#probably like 5 other things that break the geneva convention

[cheerycherrycandy-resurrected]

Ghoulette Appreciation Week 6

Week 6: Murder Ghoulettes and self-care

Aurora wakes up thirsty. Cumulus taking Aurora out on her first hunt, followed by a tiny bit of self-care with Cirrus afterwards.

Rating: M Content: murder ghoulettes, kinda vampire au, blood/violence/murder Words: 1270

In my mind Aurora is a huge Twilight-girlie, so you can't tell me she doesn't try and recreate Bella's first hunt to cope with learning what her topside diet includes...

Read below or on AO3! where this almost got named "good soup"

Aurora wakes up thirsty. She’s been topside for a few months by now, and while she’s mostly on top of this strangely fragile Vessel’s needs, she’s never felt a thirst quite like this. Her mouth feels drier than it does after a band rehearsal without water, like her throat is burning.

She delicately untangles herself from the arms of the ghoulettes around her and makes her way to the kitchen to get a drink. Grabbing the largest glass she can find, she fills it and gulps it down, immediately refilling it. Nothing. In fact her thirst seems to be worse than ever. Too cold some instinct screams at her. She puts the glass in the microwave, and takes another sip of the gently steaming liquid. Wrong. Aurora lets out a small growl which reverberates around the darkened kitchen, mocking her in her frustration. The lights flicker to life as Cirrus joins her in the kitchen, yawning widely.

“What’cha doing, Rory? ‘S too early to be up yet.”

Aurora turns to her with frantic eyes, gesturing to the half full glass of warm water, “I’m so thirsty Cir, but water just makes it worse!”

Cirrus seemed to wake up fully at that, blinking sleep from her quickly darkening eyes. “Ah. I thought you were overdue a feed. Lus is going on a trip soon, she’ll take you later.”

A feed? What sort of trip? Aurora rakes her fingers through her hair in frustration at Cirrus’s cryptic behaviour. With a tilt of her head at Aurora's confusion, Cirrus turns abruptly to head back to the dorms.

“Come on, you'll want to be sitting down for this.”

Aurora took the news well. Almost too well. Instead of the abject horror most ghouls displayed at having to hunt in their weak humanoid forms to survive topside, she seemed almost excited at the prospect.

"So we're like vampires up here?” There was a disconcerting gleam to her eyes. "That's so cool!”

Cirrus and Cumulus shared a glance. Oh dear. They recalled Aurora's current obsession with 2000s chick-flicks. She watched Twilight last week. Cumulus nodded sheepishly; at least this reaction was better than the hysterics from Sunny.

“Sure thing Starburst, just like Vampires.” Cumulus didn't specify that she meant the non-glittery-variety. “Go get changed, we'll head out this morning before the boys decide to join us. Rain always makes such a mess.”

Aurora practically skipped across the hall to her room.

"Good luck with that.” Cirrus remarked to Cumulus, “I'll have a hot bath ready when you get back.”

“Thanks love.” Cumulus rolled her eyes good-naturedly, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I'll bring the little bloodsucker back in once piece.”

“I'm ready!” chirps Aurora from the doorway. She's met with stunned silence for a second.

"Sweetie,” Cirrus starts hesitantly, “What are you wearing?”

A short while later, once Aurora has been convinced that while yes, she definitely can wear that tiny silk dress, she really does have to put proper shoes on, Cumulus leads the way to the edge of the forest surrounding the Abbey. As she does, she makes a mental note of other movies to blacklist.

The pair trek through miles and miles of forest, well beyond the invisible perimeter wards of the Abbey. There is an agreement with the Clergy that although ghouls definitely need to feed, they should do so as far from the Abbey as possible, and not in the same region too often. After her initial excitement, Aurora now feels her mouth getting drier and drier with each step.

After what feels like hours, Cumulus stops, sniffing the air around them and smiling.

“Alright Rory, you're good to go.”

"What do I do?” Aurora asks uncertainly. The air here felt thick, and held the same allure as the waft of Mountain's freshly baked bread did.

“Oh you'll see,” Cumulus smirks, "just follow your nose.”

Aurora took a deep sniff before instinctually dropping into a hunting crouch. The scent was stronger down here, sticking to the leaves underfoot. She slinks through the trees, tracking the captivating smell until the air around them is rich with it. A gust of wind blows it even stronger in their direction, and she takes off running in the direction of the mouthwatering aroma. The branches around her tear at the flimsy satin of her dress and Cumulus has to laugh internally at the destruction: what did she expect?

The deer hunter Aurora has tracked never stood a chance. Before he could even link the sounds of branches snapping with danger, the small ghoulette is on top of him, his gun still raised in the direction of a spooked deer that is now bolting away.

She rips and tears at his flesh with vicious fangs and claws, carving through bone and sinew, and devouring blood, viscera, organs. The rush of warmth on her tongue and the sweet, metallic tang finally satiates her unholy thirst. As Aurora begins to return to herself from the red haze of the hunt, Cumulus looks on proudly, with feral eyes of her own. There is blood smeared around Aurora's mouth, her entirely ridiculous dress is hanging onto her by threads, more rip than fabric, and Cumulus can't help but marvel at her terrifying beauty.

She helps Aurora maneuverer the remains of the hunter's lifeless body deeper into the trees. By the time he is found, likely months later, his ghoulish mutilations will be indistinguishable from those caused by a wild animal. Possibly the ghouls will see talk of a bear attack in the newspapers the Siblings of the Abbey read.

Aurora’s thirst may be satisfied but Cumulus’s is only baited, so the pair move on. It isn’t done to share one’s prey with another ghoul if they are not mated, so Cumulus will find another victim, she always does. Sometimes they even come willingly, hypnotised by her unfathomable beauty in the depths of the unforgiving forest.

Eventually returning to the Abbey, Aurora find that the less feral she feels, the more she realises how deeply uncomfortable she is; cold and sticky, covered in mud, blood, and Satan only knows what else. Cumulus tempts her to keep moving quickly, despite the tiredness that is setting back into her bones, by telling her how Cirrus won't be able to resist her after a hunt. She’ll run them a warm bath, meticulously clean her claws for her, and take care of her in every way she knows. Cumulus tells Aurora how she's in for it now, as she looks every inch the terrifying hellbeast that she is.

They enter the ghoul wing with their hair everywhere, wild nests full of twigs and leaves. They are careful to avoid the common areas of the Abbey looking like this. All the ghouls, no matter how reckless they are when hunting, know better that to give any indication to the Siblings of Sin that this side of them exists.

“How'd the little vampire do?” Cirrus asks Cumulus when they tumble into her room, jumping up to begin picking detritus out of her Mate's hair and usher them both towards the cloud of sweet-smelling steam emanating from the bathroom.

Aurora is doing great: she’s preening just inside the door, feigning nonchalance as she picks blood out from under her claws. The dress maybe didn’t survive as well as she expected, the liquid silk slip hanging off her small frame in tatters. She shoots out a delicate tongue to lap up a spot of blood on her arm, her high-pitched purr reverberating around the room with self-satisfaction.

Cumulus smirks, “Oh, she’s gonna be just fine up here Riri.”

#ghoulette appreciation weeks 2024 #ghoulette appreciation weeks #murder ghouls #murder ghoulettes #vampire au #cw blood #cw mild gore #cw death #blood drinking #probably like 5 other things that break the geneva convention #ghost fanfiction #aurora ghoulette #cumulus ghoulette #the band ghost #ghost #ghost bc #nameless ghouls #em writes #ghoulettes #ghoulette fanfiction #ghoulette appreciation

[daebakinc]

Hero Among Thorns - Pt 5

Pairing: Hyunwoo x Reader Genre: Undercover Detective AU, Action, Romance Word Count: 2.5K Summary: When a mistaken connection results in your kidnapping by one of the city’s most notorious gangs, the undercover detective Hyunwoo has no choice but to rescue and protect you, and, most dangerously of all, fall in love with you. Warning: Mentions of violence and blood. Parts:  1, 2, 3, 4 

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Even the most hobbit-like homebody has their limits. You really thought your tolerance for staying inside the apartment with no job and no bills to worry about would be high. You really did.

Hyunwoo stayed with you for a few days, then handed over the majority of his babysitting duty to a rotation of his team members, minus Minhyuk. He’s still avoiding you.

In contrast, the others have ensured you want for almost nothing. Kihyun and Hyungwon delivered what they could of your apartment, moving furniture and other items into a spare room at their shop. Those they couldn’t salvage, they replaced. Jooheon and Hoseok never seem to run out of stories of their team’s adventures and misadventures alike. Changkyun has procured a digital copy of any and every movie and television show you ask for to fill your days. When you asked if they were all legal, he’d only winked.

Despite your wheel of protectors, every night, Hyunwoo returns. Some nights, it’s so late he has to wake you up from the couch so you can go to bed. You do try to stay awake, but it doesn’t always work. As much as you like the other members of his team, it’s your time with Hyunwoo that you look forward to the most. If you spent time thinking about how much you anticipated his return, you might be embarrassed.

At first, you’d awkwardly moved around each other like two newly-assigned dance partners. Overly polite, careful of each other’s space. Eventually, you felt each other out and fell into a routine that fits the two of you. He makes dinner with your help or brings takeout, which the two of you eat while only talking to comment on some aspect of the food, sometimes followed by a movie that Hyunwoo usually sleeps through half of, before heading to your own bedrooms. Hyunwoo drops little details about his days that he spends away from you, but never too much. He tells you most of it is too boring to bother with.

That hurt a little at first, but you always remind yourself of your situation. You’re his charge, his witness. Not his girlfriend or confidant. You like to think you’re becoming friends at least. Never mind that you harbor the secret fantasy of becoming more.

Maybe that internal conflict helped contribute to the fact that it only takes two weeks before you get stir crazy. Two weeks, three days, and only God knows how many hours, minutes and seconds. You now catch yourself staring out the window, heart sour apple green with envy at the people walking down the street. Getting to do normal things like shop at whatever stores they please, feel the wind and sun whenever they want, see something other than the same gray walls and window view.

If you were in the basement of the apartment building, you’d be seriously considering pulling a Count of Monte Cristo and dig your way out with nothing more than a spoon. Or tie your bed-sheets together and rappel down the side of the building. Though both the crawling and rappelling would be hard with one arm out of commission…

“Whatcha thinking about?”

Hoseok’s voice startles you, but this time, you don’t fall off the window seat. For such a big man, he can move as quietly as a cat when he wants. Very, very slowly, you’re getting use to that.

“Can you rappel down a building with one arm?” you ask, not taking your eyes from the window.

“Technically, but I wouldn’t recommend it. One slip and you’re a pancake on the pavement if your rigging isn’t properly set up. And that’s if one arm can handle your whole body weight with gravity pulling on it,” he answers candidly. He sits on the opposite side of the window sill. “Why?”

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” you sigh, “but I’m sick of this apartment. I want fresh air.”

“Open the window then.”

By now, you know when he’s teasing and sure enough, when you look at him, that smile is on his face. You push his foot off the sill with yours. “You know what I mean. I want outside. Isn’t keeping someone in a single space for an extended amount of time a form of torture?”

He gasps dramatically, a hand over his heart. “My presence is torture?” When he grins at your giggle, you know that was his whole point.

“You know what I mean. If I have to look at these same walls for any longer … I feel like I’m going to go crazy.”

“In my defense, I did try to convince Hyunwoo we should paint the place. Make it more homey. I suggested blue, but –”

“Hoseok.”

“I know. I don’t think I could do it myself,” he admits with a sigh. Solemnly, he adds, “We’re just trying to keep you safe. Yew has been quiet since your kidnapping. That could mean he’s decided his threat worked or he’s planning something worse.”

“I know. I appreciate it, but wouldn’t Yew think it’s weird that Hyunwoo’s not letting me go anywhere? Like even if I’m a kept-woman or baby-mama or whatever gangsters are supposed to have.”

“A kept-woman?” Hoseok bursts out laughing. He puts his foot back up. “How old are you, grandma? Who says that anymore?”

“You know what I mean. That’s why I added ‘baby-mama’,” Childishly, you stick out your tongue at him. “I’ve been on an old Hollywood binge lately.”

“Still,” he says, wiping the tears that had leaked from the corner of his eyes. “Look, you kind of have a point. I don’t think Yew is going to try to get to you again as long as he believes you’re with Hyunwoo and not a witness. I’ll can talk to Hyunwoo.”

“Really?”

Hoseok holds up his hands at your ecstatic expression. “I’m not promising anything. Like I said, keeping you alive is the biggest priority next to bringing Yew down. Hyunwoo is the ultimate authority in that regard. He makes the final decisions.”

“I’ll take anything, Hoseok. Even just a walk around the block or the roof.”

A few days later, Hyunwoo doesn’t leave directly after breakfast like usual. Instead, after he rinses your cereal bowls, he stays in the kitchen.

Glancing at your arm, he asks, “Would you like to go out?”

Go out? The water you were drinking rebels, shooting down your windpipe. You splutter and cough, trying to get a hold of yourself. That’s a little difficult with Hyunwoo pounding on your back a little too hard to be really helpful. Did he really say 'do you want to go out?’ With him?

Finally gaining control, your voice hoarse, you repeat his question, “Go out?”

Hyunwoo backs away, still eyeing you worriedly. “Yes. It’d just be to the shop and back, but Hoseok said you needed to get out of the apartment. Something about the Geneva Convention.”

“Yes!” Any regret at your misinterpretation is forgotten at the prospect of breathing new air and returning in some capacity to the outside world. You have an excuse to wear real clothes, see real people! “Hell yes!”

You jump out of the chair, tripping in your hurry to get dressed. Hyunwoo steps in, saving you from falling flat on your face. Naturally, your good arm hooks itself around his waist.

He’s so warm. And solid, too. And smells like heaven on steroids. Even better than those fuzzy memories of yours. You feel your own body heat in response to the contact.

God, when did you get this easy?

“Are you okay?” Hyunwoo asks.

His words break the spell and you realize he’s stiff against you. Damn it, he’s probably thinking he never signed up to have some wounded, touch-starved woman clinging to him like a stoned koala.

In an effort to lessen the awkwardness, you turn the accidental embrace into a hug, immediately releasing him. “Yeah! I’m just really excited about going outside!” Without waiting for a response, you run out of the room.

