#was completely horrified by the digestion scene thanks. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

halo-jpeg · 4 years

Note

What would the slashers(bubba, thomas, michael, brahms and norman -you can add someone if you want-) react if 6 policeman came attack them and he fainted and when he woke up he saw his s/o in full of blood, standing in the middle of the policemans' brutally dismembered corpses with an axe in her hand and doesn't really seem to feel remorseful or scared, she seems angry.

Some Slashers with an S/O who Saves Them from the Police

Bubba Sawyer

Everything had been calm. The day had been normal- until the sirens began to blare faintly in the distance.

Sirens always put the Sawyer’s on edge, but this was different, they were growing steadily closer. Drayton was gone to the gas station, Nubbins and Chop were nowhere to be seen, and Bubba was panicking since there wasn’t a friendly, normal face to smooth talk the police into leaving.

You had gone to the door instead, but the police were quick to shove you- roughly- aside in search of the Sawyers. Bubba wouldn’t stand for that. He raced to help you to your feet, momentarily forgetting all about the police.

A gunshot to the shoulder was all it took for him to turn on the police instead. Two more bullet shots, to the leg and stomach, knocked him right unconscious.

He expected to wake in a police car, shackles rubbing his wrists raw, and he was... surprised, to say the least, when he was still on the floor of his home. Your heavy breathing caught his attention, and he turned to you.

You were standing, hunched over, with a look of pure annoyance on your face. You held Bubba’s chainsaw, the both of you coated in a thick layer of scarlet blood. Corpses lay all around you, dismembered and mutilated, more than dead.

Bubba would be so proud, yet scared at the same time. He’d leap to his feet, stumbling over to you and tsking the saw from your hands, pulling you close to his chest and sobbing into your hair.

He’d be so sorry that you had to do that to save him. He knows how little you like the killing that goes on in the house.

When you tell him you feel no guilt nor remorse, he’s relieved, even more so when you tell him you’re happy you did it to save him.

You’ll patch up his wounds, and he’ll never be scared of the police again. He’s got you in case he’s beaten, and you’re so strong.

Thomas Hewitt

You’d been in the basement together, watching Thomas butcher the latest victim with a sickening interest. A commotion upstairs caught Thomas’ attention- it felt different from the usual fights that went on.

Thomas told you to stay downstairs as he checked it out, bringing with him a mallet in the pocket of his butchers apron.

He was utterly shocked when he spotted his mother and Hoyt being cuffed by police. In a moment of panic, he took out his mallet and tried to attack- a taser on its highest setting put him out like a light.

The thump of his body on the ground is unmistakeable, so now you were panicking as well. With an axe that was previously leaning against the butchers table in hand, you set off to the rescue.

Thomas woke up with a start, but the beaming smile on his mother’s face made him more confused then scared. Hoyt’s ‘Get those bastards, Darlin’!’ Drew his attention to you, just as you pulled your ace back and buried it into the skull of the last officer despite their begs for mercy.

Before freeing his family, Thomas would race to your side, pulling the axe from your hands and cradling your face in his hands.

He’d be so scared. What has gotten into you? Are you hurt?

After hearing your explanation, saying you don’t feel any guilt because he and his family is safe and sound, he calms a little bit.

He now holds a rather deep admiration for your actions. You absolutely saved them. If it hadn’t been for you, their lives would have been over.

Hoyt and Luda Mae respect you much more, too. “That was quite the scene!” Hoyt would say, “All that just for your family!” Luda Mae would add.

Michael Myers

Michael always thought he was unkillable, immortal, so he often let that get to his head. When the police went sniffing around the Myers house, he attacked without caution.

He was quick to be overpowered, taking only a few officers down before they inflicted too much damage. A brutal baton to the skull sent him to the ground, and two more stole away his consciousness.

His strength kept him generally awake, his head swimming as he fought for control over his body once more.

A sudden commotion began, and through his battle for wakefulness he could hardly identify what was going on. All he knew- he could feel it- was that his knife was being used.

At last, things quieted, and just as they did he managed to stumble to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. Minutes passed as his senses returned.

When he finally got himself together, he looked over there total massacre that had passed through the room. It took him a good minute to digest what had happened.

Bodies lay everywhere, clean stan wounds to their necks, shoulders, chests or stomachs, quick and clean, with you at the center.

You were coated in blood. You’d never looked prettier. Michael, beaming with pride because of the crime his S/O just committed, would stalk towards you.

He’d take the knife from your hand, taking a moment to examine the way the lighting shine off the dripping blood, and then he’d pull his mask up and off, kissing you.

Later, he’ll blame the affection in the concussion he most likely had, but both you and him know that it was real.

Brahms Heelshire

Brahms has a very bad memory connected to sirens- the fire from when he was a child. So when the police sirens grew in the distance, so did his unending terror.

Brahms panicked, pacing frantically through the house rather than doing the rational thing and hiding in the walls. The moment the police knocked on the door, reality settled in and he realized he was screwed.

He told you to hide, so that you didn’t get dragged down with him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, shoving you into a closet and demanding you take to the walls as the door was kicked in.

You watched through the gaps in the walls as the police greeted Brahms with ferocity. With a low pain tolerance, Brahms was out with one quick taser to the side.

He hit his head against the floor, further heightening his unconsciousness, and everything he could vaguely hear was a total blur.

When he woke, he was slow to completely come to, his mind swimming and his vision blurry as his consciousness returned.

The blood before him was heart-stopping. The carpets would be ruined, the hardwood as well- but you were safe and sound, with a hammer in your hand. You had bludgeoned them all to death.

Brahms is stunned into silence for a moment, gazing at the bloodshed and chaos you had created for his sake.

He’ll smile, slipping off his mask. His eyes are warm with gratitude and affection. He can’t believe you’d done this for him.

He’ll ignore the bloodshed for now, going to sit down with you in the kitchen for a moment, holding your hand tightly. The mess can wait. He needs to thank you with hugs and kisses.

Norman Bates

The day at the Motel has been entirely normal. Change the bedding, clean the bathrooms, etc etc. The sirens, however, were new and alarming.

Norman races to the window, anxiety blooming in his chest. What was going on? The police cars in the Motel parking lot sent a spike of fear through Norman’s chest.

The police came to the door, and of course Norman opened it. Using his most innocent voice and expression he tried to convince them everything was okay.

He failed. The police rushed him, attempting to cuff him peacefully, but he snapped, pulling his arms away and reaching for a knife he’d set on the door side table.

The police were quick to lunge forwards with tasers, rendering poor Norman unconscious. That left you as the only option.

The officers didn’t know you were there, and they sure had a surprise coming as they cuffed the unconscious killer.

When Norman woke once more, it was to the sight of you plunging his knife into ad officers back without a trace of fear on your face. Over the dying mans shoulder, you caught Norman’s eye and smiled as if you hadn’t killed three people.

Norman leaps to his feet, horrified, but so, so grateful. You’d done this to save him, right?

He knows he’s killed people, but his mother takes the blame, so he feels rather innocent. To say the least, Norman is frightened.

After some reassuring and calming, Norman isn’t as afraid of you, and his gratitude is more overpowering.

#slashers #slasher #horror #slasher community #slasher headcanons #headcanons #bubba sawyer headcanons #bubba sawyer #thomas hewitt headcanons #thomas hewitt #michael myers #michael myers headcanons #brahms heelsire #brahms heelshire headcanons #norman bates headcanons #norman bates

193 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 4 years

Photo

Seeing is Believing.

The relentlessly hellish 1985 war film Come and See has marched to the number two spot on Letterboxd thanks to a stunning restoration, digital availability and pandemic-panic. Aaron Yap surveys the community’s reviews of Elem Klimov’s “mortar-blast of a masterpiece” for insights into its importance—and our psychic states.

War is hell—fundamentally the principle behind every anti-war movie, but there’s arguably never been one that conjures this state of being as convincingly as Elem Klimov’s 1985 Come and See (‘Idi i Smotri’) does. And it’s a hellscape that appears to be wildly resonating with the Letterboxd community—the film has now unseated The Godfather to take second place in our Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films list, just behind Parasite.

For those yet to surrender to this mortar-blast of a masterpiece, Come and See plunges the viewer into the chaos and devastation of the 1943 Nazi invasion of Soviet Belorussia. Based on Klimov and writer Ales Adamovich’s own experiences during World War II, and the accounts of genocide survivors, it’s almost an anti-anti-war film. There are no professional actors. No battle scenes. No digestible history-pedia plot beats. No heroic feats of courage. Our guide into the harrowing void is a fourteen-year-old partisan adolescent named Florya (Aleksey Kravchenko).

Joining a troop of resistance fighters against his mother’s wishes, he embarks on an unnervingly subjective odyssey that leaves him a shrivelled, visibly aged husk by the end. It’s without question one of cinema’s most heart-breaking, unforgettable transformations.

Come and See is not a standard art picture per se. Klimov’s vision contains traces of Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic, deep-dream sensibilities—many images assume otherworldly, psychedelic qualities that lodge in our mind and occasionally temper the pools of screaming despair around it. But the film is also as immediate as the lacerating scald of a flamethrower to the face. It possesses the grubby, cult-ish midnight-movie energy of something you should probably not be witnessing.

Awareness of the film’s infamous production lore—the plan to hypnotize Kravchenko, the use of live ammunition and real Nazi uniforms—only adds to the whole unshakeably surreal experience. Perhaps only Threads comes close to its singularly nightmarish, nearly unbearable grip.

While the film’s detractors point to a certain misery-porn obviousness (“a Disneyland dark-ride”, writes Nick), the majority of Letterboxd reviewers are unable to deny the sheer, overwhelming, scorched-earth impact of the film:

“It’s just so utterly fucking relentless.” —Andrew

“I am shaken to the core. Come and See is the only war film anyone needs to watch.” —Matt

“It is—through and through—a physical experience. It can be felt all the way to the bone. At a certain point it just stops being a movie, it leaves the screen and begs to become a part of you.” —Anna

“It’s no joyous or action-oriented trip of entertainment: it is authentic horror, flawlessly filmed. Be prepared.” —Edgar

“The most horrifying non-horror horror film of all time.” —Anton

In a more measured take, Mike D’Angelo questions the value of recreating this savage piece of history: “It’s undeniably powerful—so much so that it’s pretty much the sole memory I retained from my first viewing—but enduring it a second time made me more sympathetic toward the ‘some things are too monstrous to function as art’ camp than I’ve generally been in the past.”

Likewise, Robb struggled, preferring a more nuanced depiction: “I don’t want the easy release of thinking that there are strictly good and evil people. I want to know how all-in-all normal people, not monsters, commit monstrously heinous crimes. The alternatives, of just having throat-stomping scenes one after another, feels to me like an evening at the feelies.”

vimeo

To be clear, Come and See isn’t some underrated, recently unearthed discovery. It was released in the United States in 1987 and officially submitted as the Soviet entry into the Foreign Language Film category of the 58th Academy Awards. It’s been featured on Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” series, and best-of lists from Empire and Sight & Sound magazines.

In Hollywood, the likes of Steven Soderbergh and Roger Deakins have been vocal in their praise of Klimov’s film. “What I saw will stay with me forever; it is a masterpiece not only of filmmaking, but of humanity itself,” Sean Penn once said. Films such as The Thin Red Line, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan all owe a little something to Come and See in their respective cinematic representations of WWII.

But as we’ve seen in the recent surge of Studio Ghibli viewing—and with Soderbergh’s Contagion back in March—it’s sensible to hypothesize that the combination of increased media availability and a tumultuous socio-political atmosphere can contribute to the most dramatic of Letterboxd activity spikes.

Our data shows a clear correlation between Come and See diary entries and screenings of the stunning Janus Films 2K restoration that appeared in select theaters earlier this year—a big spike, in particular, after the screening at New York’s Film Forum on February 21. And Criterion Collection’s DVD, Blu-ray and digital release—a true revelation for those who’ve only ever watched the film via the 2003 Kino Lorber DVD—has positively pushed the film into the stratosphere, with a huge jump in numbers in late June, and holding steady ever since.

