#villain rivet would be terrifying

[theramblingsofadork]

“Well Doc? What do you think? Can I pull off your look?”

This was prompted by a cute idea my friend and I were talking about where Rivet tries on Starline’s coat and he adjusts and fixes it for her because she didn’t put it on right.

But uh— then I went overboard and wanted to see if she could pull off his entire look, so, let’s just say hypothetical-villain-Rivet has been born!

Starline’s more just stunned that what’s going on in front of him somehow works.

#I’m in a rivetline state right now #i need fluffy wholesome to combat the sad I’m writing right now #starpoint au #sonic #sonic idw #dr starline #sonic oc #live doc reaction #starline the platypus #rivet the cat #rivetline #trying on your boyfriend’s clothing #yes sir that is your girlfriend and she’s somehow pulling off your look #maybe I’ll do some more art another time of a role reversal AU #villain rivet would be terrifying #she’d actually end up worse than Starline #my art #digital art

[cantf1ndmynam3]

and the best part is: no one can stop me

i have a loooottt so enjoy :))

elliot: hey so i was thinking, a spring wedding would be nice but autumn weddings just have something different…

sunshine: why are you talking about weddings? we’re not even engaged

elliot:

elliot: OH SO THATS WHAT I FORGOT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

milo: hey, you come here often?

milo: oh yeah?

milo: then have you seen my cat it was last seen in this area on Thursday at approximately 7pm and-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

sam: is this the part where you tell me that if I hurt them you'll kill me?

david: no, if you hurt tank, they are perfectly capable of killing you themselves

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

aaron: i found that i have been happier ever since i changed from drinking coffee in the morning to orange juice

aaron: doctors say it's the vitamin-C, I personaly think it's the vodka

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

asher: i have one brain cell and it bounces around in my skull like a windows screen saver

asher: when it hits a corner perfectly, i'm allowed one good idea

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[ gaming ]

NPC, holding the shadow staff: this is a very powerful artifact. you’d be messing with some forces we don’t fully understand

asher: that sounds like a dare to me

babe: oh my god

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[damn polycule 💗]

gavin: you are under arrest

lasko: again? why?

damien: for being too adorable

lasko, blushing: i'm not-

huxley/freelancer: you are sentenced to cuddles

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

david: i’m getting us fake IDs

asher: to drink?

david: to vote

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[DUMP training?]

instructor:

rule 1: use whatever tools or tricks that are necessary to stay ahead of your opponent

rule 2: never give out free information. that will get you killed

rule 3: even though teamwork is important, if you're sure you can handle something, do it

got that?

sweetheart, writing ”gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” on their notes: yeah yeah for sure

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

elliot: sunshine sometimes sleep talks. I think it’s quite adorable

sunshine, asleep: fight me… you a**… square up… i think the f*ck not

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

milo, completely serious: it has been reported lately that you do, in fact, have little paw-paws and a little button nose. Do you care to comment?

aggro: mrrrow

milo: riveting

sweetheart, cloaked: am I interrupting something?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

villain (on speaker): we have your member!

david: five-

villain: what?

*terrified screams in the background*

sam: four, three...

villain: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS KID?

asher: two...

*cut-off scream, gurgling, bodies hitting the floor*

david: one.

tank: hey, alpha. everything is under control. tell sam I'll be home for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

gavin: caelum figured out he can put sticky notes on people's backs

gavin: he doesn't know they're supposed to say stuff like "kick me" so they only have animal facts on them

#redacted asmr #redacted gavin #redacted damien #redacted freelancer #redacted huxley #redacted lasko #redacted damn #redacted david #redacted milo #redacted caelum #redacted asher #redacted fanfic #redacted darlin #redacted shaw pack #redacted angel #redacted geordi #damn polycule #redacted cutie #redacted sam #redacted asmr incorrect quotes

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

I have a requesttt

How about a vicious villain who captures hero, tortures or restrains them. Hero, tho bloody is hopeful someone of their group will find them, that they'll get rescued, saved. Until one day villain visits their cell and tells them they'll give hero a lobotomy. Hero fights, struggles, desperately begs villain for anything but that. Villain prepares everything, the doctors who'll perform it on them, the tools. Everything ready for the day they'll have hero robbed off their human existence. And just when it's about to happen, when the hero is tied to a hospital bed deep in panic, terrified, villain instead of comforting them to their last sane minutes, they whisper hero everything they have planned to do with their body next. How they'll sell them to other dangerous people as a brainless toy, a living zombie only to get used by others. And if ever their group finds them, even then, they won't be able to tell the deference due to how utterly destroyed in every way they'll be. Hero horrified, screams and begs villain to have mercy on them.

Feel free to add anything if you'd like~

Ooh Anon, that is definitely a very whumpy concept. It’s darker than usual for me but I think I’ll be able to do it. One thing to know about me though is I need my happy ending, so this snippet might take an unexpected turn, I hope that’s okay! Thank you for requesting this, I’ll do my best!

Hero had been here for days. Strapped down in a hospital bed, experimented on and tested, and no opportunities for escape. Hero could only hope that their team would arrive soon to rescue them. Hero flinched when the door to their cell opened and Villain stepped through.

“Good morning, little Hero,” Villain greeted, “are you ready for your next operation?”

“You’ve already taken my appendix, my tonsils, and cut me open to examine my organs,” Hero rattled off dryly, “what more could you possibly want from me?”

“This time I’m in the mood for something different,” Villain said, “something a bit more permanent than our last experiments.”

Villain stepped closer and leaned over until they were inches away from Hero’s face. They tapped Hero’s forehead with a finger.

“I’m going to perform a lobotomy on you, Hero,” Villain said with a wicked grin.

Hero’s eyes widened. They thrashed in their restraints, trying in vain to get free, which only fueled Villain’s amusement,

“No,” Hero begged, “please, not that, anything but that. You can take my kidney, heck, take one of my lungs, but don’t take my brain!”

“Technically, it’s only the frontal lobe,” Villain said, “but my decision has already been made, little Hero. I’ve called in some of my best colleagues to help perform the operation, and they can’t wait to get started on you. Here,” Villain pulled over a tray of tools, “here’s everything I’m going to use on you, isn’t it exciting?”

Villain began to explain in gory detail just how they were going to use each tool on the tray. Hero continued to thrash against the straps holding them down, but it was useless. Hero felt tears prick their eyes, and a lump formed in the back of their throat.

“When,” Hero swallowed, “when are you doing this?”

“Oh, about,” Villain checked their watch, “fifteen minutes, give or take. I wanted time to give you the news myself. Soon you won’t be anything but a husk, Hero. A toy for others’ enjoyment. I might sell you off to Supervillain, or I might just keep you all to myself. Either way, I’m going to enjoy this, watching you go to sleep with that fire in your eyes and then see you wake up without so much as a spark. It’ll be riveting to say the least, don’t you think?”

“Villain, please,” Hero was fully crying now, “I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t do this, please don’t do this,”

“Shhh.” Villain put a finger to Hero’s lips, “I’m doing this, and nothing you say is going to stop me.”

Villain pulled out a syringe and grabbed Hero’s exposed elbow. They plunged the needle into Hero’s skin and pressed down on the depressor, letting the contents flood Hero’s system.

“Villain!” Hero screamed, “please!”

“Just go to sleep,” Villain said, “I want to get started on you right away.”

Hero’s thrashing died down as the drug began to take effect. They fought to keep their eyes open. Between long, heavy blinks, Hero could just make out their cell door opening, with several figures standing in the doorway. Just before Hero went under, they saw a look of panic cross Villain’s face.

…

“Hero.”

Hero stirred but didn’t open their eyes.

“Hero, come on, wake up.”

Hero shook their head and groaned.

“Hero!”

Hero’s eyes fluttered open. They saw the faces of their team towering over them, all with worried expressions. Hero’s brows furrowed in confusion. How did their team get here? The last thing they remembered was Villain telling them about a lobotomy. The lobotomy! Hero bolted upright in bed. Strong arms wrapped around their shoulders to steady them.

“Easy, Hero,” Superhero’s voice echoed, “you’re alright, we’ve got you.”

“Wha-,” Hero started, “what happened?”

“We rescued you,” Other Hero explained, “you were in Villain’s lair for days, it took us a while to find you.”

“It looks like we got there just in the nick of time, too,” Vigilante said, “they had tools out for a lob- for an operation.”

Hero looked around at their team. Tears welled up in their eyes.

“Hero?” Superhero asked.

Hero turned into Superhero’s chest and sobbed. Superhero put their arms around them. Hero cried until there were no tears left to cry.

“They were gonna take my brain, Superhero!” Hero sobbed, “my brain!”

“Shhh,” Superhero soothed, “it’s okay, we caught Villain. They can’t hurt you anymore, you’re safe here.”

“Is this real?” Hero asked tearfully, “they didn’t do the lobotomy?”

Other Hero reached over and grabbed Hero’s hand.

“It’s real, Hero,” Other Hero said, “I promise.”

Hero breathed out a shaky sigh. This was real, they were safe.

…

Vigilante cleaned the blood off of their knife. Meanwhile, Villain bled out in the very cell they had kept Hero in for so long.

#I never kill off characters this feels weird #heroes and villains #hero x villain community #as requested #dark whump #whump #writing #writeblr #creative writing #snippet #kidnapping #drugging #whump writing #hero whumpee #villain whumper #superhero caretaker #hero x villain #but not really I just did that for the tag #who knows maybe Villain survived #lobotomy #this is dark for me

[thorniest-rose]

🐝 me again! hope you dont mind! i absolutely LOVED the show but now have no idea what to watch next to fill the void! i mean, i can see you are in the midst of a stranger things meltdown so should i give s4 a go? s3 was a bit hit or miss for me, plus the eps are so long!

re: yellowjackets au. you CANT say the word mate without me instantly thinking of a/b/o! which would make things even more nightmarish for poor daniel. esp if he either hadnt even presented yet or was hiding it then his medication finally runs out and the jig is up and the hunt truly is on. oh the delicious possibilities than can spiral from there. (image of the other cobras holding daniels head to the side so johnny can bite him. eek! this whole scenario is consuming me!)

hi!!! I don't mind at all, sorry for the delay while I've been losing my mind over Stranger Things and Eddie Munson!!!! I'm SO happy you enjoyed Yellowjackets, the ending was crazy right??? And how amazing was Christina Ricci? I felt blessed to see her in something good again. God I'm so excited for S2, I really hope it's on this year!! As for other shows I can rec, I'm really enjoying the latest season of Barry, which ends on Monday... it's very dark but very funny too, not sure if you've seen that. Plus I loved the latest season of Better Call Saul recently... can't remember what else I've watched haha, tbh I'm pretty selective when it comes to shows, there's so much I don't watch too.

And as for Stranger Things, I would say YES definitely give S4 a go if you haven't started it yet. I also thought S3 was just okay. Like I loved the storyline with Steve, Robin & Dustin but I felt like the show in general was running out of steam a bit. S4 has been amazing though, like I think it's the strongest season so far. The episodes are long, but it's needed for the number of characters and storylines there are now. Some bits aren't as interesting, like the Hopper in Russia storyline, but everything in Hawkins that explores the Satanic Panic; the new character Eddie who's accused of murdering kids and is based on Damien Echols from the West Memphis Three; Will's feelings for Mike; and the actual villain of the season and what he does to teenagers in Hawkins is all SO GOOD. Like I found it really fun and emotive and riveting!!! The only thing I want now is for Steve to come out as bi!!!!

God and as for the a/b/o Lord of the Flies / Yellowjackets idea I'M SO OBSESSED WITH IT I WANT TO CHEW GLASS. Like I know I've been going on about ST non-stop the past few days but this has been at the back of my head too. Like maybe Daniel's been taking his blockers, like Lottie on her medication in Yellowjackets, but it runs out a week or so after they've been stranded and it becomes more and more obvious. Like his scent gets stronger and he feels a heat coming on, and of course all the Cobras are Alphas because you can't be in Cobra Kai unless you're one, so he tries to avoid the others and hide it as much as he can, but eventually they find out.

And I'm just like. imagining Daniel going into his heat, slick running down his thighs, running from all the boys, but it doesn't matter where he goes because they can smell him even miles away, and they hunt him deep into the forest until they find him. And YES omg like you said... the others can play, but Johnny would be the only one who's allowed to knot him and claim him. Like the thought of them all holding Daniel's face to the side so Johnny can bite him on his mating gland is so hot. And Daniel tries to resist, hoping his body will reject the claim and the bite will heal, but it doesn't because Johnny's a compatible mate, and the bite quickly scabs over into a scar, showing everyone that Daniel belongs to him now.

