. Years later, they reconnect with her now being married with a young daughter (clearly Robert’s) and they realize that the love between them is still very real and true.

This is the first of three movies I watched this week where I went in with very little knowledge and absolute zero expectations. Like everyone else on earth, I am an avid fan of Ms. Thompson’s work both in movies like Thor: Ragnarok and smaller indies. She’s just a fantastic presence that lights up a screen. While I wasn’t as familiar with Asomugha’s acting work – he’s produced some great films and acted in a few I liked, included Crown Heights – there’s no denying the chemistry between the two.

What’s kind of interesting about the movie is that it combines a few elements from other great movies released this week, including Soul and A Night in Miami, but in my opinion, handles the music business aspect to the story better than the much-lauded Netflix movie, Ma Raimey’s Black Bottom. Frankly, I also think the performances by the two leads are as good as those by Boseman and Davis in that movie, but unfortunately, Amazon is submitting this to the Emmys as as “TV movie” rather than to the Oscars, so that’s kind of a shame.

This is a movie that’s a little hard to discuss why I enjoyed it so much without talking about certain scenes or moments, or just go through the entire story, but I think part of the joy of appreciating what Ashe has done in his second original feature film is to tell the story of these two characters over the course of a decade or so in a way that hasn’t been done before. That alone is quite an achievement, because we’ve seen many of those types of movies over the years (When Harry Met Sally, for instance).

What I really liked about Sylvie’s Love over some of the other “black movies” this year is that it literally creates its own world and just deals with the characters within it, rather than trying to make a big statement about the world at the time. Maybe you can say the same about Soul in that sense, but you would be absolutely amazed by how much bigger an audience you can get by telling a grounded story in a relatable world, and then throw in a bit of music, as both those movies do.

So that’s all I’ll say except that this will is now on Amazon Prime Video , so you have no excuse not to check it out while you wait for Regina King’s equally great One Night in Miami to join it in mid-January.

Hitting Netflix on Christmas day is Robert Rodriguez’s WE CAN BE HEROES, his sequel to his 2005 family film The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl – not his best moment -- which follows the kids of the Heroics, a Justice League-like super group. They’re all in a special school for kids with powers but they have to step up when the Heroics are captured by aliens. Want to know what will happen? Well, you’ll just have to wait for Christmas Day for when my review drops to find out whether I liked it more or less than Rodriguez’s earlier film which SPOILER!! I hated.)

The first thing you need to get past is that Shark Boy and Lava Girl are now man and wife, and just that fact might be tough for anyone who only discovered the movie sometime more recently. There are other familiar faces in the Heroics like Pedro Pascal, Sung Kang, Christian Slater, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and more, so clearly, Rodriguez is still able to pull together a cast.

The movie actually focuses on YaYa Goselin’s Missy Moreno, daughter of the Heroic’s leader (Pascal) who has also retired. Just as aliens are invading the earth, Missy is put into a school of kids with superpowers, all kids of various Heroic members. Sure, it’s derived directly from The X-Men and/or Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, so yeah… basically also the X-Men. We meet all of the kids in a great scene where we see them using their powers and learn their personalities, and honestly, they really are the best part of the movie.Probably the most adorable is Guppy, the very young daughter of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, played by Viven Blair. Oddly, Missy doesn’t have any powers so she feels a bit fish-out-of-water in the group even though, like her father, she proves to be a good leader.

As much as I really detested Rodriguez’s Shark Boy and Lava Girl movie, I feel like he does a lot better by having a variety of kids in this one, basically something for everyone, but also not a bad group of child actors. (There’s also a fun role for Adriana Barraza​.) There are definitely aspects that are silly, but Rodriguez never loses sight of his audience, and wisely, Netflix is offering this as a Christmas Day release which should be fun for families with younger kids who might see this as their first superhero movie.

More discerning viewers may not be particularly crazy about visual FX, all done as usual in Rodriguez’s own studio but some of them look particularly hoaky and cheap compared to others. (I mean, that’s probably the appeal for hiring Rodriguez because he’s able to do so much in-house. In this case, he got all four of his own kids involved in various capacities of making the film.)

We Can Be Heroes is clearly a movie made for kids, so anyone expecting anything on part with Amazon’s The Boys will be quite disappointed. It’s probably Rodriguez getting slightly closer to Spy Kids than he has with any of his other family-friendly movies, but one shouldn’t go in with the expectations that come with any of the much bigger blockbusters released these days. Personally, I enjoyed that fact, and I totally would watch another movie with this superteam.

Michel Stasko’s BOYS VS. GIRLS (Gravitas Ventures) is a fun retro-comedy that follows a war between the male and female counselors at Camp Kindlewood, which has just gone co-ed. At the center of it all is Dale (Eric Osborne) and Amber (Rachel Dagenais) as two teens who are in the middle of a meet-cute romance in the middle of a inter-gender competition called “Lumberman vs. Voyagers,” which I have no idea whether it’s a real thing or not.

I probably should have known I’d like this one from the catchy New Order-ish song in the opening credits, but listen, Wet Hot American Summer is one of my all-time favorite movies, and that was basically made to satirize ‘80s movies like Meatballs. This one falls more towards to the latter in terms of humor, but it also feels authentic to the ‘80s summer camp experience.

It helps that the grown-ups at the camp are played by the likes of Kevin McDonald from New Kids on the Block, Colin Mochrie from Whose Line is It Anyway and others, but it’s really about the younger cast playing teen boys and girls in the throes of puberty, something we all can in some way relate to. The young cast play a series of stereotypical young but there are a lot of funny tropes within them, as each of the cast is given a chance to deliver some of the funnier gags. This isn’t necessarily high-brow humor, mind you, but I love the fact that you can still make a movie about a time where you could still make fun of girl’s periods in school. (I’m kidding. I just put that in there cause I feel like I need to throw things like that into this column just to see if anyone is ACTUALLY reading it.)

The presumably Canadian Stasko is another great example of an independently-spirited filmmaker who has an idea for a fun movie and then just goes about making it, regardless of having big stars or anything to sell it besides many funny moments that can be featured a trailer, so that those who like this kind of movie will find it. Listen, Wet Hot American Summer wasn’t a huge hit when it was released. I still remember it having trouble getting a single screening at the multiplex in Times Square when it was released but over the years since it became sort of a cult hit (kind of due to Netflix having it to rent on DVD, I think).

Besides a fun script and cast, Stasko also find a way to include tunes that sound so much like real ‘80s songs we would have heard on the radio but aren’t quite the big hits that would have cost him thousands of dollars, but I really just enjoyed the heck out of the tone and overall fun attitude that went into making this movie.

Also on VOD now is Ian Cheney and Martha Shane’s fascinating and funny doc, THE EMOJI STORY (Utopia), which I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival when it was called “Picture Character.” (That’s what “emoji” in Japanese means, just FYI.) As you can guess it’s about the origins and rise of the emoji as a form of communication from its humble beginning in Japan to becoming one of the biggest trending crazes on the globe. I’m not that big an Emoji guy myself – I tend to use the thumbs up just for ease, but I do marvel at those who can put together full thoughts using a string of these symbols, and if you want to know more about them, this is the movie you should watch.

Now let’s cut ahead to some of the movies that will be opening and streaming NEXT week…

Hitting select theaters on Wednesday, December 30 and what really is my “FEATURED FLICK” for this column is Hungarian filmmaker Kornél (White God) Mundruczó’s PIECES OF A WOMAN (Netflix) before its streaming premiere on Netflix January 7.

Written by Kata Wéber, who also wrote Mundruczó’s earlier film, it stars Vanessa Kirby (The Crown) and Shia Labeouf as Martha and Sean Weiss, a Boston couple who lose their baby during a particularly difficult home birth and follows the next year in their lives and how that tragic loss affects their relationship with each other and those around them.

As you can imagine, Pieces of a Woman is a pretty heavy drama, one that reminded me of the films of Todd Field (Little Children, In the Bedroom) in terms of the intensity of the drama and the emotions on screen from the brilliant cast Mundruczó put together for his English language debut. I’m not sure I could use the general plot to sell anyone on seeing this because it is very likely the worst possible date movie of the year after Netflix’s 2019 release, Marriage Story, but it’s just as good in terms of the writing and performances.

At the center of it is Kirby – and yeah, I still haven’t watched The Crown, so shut up! I’ll get to it!!! – who most of us fell in love with for her role in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, but what we see her go through as an actress here really shows the degree of her abilities. But it also shows what Mundruczó can do with material that (like many movies) started out as a play. For instance, one of the first big jaw-dropping moments is the home birth scene that goes on for a long time, seemingly all in one shot, and Kirby is so believable in terms of a woman going through a difficult birth, you’d believe she has had children herself. (She hasn’t.)  I also don’t want to throw Shia Labeouf under the bus right now just because that seems like the trendy thing to do. (Without getting it, I believe FKA Twigs… but that doesn’t deny the fact that Labeouf is just the latest great actor that everyone wants to cancel.)

Anyway, to change the subject, we have to talk about Ellen Burstyn, who plays Martha’s meddling mother, who is quite clingy and overbearing, so when the couple lose their baby, she steps in to take to task the midwife she deems responsible (played by the highly-underrated Molly Parker). Or rather, she hires a family lawyer (Sarah Snook) to take her to court to get compensation for the loss of her daughter’s baby. The film’s last act culminates as their case goes to court.

Again, the film covers roughly a year after the tragedy and deals not only with how Martha and Sean’s relationship is affected and how it emotionally affects Martha in particular, but also how others around them start behaving towards them. It feels so authentic and real that you wonder where the screenwriter was drawing from, but Mundruczó has more than prove himself as as filmmaker by creating something that is visually compelling and even artsy while still doing everything to help promote the story and performances over his own abilities as a director. Doesn’t hurt that he has composer Howard Shore scoring the film in a way that’s subtle but effective.

Listen, if you’re looking for a comedy riot that will entertain you with funny one-liners and pratfalls than Pieces of a Woman is not for you. This is a devastating movie that really throws the viewer down a deep spiral along with its characters. The first time I watched it, I was left quite broken, and maybe even more so on second viewing.  (As we get closer to Oscar season… in four months … I hope this film will be recognized and not just thrown under the table due to Labeouf’s involvement. That would be as big a tragedy and misjustice as much of what happens in the movie.)

So yeah, in case you wondered why this also made it into my prestigious Top 10 for the year, that is why. :)

Also in theaters on Wednesday, December 30 is another terrific drama, the Phyllida Lloyd-directed HERSELF (Amazon Studios), co-written and starring Clare Dunne, as Sandra, a mother of two young girls, trying to get out of an abusive marriage, while making ends meet and providing shelter for her kids. One day, she learns about a way that she can build her own home, and one of the women she cares for offers a plot of land

Another movie that I really didn’t know much about going into, other than Phyllida Lloyd being a talented filmmaker whose movie The Iron Maiden, which won Meryl Streep her 500th Oscar, I enjoyed much more than the popular blockbuster hit musical, Mamma Mia! This is a far more personal story that reminded me of Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, a smaller and more intimate character piece that shines a light on British actor Clare Dunne, who as with some of the best and most personal movie projects, co-wrote this screenplay for herself to act in.

There are aspects to the film that reminds me of many other quaint Britcoms in terms of creating a story where one person’s challenge is taken up by others who are willing to help, and in this case, it’s Sandra’s desire to build a house for her two quite adorable daughters while also trying to keep it secret from her abusive ex.

Dunne’s performance isn’t as showy as some of the other dramatic performances mentioned in this very column, but she and Lloyd do a fine job creating an authenticity that really makes you believe and push for her character, Sandra, surrounding her with characters who can help keep the movie on the lighter side despite very serious nature of spousal abuse (which also rears its ugly head in Pieces of a Woman). Oh, and don’t get too comfortable, because this, too, leads to an absolutely shocking and devastating climax you won’t see coming. (Well, now you will… but you’ll still be shocked. Trust me.)

Still, it’s a really nice movie with the house being built clearly a metaphor.  I know there’s a lot of truly fantastic movies discussed in this week’s column but don’t let this wonderful British drama pass you by, because you can tell it’s a labor of love for everyone who made it.

Herself will be in theaters for roughly a week starting December 30 before streaming on Prime Video on January 8.