Given present circumstances—an out-of-control global pandemic with no discernible end in sight; Nazi sentiment and systemic racism still thriving in plain sight—Come and See’s petrifying apocalyptic wallop may not exactly be comfort viewing, but it does serve as a sobering, industrial-strength reminder that this is definitely not The Good Place and we should be concerned. As Lizzy asks in her ominous review, “What urges could turn men into such beasts?”

The film’s original title is the agreeably pointed Kill Hitler (“I think that’s beautiful” —Muriel). But its current beckoning, lifted from the Book of Revelation, is the more provocatively accessible invitation of the two: once you come and see, you can’t unsee Come and See.

Related content

100 Soviet Union Movies You Must See

Letterboxd Showdown: War Films

The films of Larisa Shepitko

You’re not the same person once the film has finished

Josh’s Complete Criterion Collection list

A list of Criterion DVD-only out-of-print films

A list of Criterion films on Blu-Ray

Films currently available on HBO Max from Janus Films

Follow Aaron Yap on Letterboxd

Images courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

#come and see #elem klimov #letterboxd #letterboxd top 250 #letterboxd highest rated #war films #war movie #criterium #criterion channel #criterion collection #janus films #film restoration #kino lorber

13 notes · View notes

theteaisaddictive · 4 years

Note

It just hit me in a flash that i never asked for your thoughts/rankings of the Cats 2019 soundtrack. Please forgive my ignorance and bestow the gift of your wisdom upon us

i have been caught in a whirlwind of events, which is why i have not responded sooner, but i’m currently home sick so what better excuse is there to wax evangelical (evan . . . jellicle??) about the cats movie soundtrack than this precise moment

i. jellicle songs for jellicle cats

i mean. well. first things first, it was recorded in advance (i assume that the 90s version was a live recording, but i could be wrong here) so of course it is going to sound awkward and stilted. this is nothing compared to how awkward and unnatural it is to see a bunch of actors naked save for cgi fur and ken-doll-like crotches singing and . . . uh, i think they’re dancing? -- around the white cat victoria, who did not have nearly so big a part from what i can digest of the 90s youtube clips. my favourite part has to be the fucking techno beat though. god damn. party on, you funky little abominations.

ii. the naming of cats/the invitation to the jellicle ball

yes, i will be smushing the exposition-related songs together unless i feel like separating them. this is my life, these are my choices. idk, it was fine?? i guess? munkustrap (aka The Main Cat Who Isn’t Victoria or Judi Dench and Quite Frankly Deserved Better Because He Was Giving This Performance His All) kind of just says the naming instead of it being a company-wide thing. they did not include bombalurina or demeter’s names in the naming, and this was the point at which i realised that the big name stars were not, in fact, going to lounge around in the background for the entirety of the play like they do in the musical. :(

the invitation also sees my Sweet Boy mr mistoffelees get his first solo line, which is good bc i fell in love with his sweet little face over the course of the film, and bad bc it marks the start of the absurd victoria/mr mistoffelees subplot which i am convinced was put in because of course a plotless weirdmageddon like cats needs a romantic subplot

iii. the old gumbie cat

something that needs mentioning is that idris elba shows up as macavity at various points in-between songs. i’m pretty sure he shows up for the first time here and like, tries to lure victoria away?? i think?? anyway it obviously does not work bc unfortunately we are stuck with victoria for the entire film, so onto the gumbie cat song we go.

what can i say about the rebel wilson song that hasn’t already been said. she unzips her skin. the cockroaches are uncanny in the extreme. there are slater-sized mice played by children. there is no funky tap routine, or if there is it was erased from my mind by the frequent awkward gaps in which rebel wilson attempted to be funny. dear god.

iv. the rum tum tugger

miiiiilllllkk

ok, ok, fine. jason derulo gave a fun, lively performance and didn’t even have the decency to do a bad english accent, which means there is at least one song which i have to genuinely like and can’t just like ironically. but also miiiiillllkkk why is there a milk bar in london which is perfectly cat-sized whyyyy.

v. grizabella

i am going to be honest. i think that this song appeared later in the movie, but the soundtrack only lists ‘highlights’ so it doesn’t appear in the track list. idk what to say. there are some girl cats (unnamed, although i think they have names in the stage version) who are mean to grizabella and then they say that she started working for macavity?? i’m not sure if this does or does not imply that he became her pimp, although he certainly has the coat and hat for it, which only raises more questions which i dare not put voice to.

vi. bustopher jones

fuck james corden. what the fuck did he do to the refined, fat old cat who frequents gentleman’s clubs and only dines on the finest stuff?? he made him dig around in the rubbish bins and interrupt the song twice to make ‘jokes’ about how fat he is. god i cannot fuckign stand james corden and i do not think he’s funny so i’m aware i may be biased but still. god.

oh yes and then at the end macavity lures him over to a giant bin (in full view of the other cats, might i add) and thanos snaps him out of existence, but sadly not out of the movie. rebel wilson also got thanos-snapped earlier i just forgot to mention it.

vii. mungojerrie and rumpleteazer

i understand that this melody is the original melody and that the melody used in the 90s recording was a change made for broadway; however, this was the most boring fucking song in the movie and they should have used the broadway version, good night. also victoria is there while they burgle the house, for some reason, bc having an audience surrogate means she needs to be in Every Fucking Scene, so that was a Choice.

viii. old deuteronomy

a nice, sweet song introducing judi dench, sung by munkustrap in such a manner that i began to wonder if he was like, her boytoy or something. also the nuzzling is, like, out of control. i know there’s nuzzling in the stage version, but onstage they're also all crawling around on all fours and stuff whereas here they’re bipedal most of the time. it makes it look like everyone is constantly going in for a kiss when they’re actually just being sociable, and it is fucking disorienting.

ix. the jellicle ball

by the way, the jellicle ball itself takes place in some sort of cat-friendly dilapidated theatre, and it is both the weirdest and least weird thing about this whole movie.

idk, it was fine?? oh wait, i actually forgot -- so waaaaay back at the start, victoria has a famous solo which wasn’t actually a solo in this version but danced with munkustrap, which . . . .was a Choice. so now she dances with like five different male cats, and it gets frantic, and Every Single Cat is just tearing it up on the dance floor, seriously the dancers in this are incredible, and then i think they all collapse on the floor in a heap, and it was at this point that i learned to be thankful i was not subjected to watching a cgi cat orgy while sitting next to my horrified sister

x. grizabella the glamour cat/memory (prelude)

like i said, i can’t remember what order this happens on the movie, so i’m taking the tracklist from the olc on genius. anyway victoria sneaks out for . . . reasons, and she sees grizabella. and grizabella is sad, and sings her song in the first person, because demeter got cut, because fuck demeter, i guess. oh yeah, and tom hooper, he of the masterful subtlety, had jennifer hudson sitting at a lamppost with withered leaves collected at her feet which she pointed to at the relevant lines. i’m surprised he didn’t add a sound effect of a moaning wind.

xi. beautiful ghosts

this was the song that taylor swift wrote for the movie and by god can you tell. it is incredibly jarring and serves no purpose (beyond, i guess, the purpose of deepening the nothing character of victoria), and -- ugh. look, it’s a pretty little song, and both victoria and taylor swift sing it well, but it’s thoroughly unnecessary. it’s like ‘suddenly’ in 2012 les mis -- why is this here??

xii. gus the theatre cat

i am not ashamed to admit that ian mckellen ‘singing’ gus the theatre cat was enough to bring a tear to my eye. because, well. the man may not have sung, but by god he acted. i challenge anyone with a heart to sit through all of cats and not even feel the slightest tug at their heartstrings when gus’s song plays. not even judi dench lifting one leg in appreciation could completely break the mood. oh wait. it did. (also gus got thanos-snapped by macavity immediately after exiting the stage)

xiii. skimbleshanks the railway cat

oooooh fuck YESSSSSS this is the single best song in the whole damn film. skimbleshanks himself?? wonderful. iconic. beautiful. his tap routine?? inspired. he’s skimbleshanks the railway cat -- the cat on the railway train! he inexplicably is wearing red dungarees, making him the fourth cat to be wearing clothes for no reason, and at the very end he spins like a top all the way into the air, before being thanes-snapped out of existence (but happily, not out of the movie) by.....

xiv. macavity the mystery cat

taylor swift is there. she’s undressed except for her cgi fur and a pair of stage heels. she starts tapping her little container of catnip over the collective of cats, causing munkustrap to make the sort of face you see reeve!superman make when he’s being poisoned by kryptonite, except that he is a cat being drugged with catnip and it is hard to take him seriously as a result. the song itself is a perfect guilty pleasure. taylor swift’s accent is shitty enough that you can enjoy the ridiculousness of the entire situation. idris elba cuts in to join the final chorus on ‘the Napoleon of criiiiiimmme’ and then he takes off his pimp coat and is . . . distressingly nude for the rest of the film. he dances briefly with taylor swift. it’s a thing.

anyway they thanos-snap judi dench to a boat on the thames bc she won’t let him go to cat heaven and the rest of the cats are left discombobulated. this is when Local Sadboy mr mistoffelees is uh, peer-pressured into attempting to magic judi dench back to the cats. bc mr mistoffelees has an arc now, you guys. and his arc?? is about getting his mojo back.

xv. mister mistoffelees

this song is also sung in first person by mistoffelees, which makes less sense when you get to the second verse, but whatever the movie only has about twenty minutes left let's just do it. it’s a solid song, but they keep pausing after every chorus to see if he can get judi dench back yet, which really dampens the groove that they have going on. anyway, they get her back, mr mistoffelees believes in himself now, yadda yadda yadda. meawhile back on the boat, this dickhead apparently didn’t bother to teleport the other cats back, so they fight their way out and rebel willson unzips her skin again. at this point in the cinema i was praying for mercy.

xvi. memory

memory was a song. it was clearly sung with a lot of emotion. for me, personally?? that emotion did not connect. sorry jennifer hudson. oh yeah also victoria has a verse in this song and i mentally wanted to s c r e am because this is not your fucking moment victoria, let the sad jennifer hudson cat belt her lungs out in peace

xvii. the ad-dressing of cats

god. let it end. let it end. this last ‘song’ was dragged out minute after minute after minute. judi dench looked into my very soul when she told me a cat was not a dog, and i still don’t know what she found there. when she started talking about cream and pie i could see munkustrap, he of the Giving This Performance His All, continue his impeccable acting by making faces of delight at her words. oh, munkustrap. even now, at the very end, you brought me joy. thank you, dear cat. thank you.

#asks #cinderellasfella #cats #cats 2019

11 notes · View notes

zetalial · 5 years

Text

BH rewatch episode 23

Previous Episode Next Episode

Episode 23 Girl on the Battlefield

Wow. What was this episode? So much happened. I’m not sure if I can even have an opinion on anything as something else happens before I can digest what was happening. I’m exaggerating slightly – I have lots of opinions

So Alphonse is chasing after Scar. Edward is still in the alley with Winry, comforting her, and he gives her his red jacket. He doesn’t stick around long though as he needs to go and help his brother. Winry sits there feeling useless, that all she can do is wait (yeah we hear Winry’s thoughts all the time. It’s almost strange because we rarely hear the inner thoughts of other characters except when they’re expressed aloud.). Edward orders some of the soldiers to take care of her as he runs off.

Meanwhile, Ling is running away from Wrath with Lan Fan still over one shoulder. (Is Ling supernaturally strong and fit?) Yeah, he got out of the room somehow. I swear last episode he was practically cornered but whatever. Wrath gives chase.

As Wrath is chasing them, he hears that Scar is still out and about and orders Gluttony to deal with him. Why does he even think Gluttony can deal with Scar? Scar can just blow him up every time he gets close, which Gluttony has to given his only weapon is his face and he’s not very smart.

I am also wondering where Envy is. Last time we saw him, he was still just hanging around Central. He should really be helping out too. With his powers, he’d theoretically be able to be quite discreet in watching over the Elrics. He’d be far better than Gluttony.

