#Rising New York Road Runners

[blowflyfag]

WRESTLING EYE: APRIL 1993

Sting: CATCH HIS RISING STAR!!

By Steve Mueller

It seemed that when Sting lost his WCW world title to Big Van Vader, he lost more than just a championship belt. He lost his reputation and his status. In that match’s conclusion, the Stinger was literally destroyed by Van Vader’s power bomb. The face painted gladiator was so completely beaten by Vader that it seemed his run as a major star in American wrestling rings was definitely finished. It was the kind of loss that forces wrestlers to leave a promotion.

And then when Ron Simmons defeated Vader for the gold, convincingly, it seemed that there was no question. Even among his most devoted fans, that Sting’s time in the spotlight had definitely passed. Wrestling journalists wrote stories about Sting’s coming fade into oblivion. His almost story book career was discussed and then written off as just another example of a guy who electrifies the wrestling world for a time, and then passes, sometimes for inexplicable reasons, into obscurity.

Then the situation worsened. Sting’s lackluster performance against Jake Roberts at Halloween Havoc in a match that has come to be universally labeled as a travesty only seemed to cement the speculation that Sting’s star had crashed. After all, the face painted gladiator had had two runs as world champion and neither had been successful draws at the gate. And drawing fans into an arena is the only true measure of success in the modern wrestling world. 

Rumors began to circulate that Sting was headed to the World Wrestling Federation. In the “Pro Wrestling Today” television talk show in New York, it seemed every other question asked by a fan was “When is Sting going to the WWF?” Insiders, however, knew there was no chance that Sting would suddenly appear on “Superstars”, brandishing a tube of makeup, and proclaiming himself to be “Real Grease-painted Hero.” Sting’s contract with WCW is both ironiclad and Watts-proof, and, with Hulk Hogan on the sidelines, it is the richest in the mat sport. 

Then other rumors began to circulate that Sting would become the highest paid tag team wrestler in the history of the sport. When the Ultimate Warrior quit/was fired from the WWF in November, respected experts such as Professor Victor Chirel, noted academician and wrestling historian, predicted that the Warrior would eventually sign a contract with WCW and reform the Blade Runners tag team with his one-time partner Sting. 

“The Ultimate Warrior was never that successful as a singles draw,” said Professor Chirel. “Even when he was WWF world champ, he had very little drawing power. And now that any potential Sting had to become a major draw is definitely finished, I predict Sting and the Warrior will become a team again in the hope of salvaging their careers. Together, Sting and the Ultimate Warrior have the chance to become the Road Warriors of the nineties. Individually, at least in the majors, their careers are over.”

[Sting battles Rick Rude in a classic confrontation.]

For a time, most insiders and experts agreed with Professor Chirel. Rumors surfaced weekly that, after he appeared on a few independent shows as “the Man Who Used to be Called the Ultimate Warrior” because of WWF contractual restrictions, the Warrior was about to join WCW. Like Professor Chirel, longtime fans remembered the Blade Runners, the vehicle through which Sting and the Warrior first came if not to national prominence, then at least to national attention. 

In the mid-eighties, Cowboy Bill Watts brought the face- painted duo to his legendary Mid-South promotion and the rest is history. Since Watts is now head honcho at WCW, it is easy to see how speculation arose that the Blade Runners team would be reformed, perhaps under another name. 

And many experts thought the reformation of the Blade Runners was a good idea. “Frankly, I’m tired of Sting,” said veteran ringside physician Dr. Gary Dunn. “As far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been studying the mat sport for over thirty years, Sting no longer has a future as a singles star. As for the Ultimate Warrior, I’m not sure he ever had a future as a real star in singles competition. However, put Sting and the Warrior together and you have some real possibilities. The whole, in this case, would surely be greater than the sum of its parts.”

[Sting is always a crowd pleaser.]

“I agree with Doctor Dunn,” says Kim Hostetler, screen actress and wrestling fan. “I always thought Sting’s talents were more suited to tag team competition. When you think about it, Sting and that Ultimate Fellow have basically the same blend of as the legendary Road Warriors. Sting has the high flying aerial skills like Hawk. The Warrior would be the power guy on the team just like Animal. Hey, Cowboy Bill Watts should get this going right away.”

But as Christmas 1992 came and went, and speculation began to grow that Bill Watts might not be around WCW much longer because the promotion was sinking deeper and deeper into red ink. It became obvious that the Warrior was not going to join WCW. The inside story was that WCW could not give the Warrior the kind of contract he demanded–one that paid big bucks. Billy Watts’ austerity program had eliminated large guaranteed contracts. The Warrior just laughed at WCW’s offers. 

[Sting is used to doing battle outside the ring.]

It seemed that a reunion with the Warrior was not going to save Sting’s career. The second most famous wrestler from Venice Beach seemed doomed to fade into the shadowy world of oblivion. Then a strange thing began to happen. 

Sting, though it happened very slowly at first, began to recapture some of the magic that had electrified fans earlier in his career. His matches became more focused and he began using more of the aerial style that had been his trademark before a serious knee injury had almost ended his career. 

Amazingly, suddenly it wasn’t just kids and young women who were chanting Sting’s name at ringside. Hardcores joined the chorus. Somehow, being cast in the role of the underdog had done wonders for Sting’s charisma. Facing adversity and not giving up had made him kind of a “People’s Champion.”

[The Stinger knows how to hurt his opponents.]

A series of glitzy wins, and like unexpected lightning, Sting was back near the top of his profession. 

In December and January, TV ratings of WCW programs began a return to respectability. Silent hope is growing in the executive offices of Turner Broadcasting that WCW may indeed still have a future on TBS. And it is no accident that this rise in the ratings coincides with Sting’s own return to prominence. The coming months will tell the story not only of Sting’s future, but of the future of WCW itself. Stay tuned, this one is going to get interesting. 

[mostlyinthemorning]

fic rec friday

Original rules: Share your top fics no matter how big or small - give us the links to your wonderful words with the Most hits/Most kudos/Most comments/Most bookmarks /Most words/Least words

Thanks for the tag, @stereopticons!

Most hits: Sometimes, Home is A Person (M, 144k words) Five years after David and Patrick’s wedding, Clint and Marcy decide to move to Schitt’s Creek. This time, David's not the only one who has to come to terms with his family.

Fewest hits: Like So Many Stars (M, 3114 words) At the far end of the galaxy, the drinks are blue and taste like watermelon, and Patrick has a job to do. But all of his plans go out the space hatch when a dark-eyed stranger buys him a drink.

Most kudos: Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (E, 29k words) All David wants is to order some flowers. What he gets is a very cute, very snippy shopkeeper who he can't stop thinking about. After taking over his parents' shop, Patrick feels like he's being crushed by the weight of expectations. Until he meets someone who turns everything upside down.

Fewest kudos: Found and Lost and Found Again (T, 11.9k words) When Patrick is kidnapped by a mysterious agency, David will do anything to get him back, but rescuing Patrick won’t be easy. Still, David is determined to find his husband, even if it means pushing out of his comfort zone and revealing Patrick’s secrets. Nothing will stop David from bringing Patrick home—just as soon as he finishes at least four steps in his nine-step skin care regimen.

Most comments: This is also Sometimes, Home is a Person, so going with the runner-up, which is Strangers, Friends, Husbands, Lovers (E, 45.5k words) Patrick is going to marry Rachel. Everyone says so. But no one expects it when Patrick blows up his life and catches the first flight to San Francisco. What happens next, and who he meets, is even more unexpected.

Fewest comments: More Than Enough (G, 1084 words) The morning after the housewarming party (S5E05) Patrick, David and Ted have a very awkward conversation.

Most bookmarks: This is also Sometimes, Home is a Person, so going with the runner-up, which is Stick Handling (E, 31.7k words) David Rose is perfectly happy working as a fashion reporter, covering the latest designers, surrounding himself with beautiful clothes. That is, until he's reassigned to the sports beat. His first assignment? To interview presumed hockey barbarian, Patrick Brewer. He'll need to get good wood on his stick to avoid the back door play.

Fewest bookmarks: Temperature Rising (G, 385 words) "Patrick stares across the store at his fiance. David’s eyes meet his and Patrick feels the temperature in the room inch even higher."

Most words: This is also Sometimes, Home is a Person, so going with the runner-up, which is A Test of Time (E, 44.2k words). David is a contractor who goes back in time to collect souvenirs and videos to sell to wealthy collectors. On a trip to 1988 he meets Patrick in a bar in New York. He thinks nothing of the chance encounter until one day he goes to Ray’s to get a permit...

Fewest words: #honeymoonlife (T, 2 words) David and Patrick take a honeymoon road trip to Niagara Falls. As seen through their Instagram posts.

Tagging: @weathereyehorizon @missgeevious @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3 @chelle-68 @noahreids

[xolta]

Scifi recommendations

Xolta's Scifi movie recommendation list.

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) The Astronomer's Dream Tetsuo: The Iron Man Under the Seas Zeiram Aelita Termiantor Terminator 2 The First Men in the Moon(1918 version) L'Inhumaine The Mysterious Island(1929) A Boy and His Dog Total recall(original) Dune(1980s, I know its bad but i like it okay) Dune part 1 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind(idk if it counts) Flash Gordon(1980s movie) The H-Man The Angry Red Planet The Stepford Wives(original) First Men in the Moon(1964 version) Barbarella They Live Demon Seed Altered States Dark city The 13th floor Virus(1980s Japaneses movie) Virus(1990s American movie) Starship Troopers Alien Aliens Robocop Robocop 2 Titan A.E. Ghost in the shell(original anime version) Howard the duck(its not bad fight me!) Escape from New York Blade runner E.t. Space balls Jurassic park The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Gandahar Star trek: Generations Star trek: First Contact Heavy metal(mainly for its soundtrack) The Super Inframan Planet of the apes(original) Galaxy quest Rise of the planet of the apes Dawn of the planet of the apes Star wars Big man japan return of the jedi the empire strikes back Star trek 2: Wrath of khan Mad max District 9 Road warrior Mad max beyond thunder dome The Secret of NIMH(it counts right?) Videodrome Paprika Krull(dose it count idk) M.D. Geist Star Trek 4: The voyage home Naked lunch Star trek the undiscovered country The City of Lost Children The Island of Dr. Moreau(the 90s supreme trash fire version) Event Horizon eXistenZ Children of men

Transfromers(1986)

[newstfionline]

Monday, January 22, 2024

Brutally cold weather reaching deep into lower United States (AP) Arctic weather brought more misery to much of the U.S., especially for people unaccustomed to such bitter cold in places like Memphis, Tennessee, where residents were urged to boil water and some had no water at all after freezing temperatures broke water mains across the city. Temperatures weren’t expected to rise until after the weekend. The bracing cold followed a week of storms blamed for at least 67 deaths around the U.S., many involving hypothermia or road accidents. A huge swath of the U.S. was under wind chill advisories, from Montana into central Florida. It was particularly harsh in the Midwest. The wind made it feel like minus 16 degrees (minus 26 Celsius) in Iowa City on Saturday. Snow tapered in the Northeast after blanketing a large area including Washington and New York City. In New York, aid groups distributed food and clothes near an elementary school to migrants who bundled up in thick coats and knit caps to ward off the freezing temperatures.

DeSantis Drops Out of Presidential Race and Endorses Trump (NYT) Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended his campaign for president on Sunday and endorsed the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, with the primary race in New Hampshire in its final 48 hours. The move cements the Republican contest as a two-person race between Mr. Trump and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a little less than a week after Mr. DeSantis’s devastating 30-percentage-point loss to Mr. Trump in Iowa. The Trump campaign, which has made bashing DeSantis a blood sport for much of the last year, said in a statement that it was “honored” by his endorsement and once again criticized Haley as being too liberal to win the Republican nomination. Though Ms. Haley now has the two-person race she sought, it remains to be seen whether Mr. DeSantis’s departure will help her, or whether more of his supporters will migrate to Mr. Trump.

