#a foreigner's nightmare trilogy

[casuallivi]

TTYLTOYD chapter 6

I remember jamming to Peter Gundry’s Lady of the Dawn a lot during some point of this.  

Word Count: 4643

Enjoy. Comments are welcome and cherished :) 

Part 6: Be Careful What You Wish For

Elain loved love.

She loved the spirit of life, the soul of nature, her strong sisters, her absolutely adorable nephew, her brilliant friends, the colorful members of her new odd family, and among those, there was one who beguiled her love in ways the others didn’t. Who made her heart beat faster and blood rush to her cheek, who a was permanent resident of her dreams but never her visions –except once.

They way he touched her had always been different. Not that touch from his calloused fingers against her blistered hands, but the touch of his hazel eyes, breathing warmth into her. The patience of his presence standing by her when she could not stand herself, the brightness of his smile at the smallest sign of her happiness. Elain loved love, yet, it was her first time experiencing a love like that, effortless, blissful, genuine, hers. Until it wasn’t. The feelings, which used to have the privilege of dancing under the sun, were now shoved into an iron box, buried deep inside, damned to never see the light again. Because Elain loved love, but love should be given freely, not forced.

To keep them in check, Elain vowed not to beg for love, vowed not to invest her feelings in a man who did not want her. Her plan was quite simple, easy to follow since he avoided her like the plague, the problem laid in moments like this. Moments where he stayed by her, appearing to have nothing but time, time to give her his undivided attention, attention which Elain hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do with it anymore.

They reappeared on the beach, leaving behind the eeriness of the woods. Gone was the colorful aura, the place now felt black and white, and even though conversations floated left and right, a tense silence buzzed in her ears. Elain brushed her new dark skirt to mask her anxiety, the material wiggling between her fingers as sand wiggled between her toes. She shivered, praying they didn’t whisper it to him. Elain took deep breaths to calm her nerves, once, twice... The second time she exhaled, the music began to change, slowly, voices chanting a sultry melody.

She looked around trying to understand what was happening, gasping at the carnal displays she found. Faes were kissing and grinding, stopping briefly to throw a piece of cloth or another in the air, reuniting with renew enthusiasm soon after. With the music’s tempo changed, drums grow heavy in the air, goosebumps trailing down her arms as the song build and build. Females separated themselves from their partners, moving toward the bonfires, lifting a variation of flower and seaweed crows high in the sky, hips moving back and forth, chants getting louder, prouder, the view captivating Elain. ‘What are they doing?’ She thought to herself.

“They are presenting their crowns to the goddess,” amidst such lechery, Azriel’s voice was like a sensual inviting caress, dark as the night, skimming the shell of her ear like satin. “They want her blessing to conceive.” Elain glued her legs together, his presence looming like a furnace behind her. Wide-eyed, Elain heaved at the erotic vibrations thrumming in the air, transfixed by the magnetic ritual, bodies of every shape and color bared to the night, mouths wandering without shame, howls of pleasure echoing all the way to her lower belly.

“I suggest you move, if you don’t intend on getting swept in the wave.” Elain looked up to Azriel, pitch black eyes returning her gaze, the corner of his mouth turning up to what he found in her face. “Or not.” Her short nails sunk on his forearm, that she somehow found a hold of. The offer was so low she wasn’t if she heard or imagined it. Elain cursed herself for feeling tempted. After months of avoiding her, Azriel was right back where he left, flirting with dangerous paths he would not walk. The audacity of him.

Elain opened her mouth. If she was going to curse him or accept the offer was never known, for an intruded interrupted her.

“There you are! I don’t see our drinks.” Nuala’s cheery voice turned to confused, the inebriated wraith returning to her corporeal state in her face, noticing Azriel a second later. “Oh,” she hiccupped, “look who’s out of his cave.”

She grinned at him. “You see that, Cece? Ayala made a miracle!”

Cerridwen become visible, her sister immediately draping an arm over her shoulder. She greeted Azriel, noticing Elain’s empty hands. “You couldn’t find it?”

“Find what?” she asked.

Cerridwen frowned. “You left for a drink.”