Shimmying out of your pajamas and into a skirt is easy. Then comes the shirt. Jooheon had let you start moving your shoulder a few days ago, but you still have to be careful. With one hand, you manage to wriggle out of your tank top. You chose a clean one, but not before casting a longing look at a shirt with sleeves. Your choice proves wise though. Even lifting your arm to slide it through the top’s armhole makes the healing muscles scream at the stretch. They continue to ache as you readjust the shirt, but you ignore them. The intoxication of freedom, no matter how limited, mutes the pain.

You run back into the living room. “Ready!”

Hyunwoo nods and grabs his car keys. He opens the door for you, but catches your arm as you move past him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?” you ask, puzzled. You may not have bothered with makeup, but you haven’t since you got here. Hyunwoo’s only seen it running down your face with tears.

“You’re sweating.” He points to your forehead.

You wipe at it, instinctively using your injured arm. The pain is instant. Hoping Hyunwoo didn’t notice your wince, you shrug it off. “Getting the shirt on was more work than I thought, I guess. I’m fine.”

He looks like he wants to say something. However, he doesn’t stop you again as you walk out. Hyunwoo takes the lead down the stairs after locking the door. As you follow him down the stairwell, he says, “We’re just going to the shop, staying a few hours, then coming back. Yew’s been too quiet for me to trust any side stops. When we’re outside, stay right beside me.”

“That’s fine,” you instantly reply.

You don’t meet another soul on the stairs and the lobby is similarly abandoned. It’s not surprising given the hour though. Those who work are long gone and just as far from returning home.

At the door, Hyunwoo pauses. You assume it’s to scan the street before exiting. Instead, he turns back to you. “Yew has at least one person watching this place. We want him to keep thinking you’re my girlfriend. That will keep you safe.”

“Okay.” You’re not quite sure where he’s going with this.

A hint of pink sprouts on Hyunwoo’s cheeks. He smiles, but it’s a different smile than you’ve seen before. It’s apologetic, with a hint of embarrassment.

“We’re going to need to make it believable. So, if you agree, I think we should engage in displays of physical affection.”

You can hear the echo of your jaw hitting the floor. “What?”

“Nothing you don’t consent to,” Hyunwoo rushes to reassure you. “All professional. Just physical touch on arms, waist, and hands.

“All that and no kissing?” you blurt out. Instant regret slams into you. “I mean, wouldn’t it be weird if we didn’t?”

Luckily, Hyunwoo laughs. He shifts his weight. “Yeah, I guess… Kisses on the head, forehead and cheeks should be okay. Right?”

Your eyes fall to Hyunwoo’s lips. You can’t help but feel robbed of the opportunity to kiss him there. Before you fell punch-drunk into your fantasies, you stop yourself. You need to look at this as some kind of weird, elaborate, dance-less ballet. Hyunwoo is your dance partner, not a boyfriend. This is a professional relationship, one your life actually depends on. You can’t fuck this up.

“Right,” you say.

“Good.” With one hand, Hyunwoo pushes open the glass door of the building. The other reaches out to you, palm open and ready.

With a fortifying breath, you take it.

That breath turns out to be about as useless as gulping for air in outer space without a helmet. As you step through the door, Hyunwoo pulls you into his side, his arm encircling your shoulder. From shoulder to hip, you’re glued against him.

You feel his lips graze against the top of your head. The touch is so light you almost think you imagined it. But then Hyunwoo whispers into your hair, “Ready?”

Heart thudding wildly, you look up at him. The smile on his face is full of affection. It’s so natural, you almost believe it yourself. You can only nod and smile, belatedly remembering you have a part to play too. Dazed, you let him guide you down the steps and down the sidewalk.

Hyunwoo stops halfway down the block. He keeps his arm around you like a shield the whole time. If the air hadn’t held a crispness, you would have definitely overheated. The chirp of a car unlocking and Hyunwoo easing away from you to open the door is enough to bring you back to reality. When you actually look at the car, you immediately wonder if you’re hallucinating.

Even to someone who isn’t a car enthusiast, the car breathes class. It lacks the bulk of most modern cars, instead celebrating sleekness from its slim, rectangular nose to mirror-image tail. Yet like its driver, you know beneath all that jet black metal is pure muscle. From the outside, the only hint of this is the silver head of a supercharger sitting on the hood.

The parallel is so perfect, you can’t help but laugh.

Hyunwoo backs away from you, startled.

“Dude, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is your car? This one?”

Hyunwoo looks at the car with its open door, then back to you. “Yes. Why?” he asks when you start laughing all over again.

“It’s a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T.”

Surprise is evident on Hyunwoo’s face. “Yeah. You know cars?”

“Not at all, but holy crap.” You slide into the front seat. Hyunwoo closes it behind you and circles the car to get in as well. “You don’t see why this is funny?”

“No. It’s a good car. Put your seat belt on.” He waits until you do so, then pulls away from the curb and into the street, but you can’t let it go.

“An undercover agent posing as the head of a mechanic shop that also deals with 'stolen’ cars and drives a black 1970 Dodge Charger R/T that’s been modified?” You watch his face, leaning forward so your seat belt presses into your chest. “Doesn’t sound familiar at all?”

Hyunwoo shakes his head.

“This is the exact model car driven by Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious!”

“Never seen it.”

“Shut the damn front door. You’ve never seen The Fast and the Furious? Not one?”

“There’s more than one?”

At first, not a sound comes out of your mouth, too frozen in disbelief. You’re about to launch into a full geek rant when you notice a slight curve to the corner of Hyunwoo’s mouth. He’s not looking at you, his gaze purely on the road, but it’s there.

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” you say slowly.

A smile fully cracks through, broken by a low laugh that fills the car. “Of course I have. Minhyuk was obsessed with them. He made the entire team watch all of them one night after we got this assignment. I did own this car before I watched them though. It’s a good car.”

“You made it through the entire series in one sitting?” You whistle appreciatively.

“I saw the first one, but after that, they’re fuzzy,” Hyunwoo confesses. “I fell asleep.”

“Can’t blame you.” You shrug. “They’re like 16 hours altogether.”

Your bodyguard-slash-roommate nods, making a small sound in agreement.

Quiet settles between you after that. Where once it would have been tense or clumsy for you, it feels right. Comfortable. You don’t feel any need to fill the empty space in between the street noise and the engine’s sleek purr. Instead, you lean back against the leather seat and watch Hyunwoo with slight side glances.

You’re learning to read Hyunwoo’s silences. Sometimes, they can be just as articulate as if he had spoken with words.

His shoulders are relaxed beneath his dark jean jacket and his hands hold the steering wheel with the easy confidence of someone who knows they can handle the horsepower. Despite the mellowness of his body, Hyunwoo’s eyes keep a careful watch on the passing streets. They flicker left to right, then straight, then back again. Car, bus, and pedestrian get a quick threat assessment before being dismissed. He’s not very worried about an attack, but he’s not being stupid about it either.

Hyunwoo turns his head to turn down a street, facing you for a brief second. You notice suddenly that mouthed lyrics flow steadily from his lips right in time with the radio. The song is some oldie, the singer belting about freedom and fast cars. You wonder what his singing voice sounds like…

Out of nowhere, Hyunwoo says, “You should thank Minhyuk.”

“Minhyuk? Why?” you ask cautiously. Based on your last and only parting, you’re doubtful he’d give you the few seconds saying 'thank you’ would take. He’s the very last of the team you’d expect to be your advocate.

“He’s the one who finally convinced me to let you come with us.”

“Not Hoseok?”

He shakes his head. “Minhyuk,” he says with finality.

“Why?”

“Ask him yourself.”

Hyunwoo turns onto the curb and honks the horn three times. You glance out the window. The building is plain, gray concrete, a number of cracks showing its age like fine wrinkles. There’s a line of windows high in the front wall, but no sign to speak off. Nothing other than the two long, dulled and dented silver garage doors to indicate this is anything other than a warehouse.

One of the doors slides open. Hyunwoo pulls inside, the door closing just behind the car’s tail.

He only has time to turn off the car and slide the key from the ignition when Minhyuk appears at his window.

“We’ve got a problem,” he says, glancing at you.

#shownu scenarios #monsta x scenarios #kwritersworldnet #kpopwritingnet #kwriterskollection #monsta x fanfics #shownu fanfics #kpop fanfic #kpop scenarios

[thanksjro]

“Bullets”, a Last Stand of the Wreckers prose story- Ironfist Solves a Murder Mystery

Now that Overlord and Rewind have been exploded horribly in the vacuum of space, multiple people have died, and Chromedome’s horrifically single, let’s take a look at all those Last Stand of the Wreckers extras, yeah?

We more or less start with a Furmanism, as is tradition.

One day Furmanisms won’t be nearly as prevalent within the comic publications, and that is a day that I cannot wait to see. Forget politics, forget misogyny, forget basically NEEDING Death of the Author in effect to enjoy anything the man’s done- Furmanisms are a crutch that everybody in this franchise uses, but nobody needs. They never feel natural, in my opinion. It’s like a literary obligation at this point, and you can tell, because it never quite meshes with any writer’s style.

Anyway, this is the setup for what would happen on Pova- the Wreckers have been watching Squadron X fix up their ship, and now that the thing’s airborne again they’ve gotten itchy trigger fingers. Well, some of them, anyway. Rack n Ruin aren’t so sure about this whole thing, seeing as there are eight of them and an entire battalion up there. Impactor’s working the crowd though, as a leader of such a high turnover rate group is required to do, and that’s the point where First Aid stops reading.

Yep, this is one of Fisitron’s datalog entries, of which First Aid is a fan.

This isn’t First Aid’s first appearance within the IDW continuity- he played a role in Spotlight: Jazz, where he lived up to his name, and in Transformers: Ironhide #1, where he was in the background. This IS his premiere as a major player in a story, however, and it’s here that he’s revealed to be a bit of a slacker- he should be making the rounds at Delphi right now, but instead he’s reading entry logs about the wartime equivalent of a boyband.

He hits a key to quicktab to something at least somewhat medically-related as he feels someone approaching from behind. It’s the CMO, and he is in no way fooled by First Aid’s attempt to hide his shame. He gets back to work, but that particular entry- 113, because of course it is- is still on his mind. Hope he never finds out it’s a load of bunk.

I REALLY hope he never finds out this is all bunk. We all need something, you know?

Of course, First Aid- y’know, not to brag or anything- personally met one of the Wreckers. Roughly five years ago, Springer had approached him at a medical conference on Kimia. Why a medical conference was being held on Kimia of all places isn’t addressed, but it was probably because half the folks stationed there are doctors. First Aid, being a classy guy, fucking ogles Springer the entire time they’re talking.

You’ve heard of “Men Writing Women”, now it’s time for “Roberts Writing Robots”. Yes, this is THAT scene, and it’s on the first goddamn page.

First Aid, wanting to be of use to his idol, offers his medical expertise, completely willing to fix Springer’s nose, give him a breast reduction, and even update the circuit dampeners he doesn’t have. Springer, while flattered, isn’t looking for that sort of help. He’s looking for folks who have a lot to give.

The phrasing he uses makes First Aid think that he’s about to be recruited to the Wreckers- in other words, about to be put in line for a slow and awful death- but Springer clarifies that he’s looking more for eyes and ears to help him, not so much bodies. He hands First Aid a card with his number, and says to give him a call sometime.

Cutting back to the present, First Aid is walking through the rows of patient slabs, where we see an honestly horrifying practice in play- every patient in Delphi has their non-essential functions turned off to conserve power. This includes things like the ability to move, and speak.

Because that couldn’t possibly have any negative repercussions.

He checks in on the Fader he’s been assigned, confirms that, yes, his head IS still missing from his neck, then makes to walk out of the room, only to be startled by the sudden entry of a stretcher and Ambulon. Here, Ambulon is identified as a chief paramedic, as opposed to being a ward manager. Whether this is early installment weirdness or a simple mistake isn’t clear.

Ambulon is quickly followed by Dogfight, Dodger, and Backstreet(’s back, alright!) First Aid gets to work, by checking the three of them for injuries, paying special attention to their Autobot badges.

This is the reason Rung had to call in at the beginning of MTMTE #4, though it might be more because First Aid can’t act like a professional of five friggin’ minutes.

Oh, Delphi’s HR department is getting a call for sure.

First Aid, while a known fondler of badges, has never had this exact reaction. He runs off to make a phone call, leaving the injured Dodger to wait for the surgery he’s going to undergo the moment First Aid gets back.

Meanwhile, somewhere else- I’m guessing Kimia- Rung has an appointment underway with a dude named Flattop.

Flattop’s TFWiki article is one of the most depressing on the entire site, and it’s completely “Bullets”’s fault.

You see, Flattop’s attempting to talk through his trauma, but it’s difficult.

This level of insight is why they pay Rung the big bucks.

The war, while terrible for everyone’s mental health, has given Rung a slew of patients to handle.

Gee, wonder who that medic was.

Anyway, so Flattop’s deal- he was at Babu Yar, which was an event that was apparently so terrible, everyone involved was offered brand new bodies as compensation. He’s currently hiding underneath a table, which Rung identifies as “playing to type”. Flattop isn’t even here to talk about Babu Yar, but it’s good to know that war is still hell.

The reason Flattop’s actually here is this: he was serving under Silverstreak- another one of Rung’s patients, and someone who I’m convinced might actually be a Warrior cat given the name- and was going to check something out when he saw something utterly terrifying.

Rung gets Flattop out from under the table, and they talk about what the Shimmer means. Flattop is convinced that since he’s seen the thing, he’s going to die. You see, folklore in space is very similar to its counterpart on Earth, in that it’s a warning swathed in story to make it easily digestible.

Rung, who tries to keep things rational, offers to give Flattop a few possible explanations for what he saw. Because Flattop had only recently gotten his hot new bod a short while before he saw the Shimmer, it’s completely possible he had had a hallucination due to the adjustment period. Another theory is that Flattop has PTSD. Which, I mean, yeah.

While Rung was busy trying to explain what had happened, Flattop friggin’ died.

Awkward.

Over with Ironfist- because “Bullets” is a prequel- we’re in the middle of a meeting with the Ethics Committee. Xaaron, Animus, and Trailbreaker of all people, have come together to pass judgement on Ironfist’s cerebro-sensitive bullets. There’s a lot of hemming and hawing, and Ironfist reflects on how they got to this moment, while fiddling with a data slug to burn off the nerves.

This is just after the Surge happened, an event kicked off by the betrayal of the Autobot cause allowed Megatron to seize a majority of the Autobot outposts. It was a huge deal, a lot of shit was stolen, including the Weak Anthropic Principle, and it left everyone a little twitchy towards one another. Trust is not in vogue at present.