A Belgian port seized tons of cocaine. Criminals tried to take it back. (Washington Post) On a dark Friday evening in November, three people scaled a fence in the sprawling North Sea port of Antwerp, pulled knives on customs workers and forced them to open a confiscated container. Security officials say the assailants knew exactly what they’d find. Inside, tucked among animal skins, were bricks of cocaine. Antwerp, known historically as a hub for diamond trading, has developed a reputation as Europe’s cocaine-import capital. Last year, Belgian customs officers intercepted a record 256,000 pounds of cocaine there, according to figures shared this week by the Belgian Finance Ministry. That’s more than three times the amount U.S. customs and border officials seized in all of the United States. But officials estimate it’s only a fraction of the drugs being smuggled among the 12 million containers that pass through Antwerp each year. The head of Belgium’s customs service said in an interview that especially big seizures in the fall appeared to have prompted a violent backlash, along with a new issue: Authorities haven’t always been able to destroy what they’ve confiscated before drug gangs try to steal it back.

A century after Lenin’s death, the USSR’s founder seems to be an afterthought in modern Russia (AP) Not long after the 1924 death of the founder of the Soviet Union, a popular poet soothed and thrilled the grieving country with these words: “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live.” A century later, the once-omnipresent image of Vladimir Lenin is largely an afterthought in modern Russia. The Red Square mausoleum where his embalmed corpse lies in an open sarcophagus is no longer a near-mandatory pilgrimage but a site of macabre kitsch, open only 15 hours a week. It draws far fewer visitors than the Moscow Zoo. The goateed face with its intense glare that once seemed unavoidable still stares out from statues, but many of those have been the targets of pranksters and vandals. The one at St. Petersburg’s Finland Station commemorating his return from exile was hit by a bomb that left a huge hole in his posterior. Many streets and localities that bore his name have been rechristened. The ideology that Lenin championed and spread over a vast territory is something of a sideshow in modern Russia. The Communist Party, although the largest opposition grouping in parliament, holds only 16% of the seats, overwhelmed by President Vladimir Putin’s political power-base, United Russia.

A Hindu temple built atop a razed mosque in India is helping Modi boost his political standing (AP) Three decades after Hindu mobs tore down a historical mosque, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the consecration of a grand Hindu temple at the same site on Monday in a political move to boost his party ahead of a crucial national vote. Experts say the temple, dedicated to Hinduism’s most revered deity Lord Ram, will cement Modi’s legacy—enduring but also contentious—as one of India’s most consequential leaders, who has sought to transform the country from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation. Many see the temple’s opening as the beginning of the election campaign for Modi, an avowed nationalist who has been widely accused of espousing Hindu supremacy in an officially secular India. Modi’s Hindu nationalist party is expected to once again exploit religion for political gain in the upcoming national elections in April or May and secure power for a third consecutive term.

Taiwan’s Doubts About America Are Growing (NYT) Taiwan is a democratic not-quite nation of 23 million, threatened by a covetous China, with a future dependent on how the United States responds to the ultimate request: to fight the world’s other superpower if it attacks and endangers the island’s self-rule. Now more than ever, the fraught psychology of that predicament is showing signs of wear. With China asserting its claim to the island with greater force, and the United States increasingly divided over how active it should be in global affairs, Taiwan is a bundle of contradictions and doubts, less about its own government’s plans or even Beijing’s than the intentions of Washington. Polls show growing distrust of the United States in Taiwan. As they watch Washington deadlock on military aid for Ukraine and Israel, and try to imagine what the United States would actually do for Taiwan in a crisis, faith in America is plummeting. A Taiwanese poll showing support for the U.S. approach found that only 34 percent of respondents saw the United States as a trustworthy country, down from 45 percent in 2021.

In Strategic Bind, Israel Weighs Freeing Hostages Against Destroying Hamas (NYT) After more than 100 days of war, Israel’s limited progress in dismantling Hamas has raised doubts within the military’s high command about the near-term feasibility of achieving the country’s principal wartime objectives: eradicating Hamas and also liberating the Israeli hostages still in Gaza. Israel has established control over a smaller part of Gaza at this point in the war than it originally envisaged in battle plans from the start of the invasion, which were reviewed by The New York Times. That slower than expected pace has led some commanders to privately express their frustrations over the civilian government’s strategy for Gaza, and led them to conclude that the freedom of more than 100 Israeli hostages still in Gaza can be secured only through diplomatic rather than military means. The dual objectives of freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas are now mutually incompatible, according to interviews with four senior military leaders. There is also a clash between how long Israel would need to fully eradicate Hamas—a time-consuming slog fought in the group’s warren of underground tunnels—and the pressure, applied by Israel’s allies, to wrap up the war quickly amid a spiraling civilian death toll.

Amid shortages in medicine, Gazans endure amputations, surgeries without anesthesia (Washington Post) Despite his experience as an orthopedic surgeon, Hany Bsaiso froze when he saw his teenage niece’s injuries. Her right leg, he said, had been blown off below the knee by an Israeli tank shell. The other was severely injured. “Where do I start?” he recalls thinking to himself. “I had no anesthesia. I had nothing.” The area of the family home—just a five-minute drive from Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital—was thick with Israeli forces. It was not safe to move. Another family member pulled out a phone to film as Bsaiso set about doing what he could. “Can you imagine I’m amputating her leg at home?” he told the camera last month in a now widely shared video, his voice cracking from emotion. Machine gunfire rings out in the background. “Where is the mercy? Where is the humanity?” The gruesome scene of the kitchen amputation without anesthetic—which Bsaiso told The Washington Post he carried out with a normal cooking knife, scissors and a needle and sewing thread—highlights the daily horrors facing Gazans amid the collapse in the health care system in the enclave. Doctors say they have been forced to carry out amputations and small surgeries without anesthesia or pain relief even for those who can reach a hospital because of the shortages of essential drugs. The screams of patients fill the hallways as dressings are changed and shrapnel removed.

Palestinian death toll soars past 25,000 in Gaza with no end in sight (AP) The Palestinian death toll in Gaza from over three months of war between Israel and the territory’s Hamas rulers has soared past 25,000, the Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday. At least 178 bodies were brought to Gaza’s hospitals in 24 hours along with nearly 300 wounded people, according to Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra. Women and children are the main victims in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations.

Houthi Attacks Have Upended Global Shipping (NYT) It is an extraordinary detour: Hundreds of ships are avoiding the Suez Canal and sailing an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, burning fuel, inflating costs and adding 10 days of travel or more in each direction. They are avoiding one of the world’s most important shipping routes, the Red Sea, where for months the Iranian-backed Houthi militia has attacked ships with drones and missiles from positions in Yemen. The turmoil has been sweeping. About 150 ships passed through the Suez Canal, which lies at the northwest end of the Red Sea, during the first two weeks of this January. That was down from over 400 at the same time last year. Shipping companies have tripled the prices they charge to take a container from Asia to Europe. Shipowners that still use the Red Sea, mainly tanker owners, face rising insurance premiums. JPMorgan Chase estimated on Thursday that worldwide consumer prices for goods would climb an extra 0.7 percent in the first half of this year if shipping disruptions continue.

[lifblogs]

To the King

@chaos-company's Angstpril 2022: Day 18 - Alt. Prompt 1 - Roughed Up

Fandom: Supernatural Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Pairing: N/A Word Count: 1440 Summary: Dean is captured by demons and is taken to face his brother for the first time since he became the King of Hell. WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence READ ON AO3

Dean saw the blow coming before it landed, and he prepared himself. Prepared himself for the numbing pressure, which would then be followed with throbbing pain. The demon’s fist his his face, knuckles smacking right against his lip, lip catching teeth. Bleeding. Blood welled into his mouth, and he grunted. He struggled, wanting to fight back, but he was already down. Two demons held him.

Another punch, this one to his head. It left him dazed, and then he was getting searched. A bit too roughly, with probably too much enthusiasm. But there was nothing he could do as the demons divested him of his weapons. Of his gun, and cuffs, and demon-killing knife.

God, it would’ve been a really good time to have Cas with him.

Too bad I told him to fuck off.

No, can’t think about that now.

The demons tied his wrists and ankles, and dragged him to the trunk of a car. They threw him in, Dean landing badly on his shoulder and against his face, the stained gray carpet layering the back scraping his ear raw.

The trunk was closed, and Dean was all alone. He felt the engine start, and a lurch as the car pulled out onto the road. It was so dark and cramped that he could only think of a coffin.

Maybe I am headed to my death.

Then he reasoned, If Sammy wanted you dead he would’ve killed you by now.

Dean was being taken to his brother for something else, and he didn’t want to find out what. He had once thought he’d known him so well, but whatever was in his head now was as mysterious as God’s will. Ha, if that even existed.

The ride was long, and he wondered which way they were heading. There were signs that Sam was set up someone in New York, so maybe there.

His shoulders were probably close to being out of place by now with the way his hands were tied behind his back, and how he was getting bumped around. He’d tried getting out of his bindings, but he couldn’t reach the knot. His wrists were rubbed raw, bleeding, burning.

What was worse was his bladder was getting a bit too full, and being jostled about didn’t help. Hopefully the demons would have the decency to let him relieve himself before he saw Sam. They’d better untie his hands because he sure as hell didn’t want anyone else handling his dick.

Finally, the car stopped, and Dean wished he could breathe a sigh of relief. But he knew this was the easy part.

It was night time when the demons opened the trunk and let him out. They did let him relieve himself, and then they were walking him to a large building snug against the foothills of a rising mountain. Dean could slightly make out its shape thanks to light coming from some of its windows. It was angular, all rectangles. And he thought maybe he saw the shine of metal.

Dean was shoved along over a corrugated steel bridge with an ominous, dark drop into a ravine beneath it, and into the building. He was in a dark hallway, concrete floor covered with a red runner. It made him think a little too much of blood at the moment.

“So, where’s Sammy?” Dean asked, trying to be his usual self.

Instead, the demons were ignoring him, but he was definitely the topic of conversation.

“Why didn’t you bring him in the front?” a tall demon with dark hair and dark eyes asked one of the demon-possessed-ex-soldiers holding him.

“I thought he’d get ripped apart. It’s Dean Winchester. Just let the king know we have him.”

“Right away.”

Dean was made to wait as the other demon went to announce him to Sam. God, this was all too fancy for him. Sam had really let his love of fantasy get to him.

At least he was being made to wait in the dark hall and not being shoved in a cell somewhere. He was sure this place had them.

“Does Sammy have a crown too?” Dean asked. “You know, like the real deal?”

That earned him a punch in the face, and then a piece of his shirt was being ripped off. His head was held, Dean grunting and snarling, as they used that piece of his shirt as a gag. They got in another punch for good measure.

Okay, so don’t ask questions.

The other demon came back, and Dean, fresh blood running from cuts on his face, was led down the hall, and through an office. Then more halls, and he was before a metal door, windows set in the wall high above it. Based on the guards outside Dean figured he knew where he was about to be led.

The throne room.

Dean didn’t want to look at Sam when he was brought in, but his eyes were drawn to him instantly, ignoring the gold floor, the red tapestries, the still-cold demeanor of the whole place.

There was Sam, in his throne, dressed all in black leather, a dark metal crown inlaid with jewels set on his fine head of hair. His eyes were their regular hazel, but there was nothing of his brother in them. And there, against his chest, glowing faintly, was the amulet of the Deathless One. Sam’s amulet.

The Deathless One’s power, demon blood. He really was the King of Hell.

Dean was shoved to his knees before the dais, and Sam was smiling. It met those cold eyes, and Dean had never felt so lost before. A chill ran down his spine, and stayed, seeped into his bones. Cold claws gripped him, and curled around his stomach.

“Dean,” Sam said, getting to his feet. “So good to finally see you again.”

There was something wrong with his voice. It was as cold as the room, and Dean didn’t want to hear it anymore.

He motioned the guards back, and they released Dean. Sam went to take the gag out of his mouth. Dean couldn’t look up, or even say anything, once his mouth was finally free.

“I hope you didn’t get roughed up too badly.”

“Yeah, like you care,” Dean spat.

“Stand.”