“She left the beach entirely.” Azriel intervened, shadows slithering towards her, his stern tone purging the carefree friendly atmosphere between the girls. Cursing the alcohol in her system, Cerridwen straighten her spine, pushing her sister away.

“That’s not possible, I was watching her the whole time. We came to fetch her since the offering was beginning.” Cerridwen said.

Nuala, who had had one drink too many to care about the sudden serious atmosphere, perched herself on Elain, grabbing the middle Archeron by her cheeks. “Look how red you are.”

Elain, who had been ogling a particular couple against a bark, went a shade redder for being caught, Nuala mistaking her reaction with discomfort. “Don’t worry my friend, I’ll save your honor! Let me take you to a safer place… You know what would help you to feel better? Another drink. There is an inn with marvelous dark cider…”

Nuala went on about the drink, Elain peeking one last time at the couple, none of them noticing the other two remaining behind, nor the harsh, “explain,” being uttered with deadly authority.  

.

.

.

It smelled like jasmine.

The petals tickled her nose, teasing her lips, trailing down from her chin to her neck to the valley of her breasts. The sun poked through her eyelids, making her frown. Her window was left open during the night, a suave morning breeze swaying the cream curtains. A slender body molded itself to her back, nails rasping her hip. Half asleep, Elain hooked her leg higher on the pillow, burring her face in the sheets, she felt too comfortable to wake up. Butterfly kisses on her shoulder, hands caressing her hip, her thigh, her belly. Elain sighed softly under the ministrations, eyes fluttering when she was pulled to her back, the body moving to top hers.  

Smooth skin blessed by immortality covered her body –the shape of her legs, the curve of her breasts, the round of her belly. Elongated ears pointed from between glossy tresses, sharp nose and high cheekbones sprinkled with freckles darkened under the sun, full lips spreading in a wicked smile. Her perfect copy, except for the eyes. Oh gods. Realization dawned on Elain, dread filling her lungs. The eyes gazing back at Elain were older, cunning, dangerous, the white irises carrying the weight of knowledge, holding answers to questions untold. It was like looking at a mirror, except the mirror was sitting on top of her, hands around her neck.

“Relax, marlena,” the Seer purred, “it’s only me.”

Elain gasped when the Seer gave her a peck, hair tickling her face. She pushed the other by her shoulders, very solid, very real shoulders. Unfazed, the Seer turned her attention to Elain’s belly, traced the shape, drawing spirals and hearts. Elain’s mind worked furiously to understand what was happening.

“A warning.” Announced her clone, eyes backing up to Elain’s face. She traced the bridge of her nose, distracted. “We are so beautiful. This is my favorite body. Perfect.” She bent and kissed Elain’s chest, right over her heart. “Keep this beating for us, will you? Don’t be reckless.”

When the other made no move to hurt her, Elain moved her hands tentatively, pushing her soft brown hair away, trying to gather it behind her ears to cup her face. “I’m not trying to die.” Her voice sounded odd, raspy, as if she had been screaming.

"You're trying to challenge. Having stupid impulses again.” The Seer reprimanded severely. “Don’t think, for a second, that I didn’t see what was on your mind last night. I see everything."

“I want to be free.” Elain breathed out. “Don’t you want to be free? To choose?” She questioned passionately.

"Not if you die as result, I don't." she snorted.

“…You care for me.”

“There’s no me without you.” She deadpanned “Why do you fight to accept your fate? You’ll have a good life,” she planted her palms on Elain’s belly, “you’ll have children, you’ll be loved. Isn’t that what you wanted?” From the corner of her eye, Elain saw a little girl running. “You can bargain for your life later, but first you have to give in.”

Her children’s laughter ringed around them, the twins high pitch screams echoing as they ran on the sunny green fields their elder brothers riding horses around them, pretending to trap them in a circle. Elain closed her eyes tightly, cursing the images and sounds away. It was useless, she could still see them, feel they little hands grabbing her legs, hugging her skirts, calling her mommy.

“Stop,” she ordered.