Kimia’s in a mess of trouble anyway, however, due to the events of Babu Yar, where Gideon’s Glue had rained down on the Autobot troops under Flame’s command, eaten to Swiss cheese by something eerily similar to something being developed on the station.

So an investigation was established. Brainstorm, who’s apparently big man on campus here at Kimia, is questioned, as is everyone else. Of course, no one cops to having invented Gideon’s Glue, because that’s a big ol’ war crime, so the questioning goes nowhere, but now there’s a precedent for mistrust on this science station.

Anyway, back to the bullet thing.

Ironfist’s cerebro-sensitive bullets are designed to hit the head, every single time, ignoring trajectory, ballistic physics, what you think is possible, and the Geneva Convention. It’s fired, it hits the first brain it identifies. Brutal stuff. Effective, but brutal.

Trailbreaker’s not a fan.

I mean, maybe? I guess it depends how gray your morality is. I bet Prowl would like them.

After telling Trailbreaker to keep it professional, Xaaron tells Ironfist that using these bullets would be a literal war crime, and he’s got a little over a day to hand them over to the Committee for destruction. Meeting adjourned!

Ironfist is left standing there until his good buddy Skyfall checks in on him. Ironfist is kind of bummed out, but Skyfall knows how to cheer him up- by comparing him to Impactor, former leader of the Wreckers, and one of Ironfist’s fan-crushes.

Man, this makes the Pova reveal a little harsher in hindsight, huh?

Skyfall invites Ironfist to the Exit Rooms, a place where the Kimia employees can drink and no one will give a shit, and as they make their way over they run into Brainstorm.

Brainstorm gets some interesting development in this story.

That’s right, not only are his weapons completely insane, and in some cases literally abstract, they’re apparently often so incredibly dangerous that the Ethics Committee loses sleep over the fact that they exist.

And Brainstorm loves it.

No wonder Trailbreaker was so annoyed in his Spotlight.

Skyfall asks about what’s in Brainstorm’s briefcase, gets an answer that’s likely a lie, then the boys head over to the Exit Rooms.

Over on Hydrus 5, it’s raining cats and dogs, and this is somehow the Transformers fault. I guess the universe bends to the will of what would be the most dramatic, as everyone takes a break from warmongering to soul-search.

Or ego-stroking. That works too.

Here is our dear Pyro, reveling in the aftermath of a battle that destroyed the natural ecosystem of the land, but at least they kicked those ‘Cons’ asses!

Pyro, who’s revealed to be maybe perhaps not the best at coming up with one-liners, is left alone for a bit as Afterburner goes to check on the rest of their men. As he tries to piece together a speech to deliver, he sees a green something- they’re always green, aren’t they?- and that something is the Shimmer.

Well, heck.

Over on the dilapidated space station of Debris (wow, that’s even less subtle than usual for this franchise) Springer’s holding a bullet. I mean, it’s not really a bullet, and the Decepticon who fired it wasn’t really a Decepticon.

I want you to know that I keep track of how many times 113 comes up in these stories, and for “Bullets" it’s a LOT.

Today’s letter from Agent 113 foreshadows/hindshadows the events of Last Stand, claiming that the DJD hasn’t heard anything from Garrus-9 since the Surge happened. Prowl’s concerned that Fortress Maximus is still alive in there and fighting off the Decepticons while waiting for backup, so he recently called Springer and invited the Wreckers on a mission.

All Springer has to do is pick some sorry sons of guns to die.

Over with Guzzle, who is romanticizing a weapon, comparing his gun to a religious artifact, our dear little bastard man has realized that he does, in fact, have emotions, and is in mourning over his lost comrades, who died rescuing Kup from Tsiehshi. Guzzle doesn’t much appreciate this whole “feeling” thing, and would rather it didn’t get in the way of him shooting statues for no other reason than him wanting to. Then he sees the Shimmer, and feels fear. He doesn’t much care for that, either.

Even Nick Roche is powerless to stop this madness.

We reconfirm the fact that Ironfist is a massive nerd, then are shown that the bullet accident that will have killed him by the end of Last Stand #5 has already happened. Ever so slowly, the bullet is heading for Ironfist’s brain. Every time it hits a new layer of his noggin, he blacks out.

Ironfist is going to leave on his super-fun, not-at-all-traumatizing Wrecker adventure soon, and he’s promised Skyfall his workshop. Skyfall was at Grindcore for a while, and that kind of gave him PTSD, so when Ironfist had gotten accepted to Kimia, he’d brought him along for the ride.

I like to call Grindcore Eugenesis-lite.

Because Skyfall is a reckless son of a gun with access to Ironfist’s workshop, he inadvertently caused a major incident with something called Black Phosphex, which resulted in the deaths of several Autobots because it wasn’t properly tested. This landed him in Garrus-9 for a bit, in a temporary career-path deviation, until it was time to come home to Kimia, just in time for the Inquiry.

Are stans always this intense? Because good lord, Ironfist.

Over at Karashi Delta, in the aftermath of a fierce battle, Rotorstorm is hyping himself the fuck up.

But does he buy it himself?

Hmm, survey says no.

Of course, verbal abuse isn’t the only thing we’ll be getting here. No, things begin to escalate pretty rapidly with Jetstream, who moves from shoving to almost beating Rotorstorm to death in a matter of months, before disappearing from the station forever.

Dang, this Jetstream fella kinda sucks. What’s his friggin’ problem?

Ah.

Again, I can’t stress this enough, Whirl’s awful flipper claws from back during his time as a cop do not make a nice fist. He was basically stabbing Rotorstorm. Who let this man be a teacher?

Rotorstorm is snapped out of his self-deprecating flashbacks by the sight of something on the canyon lip up ahead. It’s the gotdang Shimmer. Rotorstorm books it, not wanting to be caught by a harbinger of death. It doesn’t work, but points for trying.

Back on Debris, Springer’s picked his new recruits. Now all he has to do is call them up. Hey, isn’t Springer green? Green like the Shimmer? How about that.

Back on Kimia, Skyfall’s wandered into Ironfist’s workshop to share the gossip on Fisitron’s latest Wreckers: Declassified. Folks are a bit critical of his writing style, it would seem.

Of course Swerve knows what fan-fiction is. He seems like exactly the type to make fun of it, then read a 43,000 word fic in a single sitting, under cover of darkness, burning with shame all the while.

After making a note on his current Wreckers: Declassified document to ease up on the adverbs, Ironfist switches gears and gets busy on his other project: an Unofficial Wreckers’ Training Guide. I wonder when the switch from Primal Vanguard to Wreckers as a hyperfixation happened for him.

Ironfist asks Skyfall what entry he’s currently on, and the answer is a ways away from the latest one. Skyfall’s a slow reader, but he doesn’t want to just beam it all into his brain because it feels like cheating. He asks Ironfist when he’s going to cover the Wreckers’ mission to Garrus-9, the one that happened while he was there being not-imprisoned. Ironfist gives a non-answer, then asks if Skyfall wants to help with packing up the war-crime guns. Skyfall most certainly does not.

Ironfist starts breaking everything down when he gets a call from Prowl, as happened in Last Stand #4.

Back with Springer, we’re giving our dad a hug, as he greets Kup. It’s here we find out who Ironfist replaced on the Wrecker team for Operation: Retrieval- it was Skyfall. Skyfall had impressed Springer during their last Garrus-9 excursion, and thought that he’d be a good fit for the team, despite the Black Phosphex incident.

Kup goes full old man story time mode about how insanely boring Prowl is, while Springer gets the door. On the other side is Twin Twist, Top Spin, and Perceptor. They hold the vote, Ironfist given immunity due to unmentioned Prowl reasons, and Springer gets ready to call all their new pals.

Back at Ironfist’s workshop, Ironfist reflects on just how his life got to this point. He’s going to join the Wreckers! Never mind the fact that he’ll be going to die, and that’s if the bullet crawling around in his skull doesn’t get him first. Never mind the very likely possibility that he’s being exploited by Prowl. Nah, he’s gonna go on an adventure! It’s gonna be awesome! Yaaaaay!

It doesn’t pay to be blue and naive when Roberts is handling the story. Just ask Pipes.

Or don’t. You won’t get an answer.

Called it.

Ironfist, starstruck, bumbles his way through the conversation we saw in the Mosaic, and so it was that he became a Wrecker. All he has to do is pop on over to Rung’s office, get his head examined, then get his butt on over to Babu Yar.

Telecon work completed, Springer reflects on the fact that Guzzle turned him down. It’s not often someone turns down the chance to be a Wrecker.

Oh, well, never mind then.

Ironfist immediately tells Skyfall about what’s happened, because he’s just so jazzed to be a Wrecker. Skyfall isn’t quite as thrilled, but does his best to be supportive.

And by that I mean he’s not listening in the slightest as he’s already planning out the interior design for the workshop once Ironfist is gone. I bet he’ll get Atomizer to help him, the tacky bastard.

Skyfall runs off to go look at paint swatches or whatever, and Ironfist finalizes the stuff for the Ethics Committee pickup.

Oh, so that appointment wasn’t on Kimia after all. Can we please get some sort of fast-track program for the mental health specific degrees? We can’t keep using Rung for everybody, he’s only one person.

Oh heavens, Ironfist, be careful.

Ironfist gets another call, and we jump scenes before we can figure out just who rang or why.

Brief timeskip, and we find ourselves at Babu Yar, as Ironfist introduces himself to Guzzle and his gun.

Ironfist is about as smooth as coarse-grit sandpaper.

While Ironfist is busy revealing his nerd shame to Guzzle, someone’s decided to be a cocky little asshole.

Oh, dramatic irony. Always a delightful sort of pain.

Rotorstorm cranks up the “I’m hot shit” act to 11.5, doing completely unnecessary flips and talking himself up like he will literally die if he doesn’t.

Off in the distance, something disingenuously impressive comes up over the hill.

Of course, it’s not Optimus Prime, but it is someone who would very much like to be him. Such is the nature of primus apotheosis. Gang’s all here!

This is going to turn out fan-fucking-tastic.

Rotorstorm and Guzzle want to play with the big gun Ironfist brought along, and since Ironfist is going to die anyway, he lets them go for it. This would be why everything was on fire at the start of the miniseries.

Yep. Just gotta make it hurt just a little more, doncha Roberts? Just gotta twist the knife.

Nine months after the events of the Garrus-9 mission, Skyfall is upset. He’s gone and played himself by not attending the Ethics Committee hearings, and they’ve taken all his toys away as a result. He tries to mask his lack of concern for safety precautions behind a facade of missing Ironfist, but it doesn’t get him the weapons back.

Feeling cross, he decides it’s about time he made a visit to the Exit Rooms to blow off a little steam.

Later, he gets a call. Worried that his lack of ethics and/or his drunken squabbling has gotten him in trouble yet again, he’s loathe to answer, but does anyway.

Ghost call!

No, it’s actually a prerecorded message, one that claims that Skyfall killed Ironfist. Ironfist had asked Brainstorm to take a gander at the gun after he got shot, and found that it had been tampered with, set to go off on its own when held a certain way. That’s who was calling before he left for his Wrecker mission. 

Skyfall starts to panic, expecting the security detail for Kimia to bust into the workshop at any second. 

Ironfist knows that only Skyfall could have done this to him, but he doesn’t know the exact motive. Was it because he was jealous of how good a weapons expert he was? A chip on his shoulder about Grindcore? Whatever the reason, Ironfist isn’t terribly concerned at the time of the recording. What he is concerned about is Gideon’s Glue.

Ironfist had, in fact, invented Gideon’s Glue, but he’d been so horrified by what the shit actually did, he flushed it into space and destroyed all research before the Ethics Committee even knew about it. It still got to the Decepticons, though, didn’t it? How could such a thing happen?

Probably not, considering what happens next.

Ironfist is a smart guy, but more importantly, he knows how to reach his audience. Literally, in this case, as Skyfall finds out, when the Enforcement Squad starts trying to break down the door. Ironfist had the message that Skyfall is currently listening to primed for beaming into all of Fisitron’s reader’s brains. Everyone knows what happened. Swerve. Atomizer. Ratchet, who’s over on Earth right now. First Aid, who has enough bullshit to worry about on Delphi without this nonsense. You. Me. Everyone.

Skyfall, in a mad attempt to save himself, throws some of Ironfist’s Wrecker memorabilia at the door, and out pops that last tube of Gideon’s Glue.

There’s only one way out of this one.

This got really intense at the end, didn’t it?

#transformers #jro #jro punches me in the face #last stand of the wreckers #bullets #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing #wreckers trilogy

[introvertguide]

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); AFI #36

The film most recently under review was the British class, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). I know that this is almost an entirely British production and the American co-lead in this film is an add-on, but is on the AFI top 100. Also, it’s a darn good film that portrays the blindness that comes with pride and power. In a war setting, this blindness can cost lives and we sometimes forget what the fight is for (sometimes it is nothing). The movie won seven Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Scoring. The film also swept the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs (the movie won Best British Film at the latter). The struggle for power between a British officer and a Japanese internment camp officer is the driving force for almost the entire movie and the psychological chess match is fascinating. Everything else feels kind of like filler, but that might just be me. Before I opine any further, let’s look at the plot, which is always proceeded by:

SPOILER ALERT!!! THIS IS A CLASSIC FILM WELL KNOWN THROUGHOUT NORTH AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE BUT I STILL HAVE TO PUT UP A WARNING!!! I THINK EVERYONE KNOWS THE ENDING, BUT I WILL STILL GET COMPLAINTS IF I DON’T SAY SOMETHING!!! ENJOY THE SYNOPSIS!!!

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In 1943, POWs arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. Two prisoners talk about a recently dead prisoner, giving the idea that many have perished and nobody even remembers their names. The Allied prisoners march from the train into camp whistling the famous Colonel Bogey March and line up at attention in front of their own officers including Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness). On arrival to the quartering area, the Japanese commander, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), says that all prisoners, no matter rank, will work to construct the railway from Bangkok to Rangoon. 

Nicholson says that his men will work, but the Geneva convention says that officers are exempt from manual labor. That evening, Nicholson meets the other prisoners. The rounds include an American Lieutenant Commander named Shears (William Holden) as well as the ranking British medical officer, Major Clipton (James Donald). In conversation, Nicholson tells Shears that there will be no escape attempt since his group had been ordered to surrender and escape would be defiance to his superiors. This adherence to “proper military behavior,” even at the expensive of self perseverance, is a major theme throughout the film.