In select theaters and on VOD on New Year’s Day is Roseanne Liang’s WWII thriller SHADOW IN THE CLOUD (Vertical/Redbox Entertainment), starring Chloë Grace Moretz as Flight Officer Maude Garrett, who is assigned to deliver a top-secret package on the B-17 bomber “The Fool’s Errand” with an all-male crew that throws her into a turret “for her own safety.” She ends up getting trapped down there as the plane is attacked by a creature that no one believes is out there, as they fight back against the unseen enemy, many secrets are revealed.

This is yet another movie I didn’t know that much about other than it has Moretz on an airplane, but there’s so much about the movie that both had me scratching my head but also has me quite deliriously amused that filmmakers could get away with some of the craziness that we witness. Maybe it’s not a surprise that the movie was co-written by Max Landis -- not exactly the most beloved screenwriter in Hollywood these days, and certainly not a critical favorite.

Again I really didn’t know what to expect so after Moretz’s character gets on the plane and is trapped in the turret under the plane, I thought that maybe I was seeing something similar to the one-location thriller 7500, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which I wasn’t too big a fan of even though the actor was good. Moretz continues to be quite a phenomenal actor, but the mix of Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper’s music, which borrows as much from Soulwax (look ‘em up on Spotify) as John Carpenter, and the sexist attitude by the male crew towards Garrett made me unsure of what the movie was meant to say.

Much of the movie just has Moretz on her own with the men’s voices over the comms, which is not something that could possibly sustain a whole movie. Part of it is borrowed from a very well-known episode of “The Twilight Zone,” in fact.

but fortunately, it breaks from out of that deceit but then just starts getting crazier and crazier. I’m not even gonna tell you about what happens or what’s in the box Garrett is carrying or where things go, because honestly, I don’t think you would believe me.

I haven’t seen any of Ms. Liang’s previous films but when you realize how much crazy stuff she’s able to get way with, I’ll be really interested what she does next. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any movie that’s quite as crazy as Shadow in the Cloud or one that makes me want to watch it again for that very reason.

Oscar-winning Icarus director Bryan Fogel’s doc THE DISSIDENT (Briarcliff), which opens in theaters Friday then will be On Demand January 8, follows the horrific assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in September 2018, thought to be the work of the Saudi kingdom and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aka MBS.

I’m really fascinated by movies like this one and Ryan White’s recent Assassins – both which could be in the Best Documentary race at the Oscars in April, by the detective and investigative work done by both filmmakers to get to the bottom of murders that shouldn’t be possible and find those that are responsible. I’ll admit that I didn’t really pay much attention to this story when it was happening a few years back, so I don’t know how much of the details are new and exclusive to Fogel’s doc. He does get access to Kashouggi’s fiancé Hatice who had gone with Jamal to the Saudi embassy in Turkey to get proof that he was single and could marry when he vanished for days and then turne up dead.

Fogel also meets with another Saudi dissident now living in Quebec who goes through the events that led up to Kashouggi’s murder that involved a social media campaign against the journalist within a country where 80% of the population is on Twitter (!).

This is another fascinating doc by Fogel that I’m sure some will be more interested in due to its subject, but when it comes to investigative pieces that really take a deep dive into news from the headlines, Fogel has created another unforgettable doc.  (Also, it was absolutely little surprise to me that Fogel’s film is co-written by Mark Monroe, who has been involved with some of the best docs I’ve seen over the past 15 years or so…  just look up his IMDB credits!)

Opening at the Film Forum Virtual Cinema in New York for a one-week qualifying run is Russia’s movie for Oscar consideration, Andrei Kochalovsky’s DEAR COMRADES! (NEON), a black and white dark dramedy set in 1960s Kruschchev-era Russia. It involves a strike by locomotive workers when the government raises food prices, leading to chaos and a massacre that leaves a Communist party loyalist,  Lyuda (played by Julia Vysotskaya) who the film then follows. Unfortunately, I had a choice of either writing this column or watching this two-hour movie. I opted for the former (obviously) but I do hope to get to this later in the week and should be adding more on this movie once I do.

Also streaming in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema starting next Wednesday, December 30, is Mario Monicelli’s 1960 film, The Passionate Thief.

Unfortunately, I also wasn’t able to get to Two Ways Home (Gravitas Ventures), In Corpore or Fire Will Come, which will open in Metrograph’s digital ticketing system.

Metrograph will also continue showing Tsia Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong, and lots of great programming over the holidays. It would be a great time to get yourself or a loved one a digital membership for just $50! (James Gray is also programming some of his own films like Little Odesssa and other favorites, like Richard Quine’s Strangers When We Meet, over the holidays.)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest! 

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #WonderWoman84 #OneNightInMiami #NewsOfTheWOrld #PromisingYoungWoman #PiecesOfAWoman #SylviesLove Herself TomHanks

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 27: AMJ #3.1

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*pinches bridge of nose* Oh my God this is so bad

I was hoping last issue was a fluke but no. This issue also demands we dissect the recap page.

Let me just spell out for you all some fundamental dos and don’ts of a recap page.

DO please recap  the events that happened in prior issues, or relevant context from any other issues.

DON’T introduce new information.                                                                    

Last issue was guilty of that. And now so is this issue, arguably moreso.

This recap provides us with the working title for the Mysterio biopic. That’s right, the very first time we learn the name of the movie  is on this recap page not in the actual story!

Want to hear another oh so slightly important DON’T to bear in mind?

DON’T contradict the story you are recapping!

The recap claims funding dried up when the footage of Beck abusing a crewmember leaked. That wasn’t the situation in issue #2. MJ speculated  that that might be part  of the reason. But the bigger reason was that Beck had sold the investors one one type of film and delivered another.

Let’s also consider this line from the recap.

…video of Cage acting more like, well, Mysterio…

So the recap (and by extension Williams, the editors and presumably MJ herself) acknowledge that Mysterio being abusive is standard practice for him. Good to know they are aware he’s a horrible dangerous person but are just ignoring that then.

The recap also confirms for us that MJ is definitely the only person who knows ‘McKnight’ is really Beck. So absolutely everyone on the crew are unwittingly putting themselves at risk, and MJ is just letting that happen. If they knew they might not want to work with him for one reason or another, but MJ and Beck are knowingly withholding that choice from them. It doesn’t matter that they are only getting this shot because of Beck’s charity, at least some of them would think twice if they were aware of the potential scandal they were working on.

The recap also contradicts last issue’s recap in regards to the staff of the movie. Last time it was staffed by ‘outsiders’ but now it’s ‘newcomers, rejects and outsiders’. Which is it? I’m not claiming this is irreconcilable or that big of a deal storywise but it’s another example of the incompetent craftsmanship on this title. Not to mention this recap again omits the fact that active villains are working on the film.

The recap also implies Mary Jane is ‘invested’ in the film. Let me get this out of the way now to save myself time later. Mary Jane wouldn’t be invested in this movie, at least not the way the story is depicting her as.

To a large extent this touches upon earlier instalments where I explained why MJ wouldn’t sympathise with Beck, why she wouldn’t regard him as a kindred spirit and why she wouldn’t value her career above the greater good. 

Having said all that I don’t feel it’s necessary to dedicate a whole instalment to why MJ wouldn’t  be invested in the movie. The idea that MJ would endanger herself and others for the sake of an artistic project  she believed in or was interested in is fucking ridiculous. 

The idea she’d be chummy with Mysterio is fucking ridiculous given their shared history and what she knows about him. But, just as a little reminder, here is Daredevil v2 #8, where MJ basically says Beck deserves no pity.

As we open up the story proper, Mallorie rescues a veteran actor (Sonny Diperna) cast as the Vulture. Specifically she rescues him from the Scorpion who trashes the set.

This scene has an admittedly funny meta-gag about Michael Keaton having played both Adrian Toomes in the MCU and Birdman in the eponymous movie.

Mallorie is also pretty cool here. Initially I was going to complain about how unlikely it is for there to be two  capable and resourceful civilians in this story (MJ and Mallorie). However, in thinking about it, MJ didn’t become  resourceful in the first place due to rare life circumstances. Therefore it’s perfectly reasonable that Mallorie be similarly resourceful in a crisis. Plus her job on set opens up the idea that she knows how to muddle through a crisis.

On the next two pages Vulture menaces the set and we are more formally introduced to his Savage Six. They consist of Vulture, Scorpion, Stegron, Tarantula (I don’t know which one), Rhino and King Cobra.

Whilst Williams characterization of Beck is generally great (albeit too sympathetic) the same can’t be said of Vulture. Making art or artistic vision a theme for this series (and Mysterio specifically) is perfectly invited by the premise of the story. However, it’s very ill fitting for a character like Vulture. Vulture is absolutely not  defined by that theme whatsoever. He’s an inventor. He’s a grumpy, bitter old man. He’s someone who’s got a chip on his shoulder, out to prove that he isn’t passed his prime.

With that said, what the Hell is up with this dwelling upon ‘art’ in these two pages?

Fleeing the chaos, Diperna mistakes the villains as part of the film; a fact Mallorie goes along with. As Kangaroo (who’s basically the muscle on set) gets defeated, MJ and Beck try to escape. MJ insists they get the staff to safety which Beck agrees with, deciding to act as a diversion. MJ is concerned for his life, but Beck assures her it’ll be fine. Just then he’s dragged away by Scorpion.

MJ seeks out Noah from last issue and drives his truck towards the Rhino. 

The art isn’t exactly clear on what she does next, but the end result is that she’s gathered up all the cast and crew into the truck. Meanwhile, Beck begins to engage the six by conjuring his trademark green smoke. 

Mallorie and Diperna make it to the truck, with MJ lowering the ramp to allow them access. She is visibly concerned for Beck as they move out of sight of one another. The cast and crew for their part are star struck by Diperna. Diperna explains that he came out of retirement to play the Vulture as it was something different from the roles he was usually typecasted as.  He elaborates that the movie has Hollywood on edge and that the elites do not want the film to succeed. He joined the cast to help them out a bit.

Elsewhere, Mysterio duels the Savage Six. He uses his illusions to trick them into believing they are in the desert. As they begin miles of marching, Vulture speculates McKnight is a double agent for A.I.M.  When the illusion ends they find themselves at a national park, prompting Vulture to swear vengeance.

Much later MJ laughs at Beck’s trick complimenting his cleverness. However, the event has prompted several cast and crew to leave and delayed shooting even more. Thankfully Beck’s found a safe new location to film at.

Sorry for that lengthy description. I just felt it was more efficient to get through that whole sequence and then break it down fully.

First of all, see all my prior comments about how bullshit it is for MJ to compliment, laugh at, be concerned for, or be sympathetic towards Beck. I also find Williams choice to frame him in a heroic, self-sacrificing light to be questionable. He is after all none of those things. Just the last issue the story called out the movie as a vanity project.

Additionally, this whole situation is exemplary of many of the points I made in parts 19-23. Here we have a major crisis with super villains on the rampage. Civilians and property are in jeopardy.

And Mary Jane’s abilities to help are limited. They are in fact incredibly reliant upon Mysterio covering her. Noticeably, he  is the one actually fighting the Savage Six. MJ’s abilities to help are limited to shepherding  and transporting people to safety. But she’s only able to do that with Mallorie’s help and the presence of a huge truck that was there purely by chance.

What If Beck wasn’t present, or worse, on the Six’s side? What if Mallorie hadn’t saved Diperna? What if there hadn’t been a truck? How would MJ have succeeded realistically? I’m not saying it’s impossible but her chances of survival were slim at best and would’ve been reliant upon finding other  resources to exploit to her advantage.

Furthermore, the Knagaroo was  injured in the fray. Maybe not seriously, but he was nevertheless injured and MJ was powerless to prevent that. He was lucky to have survived at all, now imagine if he was a normal security guard who had no experience fighting super powered type? How likely would he have been to live?

Now of course, the Six’s attack wasn’t exactly Mysterio’s fault. We could argue if Beck hadn’t endeavoured to make the film or omitted to include the Vulture the situation might’ve been avoided. However, this isn’t the first production in the Marvel universe to include ‘real’ super villains. Had the real Cage McKnight (or any director) made any movie featuring the Vulture at this time, it would’ve happened. In fact without MJ or Beck’s presence the cast and crew’s likely wouldn’t have fared as well.

Nevertheless, as far as MJ knows a similar situation could  have occurred (or could still unfold) with beck and/or his criminal crew. Last issue she already saw Beck start a panic in the streets by throwing a tantrum. She doesn’t know all the crew so well as to guarantee they wouldn’t do anything nefarious. And in such a situation, her abilities to help would be extremely limited and situational, just like they were here. In fact if Beck has just explained to her how he single handily dealt with six  super villains (who’re all stronger than him by the way) shouldn’t that spell out to MJ just how dangerous he is? That he could very easily ‘deal’ with her too if he wanted to and her chances of victory would be extremely slim?