Dean’s gaze went as high as the amulet at Sam’s chest, and, slowly, he got to his feet. He remembered the powers Sam held. The ice, the stone, the blood. This was it. His life was going to end here, or he was for some reason going to face unimaginable torture.

To Dean’s surprise, Sam hugged him, his right arm a little awkward with it as if it was stiff and painful.

Had the demon blood not fixed the stone in his arm?

Dean filed the weakness away.

His brother felt like his brother. He remembered holding him through nightmares, after a rough hunt, feeling for a pulse just to make sure he was alive. Now his pulse was fed with demon blood, his heart pumping that poison all throughout his body.

Dean would not forget those black eyes that had stared at him at Kenesaw.

Before he could do anything, Sam pulled back, and Dean was punched full in the face. The blow sent him flying backwards, landing on his hands and wrists that were still tied behind his back. Something popped, and pain shot up his arms. The air was knocked out of him, and he was gasping breathlessly, trying to roll onto his side.

Sam stalked over to him, Dean trying to scrabble backwards. But it was no use. His brother held up his hand, and soon Dean was floating in the air before him. Sam curled his fingers and there was a crushing grip around his neck. Breathing was like suddenly trying to sip air through a straw.

Sam tilted his head as he observed him.

“So,” he asked, voice low, “where’s Castiel?”

Dean set his jaw, and glared at his former brother.

With a dark want in his tone, the King of Hell promised, “Don’t worry. We’ll make you talk.”

Dean was dropped, and Sam ordered, “Take him to the cages.”

Demons came and grabbed Dean, and Dean managed to look up at Sam, hoping to see who he once was. There was nothing of that there.

“Sammy…”

Sam stared, as if he was trying to find someone he knew inside of Dean. Eventually, he turned away, neither of them finding what they were hoping for.

Roughed up, helpless, Dean was dragged away. The last detail he really noted of the throne room was that he’d gotten blood on the floor.

[casxmorgan]

Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

It

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Next

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[barnesandco]

Icy Haloes

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: brief mention of pneumonia and death in the first paragraph, excessive use of commas.

A/N: I’ve been suffering the worst writer’s block, but I think I’m starting to shake it off with this work, so finger’s crossed we get an update on one of my WIPs soon! Big thanks to @nacho-bucky and @captain-kelli for the extremely helpful advice that allowed me to produce a half-decent piece of writing after who-knows-how-long. It’s also hotter than Hell right now, and it was soothing to escape into a NYC winter while writing this, if you’re wondering where the inspiration came from.

Bucky hates the cold. He detests the way it bites into his bones, abhors the reminders of the graves he used to help dig every time another person in the neighborhood died of pneumonia, loathes remembering how the rattle in Steve’s lungs made him worry that his would be the next. But you, unlike Steve and possibly Sam and Nat, don’t know that. The new cook hired when a spike in missions made it increasingly more difficult for the Avengers to prepare their own meals, you have been here for all of three weeks when you appear in the living room requesting assistance with grocery shopping. 

Sam and Nat got back from a mission just yesterday and are still nursing their wounds splayed across multiple bean bags, Tony has Steve tied to the sofa by the latter’s promise to watch Star Wars, and while Wanda and Vision are available, Bucky stands at attention when you enter before you have even completed your sentence. Steve snickers, and Bucky would cuff him if he wasn’t two couches over and preoccupied with stifling a rising blush. As it is, he sends a discreet glare his best friend’s way, and volunteers to brave New York’s snow-clad streets with you instead, only because he’s a gentleman and definitely not to see the resounding smile in thanks that sends his heart racing.

“Let me go grab a jacket first,” he says, passing by you where you stand wearing a hand-knitted scarf under your jacket and a worn hat on your head, none of it able to suppress the scent of gingerbread on your person. 

“I’ll wait by the car,” you call from behind him, and he grins to himself when he hears Tony say not the Audi! as the elevator doors close. 

Five minutes later, you’re both in the garage, trying to determine which car to take if Tony’s precious Audi is unavailable, and since you’re going to be driving, he sees no reason to suggest otherwise when you head for the Tesla. Although Bucky is slowly catching up with the times, between frequent trips to the local library, the ever-so-helpful internet under F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s guidance, and the miracle of history documentaries, driving a car is one thing he still has not learnt. 

However, you were born and raised in Arlington, Texas, a city with a negligible public transport system, and therefore know how to drive. How you’ll fare on frosty streets remains to be seen. Now, he realizes neither of you really thought this trip through much beyond the date and time of the event, but you’re an experienced driver, and he has faith that you’ll adapt just fine. Besides, it’s not like it’s your first time out. 

The silence in the car is calm, warm, the gentle hum of the radiator only audible to Bucky beneath the still quieter murmur of the electric engine, and you nod your head to an invisible tune as the car speeds down country roads, towards the cluster of skyscrapers in the distance, made cloudy by winter haze. 

He’s so focused on the city ahead that he nearly jumps out of his skin when you speak for the first time since you got in the car. “Is there anywhere you’d like to go besides the supermarket?” You ask, and he sees that you think you’ve bothered him, that you’ve dragged him out against his will, and he doesn’t want to let you believe that.

“I’m happy to go wherever you like,” is his answer, with a smile that he hopes is more placating than nervous, because who knows what it’s like to be the newest part of a well-oiled machine that you think doesn’t need you. While you aren’t with them in the field, you live with them and have, in this short time, endeared yourself to each Avenger in a unique way. Recalling watching Peter do his homework a couple of months back, he thinks of nuclei and electrons, and how you seem to be an example of the first particle. Not only because he is attracted to you, but also because of how you pull people into your circle. Bucky hopes he can be granted the same joy.

“Okay,” you say softly, as if only to yourself, but he catches it and nods reassuringly. “You know, when Sam came with me last week, he actually said that you’re a lot more fun while grocery shopping.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. “I’m more fun to be with while shopping than at home, or I’m more fun to go shopping with than Sam?” He asks, turning in his seat.

“The second one.”

“Did he say why?”

A thoughtful hum, and you bite the inside of your cheek while formulating an appropriate answer. “Something about your old-fashioned sensibilities being offended by the prices nowadays--”

“I am not old-fashioned--”

“-- and he warned me to keep you away from the snack aisle because you, and I quote, lose it at the sight of all those Doritos flavors,” you finish with a teasing smile, directed at the road. With no response to that, he resigns himself to sink back into his seat while crossing his arms and grumbling his displeasure, only to perk up with the sound of your laugh, just as you swing into the parking lot of Trader Joe’s.

One successful grocery round later, and Bucky’s closing the lid on a trunk full of grocery bags, one of which consists only of Doritos. He’s going to open the door for you when you stop him and gesture to the cafe across the street with a sheepish look on your face.

“Hot chocolate?” ¨

“Sure,” he answers, and you lock the door. The place is almost empty, what with it being a couple of hours before lunch on a workday, and you order to hot chocolates to go, explaining that you’re just a few minutes away from Central Park and you wanted to go for a brief walk, if that was okay with him, of course.

The hot chocolates arrive, both with every imaginable topping on them, and Bucky hurries to pull out his wallet despite your protests. “Let’s go,” he says, handing you your cup and praying that he can balance his without spilling over, and holding the door for you as you exit. 

New York’s boisterous bustle is dulled by the quiet of winter, the pulsing life of the city hushed as snow starts falling, this November precipitation hopefully a good omen for a white Christmas. This part of town seems to fall silent, and he relishes the peace, the rustle of your jackets as shoulders brush when a rare stranger passes by. 

Soon, the city falls away to the expanse of what used to be green but is now just a domesticated snowy tundra -- Central Park. A lone runner sprints across a pathway a hundred yards away, and you sit down on a bench.

“I love New York,” you say with a smile, and Bucky can see the enchantment of this city falling over you as you close your eyes. Less than a month, most of it spent outside the city lines, and you’re falling for the place he knows as home, and it makes him fall in love with it all over again. To see a familiar place through fresh and wondrous eyes is like getting to read a favorite book for the first time -- a privelege few are afforded, but he is fortunate to be amongst them. The way your eyes flit across the sky following a flock of pigeons, the way you inhale the scent of hot chocolate like no place else in the world can produce, and then how your gaze falls to the untouched, sacred blanket of snow in front of you. The ensuing gasp is one he cannot decipher, and so he asks.

“What is it?”

“I just realized I’ve never made snow angels,” you answer, trembling with childish epiphany, and he looks at you like you’ve grown another head. It’s been almost a century since he made his last one, too, at the age of 12, before he had to resist in order to avoid bringing Steve down with him lest the skinny rascal die from the cold.

“Do you,” he begins hesitantly, “do you want to, right now?” The expression on your face is one of barely controlled want and bashfulness at the desire. 

“Yeah,” you say after a full minute’s consideration. That’s how Bucky finds himself, despite his issues with the cold, on the ground in a field of snow like a starfish against the ground and waving his arms and legs wildly. Your giggles float to him on a cloud of air, breathless, shaking, and he stops after a while to lay there next to you, the silver bond of a new friendship glowing in the gray daylight. 

He’s the first to rise, carefully so as to not disturb the pattern, and he pulls you up after, watches the smile split your face into the fullest crescent moon, warming his insides more than the hot chocolate did. The cold is starting to soak through his clothes, but the pins and needles prickling at his skin soon start to sear with that white heat that comes after touching snow, and he’s warm all over. When you turn to look at him with a thank you on the tip of your tongue, his cheeks pink and eyes icy blue, he smiles back. Thinks he could learn to love the cold, if it comes with companionship like this.

[domidextrus]

Okay, so considering Strong Bad’s about to Let’s Play the games that were name-dropped on the floppy disks in his SBEmails, these games will be next (not necessarily in that order) on Disk 4 of 12. (Game titles with a strikethrough have already been covered.)

LONG LIST AHEAD!!

FriendlyWare PC Introductory Set

World Games

Vampire's Castle Adventure (Technically not a game that was referenced on the desk's floppy box. Strong Bad picked it because it was the main inspiration for Thy Dungeonman.)

Tongue of the Fatman (aka Mondu’s Fight Palace, aka Slaughter Sport)

Lode Runner

Loom

Starflight

Rise of the Dragon

Manhunter: New York

Odell Lake

The 7th Guest

Tass Times in Tonetown

One on One

Out of this World (aka Another World)

Nitemare 3D

Nobunaga’s Ambition

Seicross

Bio Menace

Maniac Mansion

HyperBlade

BAAL

Caveman Ugh-lympics

Some classic Tengen games

Alone in the Dark

Bushido

Thexder

Lunar Lander

Deathtrack

Spy VS Spy

Future Wars

Miner 2049er

Battle Chess

Colorado

Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top o’ Fun

Marble Craze

Karateka

The Newsroom

Wraith

Crush, Crumble & Chomp

Dunjonquest: Curse of Ra

Genghis Khan

Low G Man

Axe of Rage (aka Barbarian II: Dungeons of Drax)

Swashbuckler

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Gold Rush

Codename: ICEMAN

Below the Root

Weird Dreams

Some classic Brøderbund games

California Games

The Legend of Kyrandia games

MasterType

Silpheed

BioForge

Low Blow

Drakkhen

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty

LHX: Attack Chopper

Dark Seed

Rise of the Triad

The Colonel's Bequest

The Ancient Art of War

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

D

Heart of China

Ballistix

Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams

4-D Boxing (aka 4D Sports Boxing)

The Secret of Monkey Island

Return to Zork

Relentless (aka Little Big Adventure)

Mutant League Football

Flashback: The Quest for Identity

RAMA

MegaRace

Icon: Quest for the Ring

Some other games/software that had also been referenced but remains to be seen whether they’ll also be showcased:

King’s Quest II & Police Quest II (were on barely-legible floppies in Puppet Time, Brothers Chaps confirmed the names on the floppies in DVD commentary, unsure of whether that counts)

Shogun (appeared in Strong Bad Is In Jail Cartoon, unsure of whether that counts)

War of the Ring (appeared in the DVD menu of strongbad_email.exe Disc Two, unsure of whether that counts)

The Oregon Trail 1 & 2 (appeared in Main Page 22, unsure of whether that counts)

Hunt the Wumpus (appeared in the 2005 April Fools toon, unsure of whether that counts)

Cakewalk (not a game, but a MIDI sequencer)

Logo (not a game, but a programming language)

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2020

We’ll start with movies. The number in parentheses is the year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. Here’s 2019’s list. 