And Daniel's terrified too, because he knows if Johnny comes inside him and knots him, he could get pregnant, and the last thing he wants to do is get pregnant while they're in the middle of the wilderness and have no idea when they'll be rescued, but Johnny doesn't care, he just wants to breed Daniel for as long and as hard as possible because Daniel is his and he's wanted to do this to him ever since they met. (Bonus points too if all the Cobras get to fuck Daniel during his heat because he can't control how his body reacts to them and it means Johnny gets a rest between his own bouts of fucking <3)

#asks #yellowjackets anon #cobras x daniel #just gonna tag this #tw non-con #too because it verges on that #and #a/b/o lawrusso

[dukeofriven]

So today at a friend's place my friend got me to watch the first episode of Trigun Stampede. I have never seen any Trigun, knew literally nothing about it except that the name would pop-up on TV Tropes a lot back in the day. My friend was a fan of the original and wanted to give the remake a shot. As the episode went on my friend got more and more aggravated, frequently making confused and irritated noises like a cat locked in an unheated bathroom, so that I could only surmise he wasn't enjoying the television programme. I was finding it kind of awkward and often off-putting, tiresomely sexist, and I just generally disliked its visual style (but then that's not specific to Trigun Stampede as I feel like '3D CGI' anime has yet to hit its stride—from Arpeggio of Blue Steel to Beastars the character models still feel leaden and droopy, their balance all wrong, and the framerate choices that should make them look more like tradition animation just make things look jerky.) The episode wasn't terrible, but it felt generic and forgettable, another anime that felt like I'd seen it before. After it was over my friend turned to me, ashen faced, and said 'what the fuck did they do to Trigun?' Then he made me watch the first episode of the original. It felt like watching a completely different show. It contextualized ever single choice the remake had made—and every choice it made was wrong. Where the new one felt sexist, the old one felt progressive. Where the new one felt aimless, bouncing from space opera to quasi-western, the old one had a razor-sharp sense of theme and genre. Where the new one's Vash felt like that druggie who tries to hold Bruce Willis up at the start of Fifth Element, the old Vash was a pitch-perfect balance of a guy who could ooze shonen cool one moment and then act like a total dork the next, with neither element feeling incongruous to his character. I sat there slack-jawed and baffled and began to understand why my friend had been so appalled. Why would you take an empowered female leader and make her a childish rookie? Why would you replace a fascinatingly unusual female character with an old alcoholic male asshole who spends the entire episode belittling his young female partner with misogynistic taunts? Why would you so clearly take every one of Trigun's narrative secrets and spill them all in the opening scene, then bookend the episode with a cartoonish villain playing a scary organ and all-but twirling a moustache> The original Trigun oozes confidence and charm - it feels like the sequel to Cowboy Bebop that I never knew existed, from the action sequences to the character design to the cocky assurance with which it just drops you into its world and makes no attempts to set it up for you: you are here, enjoy. Trigun Stampede seems terrified you might not instantly be invested in its deep lore so its non-stop exposition dumps from start to finish, with no mystery left by episode's end, everyone's motivation and backstory seemingly explained and squared away.

Hell, I watched the OG Trigun with its truly awful English dub and still felt riveted to the screen. I have never seen Trigun before. I have zero skin in the game, no childhood nostalgia to defend, no identity-forming anime obsession to shore-up as the backbone my existence. I give no goddamn weeb shits about Trigun. But I watched two episode of TB today: episode 1 of Trigun Stampede and the episode 1 of Trigun, and the former ditches every single element that makes the latter good. Every. Single. One. I have rarely watched a remake that seemed to so utterly and totally miss the point. If Stampede's only goal was to make me go 'man, this remake makes the original look amazing I'm going to ditch this show and watch that instead' well then it exceed. Otherwise, who the hell is this for? Why does this exist? MERYL GETS HANDLED ROUGHLY ENOUGH BUT WHAT THE SHIT DID YOU DO TO MILLY?

#Trigun #trigun stampede #anime #vash the stampede #beastars #arpeggio of blue steel

[space-blue]

Kenobi thoughts.

It's okay. It's not bad, but it's not great. I'm not sure if it'll end up being good, but it errs dangerously close to being boring and forgettable, right now.

More thought bellow the cut for spoilers.

Why is SW so obsessed with everything being for 6 to 12 year olds?

Why are every bad guy cringe and incompetent? Run into branches and do lame parkour?

Why is the cameraman making Reva pov of grabbing a pipe, cutting in the middle of her assassin creeds backflip to go to a dog-like move? Why is there a minute long cut of Obi-Wan and Leia goofing around while she's doing the cringe parkouring, killing any sense of a chase or momentum?

Why is everyone dressed in sheets and cheap tasteless costumes? I'm not usually one to nitpick costuming, but I'm also not usually one to *notice* it. Grab a tan sheet!! It's trendy!

What about internal consistency?

"the jedi failed you!" Reva says to the people of Tatooine. I beg your pardon? The planet never left Hutt possession. The Jedi were a tool of the Republic. They only came around to scam you and slaughter the locals.

There is so much tell with no show. The grand inquisitor monologues about hunting Jedi to people terrified of him, because as per usual Tatooine is treated not like a remote planet, but the poor neighborhood in a small galactic city.

Why would these people know what inquisitors are? Why would they care about Jedi? And if they know, and care, then why do you feel the need to monologue at them?

Why won't you *show us* that Tatooine is a backwater shit show? Why not open with the inquisitors crashing a slave auction? Why wouldn't the people tell the arrogant goth newcomers to piss off their lawn, only to be cut down? SHOW US dammit. Monologuing to a crowd doesn't count!

Also, if Obi-Wan knows that Vader = Anakin just from hearing the name... erm... how come a stinky little Mos Eisley pub owner can know about inquisitors, but Obi-Wan somehow never heard about *Vader* before? It's been 10 years! Bail works in the Senate, and he came IN PERSON to see you, how is Vader not discussed???

As for Leia, the actress does a great job for being this young. She delivers her lines very well, and she has some really sick burns. Fun! But WHY was she written to go from 14/10 logic to 2/10 just for plot convenience?

She can shame an adult with her sharp words and flawless logic, but when thinking "they kidnapped me to bait you out", her conclusion isn't "he must really be a Jedi then" but "I should totally run under live fire and make this impossible jump there's no way I can land."

Why? And why does Obi-Wan, a grown ass man who raised Anakin and co-raised Ahsoka, somehow fail to catch a 10 yo waddling next to him? Why cut your show the way you did, if you want to make her trotting away realistic?

Why did using the Force look like shitting a brick? Since when does one get so rusty it hurts? Why couldn't they show an emotional/psychological toll, from being instantly outed to all the inquisitors, instead of making it look like he was pulling a tendon flexing a shriveled muscle?

Bail Organa, how easy is it to get into your backyard? Why are the villains all Looney Tunes levels?

It wasn't bad! But it was... Not great. Not riveting. Not breath taking.

Worse, it felt like a short story. Done. I got what the trailer advertised. A Kenobi adventure. I have NO idea what next episode will have, but not in a fun, speculative way. Not "what's next on this journey?" More "Whatever the fuck is this show about then?"

If I weren't a clown platinum member of this circus fandom, IDK if I'd be motivated to come back for more?

Severance had me more edge of my seat than this, two episodes in, and it's about dystopian office work. Like—

Sigh. I'll keep watching. Who knows, it might go towards *good*, but right now it's just watchable. Nothing as bad as BoBF was even 2 episodes in but...

WHO THE FUCK IS SO INTO LAME PARKOUR AT DISNEY??? Can we get them off of this cringe trend? The director of photography CLEARLY doesn't know how to handle it. Just stop!

On the positive side, it was nice to see Breha and Bail... Leia's actress is great... Ewan is handsome, so is Owen. That Clone trooper didn't get the time he deserved and I hope he/others will show up again. Everyone tried their best.... The jawa was cute. Obi calling Leia his daughter was cute.... That's it. Ah, and Order 66 was great again as usual.

Here's to hopping nobody steps on a rake or runs into a fake tunnel next week.

#sw #star wars #kenobi #kenobi show #obi wan kenobi #spoilers #kenobi spoilers

[fasterthanmydemons]

If you're not familiar with Ego all you need to know is that I have a friend who had a big crush on Kurt Russell and after watching GOTG 2 my friend changed their mind. He's that evil. We weren't familiar with the character before the movie, we didn't KNOW he was evil, and my friend who had a crush on him tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible while I knew things were wrong the moment I saw how ✨️perfect & happy & pretty & flawless✨️ life on his planet was like it was surreal and it made me ✨️uncomfy✨️. Kurt Russell is an amazing actor and he made an amazing villain. Owned the role.

{out of breath} The more I hear about Ego the more I'm just like nope, this guy is not for me, heh. Lol Kurt Russell though for me will always be from classics like The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986), but you know... I'm older than the dinosaurs, so that's probably why, heh. I know what your friend went through though with noping on an actor because of a role they played haha, and I'll share a little story below the cut, just because of upsetting content.

Okay so... yeah, I had a similar experience with one of my favorite actors, Luke Goss. He's the FC for my Nuada, Luther, Luke, and Wade muses on a couple of my blogs, and I used to write him from a couple other roles too. I've been a fan of his since 2008 and let's be real, the man is absolutely fine. But I never saw him in a role where his character was 100% irredeemable before, not even with Prince Nuada. Even he still had some things about him that were good and worth saving.

But then I saw Traffik (2018), which is about h.um.an tr.affi.ck.ing of women. It's honestly a very well-done movie with a riveting performance by Paula Patton in the female lead, but it's hard to watch at times, very upsetting, and very realistic in frightening ways, so just a fair warning to anyone who might check it out.

In it, LG plays Red, a man who is kindof in an intermediary position of power in a h.um.an tr.affi.ck.ing ring. His character is probably a psychopath (I'm not a psychologist, but if I had to guess), and entirely devoid of empathy of any kind. Really a terrifying person. But when you first meet his character, he comes across as super nice, polite, friendly, endearing, chivalrous, etc. And like... for me, seeing him in a lot of hero roles, I was wholly unprepared for who I would find out his character really was under all that fake charm, and it was a shock.

But it was the same kind of thing... something about how nice he was being told me that something was creepily off. And I honestly gained a lot of respect for the actor because he literally acted out being nice in such a way that someone like me who's seen many of his movies and was very familiar with his acting could say... nope, something's up with this, this isn't how he usually portrays nice, heh. But yeah, that role was completely off-putting, even though he did a great job with it. I'm still a fan of his, for sure, but every time I watch Traffik I'm just always wincing at how cringe and frightening his character is. But like you said, respect to the actors for making us really believe the evil, right? Even if they make us feel bad, they're still making us feel, and that's impressive regardless.

#{ out of breath } ᵒᵒᶜ #tw: human trafficking

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Can I get uuuhhhhhhh an order of feral monster-type villain with extra fear-based intimidation and a side of tentacles, and a double-chocolate hero who is oblivious to the fact that this nightmare creature is supposed to be terrifying? Extra PG-13 ketchup only, hold the steam and the mayo.

Riveting.

There was no other word.

“How enthralling. You’re not some kind of mutant, are you?” The hero knew themselves it was impressive how fast they could speak. Countless people have told them it seemed nearly impossible how they talked without stumbling over their own words.

The villain however, stayed mute.

“Because, you know, I’ve never seen anything like this before. You’re just so tall and so…captivating. If you are a mutant, then the mutagens responsible for your mutations must have been…incredibly affective. I don’t really understand your anatomy yet, but I’m sure I’ll learn more soon!” they said. They were fidgeting with their clothes again, pulling at their sleeves nervously. They had never seen the villain before, not in this form at least.

It was something they had to capture in their mind. The villain wasn’t like anything or better, anyone the hero had ever seen. And they had seen a lot of mutants in their life. A lot of people who looked more like animals than persons.

That was the thing with working in the research department. The hero always got to discover new kinds of powers and especially, the villains who held those. The hero loved their job more than anything in the world.

“Are you always talking with a lack of cognizance of your surroundings?”

“Excuse me?” The villain glowered at them, their nonhuman eyes going over the hero, taking them apart without hesitation. One of the villain’s tentacles found a way around the hero’s waist. With a horrifying yet intriguing strength, they pulled them closer.

“I could pick you apart,” the villain said.

“Wait, do you have murderous teeth, too?”

“Little hero,” the villain’s voice was something close to soft. “I could kill you in seconds. I could split your skull open and watch your eyes drown in pure and raw death. I can watch your limbs go numb and your skin melt. Aren’t you afraid?”