Then we have the revelation that cast and crewmembers have left the project. The implication is that these crewmembers left because of the Six’s attack. Either they were hurt or more likely they were concerned about the risk. However, none  of them were aware that they were already taking a big health/career risk by working under Mysterio himself; whilst he was stealing someone’s identity no less. MJ’s complicity in this deception is removing the agency of the cast and crew for no justifiable reason.

More problematically we don’t know if any of the crew who left were the active villains spoken of in issue #1. If they were then MJ has just allowed them to walk away without facing justice! And realistically given how they are fugitives and the film was a unique opportunity they are very probably going to go back to crime! But Mary Jane is laughing!

Now in the interests of fairness I should point out Beck did put himself at some risk for MJ and the others. This is one of the important factors that has led Peter to giving criminals a chance at redemption in the past. We looked at several of these back in part 10. However, noticeably most of those people weren’t as  bad as Beck. They also hadn’t hurt Peter or his loved ones as personally the way Beck has from MJ’s point of view. There were also other extenuating factors going on that led to Peter giving them a shot. Often this entailed Peter knowing there was something or someone capable of reliably  keeping the reforming criminals in check. Whether that was his own super human abilities or an official body monitoring them, the point is MJ hasn’t got anything like that in this situation.

Beck might’ve shown a glimmer of promise, but MJ is fully aware how villains like Venom and Sandman have displayed moments of self-sacrifice too. They’ve continued to do bad things in spite of that, or gone back on any promise they once showed. That doesn’t mean that Beck definitely would, but it’s a humongous gamble to take with no insurance.

And let’s remember what Beck was willing to sacrifice himself for? His cast and crew? No. His art. Look back at the page introducing the Six. Beck accuses them of being ‘Enemies of Art’.

Yes, the most generous interpretation is that Beck genuinely cares. But it’s also more than possible his care fro his cast and crew extends merely to their contributions to his vanity project.

On the next page we discover Beck’s new, safe location is something of a shithole. 

Beck’s hired a new crew, but with everything that’s happened cuts will need to be made. MJ suggests they cut the romance scene with her character. Beck points out that it’s less screen time for MJ. MJ counters it doesn’t take away from the hero’s development and that it was always self-indulgent anyway. She follows up that they are making a biopic, not a fantasy film. Beck seems miffed at this point.

There is a fair bit to unpack here.

MJ is being self-sacrificing here, which is true to her character. She’s allowing her career opportunities to suffer in order for the project over all to succeed. This further hurts the argument that MJ is sticking around for the sake of her career.

But the context is confusing.

In ASM v5 #29 dialogue from the script was ripped straight from Webspinners #1-3.

This dialogue involved Beck talking to an old flame (Betsy Schneider), arguably the only woman he was ever in love with. She was noticeably not  a super heroine, yet in the movie she was. I didn’t bother to bring that up before because, this being a vanity project, it’s not unbelievable that Beck would misrepresent his life inaccurately. ‘Look at me I got a sexy super hero for a girlfriend! Aren’t I cool!’.

MJ wouldn’t necessarily know the truth of Beck’s lover so I didn’t bring it up before. Here though, Williams is implying that she has sussed out that Beck was making that aspect up. At which point MJ should further realise the movie is an exercise in self-indulgence. She even says so in this scene.

More confusingly, in issue #1 Beck heavily implied to MJ that he was making this movie (and wanted her in it) largely because he felt he let Betsy down. That being the case, wouldn’t cutting out the romance undermine the point  of the movie? Or at least undermine it from MJ’s POV? Honestly, that’s not that big of a deal though. Beck’s motivations for making the film have already been contradicted since issue #1 anyway; it’s already a goddam mess.

Furthermore, the scene specifically says romance ‘scene’, as int eh singular. Call me crazy but whenever there is a romance between a protagonist and a love interest in a film their romance isn’t confined to just the ONE scene. It’s usually a few scenes at least. In this case, MJ’s character exists in the story fundamentally to be  Beck’s lover. She’s been given much more than that due to MJ’s suggestions in issue #1. But that was still the primary role she existed for. This means MJ’s role in the movie goes against the entire reason Beck included her. So why would he agree to that? Why would MJ suggest it if her investment hinges upon sympathy for Beck? She has basically taken Beck’s original intention for her character and gone from improving upon it to basically substituting all of his original intent for something else entirely.

She even calls its inclusion unrealistic. That could be a display of her trademark confidence (MJ is fully aware she is attractive) and/or a dig at Beck. Either way she’s tempting fate there. She already saw him throw a tantrum last issue and now she’s altered arguably the most important role in the movie to him and thrown shade at him over it. Real clever.

Additionally she refers to Beck’s role as the hero. This further contradicts issue #1’s assertions that the film was portraying Beck as a villain. It’s also rich for MJ to claim the romance should be cut as the film is a biopic. By that logic Beck shouldn’t be framed heroically, empathetically and the film should apologise for his acts of evil.

There is also a meta-argument to be made about Williams’ intentions with this page. It’s possible she’s critiquing the superfluous nature of so many romance stories in Hollywood films, arguably super hero films in particular. I don’t really have any praise or problems with that if it is the intent. Just thought I’d point it out.

As for the new crewmember…we’ll get to them later.

Over on the next page ‘McKnight’ tells Mallorie to give MJ a producer’s credit. Beck explains that the new location is an abandoned zoo, hence why it’s a shithole. He proceeds to introduce the new members of the crew.

The only thing of note is Beck giving MJ a producer credit. This raised an eyebrow from me because it epitomizes so much of MJ’s role in the story thus far. 

MJ’s most famous profession is an an actress. In the majority of adaptations that’s her job. It was part of how she was introduced to us in ASM #43. It’s one of the things that thematically connects her to Spider-Man. It’s also through her renewed interest in acting that we got this story. 

In fact MJ gave a heartfelt monologue specifically about acting in ASM v5 #25 and it was this monologue that led to her job on the biopic.

And yet in this story Mary Jane has spent very little time acting. The story itself has ruminated very little about her role as an actress or depicted her acting at all. Mysterio has been acting far more than Mary Jane has.

MJ’s main role thus far in the story has been as Beck’s right hand, as his producer.

Isn’t that rather problematic? That wasn’t the story as advertised in Spencer’s ASm run, nor even in the initial build up to AMJ’s release. It also goes against the themes that have traditionally defined Mary Jane, especially within the context of her actually working  on a movie.

I have a tinfoil hat idea as to why this might be the case though. Here is an excerpt from an interview Williams gave prior to issue #1’s release:

It's set in Hollywood and it's a film production, and my work background is actually in film production. I lived in LA for a little while. So drawing upon the full arsenal of my Hollywood hot mess stories of what goes on on film sets, that has been an absolute delight. Because then I can also demonstrate how MJ is able to think on her feet and be like, okay, well let's not do the bad thing. Instead, let's be smart about it. Very cathartic, again. So cathartic.

-From Bleeding Cool

I’m not going to presume working in ‘film production’ means Williams was a producer per se. I’ve also been unable to find any evidence that she was a credited producer nor that she worked as an actress.

But it seems to me Williams in drawing upon her personal experiences is skewing MJ more towards the jobs she personally did. In other words Williams is writing MJ as closer to a producer than an actress. It comes across very much like Spencer/the editors handed her a certain premise and she then terra formed it into what she wanted to do, rather than what the direction he set up implied.

That is all total speculation on my part. I have no hard proof at all to corroborate that.

But if that is what’s going on, then I find it kinda shitty. It’s not exactly what the role asked of her as a writer and more poignantly it’s not what MJ’s history invites either. It’s not that MJ couldn’t be a decent producer it’s just that that isn’t where the thematic resonance for her character lies. At least, not within the context of making a movie.

Let’s leave it there for now and continue next time.

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Master Post

#Amazing Mary Jane #Leah Williams #Mysterio #Quentin Beck #The Vulture #Adrian Toomes #Spider-Man #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #Carlos Gomez #Vulture #Mac Gargan #The Scorpion #Scorpion #Stegron #Rhino #The Rhino #Alex O'Hirn #Peter Parker

[secretadventuresociety]

Episode 31 Recap

Get hype, SASholes! I’m Bren, resident SAStorian and manic goblin dream girl. Welcome to Episode 31: A Long Day’s End.

A Challenger Approaches!

With Mother (hopefully) vanquished and Kerti’s whereabouts unknown, our heroes hear fleeting whispers of ‘they’re coming, she’s coming’ whistling in the icy wind flowing through the cave. Sharing a Let’s-Put-A-Pin-In-That glance, the trio check in with each other because-- lest we forget-- they have just survived a run-in with an evil being who was masquerading as Kü’s mom. Sorry, did I say run-in? I meant battle for their lives. Anywho! They all seem to be physically unscathed, though that emotional trauma will last forever. IYKYK. Kü, of course, is the most affected, though his worries go straight to Kess, who Mother had just tried to strangle and not in the sexy way. Pearce attempts to make light of the situation by telling Kü it couldn’t have been too bad because Kess didn’t black out and see her friend, Ashe.

Which, speaking OF ash, the group starts smelling smoke. All of their combined hackles raise-- each probably thinking of a different entity. They really do be running into a lot of fire-related individuals, so this makes sense. When they actually SEE physical evidence of smoke trailing from further in the tunnel, they realize they might not be alone in this cave. Pearce elects Kü to lead them to the source, stating that he has darkvision and that will be to their tactical advantage. I mean, true, but this is also the helmetless kobold who just lost his ‘mother’ for the second time. I’m begging SOMEONE to give him a break. God, Lathander, DM, anyone?? As they go deeper, however, thin sheets of ice on the ceiling seem to be letting blue-tinted morning sunlight in. This literally lightens the mood until they come to a ledge-- one set up with a VERY recent campsite.

The party can tell right away that this is where the smoke has originated from, and looking closer, they spot a figure. A DANCING figure. What appears to be a four foot tall, staff wielding, gymnast built, olive skinned, winged individual is currently stirring an alluring pot of food while having the best time of his life. Understandably afraid, Kü attempts to summon his Blight Bow-- and nothing happens. Instead, he and Pearce decide to ambush the stranger, one going to the left of him and the other going right. Kü is spotted, and in defense, he grabs a broken liquor bottle (that he has been holding onto since the BEGINNING of this campaign, y’all), and chucks it at the head of his presumed assailant. In this instant, everyone braces for a fight, INCLUDING our guest star, Pongu, played by the fantastic Sonny-- who fans may recognize from the Hollaback Charity&D stream!

The Three Mardostateers

Kess instinctively heals herself as she notices her companions go into a fighting stance; having stayed away from the ledge. She was sure the humanoid meant no harm, but it’s hard to preach benefit of the doubt with a hotheaded gunslinger and a manipulated kobold. Instead of retaliating, Pongu tries to diffuse the situation. He laughs off the projectile Kü hurled and tells the group that they didn’t have to throw things if they wanted food; he has plenty to share. It’s then that the exhausted and hungry group smells the bounty for the first time. It is heavy with spices and looks like some sort of chunky soup. As we all know, food is the way to the heart, and apparently to the trust bone, too. Kess joins our apprehensive duo and the trauma of the past two days comes tumbling out of them.

Pongu listens intently, and when they’re done, calls over a beautiful, starry owl (named Nalani) over to him.  Kü startles, having instant predator flashbacks. With a smile, the fairy tells his companion that this group needs some extra love, to which the creature replies (only to Pongu himself) that they both have a lot to give. Pongu notices Kü’s changed attitude and requests that the owl take some time away from camp to reform himself into something less intimidating, like a cat. The kobold relaxes as the animal leaves, and Kess changes the subject. She begins to question Pongu about his presence in the cave-- and mentions that she thought it belonged to someone she knew. Pongu assures her that he is just passing through, and had chosen the cave to take respite in.

