#Sebastian review 2012

[turtleboyz]

Character Analysis: 2012 Season 1: Raph

Raph time!

This version of raph, is interesting! While I’m not the biggest fan of this version of him. There is some pretty neat characterization of him.

Raph, in this version, isn’t the leader. From the first episode we see Raph is a hothead, and violent. He also has anger issues.

The anger issues aren’t there without a reason. He has them as a way to express his emotions. In one of the episode, 3, splinter yells at Raph for getting angry at a human. We can see that Raph trys to explain himself then go quiet. During splinter’s speech we can see Raph getting angry at Mikey. I think Raphael use his anger as an outlet for his emotions. From the way splinter treats him, to the way his family see him. The only person Raph sees to have soft spot for is his pet turtle.

But Raph is also protective. He said that he has no problem risking his own life but not his brothers. In the episode 13 Raph try’s to be the leader. But when fighting a villain he gets overwhelmed and freezes up when Mikey gets hurt. It’s very interesting to see that. Raph thought he could be leader and was proven wrong, and apologized to Leo.

So if Raph isn’t the leader? Who exactly is his in the group’s dynamics? He’s the the powerhouse! Like he literally climb up done and rip off a laser in episode 18. This kid is strong.

I hope in season 2 and onward Raph will learn how to control his anger and learn how to find better ways to express himself. And not not physically hurt his brothers in anger

[thegoldenretrieverandthegaynerd]

Some more lovely reviews for 4000 miles this morning. Very chuffed for Bash 🎭

Edit:

A few more to add!

[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

The Evil Within Review:

This is going to be a bold take coming from me, a Resident Evil fan, but I want to say that The Evil Within nailed the survival horror elements a little better than Resident Evil 8. Then again, this could be because of the fact that my love for Resident Evil started late back when RE6 was the newer installment of Resident Evil at the time which came out in 2012. And The Evil Within came out in 2014, with it’s sequel coming out three years later that I have not started yet.

I’m also going include “atmosphere” to my game reviews because when it comes to specific games, in this case, a horror game, it’s gonna be scored based on how well the scary and creepy atmosphere is captured.

Story:

Let’s see, a horror story where the main focus is on psychological terror and screwing with the main character Sebastian Castellanos’s mind as well as learning about Ruvik, a vengeful spirit who screws with everyone’s minds? What’s not to love?

This game’s story is fifteen chapters long and is well paced in my opinion. The beginning as usual by Bethesda’s games has had an awesome beginning. Sebastian Castellanos, Joseph Oda, and Juli Kidman (who I need you to remember and keep in mind while reading this review) investigate a crime happening in the Beacon Mental Hospital where the cops all get killed by an entity named Ruvik. Sebastian gets knocked out via a syringe by Ruvik. That is the first clue about the type of ending we’re about to get.

Sebastian is then chased by Sadist, a monster in this game who injures Sebastian’s leg with a chainsaw and Sebastian has to limp desperately for safety. And he successfully does so. Just barely.

Then in the next chapter, his leg is just fine, which is the another clue that everything that was happening in the game all happened in his head.

As the story progresses, Ruvik’s backstory as well as Sebastian’s backstory as well when you find his journal entries and police reports are slowly revealed. Ruvik’s real name is Ruben Victoriano who was fascinated with the brain and how it functions. This fascination started at age 10 and he worked with the shady and backstabbing Marcelo Jimenez.

Leslie is also the key to Ruvik’s true power in the game, hence why Marcelo tries to use Leslie to escape from Ruvik’s world and why Juli Kidman (the best morally grey character in a video game I’ve played) reluctantly but tries to kill Leslie before Ruvik could get to him.

Also that nurse you see in the hospital that Sebastian gets sent to whenever you wanted to save your progress or raise his stats? That also acts as a slow burn of fridge horror.

And this game LOVES fridge horror.

In the climax of the story, Sebastian and Ruvik fight in Sebastian’s mind after Ruvik fuses with Leslie. And this fight is badass and slightly reminded me of how most Resident Evil final fights go, except this took place in Ruvik’s world while he’s trying to screw with Sebastian’s mind.

Afterwards, Sebastian wakes up and yanks the cord from the back of his neck and exits Beacon Mental Hospital where it all started, and he sees a quick glimpse of Leslie, before he gets one last wicked bad headache and Leslie just disappears.

Then the credits start with the song “Long Way Down” playing, marking the start of Sebastian’s descent into madness.

Yep, the events of the game were all just a dream. I mean, think about it, Ruvik knocked him out with a syringe, he’s walking around just fine after his leg nearly got torn by a chainsaw, the hospital visits with Tatiana, a nurse who went missing, and it was revealed in the climax that Sebastian and the others were connected into the device where Ruvik’s brain was connected to. Since the game has psychological horror elements, this type of ending makes sense.

The story was engaging to follow, and I especially loved learning about the story lore, hence my score for this part of TEW.

Characters:

I really liked the characters in this game. Especially Juli Kidman.

First, a round of the characters that act as supporting characters:

Oscar is the first guy to be turned into a Haunted and crashes the ambulance after the intro.

Joseph Oda is a young detective in his late 20’s who is the smartest character besides Ruvik in the game, but has a lot of bad luck. Dude almost turns into those Haunted creatures in the game, loses his glasses, gets shot twice in the game and his fate is unknown. Honestly, a character with an unknown fate is scary in the context of horror.

Marcelo Jimenez. This scummy scientist who is being secretive around a police detective like Sebastian took all of the credit from Rubik’s work and research and threw Ruvik into the machine that was used in the game on the main characters.

Now that the supporting cast are out of the way, the main characters.

First, Sebastian Castellanos. So the TL:DR of Sebastian’s backstory: Sebastian is a veteran cop turned detective in his 40’s who was also married to another detective who ended up dying while investigating a house fire that “killed” his daughter Lily. I say it in quotes because she appears in the second game, alive and somewhat well. But ignoring that for now, after that, Sebastian became alcoholic and started bending the rules as a result of his grief. In the events of the first game, he is the type of character who has impulsive tendencies and acts like a protective father (because he is one) even around characters that are not his kids. Even better, Sebastian is the typical Stoic male character that never came off as boring or robotic. He makes jokes from time to time and there is a justifiable reason why he has nerves of steel, because he started out as a cop then became a detective.

Speaking of fire, we got Ruben “Ruvik” Victoriano who was a victim of a fire accident, but even after the horrible stuff that happens to him in the game, we all need to always keep in mind, that he is still a psychopath. Yes, he got screwed over by Jimenez, yes, he was forced into a machine, yes, he lost his sister in a fire, yes, he suffered the worst of it with the severe burns on his body, and yes, his father is a piece of shit, but he is still a serial killer whose interest in killing and experimenting on animals while they were still alive as a kid expanded to doing it to people when he got older. Not to mention that he’s targeting Leslie, a patient with Scizophrenia who is the most vulnerable person in the story. And it’s even heavily implied that he successfully possessed Leslie and is now out in the real world. And he also killed his own mother even though she had nothing to do with what his father did to him. He’s a great villain, and he has a tragic past, but the game doesn’t gloss over his actions or the Sweet Home Alabama feelings he has for Laura, his older sister.

Between Ruvik being a serial killer and Marcelo being an amoral shady person who kept trying to be secretive with Sebastian about everything, I couldn’t tell who was the true bad guy in the story.

So I love both the hero and villain of the story, especially the villain of the story who has had misfortunes happen to him which can make the player feel for him, but at the same time, the game still acknowledges that he is a villain whose childhood hinted that he’s had evil thoughts that he is now acting on after he grew up, and thanks to Marcelo, he basically created that monster. It sometimes starts with a child torturing and killing animals and then they grow up to be a serial killer.

I felt more sorry for Sebastian in the game, because he lost his wife and child in what the game is heavily implying to be an arson crime. Not to mention that Sebastian went into father mode when it came to Leslie when he was in distress.

The next character that deserves a lot of the spotlight is Juli Kidman. At first, we’re led to believe that she is a rookie working alongside Sebastian and Joseph, but then it’s revealed that she’s working with a different organization and is no rookie.

Furthermore, Juli attempts to kill Leslie so that Ruvik doesn’t get to him and use him to get into the real world. Sebastian stops her from doing so, and that is when he realizes that Juli is no rookie. She works with the shady organization MOBIUS and of course, in the events of the game she’s working with STEM, and she defied her orders of killing her partners Joseph Oda and Sebastian Castellanos. Not to mention that she was nearly in tears when she was about to kill Leslie, showing that she does not enjoy having to do the dirty work of a shady business.

At the end of the game, she told one of her associates in the organization she was working for to leave Sebastian alone.

While Sebastian is a rule bender, Juli is straight up a rule destroyer as she has a rebellious streak. Take notes, Resident Evil, Juli is how you write a good morally grey character. That is a topic for another time, and just so I don’t get sidetracked while reviewing this part, Juli Kidman is the best character in this game, and I would say more if I played the DLC stories The Assignment and The Consequence, but I haven’t done so yet, so those will get separate DLC reviews plus more on my thoughts on Juli.

For now, Juli Kidman is my absolute favorite morally grey character from fiction in general. In fact I will argue that if I were to make a fanmade Evil Within 3, I’d make it about Juli. That is how much I love her as a character.

The characters in this game are good, and I hope that TEW2 keeps this up with both the story and characters. Or they don’t and it will make me go back to the first TEW.

Gameplay:

The gameplay for a 2014 game feels satisfying to navigate and alter. I stuck with the default controls for this game.

First, the health and stamina system. Both can be improved with the Green Gel or what I like to personally call it: Brain Juice, so it will be called that throughout this review. You need to collect and save up a lot of Brain Juice if you want to raise Sebastian’s stats like his health, his melee attack strength, his stamina so that he can sprint longer, and how much of his health gets recovered by a syringe.

The medical kit you need to use sparingly and ONLY if you’re at low health and away from danger, because the syringe in the medical kit will fully heal you instantaneously, but it will have Seb taste sound and hear colors for a few seconds because of the brief side effects that come with the medicine inside.

And now, the weapons (in order of how you get them, excluding the weapons you receive after beating the game for the first time and the knife): the handgun, shotgun, crossbow, sniper rifle, and revolver. Also, even on the lowest difficulty, this game does NOT mess around and really does live up to the survival horror genre, because towards the very end of the game, I lost damn near ALL of my ammo. I just had the few last bullets in my rifle and revolver, so I was screwed lol.

Since this is also an early 2010’s game, it doesn’t do the predatory business practice we’re seeing in games now where instead of having to buy in-game models with points or in-game currency, you get them after playing for the first time. The only time you spend actual money on this game is the Assignment, the Consequence, and the Executioner DLCs. TEW2 does not have DLC at all.

But for a 2014 title, the gameplay has aged well. TEW executed the stamina and sprint concept better than RE6. Also, side note, it really says a LOT that a 2014 game has better graphics than the new Silent Hill 2 Remake’s gameplay teaser.

Atmosphere:

And now the first review to get the atmosphere scoring… how is the atmosphere of The Evil Within?

I’d say, it’s genuinely creepy. Especially the abandoned hospitals and the sewers. Even the safe hospital with Tatiana has creepy and unsettling vibes.

The best creepy area that isn’t the hospital is the area where you get chased by Laura. It gets so intense when she’s chasing you in areas where you need to try to light her on fire. I remember freaking out and truly running around in a panic trying to set her on fire to defeat her because she’s a one-hit kill enemy.

The Victoriano Mansion was also creepy to explore because it feels like you’re visiting a haunted mansion knowing that a vengeful spirit is after you.

Every level has the best creepy and scary atmosphere all around especially the Ruvik boss fight.

Overall:

Is this game an effective horror game? Yes. I remember being scared of the Sadist at the very beginning and freaking out when I got spotted.

I also love how Sebastian and Ruvik both have backstories related to losing their loved ones to a fire and even though TEW2 contradicts this very hard by having Lily survive the fire but ignoring that for now, I love the parallel between the two.

I also loved the characters overall, there was not a single character I actively hated or got annoyed by. I did expect the game to undermine Ruvik as a villain due to his tragic backstory, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Give this horror game a try if you’re a hardcore horror game fan.

I hope that if Bethesda is going for an Evil Within 3, they do much better than Evil Within 2 because I did not like that game as much as this one.

Score: 18/20; one of the best games from the 2010’s I’ve played.

[thedavinoparadox]

❄️☃️December Reading Wrap-Up🎄⛸️

Selenio, 31st December 2023

To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the cold. - Aristotle

And there, December has gone already. I really can’t believe how quickly the past few months have gone by and I somehow feel like I’m still stuck in March, terrified of my A levels. So many hurdles had to be climbed, so many difficult decisions had to be made and so much pain had to be endured. Still, I persevered and I think this is a reason to be proud of. One year ago I never would have thought to once find myself in the place I am right now and even though I still have a long way to go, I think I used December to pave the way for a successful 2024.

The books I've read this month (more detailed reviews will follow!):

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1956)

The Vampire of Havena by Sebastian Thureau (2015) & Lovely Princess Yasmina by Gerd Böder and Andreas Michaelis (1989)

Comparative Literature by Alexander Nebrig and Evi Zemanek (2012)

Shelter by Ursula Poznanski (2021)

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (1996) - DNF

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleswki (2000)

[f1]

Verstappen voted 2022 Driver of the Year by RaceFans readers | 2022 F1 season

RaceFans readers have voted Max Verstappen as their top driver of the 2022 Formula 1 season. It is the second year in a row the Red Bull driver has topped our poll. The Red Bull driver retained his championship crown, but while he had to fight to the last round in 2021, this time he put a lock on it with four races to spare. The margin of Verstappen’s 2022 title win, triumphing by 146 points over runner-up Charles Leclerc, was similar to his dominance in the RaceFans readers’ poll. Over half of all votes were for Verstappen, although he actually took a smaller portion of the total votes compared to last year (52% to 55%). In another parallel to last year a Mercedes driver received the second most votes, but this time it was new signing George Russell instead of Lewis Hamilton. Russell accumulated 11% of readers’ votes, with Hamilton dropping to fifth place and 5% of the total votes. Between the two Mercedes drivers were Alpine’s Fernando Alonso (10%) and McLaren’s Lando Norris (9%). Haas driver Kevin Magnussen picked up 3% of the vote, with Leclerc and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel level on 2% and then six drivers (Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Nicholas Latifi, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz Jnr and Mick Schumacher) all earning at least one vote. That left six full-time drivers who were nobody’s top performer among the RaceFans readership, including Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who won two grands prix and finished third in the championship standings. RaceFans F1 Driver of the Year poll winners since 2010 2022: Max Verstappen 2021: Max Verstappen 2020: Lewis Hamilton 2019: Lewis Hamilton 2018: Lewis Hamilton 2017: Lewis Hamilton 2016: Daniel Ricciardo 2015: Sebastian Vettel 2014: Daniel Ricciardo 2013: Sebastian Vettel 2012: Fernando Alonso 2011: Sebastian Vettel 2010: Lewis Hamilton Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free RaceFans 2022 F1 Driver of the Weekend winners Eight different drivers won RaceFans’ Driver of the Weekend poll during 2022. Here’s who triumphed in each, plus who Formula 1’s official Driver of the Day winners: Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2022 F1 season review Browse all 2022 F1 season review articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net/

[the-letter-horror-lover]

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A Black Ghost! by Ghosthunt Kat

Anime » Ghost Hunt Rated: T, English, Supernatural & Romance, Words: 498, Favs: 9, Follows: 11, Published: Jun 13, 2014

8

Black Butler

"Sebastian" Ciel called

"Yes, Master?" Sebastian answered back

"Save me now!" Ciel yelled, and with that, Sebastian saved Ciel again from a guy wanting money, willing to kill Ciel

Ghost Hunt

"Mai! Tea!" Called Naru, when she walked in through the door

"Im on it!" Mai yelled, and headed for the kitchen to make Narus tea, when she finished she gave it to Naru, and waited there

"What do you want?" he asked

"Say thank you" Mai said, Naru just looked away from Mai and back to his work

"You know a thank you wouldn't hurt anything!" She yelled, when a client came in, a girl

"Are you S.P.R?" she asked

"Yes" Mai answered, and then the girl came and sat down on the couch

"Well, I-I have a case" she said, and Naru looked up from what he was doing

"Ok, tell us" Naru said

"Well my name is Suki, and weird things have been happening at my house" Suki said

"What kind of things?" Naru asked

"Well like, every now and then objects will be fine, then the next secound they will be floating, and then be thrown, and never found" Suki started "Also we will hear banging, and doors slamming" Suki finished

Naru sat their thinking for a little bit then said "We will take it, prepare us rooms" Naru said, then stood up and went into his office, then Suki turned to Mai

"Thank you, ill see you there!" Suki said and ran out

Mais POV, THE NEXT DAY

We get to the house, and prepare to get started, I set up cameras everywhere, with Yasu's help, and Masako goes around the house to see if she can sense anything, whill John, Monk, and Ayako Help set up the Base.