“Not really, no. You don’t indicate any violence right now. You seem calm.”

“The calm before the storm?” the villain suggested. They pulled the hero closer, their tentacles not uncomfortable but not prosperous yet.

“You’re not going to attack me.”

“You’re inappropriately confident,” the villain said. Their eyes went over the hero’s face again, as if they were searching for their enemy’s soul. “I kill people daily. They don’t even have time to look at me.”

“I’m not dead yet,” the hero countered. They were fairly decent at their job. Though it was the most dangerous among all the jobs in the hero business, even more dangerous than being out there fighting, the hero liked to talk to the villains. They liked to learn how to understand them. It was their job to talk to the villains, to get them to stay still. Long enough for the other heroes to strike.

What would happen next, was a mystery to the hero. However, their superiors had mentioned something about rehabilitation a million years ago.

“Touché. I like you.” The hero didn’t expect their body to blush. Today, they had been alone as they had encountered the villain. They were on their way home and suddenly—

“I wanted to kill you for imprisoning my friends. But I think I should keep you instead.”

The hero wasn’t even half as terrified as they should’ve been.

Imprisoning was a strange expression, though.

#writing snippet #heroxvillain snippet #heroxvillain prompt #heroes and villains #hero #villain #hero x villain #heroxvillain #request #an answer for an ask #monster villain

[galahadenough]

I finally put together a review of Loki (TV Series). I've always been a huge Marvel fan, a huge MCU fan, but this show was horrific to me. Especially since I saw the show through to the end, I wanted to write a review for the main reviewing websites. I want this side to be heard. All it took was an immense amount of rage to get me to write reviews!

I’m planning on posting it on imdb, Rotten Tomatoes, and google reviews. So far I’ve gotten errors and issues with RT and google, and I’m hoping it doesn’t get lost on imdb. Any other places to leave reviews?

It took me a while to write this. I had to calm down a lot to make it coherent. Then I had to figure out how to condense it. I felt like a review should be my main points, but it took a lot of editing to get it down this much. (Then I had to make an edited version because google has much smaller word limits).

Thanks a lot @iamnmbr3. Your blog was the first one I found on the topic and it was a huge help. The show felt off from the first episode, but I couldn’t figure out why. Your analysis on the show really helped me to verbalize what I was feeling.

Review (except shorter on google):

As a huge MCU fan, I found the show to be intolerable. The plot was slow with way too much filler for the length of the show, and much of the filler felt purposeless. They could have deleted entire scenes or plot points without changing much if any of the story. The creators deliberately made the aesthetic average and mundane, which didn’t pair well with the underwhelming plot. The show relied heavily on slapstick humor, almost all of which was directed at the title character in a manner that encouraged laughter at his pain and stupidity. It would have been better suited for a cartoon, but it would be a cruel cartoon.

The TVA was presented as the better of two evils despite it being a totalitarian organization utilizing genocide and torture, both physical and mental. It felt very reminiscent of the book 1984 with the Thought Police, but the TVA was never truly represented as evil. Not one character opposed them as a hero or from a moral standpoint. All opposition came from a personal or self-serving motive. I’m not wanting every character to be brilliantly moralistic. That would be boring. But you don’t set up an organization like the TVA and say that they are providing a good and needed service, which was the idea the series was based on and ended on.

Mobius has a personality that is very easy to like, but he is very much complicit with the TVA. He happily 'does his job' of genocide and torture. He is Loki's captor, but we are informed he is his friend. When he isn't actively using physical or mental manipulation and torture, he is deriding and mocking him. There was nothing to indicate that they were friends outside of being told that is true. Mobius was never used as a villain by the show despite him fitting the mold well, but he also never has a redemption arc that would have made him a good hero. His reason for working against the TVA is because they lied to him, not because there is any moral reason. His change in alliances happened without much buildup, no gradual discovery throughout the series.

Sylvie felt like a caricature of a character, with very little to her personality other than grit. I was very bored with her. She was a tough, strong, and perfect character that lacked any other depth or nuance. She was called “terrifying” for being female, which felt horrifyingly sexist. She was yet another source of derision and mocking towards Loki.

Loki, the character, was very poorly written. He has always had a great deal of emotional depth that makes him interesting. He was acted with a range from extreme subtlety to riveting explosions of emotion in previous movies. His past is filled with good and bad choices, made with good and bad intentions. He was the villain who tried to be a hero and the hero who tried to be a villain. They took all that away and made him a side character in his own show who had little to no effect on the plot.

For abilities, he lacked his usual physical fighting prowess. He did very little magic, seeming awed when others used magic. His personality and mannerisms changed drastically. His gestures and expressions in this show were over the top and felt clownish, especially for a character that is known for his subtlety. He felt hyperactive and painfully eager to please everyone. His character is known for his manipulations, but his method of 'manipulation' here is to inform others that he is 'ten steps ahead' of them and is going to trick them. I don’t think that’s a good method of manipulation? Plus, the only effect he had on the plot was to slow down the other characters through his bumbling failures.

In addition, Loki was almost always the target of cruelty. This entire show felt like it was made to mock this character. They used every opportunity to tell us, and Loki, how terrible Loki is. How he is irredeemable and incapable of change. That he is a narcissist, which is inaccurate, and that any Loki is inherently untrustworthy. From birth, I suppose. Physical attacks, such as the slow-motion punch and the time loop where he was repeatedly kicked in the crotch, made me cringe. This show encouraged the enjoyment of cruelty.

As a last point, the show used the idea of representation to draw in viewers while avoiding having actual representation. The show was lauded as being good for bisexual and genderfluid representation. From what I’ve heard, the genderfluid representation was a mark on Loki’s paperwork, which you would need to pause at just the right moment to see. Plus, that makes the “terror” at a female Loki make even less sense. The bisexual representation was shown through a single word, and the character was only shown to be so when they made an entire show to mock and belittle him. That is not good representation.

I was very excited for this show, as well as for the next phase of the MCU. This has left me very disappointed and disheartened. I may not be entirely finished with the MCU, but this is the first part of the series that has killed my excitement for future releases. I get a sinking feeling when I hear about future projects now. I have enjoyed debating creative choices before, but this is not simply creative choices. It is too much cruelty, combined with poor writing and a lack of continuity.

#loki tv #loki #loki series negativity #loki series #mcu #mcu critical #review

[britishassistant]

@emyluwinter submitted:

It's very, very bad.

I probably already need to write some specific greeting, so that you understand that this is me again. I think something like " And here you are again a freelance newspaper worker writing about the life of a Yuu reporter!!" Today you will read a rather stressful and difficult passage, an article, a mini-script? I suggest you stock up on handkerchiefs.

This day was completely different. Grimm suddenly didn't show up for breakfast, and disappeared somewhere. None of the neighbors even saw him this morning. But Yuu definitely remembered that they went to bed together. How they covered themselves with a blanket, how they turned out the lights and fell asleep after a hard day's work. Yuuken's phone hadn't been answered for several hours, which was very unlike him. Also, the cameraman did not show up for the shooting of the report. No one in the office knew what was going on, and no one knew where he was. Yuu could feel everything inside him twisting into a tight knot of tension and despair. It seemed less and less like it was just a coincidence.

- Please let it be a misunderstanding. - Yuu consoled himself with these thoughts. But their intuition literally screamed that things were very bad. Everything goes wrong.

Even the villains seem to have decided to take a sudden day off for villainy. For a couple of hours, Yuu had been trying to call Yuuken or find Grimm. But there were no traces, no notes about the abduction. All his nerves were taut as strings. Almost choking, Yuu looks in horror at the black raven feather on his desk. This is Crowley's doing. It's a lousy case scenario. Things are bad, very bad. But what did he want from them? Why suddenly now?No matter how many questions were asked in Yuu's mind, there was no answer. A few hours later, Yuu found himself in the heart of the lair of the terrible leader of the villainous league of Crowley. Their anger was boundless and Yuu literally wanted to break the neck of this restless crow, which does not want to leave him alone. - what do you want, old crow? They decided to ask the question right away and not waste time. Fearing that it will be disastrously small to provide assistance. - Oh, Yuu, I'm so glad you decided to join me tonight. Would you like some tea? - Crowley sat quietly in his large, massive, and gaudy-looking throne chair. While they themselves were sitting on a simple chair. It was as if he was doing everything he could to show how helpless and small Yuu was compared to him. - If by join, you mean that your thugs kidnapped me and dragged me here by force, almost trashing my apartment and scaring the entire neighborhood. Wouldn't you... go fuck yourself?! Why did you suddenly think to kidnap me?what do you need?!

Yuu well understood that now is not the best idea to give vent to their anger and irritation. But they were on edge all day and the stress was stronger than usual. It had all been piling up like a snowball... for so long and so painfully. - Hush, hush, baby bird, I don't think you're in a position to let your emotions run wild right now. But I'm so kind that I'd rather not notice this little outburst of anger - Crowley indifferently took a sip of amazingly expensive tea from an equally expensive cup and saucer. - What do you want? - Yuu literally gritted his teeth to get to the bottom of it.One part of them was thinking about escape options, the other was praying that nothing happened to Yuuken and Grimm and they were kidnapped by another villain from the seven, waiting for either the Prefect or the reporter to come. They may be villains. But they are not so stupid as to harm the people dear to Yuu. They might as well have tried to kidnap Divus Cruel, but they would have been brainless in the next few hours, even if they had been very lucky not to be tortured half to death by his experiments.

- I'm glad you asked! You see I am so gracious that I will tell you my beautiful plan. As you recall, you are my biological heir. This is a very responsible and serious position in which I will need to make sure that after me there will be a leader who may even surpass me. It would be such a wonderful arrangement of affairs! Yuu wanted to punch that old crow even more. Crowley continued. - And as you must understand by now, all my previous persuasions have failed. As well as the idea that you went through adversity at birth. Yuu didn't like what he was talking about with them. - That's why!For the past few months, I've patiently let you enjoy the life you're used to. Make friends and family, get a job that you like. Even get a strange pet. And I had an amazing idea!If you couldn't get through the hardships when you were still a child, then I can easily arrange it now to break you the way I need to! Crowley chuckled smugly. Meanwhile, Yuu had the feeling that he was watching some kind of nightmare that they couldn't wake up from. - break me...what..What are you talking about? - Yuu could barely whisper their question. A chill swept through his body as quickly as if they had fallen under one of Charon's freezing traps.

But it wasn't ice. This was their terror with fear. Crowley puts his hands together and leans on his desk. - Do I sound so vague to you? Oh, you seem so happy that I'm giving you this opportunity to enjoy your peaceful days as a civilian. But I decided that it was time to stop with these children's games. Crowley presses a button on the remote control and a screen with security cameras turns on behind him. Yuu's stomach clenched in shock and horror. They screamed abruptly getting up from the chair and holding their hands over their mouths in fear, they looked at the bound Yuken and Grim, worse, Crowley did not stop.... in another screen  were...their parents. They were also abducted and tied up.

Crowley went on with his plan.

- All I had to do was take everything you hold dear and brutally eliminate it in front of your eyes. As long as you're a weak cub, you can't stop it.

No wonder they talked about Crowley's monstrous reputation, Yuu almost choked on their own tears and despair.

- no...No, don't touch them!!They have nothing to do with it!! - Yuu pleaded, literally burning the old crow with his eyes.

- I told you I didn't want your money, your position, and I certainly don't want to be your heir!"!You already have 7 candidates choose one of them, why do you keep interfering and threatening me to kill my loved ones?!? - Because I'm kind enough to give you a little choice."

The Yuus recoiled from him. Again, this dirty manipulation. He's going to brainwash them, that's for sure.

- The choice is cub. You stay and I teach you as my heir, how to manage my affairs and the craft of villainy. Or ...

Yuu suppresses a ragged sigh. They didn't even notice the tears running down their cheeks and their shoulders shaking.

Crowley truly reveled in the sight and the sense of his own superiority.

- I will kill these people slowly and painfully until you learn everything, and you will see every day how your mistakes cause pain and suffering to your loved ones.

It was as if a vacuum had appeared in Yuu's head. Either way, Crowley gave them no choice. He had planned it all from the beginning.

- where...Where's the guarantee that if I stay, you won't kill them at the same time?where is the proof that they are not dead? Crowley laughed merrily, and Yuu felt helpless and weak for the first time in his life. Things are too bad, Yuu can't think of a single option for saving everyone, including myself.

- Great question!!You see, if you voluntarily stay, they guarantee me that you will not try to escape in the future and that you will be a diligent student.