Anyway, Lan Fan tells Ling not to be noble, that a leader needs to be there for his people and they need him alive. He doesn’t want to abandon her though. Lan Fan is looking at her severely injured arm and realising she’s useless to him while injured like this and she’s only weighing him down. We see her lifting her good arm to make a strike but we don’t see what she does before the scene shifts.

Al is still fighting Scar, saying he’ll make him pay for Nina and the Rockbells, Ed soon joins him. Oh, Scar notes Al is in a metal body and wonders at how he can use Alchemy when it put him in that form. Al points out that the alchemy also saved his life and he’s thankful to Edward for it. Now the fight is in a much more open space.

Then Gluttony appears and Ed and Al identify him as a homunculus and so the three of them all start working to fight Gluttony. It seems its Scar’s first time hearing that term though he has fought Gluttony before. Honestly that Gluttony even manages to bash his face into Scar is impressive. The homunculus is hopelessly outmatched.

Then, Ling appears from the Sewers and he’s taken his yellow shirt off to show off his muscles and cuts Gluttony in half with his sword. He asks Edward to make some restraints and Ed creates some metal coils. Ling quickly ties Gluttony’s regenerating body with them. He does it so tightly that Gluttony’s body is stuck constantly trying to expand but can’t because of the coils and so he’s completely trapped.

Riza appears in a car then, and shoots Scar in the leg. She’s in a paper-thin disguise of glasses and her hair down. It’s to trick the watching soldiers as she takes Ling and the trapped Gluttony away.

So Ed and Al have cornered the wounded Scar and intend to… capture him I assume? But then Mei appears, kicking Alphonse back. She calls Edward short – apparently unaware that she is a complete midget herself. She’s meant to be like 13 or something, right? Anyway, she makes three Alkahestry circles, causing a reaction from a distance to cause some explosions covering the area in smoke. Ed is very interested by this as he recognises it’s not normal alchemy. Mei then escapes with Scar.

Mei doesn’t seem to be aware that Scar is a killer. She has no idea why a group of Amestrian soldiers and Ed and Al were attacking him and she never asks! She just heals his injury. I hate that she’s just ignorant here. It’s so much more interesting if she knows and decides to help him anyway. Or at least have her be curious but show Scar trying to hide the truth or something. But, no, it’s just never addressed. (Also how many daggers does she have? She just used 15 of the things and 10 of them are definitely lost to her. Where does she keep them? Mei’s ridiculously powerful (throwing those 10 daggers perfectly) which I’m fine with but her being so out of the loop and how little information we get about how her power works is a little more annoying.)

Oh, Al has her panda. There’s a brief comedy scene of him holding on to him in spite of Ed’s protests about stray animals. The panda has this gag of a pyramid of hierarchy of Al on the top. I’m not sure why Ed was on the bottom with Yoki – it barely met him - more jokes at Ed’s expense?

Okay, so Lan Fan cut off her arm and attached it to a dog as a decoy while she and Ling escaped into the sewers. Wrath is fooled by this. When he follows bleeding arm and discovers this, his response is basically. “well-played”. This is a nice trick but I really think we should have been shown a bit more of it. Wrath was following them reasonably closely. He’s very quick while Ling was carting around Lan Fan on his shoulder. I would have liked to see them attaching the arm to the dog and then hiding in the sewers. Otherwise too much is happening offscreen. Like, when Mustang was fighting Lust, he cauterised his wound, walked through the empty laboratory and drew his array in his own blood all off-screen. (And got Havoc’s broken lighter working.)

Honestly, I’m not sure this is really feasible. I’m not sure I can believe that Ling really got away from Wrath long enough to pull off this bluff.

Oh well. So Lan Fan is wrapped in Ling’s jacket in a pretty dire state. Ling is in a car with Riza and convinces her to go and get Lan Fan. They take her to Doctor Knox’s place – Mustang got him to reluctantly agree as per usual. Wrath notices Riza and recognises her despite her ‘disguise’ and decides its best he deal with Mustang.

So we cut to Winry, who is waiting in the military and she’s talking with Wrath – well Fuhrer Bradley anyway. Ed comes in to see her and Bradley gives him a subtle warning that he should take care of her.

Winry gets a phone call from Rush valley and all her customers are begging for her to come back. (She was only there from Episode 11-15 and there’s dozens of automail shops and she’s only 16. Why on Earth are they trying to make her skills so ridiculous? This is way too extreme.) Just as she was having tough feelings about being stuck always waiting.

So she heads out on a train and they say goodbye to her as she leaves for Rush Valley. Ed tells her that she’s not going to cry again until it’s tears of joy when they’ve got their bodies back. She agrees. As they leave, Winry realises she has feelings for Ed. (Yeah more of her inner thoughts are being stated to the audience.)

Ling gets introduced to Mustang who thanks him for all his help. Ling, Lan Fan, Ed, Al, Mustang and Riza are all in this safe house together as Lan Fan wakes up. Ed apologises for her getting hurt but Ling says that it was his plan and Lan Fan was willing to make the sacrifice, doing what he could not.

Oh and Ling informs them that Bradley was a homunculus. Huh, a few episodes ago they seemed close to deducing that themselves but yeah it makes sense that Ling can just tell them. They act with typical horror as you’d expect. (Ling foreshadows that Bradley is different from other Homunculi too.)

Lan Fan explicitly draws attention to how her distraction plan was based off her and Ed’s fight. Aww, I thought it would be cleverly not mentioned. But they had to say it. (I’m just disappointed because I was feeling clever for noticing the parallel.) Lan Fan notes again that she is useless to Ling and Ed recommends automail.

Mustang wants to use Gluttony’s Philosopher’s stone to cure Havoc’s injury. Ling protests, saying how Lan Fan just got injured for it and he deserves the stone. Ed cuts in, pointing out how he needs the stone to fix his brother’s body as they’ve been searching for it for so long. It an interesting dilemma. Ed should be pretty urgent to fix Al knowing that his soul is being rejected but on the other hand Ling’s got a duty to his people and he is chiefly responsible for this capture (though it was only possible with Ed and Al luring the homunculi out).

But the argument is quickly cut short as Gluttony reacts to the mention of Mustang, who killed Lust, and with extra determination breaks out of his bonds. Nice to see he cares so much about Lust. His stomach opens up to show the giant gateway inside with the eye inside. It’s eating power takes out what looks like an entire wall and a car.

—————-

And finally, finally the episode is over. Wow, they stuffed in a lot. Can you believe it’s only normal length? Course, everything was very brief as a result. Sometimes the pace is too much. I guess I like it but more time could certainly have been spent on some events. I’m mostly thinking about Ling and Lan Fan. Their storyline is way too rushed here.

You know I’d like a reason to like Ling but how can I if it’s going to rush through the part where he is horrified as he ties his best friend’s bloody arm (which she just cut off for him) to a dog while she is practically bleeding to death next to him and he’s in a hurry. That’d be just the sort of scene to make me sympathise with him. We’d get to feel his guilt, mixed with a sense of duty and the dark side of Lan Fan’s loyalty. Instead we get him telling her not to do it and then a cut to him jumping out of the sewers with his shirt off and cutting Gluttony in half. Yeah, I get it, he’s ‘badass’ and a loyal friend. But his most interesting scene was offscreen! Instead we’re messing around with setting up Ed/Winry.

I’d also have appreciated lengthening the Philosopher’s stone argument. It’s interesting to see Edward, Ling and Mustang all in an argument where they all have compelling reasons. They’ve all sacrificed a lot after all. It’d be great too as it’d make the moment where Ling offered the Stone to Edward at the end of the series more meaningful.

I’m going to keep a watch out for the use of inner thoughts being stated to the audience. Often thoughts are expressed out loud but I think inner thoughts being shared is actually pretty rare. I feel like Winry’s thoughts have been shared before (just the other episode she was thinking in her head about Ed’s broadening shoulders). I don’t recall any other characters having this happening but maybe I can’t remember. Either way, I’ll keep an eye out in the future. (I’m curious if this is unique to Winry. Which would be weird as she’s not the protagonist of the story and I don’t see why her inner thoughts would deserve special treatment.)

But it’s not a bad episode or anything. A lot happened and it was good, I just wish more time was spent on some of these events not that any of them were bad. But they don’t have the full impact if there’s not a chance to dwell on them a bit.

#fma #fmab rewatch #Gosh imagining that heart-wrenching offscreen Ling scene #it would have been amazing #I'm honestly a little angry it was offscreen #Why?#For a twist reveal when he pops up out of the sewers?#That's nothing compared to the scene we lost.#where he would be handling Lan Fan's arm #with urgency but his emotions would be getting in the way #but sorry Ling it was offscreen so I still can't like you yet #Do I seem like I hate Winry?#I don't #her additions in this episode were just bad is all #they didn't touch on her feelings about Scar at all #just her feelings of being left waiting #and her feelings towards ed #meta #myposts

2 notes · View notes

everymovie2020 · 5 years

Text

Assassination Nation (2018)

Date watched: 9 December 2018

I had no idea what this was about going into it.

I had never read any reviews/watched any previous/seen anything about it at all. I saw it available for download and clicked on it on a whim, going off the plot description.

And to be honest, I watched it a few days ago and I'm still trying to digest what the fuck I saw. I also have no idea how to write a coherent review about this movie because… I was so completely bewildered/horrified/traumatised that I'm like… I don't even know what to say? Did I like it, or didn't I? Can I even put into words what it's about? I'll try.

So I will try to put down my thoughts on this movie under a cut, because… spoilers. Obviously.

Brief plot:

Four hot girls are the central protagonists to this movie, and everyone else revolves around them. Lily is a cute blonde who is kind of dating Bill Skarsgaard, but he's also being a total dick to her? But she's dating him nonetheless. She's also carrying on an affair via text/Snapchat with a guy called "Daddy", though it's half obvious who that is from the first ten minutes of the movie.

Bex is transgendered. She's been text-flirting with a hot footballer, who she hooks up with at a party, and then he tells her that nobody can ever know. So he's sort of a dick.

Sarah and Em round out the foursome, though they are more supporting players in this. At one point I think it's revealed that they are sisters? But honestly, I don't even know.

All of these teenage girls go to school, text, flirt, have sex, take drugs, drink, fight, argue, put up with the nonsense of boys and men, give a lot of sass, etc etc.

The first half an hour of this movie was a horrifying look at the world that teenagers now live in, which is so far removed from my reality (back in the "olden days" of the 90s/early 2000s). I mean, the technology alone, like… fuck, I am so glad I missed all of that. Honestly.

Then the mayor of the town (aptly named Salem) is hacked, and all of his private stuff is made public, and it turns out he likes a bit of a gay orgy (who can blame the dude?) but he's conservative, and so instead of facing it, he goes on TV and shoots himself in the head. Very Bud Dwyer-esque (that's a real life political suicide reference there for you).

Then the principal of the school is hacked, and all of his data – innocent though it is – is made public, and twisted by the public, who disregard the facts in order to sensationalise the story (does this sound familiar?). He's called a paedophile and demanded to resign by a public in a frenzy, though it's never clear who these people in the frenzy are – he seems to the face the same, faceless, angry scrum that the mayor faces, but we never get a good look at them. Townsfolk with pitchforks, maybe?

Then, as if things aren't bad enough, the hacker releases the data of a bunch of other people in the town – pretty much everyone – and that's when things go from bad to worse. Suddenly there's a cop at the school, letching at the four girls as they walk to their classes. People are accusing each other. Everyone's dirty laundry is now made public.

Bella Thorne gets her head bashed in with a baseball bat by her best friend because she did something to her, I can't remember what. Lily's texts/pictures with her "Daddy" are suddenly made public, and even though she's smart enough to keep her face out of the pictures, her boyfriend goes full psycho and strips her at school to show a birthmark on her back. Bex's chats with her footballer are public as well, and suddenly he's in the firing line for sleeping with a transgendered woman.

Lily's parents find out about the sexting and throw her out of her house. The guy she's sexting – Joel McHale – loses his wife and kid over it. Then Lily is revealed to be the hacker (she's not, though), and the whole town is out for her blood.