The fairy goes on to explain that he is from the Feywild, and that he has been searching all over-- sailing the seas-- and winding up on the material plane for the ingredients for a perfect fey wedding cake. He used to be an adventurer long ago-- now at an estimated 300+ years of age-- but now is a professional chef and ‘fixer of things’. This draws Kü’s interest, and he wonders aloud if Pongu might be able to repair his mother’s skulll-- but quickly has this hope dashed when Pongu asks if the kobold has all of the pieces. Pearce, feeling Kü’s disappointment, offers to go back and see if there’s anything left, but is denied. Having gotten Pongu’s life story, the group feels the need to share as well. They first attempt to lie (except for Kess) and say their names are Uk and Ferdinand [I will let you guys which one is which] and that they are all three from Mardosta. The truth quickly comes out, however, and Pongu takes it in stride, excitedly asking if Kess (the true Mardostan native) can get him rare spices from the area.

A Lesson in Bonding

Taking a moment for herself, Kess separates from the group and goes to the neighboring hot spring. She discards some of her clothing and jumps in-- drifting to the bottom. Once she reaches the soil there, the druid draws on her inner power and grows a flower. It is still black with a white iris, but the floret adapts to its watery surroundings-- taking on an aquatic formation. Kess takes no time to marvel at it, instead using the rest of her depleting energy to focus on the plant and attempts to contact Ashe. After a bit, she realizes there isn’t going to be a response. So, the changeling flips off the bloom and pushes herself to the surface, dressing once more and cursing under her breath.

In Kess’ absence, Pearce and Kü warn Pongu about Skugamor and give him a head’s up about Kerti (who we really haven’t gotten to know yet). The gunslinger sighs and half-heartedly complains that everyone has voices in their heads except for him. The fairy listens gratefully while taking out a Santa-Claus-worthy bag of toys to keep his hands busy. He explains that he likes to fix up old toys and give them new homes-- and Kü asks if he has a paddleball related plaything. Pongu brightly hands him a Bilboque (I really didn’t want to write cup-and-ball. But you guys made me anyway. Good job) and  takes to it instantly. 

Sensing how worn out the adventurers are, Pongu casts Tiny Hut, creating a dome with a starry ceiling and a light scent of flowers swirling through the air. Pearce sees Kess step into the space and he greets her, hugging her to him as she spirals in a panic attack. He tells her that everything is going to be okay, and that he feels that is true because he has not been this comfortable anywhere but Mardosta. The contact soothes the changeling, and she steps back from Pearce and truly looks at him for the first time after their ordeal. Her eyes widen at the state of his hair; and the gunslinger grabs his things to run to the hot spring himself to shower. Pongu stops him, saying that he thinks he could fix the dirty, snow-wet mess, and Pearce relents. The fairy uses Shape Water as a kind of gel to mold the unruly locks-- and when Kess lets Pearce check it in the shine of her canteen, the gunslinger huffs off; happy with his look but pissed that he has nothing to be pissed about.

Look at the Stars

Using his misplaced anger as motivation, Pearce begins to craft more bullets for Iris from the components he purchased at the Night Market. He ends up making fifteen functional bullets, only wasting one defective try at the beginning of the process. The gunslinger thinks of his father and how Pearce used to watch him go through the same activity, and the fire of his rage is stoked by the realization that he actually learned something from the deadbeat. What was it that Smash Mouth said? When the hits start coming they don’t stop coming? Whatever it was, I’m THERE in this DnD stream. Someone make them stop.

As Pearce is artificing the daddy issues away, Kü tries to bring his Blight Bow out one more time. When it still doesn’t happen, the kobold admits to Kess that he has Good News and Bad News. The good news is that he believes Mother to be truly gone, and the bad news is that this means that his powers seem to be gone. Kess reassures him that they’ll figure things out; and Kü distracts himself by catching Pongu up on their exploits so far-- from Evercrest’s dying king to the vampires of New Hexton. The kobold then switches gears and asks the fairy about his parents-- with whom Pongu seems to have a semi-okay relationship. Kü tells him that he’s just trying to feel out where his trauma is-- and that he wants him to be as broken as he is. Big ouch.

Kess takes over at that point, trying to explain LifeWell water to their new friend. A combination of exhaustion and frustration overwhelms her in the middle of it, however, so she excuses herself to sleep it off. She ends up under a constellation of a scorpion, and Pongu suggests to Pearce that he choose one that meant something to him to watch over him as he slept. The gunslinger curls up underneath an arrow (yes, weapons are soothing, just ask my barbarian) and  Kü doesn’t even bother looking up-- as soon as his head hits the floor, he drifts off into a deep rest. Pongu watches over them for the four hours they stay unconscious, making them a special (giving them ingame boosts!) bready treat. When they wake up, Kess eats hers and Pearce tosses Kü his-- who catches it deftly in his waiting maw. They take in Pongu now making pancakes for the group, and realize they have some decisions to make.

Case Closed

After throwing out their veritable to-do list, Pearce bangs the butt of his gun against the cave floor, commanding the attention of the other three speakers. He makes an executive decision that they should all go check on the Shadowmore family. They have no idea if they are still safe from Skugamor, and Kess needs to speak with them before they either stay for the Mardosta ball or move on to their next task. The Nobodies look toward Pongu, gauging his interest in joining them for a time. The fairy packs up the leftover food from the night before-- leaving a note that anyone who comes by it is welcome to it-- and agrees to travel with the trio. Kess warns Kü before she shifts back into her owl form, which turns out to be large enough to carry her humanoid companions. 

They make a long, cold flight back-- and all seems quiet at the Shadowmore manor. The group makes their way to the fourth floor (you remember, the PARENT wing) and finds it empty. Searching frantically, they finally see them standing in the greenhouse, marvelling over Kess’ new and hydraulic flower. Norse turns around and exclaims her thankfulness for her daughter’s safety, counting the number of still-alive-friends with her, and greets the sunny newcomer. OMG. Did you see what I did there? Sunny cause Pongu is a literal ray of light but also-- Sonny?? His player?! That was COMPLETELY UNINTENTIONAL! WITNESS ME! Fine. I digress. The party catches the elder Shadowmores up to speed just before Brienne, our lovely tabaxi detective, strides into the greenhouse. Pongu introduces himself as Brienne looks over him curiously, and the investigator sighs, grateful that she doesn’t have to question yet another for Xarus’ murder. Hearing of this foul play for the first time, the fairy looks over to his new friends and says, “There’s a lot of death around you three, huh?” 

The Nobodies stammer in unison, attempting to laugh off this outburst. Brienne pays it no mind, pushing forward to ask to speak with the group. She tells them that Xarus was found with poison in his system, and had a snapped neck-- probably from strangulation. The tabaxi had spoken with onlookers at the Underfrost as well as the cooking staff at the Shadowmore estate, who both told her that they experienced a similar phenomenon with shadow magic. It’s then that they come clean, handing the detective the page on Skugamor (which Brienne RIGHTFULLY chides Kess for stealing) and Kü recounts his almost-lifelong-ordeal under her influence. With a small, conspiratorial smile-- Brienne concludes that Xarus’ death must have been a suicide. She tells the group that if they did not take care of Skugamor that she would be unable to protect them-- but if the entity was really and truly gone, she was more than happy to close the case. She bids them farewell, and as they all let loose a breath they didn’t know they were holding (hello, YA roots) and Pongu smiles widely at them. He professes that he will be there for this courageous party until they no longer need him.

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TL;DR

Give a BIG SAShole welcome to Pongu and Sonny! You can find him on Twitter: @SonnyPlays and tell him Bren sent ya!

Wait, where’s my starry owlcat!? How do you pspspspsps a fey being?!

Things are looking up for the Nobodies. Be a shame if something happened...

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Don’t Pearce your pants in anticipation, but you can catch the next session over at twitch.tv/lochness on September 22nd at 7:30CST/8:30EST! If you’d like to watch THIS episode, follow the link below:

https://youtu.be/pXQxmi9dGbg

#secretadventure #Dungeons and Dragons #dnd #d&d #d&d homebrew #recap #stream recap #Episode Recap #homebrew #twitch #youtube #podcast #actual play #streaming #stream #dnd 5th edition #dnd 5e homebrew #dnd 5e campaign #dnd actual play #Kobold #warlock #changeling #druid #gunslinger #roleplay #combat #fairy #circle of the moon #circle of stars #new player

[alberteamllc]

Wild & Pure & Forever Free, Part 1 8/22/2019

Starring

Flinty McClintock

Bon Jean Bovi

Daedalus Inuria Featuring Oskar Harrow Inquisitor Adrian Harrow Steely McBeam Katydid McBeam Introducing... Philippe McBeam! Pitchfork 424 Pitchfork 426 Mistral Kurunthadi Princess Astrid Insatsi Queen Elbise Insatsi Dame Feris Svette Greg Hogswain Haurchefant “Egg” Hogswain Viceroy Pitchfork PM of the West Triamond Bell PM of the East Cambina Bell Ramon Silulimesh Golof Silulimesh Carmine Whistling “Tiger” Beatrice Catamount Washy Whillikers Chanchala Chala Sanuwa Sawbones Vos the Armorer Helena Merkava

-To be clear, Bovi had a wonderful prom. He reunited Harrow and his estranged husband Oskar, he taught everyone a grand new dance, he convinced two Pitchforks that their love for one another was natural and beautiful, and he helped Katydid deliver a healthy baby halfling, who he suggested they name Philippe. He was briefly alarmed by the sight of a bald Flinty impersonator but was otherwise able to enjoy most of his evening, easily winning the Desan Diamond from Mistral in a heated dance-off.

-In the present, Bovi successfully rallies the panicking crowd at the palace and helps them evacuate peacefully, stopping to heal several trampled and diseased people. He rendezvous with the princess, queen, and Svette, who sadly tell him that Ardis and Panther are presumed dead after rescuing them from Sonny. In the chaos, the Peacemasters are hurried away along with Pitchfork.

-He sends them off towards the old CC headquarters then sends the smoke from random flower bonfires out towards the sea, then rushes back to the RF base.

-There, Flinty is in a furious huff, with a ragged skeleton crew of party members-- Goloff, Ramon (who stayed at home), Carmine, and a reconstituted Daedalus. She catches up with Bovi and proposes that all they can do is raid the prison and try to free as many halflings as they can, unless her brother and co. show up soon with a better plan.

-Eventually a slightly sobered up Beatrice appears at the door, dragging Ardis, unconscious. She tells them that a prison break is already underway and urges them to consider, without any better alternative, repeating Mungo & Hambeaux’s solution to the last plague, despite the potential loss of life. She’s pessimistic because she says her ring, which keeps her connected to MF, has gone dead. He’s nowhere. Flinty starts hollaring and demanding to know if anyone knows a wizard. Beatrice snaps and tells her how to contact one but warns her its a bad idea and an unforgivable error. Flinty insists and Beatrice coldly tells her they’re done, their alliance is finished, and that she’ll do everything she can to inform Ardis what kind of person her leader is. She then hands over a worn envelope with a sigil inside, which Flinty recites.

-Spooky doings ensue and Washy Whillikers appears on the sofa to chat and grant a boon. He casts Wish to reverse Vejovis’ trap and unseal Puffin’s little dimension, freeing him and Tavi at the very least. As payment he demands either Fiz or Flinty’s house, but when she hesitates he puckishly offers to let her pass the buck: he’ll let her off the hook, but on Ardis’ wedding day he’ll come a-calling to collect his due and destroy something she loves as much as Flinty loves her fucking house or her weasel she can’t even remember to roll initiative for. Flinty, being an asshole, swiftly assents, presuming that Ardis will never get married anyway, and Washy vanishes, albeit not before giving Bovi five gold pieces as a treat. Bovi and Puffin and Tavi, dazzled and dumbfounded by the mention of a hypothetical wedding, argue about what third base is for some reason and Flinty is once again shocked at what they teach people in grad school. None of the three seem interested in or impressed by the lich.

-Conferring with Puffin and Tavi with Flinty’s findings at the palace in mind, they decide all they can do is head to the academy to try and convince Vos to let them use his relay system. Since Tavi is a wanted criminal and Puffin is a wanted criminal specifically wanted for killing academy interns they put on disguises. At the gates they meet Chanchala and Sawbones, the only Cats who seemingly made it out of prom in one piece. Chanchala gets an earful and lets them pass.

-However, the academy is in disarray, Vos’ facility strewn with bodies. Bovi tries the intercom and gets in contact with a terrified researcher, who says Helena came and killed a lot of people, who then rose from the dead infected with plague but blossoming. Before heading up to help, Bovi runs back to the entrance and borrows Sawbones from Chanchala, something which Puffin is far from comfortable with.