"Did you finish?" Naru asks me when Yasu and I walk in

"Yes" I say, and sit down, when Masako comes in

"Their is something here, but i can't read what it is" she says, and stands by Naru

"ok" he says, and continues to look at the TV's

After about an hour of research, and questioning its time to go to bed, we are all in are beds when I see a Blue light, in the middle of the floor

"Hey Masako, do you see that?" I ask

"Yes" she answers when Naru, Lin, John, Yasu, and Monk come running in

"What is that?!" Monk asks

"I never seen anything like it" Naru says studying it

"Me either" Yasu says and studies it as well, we sit in silence for awhile starring at it, when it expands, when it does it looks bigger then Lin!

"What the...!" Monk yells, then a bright light shines from it, and everything goes black.

Black Butler, Mai's POV

When my vision comes through, its day, I look around im in a total diffrent room! I see that nobody else is in this room either, then I hear the door open

"Welcome to the Phantomhive Manner"

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The Butler: Variety by bleachfreaknumba1

Anime » Kuroshitsuji Rated: K+, English, Humor & Angst, Ciel P., Sebastian M., Words: 493, Favs: 18, Follows: 16, Published: Sep 1, 2012 Updated: Jun 22, 2017

23

AN: First Black Butler Drabble! XD Plz Review!

He was falling. Falling into a dark abyss of despair, grief, and sadness. A single sound echoed in the darkness. A pained and desperate sound, crying out for help. Help that would never come. Lost in the darkness, a light that could never be reached. That, was the meaning of such a vengeful existence.

The morning sun shone brightly through the open window.

"Bocchan," Sebastian's voice intoned softly," it's time for you to wake up."

Groaning softly, Ciel slowly lifted his tired body off the bed and opened his half shut eyes.

"It's a nice day today," Sebastian commented, proceeding to dress the groggy young master.

"There's no need for needless comments Sebastian," Ciel murmured in a commanding sort of voice. Bowing his head, Sebastian said," As you wish."

An awkward silence followed, and soon, Ciel was ready for the day. Standing up, Sebastian excused himself, leaving Ciel to his own devices. For the rest of the day, there was no more voice interaction between the two.

Everything was communicated by glares and grunts, words were unnecessary.

Soon, night was approaching quickly once more, the last rays of sunshine giving off a feeble glow. Ciel wouldn't admit it, but sleep terrified him. Haunting nightmares and horrible memories invaded every night's dreams.

It was an endless and vicious cycle, one that tormented him to no end. That fateful smoke covered night, brought to the forefront of his mind. The horror and realization of what had happened. The demon…. approaching him, offering his undying loyalty in exchange for his soul. The deal that day had sealed his fate. The right path was lost, the darkness swallowing what was left of him.

As these dark thoughts crossed his mind, Sebastian entered the bedroom.

"Young master," he said, a slight questioning tone in his voice.

"Sebastian," Ciel said firmly, covering up any troubled traces on his face," I was beginning to think you would never come." Ignoring the last comment, Sebastian asked," Is something wrong bocchan? Such a troubled face does not suit the young master."

"Nothing is wrong," Ciel said stubbornly, his facial features sharpening in the warm glow of the lamp. Nodding his head in acknowledgement, Sebastian muttered," Good night then young master."

Placing the lamp on the desk next to the bed, he blew the light out. Walking towards the door, he heard a small and timid voice call out to him. "Sebastian," Ciel's voice commanded, his voice shaking with shame and helplessness," stay with me until I'm asleep."

Smiling to himself in the blank darkness Sebastian replied," If this is what the bocchan wants, I have no choice but to comply." Ciel sighed softly, his mind giving in to sleep. That night, there were no nightmares and no horrible memories. For the first time in a long time, Ciel felt something other than pain.

He felt tranquility.

Review

Black Butler Return: Black Butler's Lady by Kuroshoujo

Anime » Kuroshitsuji Rated: T, Indonesian, Romance & Drama, Sebastian M., Words: 28k+, Favs: 13, Follows: 17, Published: Sep 9, 2013 Updated: Jul 26, 2019

38Chapter 1: Beginning

Whoa! I'm done with my first chapter! Actually this is the second fanfiction in FKI. But the first fanfiction I deleted. Because? One reason: UGLY. Levie looks more like Alois Trancy. I can't imagine Sebastian wanting to serve an employer like that. Brrr.. *sudden goosebumps*.

In this fanfiction , I made a SebastianXOC pair *sorry for fans of SebastianXCiel pair .. I hope you guys like this fanfiction * because I like it. It's not that I hate YAOI or Shonen-Ai.. I like it. I passed it on to my friend. Eehh.. even your friend asked me to help me find the Rated M. So collect it *oops, open the disgrace*. It's just.. I'm more comfortable when Sebastian pairs with a GIRL . A real girl, of course.. Ciel just 'looks like' a pretty girl *gets hit by Ciel*. For those who want to read, please... Review? Please.. Favorite? Wow.. please! Monggo, monggo..! *Really* want to bash?*silent...* yes, yes... but just PM me, I don't want any fuss.

Oops, why is it so long, huh? Yes, just check it out right away!

Black Butler Return!: Black Butler's Lady

Rated: T (maybe in next chapter M? Who knows? Lol)

Genre: Romance, Drama

Cast: Sebastian M.

Disclaimer: Yana Toboso (just for Sebastian Michaelis for this chapter)

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Chapter 1: Beginning

.

.

The hands touched the girl roughly. The girl struggled. squirm. Shout with all your might. But nothing stopped. Her tears were the size of corn kernels incessantly. The girl was panting from exhaustion from screaming since this afternoon. The girl kept on praying to God. To be given a savior to save him. But..

-NOBODY COMES-

The girl gasped. Who said that?

-NOBODY COMES. THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST-

The girl sighed loudly. The hands were still touching his body. But they did it rudely. He still didn't stop praying to God.

-NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU. ASK ME HELP-

The girl's eyes were getting dull and weak. His breathing is irregular. He continued to pray to God. Looking forward to the help that will come to him.

-STAY WHAT YOU REQUEST. I WILL ACCEPT-

The girl gasped. An old man pulled out a knife that gleamed in the moonlight peeking through the window. The old geezer smirked at the frightened girl. 'What? What are they going to do?!'

-STAY YOUR REQUEST!-

The knife was getting closer to him. And..

JREB!

"AAAAAARRGGGHHHH!" The girl screamed in pain. ' Why? Why is all this happening to me?'

-COME ON, SAY IT..-

"I..." The girl said weakly. "Want to be free."

-ONE MORE TIME-

"I!" said the girl. "WANT TO BE FREE! Free me from the hands of these damn people!"

-GOOD-

A second later, a black shadow suddenly appeared above the girl who was lying down. The people who had touched it were both amazed and frightened to see the shadow.

"He's coming!" cried the man who stabbed the knife at the girl. "I have summoned you! Grant my wish! Grant me wealth and eternal life!"

-YOU CALLED ME, BUT I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOU-

"Eh?" the man asked. Everyone is silent.

-I WANT THIS GIRL-

The girl trembled. He could see blood red eyes staring at him intently. He looked very scared.

-YOU ALREADY MADE YOUR REQUEST. DO YOU REGRET NOW? NO WAY BACK-

The girl swallowed. In his heart he justifies the word 'something'. He closed his eyes then slowly he opened them and showed his dark black eyeballs and said firmly.

"I won't go back on my word anymore. I want to be free. Kill these people."

Everyone who was there suddenly screamed hysterically. One of them said shakily. "Anyone! Stop that girl!"

-OK, BEFORE I HAVE TO MARK BOTH OF OUR CONTRACTS-

"Just put it down!"

-ANYWHERE?-

"Anywhere!" said the girl.

-OK.. BECAUSE YOU ARE A GIRL.. I WILL MARK ONLY ONE GIRL HAVING THEM-

"You mean..AAAKKKHHHH!" the girl screamed in pain. Signing the contract was very, very painful. More than the stab wound the old man had given him.

-IT'S FINISHED. IT'S TIME TO COMPLETE YOUR APPLICATION Ms.. WHAT'S YOUR NAME?-

"Levie.. Levie Rodrickfille.." the girl replied weakly.

-LEVIE? BEAUTIFUL NAME.. MY LADY..-

"Now.. Hurry! Kill them!"

Suddenly a man in an all-black tailcoat fell from the huge black shadow. Her dark black hair was straight and parted in the middle slowly falling beside her face. His handsome face was decorated with a mysterious smile. His irises were blood red. And now it's starting to turn purple and light up. Slowly he answered his new Lady's orders.. "Yes, My Lady.."

.

.

The sun seemed to be trying to infiltrate through the slits of Levie's eyes. Levi squirmed. Then open his eyes. He is now lying on a bed. The bed in the room in his apartment. He felt very dizzy now. It's like drinking a lot of alcohol.

"Good morning." Said a deep and..sexy (?) voice *well, that's what i imagine about :P i think he has a sexy voice. Kyaa~!*

"Morning." Levi replied. While getting up from his bed and holding his head which still hurts. But.. wait. He thought he was alone in this apartment. Well, he broke up with his ex a month ago and isn't dating anymore. There's no way his ex would come here again. Who is it, then..

"How are you, Miss?"

Levie froze to see a tall, well-built man wearing an all-black tailcoat that wrapped his well-proportioned body. His face was handsome, he knew even though he was currently closing his eyes and smiling sweetly at him.

"Did you sleep well?" asked the man again.

"Y-yes.." Levie answered half consciously.

"I've prepared breakfast for today. Sorry, I can only prepare toast with Miss's favorite blueberry jam . For the drink I prepared Chamomile tea. "

Levie shook his head vigorously. "N-nothing. Toast is enough."

"Good. I'll go shopping for extra food for lunch and dinner later."

"I-iya."

"Oh, I have something to say, Miss. Since I feel that Miss is still not well, I presumptuously asked permission from Harry Accounting where Miss works. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. No.. Nothing.."

"Okay. Do you want to take a warm bath? I think it's good to recover your strength a bit."

"Warm water.. Not a bad idea.." said Levie still feeling airy. He was still feeling dizzy, so he didn't want to think about complicated things right now.

"Okay. I'll get it ready soon."

Levi nodded resignedly. Then the man left the room. Levie felt his soul was still floating somewhere. He was still thinking about last night.

Last night.. he.. felt like he couldn't sleep on a soft bed like this. That place.. Louder. No, very hard. Like wood maybe? And... it's dark all around. Only the light from the torches around him illuminated him. There was a strange symbol... Like a ritual symbol he had seen in a book of fortune-telling that he accidentally found in the state library.

Then.. there are people who wear masks and smile strangely at him..

"Miss, the warm water is ready." Said the man, who had suddenly entered his room.

"O-okay. Thank you."

Levie got up from his bed and headed for the bathroom. It's true what the man said, the warm water is ready..

.

.

"Are you feeling better, Miss?" asked the man who was now standing next to Levie who was sitting at the table eating toast with blueberry jam .

Levi nodded. Then sip the tea. After that he put down his cup and sighed.

"Enak."

"That's good then. Miss want to rest again?"

Levi nodded.

"Okay. Let's go to Miss's room.."

"Wait!" cut Levi.

"Yes? What's the matter, Miss?"

"There's something I want to ask you."

"Please ask anything, Miss."

Levi was silent for a moment. He stared intently at the handsome man in front of him.

"Who are you?"

Silence for a moment. The man still didn't answer. The man was still staring at his master flatly. While Levie was still looking at the man expectantly, waiting for an answer from him.

Finally the man replied, "I'm just a butler ."

"But I don't feel like having a butler ." Levi said.

The man smiled. "Maybe you forgot because you were too shocked by what happened yesterday."

"Yesterday? What happened?" Levie furrowed his brows, confused.

"Where's the earth?"

Levie tried to remember. but finally he nodded his head "I guess so.."

The man smirked. "Try to remember again."

Levi frowned. Trying to remember. yes, he's starting to remember.. Masked guys.. sticking out their hands to Levie. Levi shouted. The hands did not stop touching Levie's body. They grinned in satisfaction while Levie wept and drenched in sweat.

Then, one of them, an old man, took out a knife. Then.. Stabbed him.. He screamed in pain. But they just laughed seeing him helpless. Levie screamed for help. Then.. he made a wish. And.. The black shadow came. Make a contract.. Then.. Kill them all..

"You..." Levi said. His eyes widened in disbelief.

"Yes, that's right. I'm the demon you asked for your favor."

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"I-devil?" Levie's lips trembled as he spoke. The handsome creature in front of him is a demon?!

"Ya, benar."

"Impossible.."

"Impossible?" man..no, the demon raised his eyebrows. "You called me without knowing who I really am?"

"How would I know? Baka! At that time.. I just thought, anyone is fine.. As long as they can save me.."

The handsome devil chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?!" Levi protested.

"Then it's fine, Miss." The demon said while putting on an annoying look. "You said, 'anyone's fine', didn't you?"

Levie looked at him blankly. "You are right."

"Are you sorry?" asked the devil.

Levie looked at him for a moment. "No.. Not anymore.."

"Very well then. Well, now please rest, Miss."

"Oh wait, demon." chirp Levie.

"Ya?"

"What's your name?"

The devil smiled. "Anyone you want."

"Emm.." Levie seemed to think for a moment. "What if.. Sebastian.. Sebastian Michaelis..?"

The demon who had been given the name Sebastian Michaelis positioned his hands on his chest and squatted down with one knee touching the floor. His body is positioned slightly bent. He grabbed his master's hand with his white glove covered hand and kissed his master's hand.

"Fine. From now on, my name is Sebastian Michaelis."

Levie withdrew his hand with a straight face. "Yeah.. By the way. I've had enough rest. I want to get out and get some fresh air."

"But your condition is still..."

"This is an order." Levi said.

Sebastian didn't object. "Yes, my lady."

.

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Bonus story: Towards the name 'Sebastian Michaelis'.

"Anyone you want." The devil smiled.

"Emm.." Levie berpikir. "Amy?"

"Er.. I thought it was a girl's name."

"You're right. Donald Duck?"

"Anda yakin?"

"No, no. I'm kidding. I don't want to have a butler named duck. David Beckam? Obama? Charles? Liverpool? Aming? Ponari? Joko Bodo?"

"Uh.. You don't have to decide now.."