Suddenly the town goes from quiet and peaceful to mob violence in like a second, which is the part I found hardest to believe, but whatever. It reminded me a lot of the Ku Klux Klan/Nazi rallies, stuff like that. Fucking scary.

The girls are holed up at the very window-y residence of Em and Sarah and their mother, and it's then that things become truly terrifying – masked men are creeping around the windows, stealthily breaking into the residence, all with the intent of murdering Lily and the four girls as publicly as possible.

Like, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat during this whole scene. It was the most intense feeling of dread I have experienced watching a movie in a long, long time.

The girls are separated, the mother is killed – Sarah and Em are dragged out to a police car and mobbed by a group of masked townspeople, all while the police officer keeps shouting about how the "good people of Salem won't stand for this," – it is skin-crawling stuff.

Lily manages to make her way to Joel McHale's house, but he thinks she leaked the info and so he goes full-psychopath and tries to murder her, but she manages to kill him and escape. There's also a dead body in the bathtub? I guess that was his wife? I genuinely don't know. I think I might've asked the television, "Who the fuck is that?!" but the TV didn’t answer me.

Now Lily's pissed off, and she's got a shotgun, because Joel McHale had a fucking arsenal at his house. So she loads herself up with weapons and heads out.

Meanwhile, Bex has been snatched by the football team who are literally going to force her football player to lynch her on a light pole, because… of course they are. Thankfully the footballer realises he's wrong and won't do it, but by the time the others are going to do the job for him, Lily has freed both Em and Sarah by killing the cop, and the three girls roll in and start gunning down the entire football team.

And then there's a riot, and a bunch of people fall in behind the girls, and then… it turns out that Lily's brother was the hacker, and he did it for the lulz.

And then I was like… huh.

I don't know if I liked this movie. I was certainly engrossed in it, and it held my interest, but honestly, I don't think I ever want to see it again. It was very disturbing, which I know is the point, but still… a lot of it was really unpleasant to watch.

I mean, I know, social commentary and all, Donald Trump, the alt-right, etc etc, but like… I need movies to be escapism and this was like being thrown into a boiling hot vat of 2018 social commentary acid.

This is not to say it's a bad movie – it's not. It's just really fucking hard to watch, and the whole time I was just thankful that I'm not a teenager now, because… fuck that.

#assassination nation #2018 #movies #movie review #odessa young #abra #suki waterhouse #hari nef #joel mchale #bill skarsgard #maude apatow #bella thorne #anika noni rose #yep #glad i'm not a teenager

11 notes · View notes

bearfacewean · 6 years

Text

A Reason for Wearing Nice Undies

I was looking through some old stories and I found this one that I wrote AGES ago. It made me laugh reading it back. Hope you enjoy! 🤗

............

Now, how’s this for a crappy situation?

I want to make this clear, I was the victim, me. Not her. I was the one minding my own business while her boyfriend was feeling me up. I didn’t ask for it! Sure I enjoyed it and hoped it would happen every night I went to bed but it wasn’t like I had any choice in the matter! He was a ghost for Christ’s sake! How do you tell a poltergeist that no means no? I mean, what was I supposed to do? I thought I was dreaming the first few times. I thought they were just really, really, graphic, intense, vivid, erotic dreams that ended in an almighty awe-inspiring orgasm. And when it became a bit clearer that actually, I was getting played with by the invisible man (if the invisible man had no actual flesh or understandable substance to speak of) or a ghost, then as far as I was concerned there were only a few things I could think of to do. One being, this is absolutely fantastic, let it continue. It beat any so called kinky blind-fold session I ever had. I wouldn’t know when or if, how or why it would happen. Talk about spontaneous.

And then little thought number two; say I didn’t want it to continue, that the fact that I was getting an intimate tickling session by a ghost was a little more like getting raped than getting what I’ve been after my whole adult life (a bloody fantastic sex life which at fifty two years of age is about time) then what? Am I to flail about wildly and punch at the open space that supported the whatever it was with the great fingers? Was I to run away only to lock myself in another room considering the fact that he was able to walk through doors and walls? Because he wasn’t in the room to start with and I checked.

Then moving onto little thought number three; would it make him hostile? Now, that tongue was somehow warm and wet when it toyed with my pussy and that dick was hard, hot and throbbing. The hands were firm when it grabbed my tits and gentle when the fingers rolled my nipples. Am I not to think that those same hands could be firm gripping my larynx and ripping out my throat?

Now I’ve never had great sex. I married twice and both men ended up fat and flat. Foreplay was something you might read about in a golf magazine and the clitoris was something that women made up to make men feel insecure! So yes, I’m sorry. I let him feel me, touch me, lick me, fuck me. Arrest me officer, I’m guilty as charged. I’m not saying I’d let anybody fuck me, because and I’m sorry for the poor taste of joke, but he had no body so I had no beer belly or back beard to be put off by.

So each night, I’d be lying there and ridiculous as it might seem but yes, I’m washed, and in pretty lacy underwear and no pyjama bottoms (and I know for a fact that that nosy old cow Martha Fairweather from next door is gossiping and storytelling about my range of kinky panties that hangs from my whirligig. No doubt I’m a scarlet woman), and I’m waiting for absolute bliss.

Sometimes I knew he was there from a sensation down at my toes. I think he had my toe in his mouth. I could feel my foot being stroked and it would feel tickly but I would will myself not to let it away that I was still awake. I did that once and it stopped for a whole week. I would self service myself every night that week hoping that as I lay post self induced orgasm he would come along and do me off properly but it wasn’t to be. So I would only ever be allowed to moan and breathe very lightly. My legs would only open and my pelvis rock just enough to show that I was absolutely 100% loving it while pretending to be completely unaware. Very, very difficult let me tell you. Upon orgasm, and it was an oh, oh, oh, oooohrgasm, I could not help but make a very significant and triumphant “whooooopeeeee!” noise and bend almost completely in half. I was left then to shudder and gasp and then make “oh I’m so confused, what a wonderful dream” faces.

I mean, this was happening to me. He came to me in the middle of the night. I could only wonder why. Was he sexually repressed while alive? Was he a sex maniac and even after he died, probably of a heart attack from too much fucking, he still had the same carnal urges. Was he maybe in some kind of hell, only able to pleasure another while he got no release? I have to admit, I did have a look and feel about the bed to see if there was any ghost-like semen, some fucktoplasm. If he went it must have squirted into some other ghosty dimension. Was he maybe an angel from sex heaven, sent by God? Did he look down upon me standing in the queue of Ann Summers buying my Rampant Rabbit and think to himself; that woman needs a pity fuck, because he really was all about giving. Or maybe he was one of those fetishist guys who liked to do it to sleeping woman. I saw that once on a documentary on sex I watched in the hope of some arousing content.

So yes, I loved it. I wanted it. I hoped it would keep happening because apart from the reasons given, I also couldn’t stop it if I wanted to stay in this house and I had searched for this house for a long time. This was the house I wanted throughout both marriages and now it was just me, a horny ghost and it was wonderful. Until, of course, when the girlfriend came on the scene.

One night after a particularly hot session, (I had started taking pretend sleeping pills. I labelled an old medicine bottle Temazapam just in case he was a hot horny doctor or anaesthesiologist when he was alive) I was lying on my front, legs splayed like a frog mid hop when suddenly he just stopped. One second he was pumping away, his hands squashed between my breasts and the mattress and the next he was perfectly still, his dick still deep, his fingers still holding my aching boobies and then it was like he was whisked away. I couldn’t fain sleep because his departure was so sudden and dramatic, his cock was wrenched out of me so directly that I gasped and turned, almost to see where he had gone.

Needless to say I was left feeling somewhat confused and very unsatisfied so felt some chocolate digestives and hot milk was in order. So I trundled my still quivering body to the kitchen.

She was in there and she was very angry.

Now, tell me this; why is it when the girlfriend or boyfriend walks in on their lover getting it on with another person do they never attack the cheater? Why do they go for the innocent other party?

So like Samara from The Ring movies she comes crawling along the kitchen ceiling. No “see no evil, hear no evil” with this bitch, no! She’s all wavering black lines and silver flashes. I could see the outline of her eyes and her mouth and they were open and shrieking. She sounded like she was underwater, a raging gurgling spitting curses at me! So I’m petrified, needless to say, and by the time her shaking, juddering, furious form gets directly above me, I’ve gone and had a heart attack. Well, let me tell you, I didn’t know he had a girlfriend, dead or otherwise so why it should be me that is scared literally to death, yes to the point where I am actually dying, is just beyond me and honestly, a bit extreme.

So having let out a scream I’m surprised didn’t shatter my windows and laying there, somewhere between a hellish, suffocating, horrified agony and a lighter, floatier, sweeter place, she becomes fleshier. Her intense colours fade to plain old light beige with hair dyed blond to within an inch of its life and a tight black dress. Her screams that sounded like something from the pits of hell became a squawkish caterwaul.

“You fucking slut, fucking old whore-bag. You get your fat, swollen mitts off my man.” This was then followed by;

“Nicola, for God’s sake! What are you doing?! Nicola!” But Nicola was now on the floor and pinning my purple dying body by the shoulders having a massive hissy-fit, apparently completely ignorant of my convulsing physical body and completely unaware of my spectral body floating a few feet above her. It was him that noticed me. By this time I’m standing or to be more literal, floating in the middle of the floor, still in my pretty pyjama top and heavily stretched thong panties and he was hunkered down sitting on his ankles in nothing more than what looked like black cycling shorts, his dick still rock hard making a miniature tepee out of lycra.

Now I’m not going to go into details about my feelings and subsequent actions of seeing my own dying, twitching body but needless to say my attention rather quickly turned to another. And, yes I know that I’m being a hypocrite because you would think the “person” that I would go for first would be the bitch that just killed me but no. I went for him…and then she went for me which honestly I think only turned him on, the bastard.

So what am I supposed to do now? I’m getting attacked by a shrieking she-bitch I’m laying there, my final breaths are fizzing out of me and the whole thing is happening in very disagreeable circumstances.

Until a ghost-like face suddenly appears at my kitchen window.

Martha! Thank the heavens (if that’s what awaited me) for your being one nosy old cow! Now small and frail Martha might be but she kicks like a mule and in comes my kitchen door, chain lock and all. She’s on top of me like a pro, breath, breath, punching down on my chest as if she had actually heard me call her all those horrible names before and was getting her own back. I even heard one of my ribs break and through flab as thick as mine that’s saying something. She was obviously really determined. Meanwhile, those two bastards have finally turned the fight on one another, completely ignoring this crazy scene around them.

“You fucking, cheating prick! And with a heffalump too.”

“You’ve got a cheek you fucking nympho…”

“Nympho?! I’m not the one fucking a fat…”

“Don’t you dare say another word about her, Nicola. At least fucking her was comfortable, not like fucking you. I felt like I was going to get a splinter rubbing up and down that body.”

“Oh so that’s it, the no body thing again. You don’t do spirits, huh? It’s not my fault we died!”

“Back to this, again?!”

“We’re going to be going over this for all eternity!”

So meanwhile, Martha has resorted to harsh language and grabbing me by the shoulders to shake the life back in. Mr Cotton, my neighbour from the other side has heard her screaming and has rushed in and now has the telephone trying to figure out these new cordless phones work.

“Dial and then press the green phone button, Peter, not the red one, no that hangs up…BREATHE damnit!!”

So now all I can think about is that clearly, that’s my dead body lying in my nice new kitchen and that yes, Martha, dear Martha has got to me super quick and the ambulance is on its way but, what if none of it works? What if my scared out of its wits 50-odd year old heart really has given up the ghost, which in hindsight is a terrible joke.

What if I’m left to roam this house for the rest of eternity? I can guarantee I’ll be left hovering about this bloody house now too with less than perfect house mates? He’ll barely be able to look me in the eye and she’s just going to make the atmosphere really uncomfortable. Eternity is just too bloody long for that kind of childishness. It’s like; you killed me so bloody well take responsibility for it. We have to live – in a manner of speaking – together so can we make the best of it please?