“I lived thousands of years, merged my essence with others before, never once seeing the Cauldron take interest in a particular fae, let alone the deepest desires of her heart. It’s fascinating.” The Seer craned her neck, taking in the abundance of images flashing behind her white eyes, forcing them onto Elain. “He’s willing to please you.”

“He’s willing to kill me.” Elain spit in anger.

The seer shrugged. “You, better than anyone, knows that nature demands balance. Everything has a price, even happiness. Especially your happiness.” She gave Elain a smile full of sharp gleaming teeth. “Don’t you prefer your reaming years to be blissful rather than miserable? I certainly do.”

“You can’t make chose what you want. Is not your life, is mine. My life, my happiness, my – ”

“Your choice,” the Seer finished, mimicking her, done with her speech. “Choice, choice, choice. Don’t you know another word?” She took a hold of Elain’s chin, venomous words dripping pointedly. “I never pegged you for stupid, girl. Choice is an illusion, a feeble branch in a tree of possibilities. You saw the roads before, many variations of it, no matter how hard you try to stray, they all lead to where he wants. Your resistance is futile. Don’t make things harder on yourself. Take his hand and live well. Let us not go back to the waters.”

If looks could kill, Elain’s certainly would. She jerked her chin from the Seer’s grasp, shimmering in anger. How many times more she would have to abide her desires to walk the path of other?

“I refuse.” Elain spoke with vehemence, staring herself dead in the eye.

If looks could kill, the Seer would end her as well.

“Then you’ll die,”

“He’s going to kill me either way, he always does.”

“Stupid stubborn girl.”

“I’d rather die,” she blurted, realizing she meant it when the words were out. “I’d rather die fighting for the life I want, than cowering to his whims.”

Elain had learned about the gods, had even become an avid devote of the Mother –the benevolent matron. The Mother was a true goddess, merciful, fair, the creator of world, raiser of faes. The Cauldron, on the other hand, was nothing but her instrument. And the Cauldron could blow her.

“He doesn’t want your vain death, stubborn girl.”

“Then we have no problem at all, since I don’t intend on taking myself.”

The Seer shook her head, disappointment coating her features. “You lie. Because the Cauldron is not the one holding the knife, dear. You are.”

She rolled over, bringing Elain with her, their bodies tangling in the sheets, sinking in the layers of cotton, down, down, down, the depth never ending, the cloth engulfing their limbs, cutting them from the world of the living.

+

They circled each other; wary, bare feet numb to the cold floor, reflecting blown eyes and twisted lips, gaunt faces framed by brown and reddish hair. Their bodies were outlined by sigils, dark blue ink disappearing under matching white dresses that swayed without wind. Their souls were once human, their bodies forever changed by the whims of power-hungry man, their choices ripped from the palm of their hands. Not tonight.

“It’s time.”

Time is the essence. Only the mother can watch over them tonight, not the mother of fae, mother nature herself, guiding Elain with steady hands when by herself she would be shaking. Her hand lands on the woman’s shoulder, lips brushing against her ear to whisper her final omen.

“Death is the only way you can be free.” In a flicker of her wrist, Elain plunges the dagger to Vassa’s chest, twisting it. The firebird painful gasp causing blood to splatter on her face.

Elain staggers, not to avoid the gore, but because unbearable pain blooms in her own chest. She looks down to see the knife lodged there, carmine tinting her dress rapidly. Vassa’s body hits the floor with a loud thump, hers following no longer after.

"What have you done!" His shriek rumbles the room. Livid. Possessed. Nonbelieving.

A male sprint to them, heavy footsteps growing closer. More screaming follows. Elain only has eyes for Vassa, chest heaving up and down one last time, lips mumbling a final word. Elain’s lids drop, the flow of her blood slowing, ending. Dying. She was dying. Someone is violently shaking her awake, hands pressing the wound on her chest, hands moving up to her neck, trying to hold her lolling head. Grief. Guilt. Anger. She feels then mingle with her pain.

"No. Look at me, Elain. Eyes on me." She blinked rapidly, finding it difficult to focus her blurry vision.

"I-I'm sorry," he choked out, a tear landing on her cheek, then another. "I'm so sorry Elain, I should never have asked you – I never – please, oh Cauldron. Please." His desperate plea ringed in her ears, eyes that once held fire now lay lifeless beside her, twin pools of death.

