#IT'S CRIMINAL I HAVEN'T CAUSE MY LORD I LOVE THEM

[amarynthian-chronicles]

Hello, hello!

Welcome, make yourself comfortable, here are some cakes, tea and hot chocolate, and enjoy your stay. In this little pocket dimension of a blog, you will mostly find posts about our Celestial Jesters and other FNAF content, along with space-themed aesthetic, writing, some silly whimsical quotes, comfy vibes and similar.

I shall be tagging my own writing posts under "jester's privilege chronicles" (these are especially for my longer works) and "amary's chronicles" (these are especially for my shorter little scenes), to make it easier to navigate or find them. For answered asks the tags are "amary answers" and "amary speaks", to find them easily in case they get buried in reblogs. As of recent, I made the tag "amary's art" for my doodles, although I am still a beginner.

Under the cut are links to my AO3 fics and summaries of the current ones, if you are interested!

Have a lovely day and enjoy your stay!

Jester's Privilege Chronicles series:

Sound the Bells: You are a mermaid in charge of the daunting task of managing the sea and your court consists of playful twin Leviathans and an uncooperative Kraken. You also have the disadvantage of being an utter disaster at this mermaid business and you live on land in human form, having the swimming skills of a rock.

Your sea monsters are not too thrilled with you living on land, so they love to cause shipwrecks and general mayhem to get your attention. You try to place a stop to this by having them spend a month with you in the town of Celestial Bay disguised as animatronics.

Sun is thrilled to explore human technology, Moon prowls the night threatening city council members into making better legal acts to protect the sea against pollution, and Eclipse's natural protective Kraken instincts are getting a tad bit out of hand and making him the friendly neighbourhood serial killer. He loves quick solutions to complex problems.

Officer Vanessa is the only one brave enough to keep knocking on your door for some explanations. She is also in charge of a very confused police unit that really needs to get some sleep.

Extended Contract: You are a witch that fell for the oldest trick in the book by giving your name to the mischievous Fae princes of the Celestial Court. Such an inconvenience on what was supposed to be a typical office night. You are honestly not having it. They, however, do seem quite happy about having you. You decide to make a deal with the Fae King to regain your freedom. The only thing that is functional in the whole situation is your phone signal in the Fae Kingdom.

Tip the Scales: You are a charismatic defense lawyer in a constant competition with two ruthless prosecutors that do not understand your ideals about criminals deserving a second chance. You are also housemates with a certain bitter and retired judge, who has a habit of operating at night as a cloaked figure known as the Judge of the Damned, serving justice as he deems fit according to his own moral ideals. In order to solve his frequent habit of going after your clients, you two had established a game of Tip the Scales to keep a balance of which person deserves redemption and who is condemned to damnation. Things get complicated when an old friend gets wrongfully accused. You do all in your power to convince your prosecutor rivals to secretly cooperate with you and help clear his name before you lose the game.

Our Guest: You arrive at a sinister and luxurious castle with the innocent intention of checking why its mysterious residents haven't been paying any taxes or utilities for the past several centuries. Very useful excuse for a vampire hunter to have when trying to do some good old infiltrating. The three vampire lords, however, fully intend to capture and seduce you, possibly give your pretty neck a bite or two, but all of that does get a bit complicated when you are being such a tease and constantly asking them about their financial books. Will they succeed in the task of making you theirs, dear Y/N? And are they onto your little schemes?

[starheirxero]

HOLY SHIT- HOLY. SHIT. I CAN'T BELIEVE, EVIL EARTH IS BACK-

I HONESTLY DIDN'T THINK, WE'D HEAR FROM THE OTHER DIMENSIONS AGAIN-

THIS ENTIRE EPISODE WAS SO FASCINATING!!!

Earth's entire character revolves around making people happy! She is the caretaker, the therapist, the golden child.

She is kind to a fault, always wanting everyone to be happy, and putting the people around her above her.

She was created and taught to do so. It's her purpose.

THIS IS SUCH A CLEVER SPIN TO HER CHARACTER-

Taking the character trait that defines her the most, and twisting it into something sinister?? Holy shit, I love that!!!

This truly makes her feel in-character, while still giving her a chilling edge!

Instead of simply trying to make people happy, she's actively forcing them to! Even brainwashing them with camps!

And if they can't be happy? If they won't be? Then they are tainting her perfect utopia, and need to die.

This Earth seems to idolize the Creator a lot more, or he, at the very least, generally seems to have rubbed off on her, considering her apathy towards her sinister actions!

I cannot describe to you, how much I love this!!

I'm also really interested in her dynamic with her brothers, and the general world-building!

For one, she actively mentions, that their hatred for her comes from a place of prejudice, because she's a robot. The Creator's robot, to make it worse.

I love, how they consistently throw in humans' distaste for animatronics, and the latter's lack of rights!

Though in this case, that's definitely not it-

She also generally seems to take more of an older sister role? The way she talks to her Lunar sounds like an indeared older sibling, using a higher tone and generally seeming amused by their antics! Also her mentions of them being "silly" again, much like an older sibling indulging in her little sibling's games. This also plays into her patiently explaining everything.