"Aahh! Shut up! I don't want to summon 'devil, devil' for the rest of my life!" Levie looked around him. Trying to find inspiration. Then his attention was drawn to his can of blueberry jam . The branded 'DanisH'.

"This is it! I've decided.. Sebastian Michaelis! Yes, that's your name, Sebastian Michaelis!"

What exactly does it have to do with it.. Well never mind..., thought the demon, letting out a resigned sigh.

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Ch 1 of 12 Next »

Review

2: Love is Sick

Hello, hello~ I'm back! At the beginning of the appearance of this fanfiction , I already received.. ONE review! Oh My God! I'm so happy! Thanks to Kagamine Micha! Er.. By the way, for your review answer.. I will explain here. And also.. sorry if there is an M rating even though at a glance *grins lewdly* kekekeke... that's okay, rather than a lot of cursing, capcuss~!

Black Butler Return!: Black Butler's Lady

Rated: T (maybe in next chapter M? Who knows? Lol)

Genre: Romance, Drama

Cast: Sebastian M., Levie Rodrickfille

Disclaimer: Yana Toboso (just for Sebastian Michaelis for this chapter)

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Chapter 2: Love is Sick

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"Are you sure you want to go now?" Sebastian asked when they were in the car.

"Do I have to repeat myself again, Sebastian?!" cursed Levi.

Sebastian bowed his head. " My Apologized ."

"Hn." Levi mumbled. Then threw his face out the car window.

"Where are we going now, Young Mistress ?"

Levie menyipitkan mata pada Sebastian. "Young Mistress? Am i younger than you?"

"I can't say no, Miss."

Levie memutar bola matanya. Dasar iblis. "Whatever. Bring me wherever you want me to go."

"How about to go to hell, young mistress?" Goda Sebastian, yang dibalas delikan mata Levie.

"No kidding!"

Sebastian smirked. "I'm not kidding, Miss. You'd better be more careful in giving orders."

Levi snorted. "I want to go somewhere quiet, and cool," he said.

"Yes, My Lady."

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"Ini.."

"The grassy fields are the inspiration for the famous painting, 'Lembayung Twilight', Miss." Sebastian said.

Levi was amazed. What Sebastian said was true. There are indeed a lot of weeds in this field... weeds of course, but this place is beautiful. Very beautiful. It's hard to describe in words, but Levie really admits this place is very beautiful indeed.

"Miss, do you want to rest here?" Sebastian asked.

"Okay.." Levie said as he prepared to sit down.

"Ah, wait, Miss!" stop Sebastian. Levie frowned with a questioning look at him. But that view was answered by Sebastian who suddenly took out a cloth for the seat and spread it next to Levie..

"How did you..."

"A butler must prepare everything well. I have also prepared provisions." Sebastian said while showing the picnic basket that had appeared out of nowhere.

"Are we going on a picnic?" said Levie sarcastically. Then sat down on the cloth, followed by Sebastian, who was now sitting next to him.

Levie looked at the scene that was now right in front of him in disbelief.

' Agreement with the devil? Can it be trusted? But that's how I am now. Make a pact with the devil. And the contract is marked on my chest. Yes, my CHEST. I just found out in the shower earlier. Turns out he's a perverted demon too. And at the end of the contract , my soul will be eaten by him.'

Suddenly Levie remembered something. He then turned his gaze to Sebastian.

"Sebastian." Call Levi.

"Yes, Young Mistress?"

"We made a contract, didn't we? What exactly... Our contract? Explain it to me. I really don't remember it."

"Oh, about that." Sebastian said. "I remember you asking me two things. One, you want to be free. Two, I must fulfill all your orders until you voluntarily let me take your soul."

"I see.. But.. It might take you a long time, Sebastian. Humans are greedy, won't be satisfied with a mere wish or two."

Sebastian smiled. A (obviously) smile made. "Maybe to Oujou-sama — no , human, it feels long. But to me it's just a blink of an eye."

Levi smiled sarcastically. "Very well, then I shall satisfy myself with the wishes which I shall give you later."

" Yes , young mistress.. Please give orders and I will always be by your side forever."

"Error." Sergah Levie. "Until my soul is eaten by you."

"I think it's better to call it 'till the end'."

"Whatever. I'm going to bed." Levie said as he lay down on the mat. Sebastian quickly tucked a pillow under Levie's head before he lay down.

"Rather than a butler , you are more suitable for me to name Doraemon." Levi said.

"Doraemon? Apa itu?"

"The future cat robot that can take out sophisticated tools from its thin pouch. He came from the future to help the human child who is always careless named Nobita. He came to change his future." Levie explained while still lying down and looking at Sebastian 's ruby .

"So funny. Change the future? That's impossible. What a stupid cartoon."

"But I like it. Is that stupid?"

Sebastian looked at Levie for a moment then answered with his usual smile. "Of course not, miss."

Levi snorted. "What a sweet word. I thought I should give you one more order."

"Apa itu, Nona?"

"Never lie to me. It's enough for humans to lie to me, no need to add demons. Troublesome."

Sebastian chuckled. "Yes, my lady."

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"I've prepared Chicken Alfredo for dinner with Blueberry Creamy Milk Pudding for dessert ."

Levie muttered before starting to eat the food.

"Nice." His comment after eating one mouthful.

"Thank you." Sebastian bowed his head.

"You're not eating?" asked Levi.

"I don't need to eat, Miss." Sebastian replied with his characteristic smile.

"I shouldn't have asked."

Sebastian didn't answer. He was still standing next to Levie until Levie finished his meal. After that, Sebastian took the dirty dishes from the food to the sink and washed them.

Levie watched Sebastian who was still washing. He saw the body behind him had a proportional and well-built posture. It fits his..(Levie a bit hard to admit) handsome face. Levie was willing to bet, if he applied for a job in Hollywood. He will immediately be given a job as the main character of a film.

"Hey Sebastian." Call Levi.

Sebastian stopped his washing for a moment then turned to his young mistress . "Yes?"

"Is.. the figure I see now is your true form?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes for a moment. Then smiled faintly. "Of course not, miss."

Levi nodded. "I already guessed."

"What's wrong, young mistress ?" Sebastian asked who had finished washing and was now walking towards his young mistress .

"No.. I was just thinking.. Your appearance is fake.."

"Then?" Sebastian leaned his face into Levie's. His face was so close that Levie could feel his breath. "Does that weigh you down? Or do you prefer the 'real' me?"

Levie smiled while still looking at Sebastian's face. " Yeah , it's better this way."

"Good. I can't imagine your expression when you see my 'real' figure." Sebastian chuckled.

"You demon." Levie took his eyes off Sebastian and took a sip of the tea in the cup in front of him.

"But, Miss." Levi turned. Sebastian brought his lips to Levie's ear. "Even though it's fake, but I can give 'happiness' to a lady like you, just like a real man."

Levie smiled meaningfully. "Happiness in what?"

Sebastian blinked an eye as he put his index finger to his lips. "Do you want me to explain it as well as 'practice' it?"

"Tch." Levi smirked. "You perverted demon."

Sebastian smiled sweetly. "I'm just a butler , miss."

"Ya, ya.. Whatever."

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Levi's cell phone rings. He groped his pants pocket and took out his cellphone. He saw the name on the screen. Katherine William Jr. Levi gulped. His cellphone never picked up. He just stared at his cell phone which never stopped ringing.

"Why didn't you pick it up, Miss?" Sebastian asked.

Levi didn't answer. He hesitated whether to answer or not. But if not answered..

"Hello?" Levie finally answered the phone. There was a sigh of relief from the other side.

"Finally you picked it up. I thought you were fine. You're all right, aren't you, Vie?"

"No.. I'm fine." Levi said coldly.

There was a heavy sigh from Katherine. "Do you still hate me?"

"Who said I hated it?" Levie said in an even tone.

"Oh, come on." Katherine sulked. "I've been with you since birth. I know you more than anyone. Even more than our mothers. Come on, explain your problem."

"Kath, I'm not in the mood to talk about this right now. I suddenly don't feel well."

"Really? Then I'll be there with William.."

"I said no!" cut Levi. " Please, Kath. I don't want to argue with you. Please listen to me just this once."

Katherine was silent for a moment before saying in a hoarse voice. "Okay.. If you need me. Just call, and I'll immediately go there ."

"Hmm." Levi mumbled. Phone disconnected. By Katherine.

Levie threw his cellphone carelessly on the dining table. He then got up from the chair and threw himself on the sofa. Then covered his eyes with his left arm. Her body trembled as if she was crying, but without a sound.

Sebastian paused for a moment looking at his master. Then he walked to the closet and took a blanket and brought it to Levie.

"You can catch a cold if you sleep here." Sebastian said as he covered Levie.

Levi didn't budge. She's still crying.

"Finally you cry too." Sebastian said. It made Levie turn to him with his eyes wet with tears that had not yet dried.

"Maksudmu?"

"Well.. Once you realize you've made a contract with me.. Normally humans would cry first out of a little regret. Strangely, you only cried after being contacted by—your brother." Sebastian said.

Levie looked away from Sebastian. "Why should I cry over that? After all, I have agreed to a contract with you."

"Then why are you crying—because of your brother?"

"Why should I explain it to you?" said Levie hoarsely.

"Because I feel you need to explain. So that your stifling feelings that have been piling up are a little less." Sebastian replied calmly.

Levie turned his body towards Sebastian who was kneeling next to him. "This might be a little boring and cliché..."

Sebastian looked deeply into Levie's brown eyes . "I'll listen until you're done talking."

"Well..." Levie sighed. "It all started, maybe, when we were both born. Born almost at the same time. And she was given a name that was longer than mine. Katherine Cordelia Rodrickfille. As for me, Levie Ethel Rodrickfille. Even though we were twins, we were different. Kath had mom's blue eyes and daddy's blonde hair. My mother's jet black hair and father's brown eyes are the complete opposite, even though our facial lines are similar.

Everyone, love Kath more. But I don't care. I was like, 'It's okay. After all, what to pay attention to? Better be alone. I can be free!' But that thought fell apart since William came in. He changed my world. And sadly, Kath's world too. Even though I was the first to meet William.. First I realized my feelings for William were love.. But I was also the first one.. Who knew, William liked Kath. And to this day, I still love William and hate Kath."

Levi was silent for a moment. His eyes wandered. Sebastian was still seriously watching him. His hand wrapped in his white glove now gripped Levie's right hand gently.

"I'm stupid, aren't I? Liking someone like that.. The one who's obviously going to like Kath. Turns out love is painful, I'm.. will never be loved." Levi's eyes filled with tears.

"Miss is right." Sebastian said.

The tears that were stuck in the corners of his eyes seemed to evaporate. "What do you mean?"

"Miss is right that love is painful. No love has a happy ending. Nothing. Everything has to end painfully."

Levi's eyes narrowed. Then smiled weakly. "You are right."

"So." Sebastian wiped Levie's tears from the corners of Levie's eyes with his finger. "Don't cry over stupid things about love like this again. You have to be strong. Because you.."

Sebastian kissed Levie's hand. "Is my employer." he continued.

Levie smiled once more. "You're right, Sebastian. No doubt about it."

Sebastian smiled back at his master. "Do you want to sleep here or in the room? I see you are very sleepy."

"Here, please." Levie said as he stretched out on the sofa.

"Well." Sebastian stood up and bowed to Levie. "Good evening Miss."

Levie's voice was slightly weak. "Good evening, Sebastian."

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. 3: Charming Butler

Flash update! Yaa~! I'm coming again! Although the review is a bit.. I continue to update. Hehehe.. after all, I'm not looking for reviews, I made this story to make my imagination explode about Sebastian who is well, soooo charming! Kyaaa~~! I love him!

Erm, well, before you read this story, I want to explain about the background change. In chapter 1, I explained in this fanfiction , Levie lives in an apartment. But considering it feels like the setting doesn't fit this chapter . So I changed the background to a pith house! Uh, plot, deng! Hehe.. of course, I will edit the first chapter later. I just want to explain to readers who (probably) have been following this story from the first unedited chapter .

Oh yes, there is another addition from me. It's true, this FF is really semi-M.. But I still don't feel comfortable with M. I don't have any intention of making a scene with Sebastian and Levie who... err.. if you know what I mean . Unfortunately, there is no TM rate, right? If there is, I'll use that one. Hehe..

Yaa~ Anyway , thank you for those who have reviewed this fanfiction , whoever you are, and wherever you are, don't forget whenever and however you read this fanfiction . I will try to keep fighting to finish this fanfiction until the end! Happy reading !

^Rhaa^

Black Butler Return!: Black Butler's Lady

Rated: T (maybe in next chapter M? Who knows? Lol)

Genre: Romance, Drama

Cast: Sebastian M., Levie Rodrickfille

Disclaimer: Yana Toboso (just for Sebastian Michaelis for this chapter)

Warning: OOC, typo, Not Clear (GeJe :P), Location Not Real

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Chapter 3: Charming Butler

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" Morning, young mistress. Today is a sunny day. Perfect for those of you who are going back to work today." Sebastian said, pouring Blueberry Tea into Levie's cup.

"Hmm." Levie muttered seriously looking at his cell phone , reading the news over the internet. Levie rarely read the newspaper. He then took a sip of his tea slowly.

"I called Harry Accounting and told him you could start work today."

"Hmm." Levie muttered again. Still looking at his cell phone

"Since I think your condition is still not recovered, today I will take you to pick you up."

"Hm." Gumam Levie. Lagi.

Sebastian frowned at his master. Then he smiled and said, "Once upon a time there was a kind old man. He..."

"What do you mean, Sebastian?" cut Levi. He frowned at Sebastian in confusion.

"Ah .. It turns out you listened to me, Miss."

Levi sighed. "Of course I'm listening to you. I'm just.. Lazy to talk."

Sebastian smiled his trademark smile. "Then are you ready to go, Miss?"

"Yes.. Let's go." Levie put down his cup and got up from the chair.

Sebastian crossed his right arm over his chest and bowed. "Yes, my lady."

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"It's here, Miss. I'll pick you up at .."

"Three. Just pick me up at three."

Sebastian nodded. "Well."

Levie got out of the car and entered his office. After confirming his employer had entered the office, Sebastian immediately launched his car into the shopping area of ​​Savannah Ally. Bought some groceries for lunch and dinner later.

Arriving at Savannah Ally, Sebastian parked the car and took the notebook Levie had given him this morning and checked the groceries he wanted to buy. He examined one by one line containing the names of food ingredients. Every now and then he crossed out or changed the ingredients for the food that Levie wrote because he thought they were unnecessary or not needed at this time.

Sebastian continued to research until at the end of the line he saw Levie's handwriting which read,

Menswear.

Sebastian frowned. Since when did Miss want to wear men's clothes? Then he saw the additional sentence beside the sentence.

Buy clothes for yourself. The clothes of the century. Don't buy that kind of tailcoat. But a tuxedo is fine too.

Sebastian smiled. He then took Levie's old type of cellphone that was given to him this morning (even though Sebastian initially refused. After all, Sebastian would come if Levie called him). He then dialed the only number in his phone book. Levi's number.

"Hello?" Levie's voice came from the other side.

"You're so kind." Sebastian said, matter-of-factly.

"I've always been good." Levie PD said.

"Really? Then, thank you, young mistress . I will give you a present in return."

"Gift? What gift?" asked Levie curiously.

"Something special and secret." Sebastian said in a perverted tone.

"Ck. It's up to you. As long as it's not a gift related to your lewd nature, lewd devil." Levie sneered.

Sebastian tertawa kecil. "As you wish, young mistress."

" Good . Bye, Sebastian." Levie hung up the phone.