Yuu thought for a second that Crowley had put an invisible noose around his neck and was pulling it tighter and tighter. Like a puppet master's collar or strings.

- If you try to escape and somehow find them in my labyrinth lair. - Crowley pressed another button on his remote control Yuu looked at the other wall and saw a reflection of himself. Terrified, their cheeks glistening with tears, as if they were lost and broken. Just like Crowley wanted.

The leader of the League of Villains gets up from his desk and takes Yuu by the shoulders and turns their face to the camera.

- Your beloved Dair Crowley and our charming reporter Yuu are on the air. Yuu stubbornly refused to look at the camera and was riveted by the eyes of his loved ones. Even through their tears, they could see that they were still fine. Yuuken played with Grim in words to pass the time. I don't think Grimm did very well, but he tried.

And his parents...

Yuu sobbed softly and barely smiled. Their father was humming a tune inaudible to their ears and kicking out a rhythm with his feet. And their mother, their kind, sweet mother, sang with him.

They were afraid, they did not know what they would do to them and whether they would live. But they sang.

Crowley was talking and talking to the camera, but they weren't listening. Yuu is too tired to be strong, too tired to be in the midst of these evil-hero fights, to be involved in these conflicts. They just wanted to live the peaceful life of a citizen, a friendly neighbor. Instead of being in their worst nightmare right now, which Yuu didn't know how to get out of.

Crowley dug his sharp nails into Yuu's cheeks very painfully,forcing them to forcibly turn their heads towards him and the camera.

- Do as I say. - Crowley whispered menacingly, as if about to kill him.

The Yuu felt that they were so brittle and broken that if Crowley pressed any more, their bones would crack just like they are now. - So my dear viewers, I will be so kind as to answer your main question!!Your favorite reporter and friendly neighbor has a unique opportunity. Stay with me as a hostage voluntarily and save your family and friends, or I'll have to persuade them with my own words ... -  Crowley's eyes darkened and Yuu for the first time was afraid for the loved ones because Crowley wasn't always such a jerk.

- in kind and gracious ways. How about holding the whole city hostage? Ah probably you are now enveloped in a beautiful fear of not knowing that if the Yuu refuse, I will kill every civilian-Crowley specifically emphasized this point.

"Every single one of them, one by one, until the Yuu eventually agree. Ask why I need it?You see, I have some plans for this naughty child..

Yuu groaned softly as Crowley's other hand, with its sharp fingers, gripped his forearm very painfully, digging its nails through his clothes into the skin and scratching it.

- a monster.. - Yuu whispered softly, no longer holding back his tears. They were literally breaking down by the second. On the other side of the screen, the Leviathan in his lair dropped all the papers from his hands and turned pale with the realization of the whole situation. Crowley decided to go the route of violence if he was tired of Yuu's refusals. And the worst scenario he could have imagined came true..

- Err?!?Azul!!The shrimp is crying!I don't like it!! Floyd said angrily, not looking up from the screen.

- What are we going to do? -  Jade looked at his boss expectantly. Azul sat down unsteadily on the arm of his chair.

- Crowley literally says to all the villains do not interfere or I will kill him.. - Azul replied softly, feeling a cold sweat break out on his skin... None of the villains knew what to do or what to do. But everyone swore to themselves that they would never bring Yuu to such tears. To such a terrible state... I will end my passage here. I want to hear your impressions, thoughts, and ideas!!Open to everything!

It's so great to hear that you like what I write!

...well.

Well.

You were right about needing tissues!! Holy hell, this is serious End Game level work!! This is definitely building up to a dramatic conclusion!!

Crowley seems to hold all the cards here! He’s got Yuu’s family and friends (and who he thinks is the Prefect’s secret identity) hostage so that the reporter can’t fight back or be saved, and he’s got Yuu so the supervillains can’t make a move unless they want Yuu’s death on their heads. It seems like all hope is lost...

...Though I notice Crowley hasn’t exactly factored in what a certain Uncle and other honorary family members on the board of the League, or the three mysterious old men who own Yuu’s apartment will have to say about this...

Or the fact that the Prefect may not be as contained as he thinks...

#submission #emyluwinter #twisted wonderland #twst #supervillain au #dire crowley #twst crowley #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu #azul ashengrotto #twst azul #floyd leech #twst floyd #jade leech #twst jade #enma yuuken #twst yuuken #twisted wonderland grim #twst grim #anita radcliffe #roger radcliffe

[nitrateglow]

Favorite films discovered in 2020

Well, this year sucked. I did see some good movies though. Some even made after I was born!

Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997)

I watch a lot of thrillers and horror movies, but precious few actually unsettle me in any lasting way. This cannot be said of Perfect Blue, which gave me one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of my life. Beyond the brief flashes of bloodletting (you will never look at a screwdriver the same way again), the scariest thing about Perfect Blue might be how the protagonist has both her life and her sense of self threatened by the villains. The movie’s prescience regarding public persona is also incredibly eerie, especially in our age of social media. While anime is seen as a very niche interest (albeit one that has become more mainstream in recent years), I would highly recommend this movie to thriller fans, whether they typically watch anime or not. It’s right up there with the best of Hitchcock or De Palma.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966)

Nothing is better than when an iconic movie lives up to the hype. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef play off of one another perfectly. I was impressed by Wallach as Tuco in particular: his character initially seems like a one-dimensional greedy criminal, but the performance is packed with wonderful moments of humanity. Do I really need to say anything about the direction? Or about the wonderful storyline, which takes on an almost mythic feel in its grandeur? Or that soundtrack?

Die Niebelungen (both movies) (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924)

I did NOT expect to love these movies as much as I did. That they would be dazzlingly gorgeous I never doubted: the medieval world of the story is brought to vivid life through the geometrical mise en scene and detailed costuming. However, the plot itself is so, so riveting, never losing steam over the course of the four hours it takes to watch both movies. The first half is heroic fantasy; the second half involves a revenge plot of almost Shakespearean proportions. This might actually be my favorite silent Fritz Lang movie now.

Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Brian Henson, 1996)

I understand that people have different tastes and all, but how does this movie have such a mixed reception? It’s absolutely hilarious. How could anybody get through the scene with “THA BLACK SPOT AGGHHHHHHH” and not declare this a masterpiece of comedy? And I risk being excommunicated from the Muppet fandom for saying it, but I like this one more than The Great Muppet Caper. It’s probably now my second favorite Muppet movie.

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I confess I’m not terribly fond of “but was it real???” movies. They tend to feel gimmicky more often than not. Belle de Jour is an exception. This is about more than a repressed housewife getting her kicks working as a daytime prostitute. The film delves into victim blaming, trauma, class, and identity-- sure, this sounds academic and dry when I put it that way, but what I’m trying to say is that these are very complicated characters and the blurring of fantasy and reality becomes thought-provoking rather than trite due to that complexity.

Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies, 2003)

The term “family movie” is often used as a synonym for “children’s movie.” However, there is an important distinction: children’s movies only appeal to kids, while family movies retain their appeal as one grows up. Secondhand Lions is perhaps a perfect family movie, with a great deal more nuance than one might expect regarding the need for storytelling and its purpose in creating meaning for one’s life. It’s also amazingly cast: Haley Joel Osment is excellent as the juvenile lead, and Michael Caine and Robert Duvall steal the show as Osment’s eccentric uncles.

The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Controversial in its day for depicting frontal nudity, The Pawnbroker shocks today for different reasons. As the top review of the film on IMDB says, we’re used to victims of great atrocities being presented as sympathetic, good people in fiction. Here, Rod Steiger’s Sol Nazerman subverts such a trope: his suffering at the hands of the Nazis has made him a hard, closed-off person, dismissive of his second wife (herself also a survivor of the Holocaust), cold to his friendly assistant, and bitter towards himself. The movie follows Nazerman’s postwar life, vividly presenting his inner pain in a way that is almost too much to bear. Gotta say, Steiger gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in a movie here: he’s so three-dimensional and complex. The emotions on his face are registered with Falconetti-level brilliance.

The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

While not the most depressing Christmas movie ever, The Apartment certainly puts a good injection of cynicism into the season. I have rarely seen a movie so adept at blending comedy, romance, and satire without feeling tone-deaf. There are a lot of things to praise about The Apartment, but I want to give a special shoutout to the dialogue. “Witty” dialogue that sounds natural is hard to come by-- so often, it just feels smart-assy and strained. Not here.

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger, 1959)

I’m not big into courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder is a big exception. Its morally ambiguous characters elevate it from being a mere “whodunit” (or I guess in the case of this movie, “whydunit”), because if there’s something you’re not going to get with this movie, it’s a clear answer as to what happened on the night of the crime. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his least characteristic performances as the cynical lawyer, and is absolutely brilliant. 

Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2003)

Oldboy reminded me a great deal of John Webster’s 17th century tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. Both are gruesome, frightening, and heartbreaking works of art, straddling the line between sensationalism and intelligence, proving the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s both entertaining and difficult to watch. The thought of revisiting it terrifies me but I feel there is so much more to appreciate about the sheer craft on display.

Family Plot (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Family Plot is an enjoyable comedy; you guys are just mean. I know in an ideal world, Hitchcock’s swan song would be a great thriller masterpiece in the vein of Vertigo or Psycho. Family Plot is instead a silly send-up of Hitchcock’s favorite tropes, lampooning everything from the dangerous blonde archetype (with not one but two characters) to complicated MacGuffin plots. You’ll probably demand my film buff card be revoked for my opinion, but to hell with it-- this is my favorite of Hitchcock’s post-Psycho movies.

My Best Girl (dir. Sam Taylor, 1927)

Mary Pickford’s farewell to silent film also happens to be among her best movies. It’s a simple, charming romantic comedy starring her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. Pickford also gets to play an adult character here, rather than the little girl parts her public demanded she essay even well into her thirties. She and Rogers are sweet together without being diabetes-inducing, and the comedy is often laugh out loud funny. It even mocks a few tropes that anyone who watches enough old movies will recognize and probably dislike-- such as “break his heart to save him!!” (my personal most loathed 1920s/1930s trope).

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

This feels like such a zeitgeist movie. It’s about the gap between the rich and the poor, it’s ironic,  it’s depressing, it’s unpredictable as hell. I don’t like terms like “modern classic,” because by its very definition, a classic can only be deemed as such after a long passage of time, but I have a good feeling Parasite will be considered one of the definitive films of the 2010s in the years to come.

Indiscreet (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

Indiscreet often gets criticized for not being Notorious more or less, which is a shame. It’s not SUPPOSED to be-- it’s cinematic souffle and both Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant elevate that light material with their perfect chemistry and comedic timing. It’s also refreshing to see a rom-com with characters over 40 as the leads-- and the movie does not try to make them seem younger or less mature, making the zany moments all the more hilarious. It’s worth seeing for Cary Grant’s jig (picture above) alone.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1974)

This movie embodies so much of what I love about 70s cinema: it’s gritty, irreverent, and hard-hitting. It’s both hilarious and suspenseful-- I was tense all throughout the run time. I heard there was a remake and it just seems... so, so pointless when you already have this gem perfect as it is.

They All Laughed (dir. Peter Bogdonavich, 1981)

Bogdonavich’s lesser known homage to 1930s screwball comedy is also a weirdly autumnal movie. Among the last gasps of the New Hollywood movement, it is also marks the final time Audrey Hepburn would star in a theatrical release. The gentle comedy, excellent ensemble cast (John Ritter is the standout), and the mature but short-lived romance between Hepburn and Ben Gazarra’s characters make this a memorably bittersweet gem.

The Palm Beach Story (dir. Preston Sturges, 1942)

Absolutely hilarious. I was watching this with my parents in the room. My mom tends to like old movies while my dad doesn’t, but both of them were laughing aloud at this one. Not much else to say about it, other than I love Joel McCrea the more movies I see him in-- though it’s weird seeing him in comedies since I’m so used to him as a back-breaking man on the edge in The Most Dangerous Game!

Nothing Sacred (dir. William Wellman, 1937)

I tend to associate William Wellman with the pre-code era, so I’ve tried delving more into his post-code work. Nothing Sacred is easily my favorite of those films thus far, mainly for Carole Lombard but also because the story still feels pretty fresh due to the jabs it takes at celebrity worship and moral hypocrisy. For a satire, it’s still very warm towards its characters, even when they’re misbehaving or deluding themselves, so it’s oddly a feel-good film too.

Applause (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)

I love watching early sound movies, but my inner history nerd tends to enjoy them more than the part of me that, well, craves good, well-made movies. Most early sound films are pure awkward, but there’s always an exception and Applause is one of them. While the plot’s backstage melodrama is nothing special, the way the story is told is super sophisticated and expressive for this period of cinema history, and Helen Morgan makes the figure of the discarded burlesque queen seem truly human and tragic rather than merely sentimental.