At the morning assembly before work began, Nicholson again refuses to have his officers perform manual labor. Saito threatens to have the group executed, but Major Clipton steps in and says there are too many witnesses and Saito will face charges for murder after the war. As punishment, Saito decides to leave the officers all day in the jungle heat. At the end of the day, the officers are put in a cramped punishment hut while Nicholson is put into a very small iron box named “the oven.”

While the British officers are being punished, Shears and two others make an escape attempt. Shears gets away but the other two are killed. He wanders off and finds a Siamese village where he is nursed back to health and then travels to the British colony of Ceylon. 

Shears gets away but the officers are detained for what is described as a month later in the film. The prisoners won’t work and constantly sabotage the bridge project in protest of having their officers locked away. Saito realizes that he will have to commit suicide if he does not complete the bridge (as impossible as it seems to be), so he finally gives in and releases Nicholson and his officers saying they don’t have to complete manual labor. It was a win of principle and it is strange to see all of the soldiers cheering their officers even though the release will not give them more time or any help. “Yay, our superiors are allowed to do nothing and take credit for the work!! Hooray!!”

Much to the chagrin of his soldiers, Nicholson chastises the men for the poor job that they are done. The officer feels that soldiers need to take pride in their work to maintain morale, even if it means helping the enemy. The officers do a thorough overhaul of the bridge plans and move the construction downstream. They also increase the expected completion rate to try and finish before the deadline. Nicholson thinks it will be an example of British ingenuity and strength if they can complete the project on time...while helping the enemy.

Looking back at the condition of the American in a Ceylon hospital, we learn that the officer stole his rank and impersonated someone else in order to get better treatment at the camp. We know that this did not work out, but it is still treason and could earn Shears serious punishment. A British officer said that the American Navy was aware of this and transferred Shears to the British military for a special mission to destroy the bridge that is being built at the camp. Shears has no choice, but is allowed to volunteer for the mission to save face (which he does).

Shears is going to have to move fast, because Nicholson pushes his men (as well as other local workers) to complete the project. He even has Saito’s men pitching in an attempt to allow the commandant to save face. They are able to complete the entire bridge in only 3 months, just in time to allow the Japanese military to transport officers and dignitaries safely through the jungle. Nicholson proudly puts up a sign commemorating the bridge's construction by the British Army, from February to May 1943.

Shears is able to parachute into the jungle, commando style, the day before the first train is scheduled to cross the bridge. Four men are in the group (make that three because one didn’t survive the jump) that land and get to a Siamese village. The 3 men are aided by the local chief and some of the village women. The group go under the cover of darkness and plant explosives on the bridge supports below the water line. The group waits until the next day to try and blow up the bridge and the dignitaries at the same time.

A problem arises at daybreak when the level of the river goes down and exposes the wire connecting the explosives and the detonator. This is spotted by Nicholson and he is so wrapped up in honor and duty that he point it out to Saito. The two officers take a group of Japanese soldiers over to investigate what is going on in the riverbank. It appears that Nicholson has forgotten what side he is on amongst the fervor to complete his pet project in the name of the British military. 

One of the commandoes breaks cover and kills Saito while Nicholson actually yells for help to keep the team from the detonator. He is killed and Shears runs out to try and hit the detonator but is shot and killed as well. Nicholson sees Shears and realizes what he has done. A mortar round from the last commando in the brush injuries Nicholson and he has just enough energy to fall on the plunger for the detonator to blow up the bridge just as the train is crossing. The medical officer, Clipton, watches the proceedings and mutters to himself “Madness!” Roll credits.

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I harp on the movie for not being American, yet still on the AFI top 100. I will admit here that there is a large portion of the film that is designated to the adventures of Major Shear that feels quite like an American story. The thing is, it doesn’t feel like he has a character arc at all. On the other hand, neither does Nicholson until the last 5 minutes of a movie that is over 2.5 hours long. He has the character direction of a candy cane. 

I will get into the great parts of the film, but one more complaint is the pace of the film. It is really boring at times. The characters are established early on in the movie and don’t really change, so they do exactly what you would expect them to do. The only twist at all is literally in the last five minutes. That last five minutes is phenomenal, but you sure have to be patient to get that far. I had to watch the movie twice because I fell asleep during the third quarter of the film. Upon watching again, I realized that I really did not miss much.

For the good, Sir Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa were amazing. Both play men trying to survive in an impossible situation and the only thing guiding them is principles and honor. Without their principles, they will die and so will the men that report to them. It seems obvious that both men have made decisions that have ended up with the death of soldiers and civilians, so neither is afraid to sacrifice themselves or others on principle. 

I am somewhat confused as to why the Allied soldiers follow the orders of Nicholson. His fight is so that he does not have to do manual labor. When he wins the game of chicken with Saito, he rewards his men by having them work harder to aid the cause of the enemy. Nicholson is like Forrest Gump in some ways because he does exactly what he is told to do (or at least how interprets his instructions). Officers don’t participate in manual labor so risks his (and his officers) to abide this. He was ordered to surrender so he will not attempt escape. The bridge is based off British plans so he will complete the job. He is given a deadline to accommodate enemy officers and dignitaries so he will finish before that time. Those guys shouldn’t be down by the river with explosives so he immediately informs Saito.

Shears was probably the most flexible character, but he did not change over the family. He also did not look like somebody who had been in a POW camp. He had a bit of a dirt tan, but he was healthy and muscular like a man who had a muscle isolated workout plan and a balanced 3,000 daily calorie diet. The clothes may have been shabby, but none of the soldiers really looked like starving POWs. Also, all of the women in the film (there were a few) were all young, good looking, and had great teeth. I kind of doubt it. 

Although the characters were interesting, the film did a pretty poor job of painting each lead as a stereotype. The American lied about his history, talked big, and took on the crazy missions. The British officer followed rules to the point of harming others. The Japanese officer was honor bound and willing to kill as a matter of obedience. This is not what I think, but it was reportedly what the writer of the source material, Pierre Boulle, thought. 

One thing that I have not touched upon because I wanted to save it mostly for when director David Lean’s opus, Lawrence of Arabia, comes up, the shots of the jungle in Cinemascope are beautiful. From the beginning when we ride in on a train right behind a machine gun, the background speaks volumes. There are not a lot of close ups because the jungle is made into a character. There is no greater threat to the captors or the prisoners than the environment surrounding them and Lean makes sure that the viewer is constantly aware of this. It is really what keeps the film from becoming tedious at times, so a round of applause for director David Lean and cinematographer Jack Hildyard.

My questions that I always ask myself will be answered a little different than normal. Does this film belong on the AFI top 100? Absolutely not. It is blatantly a British film and should not be pilfered because of a couple American actors and screenwriters. It does, however belong on the BFI top 100 and it stands at #11 on the list of greatest British films. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Also, pay attention to the scenery because the characters are established very early and have little growth, so the camera work is the best part between the first 30 minutes and the last 15 minutes. I am not sure that the film needed to be so long, but it is still very good and deserves a full watch.

#the bridge on the river kwai #william holden #david lean #AFI top 100 #british films #cinemascope #award winner #1950s #greatest films #movies #introvert #introverts #film score #Colonel Bogey

[agentwallflower]

Supernova: Chapter 10

Hey, I made it to the end of August. Yay.

Good news on the writing front, I’m up to 16 out of planned 27 chapters. Just 11 more to go and this will be done! The back end of the book moves pretty quickly, so I’m probably going to get through it faster. Then again, that’s all new material so... I don’t know what the hell is going to happen.

That’s what happens when you’re rewriting the rewrite of something you wrote in 2012. 

Also, I finished second round edits of my other novel. That’s right, I did it. I got past where I stopped in Blister. Maybe there’s hope for me yet. I’m going to let it sit a month before doing some more edits. Once it’s done, off to my readers it goes. Not y’all. This one’s a secret project the internet doesn’t get to see.

I gave up on my anthology draft, but not because I was frustrated. A friend pointed out it would do better as a longer work, so I’m going to possibly use it for my fall Nano material if I don’t feel like writing book 2 of the trilogy. I should probably do that one tho... we’ll see.

Anyway, I have strep throat and I should be in bed so I’ll stop blabbing. Next chapter is going up on September 5. You’ll get it in time for Labor Day if you’re in the US, yaaaay....

Thanks for reading as always, and I’ll see you in the next chapter.

“So, are you ready for your first training session?”

He was still getting used to being awake at this hour, forget being ready for anything at this point.

Angel yawned underneath his visor as he wished he could rub the sleep from his eyes. It wasn't really all that early – just after 9 in the morning. Problem was, he was a college student. He was pretty sure those hours were against the Geneva convention.

Across the table from him sat Ember, geared up despite the fact it was her day off. Normally around the base she could be a little more casual, but something about a new face had everyone pulling out the stops. Even Scanner had their mask and visor on, which had become something of a rarity since stopping on the ground duty.

Honestly, it was kind of weird. Being paranoid about masks was his thing.

“I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be.” He yawned again, eyes watering. “Whose bright idea was it to make this so damn early?”

His team leader frowned, and the room felt a little cooler. That was typical with pyrokinetics, even with one as well trained as she was. Their emotions were often tied to their powers, so it didn't take a genius to figure out something was bothering her. It wasn't big enough to cause an ice age, but it was something.

“That... would be Andromeda's mother.” Ember hesitated as she spoke. “She is...”

Angel didn't even need to read minds to finish that one. “A massive control freak?”

“A lawyer.”

Same thing.

Scanner was already pulling up family records on screen. “The lawyer who defends the idiots we have to beat up, to be exact. It's a miracle she let the kid come in at all. Don't you know her from when Nova was around?”

There was that name. Ember winced and the temperature took a sudden spike before settling down. It was enough for sweat to bead on the back of Angel's neck as he adjusted his position. Scanner didn't exactly look comfortable either – they rolled back a bit.

“Sorry,  I know - “

Ember shook her head. “It's been 20 years, it's time to adjust I suppose. And yes, I know her from back then. She wasn't nearly as bad as she was now, but I guess dealing with a marriage breakup and being stuck in Bear Paw can't be pleasant.”

Oh, Angel could see plenty of arguments about that as the psych part of his brain overloaded the psychic center. His adviser would have had a field day with that one, it was practically her research topic. Then again, to even bring it up he would have to explain a lot of weird shit. That was probably off limits.

Damn, and he loved giving Dr. B something to chew on for her next book. He was so close to getting some credit.

“So she's deflecting her bitterness over her career goals onto her kids, good to know. Bet that's why she's a defense lawyer.” Angel shrugged. “Whatever, as long as she gets Andy here on time I don't care.”

Thanks to the visor blocking his line of sight, he got an eyeful of Ember looking at him as though he had two heads. Scanner was used to this shit by now, so they kept typing on the keyboard like they always did. They were a good friend that way.

“Speaking of, I spotted her and PT on a nearby cam. They should be coming up soon.” Scanner was grinning at him. “Have fun schooling the newbie, SR.”

Oh, loads. He was only dealing with a alien, how hard could it be?

---

“Did you sleep at all last night? And don't give me that thing you do when you're trying to avoid revealing biological facts to those scientists, I know you. I've stepped on your leftovers.”

Jeez, you leave crumbs once...

Still, Andy shrugged her shoulders as she adjusted her seat belt. It wasn't bothering her, but her shoulder spike was definitely sharp enough to cut through the material. Honestly she didn't need it either; if she got thrown from the car, she'd break the road rather than actually damaging anything. The only reason she kept it on was the fact her aunt was a sticker about this sort of thing.

“Not really. I kept thinking about today.”

Her innards were bubbling up in a way they didn't often do. It wasn't the way she felt when faced with the scientists and their tests. If she had to guess, she was excited. It was understandable, given what was waiting for her.

Though... how were they going to control her?

Andy looked down at her hands as her aunt continued to drive. Miri was probably saying something, but it wasn't registering. She could still feel the power coursing through her entire body, and just how explosive the shot had been. Then she had been outside, with plenty of room to aim. As far as she knew, the Union was inside.

And what if that feeling came back?

That was really what had kept Andy up that night. If she could avoid anything, it would  be the numbing sensation of being out of control of her own body. Something about that just left her feeling cold in a way she couldn't put words to then. Maybe she would learn them in time, but until then... cold worked just fine.

“You paying attention?”

Miri's voice broke Andy out of her thoughts. She picked up her head and turned to face the hero. Somewhere in the midst of her mood, they had stopped driving. They were in the city now, in a part she sometimes saw on aerial shots. It looked... normal. There were buildings and sidewalks, with people walking by and cars driving past. Nothing about it hinted at what it held in one of those fronts.

Leave it to the Union to design their base well.

She shrugged her shoulders and unleashed her seat belt. “Sorry, did I miss something?”

“It's rare for you to be acting like a space cadet.” Miri smirked a little as they left the car. “I was saying we're here.”

She wasn't wearing her mask, but she did have something in her hand. Andy followed along as they walked down the sidewalk, eyeing the buildings. One of them had to be it, but which one was it? Maybe it was the one with the red flowerpot, or the closed windows. It could have been the one that looked darker than the rest. That seemed thematic, right?

“Here we are.”

Or maybe it was the completely freaking normal looking one that didn't stand out at all, smack dab in the middle of the block.

Her aunt smirked as she stopped moving. “I love when people do that.”

She slid her hand down a lock near the doorknob – Andy caught the flash of a white plastic card with her motion. The lock beeped, and then the door swung open. Inside, it looked like any normal entry way; there were heavy looking winter boots lining the side, left over from the winter. Someone had left a bright blue umbrella there, and a mirror on the wall reflected back at Andy as she stepped through the door.

And then all that went away the minute the door closed behind her.

'Yep, she's your niece. Must have ice in her veins or something.'

They were in an elevator, one that was rising quickly. A voice from a speaker brought Andy back to the present. She had heard that voice before, usually calling her aunt away from their time together. The tech; it had to be them.

“She's got a killer poker face.” Miri's tone was bland, but there was a light in her eyes that the camera wouldn't pick up that was just for her. Andy's shoulders shook a little as she waited for the door to open to wherever they were going. It was easier to focus on the joke than the closed space.

Unsurprisingly for someone of her size and background, but she really hated small spaces. Elevators were probably her worst nightmare. She wouldn't start hyperventilating like a human with claustrophobia, but her core was bubbling uncomfortably as she kept her eyes on the door.

Just a few seconds... she could handle that. The walls weren't totally closing in or anything.

It felt like a lifetime, but the door eventually slid open. Andy was probably a little too enthusiastic to get off, which was what earned her a frown from the woman behind her. A comforting hand snuck around her spike to find her hard, bony shoulder.