It was done.

Elain could feel it coming for her too, death. She shivered; a cold mantle draped over her bones. Fickle powers pressed down on her, attempting to fix the knots that slipped one by one, her final tether to life. An alarm went off inside her, uninvited fear kissing her as the carmine elixir of life soaked her dress. So much blood. Elain could feel the magic spilling down the floor, the seer desperately clinging to her, dreading her return to nothingness, a rapid succession of countermeasures and choices to made flashing before her eyes as the other tried to find a scenario where she would make it. Elain hugged her. ‘Let it go’. She whispered. ‘It has to be like this.’

"Why Elain, why," he sobbed, trying to reach his healing powers. It was no use. Elain had made sure to poison him properly.

She didn’t think she would cry, but in her dying breath Elain shed a tear, praying he would not hate her for too long.

Behind him, the Seer could not hide her wrath, furious with the outcome she had no power to prevent, her last vision, her ultimate choice. She fucking hated choices. White voids faltered when her vessel died, darkness washing over the room where her lifeless body stayed sprawled on the floor. Then nothing. She could see nothing.

“Fate is coming for you.”

+

Elain pushed herself up, coughing water she’d swallow. The peeled wall from her bathroom begin to take shape, the place humid and chilled, fog hiding the floor. Sobbing, she clutched her chest, ghost pain dwelling, remnants of the vision resonating within. Elain dragged herself from the tub, shaking legs barely supporting her weight.

She’d killed Vassa. She’s killed herself. Why?

“Death is the only way you can be free.” Her vision-self said, not an ounce of doubt in her sentence.

Elain felt miserable, yet, the oval mirror by the sink still reflected nothing but ethereal beauty “graced” by immortality, wet hair highlighting her pointed ears, droplets of water running down her sheen skin, mocking her. Elain punched the mirror. Perfection shattered in dozens of sharp pieces, a hole marred the wall, blood dripped on the sink. Elain embraced the pain, for feeling pain was better than feeling nothing at all.

.

.

.

“Good day.”

“Good day.” With a perfect smile in place, Elain returned the greeting to the young priestess who spotted her.

Tugging her long sleeve down, to conceal the bandage around her wrist, she moved through the deep halls of the library. A target in mind. Elain was aware the place had scarce material about seers, the material assembled between levels thirty-two and thirty-three. Her target occupied another floor. She climbed the stars without hurry, passing through levels and halls, the smell of old books mixed with a variety feminine scents, from the females who filled the place. She nodded at two hooded girls who nodded back, pushing two carts full of volumes to a corridor.

The strong smell of sage and palo santo denounced the right area. Till this day Elain was fascinated with some writer’s ability to embalm images and scents in their pages. She remembered her first time encountering a livid image, her finger brushing over a delicate fern to feel the leaves moving under her touch. Elain eyed the tall bookshelves, stacked with materials, arranged in different corridors. Twenty-five of them being occupied with knowledge about Divination. Here one could find information dating from centuries ago to the present days, from small details kept in journals to full research books, carefully stored parchments, maps and other forms of text were also at reach. Unfortunately, for Elain, most of the information was stored in languages that she didn’t understand, the witches having a strong preference for an ancient forgotten tongue called Latin –which she had been studying diligently.

Elain got rid of her tiara, using her hair to muffle her ears. She needed all the focus she could get. Putting her hand on a random shelf, she took a deep breath, calming her mind. Elain inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, dimming the shapes and sounds around her, banning the scents that drifted to her sharp nose. She blocked the sounds of pages being turned, erased the soft voices of the priestess who restocked a shelf levels below, dimming any life thrumming in the air, gathering every specs of reality and concealing them in a thick metal box, imagining herself closing the lid to it.

When her mind was nothing but a blank space, Elain imagined herself in a white room, alone, all semblance of life gone, only then she called back the turbulent dream of the night before, the dreadful vision that began to fade. Flashes of blood, screams and death answered to her.