01 Little Women (19)

02 The Post (17) 

03 Molly’s Game (17)

04 * Doctor No (62)

05 Groundhog Day (93)

06 *Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (86)

07 Knives Out (19) My last theatre experience (sob)

08 Professor Marston and his Wonder Women (17)

09 Les Miserables (98)

10 Midsommar (19) I’m not sure how *good* it is, but it does stick in the ol’ brain

11 *Manhattan Murder Mystery (93)

12 Marriage Story (19)

13 Kramer vs Kramer (79)

14 Jojo Rabbit (19)

15 J’ai perdu mon corps (19) a cute animated film about a hand detached from its body!

16 1917 (19)

17 Married to the Mob (88)

18 Klaus (19)

19 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (19) If Little Women made me want to wear a scarf criss-crossed around my torso, this one made me want to wear a cloak

20 The Last Black Man in San Francisco (19)

21 *Lawrence of Arabia (62)

22 Gone With the Wind (39)

23 Kiss Me Deadly (55)

24 Dredd (12)

25 Heartburn (86) heard a bunch about this one in the Blank Check series on Nora Ephron, sadly after I’d watched it

26 The Long Shot (19)

27 Out of Africa (85)

28 King Kong (46)

29 *Johnny Mnemonic (95)

30 Knocked Up (07)

31 Collateral (04)

32 Bird on a Wire (90)

33 The Black Dahlia (05)

34 Long Time Running (17)

35 *Magic Mike (12)

36 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (07)

37 Cold War (18)

38 *Kramer Vs Kramer (79) yes I watched this a few months before! This was a pandemic friend group co-watch.

39 *Burn After Reading (08)

40 Last Holiday (50)

41 Fly Away Home (96)

42 *Moneyball (11) I’m sure I watch this every two years, at most??

43 Last Holiday (06) the Queen Latifah version of the 1950 movie above, lacking, of course, the brutal “poor people don’t deserve anything good” ending

44 *Safe (95)

45 Gimme Shelter (70)

46 The Daytrippers (96)

47 Experiment in Terror (62)

48 Tucker: The Man and His Dream (88)

49 My Brilliant Career (79) one of the salvations of 2020 was watching movies “with” friends. Our usual method was to video chat before the movie, sync our streaming services, and text-chat while the movie was on. 

50 Divorce Italian Style (61)

51 *Gosford Park (01) another classic comfort watch, fuck I love a G. Park

52 Hopscotch (80)

53 Brief Encounter (45)

54 Hud (63)

55 Ocean’s 8 (18)

56 *Beverly Hills Cop (84)

57 Blow the Man Down (19)

58 Constantine (05)

59 The Report (19) maddening!! How are people so consistently terrible to one another!

60 Everyday People (04)

61 Anatomy of a Murder (58)

62 Spiderman: Homecoming (17)

63 *To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95) Of the 90s drag road movies, Priscilla is more visually striking, but this has its moments.

64 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (92)

65 *The Truman Show (98)

66 Mona Lisa (86)

67 The Blob (58)

68 The Guard (11)

69 *Waiting for Guffman (96) RIP Fred Willard

70 Rocketman (19)

71 Outside In (18)

72 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (08) how strange to see a movie that you have known the premise for, but no details of, for over a decade

73 *Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (91)

74 The Reader (08)

75 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (19) This was fine until it VERY MUCH WAS NOT FINE

76 The End of the Affair (99) you try to watch a fun little romp about infidelity during the Blitz, and Graham Greene can’t help but shoehorn in a friggin crisis of religious faith

77 Must Love Dogs (05) barely any dog content, where are the dogs at

78 The Rainmaker (97)

79 *Batman & Robin (97)

80 National Lampoon’s Vacation (83) Never seen any of the non-xmas Vacations, didn’t realize the children are totally different, not just actors but ages! Also, this one is blatantly racist!

81 *Mystic Pizza (88)

82 Funny Girl (68)

83 The Sons of Katie Elder (65)

84 *Knives Out (19) another re-watch within the same year!! How does this keep happening??

85 *Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (10) a real I-just-moved-away-from-Toronto nostalgia watch

86 Canadian Bacon (92) vividly recall this VHS at the video store, but I never saw it til 2020

87 *Blood Simple (85)

88 Brittany Runs a Marathon (19)

89 The Accidental Tourist (88)

90 August Osage County (13) MELO-DRAMA!!

91 Appaloosa (08)

92 The Firm (93) Feeling good about how many iconic 80s/90s video store stalwarts I watched in 2020

93 *Almost Famous (00)

94 Whisper of the Heart (95)

95 Da 5 Bloods (20)

96 Rain Man (88)

97 True Stories (86)

98 *Risky Business (83) It’s not about what you think it’s about! It never was!

99 *The Big Chill (83)

100 The Way We Were (73)

101 Safety Last (23) It’s getting so that I might have to add the first two digits to my dates...not that I watch THAT many movies from the 1920s...

102 Phantasm (79)

103 The Burrowers (08)

104 New Jack City (91)

105 The Vanishing (88)

106 Sisters (72)

107 Puberty Blues (81) Little Aussie cinema theme, here

108 Elevator to the Gallows (58)

109 Les Diaboliques (55)

110 House (77) haha WHAT no really W H A T

111 Death Line (72)

112 Cranes are Flying (57)

113 Holes (03)

114 *Lady Vengeance (05)

115 Long Weekend (78)

116 Body Double (84)

117 The Crazies (73) I love that Romero shows the utter confusion that would no doubt reign in the case of any kind of disaster. Things fall apart.

118 Waterlilies (07)

119 *You’re Next (11)

120 Event Horizon (97)

121 Venom (18) I liked it, guys, way more than most superhero fare. Has a real sense of place and the place ISN’T New York!

122 Under the Silver Lake (18) RIP Night Call

123 *Blade Runner (82)

124 *The Birds (62) interesting to see now that I’ve read the story it came from

125 *28 Days Later (02) hits REAL FUCKIN’ DIFFERENT in a pandemic

126 Life is Sweet (90)

127 *So I Married an Axe Murderer (93) find me a more 90s movie, I dare you (it’s not possible)

128 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (67)

129 The Pelican Brief (93) 90s thrillers continue!

130 Dick Johnston is Dead (20)

131 The Bridges of Madison County (95)

132 Earth Girls are Easy (88) Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum are so hot in this movie, no wonder they got married 

133 Better Watch Out (16)

134 Drowning Mona (00) trying for something like the Coen bros and not getting there

135 Au Revoir Les Enfants (87)

136 *Chasing Amy (97) Affleck is the least alluring movie lead...ever? I also think I gave Joey Lauren Adams’ character short shrift in my memory of the movie. It’s not good, but she’s more complicated than I recalled. 

137 Blackkklansman (18)

138 Being Frank (19)

139 Kiki’s Delivery Service (89)

140 Uncle Frank (20) why so many FRANKS

141 *National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89) watching with pals (virtually) made it so much more fun than the usual yearly watch!

142 Half Baked (98) another, more secret Toronto nostalgia pic - RC Harris water filtration plant as a prison!

143 We’re the Millers (13)

144 All is Bright (13)

145 Defending Your Life (91)

146 Christmas Chronicles (18) I maintain that most new xmas movies are terrible, particularly now that Netflix churns them out like eggnog every year. 

147 Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (18)

148 Reindeer Games (00) what did I say about Affleck??!? WHAT DID I SAY

149 Palm Springs (20)

150 Happiest Season (20)

151 *Metropolitan (90) it’s definitely a Christmas movie

152 Black Christmas (74)

THEATRE:HOME - 2:150 (thanks pandemic)

I usually separate out docs and fiction, but I watched almost no documentaries this year (with the exception of Dick Johnston). Reality is real enough. 

TV Series

01 - BoJack Horseman (final season) - Pretty damned poignant finish to the show, replete with actual consequences for our reformed bad boy protagonist (which is more than you can say for most antiheroes of Peak TV).

02 - *Hello Ladies - I enjoy the pure awkwardness of seeing Stephen Merchant try to perform being a Regular Person, but ultimately this show tips him too far towards a nasty, Ricky Gervais-lite sort of persona. Perhaps he was always best as a cameo appearance, or lip synching with wild eyes while Chrissy Teigen giggles?

03 - Olive Kittredge - a rough watch by times. I read the book as well, later in the year. Frances Mcdormand was the best, possibly the only, casting option for the flinty lead. One episode tips into thriller territory, which is a shock. 

04 - *The Wire S3, S4, S5 - lockdown culture! It was interesting to rewatch this, then a few months later go through an enormous, culture-level reappraisal of cop-centred narratives. 

05 - Forever - a Maya Rudolph/Fred Armisen joint that coasts on the charm of its leads. The premise is OK, but I wasn’t left wanting any more at the end. 

06 - *Catastrophe - a rewatch when my partner decided he wanted to see it, too!

07 - Red Oak - resolutely “OK” steaming dramedy, relied heavily on some pretty obvious cues to get across its 1980s setting. 

08 - Little Fires Everywhere - gulped this one down while in 14-day isolation, delicious! Every 90s suburban mom had that SUV, but not all of them had the requisite **secrets**

09 - The Great - fun historical comedy/drama! Costumes: lush. Actors: amusing. Race-blind casting: refreshing!

10 - The Crown S4 - this is the season everyone lost their everloving shit for, since it’s finally recent enough history that a fair chunk of the viewing audience is liable to recall it happening. 

11 - Ted Lasso - we resisted this one for a while (thought I did enjoy the ad campaign for NBC sports (!!) that it was based on). My view is that its best point was the comfort that the men on the show have (or develop, throughout the season) with the acknowledgement and sharing of their own feelings. Masculinity redux. 

12 - Moonbase 8 - Goodnatured in a way that makes you certain they will be crushed. 

13 - The Good Lord Bird - Ethan Hawke is really aging into the character actor we always hoped he would be! 

14 - Hollywood - frothy wish-fulfillment alternate history. I think the show would have been improved immeasurably by skipping the final episode.

[aion-rsa]

Django Unchained, Halloween III and Clerks II Are Streaming Free on Plex This Month

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This story is presented by Plex

Streaming is getting expensive. What started as the cheap alternative to let you watch all of your favorite content and cut the cord on your cable subscription has ballooned into an arms race where one must shell out cash to several different providers just to watch their favorite movies or shows. Thankfully, Plex TV is here to entertain you and provide some relief to your wallet.

Plex is a globally available one-stop-shop streaming media service offering thousands of free movies and TV shows and hundreds of free-to-stream live TV channels, from the biggest names in entertainment, including Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, Lionsgate, Legendary, AMC, A+E, Crackle, and Reuters. Plex is the only streaming service that lets users manage their personal media alongside a continuously growing library of free third-party entertainment spanning all genres, interests, and mediums including podcasts, music, and more. With a highly customizable interface and smart recommendations based on the media you enjoy, Plex brings its users the best media experience on the planet from any device, anywhere.

Plex releases brand new and beloved titles to its platform monthly and we’ll be here to help you identify the cream of the crop. View Plex TV now for the best free entertainment streaming and check back each month for Den of Geek Critics’ picks!

DEN OF GEEK CRITICS PICKS

Django Unchained 

The second of Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist history lessons, Django Unchained is a provocative, post-modern Western film that mixes the widescreen sensibilities of Sergio Leone with Tarantino’s own gonzo impulses to create something hyper-violent, subversively funny, and more than a bit uncomfortable. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave freed by a German bounty hunter played by Christoph Waltz. Waltz won an Oscar for his performance as the kind German that takes in the stoic but savvy Django as his partner. Together, they travel the pre-Civil War South, killing slavers and savage men. Eventually, they embark on a more personal mission, as Django intends to free his beloved wife from a sadistic plantation owner played by a scenery-chewing Leonardo DiCaprio. With anachronistic needle-drops, hands-over-eyes horrors, and more blood than a donation bank, Django Unchained is an epic, entertaining revenge fantasy for the ages.