“You ok?”

Her concerned face and tone made Andy's core stop bubbling as much. The alien nodded as she carefully turned to face her aunt. Had she been a little too rough, the woman's hand might have been shredded. Not a good look, especially when she was still playing human.

“Yeah. I'm still not big on small areas.” She shrugged. “Of course when you're me,all areas are kind of small.”

Miri patted her shoulder as she pulled her hand back. “There's stairs you can go up next time once we have you keyed into the system.”

“I hope that's not by DNA or anything...”

The silence was deafening as the two walked the short hall. Andy probably would have been sweating by then if she was able to do that. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on the door in front of her. On the other side was the Union.

She was so close.

Miri opened the door for her. Just as she thought, on the other side were the heroes, waiting for her. The one by the computer wall had to be Scanner – they were smaller than she expected, even with the chair. And they didn't turn to face her, just kept working.

“Good to see you PT.”

A woman approached, in her full hero gear. Even if she had been in plain clothes, Andy would have known who she was. Her amber eyes were practically glowing, and she seemed to radiate warmth in a way that the alien couldn't manage. Hers was just hot – this was authority and self-assured know how in one.

Just what the leader of the Bear Paw Union needed.

“Took us a while getting here with construction and all. Nice not to be the one causing it for once.” Miri gave her a nudge forward. “Got her here in one piece so you can make the introductions.”

Ember smiled at her, and Andy felt a weight in her nonexistent gut dissolve. One thing she hated was being a burden – she was unfortunately good at doing that. “Nice to finally meet you, Andromeda.”

“Just Andy is fine.” She nodded her head. “Nice to meet you too. Aunt Miri says a lot of good stuff about you.”

Seeing her aunt turn pink and duck out was worth it, as was the smile she got from the pyrokinetic. The room felt a little warmer, but it was in a comforting way. People on the news had said Ember's ability was linked to her emotions, but feeling it was completely different.

Definitely someone nice.

“Probably nothing she'd repeat in  front of me.” She laughed a little – it sounded like a bell. “You can call me Ember. I'm afraid I can't give you my actual name at this time per the rules.”

Andy nodded at that. “I know, I grew up around Aunt Miri and Uncle Leo. They drilled it into me.”

Even mentioning the man got the whole room to straighten up. She swore she heard the tech's spine snap into place like Lego bricks, and Ember grew a half inch even though she was standing pretty straight. The only one it didn't seem to affect much was the one on the couch. Sky Rider was still sitting there, like nothing was going on.

He... looked ok, at least by her guess. In full costume it was hard to see if he was bandaged or in pain, but he was at least in one piece. Whether or not he blamed her for all this she didn't know, but she was probably about to find out. If he tried to slam her into a wall during their training, that was probably a pretty good sign.

No pressure, right?

“Well, then we won't have to go over much then.” Ember was good at moving things along. “You know Sky Rider, and this is our tech Scanner.”

The figure in the chair never turned, but raised a hand. “Don't get mad I'm not looking at you, I don't do new people well.”

That made two of them. Andy nodded her head in their direction, before turning back to Sky Rider. He had gotten of the couch and was walking over to them with a laid back pace. His steps were even, so at least he wasn't limping.

Then again... she had heard gun shots. Maybe they had missed him?

Sky Rider was still short, but she was used to people being shorter than her. The lack of visible emotions because of the helmet was honestly helpful in this situation. With all these people, her head was starting to spin a little.

Ok, it wasn't a lot of people... but it wasn't like she got to meet a lot of people. Most of the time, anyone new was wearing a lab coat and trying to get data out of her. They could forgive her for being a little people shy.

“Don't worry, Scanner only eats Cheetos.”

Scanner's typing got a little harder. “Very funny, SR.”

“Just trying to make the new guy comfortable.” His body language suggested he was enjoying this. “I can take it from here, Ember. You can get going if you want.”

Ember's body language relaxed a little. “Are you sure? I can stick around if you want.”

Ah... someone was in on their day off. Andy hadn't considered that. A weight dropped into her gut once again as she tried to figure what the woman might have been missing. Miri's days off were rare and far between, so... she had given up a lot.

Was there a family waiting for her? Shit... she was already screwing things up.

Sky Rider gave them both a thumbs up. “Get out of here and enjoy your day off. We'll let you know if she blows anything up.”

That was probably the least likely way to get anyone to leave, in Andy's opinion. She opened her mouth to assure the woman she wouldn't do anything like that, but there was no need. Ember was chuckling a little as she headed towards the door.

“I'll hold you to that. It was nice meeting you, Andy.”

And then she was gone, leaving a very confused alien in the grips of a bunch of weirdos. Still, she was there. It was probably better to just make the most of it. She still didn't feel entirely comfortable as the masked hero motioned for her to follow him towards a door off to the side.

How the hell could they keep her contained in a residential building anyway?

===

If you like my writing and want to help keep making it happen, I have a Ko-Fi!

#Supernova Collision Trilogy #Writing #novel #Ember's gonna go home to her girlfriends now #Gee Ember how come your mom lets you have two- shit sorry

[sandwyrm]

TL;DR melancholic rant on why I took the writing in WoW so badly this year just to get it all out and finish my fucking five stages of grief spin routine.

Gonna read more it, it’s probably gonna end up super long and unedited really so don’t feel obligated to read lol

     I am one of those losers that has been with Warcraft for the whole 25 years. I watched the company grow from “check out this FULL GAME coming with this gaming magazine! it’s called Warcraft: Orcs and Humans!” to being the biggest MMO around and celebrating 25 years while the world is burning.      And when I was younger, it was perfect. It had everything. Nice gameplay, cool and funny voices, decent graphics for its time, cool models, and it started having a story too. Perf! 

     I never got along well with my brother, but by the gods the only fond memories I have of him are centered around Warcraft. Watching him play WC1. Him teaching me to play WC2. Me playing WC3. Him leaving our abusive home to hide out in internet cafes, and my parents sending me to look for him, and us just staying in there for hours, me watching him play WC3. Fond memories of us getting our two toaster computers hooked up for LAN to play WC over it.

     Then WoW came, and my brother first got us an US account - it was impossible to play cross-region back then, our lag was immense, in the thousand of ms on a good day. So then an EU account. First rolled on Sylvanas, one of the biggest servers back then, then on Twisting Nether. I would skip school just so I could play because my toaster wouldn’t run it, only my brother’s computer, so when he was at work I’d be skipping high school playing WoW (I did fine, don’t worry). I invested so much time into my vanilla account it’s surreal. I wouldn’t be shocked if I found out it has more /played than the rest of my life in the game.      I met my ex on TN. I still have my vanilla account and characters on EU TN. The relationship with my ex doesn’t matter, it was abusive, toxic, I was a dumb optimist that stayed in it, doesn’t matter. He tried to get me to stop playing WoW. I still remember many instances when he went off on me for seeing me online, it’s 5 years since I broke up with him and like 8 since I stopped playing WoW with him and my heart still skips a beat when I get a whisper or hear the guild member login sound. It was that bad. He sure did his best to make me play the game only with him, “because he didn’t trust me and I would cheat on him through the game” - guys, if any of you are in this boat, please please please, put your foot down or break up. Your interests should be sacred and respected, as should be your entire person. But I digress.

     Instead of breaking up, I went the mature route of buying a US license, and playing it while he was at work or I was visiting my parents. I rolled on a RP server for the first time ever, and it was probably the best decision of my life, so, gotta thank my abusive ex for that. I met many wonderful people, have many wonderful things on that account, and another 7 years of wonderful things on my EU account.

     Then, the community itself. I hate it. Believe me, I hate the playerbase and fanbase of WoW with a burning passion. But at the same time, I have met amazing, wonderful, intelligent, friendly people I love and respect and wish the best for (if you’re reading this you’re part of this, yes, don’t let your brain trick you into thinking you’re a horrible person lol).      This is another fun arc. I started in the cringe culture. OCs are lame, who makes OCs lol. Then I became, I make OCs and cringe culture can die. Same with characters, but it’s different there. Oh, so different.

     See, I began by loving the obvious characters - Thrall, Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Malf, the works. I didn’t even like Garrosh much as his arc was unfolding - between the thing with my ex, quitting Cataclysm, changing regions and restarting, I didn’t really have a chance to dwell into him fully. He became a villain and I was all yeah okay. Iguess.jpg. I even wanted him out of the story at his peak edgelord moments because I liked Anduin more obviously. WoD was something I did not process almost at all because I was high on a cocktail of pain meds and post-partum depression and sleep deprivation. Legion was pointless bullcrap in my eyes on the main story factor, and I sort of enjoyed BFA until the whole Saurfang sucks Sylvanas fucks deal in the writer dept and fandom.

     Deciding to finally read the novels I had missed out on, and reading War Crimes, was what propelled me into “hahahahahah these idiots actually acquitted Garrosh of crimes in this book? Are they for fucking real?” and actually realizing the entire arc was a complete mess, BFA is a mess, the writer dept is a mess, and suddenly, I had no footing to stand anymore. A spit in the face, and then it overlapped the Saurfang hErOiC sAcRiFiCe special edition. I sort of had a breakdown and I hid it behind “well Saurfang was hot lol now I don’t have my orc grandpa anymore” but it was deeper than that.

     See, when we get into a setting, we have this selfish expectation that it will grow with us. That it will mature with us. Keep up with us. That we will always enjoy this setting, definitely not as starry eyed as we did as children, but that it will always be good. ATLA is a great example. Dragonlance is still good. Star Wars may be hammy and have tons of issues now as an adult, but it’s still good.  But Warcraft was my lifeblood for 25 years.       And to know that not only it did not grow with me, but it regressed beyond belief, destroyed me in a strange sense. Kind of like losing a friend, a family member. They didn’t just kill Saurfang for me, the setting died with him as far as I’m concerned. Because he was the last bastion of what interested me in it. 

     I am that weirdo that loves, loves, war movies and books. I devour them. That was part of my downfall, and the writers and fanbase of WoW so often make it feel like it is, somehow, MY FAULT (just like Garrosh getting backstabbed repeatedly was his fault I guess?)       It feels like it’s my fault that I care about weird things like the Geneva Conventions, and the Paris Conventions, and so on and so forth. It feels like I’m the idiot for knowing basic military tactics and conventions. It feels like I’m the idiot for wanting WARcraft to, at all, even a little bit, bear any resemblance to real wars, to real military tactics, to genuine war stories with genuinely well written soldiers. In my folly and pride, I forgot it’s first and foremost, a fantasy setting, a simplistic one at that.

     It insulted me these guys can’t even google what consists a war crime. It insults me to my core these guys paint the ONE (1) character who goes all “hey maybe.... weird concept but..... maybe not kill kids, or torture prisoners, or kill unarmed soldiers and civilians. Maybe show COMPASSION”, that this guy had to go. It also insults me the only other character who listened to him - Garrosh, yes - was written as the setting’s biggest fucking villain to this day, and it needed some real fucking propaganda and twisting of the OBJECTIVE narrative to get that to pass, and yet it successfully passed by so many, including myself years ago as it unfolded. 

     At this point, it’s insulting to see the same themes - mentally unstable or hurt people deserve to suffer and die, there is no happiness because happiness and happy endings are for toddlers, we are just edgelords jacking off to our self inserts, world isn’t fair because real world isn’t fair anyway kiddo grow up, and what the fuck is honor even we just make it up no? Also objective facts and lore? Fuck that who cares lmao.

     Here’s the deal. 

     War stories NEED hope. I can handle watching a whole regimen be killed in brutal ways in war, because REAL war stories always leave you SOMETHING at the end that was worth the whole pain. In a REAL war story, perhaps Saurfang would have still committed suicide by proxy in front of everyone, but people around him would have actually then gone and maybe fucking went “you know what he was correct. Let’s write the Geneva Conventions.” In a REAL war story, it would have been handled so much better. And perhaps, in a REAL war story, he would have survived. With so much loss, so much pain, and yet - with HOPE. Hope, for HIMSELF, for the future. Not the generic bullshit hOpE they tried to write into him. yOu CaNt KiLL hOpE.......      Yes, you can.       You fucking can.      By killing off the last fucking character in the setting that cared about actual military honor (not just the buzzword it is in this fandom and setting), the last fucking character that cared about tomorrow, about fighting for a better world.      That’s how you kill hope.      And in my eyes, they did so damn well.

     Because I don’t want to sit around and be insulted for another 25 years that I’m the only idiot who expects tactics, honor, a good outcome, a hopeful ending. Because I have reached the point I hate being in this game only to hear sTrEnGtH aNd hOnOr when it literally means nothing. Because I reached a point I hate watching the double standards they apply to their precious babes while the minor characters get thrown under the bus for way less. Because I reached a point where the fandom trying to go all “but Alex, someone has to set a precedent for a war crime trial!” means jack shit when nobody ELSE has been tried for any war crimes AFTER Garrosh (which would’ve been PEACHY by the fucking way). Because I got to a point Blizzcon gave me goddamn anxiety every time someone IMed me to tell me an announcement, and I got to a point I blacklisted half the tags on tumblr because I walk in to read what my friends have been up to and some damn Discourse makes its way to my dash, only for me to find myself feeling stupid and in the wrong for liking Saurfang. Not even Garrosh, which I would admit is Problematic(tm) but goddamn Saurfang.       Leave it to this setting and fandom for making me feel stupid and idiotic and in the wrong for loving the goddamn war movie protagonist.

     And at the end of it all, after much debate, I don’t think I will quit the setting. Writers don’t care, about their lore, about their characters, about us. The other fans don’t care who they hurt with their edgy rhetoric, I sure as fuck didn’t when I was younger and dumber myself. I’m sure eventually the wound will close completely and I’ll dissociate again from the story and fanbase and enjoy the gameplay and my very wonderful friends. First step in that, just for me, is to not buy Shadowlands. The xpack after, perhaps, it depends. But just out of spite, I will be that one idiot who has a sub running but doesn’t give a +1 sale on Shadowlands. Just for myself.