I can't quite say for her dynamic with Moon, though it has shifted somehow!

There's little to go off, when analyzing the brothers, though they too seem generally more apathetic, and honestly tired. Especially Moon.

It's also interesting to note, that this Lunar apparently has a lot of memory issues, the humans actively meddling with their systems to put them against their sister! So much so, that Earth seems very much used to it!

This world fascinates me so much, and I hope, we'll see them again!

With her comeback, I also have hopes to see the other AUs again!

Listen- I need Lunara to make an appearance- I need them to be an antagonistic maniac- I need to know more about their resets, and how long it's been going on- I need them in my life-

I really hope to see a glimpse of Lord Lunar and Servant Eclipse again, and see if their dynamic has shifted since Gregory came by-

I want God Eclipse to be a smug bastard-

I also want go give a shout out to Ruin for being absolutely UNHINGED when it comes to building- Buddy legit built a high tech spaceship in underneath a year, and got a hold on several whiterstorm pieces-

And it feels CRIMINAL not to at least mention Earth's dream episode- Which I haven't done, cause brain fog-

It made me incredibly emotional too!! It's just-

The atmosphere was so incredibly somber…

Earth KNEW, he wasn't real, yet still found comfort in his memory-

OUCH-

-Stardust

YEHWYSYAYAYYAYAYA I KNOW RIGHT!!!!! GENUINELY I'M SO HAPPY THEY BROUGHT HER BACK AND SHOWED OFF MORE OF HER CHARACTER AND HER WORLD IT MADE ME SO HAPPYYYY!!!! I always thought it was a lil weak sauce that, last time, they just went "she's a dictator, evil enough!" so having them revisit her to elaborate and make her properly villainous is EVERYTHING TO MEEEE

AND YEA YEA YEA I LOVEEEE HOW THEY TWISTED HER MOTIVE!!! Exactly like u said abt her having more the Creator's influence, I adore that it's still distinctly her goal, it's just that she's not as emphatic about what she has to do to achieve that goal! And YEA the fact people were particularly displeased about her being the Creator's creation fascinates me.

In my heart I'm imagining someone in her universe made a very online callout post about her and her ties to the creator HSKAHSKS "ouf, unfollowing her now. i was a fan of her 'keep everyone happy' goal but i didn't know she was made by That guy 😬" LMAO

BUT ALSO WITH HER SIBLINGS YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!!! She's definitely more authoritative with them, especially with Moon just outright calling her "boss"?!?!!! Whatever is happening there has me SO INTRIGUED. It definitely make me wonder what the lead-up to all this looked like...

I was sort of talking about smth similar with a friend earlier, like. if any of them ever pushed back at any point, only to be put in their place, or if they've just always been too scared to work against her.....

SPECIFICALLY LUNAR HAS ME SO FASCINATED THO YEAH. I cannot explain why for the lofe of me but the fact they're usually a target of the rebel's attacks and have constant memory issues as a result just scratches smth in my brain I rlly like it HAKAHXK

AND YEAAAHHHHHH OH MY STARS IF ANY OTHER AUS ARE REVISITED I THINK I'D GENUINELY ASCEND. MY SOUL WOULD LEAVE MY BODY. EXTRA DETAILS AND INTERACTIONS... TSAMS... TLAES... IF YOU HEAR ME PLEASE HAJAHAJAHS

ANS RUIN YEAHSJQHSKHS IDK HOW ELSE TO DESCRIBE IT BUT LIKE. LITERAL SOLAF BEHAVIOR. THEY BOTH APPARENTLY LOVE TO WORK THEMSELVES SILLY 😭 AND EARTH'S EP I KNOWWW I KNWOEHHRGRHEGRHRGRG

Genuinely that whole ep was DEVASTATING. The whole "you don't know what he'd say, do you?" coming out of his own mouth had me MESSED UPPP 😭😭😭 1 MILLION EMOTIONS ATTACK FOREVER

[randomkposts]

I remember the starfish

I love Fire Emblem Fates. My favorite is Awakening, but Fates has a special place in my heart for all of its flaws, and plotholes I love to poke at. No malice meant, if I didn't care, I'd probably just leave it alone. Instead it takes up so much brainspace.

So I think I might want to write something a bit more themed another time, but for now I want to write some scattered thoughts.

First, If I were going to change just one thing, I would give Azura ,Kaze as a retainer. And Shura.

Why? It bugs me that she didn't have any retainers, and Corrin has 3 household staff, their teacher, a childhood best friend, and a Ninja, most of whom are willing to follow them even if they defect. That's pretty excessive, that they just have a small- personally loyal fighting force. And Kaze's just hanging around, a trained retainer not assinged to anyone. And really Mikoto, Azura is your niece, you can give her one retainer at least.

Kaze defecting to Nohr to protect his charge makes arguably more sense then his reasons for defecting to Nohr on Corrins behalf.

Azura recruiting Shura as a retainer, fits with the older of the Nohrian sibilings having a criminal retainer. They also have a personal history between them that would be intresting to explore in a support. A support with Ryoma would also be intresting, as Shura states his family used to serve the royal family until his principality was taken over by Mokushu, so learning more about that would be neat.