-The party splits in two to take care of the spore monsters. Ominously, some of them transform in mid-fight into celestial, armored beings who attack with radiant light and fluid, transforming metal. After a somewhat dicey fight everyone regroups. They rescue the trapped researcher and more portentiously they locate Vos, stripped of much of his armor, almost vivisected, and helpless under a pile of rubble. Everyone is startled to discover beneath his armor a frail, sickly looking boy no older than 14 or 15. Humiliated but still haughty, he begs for them to look away. Puffin loses all of his chill and goes to throw up after being hit in the face with his own gilded leg-bones. He and Flinty want to leave him there to rot, but Tavi and Bovi want to free him and get his assistance. Daedalus says nothing because Jules’ family is watching Supernatural and I think he’s making dinner. Eventually they squeeze a little info out of him and Flinty convinces him to help, in spite of his cold assurance that the plan he’s cooked up with Pitchfork, which requires tremendous amounts of human and halfling sacrifice, will be the one to stop the plague and Vejovis in their tracks. He tears off one of his limbs to help them bypass doors, and draws a vial of his blood, after Flinty recognizes him as the original test subject she glimpsed in her vision back in the prince’s sealed offices. Bovi’s curiosity is piqued by Vos’ description of Helena’s strategies-- attacking aggressively and scavenging her foes for parts, incorporating their weapons and armaments into her own body. He asks if Vos has anything he could use as a trap-- a weapon or something he could lure her into absorbing that would hurt her. Vos describes a vortex trap he keeps in his office to stop thieves, which Bovi makes a note of picking up. Puffin finally gets his shit together when Sawbones silently comes to him and offers him her hand. As they leave Flinty is torn, and almost gives into the desire to just shoot Vos while he’s lying there helpless. However she convinces herself that his arm thing might not work if he’s dead, and leaves him to his own devices.

-The group heads off with Vos’ arm to use the lift and travel up the facility’s tower. Everyone is exhausted and drained, so Puffin hesitantly offers to allow them to use his dimension as a temporary camp site, although he warns this is a dangerous and costly trick. They rest, and Tavi attempts to make amends for Flinty with the fight they had earlier in the evening, and for her caginess, but Flinty is in no mood for peace. 

-After resting they head out onto the cat-walks to the final stretch of the tower, and are met with the disembodied but hauntingly beautiful voice of Helena, a far cry from the hollow, shaky voice they’re used to. She offers them peace and health in exchange for joining her in the body of Vejovis. Nobody is that interested. She swiftly shows she’s not messing around by partially dematerializing Puffin and hurling Sawbones off the bridge to the ground far below, but manifests to talk to Bovi. She is now entirely armor with no body to be seen, hovering and radiant. Bovi offers her the bomb which she eagerly accepts before pausing to monologue a bit. She talks rapturously about the grace of Vejovis, and the gift he gave her after she’d pledged herself to so many false causes-- the torturous, twisting ministrations of Vos and the hollow sisterhood of the Crystal Cats. She describes in mythical terms Vejovis as a young doctor coming to the city to cure his two sick children, and how he was heartbroken and inspired by the many sick people he found in the metropolis, how his sympathy turned into a drive to curing everyone, to ensuring noone would suffer again. Flinty is familiar with Vejovis’ early days in the service of Prince Anselm and can scarcely conceal her disgust. Helena continues, talking about the perfect gifts he provided to his two children, and how ungrateful they were. In particular she derides Vos’ failures to live up to his father, and how much happier she is having turned her back on him and even having had the opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine, what she describes as an edifying lesson in pain. Flinty puts two and two together and thinks back to Leucosia’s harrowing account of the Weeper’s empty coffin and presumably has an oh shit moment. 

-Having said her peace, Helena again offers friendship to the party. They’re not sold so she thanks them for the gift and puts the bomb into her chestplate. It explodes, wracking her body and damaging her armor, which seems to revert her a bit to her good old crazed personality. She begins to snarl and threaten, promising to show them the wages of their sin, etc, deploying the myriad weapons systems hidden away in her new form. They ready their weapons for what looks to be a perilous fight high above the city and mere meters away from their goal. -Meanwhile, so many people are missing or presumed dead! Here’s a partial list of important ones: Panther! Mungo Fungo! Hologram Hambeaux! Niko! Ilan! Leucosia! Guilotte! Aramingo! The Lamondian Royal Family & retinue, including Lamitt Pampepato! Steely, Katydid, and Baby Philippe! The entirety of the Bent Nail! Albertine Rosenbee! Tartuffe! The heads of House Sarmasik! Mistral! The Eggbabies! Maddy and Tantan! Pitchforks 424 & 426! Harrow and his husband! Who was changed and who was dead?!?? No, they all walked to Wawa together for night hoagies.

[poolresources]

Audrey Molloy (b. Würzburg, 1993) is a photo based artist, writer, and occasional performance artist. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 2015 where she studied digital photography, critical art theory, and video art. Most recently, Audrey was chosen as a 2016 Scholarship Artist in Residence at Pump Project in Austin, TX. She currently lives and works in Nashville, TN as a freelance arts writer.

Interested in the limitations and constructs that contemporary photography presents psychologically and formally, her work engages ideas of medium specificity, digital fallacy, and postmodern narratives.

Pushing Sonny: In 2002 my dad left the golf course business and began work at as an account manager for Open Works, a franchise of Facilitec, who he used to scrub the grease off of restaurant exhaust systems at night for. This meant that I no longer could collect violent green golf balls and shine them for quarters and that my dad smelled like Fabuloso and drove a windowless van. Later on he also acquired a white Jeep Cherokee.

He said that if he writes a memoir, it will be called Driving in Cars.

One of my dad’s work partners in Mesa wore a soaked business suit in his car everyday so that the hot air would slowly cool him, evaporation style. In passing, my dad mentioned the salt from the man’s body quickly imbued the navy suit with white sediment deposits and that his gait was preempted by a threatening crunching sound.

The same thing happened to our towels. It was an unspoken caution when drying oneself off to rub slowly, as the sun had dried the absorbent terry cloth fibers to hardened sharp nodules and sun-towel-lacerations require difficult explanations. Eventually, my mother left the towels on the line all afternoon and they simply cracked in half. I presume the man’s suit faced a similar fate.

Displacement, or a dissociation from place, occurs when the thinking self and physical self become estranged. This inability to feel “located” is conditional for a contemporary experience of daily life, where our negotiation of real and temporal spaces is constantly in flux.

Interested in the limitations and constructs of contemporary photography, Pushing Sonny (2016-17) parses the medium’s technical discourse to construct hyper-realized environments, disclose digital fallacies, and disrupt authentic space, as a method for engaging in an aestheticized image of physical and psychological estrangement.

View the entire series on our website.

#audrey molloy #pushing sonny #photography #photographer #series #images #photographic works #zine #feature #pool resources

[deanirae]

@frozen-delight I saw you were interested in the whole Dean as Other & Dean as Feminine parts of my thesis? :)

I’m making this as a separate post because I wasn’t sure if hijacking someone’s (excellent) meta wouldn’t be rude.

I can’t exactly copy paste from the thesis because unfortunately it was written in my native language. Also, the hypothetical reader of the thesis was supposed to be a person who is not familiar with the show so I had to bring up a lot of stuff that is very well known to us, fans, so that would be too much talking about the obvious, I guess.

Dean as the Other (and the outcast) 

The starting point to writing about Dean in terms of being the Other, was a comparison of similarities with Dean from Kerouac’s „On the Road”. It kinda went from there.

I focused on the society-related aspect of it within the diegesis, and because of that, I brought the most attention to the early seasons. I felt like later on the Dean – society dichotomy kind of went away within the narrative as progressively the Winchesters were mostly interacting with other people and beings that were related to the supernatural world.

Dean was both marked as the Other by society and by himself – from the outsider’s point of view, he stands against everything that constitutes the ideal american life style. He detests the middle class and the „values” it represents, which osciliate between consumptionism and superficial morality. The main and first reason why he’s marked as such, is of course, being a hunter of the supernatural, which, in his case, is related to socio-economical degradation: there was a peaceful, middle class-ish life in Kansas (a conservative state which only stronger resonates with the traditional american ideal) and suddenly there was no home, financial issues, constant danger and a dysfunctional family with the extra bonus of alcohol problems and violence. And it’s important to note that while Sam doesn’t remember the past and the change, Dean does. It only adds to his trauma and vision of self that completely differs from what is considered „normal.” Dean learns everything from John and excels at it – a history of violence, lack of a stable job and firm emotional connections, living on the Road, acquiring money through gambling, using fake credit cards and presumably even prostitution (not confirmed canon, just Jensen’s words) – all of that places Dean even below the „blue collar”. To add to that, most of the time he can’t even explain his action to people because that would mean having to explain the supernatural. All of it makes the society percieve him as unpredictable and dangerous, as something that disrupts he suburban life harmony, as a threat. Makes him feel like he doesn’t fit (as shown in “Bugs” and “What is and what should never be”, “Exile on main street”). People distance themselves from him (even Sam, who craved normalcy and upward mobility, and in no way wanted to become like his brother), Dean distances himself from them. In a way, he isn’t even a part of the family unit – Sam always was the son, Dean was the „tool.” In practice, until Sam left for Stanford, it wasn’t „John, Sam and Dean.” It was „John, Sam and that.” Inside the hunting community, he didn’t exactly fit either – didn’t fit the hunter ideal – too sensitive, too pretty, too different.

I also find it interesting how it’s only Dean who gets repeatedly pictured as an animal. Dog!Dean is the most blatant example but not the most interesting in the context of his otherness and attempts to evoke some kind of beast-related asociations in the audience. It’s one thing that Sonny’s called him Dee-dawg and that dog imagery is strongly related to Dean.What really gets to me is that in „Dream a Little Dream of Me” Dean circles dream!Dean (or should I say, the other Dean) like an animal that prepares for an attack (also, the exchange between the two suggests Dean doesn’t exactly see himself as human). And of course, there’s „On the Head of a Pin”, where Dean is not only referred to as „Grasshopper”, but is told that he’s been carved into a whole new animal. Also, I would argue that the fact only Dean was made to become a torturer on the show, amplifies his otherness, in a way. No other character can relate to this sort of damaging experience. That particular burden makes him different than any other human on SPN.

The narrative also presents him as the Other through making other characters the subjects that don’t get their basic agency get meddled with on every available occasion, while Dean has it denied all the time. His choices, emotions and reactions aren’t supposed to be independent, but always are meant to be relative to the rest of his family (mostly). In this aspect, he doesn’t get to be an autonomous being. His loved ones are the Absolute, he is the Opposite.

As for Dean seeing himself as something else – all of it is highlighted in „Skin”, both in dialogue between the brothers and by the shapeshifter!Dean revealing Dean’s secrets, which, literally presents Dean as the Other, seeing how it’s Dean’s skin the monster chooses and how it thinks Dean and it are very much alike.

 Dean & Femininity

The most important and narrative-affecting part of coding Dean as feminine, is him being a victim of parentification (the mechanism affected Sam and John as well, but differently). Dean became Sam’s mother in all the possibile ways. In regards to John, Dean in many aspects stepped into the stereotypically female spouse’s place. In both cases it was instrumental and emotional: Dean was the emotional caregiver, the one who created the „homely warmth”, the one who passed on the tradition, the one who was supposed to keep Sam and John healthy, he was the one who prepared food and made sure there would be food in the first place. He was the mediator between Sam and his father. During conflicts between the two, Dean always shielded Sam with his own body. Symbolically, because of the deal Dean made, he not only gave his life away for Sam, he became his mother even in the aspect of literally giving Sam life.

Even Dean’s personal heaven is a part of the coding. The things that Dean’s soul craves for the most and what he remembers most fondly are things that are associated with women – his heaven consisted of having a happy family, of love, of giving and recieving care. It’s a stark contrast with Sam’s heaven which represented things associated with masculinity – aiming for independence and both social and economical success that would put him in position above other people, wanting to be respected, in general.

Dean i also almost always mirrored not by men, but by women (and also obligatory by mothers, like Linda Tran). Working kind of like Jung’s animas, the female characters are an expression of the emotions and behaviors that Dean doesn’t accept in himself, those he doesn’t want to talk about, those that are supposed to show not tell about his state and those that might also be seen as foreshadowing. Since I was looking into the pat tern with a very specific context in mind, I chose Betsy, Charlie and Suzie Lee as my examples. Since the first two have been analysed to death both in fandom and in my thesis, I’ll Just briefly bring up Suzie Lee since I’ve never seen her mentioned. I read her, in short, as a mirror to Dean deciding to return to his old behaviors and mechanisms, deciding to abandon his personal needs to again become an effective tool (part commentary, part foreshadowing; all of it due to guilt, as always. Because the day the spn narrative decides to not blame Dean for something and make him feel bad, is the day you have to yell ‘christo’ at it.  But that’s a rant for another time). Suzie’s shame about a successful career in the porn industry can be seen as a mirror to Dean exceling in hunting, in using violence, in using his body as a work tool, in general. Both are also a taboo. That would be the cliff notes version, I suppose.