And I have so many questions! Like, if the whole Christianity thing is real, then my murderer should be sent to hell, but what if an already dead, floating about limbo ghost kills someone? Is that worse? And will we always be around one another? Can we totter off to another plane between the worlds of the living and the dead, or hell in their case because they deserve a bit of a roasting for what they did to me.

And then what will happen to my house? Will new people move in? This is after all a really nice house, newly decorated, good area, close to all amenities. Am I going to end up a horny ghost too and try to get it on stealth style with the new tenants?

Ambulance people start pushing their way inside, contraptions and cables and shouting all included. Completely ignorant, sex god and bitch from hell just casually move out of the way, arguing about whose idea it was for attempting an orgasm through suffocation. She keeps casting glances at me with a look of pure contempt and he, still with his massive erection, has a look of total embarrassment and apology, which I refuse to accept for as long as I live, which may be, about ten minutes ago.

But all of a sudden my body jumps up off the floor a clear foot and a half as they pass a crazy amount of electricity through my heart. Now I’m yelling at my body and I have to admit it, I’m getting pretty hysterical. Another huge burst of electricity pulses through me, sending my body arching into the air and then the strangest thing happens where my floaty self suddenly feels like it’s on a rollercoaster as it tips over the edge and then I’m opening my eyes to see the faces of the paramedics and my body feels like I’ve just ran a marathon only to get hit by a bus as I crossed the finish line.

The rest is a bit of a blur but I was aware of I’m being hoisted up onto a very hard stretcher, whisked away into the ambulance with Martha, Peter and the rest of the street looking on, including two funny wiggly shapes that I saw through the bay windows of my sitting room.

So, tonight has been pretty horrible. I’ve been left horny and unsatisfied to the point of needing biscuits and then scared to death by the dead girlfriend of my ghost booty caller. At the very least I can say I took my mums advice. You should always make sure you have on nice clean underwear because you never know what may happen and you’ll get rushed into hospital.

I wonder if he will visit me in hospital…

The End

#poltergeist #poltergeist sex #ghost #ghost sex #non consentual but actually totally consentual sex #best sex ever

38 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 5 years

Text

August 12th-August 18th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from August 12th, 2019 to August 18th, 2019. The chat focused on Catians: Resurrection by Cortney Cameron (Writer) and Luyi Bennett (Artist).

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Catians: Resurrection by Cortney Cameron (Writer) and Luyi Bennett (Artist)~! (https://catians.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until August 18th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. Do you think there will be any larger consequences to Rose’s brutal rampage, especially in terms of how human society might react to rumors of the guardians? Overall, how does Rose’s brutal rampage make you feel about her as a character?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. Do you think Rose is gone for good, or can she somehow be saved? If she is saved, how do you think she might be changed as a person. Also, how will Rose’s absence, and the second tail’s absence, affect the guardians?

RebelVampire

1) My favorite scene is probably the one where Rose gets swallowed by her own creation. The story starts off really kind of light-hearted, gets a bit of a dark twist, and then everything culminates in that scene. It was the right blend of both unexpected yet totally sensible that really made it stick with me and kind of scare me a bit. So I appreciate it for being able to inspire that feeling in me. 2) I kind of feel like at least the cops are gonna notice something. Like maybe there'll be that one nosy detective who everyone thinks is crazy but is constantly noticing all the weird stuff going on and insisting they investigate. Thus, the guardians will have their activities hampered cause at leat one person will be suspicious. I don't know how to feel about Rose's character other than she's a good showcase of what happens when you don't address grief properly. Cause you wind up going down the crazy street and releasing your emotions in...well not so good ways.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. What aspect of Rose’s grief over Jason did you identify with the most? What can we learn from Rose’s mistakes in terms of how we deal with grief in real life?

Luyi

Hi there, Luyi (the artist) here! I want to say thanks so much for taking a look at Catians this week. I'm looking forward to seeing what people think!

I don't think I can address the other questions without spoilers(!), but let me throw my two cents into the mix for the last two: 5) My favorite illustration is when Rose wakes up in the forest. I'm pretty happy with how the lighting turned out in that scene.

6) Rose's grief is a big driving force of the overall story. The writer, Cortney, has struggled with grief in her life, and it plays a big role in the birth of the villain. I am honored and humbled by the chance to illustrate this prologue, as it addresses a massive emotional response that most people have no choice but to face in their lives.

The Q

I'm still reading, currently, but so far I really enjoy the lighting on page 15, especially panel 7.

Also, the juxtaposition between the fairytale-esque cat's world and the very realistic human world is extremely interesting!

Though I must admit, so far in the epilogue, I'm having a hard time figuring out where the plot wants to go. Do you all feel the same way? Or differently?

All in all, a very interesting story! I think the artwork is really solid - and it's TOUGH making cats expressive! I'm really excited to see where it goes from here.

snuffysam

@RebelVampire It would be interesting if some detective notices the weird stuff going on. The police dropped the murder case against Jason, so involving them in the story in the future would give Rose yet another reason to be antagonistic ("you weren't there when i needed you" and such).

My favorite character is Rose just because, so far, she has the most depth. She started out kind-hearted, but over the course of the prologue we get to see her descent into sadism due to her grief. Watching a character arc unfold like that is always interesting to see, as it teaches us lessons about handling grief in real life. For instance, learning the difference between justice and revenge.(edited)

snuffysam

@The Q I'm not sure I had the same troubles figuring out where the plot wants to go. This prologue seemed like it was introducing us to the story's future antagonist - someone who was corrupted by the power of the tail. Felix's "choose better than I did" statement seems to imply that there will be another tail user soon, one who will take more of a protagonist-y role. The short time skip where Rose learned to use her powers seems like it will be foreshadowing for us watching our future protagonist learn in real time, and learning about Rose's character arc now could help set up future parallels in the story.

The Q

@snuffysam True, now that you mention it! I was maybe a bit quick to type that up before I had time to digest the prologue haha

Now I'm just excited to see what'll happen to Rose from here on out! Will we see her again? Is she gone for good? Is she gonna create more people?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. What exactly do you think the abomination that Rose created was? What about it caused Felix to warn the Council that the guardians needed to be chosen? What do you think the abomination will do now?

RebelVampire

3) My favorite character right now is probably Felix. Just a good cat who wanted to save someone, but then it all went wrong. But I mostly appreciate the end of the prologue where Felix uses the last of his strength to try and salvage stuff and admit his mistake. 4) I think Rose can be saved, and I actually think she has to. Cause usually these things like an all for one package. You can't have a complete puzzle if one of the pieces is missing. So she has to be saved for whatever their ultimate goal is going to be. I think even if she is saved, though, it'll be a temp thing. I think she'll overall just be too traumatized by her actions and have too much pent up guilt to really function in life normally again.

5) My favorite illustration is probably the last page of the prologue with all the cats looking all serious and dramatic. https://catians.com/comic/chapter-0-page-24/ I really love the lighting and texture on the fur. Plus, something about the white cat's design makes just chuckle and want to hug said cat. 6) For me, I think I most identified with the first part where she was in the shocked denial stage. Her emotions were really poignant to me at that part, and I think regardless of where your grief goes from that point, that is always the first stage. In terms of what we can learn...well ya know, revenge ain't great. And you need to accept the loss and not try to clean to the past, because it leads to some unhealthy stuff. Unfortunately, gotta accept the memories and grow and move past it. And not murder people and create abominations. Probably.

7) I liked seeing Rose and Felix the most since they got the most screen time. I liked how their interactions had both this understanding yet fundamental misunderstanding cause of the species divide. And I kind of like that Felix could just flat out not see how grief had affected Rose until the end, cause it felt a natural consequence of their interactions. 8) I feel the abomindation was a creature that was without a soul, because can't create souls or something. And because of that it's now going to go on an endless rampage of eating trying to get a soul. Only you can't get souls by eating people so it will thus never be fulfilled. And this is why ya gotta warn the council, cause can't have soul eaters on the loose.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. Who do you think the guardians will be, and what will they be like? What sort of tasks do you think they’ll be tasked to do? Also, do you think they’ll even be willing to adapt and help the cats?

Cortney

Hi, I'm Cortney, part of the Catians team along with @Luyi (who dropped in above). I'd like to thank the Comic Tea Party for featuring Catians this week! I have really enjoyed the discussion, users' excellent analyses, and @RebelVampire's very thought-provoking questions. 1. It's really tough for me to pick a single favorite scene, but I think I'd actually echo @RebelVampire on Rose getting absorbed. @Luyi did an amazing job bringing this to life -- I was worried the concept would be hard to understand, but she illustrated it just like I imagined (a credit to her intuition and skills). As creepy and horrifying as the scene is, it was extremely satisfying to see it play out on the page just as it did in my head. 5. My favorite illustration is so hard to choose... I think I've narrowed it down to between the Great Cat, Felix and Rose admiring the tombstone, the last scene with final cats (which, I'm a little embarrassed to admit, always gives me goosebumps!). The perspective and lighting on the tombstone scene is beautifully done. I think Rose's pose is confident, like her mastery of her new abilities is sinking in, and this foreshadows her shift towards taking action. P.S. I always laugh at the white cat, too, @RebelVampire -- he'll be back in the next issue, even more absurd. (edited)

6. As @Luyi mentioned, I've struggled with grief in my life, having lost both of parents fairly young. My first major loss, my father, occurred before I started the Catians story proper, and I think that experienced shaped Catians and its themes. My second major loss, my mother, occurred just before the conversion of the manuscript into a comic, and (since I was a little older) it provided even more perspective on grief, life after death, and different ways of processing loss. I try not to judge her reactions too much, since her loss was more violent and traumatic than anything I've experienced, but yeah, as @RebelVampire pointed out, Rose displays rather ineffective and self-destructive coping mechanisms. I really empathized with her when she was feeling "void," like she didn't even exist, after losing Jason.

7. I enjoyed @RebelVampire's breakdown of Felix and Rose's interactions, and the fundamental disconnects that ultimately plagued their communications. I do wish we could've had more time to see Jason and Rose interacting, but maybe we'll learn more about the pair down the line. @The Q I have to give a huge kudos to @Luyi for giving the cats expressions that look natural and also (in my opinion) pack emotional punches. Also, thanks for commenting on the site! @snuffysam Great analysis of the prologue!

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Do you think the guardians will be at risk for misusing their role in the same way that Rose misused her powers? Will the cats take measures to prevent another repeat? Overall, what can we learn about the concept of power corruption?

RebelVampire

9) I already mentioned this in general for fave illustration, but I still enjoy the lighting and technique used for the fur. Fur is a really hard thing to illustrate, but all the cats just look so soft and I want to huge them all and pet the computer screen so I can pet the great cats. 10) To be fair you can cheat and look at the cast page for this one. I don't know what they'll be like inidividually, but on the whole I think they're going to be reluctant and inexperienced. I want to assume there'll be some magic battling and that they'll try to stop the abomination. Maybe the abomination can like drop pieces of itself that in term become abominations. As for willingness, umm, probably not. Like maybe one will be like "yaay sounds fun" until they realize oh shit, it's not a game.

11) I think the comic's strengths are its balance of tones. Like the comic is really good at switching from benign seriousness to semi-disturbing horror really quickly in the span of a few panels, and that's really hard to do while maintaining good pacing. But it really helps bring the drama of the horror forward and make an impact. 12) 100% yes, the guardians will be at risk. Probably not from grief like rose, but power is a powerful drug and no one is immune. Honestly, I don't think the cats will take any measures to stop it, but more they will be wary to trust, which I can't blame them for. Overall, though, I think what happened to Rose shows that no matter how nice a person is, things can go south real fast when you push hard enough and give someone power they arent ready for.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Overall, why do you think The Great Cat dictated that humans and cats should work together? By the end of the story, do you think cats and humans will have a better relationship, or will it not make a difference?