“Show me what I’m looking for.” Her soft request resonated across the room, a faint amber light pulsing from where she stood to the rest of the floor. One by one, the bookshelves appeared in the white room.

Outside her mind her body moved. Two ringlets of white circled her pupils –which expanded while she traced books spines, eyes roaming up and down to scan all the volumes. Deciding the corridor had nothing of value for her, Elain moved to the next, humming a quiet melody as she crossed the polished marble floor. When she passed by the seventh corridor her song stopped, her head quirking to the side. Elain felt her lips spreading in a smile when the Seer said, “Hello, hello, mama Thorn. Long time no see.”

She strode along the dead-end corridor with confidence, her prize hidden in the last shelf. With the flick of a wrist she summoned a ladder. Elain climbed the unstable steps to reach a well conserved journal, the green tinted leather still shining, real flowers blooming on the cover. “Look at her fancy grimoire. Pompous bitch.” The Seer mocked before tossing it over her shoulder.

‘No! Don’t do that.’ Elain screamed from within, baffled with the lack of respect. ‘You’ll dent the book.’  

“Don’t care.” She sang.

Humming a new tune with excitement, the Seer moved the stairs to the opposite shelf, fingertips halting on the spine of another book, the sharp contour of the letter jumping from the old leather bind to twirl around her index. “There you are.”

Elain blinked, back in control, the faint glow to vanish as the letters returned to their rightful place, allowing her to read the tittle. Per Somnia de un Errantis, de Ellaria Thorn. The Dreams of a Wanderer, by Ellaria Thorn. She shivered. In another life, Elain named a daughter after this woman. She opened the book, coughing at the fine dust who floated to her nose. Elain managed to glimpse an illustration of a naked woman hovering, over her bed before the pages turned white, blank. She groaned. Of course, of course you had to be a magical book.

Wood wailed under her, the centenary stair where she stood had seen better days. Elain secured the book under her arm and climbed down, carefully, the old wood cracking with every move. Elain was considering where she got such and old ladder when the wood split under her weight.

“Oh!” she exhaled a surprise sound, trying to hold on to the shelf, her sweaty palm slipping. Her body never hit the ground, powerful arms lifting her on the last second, letting the precarious ladder fall alone with a loud thud. Elain held the book tighter, her free hand knotted over a green shirt, the frenetic rhythm of her heart having nothing to do with the scare of nearly falling.  

‘If you wanted to be in my arms, all you had to do was ask.’  With any other female, Lucien would have cracked the joke with ease, but as he held his mate, the last thing he could do was speak.

His eyes were locked on her, who still watched the rotten ladder, probably imagining that she was almost the one on the floor. The book between them dug uncomfortably on his side, but he couldn’t care less, not when he was carrying her. She was wearing a thick white long sleeve paired with a dark red skirt –the color almost black. Lucien had not seen Elain since her sister’s mating, their awkward goodbye making him uncertain if they parted on good terms or not. He hoped they did.

“Where are you going?” Elain’s uncertain question made him stop.

Mismatched eyes stared at her with confusion, the gashes of his scar darkening under the faelights. They were moving away from where he found her. Lucien had left his floor for a bit of fresh her when, without realizing, his bond called to her, following her glowing trail on the halls Now he was in the middle of taking her back with him. Dazed, he put her down, the bond pulsing and thrumming under his skin, highly aware of every place they touch, igniting when her body slid against his. He tried to breath the minimal possible, avoiding her scent, a whiff her cautious blending with his.

“Thank you.”

Her voice had a way of making his inside churn with want. Lucien could never tell if the timbre was appealing to the bond or him. She dusted herself while he cleared his throat.

“Did you pick the oldest ladder available?”

"Of course not."

"Quick tip for the next time. We don't rot, wood still does."

Elain glared at him. “Don't start with me, Lucien."

Lucien held his smile back. He preferred a sharp tongue rather than awkward silences. He placed his arms behind his back, trying to look the least threatening possible. It was the second time he saw his mate in such a short period, it had barely been two months since the mating. The bond shimmered inside of him, excited with the implications of her no longer hiding from him.

“What were you searching for?” She didn’t call him dumb, but her face might as well have. Elain waved the book. Lucien rolled his eyes. “I meant which one.”