I’m sure there were more instances in all the seasons, in all the possibile contexts, though.

#dean winchester #supernatural meta #supernatural musings #frozen delight #frozendelight #dean - the Other #dean - femininity #that was longer than i anticipated where did my day go

[pwchronicle]

Chikara “Piano Lessons Can Be Murder” - Live Show Report October 13th in Philadelphia, PA

My busy live show schedule continued today with a return trip to the Chikara Wrestle Factory for the latest event. Even before doors opened, myself and others waiting in line were treated to something new: wrestling gear maker and Chikara ally Yolanda coming out to regale us with some tails of recent events involving her, such as Travis Huckabee using her as a human shield at last month’s “It Came From Beneath the Sink.”

- The show opening included ring announcer Preston Blathers stating that Razerhawk was unable to compete today, so a suitable replacement would be found.

1. Cornelius Crummels & Sonny Defarge beat Dasher & Boomer Hatfield when Defarge caught Boomer with a spinning slam for the pin. Nice opener with the wrestlers’ personalities shining through. There was a funny moment late when the Hatfields tied up Crummels and Defarge’s legs with their own suspenders, making them think the Hatfields had them in leg locks, so they crawled to the ropes, and referee Bryce Remsburg did the 5 count on them to break the holds they had on themselves. Dasher was about to lock in an abdominal stretch (how he beat Huckabee last month) onto Crummels, but Crummels escaped by sneezing in Dasher’s face. Defarge caught Boomer in the end as Boomer (looking solid all match) was attempting a dive to the outside.

2. Ophidian beat Frightmare with the Egyptian Destroyer. These two had a heated feud that ended with Ophidian beating Frightmare at February’s National Pro Wrestling Day in a Submission Match, so the feud was revisited here in suitably heated fashion. Lots of strike exchanges between the two, including one where both were laid out by the end. Ophidian hit a powerbomb backbreaker (Project Ciampa) for a big nearfall. Ophidian hit his Destroyer, a flipping piledriver after going “Old School,” walking the top rope while having a hold of Frightmare, and springboarding off. I thought this was one of the stronger matches on the card.

- Still Life With Apricots and Pears came out to talk with Scott Holladay. He ignored and interupted Scott’s question about Ursa Minor in the Night Sky’s whereabouts and talked about how colors are made. He said he was looking for his perfect color, and indicated he would challenge Danjerhawk for the Young Lions Cup at La Lotería Letal in two weeks. With Danjerhawk in action next, he opted to take an up-close seat for the next match. Ring crew rolled out a carpet and set up a chair for Still Life, but he opted to just sit on the carpet at first.

- With Razerhawk unavailable, Remsburg followed Chikara tradition by drawing a replacement from a hat. The name was Mercedes Martinez, but she wasn’t there. The next name drawn was Lambo Miura, not a real wrestler to my knowledge but suitable for the gag, and also not present. As usual, the third name drawn was available: Penelope Ford! She appeared twice before in Chikara this year alongside Joey Janela in tag team matches.

3. F.I.S.T. (Icarus & Tony Deppen) beat Danjerhawk and Penelope Ford when Deppen rolled up Ford with a handful of her trunks. Pretty fun match with Ford stealing the show and Danjerhawk holding his own. Deppen acted quite intense throughout to a pretty cartoonish level, constantly threatening to kill whoever was in the ring with him. In the end, Danjerhawk was knocked to the floor, Ford gave Icarus a German suplex into the corner, and Deppen stole the win over her. Still Life watched the whole thing without getting involved.

4. Lucas Calhoun & Jeremy Leary & Blanche Babish vs. The Proteus Wheel (Volgar & Frantik & Callux the Castigator) never got started. After Calhoun and company made their entrance, but before the Proteus Wheel could enter, the guy in camo pants asking about Missile Assault Man last month came into the ring in a surprise. He said his name was Axel Ford (presumably not related to Penelope), and as he was telling Calhoun that he knew why he was here, but then a hooded figure ran in and attacked Ford. This person revealed himself as Missile Assault Man, back in Chikara for the first time since December. He and Ford continued fighting as the Proteus Wheel came out to fight with Calhoun and company, before a bell could ring. Things were getting out of hand, so the three other refs on the card, and then soon the rest of the roster, came out in an attempt to separate the wrestlers. This only led to the chaos to spread in and out of the ring, looking like a recent segment from Raw. Calhoun was able to get in the ring alone with Missile Assault Man, only for Volgar to clock Missile Assault Man from behind with his chain, laying him out. Remsburg yelled at the Proteus Wheel to leave the building, which they did. The match was thrown out, and I did not see where Missile Assault Man and Axel Ford went.

- They went back to having one intermission this time.

5. Juan Francisco de Coronado beat Cam Carter with the Coronado Clutch. This was my first time seeing Carter; he made his Chikara debut at King of Trios last month. I thought he looked quite impressive. It was kind of funny to me hear Juan call him “kid.” Carter wowed me with two big nearfalls; the first was a high angle German suplex, the other was him running from the start of the entrance way (level with the ring) and leaping over the top rope into a 450. Even after getting stuck in the Coronado Clutch, Carter was able to roll through it for a nearfall before getting stuck in it again and ultimately tapping. There was a small “Please Come Back” chant for him, but Juan responded to it as if it was for him, saying he’s not going anywhere. Juan then went to speak with Holladay who asked about his potential partner at La Lotería Letal. In his attempt to make his answer easy, Juan mentioned Hallowicked and Princess KimberLee as partners he would not want. He closed by saying the only partner he could trust is... Juan Francisco de Coronado.

6. Solo Darling and The Colony (Fire Ant, Green Ant, and Thief Ant) beat The Creatures of the Deep (Oceanea, Merlok, Hermit Crab, and Cajun Crawdad) when Fire Ant pinned Oceanea following a Beach Break. A very fun version of this classic Chikara staple, with everyone holding their own. Twice Green Ant and Thief Ant attempted to launch Fire Ant, and twice Merlok stopped it. Solo almost had it won with Oceanea in the Sharp Stinger, but Merlok broke it up by throwing Green Ant into her. Fire Ant was able to survive after a Muscle Buster from Merlok and a top rope senton from Oceanea A second Sharp Stinger attempt from Solo led to Oceanea getting a nearfall off of a small package. Solo was nearly hit with the Tidal Wave (Oceanea doing a Yoshi-Tonic on Merlok off the top rope to send him crashing down onto an opponent), but Fire Ant pulled her out of the way. This allowed Fire Ant to capitalize and hit the finish.

7. The Regime (Sloan Caprice & Rick Roland) beat The Beast Warriors (Oleg the Usurper & The Proletariat Boar of Moldova) 2 falls to 1 to retain Los Campeonatos de Parejas. I felt this was one of the weaker Chikara main events this year, but I still thought it had plenty of drama to it. Oleg and Boar worked over Caprice’s knee, much to ref Kris Levin’s chagrin since it was two-on-one, leading to Boar making Caprice tap to a Figure Four leg lock for the first fall. Juan Francisco de Coronado came out after this to corner Caprice and Roland. Caprice sold his injured knee for the remainder of the match, relying on Roland to take the lead during second fall. Boar’s arm, injured last month, became a target for the Regime. Eventually, things got so heated for Oleg that he shoved Levin, leading to a disqaulification call and the Regime taking the second fall. Hype Rockwell then came out to lend support to the Beast Warriors. This led to the finishing sequence, with Rockwell going after Juan when he got on the apron. Oleg saw this going down and went to hit a senton off the apron onto Juan on the floor, but Juan ducked and Oleg hit Rockwell. Juan continued focusing on Juan on the outside as Boar gored Caprice, but then Roland caught Boar in a Fujiwara Arm Bar to make him tap out immediately. Bummer, and Rockwell, Oleg, and Boar all left separately after this.

Though I wasn’t as high on the main event, there was a lot of fun action underneath, along with a fairly major angle and return.

#Chikara #Chikara Pro #Wrestling

[ma-gic-gay]

Just as Michael's about to answer their question, Jason's phone goes off. "Perfect timing," he mutters before going outside to take the call. "Jason Morgan."

"Mr. Morgan, it appears Mr. Renault is at the office demanding to speak with you. What should I do?" One of his employees informs him.

"Cyrus has my number. If he would like to schedule a meeting, tell him he can call me and we'll have one."

"I've already told him that and he won't agree to it."

Dammit. Peace in this town is fragile enough; the last thing they need is an angry Cyrus. He's been unstable as of late, not agreeing to this could lead to a gunfight. Well, that's actually to be expected. "We'll meet at the office in twenty minutes then. Tell him to call off his men, including Brando. Look around the perimeter and have the rest of the guards check to make sure that there's no one on the premises or within range of hitting someone."

"Yes sir," the employee agrees, hanging up the phone.

"Business stuff?" Willow asks cautiously. After all, this is the first time she's been in this situation.

"Yeah," Michael answers, sensing from the businesslike stance he's taken in their kitchen. "Let's go check on the kids."

They leave the room and instantly Carly asks, "What did he do?"

"Demanded we meet. I don't know why or what this is about, so please tell me you didn't do anything stupid that could cost the truce to be undone."

"I haven't done anything. I've considered it, but I haven't done anything yet," she tells him. "How long til the meeting?"

"I've gotta get going. You have to stay here, this doesn't concern you. Cyrus is looking for a fight and you'll give him one. He's looking for any reason to violate the truce and take me out," Jason informs her. "I mean it. No showing up."

"Is it a solo meeting?"

"Yes."

"You want me to sit here and list out the times he's tried to kill you this past year and a half? Jason, you can't got to a meeting alone. You'll get killed!" Carly exclaims.

"No I won't, Carly. I've got it handled, I told you," he says, glancing at his watch.

"Yes you will! You need to stop agreeing to these one on one meetings because one of these days he's going to get you killed and I won't be able to survive that!"

"I told you, I'm not getting killed!"

"Can you predict the future? No, you can't! I know you might want to go and have this meeting but you can't do it alone!"

"I'm going to the meeting, Carly. You are going to stay here with your kids, grandkids, and Willow," he says, voice unbudging. She's not going to win.

"Promise me you'll come back."

"Carly-"

"Promise me, Jason, or you're not going!"

"I promise."

"Fine, you can go," she surrenders, hugging him. "But be safe."

"As safe as I can be, meeting with him," he agrees.

"Alright, well you better go now or you're not going to be able to say goodbye to the kids."

He bids them all goodbye, hugs Carly again, and leaves for the meeting. His gun is on him, as is his cell phone. Though the usefulness of a cell phone is to be questioned when it's a mob meeting he's having. Not like he can exactly call the police if anything happens, they'd arrest him.

Arriving at the office, he senses that today's going to be a long day.

"Hey Harry, is it clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, thanks," he says before walking into the office. "Cyrus. What's so urgent?"

"Well, Sonny's been gone a year now. I was hoping we could revisit us joining together for a way to continue the peace in this town," Cyrus answers.

"Like I told you the day you found out he was missing, that isn't happening. You're not going to run your product through this town and ruin it. This was Sonny's territory and if he's not dead and comes back, it'll be his again. We both agreed no drugs. It's not happening. Is that all?" Jason asks, bored.

"No, actually. I was wondering how Mrs. Corinthos is holding up. Given that this is the anniversary of losing her husband, I'd presume not well."

"None of your damn business."

"No need to get so defensive, I'm merely posing a question. Trying to make conversation."

"If you don't have anything related to business to discuss, my men will escort you out."

"Oh, but I doubt you will," Cyrus says, laughing evilly. "You'll be too dead to even have the chance to get me out of this room." He takes his gun from his pocket rather dramatically for Jason's taste and aims for him.