Topaz (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1969)

Another late Hitchcock everyone but me seems to hate. After suffering through Torn Curtain, I expected Hitchcock’s other cold war thriller was going to be dull as dishwater, but instead I found an understated espionage movie standing in stark contrast to the more popular spy movies of the period. It’ll never be top Hitchcock, of course-- still it was stylish and enjoyable, with some truly haunting moments. I think it deserves more appreciation than it’s been given.

What were your favorite cinematic discoveries in 2020?

#thoughts #belle de jour #topaz #family plot #the taking of pelham 123 #the pawnbroker #nothing sacred #my best girl #applause #muppet treasure island #perfect blue #die niebelungen #parasite #the good the bad and the ugly #the palm beach story #they all laughed #indiscreet #oldboy #anatomy of a murder #the apartment #secondhand lions

[journalxxx]

Green Light

Toshinori Yagi had never been much of an avid reader.

In his youth, bursting with energy and good intentions as he was, the mere act of standing still in any one place felt like torture. There were places to be, people to save, villains to track down, not to mention training. Literary and artistic pursuits were valuable and commendable, but Toshinori himself preferred leaving them to others, while he himself could fulfil the task of ensuring that such talented individuals could let their inspiration bloom in a safe and hospitable society. Even in the latest years, when the burden of heroic activities weighed too much on his wrecked body to allow him more than a handful of work hours per day, he hadn't quite managed to find a taste for books, and had filled his sadly abundant downtime with movies instead.

Yet, that evening, a long-forgotten memory of literary nature sprang to his mind. David Shield, his brilliant wingman from the days spent in America after graduating, had been a proper bookworm - a strangely action-inclined one, but a bookworm nonetheless, and his love for novels was second only to his overwhelming passion for science and engineering. He used to chat with his Japanese friend about his favorite reads, and Toshinori recalled a bit of a heated rant about The Great Gatsby. A green light, twinkling in the darkness, a visible reminder of human ambition and strife for greatness, even a metaphor for the great American dream itself. A beacon of hope that stole one's gaze and breath, both out of satisfaction and frustration. Toshinori was reminded of that conversation, that evening, as his eyes followed the electric green light zooming around in the darkening sky, hopping over and between buildings with astonishing speed, closer and closer.

"You hurt?" Toshinori asked, as soon as Midoriya landed, after decelerating with a couple of hops and stopping precisely next to him.

"I'm... all right." The hooded figure replied, ever so slightly out of breath because of the effort, or maybe because of the dust cloud he'd raised.

"Your arms and legs?"

Midoriya had developed a worrying tolerance to pain in the last year and his definition of 'injury' had shifted accordingly, so Toshinori couldn't help ascertaining his student's safety to the point of redundancy. His insistence was met with a confident eyes as the boy uncovered his face and flexed his fingers, proving that the latest addition to his combat equipment had worked as intended. Toshinori had warned him early on about the dangers of relying too much on gauntlets, braces and assorted devices, and there had been no signs of him having forgotten about that. Still, he reminded him once more of the importance of avoiding wounds and shattered bones in the current circumstances. Midoriya accepted his mentor's words without a trace of annoyance, as always.

Toshinori's mobile rang. It was Hawks, at it again with his unrequested commentary on the operation. Midoriya was gone with a giant leap before Toshinori could complete two sentences. He politely deflected his colleague's nagging as the dust settled anew. Lots of dust, but not a single mark or crack on the asphalt touched by Midoriya's feet. The corners of Toshinori's lips curved upwards. Perfect control.

Very few things in his life had terrified All Might - the unwavering, the unflinching, the indefatigable All Might - as much as the sight of black tendrils sprouting uncontrollably from his student's hand during class training. Those black tendrils that looked so strikingly similar to his nemesis' own Rivets, so much that they had made him fear that All For One somehow, in some wretched, unfathomable way, had manifested on the spot, or even possessed Midoriya himself, and was ready to destroy, stab, maul every single one of the budding heroes right before his eyes. In hindsight, he could only feel shame at the memory of his behaviour during that emergency. He could only stutter vague and panicking warnings during those dreadful minutes, while Aizawa and Vlad had assessed the situation with the proper detachment.

The aftermath of the event had been deeply confusing. A new quirk, inherited from one of the predecessors? The predecessors themselves, now able to interact with Modoriya's mind? Toshinori had found himself at a loss. He was supposed to guide his student to the fullest understanding of his power, but those developments were completely unheard of. He offered the boy his most confident smile and reassurements, for they were what he needed, but privately... he worried. He worried very much. And before he knew it, the Paranormal Liberation war had left his precious successor a heap of broken limbs and regrets.

And then Midoriya had mastered Black Whip. And Float. And Danger Sense. And Smokescreen. All within few months. All with virtually no guidance (except from the several entities dwelling in One For All, probably).

'Unbelievable' didn't even begin to describe the scope of that feat. Toshinori had watched in sheer awe his pupil bounce back from the tragedy with renewed vigor, purpose and skill. He had willingly shouldered responsibilities that no one would have forced even on a professional hero and now here he was, acting as the bait for the most dangerous villain in the world, while also saving innocents in the process. As it turned out, the new wielder of One For All was managing just fine.

Ostensibly, at least.

Twenty-seven hours later, it started raining. The dull sound of the raindrops hitting the car hood and the regular beeping of Midoriya's GPS lulled Toshinori into another bout of nostalgia as he drove along the main street. It happened more and more often lately, maybe he was really starting to get old. The beaming smile of the boy upon receiving his lunchbox had warmed Toshinori's heart, but it had also made him wonder... Had he been as appreciative towards Nighteye in the past? He had never neglected to thank his sidekick for his invaluable support (especially on the bureaucratic side of things), but... Had he really put his whole heart into it? Had he really conveyed the same honest thankfulness he saw in young Midoriya's eyes whenever Toshinori handed him a meal, or checked his equipment, or removed a bystander from a tricky situation? One thing was certain, and that was that he hadn't been nearly as mindful of his sidekick's warnings back then. Maybe, if he had...

Well. No point in dwelling on the past. He had given his apologies, he had said his goodbyes. He'd have to content himself with those. What mattered now was helping Midoriya, in any way he could. His arguable teaching privileges had practically disappeared since Midoriya had started dealing with new, never-before-manifested traits of One For All. Still, competent and timely support was a blessing even for the mightiest of heroes, and Toshinori would be damned if he didn't try his hardest to fill that spot. He'd-

The laptop gave a louder beep, and then silence. The green dot pointing at Midoriya's position disappeared. Toshinori cursed and stepped on the gas. He took notice, for the briefest fraction of a second, of the cylindrical object bouncing towards his car, until it was close enough to realize-

There was a flash, a violent impact, and then nothing.

There was darkness. And pain. His head throbbed horrendously, and he struggled to string together any thoughts. There was liquid trickling down his face, some cold and some warm. He was drenched, and cold, and very nauseous. He was standing vertically, but not by his own will. He felt like a coat hanging from a rack. There were voices, one extremely close, shouting so loudly that it made him whince. He couldn't seem to make out the words. There was a much farther scream-

He recognised it. With a disproportionate effort, he opened his eyes. There it was, the familiar green glow. The boy, sizzling with energy, stood out like a mystic vision in the darkness. He looked furious, and ready to sprint towards him.

But he was waiting. Waiting for an opening, Toshinori realized, an opening that whoever was jerking the collar of his jacket didn't seem to offer. Toshinori didn't feel capable of summoning enough balance or coordination to move, let alone put up a fight, but could he provide a distraction anyway? Maybe. Yes. Yes, he could.

Without thinking twice, he flexed every single muscle in his body, and shouted. He shouted only to add to the surprise effect at first, then he kept going because it really fucking hurt. But it worked. The sudden increase of his body mass threw the mysterious assailant off balance, and he was dropped on the ground. Instantly, a powerful air blast signalled Midoriya's attack, and then all hell broke loose. Feeling as if each of his limbs had caught fire, wrecked by a violent coughing fit, Toshinori could only squirm on the spot as he felt vicious blows landing in his vicinity and on the surrounding buildings, more screams and undefined explosions, until a stronger gust of wind lifted his shrunk form in the air and sent him flying like ragdoll. His back hit something much harder than him, and darkness descended again.

There was darkness. Complete, impenetrable, all-encompassing. He had no pain, no form, no body. Nothingness stretched uninterrupted in all directions. He was nothing and there was nothing, save for the small crowd of entities not farm from him. He listened.

"...coordination. It had to be planned carefully to avoid all the precautions you took. You bear no guilt of carelessness." A quiet voice said. There was barely any inflection to its tone.

"It wasn't enough!" The green voice replied, upset. Unlike the others, this one had a head, though only the back of it was visible. "It could have gone a lot worse! He could have-"

"Pull yourself together, brat!" A rough voice scolded. "This isn't anything worth sobbing about. Start thinking about how not to make it happen again instead. I swear, you should be used to this sort of thing right now..."

"Not everyone has experienced this level of social instability and violence in their lives since such a young age, Banjo. It takes time to adapt." Another voice said. A kind voice. A woman's voice. He... knew that voice...

"But what else can I do?!" The green one interjected. "I'm training as fast as I can, I'm working on strength and control, I can use more quirks... We've teamed up with the three top heroes in the country and it still isn't enough...!"

"You cannot expect this war to go like a carefully planned game of chess. There will be mistakes, accidents and bad luck. There will be more blood spilled, on both sides. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you will start making some real progress."

" Please, let's not-"

"I will NOT accept it! I won't accept that anyone- especially not him-" The green one boomed and turned to point at him. He saw his face and his tear-stained cheeks, he met his big, bright eyes-

His eyes snapped open.

He heard a gasp, steps, then Midoriya's floating head entered his field of vision.

"All Might! Are you okay?"

He blinked. It was still dark but nowhere near... He could see a ceiling now. He tried turning his head to the side, but a powerful throb coursing all over his skull stopped him. He shut his eyes with a groan and brought a hand to his head, finding layers of bandages in the way.

"Ngh... kid... " Toshinori managed. "Where...?"

"The basement in Daina. We brought you here after we captured the villains. Do you remember?"

He remembered something. Driving, and the glint of the granade right outside his windshield... after that, nothing.

He finally managed to open his eyes. The messy, familiar layout of workbench, cot, monitors, assorted devices and cooking appliances of the hideout was a welcome sight that grounded him a little more.

"I thought we should bring you to a hospital, but Hawks was sure you only had a mild concussion." Midoriya continued.

Right. The car had probably protected him from the brunt of the blast. Hawks himself had provided them with that particular vehicle, describing it as 'practically a tank, but faster'. Evidently he wasn't just overselling it.

"Good. Hospitals are the last places we need to be right now." Toshinori knew that their plan of using Midoriya as bait could fail in a million different ways. Primarily because of his pupil's intense desire to protect... well, anyone. His schoolmates were well-guarded, his mother was well-guarded, but the potential victims were countless. All For One could easily take any random hospital in the country as a hostage and demand Midoriya to hand himself in in exchange for the patients' safety, for example. There was really no need to give him ideas and hang a big, red target on a specific one by putting a wounded All Might in it.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Midoriya asked. "Hawks will send someone over if you need better treatment-"

"I'm fine, don't worry." Surprisingly fine, all things considered. Now that his head was clearing, Toshinori realized the few pangs he felt here and there were way more manageable that he had any right to hope. No doubt he'd be missing that temporary bliss as soon as the painkillers wore out. "And you?"

"Just a few scratches. Nothing debilitating." Toshinori gave him a good once-over. The kid didn't seem to slouch or hold himself stiffly, which was a huge relief. His expression was somewhat strained though. "You've been out for a while. Do you think you can eat something?"

"Ngh. Not sure I can stomach much at the moment."

"Some tea, at least?" The kid wasn't even trying to hide his concern, bless him.

"How long was I out for, exactly?"

"Seven hours."

Mh, maybe he should gulp down something. "...Tea it is, then." Toshinori conceded with a sigh, and Midoriya moved away to busy himself with the pot.