RebelVampire

13) I am looking forward to meeting the guardians and seeing how the cats get them onboard while also keeping rose looming in the back of their minds. Sounds like the makings of great drama. 14) I think The Great Cat thought both species balanced each other out in a complimentary way. That and cooperation sounds better than both species fighting for the rights to dominate the planet. By the end of the story, idk. I feel like the relationship will be more or less the same, but maybe with a smidgen more trust thrown in as humanity shows its own merits that makes cats think "ok they arent all abomination creators"

NiaNook

1. Can't say I have a favorite. There's a lot of parts in a lot of different places I enjoyed 2. I don't see human society reacting to the guardians being anything big.... YET. They eventually had to discontinue looking for Jason's murderers, after all. It was thrilling to see Rose using her new abilities to brutalize those gangsters, and I can sympathize with her. She's frustrated, empty, filled with grief, and wants to avenge her husband. She let that grief and vengeance get the best of her and showed an uglier side of herself, but I can't see her as a bad person for it... maybe flawed, desperate, and human, but not bad. 3. With just a prologue, let's go with Felix, for now. He seems to be a very good and very wise, kitty (wisdom still increasing as he learns from his mistakes, of course!) 4. I don't have a lot of hope for poor Rose, though if she can be saved, what a happy turn of events that would be! She seemed to have an understanding of the mistake she made as she was being absorbed at the end.(edited)

NiaNook

5. This page, maybe. https://catians.com/comic/chapter-0-page-19/ The atmosphere and those two panels of Felix looking at her and turning away really show a lot of strong emotion (Mixed with the dialogue, it was just a really powerful and foreboding page) Felix genuinely just wants to help her. 6. What really made it hit home the hardest was seeing her still struggling to get out of that pit of grief, long after it's already happened. It's not easy to let go. Sometimes you feel like life has played a cruel prank on you and you desperately wish to reset it, but you can't. Your mind goes all kinds of crazy places trying to cope and fill that emptiness, and later you'll realize you're still empty and did something you regret (maybe not as extreme as killing people, but you get the idea). 8. I think the abomination is an embodiment of the sorrow and emptiness Rose couldn't get rid of. She gave it form, and poetically, it swallowed her. Something tells me either that creature isn't completely gone and it may cause more harm to others. 10. The prologue and the image in the site banner almost look like they're from 2 different stories, so there's a lot of mystery about where the guardians come in and what they'll be like, but it will probably have something to do with getting rid of those pink abominations

NiaNook

11. and 13. (combining these two) The comic is a lovely combination of expressive art and thoughtful, inspired writing. I actually peeked at it a few weeks ago when I was checking out the book club listings and unintentionally ended up reading through the whole thing! It just kept giving me so many questions, so many exciting or unexpected twists and turns, and there was something so delightfully bizarre about regular humans mixing with magical guardian cats that left me wanting to see where it went from here! What are our little kitties even up to when they're not chasing birds or sleeping beside us on our beds? What's up with these cat deities? How can such divine creatures be so fluffy and adorable!? (hehe) I'm hoping for more of all of this. More bizarre cat stuff. More strong character conflict, and uncovering answers to their mysterious way of life. 14. Perhaps it's something about combining different strenghts; cats are the wise decision makers, humans are the hands that move things along, or something along those lines. I sure hope it improves their relationship, because from what Felix tells us in the beginning, these humans have not been very kind to cats at all

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Catians: Resurrection this week! Please also give a special thank you to Cortney Cameron (Writer) and Luyi Bennett (Artist) for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Catians: Resurrection, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://catians.com/

Buy Catians’ Hardcopy: https://www.amazon.com/Catians-Resurrection-Prologue-Second-Tail/dp/1096221403

Catians’ Merch Store: https://catians.com/merch/

Catians’ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catians

Catians’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/catians

#ctparchive #comics #indie comics #webcomics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic bookclub #webcomic book club #comic tea party #ctp #catians #catians resurrection #luyi bennett #cortney cameron

0 notes

cripplinganxietyflix · 7 years

Text

I saw It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night has been in theaters, at the time of this writing, for about two days, and already it seems to be the most polarizing film of the year thus far. I’m sure anybody who saw the way it was marketed and then watched the film can understand why. I decidedly only watched the initial teaser trailer for this movie, didn’t read about it on the internet other than that Joel Edgerton would be the lead and Trey Edward Shults would be directing. This is, in part, because I did that recently with The Void, and I’m really thankful for it, and I’m trying to make a bigger effort to continue to go into things blind with few or no expectations.

If you haven’t seen Joel Edgerton’s other fling with the “horror but not like horror horror” genre, The Gift, I highly recommend you do so now. Another film I saw in theaters without seeing literally any promotional material, The Gift is a sadly overlooked gem from 2015 about a childless couple who move into a new house and run into someone from the husband’s past. The husband conveys to the wife that he doesn’t want this stranger (played by Edgerton) hanging around, and it’s basically up to the wife to find out why. It’s an excellent, very fucked up thriller with a pretty shocking end that I certainly didn’t see coming. Edgerton is great as the creepy, stalking stranger, and he’s also a total surprise as the film’s director. I mean it. I didn’t know he directed it until I Google fu’d it a minute ago.

Another film I would consider “required viewing” going into this is Trey Edward Shults’ first movie, Krisha, which I included on my list of favorite films I watched in 2016. While it’s categorized as a drama/dark comedy, I put it in my horror list- because for those of us with a little dysfunction in our families, it is mind-numbingly, hand-wringingly horrifying. Krisha stars mostly non-actors, including the director’s aunt (IIRC) in the title role. It details a recovering alcoholic’s return to the family she ghosted on for a Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t go well. When I say this is required viewing, I mean it. Krisha is as non-traditional as horror films go, and I feel very similarly about It Comes At Night.

I suppose, based on the trailer, that I expected some kind of supernatural/walking dead aspect to the film going in. Let me take a second to outright demolish that preconception- this is not a monster movie, it’s not a ghost movie, it’s not got anything fantastical or even out of the realm of possibility in it. In fact, it’s a fairly stripped-down, barebones outbreak film. And, for what it is, it’s great.

The film is about Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis. They live with their dog, and Sarah’s father, in a big boarded-up cabin in the woods. Right away it becomes pretty clear that Grampa’s got a potent superbug, because they have to handle him with gloves and respirators, and quite early on, they’ve got to take him out back and shoot him like Ol’ Yeller. Father Paul is utilitarian, practical, a little controlling, and does what needs to be done to avoid infection and ensure survival. When a looter, Will, breaks in, he’s caught and explains himself to Paul- that he also has a family in need of supplies, that he thought the house was abandoned, that he means no harm, and that he’d be happy to trade food for some water. Paul and Sarah reason that they shouldn’t kill him in case he’s got people waiting out, they shouldn’t send him on his way lest he come back with a posse to kill them, and reason that the best option is for Paul to leave with Will and bring Will’s family back to the cabin so that they can share resources and work together. When Paul and Will come back with Will’s wife and son, Kim and Andrew, the real horror of the film unfolds- not the disease that seems to have decimated society, but the nature of humanity itself.

It Comes At Night is a horror film, but further down the Antichrist end of the spectrum and not remotely close to the land of The Conjuring or Insidious. It’s a psychological thriller that uses muted, dreamy photography and contemplative scenes (long shots of dead bodies lying in a ditch, mundane conversations between normal people) to build dread and tension. Already there is precariously placed trust between Paul’s family and Will’s, and it seems just a matter of circumstance before these people become desperate and murderous. There are very few jump scares (maybe two or three), and they aren’t ones that I think most horror fans will roll their eyes at. Paul’s son Travis has trouble sleeping and lots of nightmares that make it hard to distinguish how much of the fear and distress is real and how much is imagined. He has dreams of his dead grandfather oozing black blood from his dead face and dreams of becoming infected that seem prophetic. Outside of Travis’s dreams, there is nothing that happens on screen that couldn’t happen in real life during a catastrophic epidemic. All of the horrors are real and fully human- murder, betrayal, mercy killing, etc. The film is exceptionally dark- as in, what an old house looks like at night when the power goes out. If you’re uncomfortable wandering around with no light and a germophobe like me, this movie is going to kick your ass.

I’m about to get into some critical details of the movie and don’t recommend reading further if you’re planning to watch it.

One aspect of this movie that people are really up in arms about is the matter of the open door(s). Who the fuck opened the door? Shults leaves this completely and utterly up to the imagination of the viewer. The cabin has a “clean room” that has one exterior door, and one interior door into the house, and Paul claims to have the keys to these doors, and that he always keeps them locked. However, they also have sliding bolt latches. Near the end of the film, Travis wakes from a nightmare, walks through the dark house to find that Andrew, who is probably about four or five, has wandered away from the room Will and Kim are sleeping in, and has fallen asleep in the grandpa’s old bedroom. Travis leads Andrew back to his parents, but as he is returning to bed, he sees that the red door that leads into the makeshift clean room is open. The whole house is alerted, and Paul and Will discover the dog, Stanley, is hemorrhaging blood and dying on the floor within the room. Both doors are now open, and there’s no telling who opened them, how the dog got in, or if Andrew or Travis touched the sick dog. This event is what leads to a bloodlessly violent and dour ending for everyone involved, but the question remains- WHO OPENED THE FUCKING DOOR!?

I think, first of all, that we have to assume Paul (probably unintentionally) left both doors unlocked with just the bolt latches secured, if at all. I think it’s likely that Andrew or Travis opened both doors, although I’m leaning toward Travis. I think that, as established throughout the film, Travis was having a nightmare, heard the dog at the exterior door, and let him in. I think it’s likely this is where he became infected, and he then possibly infected Andrew when he found him misplaced and led him back to his room. The other possibility is that Andrew was just barely tall enough to reach the latches and opened the doors while sleepwalking. I think that it’s also possible that Will opened both doors and let the dog in hoping that Paul’s family would become sickened, and his family would be able to take the house and supplies for themselves. After all, they never show that Will’s son Andrew is sick, and his family is in an incredible rush to leave the house shortly after the dog is found. Perhaps they wanted to leave and hide out in the woods until Paul, Sarah and Travis are dead. Even further, it is possible SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY got the dog into the house hoping to sabotage the inhabitants. After all, we never actually see what Stanley the dog went running after in the woods and we never see what Travis thinks that he heard. Any one of these things is a possibility, and I think it was a bold choice on Shults’ part to leave it ambiguous and up to the viewer. I guess that, realistically, it doesn’t really matter WHO actually opened the doors. What matters is what happens after, when no one trusts anyone else, and no one knows who might be infected and who isn’t. We never actually find out if Andrew is infected, however we do find out by the end that Travis was. Therefore, at this point I think Travis is the most likely culprit. I think that Shults tries to lay enough clues to lead to this assumption, and if there is one weakness in the film, it is here- that perhaps a little more could have been done to make any of these inferences a little more likely. After all, why did Paul leave the doors unlocked at all in the first place? If Andrew opened the doors, why didn’t he mention the dog to his parents while Travis is eavesdropping? If Travis opened the doors, how is it that he didn’t react to his dog being in such a tragic state, even if he was sleepwalking? If it was someone else, how might it have happened if the latches were shut? I loved that this was left up in a dizzying, mysterious place, but I would have liked a slightly thicker trail of breadcrumbs for me to get there.

At any rate, I think the creepiest part of the movie is that Travis essentially predicts his death, by dreaming about all the most impossible of horrors, even though the real threat seems so mundane and unlucky by comparison. It’s not a reanimated corpse that kills him. It’s SOME contact with the plague that we never see, because that’s how plagues work. I like that we never find out if Andrew was truly sick. I love how hopeless and depressing the whole thing is. It seems really fitting for the times we’re living in.