Drawing his gun himself, the now mob boss ducks, narrowly missing the bullet before firing his own, missing the other mobster by only a few inches. That was on purpose; a warning shot of sorts. "It never occurred to me," the ponytail clad man continues unaffected, "that you'd be so easy to take out. I mean, really. Your reputation is that you're businesslike and directly to the point, but then you've agreed to several meetings with me alone. I was planning on having some fairly difficult plans to kill you, but you've simply fallen into my lap. I do suppose I feel a bit bad, however, that Mrs. Corinthos will have to deal with you being dead as well."

There's a line you just don't cross in business, and that's been crossed. He remembers his promise to not die and snaps into action. "Fire that gun again and I hit you right between the eyes," Jason warns, setting himself up for his shot.

"I sense I've hit a nerve," Cyrus smiles, "mentioning her like that. Tell me, Mr. Morgan, has it ever occurred to you that you're the reason she even knows about this business? With you gone, I suppose she'll be taking it over. Though I don't doubt her, I do doubt her ability to properly run this business. It's doubtful that she'll even make it a few weeks before she's ki-"

Another warning shot goes from Jason's gun, this one only barely above his head. "Last warning, Cyrus. This isn't a game. She's barely involved in this business and you have no right to bring her up when this fight is between us. So drop the gun and get on the ground."

Chuckling as though he doesn't even really believe that he's about to be taken out, Cyrus stupidly continues, "I'll probably send one of my men to kill her, you know. Try to make it painless out of respect for her."

"Talking about me?" Carly asks, walking in with armed guards. She's got the worst timing.

"Yes I was, Mrs. Corinthos. How are you?"

"I'd be better if you were in a casket six feet under," she answers calmly. "Now, put your gun down before I kill you with my bare hands."

Where the fuck did she learn how to do that? He didn't teach her, neither did Sonny. Who did? Not the point, Carly isn't supposed to be here. She's now got the chance to be shot. That would kill him faster than the bullet wound he feels he could get.

"You heard her," Jason says. "Gun down, on the ground."

Turns out that's what needed to be done. The guards with guns pointed at his head doesn't hurt either, he's sure, but Cyrus finally gets on the ground and drops his gun.

"Good. Get Mrs. Corinthos out of here, now," he orders, to her complaints. "Carly, just go."

"I, personally, have nothing against her being here," Cyrus voices.

"You have no say." When Carly leaves, Jason calmly continues, "You mention her name again in front of me and I'll kill you. Talk about your plan to take me out again and you'll be dead. Nothing is changing. This is your last warning. Next time you try to kill me or someone I care about, you'll be dead quicker than you can even move from the scene. Get out."

Angrily, the ponytail clad man leaves, escorted by the guards. Jason then makes sure everyone knows to make sure there's no evidence of what happened, and that there's especially none Carly was ever there before he joins her in her car.

It's a quiet ride, with him firing off orders for his men and her pouting.

"I was right! He wanted you dead! You fell right into his trap!" She exclaimed when they walked into the living room of her house.

"No I didn't! Carly, I had it all under control!"

"Gun pointed at you, Jason! I walked in and there was a gun pointed at you!"

"I had mine pointed at him too! You can't walk into a gunfight!"

"Oh, but you can start one? You can get shot, I can't? Is that how this works?"

"The only reason you'd be shot in general is because of me, Carly! I introduced you to the business, I'm the reason you and Sonny got together, and I'm the reason you're still apart of it. I can deal with getting myself shot, I've survived other bullets before, but I can't deal with you getting shot!"

"I didn't!"

"Yeah, because I kicked you out of there!"

"I brought the guards, I was safe!"

"You walked into a gunfight when I told you it was the stupid thing to do! I told you not to go but you couldn't help yourself, could you, and you went to the meeting."

"You want me to tell you I was wrong and apologize? I'm not gonna do that! You could've been killed! God knows what Sonny's livelihood status is, but yours is alive. Alive, Jason! I'm not risking you dying, alright?"

"I've survived bullets before, I'd survive this one!"

"How do you know that? I need you to stay alive, so I don't care what your feelings are on the subject and I'm not apologizing! If I had to do it again and it was the only option, I'd go unarmed and alone. I would've been shot if it meant saving you from that! Cyrus wants you dead!"

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you died because of me! Your kids need their mother! Cyrus wants you dead too and I'll be damned if I let it happen."

"So what, Jason, you'll do the noble thing and die instead of me? That'll kill me. I couldn't breathe when we thought you were dead last time. Imagine how I'd be if I knew I was the one who caused it!"

"You're not dying!" He shouts back, but there's no edge to his tone anymore. He's less pissed. "Not when it's preventable. You're not getting shot either Carly. If I cause your death, I'll hate myself."

"And you think I won't hate myself if I cause yours?"

To be continued after midnight bc I have thing to add to my blog

eeee

[trevorbarre]

Chasing Trane - In Vain?

I went to see Chasin Trane, the (fairly) new screen biography of John Coltrane, at the ICA last night. Afterwards, I engaged in a rather heated discussion with one of my mates about the emphasis in the film on Coltrane’s spirituality, which he found somewhat mawkish, but I found to be entirely appropriate in the circumstances, given both the role of religion in his upbringing and family, and in the way his self-confessed spiritual search vastly improved his music after he kicked junk and alcohol in 1957.

My mate put across the point that his withdrawal from substance use/misuse both allowed Trane’s gift to really thrive, and yet also surely contributed to his very early death at 40 years of age. He found the holy ramblings of the likes of Carlos Santana and a splendidly attired-in-red Sonny Rollins (now in his late 80s) a bit much (as did several tittering members of the audience, rather irritatingly, but then again it was the ICA). I opined that spirituality is as important a factor in understanding this music as it is in Albert Ayler’s case, and is an essentially unavoidable subject. The Church of John Coltrane in San Francisco is, rather oddly, not mentioned, even though some of the accompanying images suggest it.

As one would expect, there is some coruscating  live footage from the classic quartet, amplified by a sophisticated cinema sound system, which  is unarguably the high point of the movie, and should explain to the jazz neophyte what all the fuss is about. I could have done with a tad more discussion about the controversial Alice Coltrane/Rashied Ali/Pharoah Sanders period of 1965-7, and just how much shit Coltrane had to put up with as he was dying, for playing with his new grouping. Also some reflections as to why there has not been a single figure of equivalent unifying importance since his death 50 years ago (Miles’ last 20 years were too divisive for this honour) - this is surprising as, almost inevitably, Wynton Marsalis gets to have his say, as per usual, in his self-appointed role as jazz’s archivist. It’s also a momento mori to see how much Marsalis has aged since his pivotal role in Ken Burn’s Jazz. He remains as pompous and self-assured as ever though.

There are several talking heads throughout, some more interesting than others - as well as Marsalis, Santana and Rollins, we get a lot of Jimmy Heath for some reason, and rather less, unfortunately, of McCoy Tyner (the most well-placed of them all, I would have thought?); a rather enjoyable set of comments from the saxophonist ex-POTUS Bill Clinton (which just makes one weep even more about the current holder of that position, who has probably never heard of John Coltrane and would no doubt see him as Fake News, what’s more) and The Door’s John Densmore (who is surprisingly good). Alice Coltrane, Elvin Jones, Rashied Ali and Jimmy Garrison have all  passed, but it might have been nice to have heard from Sanders? The voice most missing, though, is Coltrane’s itself, although Denzil Washington ably fills this role. I’m not even sure if any recordings of Trane’s voice actually exist - probably not, presumably.

All in all, I thoroughly welcome and recommend this film - it’s not perfect, films like this rarely are. At 100 minutes, it’s exactly long enough. It should appeal both to the merely curious, and to the hardened pedant like myself. Just be prepared for a fair amount of spiritual exegesis with your horn ascensions!

[ma-gic-gay]

This is bad.

Boss and second best friend is presumed dead and I just had sex with his wife who happens to be my best friend bad. In his bed. In his house. Pretty sure I need to go and repent at a church when I'm not even religious bad.

Oh right, that's what happened. Minus the going to a church and confessing his sins to a priest part. That's probably what he should do, but he doubts he'll actually go through with that. A priest would probably somehow get to Sam or worse, end up knowing where Sonny is and been harboring him all this time. As far as he knows, you can't really have a priest not tell your secrets.

He's fucked. Scratch that, they're fucked.

Wrong choice of expression there. Very wrong. Ironic, but severely wrong expression.

What the hell is he supposed to do from here? What are they supposed to do from here? Go and confess their sins to a pastor? Too long and they'd probably end up in jail if that happened. Pretend it never happened? He knows that's not going to happen. There's going to be a long, drawn out conversation about it. Move to different continents and never speak to each other again? Too extreme, not to mention unlikely. Something would happen and they'd both be pulled back to town or to whatever continent they were on to post bail or something. Besides, they'd been friends forever. They could never not be in each other's lives. It was impossible.

Oh god. They're friends. No benefits. The last time there had been benefits attached, they had hated each other. Not in a typical "I hate you bitch" way, but in a "it doesn't matter if I never see you again. In fact, my life would be better if I didn't" way.

Needless to say they were not going back to those days. It would be impossible now; both had intertwined lives. Their kids were close and both were close to each other's kids. Extra parents, if you will. Not to mention, they both knew way too much about each other.

Irony is a cruel mistress, he thinks, thinking back to when they didn't even know each other's names. Those were the days of Robin and picking up random girls in bars before he learned his lesson about the girls he picked for his hookups carefully because if he didn't, there was a chance he'd end up with his entire life turned into a tornado of blonde hair and getting her out of trouble.

The quiet snoring at his side suddenly came to a stop, a telltale sign she's woken up or close to it.

Suddenly, he's all too aware of what happened last night between the two and what's going on now. They'd had sex (protected, at least they were stable enough to remember that) in the house Sonny bought, in his bed. The kids were at their friends houses, or in the case of Avery at her mother's. So at least the kids hadn't heard them.

Flashforward what he imagines can't be more than twelve hours and now they're in Sonny's bed, naked and both awake or waking up. The kids wouldn't suspect anything, provided none of his clothes besides his jacket were downstairs. He'd spent the night in general plenty of times and that had increased in this year.

Granted, their impulse control last night was to be questioned given that this had happened.

"Jason? What are you doing here?" Carly asks tiredly, still wiping the sleep out of her eyes. "And where the hell is your shirt? Or mine, for that matter- oh god."

She remembers. Dammit. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Good in the thing that he's now confirmed that they were sober, bad that now they've got decisions to make and neither of them make the best decisions when it's early in the morning and they're uncaffeinated.

"We need to talk about this, but first, coffee. Where the hell are our clothes? Please tell me we didn't leave them downstairs," she groans.

They find their clothes quickly enough and get dressed slightly awkwardly before heading downstairs to brew coffee.

The moss bowl that seems to continually grow, to the point that Jason was gifted some moss to go in his apartment as a housewarming gift from Carly, seems extra interesting this morning as he studies it intensely. That is one big moss plant. Over the course of a year, it got much larger than expected.

"Alright, we are not going to stand here in this awkward silence. We are going to discuss what happened last night and then figure out what the hell is means," she decides, handing him a mug of coffee.

"What is there to discuss? We had sex," he answers her simply after taking a sip of coffee.

"That's the exact thing we have to discuss."

"We're both very aware of how that works, Carly. Would you like me to pull up a diagram online and explain it?" Jason teases her.

"No smartass, I want to discuss the sex."

"Oh god," he groans into his coffee. "It's not even ten am and you've already decided that this is the big fight of the day for you. Couldn't this wait until, I don't know, Scout graduates college?"

"Jason," she warns, "humor me and discuss last night. I promise that this conversation will end sooner if you just agree to actually have it sooner."

"It'll end ten minutes before my funeral as opposed to at my funeral, then," he jokes.

"Do you want me to think about your death?"

"Alright fine I give in, we'll talk about it."

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" She asks triumphantly.

"You are lucky I don't have anything else to do today besides paperwork I can have someone else do," he answers.

There's not enough coffee in the world to stop the headache he can feel she's going to bring to him today. It's a sixth sense by now, that she'll be giving him a headache that won't be fixed until the problem is solved.

In a weird way, it's a relief know that she does that. It's comforting in the strangest way.

Neither of them claimed to ever understand why it's calming.

"I know," she says, a smirk on her face. "Now, to the discussion about last night. We did it."

"We have already confirmed that information, yes," he agrees.

"It was good."

"Yeah."

"We're friends."

"Correct."

"I need more than one word answers!"

"We're reviewing information we both already agreed on and these aren't questions."

Sighing, Carly dramatically sips her coffee, getting a quiet chuckle out of her friend. "I still would appreciate an answer that wasn't a synonym of yes. Maybe one that's, I don't know, five or more words."