"Now." Sebastian got out of the car. He smoothed his tailcoat. " Time to shop. "

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"Sebastian.. What is this?" asked Levie, in front of his office. He had been picked up by Sebastian who was already wearing the "clothes of the century". A black Levi's t-shirt and jacket complete with black skinny jeans with a black glove on his left hand to cover the contract.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. Acting plain. "What is it, Miss?"

"That's..." Levie pointed to a car full of plastic bags filled with fruit, cooking ingredients, and several bags of clothes that filled the back seat.

"What did you pay for it?! I'm not sure the money I gave you would be enough to buy all this!" Cerocos Levie.

"Ah, take it easy, Miss." Sebastian smiled sweetly. "The money that Miss gave is still a lot left, really."

"Then? Where did all this stuff come from? Don't tell me you.." Levie immediately imagined a fierce, grumpy demon and asked the shops for goods.

Sebastian laughed at Levie's expression. "No, no, Miss. I didn't even do anything."

"Huh? How come?"

"Well.. The owners of the shops who gave me these items initially called me. And when I turned and smiled at them, they immediately gave these items to me." Sebastian said casually.

Levie gaped at that. From the story, it was clear they gave the items because they were fascinated by him. Maybe this includes the crime of blackmail too, in another sense..

"Miss.. Can we go home now? I think it's getting crowded here."

Levie looked around and was surprised. Sebastian was right. People who were mostly women surrounded Levie and Sebastian. There's no need to guess why they got together. Levie faintly heard someone say "Is he an artist? So handsome.." ( well, if I met Sebastian on a city street like that, I'd say that too.. LOL. xD)

Levie flinched when someone touched his shoulder. And when he turned his head, he found a mischievous grin from Merry, his co-worker and several other co-workers. Joe, Vicky, Rose, and Edward.

"Who is he? Your boyfriend? Why didn't you tell us, huh?" Merry cerocos straight away.

"Eh.. No.. You're wrong.. It's not what you think.." Levie tried to explain.

"Wow, congratulations, Levie." Joe said.

"Aiihh.. he's so damn sexy! How dare you to not tell me 'bout this sexy guy, Levie!" jerit Vicky, yang memang menyukai "sejenis"nya.

"Rose didn't expect you to have a new boyfriend, Levie.. Rose is so happy." Rose said. With a faint smile that could hardly be called a smile.

Edward menyahut dengan cengiran mesum. "So, what have you done with that guy, huh?"

Levi 's speechless . Don't know what to say. Suddenly Sebastian grabbed his arm and pulled him into the car.

"Sebas.."

"Let's go home, Miss." Sebastian smiled. "Later, the tea I have prepared will be cold, young mistress ."

"Tch." Levi snorted. So what is he worried about tea? Devil bastard.

.

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"So how is it, Miss?" Sebastian asked as he poured tea into Levie's cup who was enjoying Sebastian's 'gift'. Sebastian's Special Gateau Chocolate .

"What do you mean by that?" Levie glanced at Sebastian.

"Well.. About our relationship. How would you explain it."

Levi clicked his tongue. He's right. It cannot be hidden forever. There was no way he would stay silent and run away constantly if asked such a question.

"I don't know. I don't know what to tell them either." Levie massaged his now throbbing head.

"Miss.." Sebastian said in his soft and deep voice. "I have an idea."

Sebastian approached Levie from behind. His hand touched Levie's shoulder gently. He brought his face close to Levi's head. Levie's warm breath was clearly felt. His hand slowly stroked Levie's shoulder and moved to Levie's cheek and rubbed it gently. He then brought his lips to Levi's ear.

"How about you say we're really lovers?" whispered Sebastian.

Levi gulped. Unlucky. Man.. Uh, this devil..

"Not a bad idea. But, no, thanks. "

" I see ." Sebastian said while still not distancing himself from Levie. In fact he was now wrapping his arm around Levie's neck.

"Sebastian.." Levie asked hoarsely.

"Yes?" Sebastian sighed.

"Can you not get rid of that perverted nature of yours? It's disgusting. " Levie said flatly.

Sebastian then took his hands and face away from Levie. "I'm sorry, Miss." He bent down.

"Remember." Levie turned to Sebastian and signaled him to come closer. He then brought his right hand to Sebastian's forehead and flicked his white forehead. Sebastian widened his eyes, looking at Levie who looked at him coldly. "You're just a butler . Don't do that again. This is an order!"

Sebastian bowed with an unreadable face. "Yes, my lady."

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Levie clasped his hands looking at Sebastian who was washing the dishes after his dinner. The burly body was being so seriously washed that he (probably) didn't notice Levie staring at him almost unblinkingly.

Levie thought, after he had flicked her earlier, Sebastian never spoke to him when he didn't have to. Well , that's actually good. Considering he was only a butler , but Levie felt strange about this silence. And that's kind of weird for him, considering he's actually used to... silence.

His eyes wandered for a moment as his brain suddenly recalled the silence. Then he glanced at the laundry and saw that Sebastian was no longer there.

W-so fast.. Levie thought.

Levie then looked around and couldn't find the tall, sturdy figure anywhere.

"Sebastian." Call Levi. He didn't come. Not even answering.

"Sebastian!" called Levie again, louder. Okay, now he's starting to panic. Was the demon mad at him? Which means.. He's going to eat his soul right now?! Hell no, he still doesn't want to die!

"Sebastian!" Levie got up from his dining table chair and walked out of the dining room into the living room. There isn't any. Maybe on the second floor!

Levie rushed up the stairs and headed straight for Sebastian's room which was next to his. He opened the door.. Uh, the door is locked?

"Damn it. At this time why is the door locked?!" Levie remembered when Sebastian had told him not to enter his room carelessly. But he's the master and the owner of this house. Can't you enter the room?

Feeling his efforts were in vain, Levie chose to leave. Who knew he was out there? Levie rushed to the front door and opened it. And he found the figure he was looking for was standing with his back to him wearing a thick black jacket. His hands were tucked into his jacket pockets. Her straight black hair swayed in the night breeze. His cold smile as cold as the night adds to its own charm.

Levie felt his heart pounding. Why? Even though he had been able to handle Sebastian's charm and responded coldly. Why..

"Se.." Levie tried to call Sebastian. For some reason his breath hitched. The words stuck in his throat. His heart was still beating for some reason. He froze in place. He looked at Sebastian who was still standing as if enjoying the night breeze.

Sebastian suddenly glanced to his right and ran towards it. Levi flinched. Then chase Sebastian who is now in the right corner of the garden of his house. And then Sebastian...

"You are very beautiful." Sebastian said. "Your beautiful and slender body also looks lithe it really amazes me. How can there be a creature as beautiful as you?"

Levi was silent. Gaze.

"Ooh.. Let me hug your beautiful body. Let me touch every inch of your body."

"Se-Sebastian..?" tanya Levie gugup. "I.. tu.. KUCING, kan?"

But Sebastian didn't seem to hear. He still continued to praise the cat he was hugging. "Smooth fur, sharp and beautiful claws. Shining eyes. Ooh.. Beautiful you."

Levie's legs felt weak. She was completely speechless to Sebastian now. He didn't know what to do.

"Ah, young mistress . Why are you sitting there?" Sebastian asked. Who finally noticed Levie's presence.

"You... like cats?" Levie asked weakly, pointing at the cat.

"Oh, this?" Sebastian said as he looked at the cat in his arms. "Yes. I love it. This beautiful creature.." Sebastian's face turned red. Levie stared at him even more. Sebastian.. blushing in front of the cat?

Levie was getting weaker. While the white cat with brown and black patterns looks a little confused.

"Nona.."

"Hmm?" mumbled Levie unenthusiastically.

"Can I bring him in? He seems cold.

Levie looked at Sebastian for a moment. Then he took a deep breath. " Whatever . Oh yeah, I called you. Why didn't you come, or at least answer my call?"

"Oh that. Because I don't think Miss is in a pinch." Sebastian smiled calmly.

Levie's facial muscles tightened. He glared at Sebastian. Then he snorted. "Tsk, never mind, I want to sleep." Levie said as he tried to stand up, but because he was still weak, he fell.

"Miss!" Sebastian walked over to Levie. The cat was still in his arms.

"I'm fine." Levi said. Unlucky. I worried about him earlier.. No, my life. But he even said not to insist and even made out with the cat? And why am I so weak?

Sebastian held Levie's hand, helping him to his feet. He felt Levie's hand that was already very cold.

"Please hold this cat first." Sebastian said as he handed the cat over to Levie who was already standing. Then he took off his jacket and put it on Levie. "You're cold. Come on in. I'll make you some hot tea. Oh yes, where's the cat. Let me bring it."

Levie looked at Sebastian for a moment. Then stepped ahead of Sebastian while still holding the cat.

"I don't want to. Leave me alone. This cat looks cold. Even though it's cold, I'm still warmer than you, Sebastian."

Sebastian's eyes narrowed. He then laughed a little. " As you wish, young mistress ." He then walked after Levie.

Arriving at the front door..

"But just so you know. I can give you warmth too. like a human."

"It's enough, there's no need to continue your words. I already know where your words are going." Levie said bluntly, leading Sebastian into the house.

"Come on, Miss. Don't be like that." Seduce Sebastian.

"Enough, enough! Don't talk like that again! You perverted demon!"

"I'm just a butler, Miss."

"Arrrgghh!" cried Levie in annoyance.

"Nona? Ada apa?"

"Alright, just close the door!"

"Baik, Nona."

The door is closed.

.

.

. ~₰~

Oh my gosh.. Sebastian is such a pervert, isn't he? I'm the one who made it until I'm just the same person. But still love it~! Oh, yes, thank you to Kagamine MiCha, for being the first reader to make this FF a Favorite! (I just found out, when I was about to finish this chapter .

For Hwang Mayumi, the rating is M... I'll think about it first, because if I write the rating M, the reader will be disappointed if there is no "something" scene. *plaque.

For Najla, what do you want to see the M rate looks like, hayo? There are many kinds of M rating, some say M rating because the language is a bit 'deep', some because there are many violent scenes, some are.. well, "that's it" *grins lewdly*

Then lastly.. Nana-chan Love Naruto, I also want to be entertained Sebas-chan's eyeballs immediately form love* here's the update!

For the reviews that I discuss here, only the reviews I received until this chapter was updated . Thanks to everyone who reads and likes this fanfiction ! See you in the next chapter ! (^v^)/

^Rhaa^

4: Kurousagi

Wow! Record! Record! Two chapters completed in less than twenty-four hours! Consider it a bonus, yes reader! Wait for one chapter, get two! Hehe..

Is anyone waiting for the new chapter ? Ohh.. Of course there is, right? Yes no? *Ge-eR Mode: On*

In this chapter , the story progress begins. Yes.. Levie can't just continue to be a princess who is served by a perverted butler like Sebastian. Hehehe.. You have to give an opponent or a target! let's have fun! There were punches, stabs, gunfire, bombs... from car bombs to bombs in the river *plakk* Kekekeke.. Well.. obviously, I've been trying to finish this chapter . Pray for this fanfiction to continue, OK?

Well, anyway, as usual, I'm no good at small talk. So .. happy reading!

Black Butler Return!: Black Butler's Lady

[applicationtrust]

Slash anastasia

Slash anastasia professional#

The whole album was recorded with analog equipment only.( February 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. He criticises the album for containing "absolutely no surprises" but adds that it "never tries too hard, so it winds up satisfying on its own limited scale." Īnother 3/5 rating came from Johan Wippsson, writing for, who wrote that the album "is far better" than Slash's debut, praising the decision to have Kennedy perform on all tracks, though admitting that he "had expected better songs". He observes that performing with Kennedy "clearly is easier on Slash's soul" compared to the vocalists in Slash's previous bands, and that the music on the album "reflects this ease". Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave a more mixed opinion of the album in his review for AllMusic, awarding it 3 out of 5 stars. He concludes that the album is "a collection of lean, high-octane rock-and-roll tunes". Geist compares the album to Slash's solo début, which he criticised for sometimes seeming "strained under the weight of its creator’s own grand ambition", whereas on Apocalyptic Love, Slash's band "let the riffs and hooks fly freely". īrandon Geist of Revolver also gave a positive review of the album, giving it a 4 out of 5 rating. He also praises Myles Kennedy's vocals and cites "Anastastia" and "Far and Away" as standout tracks, praising their orchestral and cinematic elements. Writing for Artistdirect, Rick Florino gave an enthusiastic review, awarding the album 5 out of 5 stars and stating that it "embodies every side of Slash", featuring "some of the man's most incendiary and infectious playing yet". On Metacritic, it has a score of 62 out of 100, based on 13 reviews. The album received mixed reviews from critics. The number one album for the week was John Mayer's Born and Raised, with 17,800 copies. The album debuted at number two on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 7,500 copies.

Slash anastasia professional#

Release and reception Professional ratings Aggregate scores It is an "internet rumor" according to Slash that the lead intro riff for "Anastasia" takes inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which Slash interpolates live in his version of " Speak Softly Love". On March 26, 30 second samples from "Apocalyptic Love" were made available on. Kennedy, who wrote the lyrics, has said that some of the lyrics on the album are about his past negative experiences with drugs. Slash released the track listing for the album on March 5, 2012. The first single, "You're a Lie", was released to rock radio on Februa 30-second preview of the song was released online with this announcement. The album was finished in February 2012 and was given a May 22, 2012, release date. Slash described the new material as "very heavy". Slash began working on his second solo album in June 2011, and that December, three songs-"Halo", "Standing in the Sun" and "Bad Rain"-had been recorded. Slash later said that his second album would be more of a collaboration album with Kennedy, and said he was unsure whether it would be released under his own name or a new name entirely. Kennedy had previously appeared on two songs from Slash's first album, and was later the vocalist of Slash's band on tour. Shadows, and Kid Rock, he said his second album would feature Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy as the sole singer. Unlike his self-titled debut solo album, which featured a variety of singers including Chris Cornell, Ozzy Osbourne, M. During his first solo world tour, Slash announced his second studio album.

[vro0m]

Favorite 2012 GIFs - Not Lewis edition

Here’s a bonus :)

This one might take some explanation : the McLaren boys are playing TV presenters, Jenson is doing the interviewing while Lewis is in the studio talking in his earpiece. Lewis told Jenson to ask Webber what it was like to work with the best driver in the paddock. While Webber and Seb are having a very heated rivalry. Which Jenson did. (Monaco GP)

Charlie Whiting shaking his head at Maldonado’s jump start (Belgian GP)

Young(er) Toto (Singapore GP)

Schumacher and JEV being friendly after a collision (Singapore GP)

Jenson and Nico chatting on their way back to the garages after unrelated DNFs (Korean GP)

This heartbreaking Seb (Abu Dhabi GP)

Schumacher saying goodbye before his last race (Brazilian GP)

And of course, my best gif to date, two guys absolutely massively failing to high five on live television (American GP)

[turtleboyz]

Character Analysis: 2012 Season 2: Casey Jones

CASEY! My boy

I love this version of Casey! He’s a normal teenager that become friends with the turtles. He smart (he has a taser in his glove and shoes that can turn into roller blades), he also very good at hockey, can fight, is flexible, and like to write. He also has a major phobia of rats. It cool to see even with his phobia he still helps his friends.

It’s interesting to see that he doesn’t want a normal life. We actually don’t know about his home life. We only know he has a dad and a little sister. He also had a best friend name nick, but the 2 had a fallout. It seems like besides the turtles, april and once Irma, he doesn’t have any friends. He also has a crush on April, and I think by the end of the season the 2 are dating. I hope we get to more about his home life.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Apparition (2012)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you - the person reading this - won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Have you ever seen a film so bad you wanted to sit down with the director? The Apparition is so devoid of scares and its ending screams “last minute rewrite” so loudly I’d pay money to know what happened.