Toshinori wasn't especially fond of describing the several, thought-provoking ways in which his bodily functions had been messed up by All For One's desperate retaliation, but living in close quarters with Midoriya had outed them despite his best efforts. The boy had seemed especially distraught to hear of his eating habits, for some obscure reason. Lacking a stomach to store and properly digest food, Toshinori had to stick to a rigorous habit of six to eight meals a day, scheduled every two or three hours, paying a certain attention to the size and composition of each portion. Accidentally overworking his intestine with an excessive meal would lead to a range of unpleasant consequences, which went beyond a simple rush to the toilet. On top of that, he also had to actively remember to eat. Turns out that the stomach is the major organ creating the sense of hunger and fullness and, without one, one could easily forget about eating altogether, or overdo it without noticing. And all this, with the addition of some vitamin supplements, had the effect of keeping him just well-fed enough to grant him his haggard scarecrow build.

Sure, all these complications turned what ought to be one of life's pleasures into a bit of chore, but the habit was so ingrained in him by now that he was barely bothered by it all. Plus, it could be a lot worse. At least he wasn't doomed to a lifetime of IVs, as he had first dreaded. Still, Toshinori hadn't failed to notice the hints of sadness in the boy's eyes whenever he glanced at the small amounts of easily digestible food in his dish.

"So, what happened out there?" Toshinori asked, after the silence had stretched long enough for his head to settle down.

"We aren't sure of the details yet. You and I were attacked simultaneously, presumably by All For One's men. They didn't confess anything while I was there, but Endeavor said he'd take care of the interrogation." Midoriya answered as he poured the tea into two small cups.

"Oof, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes."

"He was quite... angry. Not only at the villains. I think he tried to set you on fire while I wasn't looking."

"To cauterize my wound, surely. He's such a gentle, caring soul." He winked at the boy, who finally let a small smile grace his features.

Midoriya helped him sit up on the cot, which Toshinori achieved with some mild dizziness and coughing up just two little drops of blood. A good sign. He took the steaming cup he was offered and blew on it.

"I hate to admit it, but they got the best of me very easily. I'm starting to lose count of how many lives I owe you, my boy."

"I... I'm not sure I was the one who saved you though." Midoriya bit his lip, his gaze falling to the floor. "I think I saw the explosion back when they attacked you. It took us all a while to dispatch of the villains after me and get to the site. The group that targeted you had all the time to... to finish their job before we showed up, but they didn't. I think they were trying to bring you somewhere."

Toshinori frowned. That didn't bode well. A kidnapping attempt? Maybe to use him as leverage in case the frontal attack on Midoriya didn't succeed? It could make sense. The mere notion made Toshinori's blood boil, but that was a possibility they'd have to consider very carefully in the future.

"I see. We'd better lay low for a while until Endeavor can give us a clearer picture of the situation." Toshinori pondered. "Any damage to your equipment? I assume most of mine was unrecoverable."

"Mine is in working condition. Hawks said he'd take care of getting us a new vehicle, and he already passed me a new phone, laptop and some other things to replace what was in the car."

Preparedness, thy name is Hawks, Toshinori thought. He promised himself not to brush him off so quickly the next time he called, or maybe even call him himself to thank him. Maybe. The man was strangely hard to read, he didn't quite invite Toshinori's confidence.

"Good." Toshinori took a long sip, then leaned back against wall with a sigh. "I guess we should take advantage of this forced downtime to recuperate. You've been working yourself pretty thin lately, it's hardly sustainable in the long run."

Midoriya didn't reply. He was still staring at the floor as if the secrets of the universe were contained in the concrete beneath. The tea was growing cold in his cup, forgotten on a nearby table. Toshinori kept staring at him in turn, waiting for the boy to notice his own unresponsiveness and offer an explanation. Eventually he spoke, still avoiding his mentor's eyes.

"All Might..." And that was all he managed before trailing off.

"Yes? Something on your mind?" Toshinori encouraged. The answer was again, not quite immediate.

"I have been thinking, lately... about our plan. About how our groups are organised. If our teams are currently as balanced and efficient as they could be."

"Would you rather be paired up with one of the big three, and have me act as support for the others?" Toshinori asked plainly, squashing the little lurch of unease the suggestion gave him.

"N.. Yes, I... Maybe. That is a possibility." Another pause. Midoriya was getting visibly on edge, his free hand clenched to a fist to his side. "If I am to act as bait, I cannot provide coverage for anyone. Jeanist, Hawks and Endeavor are more at liberty to protect-" The boy finally raised his gaze to meet Toshinori's eyes and flinched, almost scared of the sound of his own words.

...Ah, we had finally come to this.

"Don't get me wrong. Please." Suddenly the boy deflated, his back slumped fowards and he rested his elbows on his legs, both his hand supporting the sides of his head. "At the hospital, when you offered to leave UA as well and follow me, I... Y-You have no idea what it means to me, how proud I am to fight alongside you, how much I-"

His voice faltered again. Toshinori waited.

"But... You said yourself, the first time we met, that one has to consider the reality of things. And... the reality of this... is that, right now, there is nothing more dangerous on this planet than being at my side. And... for someone... like you to be so exposed... I can't-"

"Yeah, I'm going to stop you right there." Toshinori butted in, taking another sip of tea. He twirled the cup in his fingers, nonplussed. "Look, kid. Believe me when I say that I am painfully aware that, in terms of combat capability and survivability, I am much more of a liability than an asset to the whole operation-"

"You are not- a liability!" Midoriya almost shouted, and Toshinori could swear that he had corrected himself at the last second to avoid using the word 'weak'. "You coordinate the four of us flawlessly, you take care of my gear, my clothes, my accomodation, my food, you offer me advice and strategy I couldn't come up with on my own, you can hold your ground against low-tier criminals, and evade situations where the odds are too stacked against you. You've been doing all this for months without breaking a sweat! I know exactly how valuable your skills are!"

"Then that makes two of us. I don't see any reason for you to imply that I should leave the team."

"Because... All of this... As valuable as it is, it isn't worth..." Midoriya banged his fists against his thigs, his back hunched over and his head bowed so much that all Toshinori could see was him biting his lip so hard he thought it'd start bleeding, "...your life."

It pained Midoriya to say it. It pained Toshinori to see him so distraught about it. But he had purposefully let the argument get that far, because it was necessary for the boy to confront this thing sooner or later.

"If those villains had had different orders... If we had been slower, or unlucky... You would have died." The boy struggled to continue. "I don't-"

"You don't want to see anyone getting hurt any more. I know."

Toshinori recalled very vividly those days at the hospital. The aftermath. Hectic, nightmarish days for everyone. Relatives, friends, colleagues of the many victims and injured were everywhere, shedding tears of shock and horror behind every corner. Toshinori himself hadn't been able to hold back tears as he had proclaimed his intention to tag along the boy in his crusade against All For One. Rumors through the grapevine said that even Endeavor had been seen weeping in that whirlwind of grief. The only person that Toshinori hadn't seen shed a single tear at any point was Midoriya. That alone should have alerted him of some sudden subversion in the natural order of the universe, but it had taken him some more time to realize the meaning behind that stoicism.

"I share that feeling. Whole-heartedly." Toshinori slowly clenched and unclenched his fist, somberly. "But if all it took to ensure someone's safety was a passionate declaration of intent, the world wouldn't need as many heroes as it does. We both know it, don't we?"

"That's why I'm asking you to-"

"And that's why I'm refusing." Toshinori glared sternly at the boy's hair. "This accident has brought to light a flaw in our patterns of action, and we're lucky it did so without causing any lasting damage. If we need to regroup in a way that grants me less exposure, fine. We can work out the logistics of that later. But if you're trying to convince me to go back and sit tight in UA's offices at whatever you deem a 'safe distance' to be, you can spare your breath. It isn't going to happen."

"But... All Might, please!" Midoriya finally raised his head to look at his teacher, a desperate edge in his eyes. "I wouldn't be left unguarded! Jeanist, Hawks and Endeavor can support me, while you... you are quirkless now and- God, think of Nighteye's vision!"

"Is that why you're trying to push me away? Is it really?" Toshinori retorted, with more bite than he intended. "In few months, you have successfully detached yourself from your classmates, most of your teachers, your own mother. And now you're trying to do the same with me. Is it so far-fetched for me to imagine that, if push comes to shove, you'll try to leave the other pro heroes behind too, in some misguided self-sacrifing effort 'not to see anyone hurt again'!?"

Midoriya's flinched as if he'd just been slapped. Admittedly, that had come out more harshly than Toshinori was planning. The man coughed into his fist, seizing the chance to discreetly rein his own feelings in.

"Young Midoriya." He resumed, more gently. "This overpowering sense of responsibility and protection that you are feeling... is exactly what drove me during the six years between my injury and our first meeting. The drive to uphold a Symbol of Peace that would protect everyone, directly or indirectly. The current situation speaks loudly about the results of my efforts."

Toshinori paused, suddenly caught by a deep bitterness. "If I hadn't been so stubborn... if I hadn't rejected the advice and support of the people who cared about me the most... maybe the Symbol of Peace would still exist to this day. Upheld by more than a single bluffer. I have paid for my mistakes, and the worst part is that I wasn't only one. My friends, my loyal sidekick paid for them dearly, way more harshly than I did. The whole country is paying for them."

Toshinori leant forward, suppressing the cough that threatened to rob his breath. He looked his shocked pupil in the eyes, without the barest hint of reservation. "I will not let you make the same mistake."

Midoriya's head bowed again, very slowly, like a toy with dying batteries. His shoulders trembled.

"I won't be able to talk you out of this, will I?" He said, shakily.

Toshinori wasn't a fool. He knew that Midoriya had grasped the importance of his words. He also knew that discussing that particular topic with All Might, of all people, was especially difficult for him. The pain of losing a mentor (one that somewhat doubled as a surrogate parental figure too, as it happened) was something Toshinori was intimately acquainted to. He could imagine how great Midoriya's fear had to be, to spark so direct a confrontation.

He knew, last but not least, that his successor always, invariably, reliably chose the best course of action when it was asked of him.

"Do you really want to?" Toshinori asked softly, steadying the boy's quivering shoulder with his hand.

Midoriya tensed even more, hesitated. Then he shook his head negatively.

He had grown so much. Physically and mentally, as a person and as a hero. In just two years, his frame had gotten larger and sturdied, his muscles had toned, his reflexes sharpened, his judgement refined, his courage exploded, his kindness bloomed. He had blossomed into such a remarkable individual that, sometimes, even Toshinori forgot that he was still a sixteen-year old.

That he was, most of all, still Izuku Midoriya.

"You haven't turned on the waterworks in a while, have you? It must be full to bursting in there." Toshinori smiled as he pulled the boy into a one-armed hug. "You shouldn't let the pressure build up so much."

The kid let out a pitiful sob and his face fell on Toshinori's shoulder. It was all it took for him to unravel. He broke into a waterfall of tears, failing to contain a long series of low but heart-wrenching whines. He hugged his mentor back and clung to him tightly, the man's shirt balled up in both his fists. Toshinori didn't let go until Midoriya did, few dry coughs taking care of unloading the traitorous knots that were forming in his own throat.

It lasted as long as it needed to. Eventually the gasps abated, the tears stopped flowing, and the boy's desperate grasp on Toshinori loosened.

"...I-I'm sorry." He managed as he pulled back, still held at arm's length by Toshinori's hand. "I just... You are right. About everything. I just..."

"I know. You've finally experienced All For One's devastating maliciousness firsthand. It's natural that you got so disturbed by it. I was disturbed too, and it was hardly my first time witnessing it." In an unexpected turn of fate, Toshinori had managed not to spill his cup during that whole emotional outburst, and he downed the last of his now iced tea with a single gulp. It didn't feel quite as fortifying as if it had been sake. "But we'll all look into how to protect each other better, and we'll move from there. We'll face what they'll throw at us, in one way or another."

Midoriya nodded. The next Symbol of Peace made for a very sorry sight at the moment, with red, puffy eyes and radiating exhaustion from every pore. Toshinori still preferred seeing him like this than as a coiled wrap of nerves and fear one step away from bursting.

"You sure chose an odd moment to start worrying about my potential demise." Toshinori offered, trying to lighten the mood by ruffling the boy's hair in the most annoying way possible.

"Uh? What do you mean?"

"Aren't you in a semi-permanent conference call with your predecessors these days? The way I see it, the moment I bite the dust in this world, I'll just pop back on my feet-" He tapped Midoriya's forehead repeatedly despite his attempts to squirm away, discovering new heights of annoyance within his reach, " ...right here. Ready to lecture you for the rest of your days, unless you miraculously find another quirkless brat to torture in turn."