Speaking of retainers, Despite three Nobrian Siblings havinging a criminal as a retainer, the person with the weirdest retainers is Hinoka, for having the least retainer-like retainers in the game. And Ryoma has 2 ninjas as retainers, which perhaps says some odd things about his diplomatic choices.

Hinoka does her own chores, protects her retainers, and seems to barely know anything about Azama beforehand. Until we learn from her support with Niles in Revelations that Hinoka hired Setsuna for her skill in archery, I was almost convinced she was hired to annoy Takumi.

And yet they are the last retainers sticking around the Hoshidan royals when they are recruited in Revelations.

Hillarious. Baffling. Lends a diffrent weight to Hinokas support with Saizo in this route, not that it wasn't already weird, but there was more cause for suspicion.

Speaking of supports, Sakura takes Corrin's amnesia as a sign that Silas is cursed. Meanwhile, in Birthright Takumi gets mindwhammied and dragon posessed, and Sakura does nothing to try to help. Which to be fair, nither instance lasted long. Who knows if she could have done anything effective, but in the Conquest one she doesn't seem to take note of his dirastically changed attitude as something to worry about, yet was far quicker to diagnose Silas as "something was off. Maybe its cause Silas a stranger, and she doesn't want to see anything wrong with her closest brother, but I wonder what got her attention in the first place to draw that conclusion.

I haven't played Engage, but even without that I am pretty sure Corrin is the most watched avatar we have ever played. Their big sister Camilia and her retainers makes it 3 in a lifetime, as said by Selena/Severa.

"Selena: Lady Camilla! Sorry we got ahead of you. But you should have heard the horrible things Lord/Lady Corrin said to us. Even though we used to watch over them, they don't remember us at all. Sure, we always stuck to the shadows and never introduced ourselves... but still! I could cry right now. Really! I really could!

Beruka: All that time hovering... caring... watching... it was all for naught. They has no heart.

Camilla: Now, now, you two. I'm sure they didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm certain they would remember, given more time. You simply must forgive them."

No wonder Corrin is so chill with Ryoma's Ninjas and other people following them around.

A headcanon, Odin/Owain can use dragon Veins. Anankos can hide his brand, but he can't undo that he is decended from the Exalted line of Ylisse, a heritige who also formed a pact which presumably involved drinking dragons blood. (That does seem to be a series consistant for how one gets a stats edge, with consent of the dragon being pretty important in how well they control it. )

He uses it once by accident. Leo did see it, but never confronts him on it. Maybe they might be siblings, but if this is what kept him alive and he's happy with living his life, then Leo isn't going to be the one to tell anyone. One of them may as well be happy.

If I were going to change something about the Fates Kids, I would mess with Shiro. Ryoma never told him until recruitment that he was royalty. So what if Shiro, figuring Ryoma is impotant, but not connecting the dots (as in cannon) comes to the (incorrect) conclusion that he is the next Saizo. And so comes with the Ninja class, alomg with some family drama, lol.

I would also tone down Soleil's supports, and add some depths to the other kids, but ninja Shiro creating some family drama with the retainers is a concept that amuzes me

I'll end it here for now. Might write a second at some point.

[misc-obeyme]

Sprry for just answerimg a smoll part of thr ask my brain is m u s h rn (i jist woke up)

OH DANG but I love that idea about the maids and such in the castle! Demons that messed up so bad, now Barb keeps them at the castle to work??? What was that about not giving into the darkness???? lk;asdfkjlfd

that castle is huge and full of monsters. you can't tell me only lil D's and Barb & Dia live there. where are the guards ? the other workers?? little D's are more like silly children adopted by Barb- y'know when a family has debts to pay so the child goes to work at the castle

like that except there is no debt to pay they just want that lol

anyway so there are possibly more people in the castle, and Barb really doesn't.. do work that much. he mostly just bakes for Diavolo & when there are celebrations or other important things happening. that huge castle does not have one small kitchen istg the HOL's kitchen looks bigger 😭 and he also checks on the other worker's works, I prefer to think his duties are like Dia's. Diavolo is a very busy demon*, so he mostly does the work with people, and brings Justice™ to Devildom. ofc there are things Diavolo has to be present for, but most of the things are done either by Barbatos or people he chose (in different parts of the country, not everyone can meet the duke or the Prince himself.)

alright back on track I think the workers who work "above the ground" in castle are normal people/or "light" criminals or slaves left from war times (poor guys lol)

but lower, in the dangerous/more private parts of the castle like the dungeons or Diavolo's private garden The workers are poor souls who forgot everything they were. they're not allowed in the public unless its their body. I don'y think anyone truly knows if they've messed up so bad or Diavolo. just. just wanted them to work for him. cause theyre pretty perhaps?

And Barbatos is here to grant any of the young Lord's wishes.

*I still haven't thought of why Dia would be so damn busy I may even remove that part but its cool to think about. maybe he is still learning and chose Barb to do such things cause Barbatos knows all, and is trustable. idk really. but we know Dia is a spoiled brat so ?? maybe thats whats happening.