Silver Linings Playbook

From director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook is a screwball romantic comedy for the modern age. Despite inviting, yet livewire lead performances from Jennifer Lawerence and Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook really shines as an ensemble: Robert DeNiro, Jackie Weaver, Chris Tucker and Anupam Kher bring fully-realized characters to life in just a handful of scenes. Based on Matthew Quick’s novel of the same name, Silver Linings Playbook finds Bradley Cooper as a man who has been released from a psychiatric hospital a bit too soon. He’s frantically trying to prove that he’s bettered himself in an effort to win back his wife, but when he meets the equally unstable and filterless character played by Jennifer Lawerence, unusual sparks fly. Combining the familiar tropes of a sports film with unorthodox romantic leads, Silver Linings Playbook is a crowd-pleasing watch that creates harmony out of dysfunction.

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

It never mattered where Anthony Bourdain was going, we just wanted to be along for the ride. We lost the soulful, iconoclastic bad-boy of the culinary world far too soon, but he left behind a treasure trove of rewarding travelogues that tackled culture, social dynamics, and most importantly, food. Whether he was weighing in on a world-famous culinary hotspot or peeling back the curtain on a hole-in-wall gem, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations was always thoughtful, fearless, and never less than authentic. It’s the rare show that is as educational as it is entertaining, hosted by a candid host who knew how to travel, knew where to eat, but most crucially, knew how to connect with people. Reality TV doesn’t get realer than this.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Following the mind-boggling success of the original Halloween, director John Carpenter had a clever idea. Instead of churning out sequels starring Michael Meyers, Halloween would become an anthology series, with each new film telling a spooky tale centered on the October holiday. The concept was inevitably scrapped, but Halloween III: Season of the Witch suggests that maybe Carpenter and co. should have stuck to their guns. Taking inspiration from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and working off a concept that Carpenter described as  “witchcraft meets the computer age,” Halloween III: Season of the Witch finds a doctor and the daughter of a toy maker trying to uncover the horrifying truth behind the town of Santa Mara, home to Silver Shamrock, the world’s largest manufacturer of Halloween masks. Intelligent, surprising, and disturbing, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is due for a critical reevaluation that heralds it as one of the most ambitious horror movies of the ‘80s 

Clerks II

With the recent announcement that Clerks III has started production, it’s the perfect time to revisit Kevin Smith’s first-sequel to his independent film phenomenon, Clerks. Clerks II picks up with our titular clerks Dante and Randall 10 years after the events of the first film. The Quick Stop has gone up in flames and been replaced with a Mooby’s fast food restaurant. Dante and Randall toil the day away with their sheltered co-worker Elias and too-cool for minimum wage manager Becky. While the film tackles adult male friendships and middle age complacency, it’s main appeal is still sitting around, shooting the shit with your pals and listening to their expletive-filled rants about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or whatever pop culture fascination that they’re hung up on. Come for the surprisingly poignant story about Dante deciding to leave his friend behind, stay for Jay, Silent Bob, and a donkey. 

New on Plex in August – Full List of Titles 

Army of One  

Dark Tide  

Deadfall  

Deadfall 

Django Unchained  

Escape from Alcatraz  

Feast  

Ismael’s Ghost  

Kickboxer  

Lucky Number Sleven  

The Naked Gun 2-1/2: The Smell of Fear 

The Naked Gun 33-1/3: The Final Insult 

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!  

Pulse  

Redemption 

Seabiscuit 

Silver Linings Playbook 

Skyfire 

Wind River  

Still streaming on Plex:  

2:22 

13 

The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared  

22 Bullets  

24 Hours to Live  

3rd Rock from the Sun 

6 Bullets  

99 Homes  

A Little Bit of Heaven  

A Walk in the Woods  

Aeon Flux  

After.Life 

Afternoon Delight  

The Air I Breathe 

Alan Partridge 

ALF  

Alone in the Dark 

Amelie  

Answer Man  

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations 

Arthur and the Invisibles  

Battle Royale  

Bel Canto  

Bernie 

Better Watch Out 

Black Books  

Black Christmas  

Black Death  

Black Sheep (2006) 

Blitz 

Blood and Bone  

Bobby 

Bronson  

The Brothers Bloom 

The Burning Plain 

Cagefighter  

Cake 

Candy  

Cashback 

Catch .44 

Cell 

Chain of Command 

Child 44 

The Choice 

Clerks II  

Coherence  

The Collector  

Congo  

Cooties  

Cops and Robbers  

The Core 

The Cotton Club 

Critical Condition  

Crossing Lines  

Croupier  

Cube  

Cube 2 

Cube Zero  

Deadfall 

The Death and Life of Bobby Z 

Death and the Maiden 

Death Proof 

The Deep Blue Sea 

Deep Red  

Derailed  

The Descent Part 2 

Detachment  

The Devils’ Rejects  

Diary of the Dead  

Distorted  

District B13 

DOA: Dead or Alive  

Dragged Across Concrete 

Eden Lake 

Edison 

Europa Resort 

Falcon Rising  

The Fall  

Fido  

The Fighting Temptations  

Filth  

Find Me Guilty  

Fire in the Sky 

Fire with Fire  

Flirting with Disaster  

Flowers of War 

Flyboys 

Force Majeure 

Formula 51  

Four Lions  

Frailty  

Frank  

Freeway  

The Frozen Ground 

Getting to Know You 

Ghost in the Shell 

The Ghost Writer  

Ginger Snaps  

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest  

The Girl Who Played with Fire  

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  

God Bless America 

Goon  

Goya’s Ghosts  

Grand Isle 

Grave Encounters  

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints  

Halloween II  

Halloween III: Season of the Witch  

Hannibal Rising  

Happythankyoumoreplease 

Hard Candy  

Hell’s Kitchen 

Hester  

High Rise 

Highlander  

Hobo with a Shotgun 

The Homesman 

The Horseman  

The Host  

House of 1000 Corpses  

House of the Rising Sun  

How I Live Now  

The Humanity Bureau  

The Hunter  

I Give it a Year  

I Saw the Devil 

I See You  

I Spit on Your Grave  

Ida  

If Only 

The Illusionist  

In Hell  

In the Blood 

In Too Deep  

The Infiltrator  

Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road  

Invasion of the Body Snatchers  

It’s a Boy Girl Thing 

Jeff, Who Lives at Home  

Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters  

Joe 

John Dies at the End  

The Joneses  

Juliet, Naked 

Just Getting Started 

Kevin Hart: Cold as Balls 

King of New York 

Kinky Boots  

The Kite Runner  

Knight of Cups  

The Last Days on Mars  

The Lazarus Project  

Leaves of Grass 

The Legend of Hercules  

Lethal Eviction  

The Limey  

Lionheart 

A Little Bit of Heaven 

A Long Way Down  

Love Story 

Maggie 

The Maiden Heist  

A Man Called Ove 

The Man from Earth 

The Man from Nowhere  

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote  

The Matador  

Mesrine Killer: Instinct  

The Messenger  

Middle Men 

Midsomer Murders  

Misconduct 

Miss Potter 

Monster 

Monsters  

Mother  

Mr. Church  

Murdoch Mysteries  

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 

Never Back Down: No Surrender 

Noah  

The Oxford Murders  

P2 

The Paperboy 

Paycheck  

Personal Effects 

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The post Django Unchained, Halloween III and Clerks II Are Streaming Free on Plex This Month appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3CEncLN

[asiaberkeley]

Afghan is beautiful

I am a half Afghan woman. An Afghan-European American. An Afghan American.

Admittedly, it took me awhile to offer up this information in the aftermath of 9/11 when Afghanistan became synonymous with terrorism in the eyes of many Americans. Taking pride in my heritage suddenly and painfully became controversial.

People didn’t know about my Afghan-ness though because I had my mother’s surname and not my Pashtun father’s: Hotaki. Also, I didn’t wear any kind of head covering because I was raised Catholic. It was easy to hide and pass for completely White.

My late father, an aspiring doctor and med school student who spoke six languages, left Kabul with his family before the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan as a child. They were the lucky ones. He spent most of his life in Germany where many Afghans have sought refuge. One of my fondest memories is flying kites with him and my Irish-Swedish-French American mother in the Munich Public Gardens as a child. There was no wind that day and we dragged the kites in dizzy circles…laughing together...just as I imagine him now when he was a boy: kite flying in the streets of Kabul.

Since my father died when I was six, I returned to my mother’s hometown of Boston with her in 1996. I was later left to contemplate what it meant to be Afghan in a place with very few Afghans compared to Virginia, California, and New York. In college, as an Asian Studies major at Wellesley College and later at the University of California, Berkeley, I often corrected people who said that Afghanistan is in the Middle East and not in South-Central Asia. I wondered why it seemed that no one had received much education on this country’s history or people outside of reading the popular Khaled Hosseini novel, The Kite Runner, especially since we have been at war—fighting together with the Afghan forces against the Taliban in the longest war in American history.

Many Americans don’t realize that the attackers on 9/11 were not Afghan. The attackers did seek a hiding and meeting place in Afghanistan, however. But those facts shouldn’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter what ethnicity, race, or nationality someone is if they commit a crime and it doesn’t matter where they were hiding. The guilty party does not represent all people of their background or country just like Hitler does not represent all Germans or all of Germany and El Chapo does not represent Mexico or all Mexicans. Similarly, the latest mass shooter in El Paso doesn’t represent all white American men.

After former President Trump pondered out loud the mere possibility of a concocted plan to kill 10 million Afghans and wipe the country off the face of the earth – presumably through the use of nuclear weapons – I have thought more about what it means to be Afghan American today. And it’s not because of those unimaginably cruel musings which add insult to injury in the homes of all Afghans traumatized by decades of war. Indeed, nearly every person who is not a white man has been made to feel worthless, subhuman and criminal under the rhetoric of the former Trump administration...so Afghans are not alone.

But Afghans were alone in the discussion of their genocide in 2019. I have contemplated my identity even more because not one leader or politician in America of any background spoke out formally against those disturbing statements. (And it doesn’t matter if this was an actual plan of his or just an imaginary scenario dangling in the recesses of his mind.) What does the national silence mean?

After 9/11, Afghan American author of West of Kabul, East of New York and Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary, went viral with an email he sent.  In it, he wrote:

“The Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They’re not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think “the people of Afghanistan” think “the Jews in the concentration camps.” It’s not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity, they were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it…Some say, if that’s the case, why don’t the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they’re starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated.”

After 2001, my family warned me that just telling people I was Afghan may offend or anger them because they may have lost a loved one on 9/11 or they may have had a son or daughter deployed to Afghanistan. In middle school, a classmate told me I was from the land of the terrorists after I proudly showed her an autographed book I received from an Afghan British writer, Saira Shah, called "The Storyteller's Daughter." My American cousin, a veteran, was later deployed to Afghanistan and brought back a burqa which I showed to my classmates in high school to teach them about the Taliban’s oppression. Contrary to what they may have assumed, what they saw was not traditional Afghan clothing. Traditional Afghan clothing, banned under the Taliban, is colorful, intricate, deeply hued, bright and beautiful. Google it.

A year has passed since Trump discussed wiping Afghanistan off the face of the earth. After it happened, I regularly checked Twitter and the news to see if any of our nation’s leaders denounced those remarks. I called my Governor, Congresspeople, and many others asking if just one would put out a statement to support Afghans and Afghan Americans against talk of our annihilation. The Governor’s office simply said that he did not put out a statement. I still haven’t found any. However, some Americans did speak out on social media. Thank you.

We have studied the long-lasting horrors of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our classrooms. I thought we concluded as a nation that something like that could never happen again. That not a single person in power thought it worth it to speak out against the possibility of the U.S. committing another nuclear genocide bewilders and frightens me. Is it controversial to say out loud that Afghans civilians do not deserve to die en masse? Are Afghans so vilified in our society that it’s a public risk to defend us?