     Second step...? Who knows.... Who the hell knows what tomorrow will bring... This has indeed hurt worse than anything in my life. I have been going through the stages of grief - jokingly or seriously - since 8.2.5 now (and a whole load of 5 months of pure anger before that processing Garrosh’s arc from an objective standpoint). I cried more over the death of Saurfang (and the setting) than over my ex of 10 years leaving me as a single mom, or over all my other relationships combined. I’m not ashamed to admit that even if it’s cRiNgY. Like I said, it wasn’t just the death of one fictional character, but the death of a setting I loved and grew up with. The final acceptance that there is nothing left for me in the setting that shaped my interests, art, writing, and all that. That my interests have gone too far in other directions - optimism, actual war stories, good stories, being a mature individual, acknowledging mentally ill or divergent characters and not making excuses for author darlings. It’s a weird thing... Like the final acceptance that I have lost what could qualify as a dear friend or family member. While they are still alive and interacting with me daily. Like a breakup. But way worse.      It is a pain I wish on noone honestly.      But I do hope against hope, like an idiot, that other settings, other writers, future generations of writers, will do better. I know they won’t. But I’ll take my sliver of hope.

     And if you read this far, I do genuinely hope the game - this game, any other interests - will keep bringing joy to you. And also, help yourself to a cookie. Thanks <3 I wish you a good day/weekend.

#salt #negativity

[botonbots]

TFC Toys: Old Soldiers Medic

Ratchet has been one of my favorite characters for years but I actually haven’t owned any toys of him. While I love the character, his color scheme has just made him look boring and unappealing. Did I finally find a Ratchet that isn’t just an endless sea of white with red panties?

Okay, well, that box being an endless sea of grey with a blue border isn’t promising...

Ooh, there’s a faint hint of a boy on the side!

And on the back we finally get a preview of what’s to come! 

Hell yeah, giant foam brick and some paper!

Medic is kept safe in a styrofoam cocoon. While it does make for a less dramatic unboxing, it DOES keep him safe and is far less annoying to remove him from that the Hasbro plastic staple prison.

There we go. Medic comes with himself, two guns(?), transformation instructions, a trading card, and two (2) cautionary papers! Despite the papers’ warning, the side view mirrors are not what fell off on my toy.

His card displays the only pose they could come up with for him and a gun he doesn’t have!

Strength: 4 Intelligence: 8 Speed: 4 Endurance: 5 Rank: 7 Courage: 8 Fireblast: 3 Skill: 10

Maybe I’d make his endurance higher, but these stats look fine to me.

Now, technically, he is still a sea of white with some red panties and two Geneva Convention violations on his shoulders, BUT there are lots of pops of grey, blue and red breaking up the white. And the white itself has several sculpted details allowing simple tricks of light to make him less like one solid color.

Outside of the color, Medic is very sturdy and can stand easily! He’s a nice solid toy that’s fun to play with!

TFC Toys did go for the classic black chevron as opposed to the more modern red one. Not my personal preference, but not a bad thing either. His face has an expression that some times looks happy and other times looks like a pained smile, it works for me. Also, look at how bright his eyes are! The light piping is amazing!

His ambulance cab torso gives him a bit of a tummy and this is VERY IMPORTANT.

That giant blue spot on the back of his head is what allows for the piping in his eyes to be so good! It allows a ton of light through and gives him bright eyes that almost look painted! And yay for solid backs on Transformers!

His guns aren’t held in his hands, instead they peg into his arms.

Is this thing even a gun? Wouldn’t it fire too close to his fingers and burn them? Safety first, Medic!

Speaking of fingers, the fingers on his left hand are cupped together and can be moved as one piece. He can either have a grippy hand or a...whatever this is hand.

Yeah hold that... Whatever it is

His right hand has fingers than can more individually allowing you to do this to a poor old man. YOU LET ME DO THIS, TODD.

Lol

More seriously his wiggly fingers do make it difficult for him to get a strong grip with his right hand.

His right arm also has this scope? scanner? thing? Not sure what it is. His gun pegs in to that grey spot on his arm so it probably isn’t a sight. No idea what it is, but he has it.

GUN BUTT GUN BUTT GUN BUTT

One thing that is EXTREMELY nice about Medic is that his hip skirts can flip up and allow a full range of motion on his legs! Go team! His hips do have ratcheting joints, which can hinder nuances in posing, but there seemed to be enough “stopping points” that it didn’t feel limiting.

Front flaps too! And his feet have some articulation at the arch to help with balance.

As an ambulance, he’s quite solid. The transformation was one of the harder ones that I’ve done, but nothing will ever beat the fear and anxiety of transforming Hot Flame. I probably could have squeezed everything together a bit tighter but it felt a bit stiff and I didn’t want anything snapping off. (Least of all the rear view mirrors).

From the front it looks like the ambulance has a face! Also the stubby nature of the cab is more apparently. But I supposed people who want a cool ambulance toys aren’t going to get the one that doubles as a cool robot toy.

Things probably snap tighter...

It could have used a license plate, but I don’t think it’s a major loss.

There’s also a secret Geneva Convention violation on the roof! 

A slight “flaw” of the ambulance mode is that there’s no place to peg in weapons. I supposed he is an ambulance but...gunbulance...

Out of the box, Medic had this tiny silver piece which had fallen off. The corners of his front bumper are hidden away in robot mode, so it took until I transformed him to finally find where the piece had come from. The piece is meant to plug into place, but it doesn’t have a secure grip. I could probably glue it in place without any problem, but feat that this would cause more damage than it’s worth prevents me from doing so.

This trapezoidal window piece fell off after transformation, however it could be places back in securely enough that I don’t feel the need to glue it. Also glue could leave a cloudy or blotchy residue on the translucent plastic.

But now, the real question. Can he kiss Drift?

No. Not my Drift anyway, he’s too short. But Medic CAN condescendingly pat him on the head and call him “kid” and that’s pretty close too. Medic’s tummy probably sticks out too much for kisses anyway. Alas.

OVERALL: Solid toy with good balance! Not to mention that my issue with Ratchet’s color scheme has finally been addressed! The endless white is broken up with greys, reds, blues and small sculpted details. He’s fun to look at and play with! Transformation is a bit stiff, but otherwise a very good toy which I highly recommend!

#transformers #tfc toys #toy reviews #ratchet tf #tf ratchet #old soldiers medic #toys #dratchet/

[thechroniclesofwriting]

Right

I have things to say about the Winchesters being slightly terrifying.  Y’all ready for an entire essay? Strap in kiddies, I’m procrastinating a thesis and slightly tipsy. 

Firstly. Even in height, the Winchesters exceed normality. I want you to consider how high the average interior doorway is. Seriously, go look at your nearest doorway. Pretty high, right? Google tells me it’s 6″6. Dean stands at 6″1, while Sam is 6″3. So, Sam is less than an iPhone away from hitting his head on the top of your average doorway. And unlike NBL, AFL, whatever you national sport acronym is, players, they aren’t just tall. No. Both men are made of muscle. 

For reference, a normal man, no, a skinny teenager, could incapacitate me; female, 5″2, 120 pounds. My 5″11, 21 y-o brother can nullify my most persistent attack in about point two of a second, and continue a discussion at the same time. Imagine what a Winchester could do.

Having said that, one of the Australian Jiu jitsu champions is a dude who spent most of his life shorter than me; I should know, I went to both primary and high school with him. Watching him incapacitate opponents several times his size is a work of art. (Do not tell him I said that). Now imagine that same training in a man double his size. In fact, in two men, trained from a very young age.

Secondly, Sam and Dean fight for a living, where the living is literally ‘living or dying’. If they lose, they die. Violently and painfully. I don’t know about you, but I’d have to be pretty fucking confident that I was going to win a fight if I was going to put my life on the line. So to Hunt, per se, as a living, you are a) very physically strong and b) confident as fuck. 

Confidence is often touted as an attractive quality. Which it is, and Dean and Sam are both incredibly attractive (what nothing). But imagine that confidence being lethal. I don’t know about you, but I generally find lethal intent a little terrifying. Just saying. SO you have these two, very tall men, who work in a unit, who are very well trained, walk a diner, with the soul purpose of finding someone, and killing them. So you have these men who will use everything from charm to straight up, Geneva Convention banned torture, to get their information. Seriously, they break all of the agreements of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment  (UNCAT). 

Thirdly. Vampires, ghosts, shapeshifters, werewolves and demons. Things of myth and legend. The questions that the Winchesters have to ask to determine whether their case is supernatural or just humans-murdering-each-other are mad.  I don’t know about you, but if a dude ask me if I felt ‘cold patches’ in a room, I would straight up tell them ‘yeah around you’ and leave. Who is interested in answering those questions, FBI or not? Guys c’mon. I know it varies from person to person, but how difficult is it to convince someone of a mystical force? And how many people would thoroughly believe that said force might be benevolent? How many would make it God and how many would make it science? And, how many would make it a mental institution? So here we have two grown, confident. trained and intimidating men spouting mystical crap while running around in a Chevvy full of guns? Idk about you, but in this situation, I’d probably favour Chuck’s response.

Fourthly, we are currently in our 14th season. Now, some say we’re beating a dead horse. I say, that’s at least 14 YEARS of Sam and Dean being well renowned, death defying, universe saving, legendary hunters. They show up, other hunters are surprised, they have things to say. In their field, they are essentially Bill Gates (okay no but you get the point). Now to be that hunter, to be that good, you have to spend a good portion of time training. Their Dad raised them in this life, albeit abusively. But do you remember Samuel’s little test for Dean in season 5? ‘Do you kill a Vamp with a wooden or silver stake?’ HA. When was the last time Vamps were the real problem in a SPN episode? I’d imagine that the Winchesters are the cautionary tale that monsters tell their kids. To plagiarise John Wick - he’s not boogey man. He’s the one you send to kill the boogey man. They’re the shadows behind the curtain, the monsters in the closet. Their body count is higher than they are. If the Winchesters arrive, you know it’s universe threatening. 

Fifthly, not only are they renowned and feared hunters who have travelled through time, space, heaven, hell, probably Tartarus and Jahannam, they are also privvy to information that was not widely known to most hunters. Remember that Mary, in 1978, didn’t really know what Angels were? She was 23 and had been raised by a feared hunter. These two have fought against Lucifer, God, God’s weird sister, etc etc. They’re approaching 40 and really very little fazes either of them. You could stab a Winchester and they’d be like ‘good shot can you call Rowenna’. Most of their big bad’s? They befriended later. ‘Oh yeah Crowley we kept you prisoner for a bit but no welcome bring your mom, we’ll help you’. So now we have upbringing, physical strength, training, confidence (and a damn good track record of, y’know, not dying/coming back to life). 

SO FINALLY lets talk genetics. On one side, we have hunters, and the other, the Men of Letters. So overall, two fairly ferocious families. But Mary kills me every time, mostly because of the excellent casting of young Mary. She is so, so Dean. The first time she meets Dean, she confronts him. She’s maybe 19, while Dean at the time would have been approximately 30. I’m 23, and I run from 16 year olds. But she confronts him, and matches him blow for blow. THEN LATER in 78 (so she’s my age, and I’m still fleeing from high school boys) fights an ANGEL and mostly, bests her. 

So we’ve got Mary, the born and bred hunter. But then we have John, Pretty, naive John, who is thoroughly offended that he’s treated as useless, which frankly tells us a lot about him. Where Sam and Dean try to protect their naive father of the horrors of the life that befell them (by his hands), John is forceful in proving his worth. He won’t shy from protecting Mary, and you can see how that might ferment into revenge. That sheer determination; it’s so Sam. You can argue with me, but as a law student, I can tell you that nothing but sheer, cold, logic, like the kind we see in John in 5x13 gets you into Stanford Law. Maybe that’s why he and John clashed so much, and why Sam was so compassionate to Henry; maybe that’s why Dean tolerated his dad more than Sam did. Sam did have a mom, and it was Dean. Because Mary is so upset, so affected by her family, and would’ve protected them at any cost. Like Dean does. (Also I like to imagine Dean being like Samuel, if and when he has a child.). Nature, per se, has given them all the tools to become thoroughly terrifying human beings.

So we have training, confidence, knowledge, experience and genetics. Ladies and gentlemen, I presently to you my thesis on why Sam and Dean Winchester are not people you ever want to encounter.

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #sam winchester

[seanpatricklittlewriter]

A Second of March Blog Post

The dawn of a new week is breaking, friends. I hope you're all facing positive things.

I wish I had interesting book news to tell you, but I don't. After the Kirkus review of #TheSingleTwin came out and was very positive, I was contacted by five production companies inquiring about rights to the book. That was a month ago, and I haven't heard back from any of them. I know this stuff goes slowly, but it's still a little disheartening to have all five of the companies just go off the radar after a single contact like that. I'm used to it, though. After #TheSeven got a great Kirkus review, I probably had phone meetings with a dozen production companies and a couple of in-person/Skype meetings with people. One company even did a soft option on the book where they tried to find investors who were willing to make it into a limited animated series for Adult Swim--but inevitably, that failed to advance, as so many things in Hollywood do. I never expected talks to progress beyond initial contacts, so I'm not disappointed.

I read somewhere that making it to the NFL means you're in the top .5% of all football players. You have to be in the top 1% of high school athletes to procure a Division 1 scholarship, and only about 1% of the D1 players will make it to the NFL. Most of them will only last 2-4 years, too. Someone on Twitter pointed out that succeeding in any form of creative field is similar odds, if not even worse--because there are far more people trying to write books than play professional football.

I've used the analogy before that the NY Times best-seller lists are the equivalent of U2 or Aerosmith or Adele. They're the guaranteed ringers. They're going to sell a ton of books, regardless. Me? I'm a neighborhood garage band just hoping someone overhears me rehearsing and asks me to play their bar on a random Tuesday night. Taking #TheSingleTwin from practical anonymity to the small screen would be a Herculean leap, and I'm intelligent enough not to bank on that. However, if anyone knows anyone in production who is interested in a light detective vehicle, tell them to give me a call.

In the meantime, if you want to help, please tweet/post/tell friends about the book. If you have a Goodreads account, please add it to your To Be Read list (even if you don't think you'll ever read it). And, as always, posting reviews is the lifeblood to independent books. Anywhere you can post reviews helps immensely. It doesn't have to be anything grandiose. Just a few words or sentences in support of a project serves well.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0829D4F4L/

Changing gears: I've received the most email and messages from readers that I've ever received in my 15+ years of trying to pretend to be a writer in the last three weeks. Apparently, a lot of people think I Nostradamused the Coronavirus with #AfterEveryoneDied and #TheSurvivorJournalsOmnibus. (Side note: I didn't. I wasn't the first to write about viral pandemics, and I won't be the last...I hope.)

I think that might be one of the side-effects of having written trilogy about a viral pandemic. I'm grateful for the contacts, though. I've heard from a lot of people who I never knew read the books. If you know of people who are getting interested in post-apocalyptic scenarios related to viral pandemics, maybe suggest my trilogy to them. I tried to write it from a non-ostentatious, realistic point-of-view. It's not going to be "The Stand," but rather a more intimate look at being the last person alive in Wisconsin.