I really have to agree, there's no way Barbatos maintains that huge place by himself, demon or not. I've always headcanoned that he has a whole crew of helpers and guards and so on.

I also imagine the castle's kitchen to be absolutely ginormous. And he probably has a whole crew of cooks, too.

I like to think most of them don't live at the castle, though. Like they just work there and come and go and have varying shifts. Uhh but that's if they're just normal people and not criminals lol!

I suppose whether or not they actually did something terrible has to do with how deranged you want Diavolo to be. Like if he was really kinda off the deep end, he could absolutely just obtain people he thinks are pretty and for no other reason. That's real villain behavior generally speaking. But if you want him to be a little less that way, you could say they were criminals. Then at least there's a legit reason for it, even if the punishment is a bit intense... they are demons, so really there's a lot of ways you can go with it!

As for Diavolo being busy, I'm pretty sure it's canon that he is. I suspect it has to do with all of the crap that comes with ruling a kingdom. Paperwork, diplomatic meetings, making appearances at various functions, consulting with experts on things like constructions projects and the economy, and if Diavolo also has his own company in the human world, he likely needs to make appearances at meetings there, too... I'm just saying his canon job is extremely demanding. And then add RAD stuff to all that? Sheesh.

But this is one of the best parts of the castle stuff - they don't really get into a lot of detail about it. So you get to fill in all the details however you like!

[caenith]

Hiiya if it's not to dumb of a question for I haven't managed to read The Silmarillion yet (such a bummer!) but why is Elrond so afraid of oaths? What kind of trauma did they cause him? D:

Hey! There are absolutely no dumb questions! Especially not in the silm fandom, where it is sometimes really hard to differentiate between canon, headcanon and sort of canon because Tolkien mentioned it in that one letter😅 Asking questions is just the everyday reality here!

I'd say that Elrond's fear of oaths is more of the fandom thing - in The Lord of the Rings he does indeed emphasize that "no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will" but I don't think he actually goes any further than "oaths are bad, guys, don't swear them" (but he might be just very good at hiding his trauma responses - I guess after over 6000 years he had to eventually learn it ).

Anyway, Elrond's Oath Trauma... I was wondering how to answer your question without basically explaining (and spoiling) the entire plot of The Silmarillion, so let's try it this way:

Basically, almost at the beginning of The Silmarillion An Oath is sworn. This event has serious consequences throughout the entire First Age - death, battles, wars, kinslayings (I am pretty sure that it's the only time in the history of Middle Earth when elves were killing each other)... Well, it's not a fun time to be alive, honestly.

Elrond and his family are directly affected by the oath - firstly, his mother's kingdom gets attacked (directly because of the oath which wanted to be finally fulfilled*) and she's the only survivor of her entire family (as a three years old girl, so yeah). Then, years later, the place where she and her family (=her husband and their sons: Elrond and Elros) live gets attacked again, for the same reason. By the same guys. Elrond and his brother are only six years old (if I remember correctly) when they basically lose everyone they've ever known (including their mother and father, who's... well, out there on a quest, let's say). How to make it even more messed up for Elrond? Well, he and his brother get kidnapped/adopted/simultaneously both (the fandom's opinions vary) by the very same guys that initiated both attacks and swore the oath. The Silmarillion does indeed say that love grew after between them, so eventually it all started to look more like a very messed up family instead of me, my brother and our captors situation, but still, Elrond (together with his brother) was raised by the war criminals who at this time were already very tired of everything, including all the things that the oath made them do. We don't get much information about Elrond's childhood at this point, but I bet one of the chief rules of the house was "do not swear any oaths" (among "do not talk to strangers" and "eat your vegetables"). He probably saw (and heard about) enough oath-caused death and pain to confirm his belief that oaths are not fun and should be avoided at all costs.

*I am just basing it on what The Silmarillion says, without getting into a discussion of "but did the oath really have such powers?" - I've seen some amazing analysis written about this topic, but it would make this post unnecessarily complicated.

Anyway, I hope it kind of answers your question😅 If you like to suffer with your favourite characters, I highly recommend The Silmarillion and if something is not clear, please feel free to reach to me! I love to ramble about my beloved problematic blorbos 💜

[jxpxnese-txrtle]

I need to get more icons made for Rise!Yin...=w=;;;

[euphoniouspandemonium]

What's the thing you're most excited about for each wip? :D

Welp, it's time for a list, and it's gonna be a long one. You have been warned.

Cotton Mendings: I am absolutely hype about like. Literally Everything. Right now I am especially excited about 1) exploring the relationship between Willie and Edward (they're side characters, Willie is Salvatore's elder brother) even though I know it is going to make me cry so much 2) literally everything about Percy but especially his backstory, which is also going to make me cry so much and already has and 3) this one side character who is a close friend of Percy's - their name is Kaspar and they're a magician. Also they're nonbinary and German. I would die for them. OH and! I think I'm gonna make a (much more in depth) Power Point Comic Sans reintroduction, which is also really exciting <3

Putting the rest under a cut!!