If you still blame the Afghan people for 9/11 even if only on an subconscious level, think again. Many of the Afghan people are suffering in ways you can only imagine in your worst nightmares. They are not responsible and took no part in this. Like the poor souls who were killed in the Twin Towers, Afghans are survivors and casualties of terrorism as well. Afghan women have lost their entire families. They have been abused and pillaged. Men, women, and children have been bombed and maimed. Their history, including the rich Buddhist Silk Road history of Afghanistan, has been destroyed by the Taliban and others.

Discussing our nation's capability to conduct nuclear genocide of an entire people and country is an affront to all humans.

So I suggest to all of our nation’s leaders who have remained tight-lipped in the face of the unspeakable: Take time to learn something you don’t know about Afghanistan. Perhaps that could start with the story of progressive Afghan Queen and feminist Soraya Tarzi who asked, "Do you think, however, that our nation from the outset only needs men to serve it? Women should also take their part as women did in the early years of our nation..." Or it could be about the life and death of iconic Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir. You could learn about the courageous resistance of Afghan women and girls throughout history or visit that Afghan restaurant you were too timid to enter and try a sweet pumpkin kadoo dish.

As the war in Afghanistan, a war based on lies and deceit, may be coming to another tragic end with even graver implications for the women left behind who have fought so hard for equality,  maybe it’s finally time to read another book that is not the Kite Runner... and most importantly, time to look deep inside of ourselves and question the possible anger, hate and bias that has developed towards the Afghan people after the catastrophic and traumatizing events of September 11, 2001.

*See the Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers which deemed that the American military did not know what it was doing there and that the war was based on lies and deceit. Government officials misled the American public about the war. The war has cost the lives of thousands of American soldiers with many more wounded as well as 100,000+ Afghan civilians killed or hurt. Many of the American troops have returned with PTSD. 30% of the Afghan casualties were children.

Sources

https://apnews.com/a2a8d7a4f89ec0515379dc4d4a38b56a

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/

[titusmoody]

A list of movies and shows I’ve watched, arranged by enjoyment from least to most

Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

The Prestige

Don’t Think Twice

Bohemian Rhapsody

Beetlejuice

Snow White with the Red Hair

A Wrinkle in Time

The Golden Compass

Hugo

To Catch a Thief

Antz

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Inglorious Basterds

Angel Beats

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Isle of Dogs

Hyouka

An American Tail

Dante’s Peak

I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore

John Carter

Watchmen (2009)

Gangs of New York

Kingsmen: The Golden Circle

Scrapped Princess

Death Note

The Mummy (1999)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Captain Marvel

Solo

Doctor Strange

Twister

Outlaw Star

Escaflowne

Martian Successor Nadesico

The Road to El Dorado

Ghost Hound

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia

Rogue One

Black Panther

Space Dandy

Armageddon

Full Metal Panic

RahXephon

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans

Lincoln

Beyond the Boundary

Tenchi Muyo

Men in Black

Grace and Frankie

The Incredibles 2

The Third Man

O Brother Where Art Thou

Apocalypse Now

Log Horizon

The Cat Returns

Julie & Julia

Independence Day

Gurren Lagann

Baby Driver

Kill Bill (1&2)

Finding Dory

Bakemonogatari

Deep Impact

Theranos

The Laundromat

Made in Abyss

My Life as a Zucchini

The Royal Tenenbaums

Fyre Fraud

Patlabor (OVA)

The Matrix

Penguindrum

The African Queen

Elfen Lied

Drive

Once Upon a Time in America

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The Breakfast Club

Room

Fyre

Heat

Golden Boy

Hunter X Hunter

Milk

Only Yesterday

The Big Sick

Kagemusha

Hidden Figures

Raging Bull

A Place Further than the Universe

East of Eden

Ping Pong the animation

Bonnie & Clyde

L.A. Confidential

Betting on Zero

Blackkklansman

The Hurt Locker

La La Land

Baccano!

I, Tonya

The Last Jedi

As Good as it Gets

Lost in Translation

The Eichmann Show

Punch Drunk Love

Blade Runner

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Gundam 0080

Gunbuster

Sunset Boulevard

Your Name

Saving Mr. Banks

Annihilation

Inside Llewyn Daniels

The Jungle Book

The Shape of Water

One Punch Man

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Mr. Nobody

The Dark Knight

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Crazy Rich Asians

Alice in Wonderland

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Cool Hand Luke

The Tiger King

Synecdoche, New York

Pi

Hibike Euphonium

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Flip Flappers

Yuri on Ice!!!

Contact

Moon

The Wolf of Wall Street

Moonlight

Pinocchio

The Blair Witch Project

Kingsmen

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

American Gangster

Porco Rosso

Annie Hall

Good Night, and Good Luck

Keep Your Hands off Eizouken

Won’t You Be My Neighbor

The Social Network

End of the Tour

The Searchers

Azumanga Daioh

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Marriage Story

Tatami Galaxy

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Mobile Suit Gundam (Movie Trilogy)

The Lobster

Doctor Strangelove

Mulholland Drive

Rushmore

Going Clear

Boogie Nights

Whiplash

Behind the Curve

A Lull in the Sea

Mystic River

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

What We Do in the Shadows

Her

Ex Machina

Knives Out

Nightcrawler

Hanasaku Iroha

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Tokyo Godfathers

Coco

The Farewell

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Rick and Morty

Network

The Eccentric Family

Manhattan

The “Before” Trilogy

Glengarry Glen Ross

The Little Mermaid

Dallas Buyer’s Club

The Master

Moulin Rouge

Ghost in the Shell

Goodfellas

The Graduate

Lion

Shaun of the Dead

Mean Streets

Das Boot

Magnolia

Berserk (1997)

Shirobako

Better Call Saul

Zodiac

The Irishman

Mob Psycho 100

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

On the Waterfront

Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Ladybird

The Florida Project

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Six Feet Under

Paprika

Eyes Wide Shut

Schindler’s List

Barton Fink

Arrival

Burn After Reading

Avatar: The Last Airbender

All the President’s Men

A Serious Man

Triplettes of Belleville

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Perfect Blue

Chernobyl

The Wind Rises

Bojack Horseman

Neon Genesis Evangelion

[christyaltomaredaily]

mcapiraso: Everyone who finished the #TCSNYCMarathon achieved a great triumph and I’m grateful to have experienced it alongside all of you! The TCS New York City Marathon is so amazing because no matter who you are or what you do, we all go through the 26.2-mile journey together. Great to share the road with some of these runners ➡️ . 1 – Broadway star, @christyaltomare, who sang the national anthem AND ran the 26.2 miles from Staten Island to @centralparknyc on Sunday! 2 – NYC Parks Commissioner, @mitchell_silver, who ran his second consecutive TCS New York City Marathon this year 👏 . 3 – The Izzo brothers @izzoultrarunning, who each ran 153 miles starting at the expo on Thursday and ending in Central Park on Sunday to raise money for @TeamForKids 🙏 . 4 – Bachelorette and best-selling author, @andi_dorfam, who crushed her first marathon! 5 – @tylerjcameron3 from Bachelorette, who completed his second marathon less than a month after his first! 6 – Niccole, our 53,000th finisher! Helping us @NYRR set the record for the largest marathon ever! 7 – Ginette, one of the oldest finishers of the TCS New York City Marathon, who finished 26.2 without the blink of an eye at age 86 🙌 . 8 – Natalia and Ben – long time Team For Kids runners – and a Youth Invitational Rising New York Road Runner, who all ran on Sunday! Each so well deserving of their medals🏅🏅🏅! . 9 — Thank you for running with us Joanne Tucker, Paul Sparks, @jasonsehorn, Andrew Shue, @ajrobach, @taritzel, @dan_churchill, @ryan_briscoe, @richardblais, @nevschulman, and @kikkanimal! #InspiredByYou #MovedMe #RunForLife #BornToRun #28YearsAndRunning #I❤️Running #BelieveInRunninng🏃‍♂️

[medialists]

Mamma Mia

Atomic Blonde 

Filth 

Regression 

Colonia 

El círculo 

Beauty and the Beast 

Trance 

Victor Frankenstein 

Atonement 

Starter for 10 

Becoming Jane 

The Conspirator

The Last King of Scotland 

X-Men.

Glass 

The Last Station 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 

Big Fish 

La desaparición de Eleanor Rigby 

Submergence 

Thor 

The Avengers 

Intensamente 

Las ventajas de ser invisible 

IT. 

Inception 

Harry Potter.

At eternity's gate 

Catch me if you can 

Her 

Pulp Fiction 

Xavier Dolan 

Memorias de una Geisha 

Ready player one 

Battle angel 

Taxi Driver 

El doble 

Shutter island 

Cube 

My week with Marilyn 

Noé 

Ballet shoes 

El diablo viste a la moda 

Cazafantasmas 

Les miserables 

Lady Bird 

The Truman Show 

Irene, yo y mi otro yo 

Call me by your name 

The Favorite 

La la land 

La chica del tren 

Jolene 

Winter's war 

Tomb Raider 

Ex machina 

El código Da Vinci 

Ángeles y demonios 

Mean Girls 

Mulan 

Coraline 

Mujer Bonita 

E.T. 

Crimson Peak. 

Extraordinario. 

Las de Marvel que faltan 

The Room 

A quiet place 

Blade Runner 

Animales Nocturnos 

Animales Fantásticos  

La Propuesta 

A star is born 

Begin again 

Anon. 

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

The Man with the Golden Gun

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

Never Say Never Again

A View to a Kill

The Living Daylights

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World is not Enough

Die Other Day

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

Dawn of the Dead

Blade II

RED

The Dark Knight Rises

Kick-Ass 2

Die Hard

Scarface

From Dusk till Dawn

Face/Off

No Escape

Impostor

Death Race 2

Jobs

Les Quatre Cents Coups

The Wolf of Wall Street

The Murder of Princess Diana

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Fight Club

My Sister's Keeper

Ida

Loreak

Sowon

Gran Torino

All About Eve

The Nun's Story

The Sunset Limited

A Clockwork Orange

Kingsman.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Lords of Dogtown

Unbroken

Ip Man

Million Dollar Baby

Concussion

The Great Gatsby

Lilting

Birdman

The Theory of Everything

War and Peace

Collateral Beauty

The Children's Hours

Moulin Rouge!