Ben (Sebastian Stan) and his girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene) have just moved into a new home and have noticed some strange occurrences. Weird molds, doors suddenly opening for no reason and objects moving by themselves. Kelly then learns that years ago, Ben and his friends Patrick (Tom Felton), Lydia (Julianna Guill) and Greg (Like Pasqualino) performed an experiment that unleashed a supernatural force into our world.

If you’ve seen the trailers, they proclaim over and over that “If you believe in it, you die”. This implies some sort of psychological manifestation of fear rather than a ghost. You’ve been tricked. That’s not what this film is about. You’ve also basically seen the entire movie. Every scare and the film’s last shot is spoiled in the advertisements by the snake oil salesmen who are desperately trying to get you to throw away your time and money on a thoroughly incompetent, scare-free cash grab.

Lasting a brisk 82 minutes (the end credits begin at the hour and 13-minute mark), this is a dull flick. Every attempt to terrify is impotent, and not only because we’ve seen everything The Apparition has to offer before. The structure and flow of this story are a mess. We begin by learning of the “Charles Experiment”, a parapsychological experiment from the ’70s that the four college students wanted to recreate. Once they succeeded, one was killed immediately and another vanished from the film, never to be seen again. Flash forward to some time later, when the “meat” of the story takes place and the questions begin piling up. Why isn’t Ben willing to help Patrick? Has the specter been too busy harassing everyone else to bother him? If he’s able to ignore it long enough to find himself a new girlfriend, why would moving into a new house suddenly cause it to act out?

This entire thing feels like someone trying to cut their losses. The performances from everyone are so devoid of energy, so wooden you'll wonder if their blinks are spelling out “Help! I’m being held prisoner!” in Morse Code. The quasi-found-footage motif will make you resent the lame attempts to rip off Paranormal Activity - and screams of "fix it on the cheap". Then, there's the ending. Remember those explanations you were hoping for? Here they come in the form of a recording being played inside an empty home just as our heroes walk in. How convenient, and artificial. It isn’t helpful either, as what happens next will leave you scratching your head. It makes no sense. I don’t mean that the characters act in a way that isn’t logical, or that I don’t understand it. I’m talking about the visuals saying one thing, the voiceover saying another and everything we've seen before contradicting both. There’s no director’s commentary on the Blu-ray I watched, but I can guess what happened. Warner Bros. must have seen the result of their investment, realized it was as compelling and as scary as a couple of sticks being rattled in the washing machine and decided to try and recoup the whole thing with a couple of quick reshoots and some voiceover work. When even that failed, they decided to bury the whole thing. It’s a catastrophe masquerading as entertainment, and not very well.

If you struggled with your conscience, I’m sure you could find maybe one thing enjoyable about The Apparition. Keep those opinions to yourself. They’ll only get you locked away pending a psychological examination, as no one in their right mind could enjoy or feel anything but prolonged anguish while watching The Apparition. (On Blu-ray, January 12, 2018)

[ukrfeminism]

A scandal worse than thalidomide

Doctors knew in 1973 that the epilepsy drug sodium valproate posed a risk to unborn children — and ordered that warnings be removed from packets. Almost 50 years and 20,000 disabled babies later, it is still being prescribed to pregnant women

The moment her newborn son Sebastian was handed to her, Catherine McNamara knew something was terribly wrong.

His tiny hands were deformed, unnaturally twisted and facing in the wrong direction. One was missing a thumb.

At first, she and her partner tried not to worry as their baby was taken off for x-rays and examinations. “We thought it was something they could fix,” she said.

But a few days later, the couple were devastated as doctors told them Sebastian’s deformities were permanent — and had been caused by the drug McNamara had been taking to control her epilepsy.

She burst into tears. “I just felt so guilty. All I could think was, what have I done to him?”

Like thousands of women, McNamara had been told her epilepsy medicine, sodium valproate, was safe to take during pregnancy. “They told me everything would be fine,” she said.

In fact, by the time her son was born in 2012, there had been multiple warnings over decades that the drug was unsafe for pregnant women.

Sodium valproate, which was given to women with epilepsy for decades without proper warnings, has caused autism, learning difficulties and physical deformities in up to 20,000 babies in Britain.

Yet despite a 2020 report that criticised the failure over four decades to inform women about the dangers, doctors are still not properly warning women of the risks. According to the latest data, published in March, sodium valproate was prescribed to 247 pregnant women between April 2018 and September 2021.

As a result, about six babies every month are being born in the UK having been exposed to the drug.

An investigation by The Sunday Times has found that the drug is still being handed out to women in plain packets with the information leaflets missing, or with stickers over the warnings.

The government is refusing to offer any compensation to those affected by sodium valproate, despite an independent review by Baroness Cumberlege concluding in 2020 that families should be given financial redress.

The former health secretary Jeremy Hunt says doctors should now be banned from prescribing the drug to pregnant women — and that the families affected by it must be properly compensated.

He has compared the case to the scandal of the anti-morning-sickness drug thalidomide, which caused deformities in thousands of babies after it was licensed in the UK in the 1950s.

Hunt said that while it was “never comfortable” for governments to acknowledge such injustices, the state had a moral duty to the families. “It’s time the British state faced up to its responsibilities,” he said. “Just as we eventually did to victims of the thalidomide scandal.

He added: “It beggars belief that after so many warnings this still hasn’t been sorted: this is a major risk to patient safety and ministers must order an immediate fix to prevent any more avoidable harm.”

Avoiding ‘fruitless anxiety’

When sodium valproate was introduced as a new epilepsy drug in the 1970s, the British medical community was still reeling from that very scandal — in which hundreds of babies were born severely deformed after pregnant women were given thalidomide.

The UK’s newly formed Committee on Safety of Medicines had been designated as the key decision-making body on new medicines.

This committee — whose membership comprised some of the UK’s leading medics and was chaired by Sir Eric Scowen, professor of medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London — met to discuss sodium valproate on multiple occasions in 1972 and 1973.

They noted that the drug had shown enormous promise in controlling the terrible seizures suffered by patients, even for those whose epilepsy had proven resistant to other treatments.

Sodium valproate is still a safe and effective drug for sufferers of epilepsy, who should not stop taking it without first discussing this with their doctor.

However, the notes of the meeting show that the manufacturers, Sanofi, had raised to the committee that there were signs in animal tests that valproate could potentially be teratogenic — harmful to foetuses.

The committee concluded that the use of anti-seizure drugs such as sodium valproate was indeed “liable to produce” abnormalities. But they stated that “the risk appears to be low, and not sufficient to justify stopping the use” of the drug.

In a decision that would have disastrous consequences for thousands of families, the committee chose not to alert the public to the concerns that the drug could harm babies — concluding that since the evidence was not clear, doing so would risk causing “fruitless anxiety” to patients.

They specified that warnings should be provided to doctors, “but not on package inserts, so that there would be no danger of patients themselves seeing it”.

The committee’s decision not to warn women of the risks was probably “influenced by the paternalistic nature of society at the time”, believes Dr Rebecca Bromley, a paediatric neuropsychologist at the University of Manchester.

She believes the committee did not appear to consider the need for “women to have an informed say in their treatment”. Instead, the effect of the decision was to “leave patients fully in the dark about the risk that their medicine might carry”.

The committee licensed the drug for use in the UK and failed to order any surveillance or detailed studies on the outcomes for pregnant women taking it.

“What was lacking was the urgency to understand the risks more comprehensively,” Bromley said. “Complementary studies could have been established. They would have detected the risks sooner.”

Reports of abnormalities

In the early 1980s, reports started to appear of babies being born with abnormalities. One, published in August 1980 in the Journal of Paediatrics, told of a girl born with severe physical deformities who lived for just 19 days. Her mother had taken sodium valproate during pregnancy.

The following year, the case of a baby boy born with abnormalities to his feet, spine and brain was reported in the same journal. Again, the case was linked to sodium valproate.

The journal appealed for information about any other incidents linked to the drug. In response, a number of similar cases were reported by doctors.

“One report or even a few do not make conclusive evidence,” said Bromley. “But the sheer number and similarity of the symptoms reported was screaming that there was cause for concern.”

The medical authorities in the UK were slow to respond.

At that time, medical regulators relied on doctors reporting adverse effects of drugs in their patients. But in the case of drugs that harm babies, the effect was not seen in the patient but their child — so the doctor who initially prescribed the drug was often unaware, especially as there was often a time lag of years before the issue emerged. “The system was not set up to detect these risks quickly,” Bromley said.

In 1983, an article in the British Medical Journal examined four cases of babies born with deformities in which sodium valproate had been the only drug taken by the mother. The article said the findings “may call into question the wisdom” of prescribing sodium valproate as the preferred anti-seizure drug.

This time, the concerns reached the floor of the House of Commons. But when the issue was raised by Labour MP Alan Williams in February 1983, his concerns were dismissed by then health minister Geoffrey Finsberg.

Finsberg assured MPs that the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) had “concluded that there was no clear evidence” that sodium valproate was “more dangerous in this respect than other similar drugs”.

By the late 1980s, though, manufacturer Sanofi was receiving a growing number of reports of babies born with abnormalities.

A systematic review of evidence published by The Lancet also found an increased risk of spina bifida in children exposed to sodium valproate — although the authors bemoaned the lack of “high-quality evidence”.

The CSM finally acted on the concerns, asking Sanofi to write to all GPs and hospital doctors with a new warning sheet, setting out that sodium valproate could lead to birth defects.

However, the committee still stopped short of requiring doctors to tell women about the risks, with the danger of spina bifida not being included on patient safety leaflets until 1994. And still no detailed research into the effects of the drug was commissioned.

As a result, many doctors continued to prescribe the drug to pregnant women.

Janet Williams was one of them. At the time when she took sodium valproate while pregnant with her sons in 1989 and 1991, there were no warnings in the packets and no patient information leaflets. “Nobody said anything about risks,” she recalled. “In those days, you trusted your doctor.”

Both boys were born with disabilities.

Foetal valproate syndrome

It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that doctors started to recognise the problems affecting Williams’s two sons as “foetal valproate syndrome”.

The full spectrum of abnormalities seen as part of the syndrome was set out for the first time in a 1995 report in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

But while geneticists and paediatricians were becoming increasingly convinced of the problem, their concerns were not reaching the ears of the neurologists who were actually prescribing the drug, said Bromley.

Few of these doctors “would have been reading genetics journals”, she noted. As a result, the drugs continued to be handed out to pregnant women.

Patricia Alexander, from Canvey Island, Essex, was advised to continue taking a high dose of 2000mg a day throughout her pregnancy with her son Joseph in 2000 — and again in 2009, when she was expecting her daughter, Amélie.

During her medical appointments, she repeatedly asked if the drug was safe. Her concerns were brushed off by doctors and specialist nurses.

“I had no idea about valproate syndrome,” she said. “No one had ever mentioned it to me.”

Both Joseph and Amélie were born with physical disabilities, and both would go on to be diagnosed as autistic. Alexander only learnt about foetal valproate syndrome years after the children were born.

“The first I knew was when I saw a survey on Facebook,” she said. “It was heart-wrenching to read. Every single difficulty my children have was in that questionnaire and attributed to sodium valproate.”

To this day, her children are completely dependent on her and her husband. Amélie walks on crutches due to a twisted leg that may require surgery. Joseph is unable to stand or walk normally.

“Unless you live our lives, you don’t know how much effort goes into just getting through a day,” Alexander said. “It’s exhausting.”

A living nightmare

Evidence was mounting that sodium valproate was causing not just physical abnormalities but also neurological problems.

A major UK and US study confirmed in 2009 that the use of the drug in pregnancy could damage children’s IQ. The higher the dose, the more severe the damage.

Bromley, who was involved in this study, said it was a key moment. “People stopped asking us to prove that the risks were there and started asking about the level of risk.”

Patient information sheets were finally amended in 2010 to refer to the risks to cognitive development including autism.

By this time, families were starting to ask questions. More than 100 attempted to bring a lawsuit against Sanofi over the damage their children had suffered — but it collapsed just three weeks before the trial was due to start as legal aid was withdrawn.

Janet Williams, who was supporting the families bringing the case, was devastated. She and her husband were struggling with their two severely disabled sons, Lee and Philip.

“It was a living nightmare,” she said. The couple desperately needed financial help to cope with their sons. “We’ve never really known why the case collapsed.”

As part of the legal settlement to avoid having to pay costs, parents were made to sign an agreement to say they would not bring litigation again.

Even now, pregnant women continued to be given sodium valproate — among them Catherine McNamara.

She already had two children with severe learning disabilities. Before getting pregnant again in 2011, she had explicitly asked both her GP and consultant whether the drugs could have affected her other children, and whether she should stop taking them before trying for a third baby.

“I went to the GP and said, ‘I’ve got two children with quite severe learning difficulties and autism, is there any chance it could be to do with my tablets?’

“The GP said no. He told me to just keep taking the tablets, everything will be fine. My consultant said the same thing.”

Her son Sebastian was born with deformities to his arms in 2012.

‘We never got a choice’

Following the collapse of the legal case, Williams was determined to keep speaking out about how sodium valproate had affected her sons.

By now, her boys Lee and Philip, both with severe learning difficulties, were under the care of paediatricians and geneticists, who had told Williams for the first time that they believed the problems had been caused by her epilepsy drug.

“That was the first time we had ever heard that valproate could harm babies,” she said. It later emerged that doctors had secretly diagnosed Lee with foetal valproate syndrome as a baby — but had never told her about it.

If she had known, Williams might have been able to prevent her second son from suffering the same fate. “I was angry,” she said. “Why had no one ever warned us?”

After she was filmed for local television news in 2008, Williams was contacted by mother of five Emma Murphy, from Radcliffe, near Manchester, who had seen the report.

During a long late-night telephone call, the pair talked through what had happened to them. Like Williams, Murphy had taken sodium valproate during all five of her pregnancies — between 2009 and 2019 — after being told it was safe.

“At every appointment, me and my husband asked if valproate was safe,” Murphy remembered. “The response was always: it’s the best medication.”

All five of her children suffered disabilities. Her daughter Lauren, now 17, cannot walk without leg braces; her son Luke, 16, is so sensitive to noise that they cannot boil a kettle at home.

Together, the two mothers fought to uncover the truth about what had happened to their babies.

They travelled down to London on the train, went to the National Archives and demanded the minutes of the original CSM meetings at which sodium valproate had been approved in the 1970s.

When they found the key documents, Murphy recalled: “I just took a sudden breath and screamed. I couldn’t believe it. I was in utter shock.”

The documents revealed that “right from day one, the regulators were aware there was a possibility babies could be harmed”, Williams remembered.

“And this was just after thalidomide. Women were never given an informed choice, right from day one.”

Campaigning mothers

The pair fought to raise awareness of valproate and the harm it was doing. But it was not until 2017 that they were invited by the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt to prepare a case for financial redress for families, helped by the barrister Michael Mansfield QC.

In his summary, Mansfield concluded: “The scandalous reality of the original decision of the CSM is that since 1973 thousands of women have taken sodium valproate during pregnancy and unwittingly exposed their children to foetal valproate syndrome in circumstances where they could have chosen not to.”

He noted that there were “many similarities between the sodium valproate scandal and the thalidomide scandal” and that there was “no good reason” why the government should not adopt the same response as it did to thalidomide in 2012, providing millions of pounds for ongoing financial support.

The government, though, refused his call for compensation.

Instead, Baroness Cumberlege, a former health minister, was asked to carry out an inquiry into sodium valproate. The inquiry also examined the use of vaginal mesh and the hormone pregnancy test Primodos.