Clarity Is Blood On A Murder Weapon: COMMUNISM. A CHAOTIC WHOLESOME QUEER FRIEND GROUP. VERY SAD BACKSTORIES. ROCK MUSIC REFERENCES. WACKY 1960S FASHION. MURDERRRRRRRRR- also like there's several scenes that happen in bathrooms and they range from wholesome and cute to so fucking gay and tender they make me want to break down sobbing on my bedroom floor. And I can't wait to write said scenes. And everyone's dynamics??? I am just. Obsessed with these stupid queers.

Tuned Teeth And Sour Symphonies: well for one thing I get to cowrite something with the most darling person in the world (@writing-is-a-martial-art <3)- and. Our characters are so interesting and I would like to put them under a microscope. And hurt them, mentally and physically. OH OH and the PLOT is SO FUN and our prose and the themes are so >>>>>> and the BACKSTORIES!! Oh lord the backstories. They are very sad but. Writing about them is so >>>>>>>>>> AND THE SYMBOLISM *screams*

Okay okay now WIPs that I haven't really talked about-

The Art Of Devouring: this is actually a short story/prose poetry collection and I've posted three of said stories/poems!! The Moon Was Eaten Last Night – Whatever Will Happen To The Tides, What To Dream At World's End, and How To Lose Your Corpse To The Sea (they're all linked in my pinned post!). AND. I am very excited about the other ideas I have for it. I started a story about lesbians and consensual??? cannibalism a while ago. The first line is "you are my apple of Eden", which I think is quite cool. There's probably also gonna be a story about dramatic eating of a peach because I feel like I am devouring god whenever I eat peaches so.

And Bleed, Like Hydrangea: it's about three queer theatre kids who find the memoir of a gay man from the Victorian era and the things that happen in the memoir parallel the stories of these kids and it switches between a) epistolary (the memoir) b) third p present tense narration of the teens' narrative and c) a screenplay based on the memoir. LIKE WHAT'S THERE NOT TO BE HYPE ABOUT. (This is my most ambitious project and it terrifies me.)

Earl/Edith WIP: it's literally a story about a bisexual genderfluid criminal mastermind. Like what's more exciting than that. Also there's moth and butterfly symbolism and two borzois named Frankie and Lola.

Claude WIP: TRANSGENDERISM AND SCIENCE AND FEMINISM AND HOMOSEXUALITY, NEED I SAY MORE. Need or not I will because I want to. It's set in the 1840s and the protagonist, Claude, is a trans guy (but he doesn't know that yet) and he adores science and wants to be a scientist but he gets arranged married with a (very gay) scientist dude who's pining for his best friend from college. Also Claude's sister is a raging lesbian scientist and her shitty husband died of mYstEriOuS cAusEs a while before the main plot. And did I mention everyone loves science.

The Kraken WIP: it's set in the 18th century and there's pirates in it. The imagery is probably gonna be rather fucking ethereal. Also I think there's a fucked up little sopping wet cat scientist guy. And it's historical magical realism which is >>>>>>>>

She's A Femme Fatale (???): (female) detective falls in love with a femme fatale who murdered her husband. And it's got strong noir vibes. That is very fucking exciting I think.

Alright my unhinged ranting is over now. Have a good day, my dear Inara!!

[revchainsaw]

The Crow (1994)

Alright Cult of Cult. Do I really need to introduce this one? Let's get all 90s and gothy and maybe brace ourselves for a bit of cringe, but like in a fun way. It's the Holy Grail of Hot Topic, 1994's the Crow Starring Brandon Lee.

Sermon

Apparently before the auto industry totally crashed Detroit was already a total fucked to death pile of burning shit, or at least that's what the crow would have you believe. Sorry Bruce Campbell, and other people from Detroit, but mostly Bruce Campbell. According to the Crow the city of Detroit is the kind of place where gangs of warlock anarchist arsonists will bomb buildings, and murder and rape whoever they feel like and then walk around bragging about it the next day with absolutely zero consequences. Funny then that if Detroit was so bad they had to go to film this movie in Wilmington North Carolina which is definitely a fucked to death pile of burning shit. I can say that, I'm from there and I got the fuck out. My brother is going to kill me if he ever reads this. (It's okay, these are all jokes people). Did you know they also filmed the Super Mario Bros movie there ... also cuz they needed a really shitty looking distopia. Moving on ...

The ludicrous criminality of the Crow's Detroit is particularly on display on Halloween. In Detroit (apparently) Halloween is known as Devils Night and it's legitimately just a night of pure lawlessness and chaos and kids aren't even safe to get candy, except later when we do see trick or treaters. Eric Draven, hunky goth rocker who sort of looks like he could be Bruce Lee's Kid and his fiance are murdered by a gang of vicious criminals. One year hence, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow (that is actually a Raven), to exact his revenge on the gang that murdered him.

He paints his face like sad Alice Cooper and refuses to listen to Joy Division, just covers. He murders Tin Tin (a knife guy) just for his long gothy duster, he murders Fun Boy and forcibly ejects heroine from her arms and tells her "Go be a good mom now" which actually works. (have I told you about our Lord and Savior Sting? He gave me the strength to get off drugs), he blows T Bird up dick first, and then comes for Skab? Scraap? Scooby? in a meeting of all of Detroits villains and just about kills them all.