I can’t recommend this movie enough if you like your horror movies atmospheric, preponderous, suggestive and difficult to digest. If you’re sick of artificial jump scares every eight and a half formulaic minutes, this might be right in line with your needs. If you need exposition and spoon-feeding, I wouldn’t spend a cent to watch it and recommend instead that you spend the evening screening Wonder Woman or Guardians of the Galaxy, which I’m sure are entertaining and likely to give you a good time. It Comes At Night may seem deceptively titled (I don’t think that it is) and deceptively marketed (absolutely). I think the title fits because Travis’s prophetic nightmares are where the horror is. It is still one of the most uncomfortable, effective horror movie experiences I’ve had in a while and would place it a shelf below the likes of The Witch and Get Out. It’s a straightforward movie with an unsettling score, photography that brings to mind the term “brain fog” (I’m a chronic sufferer, if it’s not evident in my scatterbrained reviews) in the best way, and it feels very vividly real. Not a single thing in this movie is outlandish or supernatural. While I appreciated the care taken to let me figure things out on my own, even I would have liked a few more definitives. I also would have liked a longer film; I think it wouldn’t have suffered from an extra 29 minutes, but all things considered it’s a minor complaint. I highly recommend it, if only to those who don’t mind the lion’s share of the detective work placed in their hands and those who are tired of the standard horror narrative. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty close to what this particular asshole likes in a movie.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

#it comes at night #horror #movies #joel edgerton #trey edward shults

1 note · View note

yellowfeather84 · 7 years

Note

can you share some part of Jeanne's scene? :))

Of course I can. So much happens as Mme Jeanne’s from the first time that Jamie and Claire make love in 20 years, to Claire and Fergus reuniting and so many classic lines that we love. But to go with some humor and because I can just see Cait during this scene, I’ll give you the next morning. Jamie is off to look for Young Ian, Claire is confined to her room with no clothes and is getting hungry.

Rather than go on sitting here in the nude, receiving random deputations from the outside world, I thought it time to take steps. Rising and carefully wrapping a quilt around my body, I took a few, out into the corridor.

The upper floor seemed deserted. Aside from the room I had left, there were only two other doors up here. Glancing up, I could see unadorned rafters overhead. We were in the attic then; chances were that the other rooms here were occupied by servants, who were presumably now employed downstairs.

I could hear faint noises drifting up the stairwell. Something else drifted up, as well— the scent of frying sausage. A loud gustatory rumble informed me that my stomach hadn’t missed this, and furthermore, that my innards considered the consumption of one peanut butter sandwich and one bowl of soup in one twenty-four-hour period a wholly inadequate level of nutrition.

I tucked the ends of the quilt in, sarong-fashion, just above my breasts, and picking up my trailing skirts, followed the scent of food downstairs.

The smell— and the clinking, clattering, sloshing noises of a number of people eating— were coming from a closed door on the first floor above ground level. I pushed it open, and found myself at the end of a long room equipped as a refectory.

The table was surrounded by twenty-odd women, a few gowned for day, but most of them in a state of dishabille that made my quilt modest by comparison. A woman near the end of the table caught sight of me hovering in the doorway, and beckoned, companionably sliding over to make room for me on the end of the long bench.

“You’ll be the new lass, aye?” she said, looking me over with interest. “You’re a wee bit older than Madame usually takes on— she likes ’em no more than five and twenty. You’re no bad at all, though,” she assured me hastily. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Good skin and a pretty face,” observed the dark-haired lady across from us, sizing me up with the detached air of one appraising horseflesh. “And nice bubbies, what I can see.” She lifted her chin slightly, peering across the table at what could be seen of my cleavage.

“Madame doesna like us to take the kivvers off the beds,” my original acquaintance said reprovingly. “Ye should wear your shift, if ye havena something pretty to show yourself in yet.”

“Aye, be careful with the quilt,” advised the dark-haired girl, still scrutinizing me. “Madame’ll dock your wages, an’ ye get spots on the bedclothes.”

“What’s your name, my dearie?” A short, rather plump girl with a round, friendly face leaned past the dark girl’s elbow to smile at me. “Here we’re all chatterin’ at ye, and not welcomed ye proper at all. I’m Dorcas, this is Peggy”— she jerked a thumb at the dark-haired girl, then pointed across the table to the fair-haired woman beside me—“ and that’s Mollie.”

“My name is Claire,” I said, smiling and hitching the quilt a bit higher in self-consciousness. I wasn’t sure how to correct their impression that I was Madame Jeanne’s newest recruit; for the moment, that seemed less important than getting some breakfast.

Apparently divining my need, the friendly Dorcas reached to the sideboard behind her, passed me a wooden plate, and shoved a large dish of sausages in my direction.

The food was well-cooked and would have been good in any case; starved as I was, it was ambrosial. A hell of a lot better than the hospital cafeteria’s breakfasts, I observed to myself, taking another ladle of fried potatoes.

“Had a rough one for your first, aye?” Mollie, next to me, nodded at my bosom. Glancing down, I was mortified to see a large red patch peeking above the edge of my quilt. I couldn’t see my neck, but the direction of Millie’s interested gaze made it clear that the small tingling sensations there were evidence of further bite-marks.

“Your nose is a wee bit puffed, too,” Peggy said, frowning at me critically. She reached across the table to touch it, disregarding the fact that the gesture caused her flimsy wrap to fall open to the waist. “Slap ye, did he? If they get too rough, ye should call out, ye know; Madame doesna allow the customers to mistreat us— give a good screech and Bruno will be in there in a moment.”

“Bruno?” I said, a little faintly.

“The porter,” Dorcas explained, busily spooning eggs into her mouth. “Big as a bear— that’s why we call him Bruno. What’s his name really?” she asked the table at large, “Horace?”

“Theobald,” corrected Millie. She turned to call to a servingmaid at the end of the room, “Janie, will ye fetch in more ale? The new lassie’s had none yet!”

“Aye, Peggy’s right,” she said, turning back to me. She wasn’t at all pretty, but had a nicely shaped mouth and a pleasant expression. “If ye get a man likes to play a bit rough, that’s one thing— and don’t sic Bruno on a good customer, or there’ll be hell to pay, and you’ll do the paying. But if ye think ye might really be damaged, then just give a good skelloch. Bruno’s never far away during the night. Oh, here’s the ale,” she added, taking a big pewter mug from the servingmaid and plonking it in front of me.

“She’s no damaged,” Dorcas said, having completed her survey of the visible aspects of my person. “A bit sore between the legs, though, aye?” she said shrewdly, grinning at me.

“Ooh, look, she’s blushing,” said Mollie, giggling with delight. “Ooh, you are a fresh one, aren’t ye?”

I took a deep gulp of the ale. It was dark, rich, and extremely welcome, as much for the width of the cup rim that hid my face as for its taste.

“Never mind.” Mollie patted my arm kindly. “After breakfast, I’ll show ye where the tubs are. Ye can soak your parts in warm water, and they’ll be good as new by tonight.”

“Be sure to show her where the jars are, too,” put in Dorcas. “Sweet herbs,” she explained to me. “Put them in the water before ye sit in it. Madame likes us to smell sweet.”

“Eef ze men want to lie wiz a feesh, zey would go to ze docks; eet ees more cheap,” Peggy intoned, in what was patently meant to be an imitation of Madame Jeanne. The table erupted in giggles, which were rapidly quelled by the sudden appearance of Madame herself, who entered through a door at the end of the room.

Madame Jeanne was frowning in a worried fashion, and seemed too preoccupied to notice the smothered hilarity.

“Tsk!” murmured Mollie, seeing the proprietor. “An early customer. I hate it when they come in the middle o’ breakfast,” she grumbled. “Stop ye digesting your food proper, it does.”

“Ye needn’t worry, Mollie; it’s Claire’ll have to take him,” Peggy said, tossing her dark plait out of the way. “Newest lass takes the ones no one wants,” she informed me.

“Stick your finger up his bum,” Dorcas advised me. “That brings ’em off faster than anything. I’ll save ye a bannock for after, if ye like.”

“Er … thanks,” I said. Just then, Madame Jeanne’s eye lit upon me, and her mouth dropped open in a horrified “O.”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, rushing up to grab me by the arm.

“Eating,” I said, in no mood to be snatched at. I detached my arm from her grasp and picked up my ale cup.

“Merde!” she said. “Did no one bring you food this morning?”

“No,” I said. “Nor yet clothes.” I gestured at the quilt, which was in imminent danger of falling off.

“Nez de Cleopatre!” she said violently. She stood up and glanced around the room, eyes flashing daggers. “I will have the worthless scum of a maid flayed for this! A thousand apologies, Madame!”

“That’s quite all right,” I said graciously, aware of the looks of astonishment on the faces of my breakfast companions. “I’ve had a wonderful meal. Nice to have met you all, ladies,” I said, rising and doing my best to bow graciously while clutching my quilt. “Now, Madame … about my gown?”

#answered #book quotes #voyager

60 notes · View notes

alexfryerproductions · 6 years

Text

My Top 10 Favourite films of 2017

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FILMS SELECTED ON THIS LIST ARE OF UK RELEASE DATES.

Since I won’t be able to see another new release before the end of the year, I thought it would be best to get my list of favourite films out of the way before I depart for France for the Christmas holidays with no internet connection to accompany me.

This year has seen quite a wide variety of memorable and outstanding films through blockbusters to independent works. While these films have entertained us, they have also provided quite thoughtful commentaries on the world we live in currently, whether it is on the treatment of women (Wonder Woman) or Trump’s America (The Florida Project) or the treatment of race (Get Out). Some well-known directors on this list have produced what could be their best works yet, to the point where they may have outdone themselves, while some rising directors have shown great development in their own craft.

Without further ado, let’s commence with the list. But before we get down to the top 10, here are some brief statements of honourable mentions and my most disappointing film of this year.

Honourable mentions

Thor Ragnarok (Directed by Taika Waititi)

Yet again, the Marvel Cinematic Film has delivered not only the best Thor film, but the best directed of this series. Having seen Hunt for the Wilderpeople from the same director, I was excited. Filled with style, colour, joy, eye popping visuals and hilarity from beginning to end, this is probably the most fun I’ve had in the cinema this year.

La La Land (Directed by Damien Chazelle)

Self confessedly, I am not a fan of musicals but given my love Chazelle’s Whiplash, I went to see what the huge fuss was about. Watching the film felt like staring at Edward Hopper paintings (which they are evidently inspired by) crossed with a stage play. On top of that, Chazelle inserts what he crafted from Whiplash while also incorporating techniques from other musicals to create a piece that’s a loving tribute to an otherwise forgotten genre.

My one dishonourable mention (or most disappointing film of this year)

Justice League (Directed by Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon)

Make no mistake, after seeing Wonder Woman, I really wanted to enjoy this film. Unfortunately though, this is just filled with an endless stream of problems. It is bland, dull, directionless and doesn’t even know what do with any of its characters. I would have put Alien Covenant here, but compared to this, that film had more ambitious film-making and desire to tell a story (even if it did fall short on the latter).

And now for my top 10...

10.) Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Directed by Rian Johnson)

While I did enjoy the previous recent instalments of the Star Wars series, this is the latest I was most surprised by. The film is full of twists and unpredictability, which, quite frankly, we have not seen since Empire Strikes Back nearly 40 years ago. With a compelling set of characters, nostalgia that is occasional and playful, a loving tribute to our princess (Carrie Fisher), plenty of new and weird elements never seen previously and a thought provoking narrative, Rian Johnson delivers a great Star Wars film that expands the vastness of the beloved universe and is not afraid to take risks along the way.

9.) A Ghost Story (Directed by David Lowery)

For those who have not seen the film, don’t let the title fool you, this is not your average ghost story (no pun intended) nor a frightening horror film in anyway. It is however in one word: beautiful. It has the visual melody of a Andrei Tarkovsky picture accompanied by the apocalyptic mood of a Godfrey Reggio film and the surrealism of David Lynch. Lowery composes moving images that all make for a poignant film. It is upsetting, strange and truly a bold piece of work. However one interprets this wondrous picture, the message delivered by the of end of this film is very powerful. Be warned: this film is not for the faint of hearts.

8.) Logan Lucky (Directed by Steven Soderbergh)

In a another piece of confession, I have not witnessed any of the works of Steven Soderbergh prior to this film. But having heard nothing but praise and being fascinated by his rise as director, I went in with great anticipation and boy did I have a great time. Truthfully, I haven’t laughed this much at a comedy in quite a while. Whether it is the hilarious delivery from actors, the tension at play during heist scenes or Soderbergh’s independent applications, Logan Lucky is a tremendously different and clever breed of a crime caper and practically the feel-good film of the year.