Announcing the review in 2018, Hunt said the inquiry was necessary into all three issues because in each case the healthcare system had failed to respond to patients’ concerns fast enough.

“We must acknowledge that the response to these issues from those in positions of authority has not always been good enough,” he said. “Sometimes the reaction has felt overly focused on defending the status quo rather than addressing the needs of patients.”

The resulting report, which was finally published in July 2020, concluded that the government had an “ethical responsibility” to provide financial help to families to cover the costs of care, and detailed how a “disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive” healthcare system had for two decades failed to fully appreciate or act on the harmful effects of sodium valproate, and had dismissed women’s experiences and complaints.

Still, the government refused to compensate the families.

In July 2020, Nadine Dorries, then patient safety minister, offered “an unreserved apology” to families and said she was left “shocked but incredibly angry” at reading the “harrowing” report. But she stopped short of offering any financial redress.

“A decent society has a duty to help people who are suffering so much,” said Cumberlege. “Such a scheme need not be a blank cheque; a comparatively modest sum would provide the support that these families so desperately need. I hope the government will do the right thing and act now.”

The French government has already established a dedicated compensation fund for victims. Sanofi is facing a class-action lawsuit in France, where more than 30,000 children are thought to have been damaged since sodium valproate was licensed there in 1967.

In January, a court ruled the company “was at fault because it failed to meet the obligation for vigilance and the obligation to inform”.

Sanofi says it has met all its obligations in the UK, where between 9,000 and 20,000 children may have been harmed by sodium valproate, scores more than were left disabled by thalidomide in the 1960s. A spokeswoman expressed “sympathy for any person harmed as a result of exposure to valproate during pregnancy and for members of their families” but added: “Sanofi has complied fully with its regulatory obligations in relation to valproate, including the provision of product information to healthcare professionals and to patients . . . we do not believe that there is any basis for the payment of compensation.”

Still no warnings

Patricia Alexander holds in her hands a plain packet. Inside are two blister packs containing sodium valproate.

This pack was given to her in January of this year. It has no patient safety information leaflet inside.

“Sometimes you just get a white box,” she said. “They are supposed to put the patient information leaflet inside and a card that warns you of the risks, but they don’t.

“The fact I am getting the boxes like this, because they have split the dose, means someone else is as well.”

Perhaps the most damning finding of Cumberlege’s report was her warning that hundreds of women were still taking sodium valproate with no knowledge of the risks to their unborn babies.

Evidence suggests that this still continues to this day — with the drug being handed to pregnant women without proper warnings.

The pack given to Alexander in January states on the front that if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant, you must speak to your doctor about taking the medication and read the leaflet for more details.

“But there is no leaflet,” she said. “There is nothing in the box but 22 tablets. It makes me so angry.”

After she was given them, Alexander took photographs of the boxes and shared them online.

Other women did the same. Some had received the drugs in plain boxes. Others showed boxes with pharmacy labels stuck over the pregnancy warnings.

The matter of the drugs still being handed out in plain packaging, without the appropriate warnings, has been acknowledged by the Department of Health and Social Care.

It has admitted that “evidence continues to emerge suggesting many women remain unaware of the significant risks posed to their unborn baby should they fall pregnant while taking sodium valproate”.

It launched a consultation in November on proposals to ensure sodium valproate was always dispensed in the original manufacturer’s packaging “to support increased patient safety” — but the government has yet to respond.

An NHS England spokesman said it had established an expert group to help reduce by 50 per cent next year the use of sodium valproate by women who can get pregnant, and had written to all women and girls aged 12 to 55 in England who take the medication to remind them of risks.

But the medicines regulator has admitted warnings are still not getting through.

Dr Alison Cave, chief safety officer for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said work was ongoing on safer use of sodium valproate and to minimise prescribing.

She said the MHRA was now working to ensure the drug was dispensed in the original packaging with the safety information inside.

“If there are examples where this information has not been provided, we would investigate this,” she said.

She added that the drug “should not be taken by any individual of child-bearing potential unless they have a pregnancy prevention programme in place, which includes use of effective contraception”.

She also said that women on sodium valproate were now required to sign annual risk-acknowledgement forms together with their healthcare professional “as their circumstances regarding the risk of pregnancy may change”. Patients who spoke to The Sunday Times disputed whether these measures were in place across the board.

Fears for the future

Since sodium valproate was first licensed for use in 1973, as many as 20,000 children may have been affected by it.

Many of those children will never live independently and will need full-time care for the rest of their lives.

Williams, now 57, lives with her husband Steve and her two boys Lee, 32, and Philip, 31. Both have disabilities caused by the drug, but Philip is the worst affected.

“He could never live independently,” said Williams. “And I am terrified we’re not going to be here for ever to do things for them.”

Murphy’s daughter Lauren, 16, cannot walk without splints. She has had to wait weeks to get replacements on the NHS.

“If parents had financial support we could buy them sooner,” she said. “And that’s just one case. We have thousands of children like that with valproate syndrome.”

For McNamara, 45, from Hull, life with three children harmed by sodium valproate is a daily struggle.

Alexander, 20, Sophia, 16, and Sebastian, 10, all have physical problems, autism and learning difficulties. Sophia had major surgery in 2019 to correct the curvature of her spine but couldn’t get a wheelchair from the NHS. Her mother had to buy one secondhand.

McNamara said the financial impact has been crippling. “I’m not able to invest in myself, a career. I can’t buy a house. Just to meet everyday expenses is difficult because I can’t go out and get a job.

“I take everything a day at a time. If you think too far down the line it really gets to you.”

After Sebastian’s birth, McNamara went on to have a healthy child after changing onto a different epilepsy drug, Keppra.

Although for some patients only sodium valproate will fully control their seizures, there are alternative anticonvulsant drugs available, and some women find they are able to change their treatment.

“If I’d known now that alternatives were out there, I’d have changed over without a second thought,” she said.

Alternative anticonvulsant drugs had never been offered to her until her children were diagnosed with foetal valproate syndrome, she says. “Nobody thought to mention it.”

[reallivegeekgirl]

StanQuest

Something clicked on in my brain a couple months ago and suddenly Sebastian Stan became the hottest man alive. So I decided to watch everything he’s ever been in. A friend and I called it StanQuest.

Here are my spoiler-free reviews for anyone considering something similar (in inverse chronological order starting with latest works and going back in time. The stars are an overall rating of the work, not of Sebastian’s performance.

This only lists things I could find streaming for free or a price I was willing to pay. It does not count after credits scenes, music videos, or works in which he was uncredited.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) - TV show - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This started it all. I very much enjoyed it. Good balance of humor and action, heart and heroics. I’ve watched it four times already, and will watch it again. Bucky Barnes is my favorite character of his and this is my favorite story of Bucky's so far. I can’t wait to see what he does next. (And I have a lot to say about how they treat his trauma in this show. I’ve definitely written about it before and may again.)

Monday (2020) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐ - This is the one where he gets naked. If that’s all you’re looking for, enjoy. It was a very realistic portrayal of a relationship between two deeply flawed people. It can get depressing. But hey, penis.

The Devil All the Time (2020) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - If you think Monday is depressing, this movie says “hold my beer”. But something about it is just captivating. It’s really disturbing, and if you’ve ever been screwed over by American Evangelical Christianity it might be more disturbing. Still, I’ve watched it twice. And as much of a bastard as Lee Bodecker is, he also looks really cuddly. He’s just barely in it.

The Last Full Measure (2019) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - You will cry. A lot. It’s based on a true story. Sebastian plays a man who cares more about his career than this weird quest dumped on his desk by his boss, but changes his mind and his heart as he investigates why a war hero was denied a medal of honor 34 years before. Definitely recommend.

Endings, Beginnings (2019) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - One of two love interests in the complicated life of Shailene Woodley’s Daphne, Sebastian is an adorable mess. The editing is interesting and fresh feeling. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean. Fair amount of sex in this movie, and you see his butt. It’s a very nice butt. I’ve watched this one a few times so far.

Avengers: Endgame (2019) - Movie - ⭐⭐ - There is no reason to watch this movie if you’re not familiar with at least most of the rest of the MCU. It plays merry hob with the rules of time travel, and only makes sense if you don’t really think about it. In my opinion, the ending is really freaking stupid comsidering his character’s history, but at least it sets up TFatWS, which was amazing.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018) - Movie - ⭐ - If you’re into movies that are creepy but also almost nothing happens for most of the movie, this is the one for you. Sebastian is handsome as hell, but also a complete asshole. As fine as he is, I’m not gonna watch this again. I fucking hated it.

Destroyer (2018) - Movie - ⭐⭐- I had a hard time paying attention to the plot because it seemed like they made this movie just to get Nicole Kidman an Oscar nomination for wearing ugly makeup and playing a complete mess of a person. It’s a fine movie, and all of the performances are good. Sebastian looks surprisingly good with the short hair and goatee. Ultimately, the plot is depressing and the whole movie seems kind of pointless.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Movie - ⭐⭐- Again, no reason to watch this if you aren’t already familiar with all the movies leading up to it. It’s long and the villain looks like Grimace and a California Raisin had an evil baby. The ending made me scream with frustration that I had to wait until the next one came out. Now I just watch them back-to-back if I watch them at all. It’s not a good movie, but it is part of a long-form story that I enjoy in general.

I’m Not Here (2017) - Movie - ⭐⭐- Another depressing one. Told over the course of one man’s terrible life, it’s a sad account of how much your parents can fuck you up. Sebastian portrays the middle part of the man’s life. J.K. Simmons plays the current day part and unreliable narrator.. Do not watch unless you are fully prepared to be sad for a really long time after.

I, Tonya (2017) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐- This movie is hilarious. I mean, the true story is insane and really stupid. The spousal abuse is hard to watch, and Sebastian’s mustache in this is a war crime. But the acting is great and it’s a very engaging movie. The parts that aren’t horrifying are pretty funny.

Logan Lucky (2017) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Watch. This. Movie. Sebastian Stan is only in it a little, but it’s a really fun, clever caper/heist movie and everyone in it is fantastic. I don’t want to say anything else about it if you’re going in fresh. I’ll be rewatching this one a lot

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - If you ignore how kind of silly the conflict over the Sokovia Accords is, this is a good Marvel movie. Sebastian gets a lot of screen time because Bucky is the more pressing concern/urgent point of contention than the Accords. Bucky is my favorite character of his partly because of this movie.

The Martian (2015) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I’m watching it(again) as I’m typing this. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. Sebastian Stan isn’t in it very much, but he’s very cute and so is his little story arc. Mostly I watch it because Ridley Scott made a fantastic movie. If you can get your hands on the Blu-Ray, it comes with a ton of extras. They made a very complete story that isn’t all seen in the movie. A lot of it is stuff about Mars, but there are also extra “crew” interviews, so there’s another chance to see more of Sebastian’s character.

Ricki and the Flash (2015) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - He’s not in this very much, but he’s very cute when he does appear. It’s all about the relationship between Ricki and her daughter. Definitely rewatchable. Meryl Streep is fantastic, because she’s Meryl Streep.

The Bronze (2015) - Movie - ⭐ - This is not a good movie. It’s about Olympic gymnastics, so it might be slightly more interesting right now while the Olympics are happening. Sebastian isn’t in it a lot, but his performance is certainly… memorable. Weirdest sex scene I’ve ever seen. Worth watching just for that.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - This is the one I can watch over and over. I bought a Winter Soldier face mask for when I need to feel like a badass. Bucky’s story is really sad, but he’s also extremely sexy with the metal arm and determined walk.

Once Upon a Time (2012-2013) - TV Show - ⭐⭐⭐ - This show is so stupid, but it’s also fun. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is that fairy tale characters are real and live in another land. Snow White’s Evil Queen casts a spell to transport a bunch of them to a town she creates in Maine called Storybrooke, and gives them all fake memories so she can be mayor and watch them all not remember who they are. Sebastian plays Jefferson, a.k.a. The Mad Hatter. He’s in a few episodes in season 1 and 2, and doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but he’s really cute and tragic as Jefferson. It probably helps to watch the whole first season just to understand his episodes, but that’s up to your tolerance for weird shit. Note: IMDB says he’s in an episode uncredited, but I’ve watched it and didn’t see him anywhere in that one.

Labyrinth (2012) - TV Mini-Series - ⭐⭐⭐ - Two episodes that tell a complete story. Sebastian isn’t in this one a whole lot, but he is adorable. It’s a strange story about religious stuff and a sort of Holy Grail that’s three books. It’s hard to describe. It’s on Amazon Prime right now, but they’re taking it down August 8, 2021, so watch it while you can.

The Apparition (2012) - Movie - ⭐ - If you like horror movies, you might like this. I did not. From what I understand, it’s not a very good horror movie. Watch with caution and expect it to suck.

Political Animals (2012) - TV Mini-Series - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I had to buy this through Apple and watch it on a Mac, but it was worth it. Sebastian plays TJ Hammond, the out gay son of a former American president who is clearly based on Bill Clinton. Sigorney Weaver plays the former first lady and current secretary of state. TJ struggles with addiction and relationship problems. His performance is heart-wrenching. The whole show is pretty great. I wish there was more of it.

Gone (2012) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐ - More of a psychological thriller than a horror movie. Sebastian has a small amount of screen time as the worried boyfriend. Amanda Seyfried is good. She carries the film well on her own.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - If you haven’t seen this yet, I’d like to know what it’s like under your rock. This is a movie I can rewatch a lot, and have. I 100% cried in the theater. Sebastian looks fantastic in uniform as Bucky Barnes. This is his introduction and the start of his ultimately tragic story (before he’s saved by his best friend, again).

Black Swan (2010) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Sebastian is barely in this. He’s basically just in one scene in a dance club. But I watched it to try to complete StanQuest, and I had seen it before. It’s a good movie, but might induce some nightmares, depending on what scares you. If Natalie Portman didn’t at least get a nomination for an award she was robbed.

Gossip Girl (2007-2010) - TV Show - ⭐⭐ - Carter Baizen is a little shit. The episodes with Sebastian in them might have made more sense if I watched the show from the beginning, but I didn’t want to. His character is an asshole, but a very cute one.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐- The people who made this movie are bad at math, and their rules of time travel are sketchy at best, but it is funny and entertaining. Sebastian plays a ski patrol bro who’s paranoid about the Russians, which is hilarious irony to me. Worth watching if you want to laugh at something dumb.

Kings (2009) - TV Show - ⭐⭐⭐- Sebastian plays Jack Benjamin, the closeted gay son of the king of a fictional place. It’s loosely based on the David and Goliath story from the Bible. Sebastian is so sad and so gay. His family makes his life a living hell. Ian McShane is a force of nature in this. It’s only one season. I’ve watched it twice. I will watch it again.

Spread (2009) - Movie - no stars - This movie was practically unwatchable. It stars Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche as a romantic couple, I guess? I ended up just skipping to Sebastian’s scenes and only watching those. Still painful.

The Covenant (2006) - Movie - ⭐⭐⭐ - This movie is so fuckig stupid, and I will watch it a ridiculous number of times. It’s about magic and teenagers, like The Craft for boys. Nothing about it makes sense. It’s terrible, almost irredeemable, but an evil Sebastian with magic powers is a siren song that will make me steer my boat right into the rocks.

And there you have it. There are a bunch of earlier things on IMDB that I just can’t find or don’t want to pay to rent. Maybe some day I’ll watch them and add them to this list.

[the-shared-brain-in-retrograde]

Avengers Assemble

A joint review...

We began this viewing of Avengers Assemble (or just The Avengers if you're in other parts of the world) full of emotion. A range of emotion for quite different ends of the spectrum. @cassandrafey gave a giddy squeal of excitement as she pressed play, because apparently she loves this movie a bit more than she realised.