He is supported by the most 90s little girl to have ever graced the screen, and I am here for it, and Officer Albrecht, who's played by Ernie Hudson but I like to call him Zeddemore: The Most Underrated Ghostbuster. The leader of the bad guys, who I cannot beleive wasn't played by Brad Dourif or Tom Waits, is pretty interested in the occult. He keeps his witchy girlfriend around and she makes him fun dishes like smoked eyeballs, and her main use is that she knows that the Crow is the Crows weakness. They set Tony Fucking Todd on the bird, and I guess you just have to hurt the bird and not kill it, and Eric loses his healing factor and other macabre undead powers.

The Crow, Jimmy the Raven, pecks out Dr. Girlfriends eyeballs, I honestly forget how Tony Todd gets offed, and Top Dollar gets Gargoyled (that is impaled on a gargoyle). Funnily enough that is more Gargoyle related impaling on screen then in the actual movie Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness where a Gargoyle is supposed to have impaled a guy.

The Benediction

Best Feature: Injustice League

In the Crow we have not only a set of super memorable villains but they are played by the bad guy all stars. John Polito as the most lowly of the bad guys as a kind of sleazy pawn shop owner who buys ill gotten gains. Tony Todd, who's size is really on display here, the freaking Candy Man is in this movie. T Bird is the head of Top Dollars goons and is played by David Patrick Kelly, you might know as the "Warriors Come Out and Play!!" bottle guy from the Warriors, or as Jimmy Horne from Twin Peaks, and of course Top Dollar himself is played by Michael Wincott. Wincott is not a particularly celebrated actor but has played villains effectively in Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Dead Man.

Best Set Piece: Detroit Style Hot Dogs

The Set design of the Crow is perhaps one of it's most fantastic features. It's very moody and ethereal. It's just real enough to not take you out of the film, but fantastic enough to set mood and theme above realism. From Eric Draven's apartment, to the church where the final battle occurs they are all fantastic. I think that's why I really wanted to shine the spot light on a very minor set piece that would get nary a mention but just as effectively represents the qualities I was just talking about and that is the Maxi Doggs Hot Dog Stand, where a lot of the films exposition for audience surrogates takes place.

Worst Effect: Freeze Frame

At a few points in the movie the film makers made a strange decision to do these freeze frame transitions. I only noticed it twice in the movie where it was particularly stupid. I'm sure the film makers at the time thought it was a moody and atmospheric choice that highlighted the suffering that Eric Draven was going through, but it didn't age well. If you don't have the sensibilities of a goth girl from 1994 then it's very very hard not to laugh at just how self involved the movie is about it's super sadness.

Worst Feature: Tragic Accident

Solely based on the film itself, it is that very gothic and dated sensibility that hurts the Crow. The little sarcastic dance he does when he flees the police, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, and bowing to Albrecht. These affected behaviors that I'm sure seemed snarky and right on to the target audience only serve to make Eric Draven seem like an unbearable neck beard edgelord and not the troubled dark soul he's supposed to be. I'm sure at the time it seemed unique and gothy but that shit went out of style for good reason, people could see through it. It's a shame that the Crow himself was some of the cringiest parts of this movie now that I'm seeing it as an adult and not a 13 year old middle class boy with no real problems.

This however is not the low point of the movie. It's not news now and if you're reading some dudes review of The Crow on Tumblr then you probably already know the story. The worst thing about The Crow is that Brandon Lee was horrifically killed on set while filming this movie due to some negligible prop malfunctions. A series of unfortunate events that lead to the actor spending 6 hours in surgery fighting for his life before eventually passing. It was not a quick or painless death and it's really impossible to watch the movie without an appreciation for the fact that this kind of fun dark adventure was going to be a vehicle for Brandon Lee's career wound up taking his life. He was 28. I really wish I could have just bitched about the goofy goth stuff and moved on, but that's not the world we live in.

Best Effect: The Gargoyling

Maybe I should have called this best kill. But I'm not sure which it is. The slaying of Top Dollar at the Climax of the film was just super effective. The pointed wings impaling his chest and that horn coming out of his mouth, it was morbid and excellent and just fit the tone of the movie perfectly. I mean how many other movies can you say Cause of Death: Impaled on a Gargoyle.

Best Bird: The Raven

I tried very hard to look up the name of the bird that primarily performed in this movie and could not find anything. There was a Raven once upon a time called Jimmy the Raven, but that was in the 50s and I don't think birds live that long. There was a team of Ravens performing as the crow, they were chosen over crows for their larger size, and more imposing silhouettes. I just think it's so wonderful to see these often maligned birds get a chance to show off their talents. Corvids of all kinds are incredibly intelligent creatures. Im a sucker for animals, if you haven't already figured that out. I really liked seeing the ravens hit their marks, particularly the one whos job it was to drop the wedding ring into Sarah's hand at the end of the film. You can see that greedy little bastard do his trick and then look of camera at his trainer like "treat please!". It's very cute.