In other news, this weekend I was able to stop by the Fishing Expo in Madison and see an old friend. Jeff Nania (Nah-KNEE-uh) was a pal of my dad's when I was a young kid. He was a Dane County Sherrif for several years until an injury forced him into retirement from that line of work. After that, he became a wetland ecologist. Now, he's a mystery writer whose first two books are going gangbusters, from what he tells me. The third book in the series is on the way, so I thought I'd do what I could to help him sell a few more. Check him out here:

https://www.feetwetwriting.com/

If you've got the budget to indulge in a few books, wing by #MysteryToMe in Madison and grab copies of his stuff. Or mine. I know that Joanne is looking for someone to help sell books there, so if you live near Monroe Street and need a job, there are worse jobs out there than selling books. (I should know--I've worked most of them...)

That's enough of my rambling for this week. Keep this new book in your thoughts for me. It's the first book I've written that my dad actually enjoyed, so that's got to count for something. If you know of any libraries, book groups, book stores, or classes who want to hear me speak--let me know. I realized that I have not done a single thing to help promote this thing, yet. I'll be at the final Geneva Steam Convention - The Zozzling 20s on March 14, but other than that I have no appearances scheduled.

Thanks for reading. --Sean

#wisconsin #author #writer #novel #mystery #suspense #thriller #books #ebooks #novels #storyteller

[automatismoateo]

Abrahamic theism is actually Anti-American, a threat to the Free World & borders on Orwellianism via /r/atheism

Submitted November 02, 2019 at 02:39PM by NotLessOrEqual (Via reddit https://ift.tt/36suK47) Abrahamic theism is actually Anti-American, a threat to the Free World & borders on Orwellianism

Okay, so as an Australian doing demographic research on religion of the United States I came to find that despite the irreligious population (includes agnostics, atheists, spiritual but not religious et. al) making up about 20% of the population, the majority of the religious population of the U.S have an ingrained fear, if not distrust and hate of the non-religious. The amount of trust for an atheists (non-capitalized) are '[...]similar to that of a rapist' and that approximately ~50% of the people surveyed have stated that they would not be okay if they or their family members were to marry an atheist over a person of faith, as well as the same percentage also wouldn't vote for a presidential candidate who either did not believe in a god(s) or align himself to any established religion. Despite the U.S federal constitution, at least 8 U.S States (Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas & Pennsylvania) ban atheists from partaking in governing or political positions in their state constitutions.

Apparently the reason for this is because the lack of religion is seen as 'going against the [majority of U.S citizens'] vision of what America society should be or valued combined with a sense of immorality and the lingering fear from McCarthyism (the history between communist countries & atheism). The religious conservatives online tend to tout about their 'God-given rights' and suchlike.

Now, after realization, it became ironically clear that the morals and tenants of the Abrahamic faiths are in fact, an oxymoron and antithesis to the 'American values' and the Constitution of which the American religious majority claim. Many are quick to criticize and denounce communist regimes for their violations of human rights despite some of the tenants of their beliefs share similar views and values. Let's take a look:

Some Judeo-Christian values:

3 of the 10 Commandments violate the 1st amendment outright as well as UNDHR Articles 18, 19 & 20 by banning blasphemy (no freedom of speech), banning the creation of religious idols to worship and banning the right to partake in other religion or worship of other gods (no freedom of religion/religious practice). Congregating in protest (against God) is also banned - a hilarious ironic event where God kills 14,700 of his own followers for protesting about God killing too many people (No right to assembly and protest). Make's the Communist China's crackdown of Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989 look like a walk in the park (resulted death estimated to be as high as 2700. Hong Kong protests going on right now don't even have any deaths resulting from police action. Yeah, it's that bad.

The existence of the concept of 'hell' is the spiritual equivalent of a concentration camp/political prison where God sends dissidents, people who do not submit to him/worship him, those who criticize him & those who may have differing opinions. Forced-conversions under threat of punishment (of hell), favoritism of believers over non-believers as well as inhumane & torturous conditions of hell described in the Holy Texts all fall within violations of the 8th Amendment regarding 'cruel & unusual punishments' as well as UNDHR Articles 1, 5, 6 & 9 respectively.

Both the Bible, Torah & Quran either promote and/or justifies slavery, legal loopholes to own a slave after 7 years as well as how to sell one's children off as a slave for profit - direct violation of the 13th Amendment as well as the UNDHR Article 4 & 23. This also includes passages in the New Testament too. No where in any Judaic, Christian or Islamic religious doctrine where it is made a rule to ban and outlaw slavery outright, unconditionally.

Theocratic religious ideology means no separation of religion and state and no democracy to elect leaders as God basically rules over anything and everyone anyway (a violation of the 1st Amendment & any proceeding Amendments guarantee right to vote or democratic elections - also includes UNDHR violation of Article 21). Humans on Earth can't simply cast a ballot & vote him out if he does a shit job. When God decides to mass-murder humans, there is no 'Congress' or 'House of Representatives' in Heaven to decide if God's actions are the best or worse to solve a problem. When God violates his own 'Thy shalt not kill law' there is no impeachment process either. Ultimate power ultimately corrupts. So long as God is above the (his own) laws, there is no true justice.

No right to fair trial or proper due process in a court of law: Get accused by at least two or three people regardless of evidence (if any at all) and it's enough to convict you. A violation of the 6th Amendment. Jesus himself was a victim of the very same method of unfair trial by an angry mob to be put to death by Pontius Pilate. Ironic. In addition to this is a flawed and biased theocratic justice system - despite outlawing murder and thievery, there are many instances in both Judeo-Chrisitian & Islamic texts where it shows either God or his followers breaking the rules and receive only a light punishment, no punishment at all or even outright rewarded for breaking the rules under certain circumstances (such as going on an offensive war, pillaging and looting against an enemy state). That said...

violation of the Geneva Convention Protocols Articles 51, 54, 76, 77, 15 & 79 by God by justifying his followers to commit war crimes as an act of revenge against surrendered soldiers, civilian men, women and children (except for virgin females), rape, confiscation and looting of enemy property (which also ironically violates an additional 3 Mosaic commandments - no killing, no adultery and no stealing). In addition, the defeated parties were given no opportunities to negotiate conditions of surrender - it wasn't just a war, it was an ethnic cleansing and land occupation no different to what Nazi Germany did against Poland in 1939.

Justification for persecution, discrimination and targeted genocide against Homosexuals probably violates multiple U.S Constitutional and Human Rights articles already listed above.

Side note: Despite most right-leaning conservative claiming to hold 'Judeo-Christian family-values" who are anti-abortionist, The Bible actually finds the act of Abortion morally justifiable so long as it's used to test if a woman has committed an act of adultery or not heck, there is even a detailed procedure for it. During the war against the Midianities of which the Israelite were victorious, God then commanded for all the Midianite men women & children are to be slaughtered except for the virgin women for them to keep for themselves (as sex slaves or forced-marriages). From this passage we can conclude that there were also probably pregnant Midianite women who were casualties as well and their pregnancy is an obvious visual indicator that a woman was not a virgin - and therefore as per God's instructions they were most likely killed whilst their fetus was STILL IN THEIR WOMB. If abortion to you was not sickening enough, this was a double murder (killing of the mother and her fetus).

In the book of Exodus, God sent the final plague to wipe out the Egyptian first-borns, this also includes Egyptian first-born who were still in their mother's wombs and if it is not the fetus, then the mother who may have been a first-born of her family would have died WITH HER FETUS still in the womb. In addition, it seems God is okay if babies are murdered by smashing them against rocks. So it seems God has little regard for human life both within and without the womb.

There were a many great things Karl Marx got wrong in life, but one thing he hit the nail on the head was that religion truly is, the Opium of the People. Just like opiates like Heroin, religion relieves the pain without actually curing the ailment, whilst also creating an addiction and destroying lives (in this case, countries) in the process.

Religion is just like Communism: Every time it has been tried it never works and usually results in the country where it takes hold of become plagued by an assortment of war/civil war/sectarian violence, corruption, poverty, crime, famine, disease, pollution, illiteracy, gender inequality/violence, homophobia, xenophobia and a blatant disregard for even the basic concepts of Human Rights of varying degrees. Look no further than the United States, The Middle East, Africa, South & Southeast Asia and South America compared to secular countries of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. If the majority of the population of the country accepts these as part of their values, it's not a surprising their nation is in the state that they are.

So long as Abrahamic theism exists, there can never ever truly be, a Free World.

#reddit

[medproish]

As someone who’s criticized the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the prospect of sitting through a 31-hour marathon of these movies was daunting, to say the least. But I knew that the ordeal would be a prime (if very stupid) opportunity to raise some money for a good cause. So this week, I joined a few hundred diehard Marvel fans for an Infinity War of our own.

Would the experience break me? Would it force me to see the light and embrace my inner Marvel fanboy? Would I understand why the hell I’m supposed to care about Bucky?

This is my diary of my 31-hour trip to Thanos.

Wednesday, April 25th

1:15pm: I arrive at the AMC 25 in Times Square, the Stark Tower of multiplexes. Fresh from an emergency supply run to the Duane Reade across the street, I have a large box of granola bars; an even larger bigger box of painkillers; a giant can of sugar-free Red Bull; an iPhone charger; a sleep mask for “Captain America: Civil War;” and a few precious memories of the outside world.

I feel relatively well prepared, at least until I spot a man going up the escalator with a suitcase.

1:25pm: A long line forms as they wait to take our tickets. People tentatively introduce themselves. Many — perhaps even most — are decked out in some form of Marvel paraphernalia, and we’re all about to get some more of it: Every marathon attendee receives an Avengers pin, a plastic-sealed poster, and a shiny badge that must be worn around our necks at all times, to ensure everyone feels the proper level of embarrassment.

1:28pm: Good news: AMC 25 has several theaters decked out with leather recliners, perfect for sleeping! Bad news: Our marathon isn’t playing in one of them, because it’s organized by some of the world’s most twisted sadists.

Read More:‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Review: A Decade of Marvel Movies Collide in One Epic Showdown After Another

Auditorium #17, our home for the next 31 hours, is about as comfortable as an episode of “Nathan for You.” Seats are stiff, legroom is nonexistent, and the cushions are made out of the most fart-absorbent material in the galaxy. It’s like sitting in the last row of a 31-hour flight that never leaves the ground.

1:30pm: Lights go down at 1:30pm sharp (all movies started exactly on time, the marathon scheduled down to the minute so that “Infinity War” can begin at 6pm the following night and AMC can clear the room in time for a 9pm show). The crowd cheers.

People also cheered when the Titanic set sail.

“Iron Man”

1:32pm: “Iron Man” is so old that it takes place in a world where Maxim is still a thing.

1:36pm: Tony Stark is introduced through the lens of his attitude towards weapons and power — his lucrative belief that fear and violence are the surest means toward peace. “It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we got,” he caws. “I guarantee you the day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace, I’ll start making bricks and beams for baby hospitals.” As one character points out a few minutes later, the first MCU movie has a mass murderer for a hero.

1:40pm: It’s amazing how fully formed Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark was right out of the gate. The quick-tongued arrogance, the withering sarcasm, the poisoned moral righteousness — “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” has a lot of blood on its hands.

1:50pm: The kind-hearted Yinsen dies after imploring Stark not to “waste his life.” Everyone seated for this 31-hour marathon of Marvel movies begins to shift in their seats.

1:55pm: Agent Coulson makes his first appearance and the crowd explodes as if Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé dropped in for an impromptu jam. Hooray for middle management!

2pm: Dum-E, the fire-extinguishing robot in Tony’s lab, earns the MCU’s first deep laugh. Honestly, this little guy might be the reason Terrence Howard was fired. I picture Kevin Feige at the premiere and being all: “Is it just me, or does that droid whose face is an empty metal tube give the second-best performance in the whole movie?”

“Iron Man”

2:40pm: By today’s Marvel standards, this movie is mumblecore: 70 minutes in, and the biggest action sequence is Iron Man dominating a rabble of terrorists. It’s almost quaint.

3:15pm: Stane is a useless villain (anticipating a franchise full of useless villains), but I like the half-assed final fight because Stark — in his battle against an Iron Man prototype — is effectively fighting his former self. So many MCU heroes are defined by their struggle to reconcile the people they were with the people they’re empowered to become.

3:45pm: What a nice little movie about a powerful man who learns that the world might be a better place without weapons of war on the streets.

3:40pm: There’s a 30-minute break between each film, but most people stick around for the post-credit scenes. I am not most people. I need coffee and I need it now.

3:42pm: The lady at concessions stand tells me, “The coffee machine has decided to stop working.” This is the bad place.

“The Incredible Hulk”

3:45pm: Wait, I just Googled it and it turns out that Maxim is still a thing! That’s insane.

4:00pm: “The Incredible Hulk” begins before anyone can figure out why they’re forcing us to watch it.

4:13pm: Did Edward Norton accidentally kill Stan Lee?

4:20pm: CRASH! You know those plastic-covered posters they gave us on the way in? They’re now sticking out from underneath everyone’s seat, turning the narrow aisles of this cramped room into a veritable slip-and-slide. Not that I’m complaining: Someone falling on their ass is easily the most entertaining thing that will happen for the next two hours.

Read More:‘Avengers: Infinity War’ World Premiere: Marvel Celebrates 10 Years of Films With Star-Studded Red Carpet

4:35pm: I like how Norton’s take on the Hulk was pretty much: What if a guy with no discerniblepersonality did everything in his power to avoid growing one?

5:25pm: Watching two hideous CG blobs clobber each other across the streets of Harlem, it occurs to me that “The Incredible Hulk” might be more of a DC movie than it is a Marvel one.

5:42pm: There’s a giant “Tully” stand in the lobby. At the moment, my big plan for the night is to knock it down and sleep inside of it.

“Thor”

6:15pm: “Thor” starts, and the theater is half-empty. It’s like revisiting “The Incredible Hulk” made a roomful of Marvel obsessives question some of their life choices.

6:40pm: I snap awake after my body involuntarily shuts down. Thanks to the rigid structure of all these origin stories, it’s all too easy to reorient myself.

7pm: That Loki sure loves genocide, huh?

8:05pm: It’s pretty remarkable that the MCU survived “Thor” and “The Incredible Hulk,” and that “Iron Man,” Chris Hemsworth, and the promise of the Avengers was enough until this franchise found its legs. Of course, it was a more innocent time.