These feelings are evident throughout the review. We rarely differ on our views irl, and have been known to finish conversations with ‘and then both angrily agreed that everyone else was wrong.’ HOWEVER, we do have a difference on opinion regarding two of our Avenger friends, so just be prepared.

And so we begin...

We both focused on slightly different bits of the opening. @cassandrafey swooned over her beloved Loki and his glowing sceptre, and @becksxoxo raged at the thought of Thanos. What a bastard.

That was a bit of a shit show of an evacuation. There was a lot of running around but no actual evacuating. If it has been a drill they'd have all been sat down after and got a right dressing down. Useless.

Ah, our old chum the Tesseract. What good will come from messing around with it? None, is the clear answer depicted in this film.

You've got to admire Nick's leather coat action, and we do. Look at it swirl. We have a good friend who also wears a long leather jacket and flourishes it justly. It's a good look and we are here for it. Which is nice, because we do start to question ol' Nick at points further on.

@becksxoxo reet enjoyed Maria's snarky, 'yes sir’ to Fury giving her orders she clearly didn't agree with. Nice showing of some eye rolling teenage daughter action.

We also both noted down Hawkeye up in the rafters, adorably wrapped around that railing. For a man who just knocks about with a bow and arrow he contributes quite the thought provoking insight there. Who knew he knew so much on the science of tesseracts. Perhaps he knows more than old Erik, who @becksxoxo stands by the statement that he shouldn't be messing with it.

Loki makes his entrance and @cassandrafey seems to have developed something of a competence kink along the way because he really does just turn up and get shit done quickly and efficiently. If it wasn’t for Fury the whole place would still be standing and immaculate as well. (Other than a few corpses but I imagine that can be easily remedied). A good, tidy boy. A good, tidy boy who does not look well. Tres manic. But like Cass said, very efficient. He's got control of Clint and Eric quite quickly, he's secured the tesseract and given Nick a stab for good measure. We also applaud his choice of getaway car, perfect for enjoying the car chase. Any hint of exhilaration and his chaos shows. And who doesn't love a good old fashioned car chase, with added chopper action? Nick Fury certainly does, always in the damned things.

All things considered @becksxoxo would still prefer a mountain side lair (which Marvel you still have not sent the plans for, and its honestly getting mildly tiresome) because they are much less likely to collapse in on you like the Hellmouth eating itself at the end of Buffy (still traumatised. I don't want to talk about it...)

"Assemble them Avengers that I've been collecting."

Nicholas Joseph Fury, 2012

Oh Natasha. She is our favourite deep down I think. We appreciate her; her sass, her style and her competence. She can really bring a man down and we love to see it.

@becksxoxo. In my' notes I just have, she's a good egg. And if I was piss drunk off sangria and stood in Cass' Mum's kitchen I'd probably slide into ScarJo's DMs and tell her so, just as I did Anthony Mackie that one time. However that is a tale for when we review The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which in itself will be a very devastating time. [but Cass' Mum did think that Sebastian messaged me "you too babe 😘😘😘😘" so there's something - god I hate myself haaaaa]

[@cassandrafey Let it be known that my mother is so busy looking at Thor in these films that she has no idea who Bucky is, and once memorably referred to him as Binky. So. Not surprising that she thinks it’s plausible that Sebastian Stan is just sitting about engaging with drunk women on the internet. And I mean drunk. Good lord. If you’re still with us by TFATWS you will have earned the full story.]

We've never seen the Hulk film, and we're not including it in this watch through (so perhaps we never will...) but we're glad its Mark Ruffalo and not Ed Norton. He's a sweetie, as @cassandrafey puts, and a smiley tit in interviews, as @becksxoxo added. In that little house he looks ever so tall, and I did worry he had maybe shrunk as he's gotten older, but it was just a trick of perspective as he becomes normal sized once out in the open.

"You run the world's greatest covert security network and you're gonna leave the fate of the human race to a handful of freaks?"

FUCK OFF! BLOODY OLD RICH TOSSPOTT. A direct quote from @cassandrafey

We hadn't realised the Avengers Initiative had been canned. We definitely remember them talking to Tony about it, and then being like oh we'd like Iron Man but not you, and then clearly took their ball home and stopped the whole thing. We're starting to see the cracks and flaws in SHIELD.

Here we had a divergence in thought.

@becksxoxo had an overwhelming sadness wash over her as Steve remembered back, alone with his thoughts and that gym bag.

@cassandrafey immediately went for 'he's made a right mess of that, how much do you think it costs him going through gym bags.'

Which is odd, as usually we're quite the opposite in showing our feelings, but Cass has just told me that my problem here is that I've let my emotions get in the way of my common sense [which is true as I usually do a much better job of really pushing down all those feelings that try to bubble out. I'm a big advocate of repression...]

As ever Becks sides with Steve. They should all be concerned about people messing with the thing that powered the weapons of Hydra, what are you trying to use it for, hum? You SHOULD have left it in the ocean.

We then see Tony Stark show off his plumbing skills. @becksxoxo spelt plumber wrong in her notes, as plummer. A plummer, one who picks plums. Ah plums [spit in my mouth, queue @cassandrafey squeals of pain in the background]. ENOUGH.

Here we get introduced to Stark Tower (the place where Christmas fanfiction dreams are made. ALL I WANT IS MATCHING ONSIES AND THEM ALL TO BE FRIENDS) @becksxoxo thinks it pretty big headed to stick your name on the side of a building in massive letters, @cassandrafey reasons its what saves them all in the end, but we get ahead of ourselves. Nice little Pepper Potts cameo, with her bestie Phil. We've asked this question before but not got to the bottom of it is, why doesn't Tony like things being handed to him?

Volatile, self obsessed and doesn't play well with others.

I mean, @cassandrafey he does say it himself... 😘

Steve and Phil then meet. It was here that @cassandrafey launched a sudden and unprovoked two pronged attack: ‘First hint of personality from Coulson. But if he’s a Cap fanboy it makes me suspicious. Two boring chaps together having an awkward confab. Sorry Becks, that’s rude. I’m trying. I’ll try harder.’

@becksxoxo would like to remind everyone that this isn't the first instance of Cassandra being harshly rude this week [because she is certainly never going to let Cass forget it...] but I would like to add "I watched you while you were sleeping" did make me squawk. Nice one Phil, but keep it in your pants. I then clearly had another emotional break, as in my notes it just says 'Oh I love Steve so much, I might cry. I do love Phil too. What the fuck is wrong with me.', so that's great.

When we go to Germany Cass, I do not wish to go to the opera, I want us to get off our tits on schnapps and strudel.

@cassandrafey Ugh Loki looks fucking gorgeous in his muggle clothes. I have spoken on this before but I LOVE this scene. Have you ever seen a man descend a staircase more gracefully? It should be ILLEGAL. He should have to take lifts. It’s too much.

And there he goes, twatting that man in the face and stealing his eyeball.

Here is a very condensed list (which can be expanded on if anyone is interested) of people @becksxoxo would like to twat like that in the face:

Most men, apart from my tumblr boys

The entirety of the Tory Party

Thanos

As we have previously established we know who @cassandrafey truly adores, so what follows next is no surprise.

Cass: His nasty little chaos smile. I love him. He's so good at distraction. Oooof, the glamour, the armour. A good speech. 10/10 would kneel for that. Christ I would be on my knees so fast [it was here @becksxoxo has a small break down, as typing up Cassandra's mind vomit really felt like what I have to do in my day job and then my mind took a turn of having an academic dictating such sentences and then HR having to get involved... Fuck me.] Cass then skims passed Steve coming in, and zones in on Tony's grand entrance and his never ending list of nicknames. She would like to suggest a new nick name for Steve as the Ninja Turtle (or old man tortoise as she goes on t cruelly add) as he does look like that with his shield on his back and his little helmet on. Becks obviously appreciated Steve a bit more, especially his "I'm not the one out of time," line.

Thor really said yoink...

I mean its not the family reunion we were hoping for. We were both cross at Thor for not being a little bit more pleased to see the brother he thought was dead. The problem here is that Thor still wants all the toys, just pick one Thor you can't have Asgard and Earth. We love the Shakespearean vibes though.

I'm not sure why Tony snatched Thor to have a fight with, when he could have just taken Loki back to the ship, but the fight was worth the watch as Loki could attest to. Then Steve turns up like the parent who has enough of his kids shit. I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it. Followed by a light bit of deforestation, should be a little more careful there boys, will no one think of the environment.

Poor Banner, imagine looking up at work and being met with the cold eyes of a dangerous criminal, and his mischievous grin and little wave. Perhaps that's part of Loki's recruitment campaign.

We appreciate that they have given Loki the correct number of guards this time, unlike the meagre few at the TVA. His prison though does not seem up to code. I feel like there should at least be a seat and a bathroom. I'm sure the Geneva Convention would have something to say about all this.

And here comes Fury to have a word. Which seems a useless thing to try and do with Loki. Loki will always have something to say, [and will use his words to be mean, like some other persons we know eh Cass?], and you're not going to win against him that way.

We already have a Bucky drinking game for Winter Soldier, but @cassandrafey would like to create a new one for this next scene specifically. Every time some says Loki you take a shot, and hope your liver doesn't give out by the end of it.

"Is that what just happened?"

Its good to see that Steve is as confused about science as we are, as the Science Bros™️ talk their gobbledygook.

And I understood THAT reference. Steve is well pleased with himself for being up to date with pop culture [like me trying to use thirsty on main Cass..] that he sort of turns it into a competition with Thor and DRUM ROLL PLEASE @cassandrafey admits that this may be the first scene where she actually sort of likes Steve.

Ooop, this is Cass' favourite bit. She can't come to the phone right now as she's on the floor having her little thoughts again. I will add though that Nat is just really good at what she does, gets that information out of him nice and smoothly. Love her.

The we have Steve being sneaky. This scene of him breaking and entering reminds @becksxoxo of the bit in the First Avenger where he steals that dancers helmet and sneaks into the Hydra facility to rescue Bucky. Awwwwwwwww, my heart. Also why do you have Hydra-like weaponry and armour on the ship, eh Nick?! What are SHIELD up to?

The following scene is a difficult one because, yes we both agree that Nick is being sneaky and not telling them everything, BUT the relationship and subsequent sass-off (as Cass has coined it) between Steve and Tony causes a slight division, its actually quite a dramatic divergence but we have skimmed over most of the argument as to not take this horrific tangent of a review any further off the rails. Suffice to say @cassandrafey sides with Tony and @becksxoxo sides with Steve. Also, Cass right enjoys the arguments, however its all too much in the feelings for Becks who would like them all to just get a long a bit more like they do in the cartoon.

There is a moment where Steve says "I knew guys with none of that worth ten of you" and the noise @becksxoxo made to stop the crying was quite alarming. You can 't tell us he isn't referring to Buck, and it makes me so sad. Its good to know the way to stop bickering between the Avengers is to bring up unaliving yourself. Quite the turn we took there. Poor Bruce.

You know its bad when Natasha is worried. And the other guy turned up, so it was quite bad. And then they also get attacked from the brainwashed crew (coming on through). Barton gets in a good shot and the ship is going to pieces.

Fury is so done with his staff. Is the sun up, then fucking use it to navigate you pleb.

Then Tony and Steve get themselves together and work quite well alongside each other in an emergency. Although asking Steve to look at advanced technology did seem a bit like Din trying to get Grogu to fix them wires, but at least he tried. The Genius and the Dullard - a new spin off show with Tony and Steve trying to fix things whilst bickering endlessly, but without the sexual tension of TFATWS. If I, @becksxoxo, had been captaining this flying hellhole I would have started to try and land when the first engine was blown, rather than wait for the very capable enemy to knock out another engine of this poorly designed ship. And @cassandrafey would like to say that Hawkeye was clearly the only good shot in SHIELD, as no one else can clearly hit a target for shit. No wonder its all gone to pot.

"Ooop there goes Coulson."

Although @cassandrafey notes were brief on the whole affair, please join us now to go through the dramatic emotions that @becksxoxo went through:

Oh not Phil

I don't know what's going to happen

Oh no

I screamed (it startled the cats)

Oh Loki you silly goose

Nat does a great job on walloping her bestie until he remembers who she is. We love that Nat and Clint are such good friends. Its really good to see a girl boy relationship that is just friends and nothing more on screen. We demand more of it!

@cassandrafey :Clint looks like I felt after I had too much to drink last Saturday and it was fucking boiling when I woke up and was still partly-drunk-partly-hungover. Becks suggested that maybe that’s actually what had happened to me but I pointed out that Loki wouldn’t have to bother to mind control me because I would be all too willing, dare I say even eager, to do as he says.

Nick Fury - we are disappointed in you.

Firstly, Coulson would be well annoyed at you dipping his prized possession in his own blood. They were vintage.

Secondly, what are you doing messing around trying to recreate hydra weapons? If the Nazis were at it you probably should leave it alone, words to live by from @cassandrafey there.

Thirdly, the manipulation and lies. Using Coulson's death to unite the team is one thing, but why do you keep hiding pertinent information and using horrid things to get people to do what you want them to do. You seem to trust this gang of 'freaks' to help win this war for you, perhaps you could trust them enough to have a damned civil conversation and get things out in the open. Perhaps the whole thing would work better if there was BETTER COMMUNICATION. FFS GUYS.

The Battle of New York

Tony is able to figure out Loki's plan, as they definitely have a few traits in common, grandstanding being one of them, @becksxoxo contribution to his discussion was 'Ooooooh my names on a building...'

Stark Tower does seem pretty easy to break into, everyone's there, even @cassandrafey who has been shoved right back into her feelings with 'Loki walks so nicely I just whimpered I love him.'

Wouldn't it have been amazing if Loki and Tony had just gotten drunk together, made friends and called the whole thing off. But @cassandrafey we would have missed the hand around the throat...

@becksxoxo would like to note how excited she got when she spotted Ashley from critical role hiding from an alien, it was really nice.

Loki sort of comes back to himself slightly when talking to Thor which tugged on the old heart strings. But he just can't help himself, little stabby boy.

What we both love is the first bit of proper Avengers team work happening as they work together to fight the big bad. We LOVE the iconic panning shot around all six of them as the Avengers refrain booms in the background. Love love love love love it.

Two other iconic moments from this film come next, an unnecessary forward role from Cap, and the stunning hair flips from both Nat and Loki.

@becksxoxo then went off on another rant regarding feeble minded men as she is want to do when left to her own devices.

We are insurance. WE ARE FARMERS - what?! *Bob Fossil voice* what are you?! How can I understand you?!!

We have more questions for SHIELD, Fury and The Council. Why are there nuclear weapons on that ship? Why is Fury trying to shoot down a plane with a nuclear weapon on it? We are not nuclear weapon experts but we know that that can't be a good idea to do. Also, as the person driving that plane to go nuke New York, how would you have lived with yourself when it went off?

@cassandrafey loves Tony for throwing himself into the path of the bomb and taking it out of harms way (other than the harm it did to them aliens but we'll move on from the possible mass genocide...) [a follow up convo we have just had on the phone was @cassandrafey of course he didn't know that would happen and it wasn't any of his fault, @becksxoxo of course not, @cassandrafey WELL IT WASN'T, @becksx I KNOW... we're fine, we are ok...] It was very selfless. There was no guarantee he was coming back from that. @becksxoxo managed to gloss over the whole thing and made no notes on this part what so ever but did pose the question:

Which OG Avenger would you want to give you mouth to mouth?

Again we differed in our answer. Cass was most concerned about who would do the best job of reviving her, and was erring on the side of Natasha or Clint. Becks however may have just been thinking of having a sly snog with Bucky's best friend while he was off in Siberia. [@becksxoxo here are I'd like to say that it wasn't quite like how Cass is making it out to be, but we'd all laugh about it later] [Cass here to say I think it was exactly how it sounded, and just another sorry case of someone being thirsty on sideblog].