Best Actor: Top Dollar Performance

I'd love to take this opportunity to just put praise upon Brandon Lee, he truly gave everything for this role, but unfortunately with what was put to film we actually have very few character moments with Eric Draven. Stuff happens to him, and he does killings and fights. There's definitely some personality, but I felt like I walked away knowing almost nothing about who Eric Draven was. He was clearly a good dude but that and a few hobbies and a relationship and you don't really have a character yet. He's unfortunately not given a lot of acting to do, instead just relegated to stunts and action sequences. That were notably cool.

The bad guys in the Crow have a lot more character and among this who's who of character actors, Michael Wincott takes the cake. Hell he was standing next to Candyman himself, Tony Todd and still stealing the scenes.

Best Character: A Few Good Apples

Is the best character in The Crow really going to be the cop? The commissioner Gordon stand in? yeah, it is. Not to be political, but I don't like cops, but I guess in a world with magical birds and eyeball smoking I can suspend my disbelief and let Ernie Hudson be #1 cop dad. His character is really the heart of the film, since all Eric can do is brood and fight, we have to care about someone in this movie.

Best Sequence: Halloween Party

The best sequence of the movie is of course the scene where Eric Draven busts in on the Devil's Night party planning commission. I think Top Dollar brought Scrappy Doo there just so he could lure out the crow, knowing the baddest assholes in all of Detroit would be gathered it was likely that somebody was going to kill the beast, or if they couldn't at least Top Dollar could get a feel for his enemy. It's a bullet flying action sequence with a ton of weight. I can't put my finger on this all to common weightless third act problem that big budget super hero and action flicks have nowadays, but whatever that issue is, the Crow does not have that issue. From this point on the Climax feels earned and I am invested. For that reason, The Crow is honestly better in spite of its awkwardness, than many of the super hero movies out today.

Worst Sequence: My Guitar Gently Weeps

Speaking of brooding or fighting. The best sequence was fighting, the worst is brooding. I get that Eric was in a band or something, but didn't he have shit to do. It seemed like it was a cool idea for a shot, but for like a whole seen, watching somebody play an 80s guitar solo, that stood out so brazenly from the choices of music in the rest of the movie was extra corny. It felt like someone's( dad trying to relate to their kid. Oh you like Music. The Dresden Dolls eh? Oh man, then you're going to love Slash's Snake Pit!

Summary

The Crow is dated. It is iconic but I wonder how many of the people that hang that poster on the wall have watched that movie since they were kids. It's interesting how what i've liked and disliked about this film have changed so much sense I was a kid. It's a cheeseball fiesta. If you have matured at all beyond thinking that being sad is the same as being deep then you're going to like it a little less than you did when you were younger, but it is still solid. There's not much to hate on. I'd watch it over and over again. I was really afraid it would not hold up at all, but returning to The Crow was a completely positive experience.

Overall Grade: B

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of September 11th, 1019

Best of this Week: Gotham City Monsters #1 - Steve Orlando, Amancay Nahuelpan, Trish Mulvihill and Tom Napolitano

Who wanted this?

Serious, this is a strange team of characters to put together for a story, but it’s so jarring in a way that it makes me really interested to see what their team dynamic is like. This book carries so much of a Universal Monster movie vibe while mixed in with the superheroics of comic books in a manner that it’s already caught my eye.

The book begins with several haunting establishing shots of Monstertown, one of the few neighborhoods in Gotham that is doing well under the control of Bane. These shots set the tone for what the story will be; a grimy, dark outing where the only light to be found is in the darkness. Naheulpan does such an amazing job capturing the essence of Gotham, while at the same time making things feel so...40s and 80s right before we’re introduced to our first hero, Andrew Bennett aka. I, Vampire.

Bennett, having been hunting down vampires that choose to spill the blood of innocents, dispatches a large group of evil vampires and learns of a new vampire king that’s soon to be restored to life. Bennett tears out the lead vampires heart and tries to drink his blood to kill him, but finds that his blood is poisonous to him. He then vows to kill their new leader no matter what. Within only a few pages Bennett is established as a noble vampire unlike some of his kin and those who were previously unaware of him are given all that they need to know about the man. His scene also feels very reminiscent of The Crow or Queen of the Damned in terms of style and color palette.

Soon after, we cut to a newly freed Waylon Jones who’s very excited to leave his past life as a criminal behind to carve out a new life in Monstertown, but sadly he knows that people will still only ever see him as Killer Croc. I can see that his arc will be all about redemption as he tries to make things in his life right after all of the turmoil he’s been forced to go through. Part of me wonders if he’ll ever learn about Roy Harper and his death at Sanctuary, given that he acted as Roy’s sponsor when the archer was getting off of heroin. He’s not seen again after his two pages which does suck quite a bit as I thought he would have a larger role starting out.

Things start to heat up as we run into the actual lead character of the story, Frankenstein, former Agent of SHADE. It has been quite some time since Frankenstein has been seen in any book, I think the last one he was in was a Valentine’s Day special from 2018. Before he is even shown, we see patrons of a local bar running in fear of the chaos that the undead one has wreaked in search of one of the last open cases SHADE had before Leviathan destroyed them. Frankenstein is not here to play games, holding the throat of a man infected with a disease that turns him into a bull-man.