"Then ask me a question."

"Fine. Where do you want to go from here? Do we stay friends or be more or be friends with benefits or something else I haven't thought of yet?" The blonde rambles, caffeine kicking in.

"You're rambling."

"I'm aware."

"Just checking."

"Answer the question!"

"Calm down," he urges. "I don't know where to go from here."

"You're always the one who knows what to do in situations like these, not me!"

"Yes, I always come up with a plan of what to do when you and I hook up a day after Christmas. Because we've been in this situation loads of times before," he chuckle sarcastically.

"I meant when I do something impulsive, or you do something impulsive smartass," Carly glares at him playfully.

"Ah yes, my life's sole purpose: Stopping you from doing stupid things. And when that fails, getting you out of trouble," he jokes again. "I don't know what to do, for once. We may have a major problem on our hands."

"May have? Jason, if you can't figure out what to do from here, I think we're in major trouble! I haven't made a major life decision without a severe amount of your input in a very long time," the blonde exclaims, downing the last of her coffee like it'll help her make a decision of what to do here.

"That probably says something about you being codependent on me."

"You love me running into your apartment with your problems."

"Sometimes. Other times, your problems and plans are so stupid I don't understand them but somehow they hinge on me going along with them."

"Well of course they hinge on you going along with them? You're my best friend, if they didn't I'm convinced that our friendship would simply never recover from it. We'd live our lives without a single hope of ever getting back to this because you didn't go along with my plan," she says dramatically, smiling. "And that would be the worst thing to ever happen to either of us."

"Mhm," he says, rolling his eyes but a small smile pulls at his lips. "I believe you decided that we needed to figure this out."

"Well we do!"

"So far you've only stated the facts of what happened and some of the options of what to do. You're the one who decided we have to figure out exactly what this means before I'm even fully coherent."

"Drink your coffee faster."

"Solid advice coming from a woman who's already formed three plans before her first cup of coffee."

"You're right, there are about seventeen different possibilities in my mind at the moment based off of what decision we come to," she smiles at him. "Would you like to hear them?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

"Then let's get it over with," he sighs, sipping his coffee in an attempt to not deal with a massive headache.

"First scenario is that we pretend this never happened and stay exactly the same. No awkwardness, last night is essentially wiped from our memories. Solid option, but it's impossible. Second is friends with benefits but we don't catch feelings. Again, solid option with no to minimal awkwardness, but I have a feeling we both know it won't end up happening, especially with me. Third is friends with benefits but we do catch feelings. Could end in repressing feelings or could end with us dating. Either way, ends up being fairly complicated. Fourth is that we begin dating. This one has equal pros and cons, primarily that if that ends up going south we won't have our friendship being the same and that would be the worst but that if it goes well, marriage. No more kids though, I think we've got enough of those.

"Fifth is we both move away and never see each other again. Not happening. We both would end up arrested. Or killed," Carly shudders at the thought, "Sixth option is that you go back to Sam and I begin the rather depressing at this age journey of dating. Seventh is that we acknowledge last night but continue as friends. Can't decide the pros and cons of that one."

"I haven't even finished my coffee yet and you're already planning seven different ideas for your future?" Jason asks, impressed and terrified at the same time. "Good god."

"Well now you have seven options to choose from. No pressure but if you choose five, I will never forgive you."

"Five is automatically out of the story, don't worry about that."

"In that case, you have six options to choose from."

"Why can't you choose?"

"Because I'm incapable of making a decision of this caliber on my own."

"But I'm not?"

"Fine, we'll make this decision together. After all, it affects us both." Carly agrees against her better judgement. "We should make a list."

"A list?" He groans. "This sounds dangerously close to a plan."

"It's not a plan, though. That's the beauty of it, we make a pros and cons list. From there, we make our decision."

"Most people would flip a coin."

"That's a terrible way to make a decision."

"Not really but fine, we'll make a list."

"I knew you'd give in."

To be continued when I'm not half asleep

oh dear-

[ma-gic-gay]

So this is a new one of these and the other one is probably over so yeah

It's a weird Christmas.

It marks a year since anyone last saw Sonny, a year since Julian's death, and a year full of drama, as one would expect.

Michael and Willow had had another child, a girl this time. Her name was Ophelia and Wiley loved being a big brother to her. The pair had also burned their annulment papers when they'd realized she was pregnant and finally admitted their feelings for each other. Watching them together had probably been the highlight of the year for their family.

Sam had started hooking up with Dante much to the chagrin of, well, everyone. It had started as a few random hookups but changed quickly into an actual relationship, testing several familial bonds.

Luckily, that disaster on wheels had been halted when Lulu had woken up from her coma. Lulu and Dante got back together and fell in love, again.

Sasha and Brando had formed a relationship as well, which was quite a surprise at first glance but made sense after a few weeks.

"Carly? You okay?" Jason asks. Surprisingly enough, she hadn't completely broke down yet, or ran away. The furthest she'd ran was the island and even then, it was only a few hours no one knew where she was, since he couldn't teleport and it took that long to get to the island.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking," she responds, faking a smile.

"Tell that to the tears in your eyes and obviously fake smile," he says to her. "What are you thinking about?"

"It's been a year since any of us have heard from Sonny. For all we know, he's dead. Hell, he probably is. I know I should give up and just agree to a funeral, but it feels wrong to do that without a body," Carly sighs, head in her hands in an effort to hide her tears. "It feels wrong for him to not be here. Last Christmas, we were convinced he'd be home by now and now it's like we've all resigned ourselves to him being dead."

"If it doesn't feel right to have a funeral, don't have one. I've known you for a long time, and your instincts are right a lot of the time. Just because Sonny's not confirmed dead doesn't mean he's not," Jason frowns, putting his arm around her and rubbing circles along her back.

Sonny's "death" meant he had to step up in more ways than one. This had marked the year of Jason running the mob, which he'd practically been doing before but was actually doing now. He'd also had to become sort of a surrogate husband to Carly to the point he practically lives there by now. The kids hadn't questioned it; they'd asked a few times if there was anything going on there but after getting a firm no there hadn't been anything else from them in forms of questioning their relationship status. It was what it was and that was the same friendship they'd always had.

There had been times even Danny had questioned why they were at that house so much, to the point he once asked Carly if they were together or not.

You know it's reaching an odd point when a twelve year old is asking if you're in love with your best friend.

Of course, they didn't take into consideration the fact the whole town thought they were together. Again. Everyone had assumed, based off of how much time they'd been spending together- surprisingly more than normal- and the fact that he'd all but moved into the house that they were together.

That was a fun one to realize when he'd gotten shot and everyone had assured her that her boyfriend would be fine.

It just wasn't happening, they were friends. Anything more could complicate it and complicated almost always meant that there would be fights they couldn't go to each other to uncomplicate.

"I know that, but I just don't want to live knowing that there's a chance he could be alive somewhere and he's been kidnapped or forgotten his name or something. It's like I'm stuck in this neverending circle where there's barely any hope but I can't pretend there's none either. Sometimes, I wish that the police would show up with a body and I would have to confirm that yes, he is dead, just so that I could get out of this loop," Carly sobs. "And then I feel terrible for wishing he was dead because I love him, you know, but then at the same time, I can't help but feel like I need closure."

"That's not a bad thing, to need closure. None of us get any closure when it comes to this, Carly. You're not a bad person for wanting some," he reminds her. "You've been grieving for a year a man you don't even know for sure is dead. It doesn't make you bad to want to have something definite."

"But wanting my husband dead? That's dark," she argues with him.

"You want to know if he's dead or alive, something to confirm what's happened to him. I hate to break it to you but you don't qualify as a terrible person," Jason chuckles. "You've never killed someone, never hurt a kid."

"I shot a dude in open court, I almost killed AJ. I've done a lot of questionable things in my life, Jason," Carly fights back.

She's not wrong, persay, but she's not right. "That stuff doesn't make you a bad person. Morally grey? Yes. Bad? No. You do what you think is best and you're impulsive. If something's not going your way, you'll tip the scales. It's just how you are. None of that makes you a bad person. Some people might not like it, but you've never killed someone or hurt a kid, so in my book you're a good person."

Carly's head comes out of her hands for a minute and he smiles, wiping away the tears. "Well you're not a bad person either. You'd never hurt a kid and you only kill in self defense or if the person's really bad and threatening someone you care about. It's not like you wake up and go kill someone for shits and giggles. You mourn the people you kill and feel bad about it. Only a purely horrible person wouldn't feel bad about their murders."

"Neither of us are bad people, let's just agree on that at least."

"Fine," she relents finally. That only took a year. "I miss Sonny. Especially this time of year. Last year, he read Donna and Avery the Grinch and he had the world's worst Grinch voice. I practically begged him to read another book because of how bad it was. But this year, I wish he would be able to read it to them."

"I miss him too," Jason admits. "It's been a hell of a year without him."

"That it has. So much has changed," she agrees with him, shifting her position on the couch so she's lying her head on his lap.

That's probably why the kids thought they were dating.

He plays with her hair as she laughs, remembering some obscure detail about his telling of the Grinch and decorating for Christmas.

Scratch that, this is definitely why everyone thinks they're together.

"Hey Mom, Jason," Joss greets them, coming in from the kitchen. "I'm going to Trina's. Donna's with Ophelia at the Quartermaine's and Avery's with Ava."

"Alright sweetie, have fun," Carly bids her daughter goodbye, sighing. "Why is she so adult now? I mean, I can remember when she was born and it feels like yesterday. Hell, Michael's birth feels like yesterday. And they're both so grown up."

"Time flies when you're having fun," he answers.

"Where'd you get that? A throw pillow or some advice of my mother's?"

"A card someone sent me back when I was in the hospital. Needless to say, that card got tossed in the trash as soon as you'd let me stand up to go to the trash."

"Who the hell sent that to you of all people?"

"No clue. It didn't have a name attached."

"Huh. Well, it's a terrible expression. Too throw pillow. The real answer would be that we're aging, sadly," Carly sighs again, equally as dramatic. "Granted, I still look like I'm 27, but somehow I've aged."

"Age is but a number."

"You sound like a Hallmark card."

"Rude."

"You do!"

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm aging as well. You're not in this whole getting old thing alone. Provided, of course, that you agree to age," he smirks.

"I don't have anything better to do, sadly, so I suppose I'll agree to getting older. But I refuse to have a gray hair."

"Then go to the salon when you notice one and dye your hair."

"I plan on it," the blonde smiles at him before changing the topic. "Do you think we're weird?"

"That came out of nowhere."

"Answer the question."

"No?"

"That sounded like a question."

"Carly, how am I supposed to answer this one? I don't know, maybe?" Jason says, though most of it comes out as a question.

"Well, I mean, think of it. Sonny's been presumed dead for a year. You've been in charge of the business and been there for all of us in more ways than I can count. Seriously, I think Donna sees you as a father," Carly chuckles. "And you've listened to me crying and losing it. Hell, you spent a month and a half at the island just so I wouldn't be alone."

"Hey, you're family. I was happy to do all of those things. Besides, you wouldn't leave my side when I got shot. Or for a very long month after that," he jokes.

"I know but you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to step up and parent the kids. You already had Danny and Scout and the breakup with Sam to deal with, that's a lot at once. Not to mention, taking over the business and grieving Sonny. And dealing with me. All at the same time," she smiles. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, but you had no obligation to do any of that."

"Carly, do you think I'd be here right now if I didn't want to? You know me better than that. I love you and the kids and want to be there for all of you. So far, I've only gotten shot once and that was unrelated, so I'd consider this a pretty good experience."

The blonde scoffs at him and he chuckles. "Not funny. You could've died."

Rolling his eyes, he reminds her, "I didn't."

"Well you're not allowed to get shot for a long time."

"I'll take getting shot off of my to do list."

"Don't you dare joke about this!"

"Alright. Look at me. I'm not going to die anytime soon. I promise. It takes a lot more than a measly bullet to kill me, after all. Not even Russian madmen could do it," he says seriously.

"Good. Because if you do that to me again, I'll have no choice but to resign myself to a life in either prison or Ferncliff," she says half seriously, getting a laugh out of Jason.

It's not entirely unrealistic she'd end up in one of those positions, especially given that it's already happened. Repeatedly.

Maybe there's a sign she should stop doing dangerous things.

Almost as though she's being told to by something inside her, Carly connects her lips with his.

to be continued

why do i get myself into these things smh