"That's- that hardly makes things better!" Midoriya swatted his hand away and blurted out, way too quickly. Toshinori had the strong impression that Midoriya had already considered that fact, and dutifully rejected it. "You aren't supposed to exist as a ghost trapped in my head for my sole benefit! You're supposed to live like anyone else, out here, free to enjoy-"

Oh, good grief. "Yes, fine, I get your point!" Toshinori raised his arms defensively. He deserved that, he knew the risks of trying to joke with his overly sensitive protégé. "I'm just saying that it's a handy safety net for you, at least in terms of... emotional support. I wouldn't look unkindly on the chance to chat with some of my deceased acquaintances for my whole life."

"...I suppose that is a good point." Midoriya took Toshinori's empty teacup and put it on the table next to his own. "If... If it even does last that long..."

"Mh?"

"I..." All of a sudden Midoriya was biting his lip again. He had that absorbed look that signalled the start of a deliriously overanalytical tirade. "You know, I've been thinking..."

"...Yes, you do that a lot, don't you?" Toshinori sighed, bracing himself for the inevitable. Midoriya ignored him and went on with his muttering.

"If the permanence of the conscience of One For All's wielders within the power itself isn't tied to their quirks, it must be due to something else. Something that all users have in common. There are many possibilities, but the first one that comes to mind is... willpower. A shared goal." The boy brought a hand to his chin and frowned. "One For All was born out of the First's desire to stop All For One, and this objective was steadily passed down from master to apprentice until now. It stands to reason that this might be the ultimate purpose of the power itself, to solve the conflict that generated it. And... I wonder what would happen after that. After we defeat All For One... will One For All remain the same? Will the connection among its wielders be lost? Will the quirk cease to exist in its entirety?"

Toshinori blinked. Twice. Where on earth was all this coming from now...?

"Did the predecessors tell you about this?"

"No, they don't know any more than we do about the matter." Midoriya finally re-emerged from his bubble of introspection, and gave Toshinori a sheepish smile in response to his puzzled look. "It's just a hypothesis of mine."

Toshinori rubbed his eyes tiredly. That boy's penchant for overthinking things would lead him to an early grave, he was sure of it, and it was only going to get worse now that he had eight distinct personalities residing in his head, ready to produce a constant stream of new inputs.

"...Let me get this straight. You are now worrying about the possibility that, if I were to die in the near future and become a sentient vestige- don't even try to deny it, I know how your head works-" Toshinori raised a finger menacingly as soon as Midoriya opened his mouth. The boy immediately closed it and grimaced with evident guilt, "...you are worried that, in that case, our connection would be lost after accomplishing this shared goal. Am I correct?"

"...I guess so." Midoriya answered, barely above a whisper.

Leave it to this boy to grow anxious about having to grieve for the same person not once, but twice. Toshinori summoned the last embers of his patience to deal with this like a rational adult.

"Listen. I can't deny that One For All has evolved so much since I passed it to you that I can barely claim any expertise on it at this point." Toshinori started, joining the tips of his fingers. "But you spoke of will and purpose. Of will and purpose, I know something about."

Midoriya instantly forgot his insecurity and leaned towards Toshinori, expectation and curiosity lighting his eyes.

"I cannot speak for most of the predecessors, since I never met them." He continued. "But I can tell you something about me, and I bet the same goes for my master too. I never wielded One For All with the purpose of defeating people. I wielded it with the purpose of helping them."

Toshinori waited for the words to sink in. He could pinpoint the moment they did by the distant look that appeared in the boy's eyes. He bet someone was smiling, inside that green-haired head.

"All For One has always been a disgusting, painful wart in the peaceful world I dreamed to protect. He was never the goal of my efforts, just an obstacle. That's all there is to it." He smiled to Midoriya, who now wore that unabashedly admiring expression that gave Toshinori a mild, inexplicable sense of guilt. "If that isn't enough to quell you doubts, you may remember certain promises I made to you and your mother, promises that would not be fulfilled by just taking down any one villain. I'll have you know that I'm not in the habit of going back on my word easily."

Midoriya nodded, worry slowly disappearing from his features.

"Yes... I see what you mean. " The boy visibly relaxed, and smiled. It was the first real smile he'd shown since Toshinori woke up. Finally. "That makes a lot of sense."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Thank you." The way the boy said those two simple words, the way he wore his enormous heart on his sleeve, the way he had never stopped feeling and showing the deepest gratefulness for whatever tidbit of advice Toshinori managed to scrap together...

Toshinori's head gave a painful throb. Either the painkillers were starting to wear off, or all these waves of teenage emotionality were aggravating his concussion. Both possibilities seemed equally likely. A swift intervention was required.

He karate-chopped Midoriya on the head.

"On the other hand!" He declared over the boy's yelp. "Talk about overconfidence, young man! 'After we defeat All For One'? Way to brush off the most miraculous task we'll ever have to accomplish in both our lives! How about we focus more on how to achieve that feat first, and then we worry about whatever existential crisis that may come our way afterwards?"

"Y-Yes! Of course!" Midoriya jumped on his feet with comical speed, accidentally mimicking a half-formed military salute. "I didn't mean to imply it would be easy! Nor less important than-"

"Undoubtedly. So, first order of things: recuperating. On second thought, I think now I could go for some breakfast. Lunch... Dinner?" Toshinori glanced around the room, failing to locate a clock. "Whatever meal is most suitable for this time of day or night."

"Breakfast." Midoriya confirmed, cheering up again. "Any preferences?"

"Some tamago kake wouldn't go amiss."

"Coming right up!" Midoriya moved to the other side of the room with a spring in his step. Toshinori considered lying down for a few minutes while the rice cooked.

"All Might. One last thing."

Toshinori sighed. Wasn't there always just one last thing?

"I said that I agree with everything you told me. Except one thing." Midoriya continued, from outside of Toshinori's view. His voice was firm. "You are no bluff. You never were. Even when you thought you were doing your job for only three hours a day, or one, or none at all. All the time, you were working just as hard as everyone else, if not more. And no one in their right mind would deny that you are the best thing that happened to Japan in the last forty years. Don't ever forget that."

As he was sliding from sitting to a horizontal position, Toshinori's head gave another, sharper twinge. It was that, and only that, that made his sight go just a little watery as his nape landed on the pillow.

"...Thanks, kid." He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and relaxed with a deep sigh. "I'll keep it in mind."

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #deku #all might #toshinori yagi #izuku midoriya

[californiannostalgia]

On the Victors of the Tenth Hunger Games

Wow. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was riveting and horrifying. (I’m going to ramble about this, fair warning.)

*SPOILER WARNINGS FOR THE BOOK*

Okay, but seriously, that spiral downward was absolutely terrifying. Starting off, we've got Lucy Gray as the Snake and Coryo as the Songbird, and neither of them want to be where they find themselves. But the adults in their lives want them punished for the crimes of their parents (Lucy Gray as a District citizen and Coryo as the son to a hated man), so they're flung into the Arena to fight for their lives.

Snow made his choices that led him to where he went. His choices were his own, regardless of outer influences, and it should be acknowledged that though his “why”s are explained, that doesn't make him any better of a person. By the end of the book, he is every bit the villain, and it is his own goddamn fault.

That said, Let's get on to character construction.

What's so disturbing is that Snow starts off as Katniss and Peeta put together. He's trying to make ends meet for his family, he has panic attacks, he loves his cousin, he drools at the sight of food, and he wants desperately to win at survival with the lot he's been given. Sure, he's selfish and manipulative, but he genuinely cares for people, especially the other kids he grew up with. He says he doesn't want to, but it's still an instinct for him to speak up for Sejanus in front of an authority figure who terrifies him. He does his assignments out of fear for failing, and he readily shares credit with his classmate for an assignment he completed alone. He fights to keep up appearances of a steady home life. He's horrified to see people of his age group get tortured and killed. 

He's just an experienced bullshitter with PTSD and a heavy distrust in a world that doesn't care about his survival. He accepts what authority figures tell him as the truth because he knows better than to challenge them. He has a nice voice, so adults turn him into a symbol without asking him for permission. He has no agency, not in monetary terms, not in his schoolwork.

What really sets him on the path from Songbird to Snake, though, is the man who hates him for wearing his father's face and the woman who wants him to be her tool. His situation was never stable, but every uncertainty is kicked into higher gear when he's reaped for the Games. (They literally read the names of the mentors out loud, it’s their Reaping.) He watches a childhood friend get brutalized by mutated snakes and realizes he really isn't safe anywhere because he is a child and he lacks power. He was thrown into the actual Arena and killed someone, after which he says to the person who orchestrated the threat on his life: "I think I wouldn't have beaten anyone to death if you hadn't stuck me in that arena!" (209). Slowly but surely, he's groomed into the belief that humans are innately evil, which is an opinion he outright refused until after he spent more time in the Games—because he can't stop playing the Games, and it gradually drives him mad.

This is the big message. If people are not shoved into an impossible situation designed to force their hand, odds are people will choose not to make that first kill. I can’t say much about Lucy Gray because we never got to know who she really was, but I suspect she was a mirror of Coryo. She started off manipulating this Capitol boy, but then the emotions got too overwhelming for her to process, and somewhere along the way she became unrecognizable to herself. If Coriolanus and Lucy Gray had not been forced into an Arena to fight for their lives, they would have probably never killed a person in their lifetime. At some point the desensitization and the survival instinct kicks in, and you can't go back to who you were before.

The biggest tragedy of Lucy Gray and Coryo is that they could've worked, if they hadn't been Victors. If they'd met in a warless world, I think they could've had an actual relationship, full of arguments and sweet moments in between. (Egotistic assholes can change, with therapy and arguments and the luxury of knowing his doubts won’t mean immediate death.) But they became Victors to survive, and the truth is that you can never leave the Games, once you're a Victor. The moment you step foot in that Arena, your death sentence is sealed. One of the essentials of survival is not to question the one ally you have. This led to them forming rose-tinted images of the other. They didn't want to acknowledge they were suffering in a similar soup of constant fear and second-guessing—they needed each other to be perfect—so they didn’t really talk about their ugliest nightmares until it was too late.

Sejanus didn't get Coriolanus's obsession with survival because although Sejanus had been a player in the Arena, he only had the barest grasp on the consequences of failing to survive. Lucy Gray and Coriolanus are intimate with the lethality of failure—they’ve known hunger and death all their lives. They latched onto each other because this desperate romance was the only thing they could choose for themselves, and focusing on it was a better alternative than losing their heads during their Games. Twenty-three tributes died, twenty-three mentors were eliminated. But the Games allow only one Victor; and they knew they should stop, but they couldn't stop playing. Once you start seeing death in every corner, you can't stop.

In Snow's case, the rationalizations start falling into place as he fights to run from his guilt. It is horrifying to read him break down after Sejanus's death, because that was the penultimate kill in his Games, and he killed the boy he loved. After that, he’s too far gone. His transformation into the Jabberjay is complete; he’s a Capitol mutt, through and through. Lucy Gray’s songs are all truthful insights except the one about her and Coriolanus—it is so terribly different from who these two really are that it's the final sign that they wouldn’t work. There's no way out, there's never going to be a way out for them. And so they hold the final showdown. At the end of the book, Snow is a full Snake, and Lucy Gray is immortalized as the Songbird whose name is decisively erased from history.

The whole book is essentially the Tenth Hunger Games. It seems to end with Snow as the sole Victor, having supposedly killed his star-crossed lover for his own survival. Katniss got herself out of the Games, eventually. Snow never left. Snow is Katniss unwilling to be honest, he is Peeta unwilling to climb out of his mutt engineering. The Tenth Hunger Games doesn’t end, really, until the Mockingjay sings seven decades later. And that is Lucy Gray’s victory. The Victor is Coriolanus Snow, but Lucy Gray Baird won their Games.

How horrifying is this; that it all comes down to two Victors who became manifestations of a higher ideal they didn't want to represent initially, locked in combat in the Arena they never wanted to enter. (Suzanne Collins is a freaking genius.)

#a ballad of songbirds and snakes #abosas spoilers #coriolanus snow #lucy gray baird #character analysis #ladies and gentlemen the victors of the 10th Hunger Games #my thoughts #my reviews

[jasonfry]

More classic movies everyone’s seen but me!

They Live By Night (1948)

Bowie and Keechie are doomed young lovers in Nicholas Ray’s debut as a director. A lot of the tropes will be familiar to film noir fans -- you know Bowie and Keechie will never achieve the normal lives they want, and the movie’s ending feels as fixed and inevitable as Shakespearean tragedy, with avenues of escape closing off one by one. But a few elements set it apart. For one thing, there’s the Depression setting, which offers shabby cabins and dusty plains instead of L.A. clubs and streetscapes, and makes “economic anxiety” a real thing -- Bowie and Keechie’s wedding in particular is a tragicomic masterpiece, with the crooked justice of the peace subtracting elements based on the couple’s budget. The movies also draws power from the chemistry between Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, which feels natural in a very stylized film, sometimes to the point of feeling intimate bordering on uncomfortable. (Howard Da Silva is terrific in a supporting role as the terrifying hood Chicamaw.)