Stan Lee spotting. Nice to see.

And then they all go their separate ways, but they'll all come back because he needs them to come back. Bad logic Fury, but nevermind.

Cass recently saw a post online that says that Tony was rebuilding Stark Tower so that there was a floor for each Avenger, and we think that's just so cute. Can anyone say matching onesies?

FUCKING THANOS. They both angrily agreed that Thanos was a great big baldy cunt bastard.

And so concludes Phase One of the MCU Rewatch. Two young ladies have just appeared at Cass’ door with alcohol, and if she can find the energy she will now crawl towards them in the hope of reviving herself with some of that blessed liquid after all of our thoughts and feelings today. Becks is going for that short line she was thinking about earlier, or probably just to collapse in the river. The Shared Brain had been on the phone for roughly 5 hours writing this today, but if you think that we won’t be back texting each other within the next 20 minutes, we’ll then you don’t know a damn thing about codependency.

Becks: We are unwell.

Cass: You want me to put that? No I’m not going to, I think we’re doing fine!

See you in Phase 2 bitches! 🤘

[juleskelleybooks]

Want a copy of Welcome to the Show?

Hey friends, if you have an account on BookSprout (which is free, as far as I know), you can sign up to get a copy of Welcome to the Show for the low, low cost of a review on a single platform (although of course more than one platform is appreciated - Amazon, GoodReads, and BookBub are your choices currently).

Just in case you're interested! There are 20 total available copies for review, and 4 have been claimed as of Feb 12, so check it out if you're interested.

Rockstar Keith and actor Adam have the kind of relationship that keeps tabloids in business: Passionate and dramatic. They’ve mostly managed to keep their taste for threesomes a secret, though…until they meet Sebastian, a budding journalist who fits perfectly between them. Navigating their careers and a long-term threeway relationship in the public eye of 2012 is playing with fire—and if the paparazzi doesn’t destroy them, their inner demons just might. Note: This high-heat romance title was previously released as LoveGames by M Jules Aedin in 2012. This edition has been significantly revised with mostly new content, including a brand new ending.

Some praise:

"Welcome to the Show was a warm and cozy ride through the ups and downs of a blossoming relationship, friendship, and exploration of identity. All of the characters were relatable and felt real - it had a distinct flavour of being an autobiography despite being based on fictional people. I appreciated the inclusiveness woven throughout, tinting everything carefully golden even during the "lows" of the character arcs."

"I just really enjoyed the book to the point where now, 2 days after I finished it I keep going back to reread parts of the story again."

"The characters hooked me so quickly, and I fell in love with all three heroes, all for different reasons. Too many times I pick up one of these books and find the same tired, boring tropes with characters who I can't even remember when I set the book down at the end, and Kelley's writing is a breath of fresh air."

"I'm impressed. I would like to give this double-full stars, please. Each character is fully developed, living his life as well as he knows how, each interaction was written with keen attention but, and I can't stress this enough, never over-written. Never over-explained or excused, and never flinching during trouble, either. I forgot at times that I was reading words, I was so fully immersed in the world."

Content advisory is on the BookSprout link! [Link Here]

Available formats: - mobi - epub - pdf

[wolfsbanesbite]

I posted 7,567 times in 2021

239 posts created (3%)

7328 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 30.7 posts.

I added 221 tags in 2021

#sebastian vettel - 46 posts

#formula one - 43 posts

#sam bird - 24 posts

#fic request - 20 posts

#simi - 17 posts

#my fic - 15 posts

#true colors - 15 posts

#formula e - 14 posts

#were! simi au - 14 posts

#art request - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 117 characters

#i don't bind but have a small chest so if i wear the right thing i don't really have a chest. so....it still happens.

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Oh my word. Guys just....just watch this. Excuse the sudden shot of laughter at the Pierre and Dany scene but my god.

64 notes • Posted 2021-07-06 18:17:14 GMT

#4

Greetings F1 fic writers!

It's October so that means it's spooky month! So I am proposing we play a little game.

A Halloween fic challenge.

The fic can be about any pairing you want but it must be Halloween themed. So go nuts! Unleash zombies and ghosts and gore. Write a slasher fic. Write about going to a Halloween party. If scary doesn't suit you write about a driver being obsessed with fall and spooky season!

The fic itself must be a minimum of 1k and should be posted on October 31st.

There is no sign up needed. I just thought this would be fun for the fandom.

71 notes • Posted 2021-10-04 07:12:37 GMT

#3

I got this interesting glitch.....

114 notes • Posted 2021-07-28 17:51:05 GMT

#2

If Jonny wanted to be a monster so bad then why didn't he just ask Mavis to turn him. Like. Dude. She is your vampire wife. Clue is in the name. Vampires can turn humans. Like.. the trend of ignoring this often bugs me 🤣

126 notes • Posted 2021-05-17 17:12:33 GMT

#1

Crying my eyes out and willing to be late for work as Tom Daley scores olympic gold. I've followed him since London 2012 so I'm high key emotional right now.

235 notes • Posted 2021-07-26 07:23:15 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[crowdvscritic]

round up // MARCH + APRIL 21

March and April were a whirlwind of vaccines and awards shows! A full year after we starting staying at home, the end of this weird chapter in recent history seems like it might finally be coming to a close, and this pop culture awards season—typically a time full of fun and glamour—captured our moment weirdly well. (Emphasis on the weird.) This month’s recommendations is filled with more Critic Picks than usual, so without further delay, let’s dive right in...

March + April Crowd-Pleasers

Double Feature — 2018 Action Thrillers: Bad Times at the El Royale + Den of Thieves

In Bad Times at the El Royale (Crowd: 9/10, // Critic: 8/10), Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, and Dakota Johnson are staying at a motel on the California-Nevada state line full of money, murder, and mystery. In Den of Thieves (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Gerard Butler takes on some of the best bank robbers in the world. Whether you like your action with a dose of mystery or the thrills of plot twists, these will fit the bill.

Double Feature — ‘80s Comedies: Caddyshack (1980) + Splash (1984)

In the mood for pure silliness? Take your pick between a mermaid and a gopher! Five years before The Little Mermaid, Tom Hanks fell for Daryl Hannah’s blonde hair and scaly tail, and John Candy was his goofy brother in Splash (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10). And four years before Ghostbusters, Bill Murray was the goof on a golf course full of funny people like Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Ted Knight in Caddyshack (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10).

Double Feature — 1980s Coming-of-Age Films Starring Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland, and Challenging Brother Relationships That Influenced Stranger Things: Stand by Me (1986) + The Lost Boys (1987)

Believe it or not, I had no idea these two ‘80s classics had so much in common when I chose to watch them back-to-back. In Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand by Me (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), four kids (Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, River Phoenix, and Wil Wheaton) are following train tracks to find a missing body. In The Lost Boys (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10), Corey Haim and Jason Patric move to a small California town and discover it’s full of ‘80s movie star cameos and…vampires? One is a thoughtful coming-of-age story and one is just bonkers, but both are a great time.

Spaceman by Nick Jonas (2021)

My love for the Jonas Brothers is well-documented, so instead of going down the rabbit hole I started digging at 15, I’ll talk about how Nick Jonas’s latest solo album will likely appeal to a wider audience than just the fans of the brothers’ bombastic pop records. It’s full of catchy tunes you’ll play on repeat and an R&B-influenced album experience about the loneliness we’ve experienced in the last year and how we try to make long-term relationships work.

Ted Lasso (2020- )

I love stories about nice people crushing cruelty and cynicism with relentless kindness, and Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is the warmest, most dedicated leader this side of Leslie Knope. Be sure to catch up on these witty and sweet 10 episodes before season 2 drops later this summer.

Double Feature — Tony Scott Action Flicks: Enemy of the State (1998) + The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Tony Scott’s movies have got explosions and excitement in spades. I love a good man-on-the-run movie, and in Enemy of the State (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), Will Smith is running through the streets of D.C. after getting evidence of a politician’s (Jon Voight) part in a murder. I also love a tense story set in a confined space, which is what Denzel Washington is dealing with in The Taking of Pelham 123 (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 7/10) after a hammy John Travolta takes a New York subway train hostage.

Double Feature — Baseball Movies: The Natural (1984) + Trouble With the Curve (2012)

Sue me—I love baseball movies. Robert Redford plays a fictional all-time great in the early days of the MLB in The Natural (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10), and Clint Eastwood plays a fictional all-time great scout in his late career in Trouble With the Curve (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10). If you love baseball or actors like Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Justin Timberlake, these movies are just right here waiting for you.

Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American (2021)

Sue me—I enjoy Netflix standup comedy specials that are safe enough to watch with your whole family. That’s exactly the crowd I laughed with over Easter weekend, and while the trailer captures Bargatze’s relaxed vibe, it doesn’t capture how funny he really is.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

I thought somewhere in my childhood I’d seen at least one of The Mighty Ducks movies, but after watching all three, I think my memories must’ve come from previews on the VHS tapes for other Disney movies I watched over and over again. The original still holds up as an grown-ups, which is why even my parents got sucked in to this family movie while just passing through the living room. Bonus for ‘80s movies lovers: Emilio Estevez is basically continuing Andrew Clark’s story from The Breakfast Club as an adult. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

Double Feature — New, Dumb Action on Streaming: Godzilla vs. Kong + Thunder Force (2021)

If you want something intelligent, go ahead and skip to the next recommendation, but if you’re looking for something stupid fun, these are ready for you on HBO Max and Netflix. Thunder Force (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6/10) follows Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer as they train to become superheroes who take on superhuman sociopaths wreaking havoc on Chicago, and alongside Jason Bateman, they do it with a lot of laughs. Godzilla vs. Kong (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 5/10) is, um, exactly what it sounds like, so I’ll skip a plot summary and just say it’s exactly what you want from this kind of movie. #TeamKong

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

All you need to know is Russell Crowe is an outlaw, and Christian Bale is the guy who’s got to get him on the train to prison. I also watched the 1957 version, which is also a solid watch if you love classic Westerns. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)

Marvel’s newest series isn’t nearly as inventive as WandaVision, and it may not land every beat, but it’s worth a watch for the fun new gadgets, Sebastian Stan’s dry joke delivery, and its exploration into themes of what makes a hero and what governments owe their citizens. It’s a pretty satisfying entry in the MCU canon, but I’d also recommend re-watching Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War—the canon is getting expansive, and it’s getting trickier every year to keep up with all the backstory.

March + April Critic Picks

Best of 2020 Picks

As per usual, the months leading up to the Oscars becomes a binge period for potential Oscar nominees. In March and April, I watched many of the films that made my Top 20 of 2020, including Boys State, The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Let Them All Talk, Minari, Nomadland, On the Rocks, One Night in Miami…, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and Sound of Metal. You can read how I ranked them on my list for ZekeFilm, plus reviews of The Father, Minari, Promising Young Woman, and Soul.

Bonus: If you loved On the Rocks, don’t miss this feature and beautiful photography starring Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Rashida Jones for W Magazine. 

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

What would you do if you started hearing a voice who narrated your every thought and move? If you’re Will Ferrell, you’ll seek out a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman), fall in love (with Maggie Gyllenhaal), and track down the voice (Emma Thompson) who’s making ominous predictions about your future. Stranger Than Fiction is funny thought-provoking, and an unusual but welcome role for Ferrell. Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

All the Royal Family News

Speaking of stranger than fiction, it’s been a busy few months for the Royal Family. We’ve celebrated 95th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the 3rd birthday of Prince Louis, and the 10th anniversary of Will and Kate’s marriage. We also lost Prince Philip, and we watched the drama of Harry and Meaghan’s interview with Oprah. No matter what happens to their Crown, I don’t think we’ll ever get over our fascination with the Windsor family. A few pieces worth reading from the last few months:

“In Meghan and Harry’s Interview, Two TV Worlds Collided,” Vulture.com

“The Queen’s Man: Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Dies,” TIME.com

“Obituary: HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” BBC.com

Goodfellas (1990)

One of my film opinions that makes me feel like a phony is that Martin Scorsese just isn’t my cup of tea. He’s brilliant, but his films tend to be long and dark, two qualities that are never my first choice…and somehow Goodfellas still worked for me? Maybe it was the TV edit graciously toning down the violence or maybe it was that Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci were firing on all cylinders, but for some reason this ‘90s classic didn’t suck the joy out of my evening like Scorsese often does. (Bonus: For a Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro I don’t really recommend, head to the last section of this Round Up.)

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

Her voice has only matured, so Taylor Swift revisiting her old albums is like upgrading a blast to the past. Plus, the six new tracks make me feel like 15 crushing on that boy in Spanish class again, and her Grammys performance (just before her third Album of the Year win) was magical and folklore-tastic.

Double Feature — ‘60s Action Classics: The Guns of Navarone (1961) + Planet of the Apes (1968)

The Guns of Navarone (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Gregory Peck and David Niven as they destroy Nazi weapons in the Mediterranean. Planet of the Apes (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Charlton Heston as he attempts to escape from, well, a planet full of apes. The pacing of ‘60s films doesn’t always hold up, but that’s not the case with this pair. Both are still full of suspense, and you can’t go wrong hanging with casts like these.

Let Him Go (2020)

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a farming couple who unexpectedly help raise a boy who lost his biological father—sound familiar? But instead of a superhero origin story, they’re part of a thrilling Western with performances nuanced (Costner and Lane) and showy (Lesley Manville). If I’d watched this before completing my Best of 2020 piece, it likely would’ve been on my list. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Oscars

I’m a ride-or-die fan of the Academy Awards, but I’ll admit even I found this year’s ceremony odd. Instead of focusing on what wasn’t so hot, I’ll recommend a few moments you don’t want to miss:

Emerald Fennell giving a shout-out to Saved by the Bell

Daniel Kaluuya acknowledging his parents’ sex life during his acceptance speech (??)

Yuh-Jung Yoon flirting with Brad Pitt and acknowledging she’s just “luckier” than her fellow nominees

Glenn Close dancing to…”Da Butt”?

You can also read about the historic wins and nominations from this year’s Oscar class and why the Golden Globes were an even stranger production weeks earlier.

Trailer-palooza!

Movies are on their way back, y’all! I’m counting down the days until I can get back to a theatre, and even if some of these movies are duds, I’m planning to see all of them on a big screen if possible:

Those Who Wish Me Dead (May 14)

Cruella (May 28)

In the Heights (June 11)

Space Jam 2 (July 16)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3)

West Side Story (December 10)

Also in March + April…

To add to the Oscars love, you can listen to a conversation about what we learn about family, community, and society in some of the year’s biggest nominees on the Uncommon Voices podcast. I join regular hosts Michael and Kenneth in this episode, and I recommend all of their thoughtful discussions on their “What’s Streaming” episodes.

I’ve previously recommended the Do You Like Apples weekly newsletter, so I’m proud to share I contributed twice in March! I wrote about Love and Basketball, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and one of my all-time favorite Julia Roberts rom-coms, Notting Hill. (I also tied to win their Oscars pool, but I suppose that’s less exciting for you than me.)

It was a busy couple of months on SO IT’S A SHOW! New logo, new email list, new Instagram, and a host of new episodes about a flop of a Madonna flick, a Swedish children’s TV show, an urban legend turned into a horror movie, one of the best films about journalism ever, and a Martin Scorsese movie about a real boxer.

Most of what I wrote for ZekeFilm in March and April was mentioned in Best of 2020 recommendations…except for The Nest, a film that couldn’t figure out what genre it wanted to be.

Photo credits: Nick Jonas, Royal Family. All others IMDb.com.