Dolls

The Bridges of Madison County

As Good as It Gets

Me Before You

Before Sunrise

Before Midnight

Carol

The Reader

Like Crazy

New York, I Love You

Anna Karenina

Pride & Prejudice

Bridget Jones's Diary

How to Marry a Millionaire

Bus Stop

The Prince and the Showgirl

Ladies of the Chorus

Roman Holiday

Prendimi l'Anima

The Young Victoria

Sabrina

Ed Wood

My Life Without Me

A Woman of Paris

Metropolis

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Fantasia 2000

Punisher: War Zone

Robin and Marian

The Unforgiven

Green Mansions

Live and Let Die

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

To the Bone

T2 Trainspotting

La Grande Bellezza

Men, Women & Children

Lost in Translation

Ghost World

Before Sunset

Evil Dead

Army of Darkness

After Earth

Hulk

Get Smart

Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Dark Crystal

Labyrinth

300

Mononoke Hime

Edge of Tomorrow

Death Race 2050

L'Écume des Jours

Paris When It Sizzles

The Seven Year Itch

Down with Love

Monkey Business

Dead Alive

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Vertigo

They All Laughed

Love Among Thieves

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Let's Make Love

Funny Face

On the Town

The Sky's the Limit

A Damsel in Distress

Shall We Dance

There's No Business Like Show Business

It's Always Fair Weather

My Fair Lady

Don't Bother to Knock

Monte Carlo Baby

Las Dos Caras de la Verdad

Ciudad en Tinieblas

El Bebé de Rose Mary

The Chuck Net Atrapado Sin Salida

El Experimento

Holy Motors

Mindscape

Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me

Antichrist

Bottom of the Worlds

High Rise

Southland Tales

Magnolia

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy

Inherent Vice

The Lobster

The Number 23

They Look Like People

Upstream Color

Twelve Monkeys

Minority Report

Los Cromocrímenes

Predestination

About time

Blue Velvet

Pi: Faith in Chaos

The Box

Identity

The Life of David Gale

The Gift

Lovesong

Miss Sloane

The Meyerowitz Stories

The Big Sick

Efectos Secundarios

The Notebook

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

The Little Mermaid

Manchester By the Sea

Silence

Moonlight

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Snowpiercer

Star Trek Beyond

Moonrise Kingdom

No Country for Old Men

The Exorcist

The Darjeeling Limited

House of Sand and Fog

Napoleon Dynamite

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Armores Perros

La Dictadura Perfecta

Frida

El Crimen del Padre Amado

El Estudiante

Cilantro y Perejil

Perfume de Violetas

Arráncame la Vida

Como Agua para Chocolate

Solo Con tu Pareja

El Callejón de los Milagros

Rojo Amanecer

La Ley de Herodes

Un Monstruo de Mil Cabezas

Las Horas Contigo

Maquinaria Paramericana

Ella es Ramona

El Jeremias

Sopladora de Hojas

Los Insólitos Peces Gatos

Guten Tag, Ramon

El Infierno

Mientras el Lobo No Está

Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas

Miss Bala

Cronos

Después de Lucía

Qué Culpa Tiene el Niño

Nosotros los Nobles

La Jaula de Oro

Y tu Mamá También

Canoa

Amar te Duele

Toki Wo Kakeru Shoujo

Transformers

Harry Potter

Old Yeller

Legally Blonde

Miller's Crossing

Faustrecht der Freiheit

It's Called Murder, Baby

Heathers

The Love Witch

Southside With You

Pink Flamingos

Hr's Just Not That Into You

Windstruck

What's Your Number?

There's Something About Mary

When Harry Met Sally

Forgettin Sarah Marshall

Say Anything

Pretty Woman

Not Another Teen Movie

Kate & Leopold

Sleepless in Seattle

Pretty in Pink

Serendipity

Four Weddings And A Funeral

50 First Dates

Bridget Jones' Diary

Something's Gotta Give

Pánico Antes del Amanecer

Cumpleaños Mortal

Viernes 13

La Quema

The Slumber Party Massacre

Campamento Sangriento

Curtains

Siete Mujeres Atrapadas

The House On Sorority Row

Detrás de la Máscara

April Fool's Day

Lovecraft

Bubba Ho-Tep

Thor Ragnarok

Lo Que Hacemos en las Sombras

Zombies Party

La Noche de los Muertos Vivientes

El Regreso de los Muertos Vivientes

Army of Darkness

Pasion Infernal

Terroríficamente muertos

El Baile de los Vampiros

Braindead

Creepshow

El Jovencito Frankeinstein

Gremlins

Un Hombre Lobo Americano en Londres

The Edge Of Seventeen

Murder of Cats

The Book of Love

Atomic Falafel

Buddies

Tiempos felices

Illegal

Nise: El Corazón de la Locura

Kill Command

The Blind Side

The Fundamentals of Caring

The Danish Girl

Miss You Already

Fantastic Beasts the Crimes of Grindelwald

Side Effects

Requiem for a Dream

Constantine

The Island

The Box

The Tall Man

Oblivion

Gods of Egypt

Twilight Zone

Dusk Dawn

Jeepers Creepers

The Descent

30 Days of Night

The Midnight Meat Train

VHS

Minority Report

Terminator

Avatar

Midnight Sun

The Book of Henry

Lady Bird

Truth or Dare

Adrift

Stronger

Every Day

A Nightmire on Elm Street

REC

Monsters

American Mary

Found

The Witches

Let Me In

Let the Right One In

Oculus

Insidious 4: The Last Key

Trainspotting

Night of the Living Dead

Life of Brian

Drive

Snatch

Blade Runner

Scarface

Lord of the Rings

Ben - Hur

Cantinflas

Tin tan

Pedro Infante

Gone With the Wind

Indiana Jones

Salon Kitty

The Wild Bunch

Harold and Maude

The Warriors

The Long Goodbye

Deep End

Coonskin

The Bestia in Calore

La Cage aux Folles

Badlands

The Brood

1941

Eraserhead

Labyrinth

Legend

The Sound of Music

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Enemy Mine

Cannibal Holocaust

The Evil Dead

Lola Montes

King Kong

Rock and Roll High School

Blood In Blood Out

Easy Rider

Heavy Metal

Pink Floyd The Wall

Wicker Park

Lars and the Real Girl

The Cable Guy

Sophie's Choice

Brokeback Mountain

A Wrinkle in Time

Scream

Presagio

Señales

Titanes del pacífico

Clint Eastwood

Dirty Harry

Chappie

The Greatest Showman

Safe Heaven

Across the Universe

Thirteen

Perfect Sense

A Life Less Ordinary

Shallow Grave

No Reservations

The Holiday

Ali G in da House

The Reader

The Dressmaker

Brigsby Bear

Cast Away

Romeo + Juliet

What's Eating Gilberte Grape?

Body of Lies

Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland

Apt Pupil

Stand by Me

Shawshank Redemption

Excalibur

Hearts Beat Loud

Velvet Buzzsaw

Nightcrawler

Chungking Express

Twin Peaks

Throne of Blood

Harakiri

2046

Tokyo Story

F for Fake

Allegrophobia

Lost in Translation

Hereditary

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Rear Window

West Side Story

Manhattan

David Lynch Cooking Quinoa

Ikiru

Midnight Cowboy

Bonnie and Clyde

The Straight Story

Annie Hall

The Great Dictator

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

M

Y tu Mamá También

Paddington

Paddington 2

Birdman

Autumn Sonata

To Kill a Mockingbird

Barry Lyndon

It's a Wonderful Life

The Wrestler

The Florida Project

Rashomon

It's Such a Beautiful Day

Paths of Glory

Kung Fury

Boogie Nights

Gone with the Wind

The Prestige

Shaun of the Dead

The World's End

In the Mood for Love

Handmaiden

Intolerance

El Bola

Celda 211

El Olivo

Las 13 Rosas

Blue Valentine

Closer

Like Crazy

(500) Days of Summer

Le Mépris

Match Point

Ruby Sparks

Once

Revolutionary Road

Happy Together

Sleepy Hollow

Vampyr

Black Sunday

The Hunger

The Haunting

Rebecca

Crimson Peak

The Crow

Pan's Labyrinth

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Drácula

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A Cure for Wellness

Horror of Dracula

The Bride

La Novia

Flavors of Youth

Dead Poet's Society

Mary and Max

Dear Zachary: a Letter to a Son about His Father

Big Fish & Begonia

20th Century Women

The Villainess

Touch of Evil

Christine

Zero Dark Thirty

The Stranger

Hannibal

El Autor

Short Term 12

Grave of the Fireflies

Cinema Paradiso

My Girl

A Ghost Story

Hasta el viento tiene miedo

El libro de piedra

Veneno para hadas

Pearl Harbor

Infierno azul

Guerra de Novias

El Bar Coyote

Needful Things

Sense & Sensibility

El Diario de Carlota

Batman vs Superman

Black Panther

Dredd

Scream

Valentine

Camino hacia el terror

Sé lo que hicieron el verano pasado

Joy Ride

Jeepers Creepers

La reunión del diablo

Viernes 13

Another Earth

A Quiet Place

Mississippi en llamas

The breakfast club

The revenant

birdman

sing street *

frida

roma

catch me if you can

dead poets society

the age of adaline

changeling

brooklyn

good will hunting

artificial intelligence

paranoia

to the bone

the danish girl

90 minutes in heaven

while you were sleeping

james and the giant peach

Crimson peak

pretty woman

summer days with coo

the breadwinner

summer wars

the gift

cargo

julie & julia

spirit

8 mile

raw

okja

schindler's list

blue valentine

the hateful eight

the untouchables

old boy

ghost in the shell

sophie's choice

ip man 2

frances ha

the tree of life

amanda knox

hail, caesar!

Janis: little girl blue

my beautiful broken brain

noah

the badadook

origin: spirits of the past

project almanac

the thing

bird box

death note

death note ii

1922

death note: light up the new world

pandora

american gangster

the nightmare

pasión por las letras

le dîner de cons

la grande vadrouille

la traversée de paris

le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain

El secreto de Adeline

La boda de mi mejor amigo

Loco por ella

Quédate a mi lado

The mexican

A él no le gustas tanto

El regalo

Lo imposible

Con derecho a roce

Mi segunda vez

Canta!

El examen

El número 23

The game

Clown house

Km3!

Macario

Once upon a time in Mexico

Wes Creaven's New Nightmare

Don't look now

Eyes without a face

Como si fuera la primera vez

El diario de Biridget Jones

500 días con ella

Juno

El descanso

Virgen a los 40

Eterno resplandor de una mente sin recuerdos

Realmente amor

Ligeramente embarazada

¿Cómo sobrevivir a un ex?

Mensajero del futuro

El imperio del fuego

El libro de Emo

Oblivion: el tiempo del olvido

La última esperanza

Escape de NY

El expresó del miedo

Soy leyenda

El último camino

Cuando el destino nos alcance

Sunset boulevard

North by northwest

The artist

The good the bad and the ugly

Highlander

Hair

The Maltese falcon

The road

Independence day

Armageddon

28 dias después

Hijos de los hombres

La guerra de los mundos

Stake land

Take shelter

Snowpiercer

2012

Supersalidos

American Pie

Rumores y mentiras

Todo en un día

Chicas malas

El club de los cinco

El exorcista

El descenso

The babadook

La matanza de Texas

La cosa

Martyrs

Rec 2

El conjuro 2

Pulse

Evil dead

Voice from the stone

Clinical

Dig two graves

Kidnap

Black butterfly

Grey Lady

Dans la maison

Memories of a murder

Incendies

The prestige

Gone baby gone

El secreto de sus ojos

Mystic River

[yellowdistress]

So, my cousin asked me to write this little piece. It’s short. It’s actually slightly based off of the Last of Us (which is what she wanted haha) and she’s one of my favorite people on the planet so I wrote it and sent it to her. She doesn’t have a tumblr, but she told me it was okay to post it. Hope you guys enjoy this irondad Last of Us thingy!

It came from a facility up north. That was what the government had told them.

The startling thing was that everyone ignored it at first. It wasn’t scary. Diseases happened, it was like all of the panic that had followed Ebola, and it had never really even touched the states. But people went on with their daily lives, stepped in and out of existence like none of it mattered, because it didn’t, they were just people, they were people living and getting through the day. 

But then it was Atlanta. The airport.

Los Angeles, New York, Dallas. 

Overseas...Hong Kong, London, Dubai. 

People were dropping like flies, and he supposed that was when things got serious. Doctors started looking for cures, and even The Tony Stark put an effort into curing something so vile. A virus that could  take hold of the most enhanced humans on the planet, turning them into something from old black and white films. Except these did not move at a pace ungodly slow, they sprinted, they held on, they dug their teeth in. But then there was the death that grew up the flesh, into the brain, right at the stem. Tony knew that much. It wasn’t long until the world was consumed by it, people were subject to the horrendous torture. People Tony Stark cared about. People he loved. People he wanted to save, and couldn’t, because he built things, not bodies. Not brains for the rotting ones. So they died. Tony died with them, somewhere along the way.

Survival was key. It gave him something to do, despite wanting to be dead for so long. It involved unsavory things, he supposed, smuggling. But he only shot the assholes along the way. Smuggling was based solely on something he didn’t see, getting food and weapons where it needed to be. Again, purpose. Surviving. Helping others do it, and reach that and get there up and up and up. Tony was dying everyday, but he needed that purpose.

The past few weeks had been spent with a different purpose.

The Immune Boy.