Ray was given free rein as director, and They Live By Night has an experimental air that would prove highly influential, from the tricky opening helicopter shot to an inside-the-car sequence whose legacy you can see in Gun Crazy. Then there’s its rather odd unveiling: The movie was shelved for two years after it was shot, but circulated through private showings in Hollywood and became a favorite, with Granger tapped by Alfred Hitchcock for Rope and Humphrey Bogart offering Ray a lifeline as a director. They Live By Night isn’t a great entry point for film noir newbies, but will be interesting for fans of the genre.

Robert Altman remade this movie as Thieves Like Us, returning to the title of the novel that Ray adapted; that version is also on my list. 

Under the Volcano (1984)

John Huston enjoyed tackling supposedly unfilmable projects late in life, following his adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood with this take on a 1947 novel by Malcolm Lowery. Albert Finney is wonderful as a drunken, self-destructive British diplomat, and there’s an undeniable pull to the movie -- I saw it a couple of weeks ago and can’t quite shake its suffocating mood of mild delirium. But it’s so, so bleak -- before you try it, make sure you’re up for two hours of unease and dread.

Silverado (1985)

I saw Silverado as a teenager, but came back to it recently because as a kid I’d barely seen any westerns and so had no idea what the movie was celebrating or looking to revisit. Seen through more experienced eyes, Silverado is most interesting because it isn’t revisionist at all -- with the exception of a couple of modern tweaks to racial attitudes, it could have been made in the same period as the movies writer/director Lawrence Kasdan is saluting.

Anyway, Kevin Kline and Linda Hunt are wonderful leads, as is Brian Dennehy as the sheriff who’s put his conscience aside, and virtually everybody you remember from mid-80s movies shows up at one point or another. It’s a lot of fun, at least until the movie runs out of steam in the second half and turns into a series of paint-by-numbers gunfights. The final running battle particularly annoyed me: Kasdan has had ample time to show us the layout of the town of Silverado, which would let us think alongside the heroes as they stalk and are stalked through its handful of streets, but his ending is random gags and shootouts, with no sense of place. Stuff just happens until we’re out of stuff.

Compare that with, say, Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. Peter Jackson takes his time establishing everything from the geography of the fortress to the plan to defend it, and as a result we always know where we are during the battle and what each new development means for the heroes. That kind of planning might have made Silverado a modern classic instead of just a fun diversion. 

My Brilliant Career (1979)

Judy Davis stars (opposite an impossibly young Sam Neill) as Sybylla Melvyn, a young Australian woman determined to resist not just her family’s efforts to marry her off but also the inclinations of her own heart. Sybylla is a wonderful character, a luminous, frizzy-haired bull in a china shop of convention, and she’s riveting in every scene. (Neill’s job is to look alternately hapless and patient, which he does well enough -- a fate that’s perfectly fair given the generations upon generations of actresses who have been stuck with the same role.) Extra points for Gillian Armstrong’s direction, which consistently delivers establishing shots you want to linger on without being too showy about them, and for sticking with an ending that, Sybylla-style, bucks movie expectations.

(This is an adaptation of Miles Franklin’s 1901 autobiographical novel, which I now want to read. Franklin also wrote a book called All That Swagger, which is such a great title that I’m happy just thinking about it.)

Red River (1948)

A friend recommended this movie -- the first collaboration between Howard Hawks and John Wayne -- after reading my take on Rio Bravo. And I’m glad he did: Wayne is terrific as Tom Dunson, a hard-driving rancher whose cattle drive to Missouri becomes an obsession that leads him into madness, and he’s evenly matched with Montgomery Clift, who’s his son in all but name. 

Dunson begins as the movie’s hero and gradually morphs into its villain, with Wayne letting us see his doubts and regrets and also his inability to acknowledge them and so steer himself back to reality. Clift, making his debut as Matt Garth, is solid in a more conventional role (he looks eerily like Tom Cruise), and Walter Brennan happily chews scenery as Wayne’s sidekick and nagging conscience.

And there’s a lot of scenery to chew -- it’s wonderful to watch the herd in motion, particularly in a shot from over Brennan’s shoulder as the cattle cross a river -- and Hawks brings a palpable sense of dread to the nighttime scenes as things start to go wrong.

I would have liked Red River more if I hadn’t already seen Rio Bravo, though. Brennan plays the exact same role in that movie as he does here, Clift’s character is very similar to Ricky Nelson’s, and Hawks even nicked a melody from Red River to reuse 11 years later. (Hawks was a serial recycler -- he essentially remade Rio Bravo twice.)

A more fundamental problem is that Red River falls apart when Hawks jams Tess Millay into the story. We’re introduced to Tess, played by Joanne Dru, when Clift intervenes to save a wagon train besieged by Apaches, and her nattering at Clift during a gunfight is so annoying that I was hoping an arrow would find its mark and silence her. (She is hit by an arrow, but it only makes her talk more.)

Tess then falls for Clift, who seems mostly befuddled by her interest but blandly acquiesces. This is funny for a number of reasons: Beyond some really dopey staging, Clift’s love interest is pretty clearly a cowboy played by John Ireland and given the unlikely name of Cherry Valance. Their relationship is a bit of gay subtext that wouldn’t need much of a nudge to become text. Tess goes on to annoy Wayne in an endless scene that exists to forklift in a klutzy parallel with the movie’s beginning, and then shows up at the end to derail the climax in an eye-rolling fashion that leaves everyone involved looking mildly embarrassed. (Dru does the best she can; none of this is her fault.) 

I was left wondering what on earth had happened, so I read up and discovered that -- a la Suspicion -- the ending was changed, destroying a logical and satisfying outcome penned by Borden Chase. Tess is a hand-wave to bring about that different ending, a bad idea executed so poorly that it wrecks the movie. Give me a few weeks and I’ll happily remember all the things Red River does right, from those soaring vistas to Wayne’s seething march through Abilene. But I’ll also remember how the last reel took an ax to everything that had been built with such care.

#movies #storytelling

[ninja-muse]

Devolution - Max Brooks

In brief: Everyone thinks the Washington community of Greenloop is perfect. Then a volcano wipes out their contact with the world, and just as that’s sinking in, the Bigfeet arrive. Horror movie as epistolary novel.

Full disclosure: This was a reading copy I received through work, with the expectation that I would like it enough to recommend it on release day. The book is out June 16, 2020.

Thoughts: Oh boy, does Max Brooks know how to write a horror novel! Not only does this have an actually creepy setting and unsettling monster, but it also throws out a whole lot of commentary on modern life. It’s well-paced, in that I spent a lot of time riveted to the page and needing to know what happened next. And. And and and I think this is the first time I’ve seen clinical anxiety used in a positive light?

I’m having a hard time saying more than that, actually, because this is just a quick, concise read, and such a horrific-in-a-good-way experience that to talk about anything is to spoil the book. But I will say that Brooks is great at character, balancing expectations and character depth, and the relationships between the residents of Greenloop, and their actions, are absolutely believable. It’s a hugely diverse group, which is nice to see, but the stand-out for me was Kate, the narrator. The way he writes her anxiety into the story is just … wow. Refreshing. Inspiring, even.

Honestly, Brooks is just kind of good across the board. There’s no real part of this book that falls flat, not the set-up in the world outside Greenloop, not the interviews and things “added” to the story, not the descriptions of the forest and the way he writes the Bigfeet as both sympathetic and terrifying. Everything’s there for a reason and there are some nice unexpected moments. It’s a really tight story, and like a lot of good horror, it’s ultimately hopeful and empowering. I really liked seeing Greenloop knit together under pressure.

But I’m also serious about this being a horror movie as much as it’s a horror novel. It has a reasonable predictable pacing, to the point where a lull in the action was less of a breathing moment and more a signal that things were going to escalate, and there were some revelations and developments that were pretty telegraphed or designed to elicit a specific emotional response. This doesn’t make this a bad book by any means, just one that wasn’t as exciting for me as it could’ve been.

This still gets two thumbs up, though, especially if you’re looking for a mix of “thought-provoking” and “summer chills”. Brooks does a good slow build and a good jump-scare. I appreciated having a horror “villain” that was off-norm, and I liked being challenged, even attacked, by the themes of the novel. I may have to pick up World War Z at some point now, because I never did get around to that one.

8/10

Contains: blood, gore, and violence; realistic but probably not triggering anxiety; one scene containing anorexia-like physical traits; scenes and plot points that are eerily reminiscent of certain current events as I write this

#booklr #adult booklr #book reviews #horror #bigfoot #sasquatch #arcs #read in 2020 #devolution #max brooks #book recommendations #upcoming releases

[callmearcturus]

okay so /claps hands. i am caught up to the penultimate episode. i’m saving the final episode for tomorrow because frankly i know what happens and i don’t wanna tackle it right now because it’s a Lot and i wanna wallow in my temporary happy ending for a bit

but anyway, thoughts on the back end of season four:

“Cul De Sac” is my favorite statement of this season by a lot. It tackled some real-ass fears of mine in a compelling way and was devastatingly romantic and empowering. Every time someone uses love to escape the Lonely, I’m happy. Also Jonny Sims is not fucking around with his telegraphing of “Jon and Martin are in love okay”, it is not a coincidence that he takes the opportunity to remind us how the Lonely works and does so with a queer couple.

“Gravedigger’s Entry” and “Cost of Living” were also in the top five. Fucking riveting writing, both horrific in their own ways. Absolutely terrifying.

Tree told me ahead of time that “Blood Mary” was gonna fuck me up and fam it did. I think in a way it fucked me up more than “The Last” honestly? Like... this entire season has been essentially about two things: 1. Martin as the active protagonist in comparison to Jon’s reactive protagonist. 2. jesus jumping jehosophat, Jon is deeply in love with Martin. The entire season of Jon just full of longing for Martin is a goddamn torture. Like, losing Martin has been much like losing a limb to him, and he’s not able to adjust to how it unbalances him. He has a kind of desperation to know what’s going on with Martin all the time, wants even the smallest hint of how he’s doing “How’d he look, Basira” all the time. And given “Bloody Mary” it is completely reasonable to say Jon canonically wants to run away with Martin and be happy. Like, Martin ends up shooting him down, but there is no denying that Jon would not leave without Martin. There is not a future he wants that doesn’t have Martin in it. It’s so fucking romantic I wanna scream, jesus fucking christ.

Daisy and Jon are my favorite friendship in the show. I miss when Basira was a good bro but Daisy in S4 has been a revelation honestly? I did not like her before this season (because I’m American and “cop who believe in extrajudicial killings” doesn’t jive with me okay) but the person she is at her core is someone I love desperately. I would listen to an entire episode of Jon and Daisy hanging out. Also the way Jon’s voice goes fond around her is MWAH CHEF’S KISS.

So. Peter Lukas. God I cannot fucking stand Peter Lukas. I know he’s pretty popular and I think he’s great as a villain honestly but fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck every single time he showed up in the last ten episodes I was IRL muttering “I’ve had enough of this dude.” And honestly getting his full story in “The Last” only made it dramatically worse. “I killed my first innocent because he smiled at me” fucking DUDE? Get a fucking GRIP my man. Also The Silence ritual was, uh. Yeah. Okay. Goes to show that willful and smug-ass isolation from all other people sure makes you a fucking idiot, T B H. I can say p definitely that I just don’t like him, I’m glad Martin dunked on him, and I’m glad his head exploded. Bye, bitch, damn.

MARTIN BLACKWOOD, MVP OF SEASON FOUR. Like, honestly? Martin is the protagonist of the season in a huge way. His actions drive the plot, he has the most agency of anyone in the season, he’s vibrant and has devastatingly compelling conversations with everyone who crosses his path. There is a top five list to be made solely of Best Martin Blackwood Convos This Season.

1. Martin vs Simon Fairchild, telling a murderous avatar of the Vast to “sit down” holy shit 2. Martin vs Georgie, the implicit judgement of Martin’s actions by her remark of “just because it hurts doesn’t mean your helping,” damn 3. Martin vs Jon, Bloody Mary, fucking end me 4. Martin vs Peter Lukas and Elias, Get fukcing Wrekt 5. Martin vs Basira, finally someone truly calls Martin on his shit

I love Daisy. I love Jon. I would kill and/or die for Martin Blackwood. Absolute fucking MVP of the show.

/dusts hands

#tma liveblog #tma