Naheulpan draws this scene with the dourness that Frankenstein is often known for as Orlando scripts him to say that “in a far world you would live, but now more than ever… the world is not fair.” Napolitano’s letting also helps to make this scene even more saddening with Frankenstein’s shaky word balloons even if Frank himself is anything but. He lights the man on fire after smacking him upside the head with a bottle of ”Damn Fine Whiskey”, totally not Jack Daniels’, and watches as the creature tries to crawl away in fear and pain, terror in his burning eyes.

After this short excursion, we are introduced to our last few cast members in The Orca and Lady Clay, the latter of whom I had no clue existed. While I have limited experience with Orca as a character, mostly from Nightwing: Rebirth and the Injustice 2 tie-in comic, I know her story (and have an attraction, don’t judge me) and it’ll be interesting to see if Steve Orlando plays into the romance angle from the latter comic to give Croc the strong beau that he’s been missing since Enchantress was taken from him. Lady Clay, however, is new and exciting to me because she doesn’t know who she is anymore and finds solace in taking on the appearances of others like a Faceless Person. I’m very interested in whether or not she’ll betray the team for a sense of understanding from the main villain.

Throughout the book there had been murmurings of an opera going on in the city. This plays as the hook that will cause all of the plot to go full steam ahead in the next issue. While the crowd thinks they’re watching an amazing show, they are soon sacrificed to bring back Melmoth, an immortal whose blood was used to help in Frankenstein’s creation. Melmoth’s entire motivation is to continue being what he considers the “Last King.” He wants to subjugate all beneath his feet and will kill as many as he needs to do so, yet his followers see him as some sort of savior.

Gotham City Monsters succeeds as a story in the vein of the cheesy horror movies I liked to watch at a younger age. The stories and motivations given for each individual hero are simple, much like to protagonists of those old movies and gives this comic a nice monster movie team up feel. Naheulpan’s art is grim and made even better by Mulvihill’s gritty coloring and great use of dark inks for the moments that need shadows. For a first issue, this one was a blast and I absolutely cannot wait for the next one!

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Runner Up: Wonder Woman #78 - G. Willow Wilson, Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Pat Brosseau

Love is dead. Cheetah has killed her.

The fallout from Cheetah’s actions continue as Wonder Woman has lost her will to fight and is easily overpowered by her most deadly foe. Things begin in the most bleak way possible as illustrated by Tom Derenick. We cut back and forth from the immediate past to the current present as Cheetah wrests or destroys Wonder Woman’s armaments. 

Her sword is cut in half and her shield is demolished after swipes from Cheetah’s new Godkiller sword. Her tiara is broken and sent flying after a solid punch. The Lasso of Truth is snatched away as Cheetah mocks her, asking who is truly worthy. Even the Gauntlets of Submission are absolutely destroyed after being hit with the sword. 

Cheetah smiles with absolute glee as Diana is driven before her, helpless and unable to defeat her with her new and powerful weapon. She manages to escape into a nearby river and calls Atlantiades to help her. The demigoddess hears her call and with the help of Steve Trevor, they find Wonder Woman, broken and defeated without love.

Superman is commonly thought of as being the main hope in DC and there is a lot of merit to that, but at the same time, Wonder Woman is just as much of an inspiration to some if not more. She has almost never given up hope, even after killing Maxwell Lord in the past or losing her ability to see, hell even after fighting the Amazons after they invaded Man’s World she wasn’t at all fazed. Losing to Cheetah and feeling the crushing weight of the world on her shoulders now that she doesn’t have the hope of love to keep her head up high. It’s even worse when Steve Trevor is also suffering from this lack of love. Even while giving Diana a soothing bath for her injuries and trying to console her, his eyes are empty of the love they had and she can tell. 

Not only is love gone, but so is compassion as we see in a short scene shortly after the bath. A mail carrier on a bike accident hits a car and no one does anything to help him. It's telling that people just either drive around him or stand idly by seeing no reason to try to walk through traffic. We see even later on that people are far more willing to commit crime, especially after Lex has been offering people gifts and changing how they think, bringing out the darkness inside.

Eventually Wonder Woman is left with no other choice than to ask Veronica Cale for help. Veronica Cale, who has nothing but enmity for Wonder Woman, decides to help her as she doesn't even remember the feeling of dread that she had when her daughter was trapped in Themyscira and see this as an opportunity to show the Gods that mortals can see what they cannot.

In a way, Cale and Cheetah are similar in that regard. They have nothing but hate for the Gods and Wonder Woman and will do everything they can to tear them down, Cale with wit and guile and Cheetah with pure rage. 

G. Willow Wilson is absolute bringing out the bloodlust from Cheetah that we haven't seen in some time and is making her a pretty credible threat. If her trajectory continues the way that it jas, then there's no doubt in my mind that this entire run of Wonder Woman will end in one of their deaths and that is exciting.