It had started out...weird. A favor, vague and secretive, Natasha had asked him to do it and he had. There was the scar, dug into the boy’s wrist. He needed to be brought to some medical team on the west coast, somewhere, he didn’t know. Tony hadn’t cared at first until he had realized the boy was something different. Something immune, something...otherworldly. It was simple: Get the kid there. To the facility. Keep him alive long enough to find a cure.

Tony hadn’t bothered to call him by his name, until the second week when the kid had been grabbed by some road runners. Not the kind that wanted to steal. Maybe he had known the name before that, but it was more important there, when Peter was covered in the blood of the guy whose head Tony had blown off. After Tony had helped him clean his face. When Peter had been shaking and asking “what happened? Why did they do that?” And Tony hadn’t the heart to tell him why. He already knew Peter had been raised in the safety of his aunt’s school. A place she ran for orphans, but she had died, Peter had been bitten, Nat had found him. It was simplistic and complicated, but Peter had grown up behind the shield of walls. The way not all children were lucky enough to be raised behind now.

Maybe Peter wasn’t lucky, his survival skills were lacking because of those walls.

That was a day ago. Peter hadn’t spoke much, not since Tony had gotten his face cleaned of the blood remnants and the particles of human. Peter hadn’t moved much either, from the little shed they were staying in. One with a barricade at the door, two cots, some canned goods and water. Peter was just sitting there, when Tony had pushed the canteen towards him and he had ordered almost harshly, “Drink.”

“I’m okay...”

“Drink it.”

So Peter did, because he usually listened. Tony watch him open the canteen with trembling hands, face long and sad because he didn’t understand what had happened yesterday, but Tony knew what human traffickers were and what they were capable of. How they were cruel to children like Peter. Of course the kid knew the world was no good, by any means, but his aunt had done a good job keeping him safe. Peter set the drink aside, and looked up at Tony silently through his eyelashes.

“Are we leaving soon?”

“When the rain lets up,” Tony replied bluntly, sitting on the cot opposite to Peter’s. He wrung his hands together, stir crazy. He wanted to move. It was all unsettling. His hands devised a plan to punch their way through walls, through the faces of those men yesterday. Peter pulled the blanket tighter around himself, rain patting the top of the tin roof.

Tony gestured to the water again, “You should keep drinking. You’re pale.”

“I’m okay,” Peter repeated the statement from earlier. Things were difficult. Ever since Peter had watched him shoot those men, he knew Peter didn’t understand. Behind the walls, things were different. Sometimes the military executed, but other times, things were fine. Almost like how it used to be. Behind the walls, that sort of violence the outside world offered didn’t exist the same way. 

Peter paused, then continued, “I didn’t sleep...well. I dreamt about - anyway...I still don’t understand - “

“That’s fine because you don’t need to understand,” Tony said, “Just know it happened. Those dickheads deserved it. End of story.”

“Why were they doing that?”

“Because it’s the real world, kid,” Tony snapped, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, he wanted Peter to stop asking questions, “Alright? These aren’t the walls, where everything is great and happy, we’re on the open road. People die. A lot of them are murderers and sick assholes who deserve what they get.”

Peter silenced, his mouth snapping shut. He sometimes talked a lot but sometimes didn’t. This was one of the times where Peter looked afraid of him. They were going to have a long journey, many more weeks to come, and so he needed the kid to trust him, but Peter was scared of him. Tony didn’t blame him. Old-Tony would have been the same way with himself now. It wasn’t him...Not really.

“I just...” Peter breathed, “You know, the Corpses? Those are the enemies, and it feels wrong to kill people who are healthy.”

Tony replied, “They teach you that behind the walls so you don’t go rogue on each other. It’s not true out here. Two different things. These guys don’t have remorse, they don’t have rules, there’s no military in the wilderness. Just you and me, and them, and I’m trying to keep you alive.”

Peter pulled the blanket tighter, hunching forward, “I’m sorry...It’s...”

He paused, then finished, “They were humans, you know? Not Corpses.”

Tony breathed deeply, standing to his feet. He stared at Peter, and Peter looked up at him, concern in his eyes as if he thought something bad was about to happen, but Tony’s blood pressure was rising, so maybe it was. He stepped forward, bending into a crouch on his toes, elbows on his knees. Peter stared at him, his hair still wet from when Tony had to basically dunk his head in the creek behind the shed to get the blood off cause the kid could barley move from shock.

He poked Peter’s chest, “You’re human. They weren’t.”

Peter didn’t look like he believed Tony, but then again, he still didn’t really trust him. They had only known each other...not long. Under a month. He then flicked Peter under the chin and the kid looked away with a sort of nod, maybe just to get off the subject, because Tony wasn’t going to drop it. He couldn’t drop it.

“Take a nap. We’re leaving when the rain stops.”

[mz-elysium]

The Bay By Night

Last updated: August 1, 2019

The Bay by Night follows five protagonists as they struggle to survive a night filled with vampires, hunters, werewolves, and worse in the San Francisco Bay Area. The freedom-loving Anarch vampires have found themselves betrayed by their Baron of the Bay and handed over to the feudalistic and lordly Camarilla. Ruthless elders and their minions flock in droves, while Anarchs either bow and scrape with the hopes of avoiding the wrath of their overlords or plot vengeance in the night.

One way or another, blood will run.

Genre >> new adult urban fantasy, supernatural fantasy, gothic horror, romance

POV >> third person, multi-pov, interlocking with individual stories

Current status >> 88k words

Expected length >> 500k+ words

WiP tag >> #the bay by night, #tbbn

Also features:

Vampire Oscar Wilde with a pirate ship

Hunters in black trench coats with swords

Everyone is their own worst enemy

Shakespearean levels of tragedy

Eventual happy endings (promise)

Found family (brother/sister, father/daughter, mom friend)

Game of Thrones: Vampire Edition

Edits and posts

Character Introduction: Matthew Monroe

Character Introduction: Annabelle Hawthorne

Character Introduction: Nathaniel Hawke

Primer: Ghouls

Tags

my oc: tony, my oc: monroe, my oc: annabelle, my oc: hawke, my oc: reed

The Bay By Night

tbbn

POV Characters

[Tony Ross] is a new Anarch and turned only last year during a Sabbat attack, which took the life of his older brother, a loss he’s still reeling from as he struggles to pull himself free from his brother’s shadow. Tony soon finds himself at the center of a dizzying web of politics as his gang’s leader (the idealistic orator, Everett Smith) sets himself against the new Camarilla overlords. Without a place to turn and trapped between the sly Valentine and rebellious Anarchs, he strives to protect his still-human sister from the vampires who surround her. (Black and gay protagonist, family devotion, living a life true to self)

[Matthew Monroe] is a charismatic and honourable Camarilla loyalist, eager to stake out territory and titles amidst the fresh land rush. His sire’s death fifty years ago set him free, but the wounds of his century of abuse are still fresh. Ever since, Monroe’s struggled for respect and honest friendship among the selfish vampires. He finds grudging acceptance among his clan and, for the first time in the last 174yrs, power begins to flow into his lap. Monroe longs to set things straight, but the elders’ game of shadows isn’t kind to those with things to lose -- like his dear ghoul and adopted childer. (abused protagonist, unequal love, good intentions and looking down the road to hell)

[Annabelle Hawthorne] is an heirloom ghoul with more than two centuries of service under her. The countless decades serving monsters has burned the appearance of humanity from her with a cold wind. Once, she served Monroe’s sire, and now him. Monroe’s a far kinder regent, but a master nonetheless. He allows her to attend university and associate regularly with mortals and his unwitting herd, who she fiercely defends from her regent who preys on them. While Monroe approaches her for an earnest friendship, Annabelle’s good friend (James Ritter, elder ghoul of the influential Jan Pieterzoon) searches for a way to escape the chains of blood that emotionally enslave and physically addict ghouls to their vampiric masters. (addiction, slavery, what it means to be human)

[Nathaniel Hawke] was once an infamous vampire hunter, feared from San Francisco to Miami. In New York, he pissed off one too many, who turned him as punishment. Animated by the quasi-sentient Beast of vampire blood, he’s unable to end his life and struggles to find his fellow hunter (Joan Schubert, a Catholic inquisitor).to help him. Along the way he discovers he can feed on vampire blood, but depends on the patronage of a powerful elder of the Bay to protect him. One of the elder’s brood (the eternally cheerful Kathy Weise) takes him under her bat wing and, much to his discomfort, he begins to learn about the monsters he’s spent fifteen years slaying. (found sister/brother, man vs self, the meaning of good and evil)

[Chelsea Reed] is the proud and cunning leader of a pack among the dread Sabbat, a blood cult who revels in their undead nature. With the recent loss of New York to the Camarilla, the Sabbat are compelled to turn their heads westward and the warlord (Polonia) takes her with him as a personal templar. Chelsea struggles as she comes into her own with powers of shadow, but the Abyss worms its way into her mind, even as the priest of her own pack deals with foul dreams and being tormented by a far greater force. (mentally ill protagonist, found family, urban fantasy guerrilla war)

Background knowledge

Disclaimer: The Bay By Night is based on White Wolf’s Vampire the Masquerade RPG system and the world’s history. Some things have been retconned or streamlined to make more sense and all the characters and plot are original.

The Sects

There are three major factions of vampires (or kindred, as the civilized ones like to call themselves) that were formed during the Inquisition in response to humanity hunting them down.

Camarilla. Somewhere between Mafia and a royal court, they’re the Big Brother cabal who steeples long thin fingers together and says “Eggcellent” in an obscure European accent. Steeped in subterfuge, arrogance, scheming, backstabbing, favours, and with a glass ceiling about three feet high for the average fledgling. The dominant sect of vampires around the world and, by and large, lawful and peaceful if you don’t fuck with the elders who’ve ruled it like quasi-benevolent dictators since men wore tights.

Sabbat. They’re the inheritors of Caine’s legacy (of “Caine and Abel”, the First Murderer) and they weren’t going to start kowtowing it to any elder. After all, the end is neigh and when Caine rises again, he’s gonna want to start devouring those elders who pissed him off eight thousand years ago by siring the clans (those 13 elders are myths in modern times, told like stories from the Bible in culturally Christian America). In the modern nights, the Sabbat are a murderous blood cult steeped in mysticism and a deep worship for Caine and contempt for humanity.

Anarchs. The ones who thought the Sabbat were nuts. Anarchs just wanna be free, man. Don’t want no one telling them what to do or how to live or where to eat or when they gotta face sunrise. So long as they agreed to be peaceful and follow the Cam’s rules, they were allowed the protection of the Camarilla. From 1944 - 1966, they rebelled in California and established the Anarch Free States: hundreds of small baronies run by gangs where the only law was “every vampire for themselves”. With the Sabbat breathing down from Sacramento, the Baron by the Bay turned desperately to the Camarilla, who were only too happy to help repel an attack.

The Siege of New York (2008 - 2010)

Sabbat has claimed New York as a stronghold since before it was New Amsterdam, but during the Great Depression a brave Camarilla prince staked a claim in Manhattan. She struggled valiantly, fighting a war nightly, but it became too much.

Prince Michaela pled at a conclave for assistance. New York had been a lost cause for centuries and the cautious elders scoffed at the plea. Matthew Monroe, a born gambler and opportunist, pledged to uphold her claim to the ends of his life.

He called in a favour from another prince and tipped the first domino by taking the case of New York to the justicar of his clan, the Ventrue Justicar Lucinde. She deployed her agents and Monroe played runner between allies who loathed each other.

Jan Pieterzoon, a key strategist, was sent on behalf of his sire, the Camarilla Founder Hardestadt. Pieterzoon and Monroe worked close the next two years, as Pieterzoon humiliated the Sabbat leadership of New York and captured the city. The Sabbat power base and Polonia’s pride, stretching from Miami to Conneticut, now had a gaping hole where the crown jewel once sat.

The justicars swooped in and claimed credit, dividing the city among esteemed elders and their childer, giving their agents and strategists a pat on the head.

Pieterzoon accepted the plea from the Anarch Baron by the Bay and surreptitiously asked Monroe to come with him to San Francisco, personally offended but unsurprised at how Monroe had been treated.