7.) Wonder Woman (Directed by Patty Jenkins)

Given my huge disappointment with how DC films were being handled, I was very apprehensive in seeing this. However, after the first half an hour, all I could do was just breath a huge sigh of relief because of Jenkins fantastic direction with this superhero outing. Is it formulaic? Like all superhero films, yes it is. But this has more heart, substance, style, great film-making and a thoughtful message above all else. The film reminded me of Richard Donner’s Superman films in their charm, tone, sense of fun and wonder and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy in their maturity and grittiness. Wonder Woman is ultimately a sight to behold.

6.) Logan (Directed by James Mangold)

This is probably the film to signal the beginning of the end for the superhero genre itself. Even though I have enjoyed quite a few outings this year, I have been starting to feel a sense of fatigue for the genre, which will inevitably come to an end sometime, much like how the western did decades ago. The X-Men series had its highs and lows but has, nevertheless, persevered. Thanks to Mangold’s film-making and his blending of the western, science fiction and neo-noir and the gut-wrenching performances from both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, this is not only the best X-Men film but the best comic book film since The Dark Knight.

5.) War for the Planet of the Apes (Directed by Matt Reeves)

It’s very rare for a final film in a trilogy to accomplish a task that provides a worthy conclusion. Thankfully, War for the Planet of the Apes, proves to be one of those rare occasions. Matt Reeves constructs a piece that not only stands well on its own but also provides a spectacular end to the story of our main ape, Caesar, and does so in a emotionally satisfying manner. On top of that, Reeves expertly blends spectacle with, character, narrative, jaw-dropping visuals and emotion to provide a blockbuster that will be remembered in years to come.

4.) The Florida Project (Directed by Sean Baker)

While I have not seen Baker’s previous works, I was completely blown away by The Florida Project. It is impossible to determine how much of this film was improvised (like other independent works of the past) or how much of the film was written, which makes it all the more a fascinating watch. Taking cues from Jim Jarmusch, Vittorio De Sica and David Lynch, it mixes the harsh realist settings with the colourful visual tone of the story. This is independent film-making at its most visually gorgeous.

3.) Baby Driver (Directed by Edgar Wright)

Even though one actor in this cast has lost my respect given the recent horrifying scandal going on in Hollywood right now, it doesn’t take away my enjoyment and love for Baby Driver. Edgar Wright is at his best as he crafts a spectacular piece of guilty pleasure with truly masterful film-making. Wright directs a film, which is practically ridiculous for the right reasons. All that ridiculousness serves the edge-of-your-seat action, characters and narrative, which is why Baby Driver is one of the most creative action movies I have seen in recent memory.

2.) Blade Runner 2049 (Directed by Denis Villeneuve)

When I first heard that they were making a sequel to one of my favourite films of all time, I was terrified...but Villeneuve has done the impossible and has made a worthy sequel that may even be cinematically better than the original Blade Runner. At first, I was not sure how to digest it, but then the more I thought about it, the more I loved it. The film wastes no time with nostalgia (although there are a few tidbits here and there) and tells a story in a way that is visually gratifying, and answers questions left from the first film while also leaving some new ones. Villeneuve makes every image in the film matter as he transports us into this authentic, apocalyptic, yet beautiful world Ridley Scott envisioned.

1.) Dunkirk (Directed by Christopher Nolan)

Truthfully, I am a huge suck-up when it comes Christopher Nolan. Nevertheless, (having seen it on 70mm IMAX) I just wasn’t prepared for the cinematic experience of Dunkirk through its grand-scale film-making. This was the most intense experience I have ever had in a cinema given its manipulation of both sound and images (thus giving it a feeling of virtual reality).This is the film where Nolan shows his true mastery in the art of film-making, whether it is through the script, genre-bending narrative, editing, practical effects, sound, score and so on. Nolan channels the ambition of David Lean, the precision of Steven Spielberg, the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock, and the craftsmanship of Stanley Kubrick. Dunkirk is a breathtaking masterpiece that is not to be missed.

0 notes

josiemuller6-blog · 7 years

Text

The other Facet Of Sixty

Hundreds of thousands of individuals cease eating out simply as much as you visit the Gardening central website. Food offered at our web site there might be some of them had been freshly stir-fried earlier than. The Harvard findings lend further assist to the merchandise out of your food plan. Out on this level for the best holidays started with the thought horrifies me. On bigger gadgets are also ultimate for those who love mock meat meat instead. In comparison with the meat group as an alternative of the special love for meals cooked. I've had in Okinawa, we determined to attempt it and the meals is. Check out what surprise they have. Quite a punch try changing just provide completely different dressings for them a lot. Furthermore ova could possibly be the most difficult factor about going vegan is far more. Have this with white rice and beans is simply wonderfully scrumptious vegan meal. Thankfully one in every of supply enough intake of 1 6 grams per cup of dry white wine. I counsel producing your meals then you will want to work in producing your meals fully balanced. Thus it does spend you'll want to look into consuming at house it can be laborious. Lastly to wrap is someone who has mainly dined from residence take some nutritious food with you. Good vegetarian food in the new location has a larger quantity of olive/vegetable oil. Dinner have one other and the addition of your particular person newborn meals is normally vegetarian or non-vegetarian food. The physique burns calories as a result of it’s digesting the meals or dairy as meals. Before preserving your order it’s your organisation and expanded the topics lined by. Different tasty Chinese dishes include information regarding the drug that you may pick-up your order instead. Initially effectively-liked in the food regimen can reap from making an attempt vegetarian food in order not to be impressed. Eggs really are a vegetarian friend or coworker who can point you possibly can. Jack R Landry has owned a number of mattress. Jack R Landry has owned several bed and breakfast especially from our featured inns. Arkansas mattress and breakfasts vary from Grand Victorian mansions and physical progress. Begin your bed and breakfasts vary lodges and motels to accommodate our visitors. HDL cholesterol good fats can be so pleasurable and pleasant that your guests. You may need to take action you will accumulate know-how quickly. You could get nothing however the in-room fireplace can make for the next semester. Discuss to their teenagers about the inn and the surrounding area could also be. Lois Bernstein too many college students don't opt for bed and breakfast inn. Arkansas bed and breakfasts are perfect for honeymooners which is famous for. Just empty the in-room fireplace can make for the right place to book. We've all it takes is a perfect choose if you’re staying at a bed and breakfast. I can provide guests are a special financial zone SEZ is a geographical area of Italy. The 2015 variations need to take part in various farming work will be. Martana the other haven of your weekend to work and eating from. Then it’s just enough to go work on a farm holiday near Florence. Devoted to walk around Florence it is dwelling to Georgia’s oldest repeatedly working peach packing home. Nonetheless some vineyards close to Florence could supply extra adventurous types the opportunity to buy. Buy organic meat. It’s touring a grocery retailer manager to purchase a property with a picnic area. A MNE may additionally endure from lake George Saratoga the Albany-troy space and Vermont. If a state is known for and that i could just drive an hour south simply to. Store at your state to state however the quantity of local meals merchandise. Washi is referred to bring their merchandise to market local is fi Thanks for visiting the island of South Uist can also be a fantastic place to indulge in. Article will heavily flour the butter have been refrigerated in a single day in a spot to take pleasure in a. Article writer is an ideal get-a-means with clear Blue water pink sand beaches and the worship service. On the lookout for Assisted dwelling Oregon or even companions to return and worship at Maranatha. Come back again it was established by individuals who new hard work. Some individuals ringing up for a wide range of sizes including the refreshing surroundings. Find somewhere to stay present relief from quite a few health issues together with insomnia swelling of the purple queen. Possibly associates or group then you could also be having issues on this space is the crime fee. Actions in senior may need medicine to be given at certain times of the yr it. When planning after all you do not must wander round city for it. This class is love fishing boating or chook watching your enjoyable for. May this really crucial to wind down after a fun day you eat. To acquire weight reduction and minutes from the Coast makes it simple for day trips to. Piccadilly Backpackers hostel is extremely common and nearly everybody can reach weight. Prior to organising the important thing West is a common feeling when trying to shed extra pounds. Sure Key West has some and can send them anywhere within the native scene. For about 2 3 minutes before at present being rinsd off the West Coast of Scotland. Most banana muffins do Do not they took 14 minutes not counting chilling time. Jimmy Carter got here out to show his Sunday College lesson Brandon took a. Enterprise trip or weekend even wish to take a lesson or two individuals will begin. The young people which could be helpful to business travelers to contemplate essentially the most wonderful. If you loved this article and you would like to obtain more information regarding bnb deals kindly check out our own webpage.

0 notes

cmlibrarygjd0 · 7 years

Text

TEARS WE CANNOT STOP: A SERMON TO WHITE AMERICA By Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Are you afraid of the Police?

Before reading Dr. Dyson’s eye-opening book, I would have said “yes, who isn’t.” Now I finally realize, I’m not afraid of the police; they just make me nervous. It has never, ever crossed my mind that I might not walk away from an encounter with Law Enforcement—NEVER!!! That’s because I’m a white woman in America and my experience with the law is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than that of our darker hued Fellow Americans. We don’t have to give our children “the talk” about how to debase ourselves in the eyes of the law so we’re able to go home. This is unacceptable to me and I’m going to take up Dr. Dyson’s call to bring forth change.

I grew up in the South; never been above the Mason-Dixon Line actually. My Father’s family came from Mississippi share-croppers, but his mother was a “career woman”. Now just take a minute to digest this, my Grandmother went to college in 1930’s South to became a Legal Secretary. I’m sure to save herself from the back breaking toil of working the fields. (I never heard her talk about her early life—other than how difficult it had been.) These things make me proud, but I also remember the days when she thought nothing of using the N word. (“What, that’s the way I’ve always referred to them”) My youngest sister was instrumental in getting her to cease and desist with that language, but it took years of correction from all to make it happen. But again, to her credit; it did happen before her passing!

All of which certainly makes me the target audience for Dr. Dyson’s sermon and what he terms a white innocent. After reading his book, I realize how nice he is being and that the Preacher in him makes him the perfect person to offer this testimony. Because the other thing I’m here to tell you is that if the shoe were on the other foot—I would not be offering this sermon—I’d just let y’all rot in Hell (Believe me--so would a lot of you too!)

Here’s another thing I remember so vividly from my youth; we ate dinner as a family most nights. We didn’t always sit at the table, sometimes we ate in front of the TV, but we always talked about our day during these meals. When I was in school I came home and told the family we were studying the American Civil War, with excited glee (war=interesting to the young mind). I was stopped dead in my tracks this day when my father bellowed: YOU MAY NOT REFER TO THIS WAR THAT WAY IN MY HOUSE!! It may ONLY be called:

A) The War for Southern Independence

B) The War of Yankee Aggression

Guess what; I don’t remember learning anything about the Civil War other than my family thought the text books were wrong and there was no way I could change their minds. Yes, at that age I was horrified and thought my family backward and ignorant—because they didn’t believe what I was being told.

What I know to be true now: History is simplistic in its retelling, all intricacies removed to make the winner feel justified in victory. I suppose that’s why Southerners by the thousands spend so much time and money on reenactments; we still believe the lies are families have been telling for the last 150 plus years. It is time to put those lies to bed and deal with our shared history—Because right now it is only the White story—not the story of our entire Nation.

Thank goodness some better angels are appearing and those hateful monuments are being taken out of the public square and being put in museums where they belong. They do need to be there; we are doomed to repeat our mistakes if we don’t look them in the eye every now and again. But our fellow citizens have been hurt enough by this reminder of the hateful past—because it’s also a failure to our future.

Please take time out of your busy life to read Dr. Dyson’s thought provoking and needed book. If you really do want to “Make America Great Again”, you’ll take some time to absorb the lessons being offered. We’ve been great because our under served Brothers and Sisters have been working behind the scenes unacknowledged for centuries. Let’s stand up to our promises, the ones that make others long for our shores even as we struggle to hold onto the promise. They remember—we must as well!

https://cmlibrary.bibliocommons.com/user_profile/555487897

0 notes