8:10pm: You can condition people to sit through the credits, or you can play some awful new Foo Fighters song over the credits. To do both is probably in violation of the Geneva Convention.

8:12pm: Three movies down, and Tony Stark’s fire-extinguisher robot is still by far the best character in the MCU. Fingers crossed for a standalone movie in Phase V.

8:30pm: Standing in line for chicken tenders, the only source of protein on AMC’s menu. I meet a woman who drove up from Maryland for the marathon. The teenage girl behind me frets about finding time to do her homework. (“Maybe during ‘Guardians of the Galaxy?’” she asks a friend.) There are whispers that someone flew in all the way from Utah.

8:42pm: Survival instincts start to kick in. People get territorial over power outlets. A kid with fluffy blond hair loudly contemplates if this is the right time to pop an Adderall (“It’s extended-release,” he explains to no one in particular). It occurs to me that 24 hours from now I will still be sitting here watching spandex men fight computer people.

“Captain America: The First Avenger”

9:07pm: “Captain America: The First Avenger” is a few minutes old, but it’s clear that the MCU has found its groove.

9:15pm: “I can do this all day,” Steve Rogers says to the bully who’s beating him up behind a movie theater. Too soon, Steve.

9:24pm: Steve Rogers is injected with a super serum; I eat an entire box of Red Vines. Two great Americans with unstable chemicals swirling around our veins.

9:35pm: I love that Captain America has a comic book written about him before he becomes a superhero — the identity comes first, and Steve Rogers is forced to live up to it. The U.S.O. tour sequence is an inspired way of expediting character development. Joe Johnson rules.

Read More:Avengers Experience: The Russo Brothers Offer an ‘Infinity War’ Set Visit as an Indiegogo Reward

10:04pm: For the first time in my life, I actually hear a Wilhelm scream. Is it possible that sitting through nine consecutive hours of Marvel movies has somehow sharpened my senses? Or is the smell in here so rank, my eyes so dry, my tastebuds so defeated, and my touch so unused that my ears are picking up the slack?

10:05pm: I break into another box of Red Vines.

10:30pm: Maybe it’s the Stockholm Syndrome talking, but this movie is phenomenal. It’s playing like gangbusters; listening to this audience, you’d think everyone in the room was seeing it for the very first time.

11:04pm: “I had a date.” Oh good, I can still feel things — I haven’t quite gone full Gollum yet. Hands down the best ending of any superhero movie this side of “Spider-Man 2.”

“The Avengers”

11:30pm: “The Avengers” starts. It’s so weird to watch this movie without commercial breaks.

Thursday, April 26th

12:20am: Tony Stark invokes “a terrible privilege.” With great power comes great responsibility. This is the heart and soul of the MCU: human(oid) weapons fighting for peace, and trying to pave the way toward a world that doesn’t need them in it. It’s a matter that subsequent movies will confuse as they try to pick it clean.

12:40am: Agent Coulson’s death was sad when I first saw it in 2012, but now that I know the character was demoted to network TV, it’s devastating.

12:45am: Nick Fury motivates the Avengers by showing them the bloodied Captain America trading cards that were in Coulson’s jacket when he died, only for Maria Hill to reveal that the cards were in Coulson’s locker. Which, if I’m following this, means that Fury went to Coulson’s locker, took out the cards, and … slathered them in blood he found dripping from one of his freshly slaughtered colleagues on the airship? Or, being a true professional, did he go back to Coulson’s body and dunk the cards in the chest wound that killed him? Either way, I think this dude might be a bit more damaged than we’ve been led to believe.

1:10am: Harry Dean Stanton!! The crowd goes wild, and — for the first time — I’m cheering right along with them. Maybe these are my people.

1:40am: The Chitauri definitely voted for Trump. [I don’t know what prompted me to write this down in my notes, but I’m gonna roll with it]

1:30am: The Battle of New York is still the most fluid, operatic, and flat-out spectacular action setpiece in this entire franchise, and nothing else comes close. It’s no wonder the rest of the MCU is so hung up on it.

1:55am: Enter Thanos. Or, the purple concept art that would become Thanos. Our first glimpse of the MCU’s big bad reminds me of the shots we see of Gollum in “The Fellowship of the Ring,” when a movie is forced to introduce a CG character before its franchise has figured out what it’s going to look like. That’s Hollywood, baby!

2:05am: The rest of the theater is closed for the night, leaving us to roam the towering multiplex at our leisure. There are sleeping bodies strewn about the building, some on inflatable mattresses but most lying on the floor.

2:09am: I head to one of the auditoriums I know has recliner chairs (there are perks to being a film critic who’s spent a lot of time in this building over the years). I make a little bed for myself, but it’s so creepy listening to the pre-show in an empty room — Meghan Trainor songs mixed in with chirpy popcorn propaganda from Maria Menounos. It’s even creepier when the music abruptly shuts off.

2:50am: I head back into the theater about 40 minutes into “Guardians of the Galaxy,” hoping that all the flashing lights and smooth ’70s tunes of Peter Quill’s maiden voyage might lull me to sleep.

“Guardians of the Galaxy”

2:52am: They don’t.

3:13am: Every Benicio del Toro performance is 50 percent more fun once you realize that he’s playing himself.

3:30am: Alien John C. Reilly says “I don’t believe anyone is 100 percent a dick.” Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the middle of the night, but this feels like a profound statement that could be applied to the entire MCU.

4:30am: Nothing says “carpe diem” quite like a 4:30am “Age of Ultron” screening.

“Age of Ultron”

4:31am: Captain America throws a motorcycle at someone.

4:45am: There’s a seductive ASMR vibe to the scene where Ultron becomes conscious and starts chatting with Jarvis. I immediately pass out.

5:40am: Jarvis is an Irish lady now.

5:50am: Captain America says a naughty word, and Nick Fury replies: “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Which, like … dude, if anyone is aware that Captain America’s mom has been dead for 100 years, it’s you. That’s just insensitive.

“Captain America: Civil War”

Walt Disney Studios

7:30am: “Captain America: Civil War” begins. We’re technically watching it, but it would be more accurate to say that the movie is just sort of happening, indifferent to our presence. I think about Quentin Tarantino’s comment about digital projection being like “watching TV in public.” Celluloid is harder to ignore, but the real difference is the passivity. We’re waiting this thing out like a rainstorm.

7:45am: Why is this a Captain America movie, anyway? There are more Avengers than there were in “The Avengers!” Poor Steve. It’s like being ignored at your own birthday party.

7:50am: Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve hit rock bottom. This movie is the worst. I think that’s because it should be the best. Here’s a film that forces the various Avengers to confront their conflicting ideas about power and its proper application, but refuses to dramatize their disagreements. Instead, it’s lots of blank philosophizing interrupted by poorly choreographed fight scenes.

On the other hand, at least someone with power is putting real thought into America’s foreign policy.

8:18am: Dreaming up a supercut of moments in the MCU when there’s no music playing — it’d be about 25 seconds long. I’ve been trying to put my finger on the sameness of these films, how such a grab-bag of candy can taste like the dominant flavor, and the wall-to-wall scoring is a major factor. The movies were always going to blur together by this point of the marathon, but our current fugue state is enhanced by the sense that we’ve  been listening to one long, sustained note since we got here.

9:45am: I’m sitting outside an early-morning screening of “A Quiet Place” and using the jump-scares to jolt myself awake. So that’s where we’re at right now.

9:49am: I’ve been holding on to a can of sugar-free Red Bull for the last 26 hours, saving it for my most desperate and pathetic moment like that bottle of 1961 Château Cheval Blanc Paul Giamatti drinks out of a styrofoam cup at the end of “Sideways.” Cheers.

10:00am: Time for Tim Burton’s “Inception!” Wait, no, sorry [squints at notes], “Doctor Strange.”

“Doctor Strange”

10:20am: One of the things I like about this movie is how it hones in on one of the ideas binding this entire franchise together: That our perspective on the world is the sum of our own experience, and our empathy for the experiences of others. A character whose path runs parallel to Tony Stark, Stephen Strange is a self-centered prig who learns that the universe contains realities separate from his own. Only by internalizing that is he able to use his powers for good.

10:45: “Shamballa” is the wi-fi password. Still funny! Also, I’d say somewhere between 85 to 95 percent of the jokes in the MCU hinge on humanizing superhuman characters. Every punchline amounts to “Superheroes: They’re just like us!” But hey, it works.

11:05: “We never lose our demons, Mordo. We only learn to live above them.” No one is 100 percent dick, and no one is 100 percent hero. It’s why Doctor Strange and Iron Man are such compelling characters, though they both grow tiresomee: They’re always at war with themselves, even when they’re saving the world.

11:50am: “Doctor Strange” is in the books, and the books are in some old Tibetan library or something. It’s hard to watch a movie about the meaning of time when you’re nearly 24 hours into a marathon that has stripped time of all meaning.

11:54am: Sitting on a throne of granola bar wrappers like a mad king looking over a ruined world, I experience a profound epiphany:

11:57am: People are sleeping in the aisles, absorbing the MCU through osmosis. Where we’re going, we don’t need fire safety codes.

11:59am: I don’t think a single AMC employee has so much as popped their head in here since the marathon began. It’s “The Lord of the Flies” in theater 17, and they’re just gonna let it happen. Send in a HazMat team when it’s over and let them deal with it.

12:32pm: They’ve scheduled a lunch break, but most people are too broken to venture into Times Square. The younger ones only remember the outside world through the stories the elders tell around the ICEE machine (the one that a kindly AMC employee left on and unattended all night long).

12:51pm: “Spider-Man: Homecoming” time. Someone cheers at the first appearance of Murph, the bodega cat.

“Spider-Man: Homecoming”

12:52pm: The guy at the bodega says that Aunt May is hot.

12:55pm: The kid from “The Grand Budapest Hotel” said “Penis Parker” and I laughed.

12:59pm: Those hilarious instructional videos are enough to make “Homecoming” a better Captain America movie than “Civil War” ever was. I’m not sure if there’s a stronger testament to MCU’s world building: Not only does it milk laughs from our collective understanding of Captain America’s character, it also articulates how the Avengers function in their culture.

1:10pm: Tony says Aunt May is hot.

1:12pm: Tony says Aunt May is hot, but with different words.

1:16pm: A waiter gives Aunt May some free larb because he thinks she’s hot.

1:25pm: Tony is legit about to dump Pepper Potts, abandon the Avengers, and start a new life with Aunt May.

1:30pm: If Marvel hired Nancy Meyers to make a straight-up romantic-comedy about Aunt May looking for love (and maybe finding some danger), it could single-handedly save the genre.

2:20pm: I’m impressed and delighted by how the fictional technology tracks across the various stories. The turbines in the Vulture’s wing suit recall the flying aircraft carrier from “The Avengers,” the reactor cores that power his guns connect to Tony Stark’s Arc Reactors, and someone — I can’t remember who — fires a gun with a corrugated barrel that looks like the Destroyer from “Thor.”

2:50pm: The last five seconds of “Homecoming” are perfect.

3:10pm: I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s very purple. Everyone is buzzing. All that’s standing between us and “Infinity War” is “Black Panther,” and we’re about to watch the movie as it was truly meant to be seen: In a boiling cauldron of farts.

“Black Panther”

3:26pm: T’Challa namechecks Zemo, and I am outraged that fucking ZEMO is momentarily invoked in a future Best Picture nominee.

3:50pm: Klaue’s mixtape is real, and I want to hear it.

3:52pm: “Guns. So primitive.” Okoye gets it.

4:15pm: As if the need for better representation wasn’t obvious enough, watching 12 of these movies in a row really hammers it home. That’s true for race, and it’s very true for gender. Nearing the 29th hour of the marathon, it’s impossible to ignore that I’ve mostly been staring at various white dudes named Chris — even the team-up movies push everyone else to the side. It’s not a matter of being woke; hell, I’m barely conscious right now, and I still can’t unsee it. “Captain Marvel” can’t get here soon enough.

5:50pm: An unseen AMC employee has abandoned a cardboard box outside the theater. We tear it open, wondering aloud about what treasure might wait for us inside: “Infinity War” swag? Signed Thanos autographs? Tear-stained letters from the partners and children waiting for us back home?

It’s 3D glasses. A box full of 3D glasses. It’s like the first scene of “2001,” fits of anger and confusion before our hard cut to space. After 29 consecutive hours of eye-straining insanity, this seems like a cruel joke. At least, I hope it was a cruel joke, because if anyone at AMC thought we wanted this, those people understand their customers even less than I thought.

5:57pm: It’s pandemonium in theater 17. Almost everyone who was there at the start came back for the end. A big guy up front commands our attention and requests everyone stay quiet for the Stan Lee cameo so that “we can hear what the old man has to say.” There are shouts of agreement.

5:58pm: This happens:

memories. pic.twitter.com/LH3t6NC6oW

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) April 27, 2018

6:00pm: “Avengers: Infinity War” starts. Well, not the movie, but five minutes of corporate branded content. The glasses were not a joke. They’re a cookbook. Soylent Green is made out of people, etc.

6:05pm: It starts for real this time. Except the 3D isn’t working. It’s like the last 30 minutes of “mother!” in here. I see my entire life flash before my eyes, and it looks an awful lot like a supercut of Marvel movies.

6:07pm: It’s fixed! The shouting stops in time for Thanos’ first line. I start wishing that the 3D would break again.

6:19pm: Stan Lee gets his cameo. People yell at the top of their lungs.

6:25pm: It occurs to me that the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is the story of Tony Stark trying to figure out faster and faster ways of getting dressed.

6:50pm: “After 11 years and 19 movies, let’s end it by stranding all the characters together in nondescript pockets of outer space so they can joke about Kevin Bacon and shoot lights at each other for three hours.” The bigger these movies get, the smaller they feel.

8:55pm: “Infinity War” is pretty much everything I don’t like about superhero movies, wadded into one epic bore. All the same, there’s no denying that I watched it with the right crowd. When you see the film, you’ll know what I mean.

9:01pm: And just like that, I’m on the A train home.

Did the experience enhance my appreciation of the MCU? Hard to say. On the one hand, it definitely clarified the thematic conversation between them, however garbled it gets. It also forced me to awe at the connective tissue, and the architecture required for such an astonishing feat of world building.

On the other hand, I left the theater even more disenchanted with the way these characters have been subsumed into the spectacle around them, and fear that next year’s “Infinity War” sequel will be more of the same. One thing’s for sure: I’ll be watching that movie on its own.

Oh, and I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to care about Bucky. Sorry, guys.

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