Walking side by side with his mate, his chest puffed.

“I don’t know yet. This book is shy.”

“Concealing spell?” he asked.

“Probably.”

Lucien thought about offering to help her, but he didn’t want to push his luck so much.

“You seem acquainted with these halls.”

“Anyone can be,” she pointed at the silver plates naming the sections. “It’s quite intuitive.”

“You defy the stupidity of fae. One can be lost in these halls with easy, unless they use them frequently. And I never saw you here before.”

Elain turned to him. “Keeping tracks on me already?”

Lucien kept walking, putting his best innocent expression to use. “I’m simple observant.”

“Bet you are…”

Elain resumed her walk. Contrary to Lucien, she had seen him a couple of time, not only in the library, but in the city as well. Her meddlesome bond always trying to make her pant after him, wanting to be in his presence, to bath on his attention. It felt wrong. In those moments Elain would quickly change her rout, thinking it was best for them both to avoid their painful interactions.

Nesta’s wedding was the first time she did not fight with the bond, deciding to have a proper conversation with her mate, in her own terms. Turns out Lucien had a few strong opinions to get out of his chest, and so did she. In the end they had a little disagreement, but he did apologized, and Elain might have been a little more cruel than he deserved. Overall, Lucien treated her well, none of the invasive tugs from the last time, nor the infantilizing tone he used to use in their first interactions. Who knew having privacy was good for two people trying to solve a private problem! Meddlesome Archerons.

“I have a room on the seventh floor.” Lucien blurted suddenly, bringing her out of her head.

“Excuse me?”

“If you need a quiet place to read.” He dipped his chin to her book. “You can use it.”

Elain scanned the vacant floor, spotting the multiple empty tables on the reading area. There was no one there besides the two of them, the place so quiet one could hear a feather falling down. He noticed that too, the horror on his face was so evident she smiled. The bond pulled him strong than it did she.

“I won’t be using it for the rest of the day.” Lucien added, trying to save face.

Truth was, Lucien had a fresh batch of unread material pilled against the wall, his table missing, buried in parchments. He had planned to pull another all-nighter today, but he could winnow them quietly, make space for her and go back to the house. He had a lot of material back at as well.

“I’m not staying.” Elain warned him. “Thank you, though, for catching me. And for the offer.”

“No need for that. I’m bound to serve you.” He meant as joke, but her smile vanished as quickly as it came. “I didn’t mean,”

“I know. Don’t worry about it.” Elain gave him a shallow goodbye and turned to leave.

Shit, they were doing so well. Lucien cursed himself. Why was it so hard to part on good term with this one? The farther she walked, the more his bond whined in his chest. How many time more would he watch her walk away and do nothing? When she grabbed the handrail, Lucien did something he had not done before. He called her name.

“Elain.” Big brown eyes watched him jog to her, taking the book from her hands. “Let me walk you.”

[qqueenofhades]

Hey! I just found your blog and followed yesterday. Came for the fact that you're the only other person in this webbed site actually say out loud that they liked Biden, stayed for the hope and determination and perspective. Anyway just wanted to introduce myself and I hope you're coping well!

Hello and welcome to you and the other sudden flood of followers that I got after yesterday's event. I'm glad to have you and hope you are all in on the project of Kicking Fascism In The Shriveled Testicles 2024, American Edition. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

Biden was not my first choice (far from it) in the 2020 primary process, but when it became clear that he was going to win the nomination, I supported him early and often. Trust me, this was not a popular position, and it remains so, but so be it. By any reasonable metric, he is the most progressive president we have ever had, it is a crying shame that the media is so beholden to the Trump Teat of Drama that they gave him such a kid-gloved free pass and ratfucked Biden instead, and it makes me worry, a lot, for American democracy. I have always gotten a lot of "you support everything Biden has done so you're awful and going to hell!!!" messages, because this sure is a Webbed Site Where We Piss On the Poor, and like -- I don't. I had major disagreements with Biden, especially on foreign policy! But because I apparently did not performatively self-flagellate myself in every post about how awful he was but maybe I guess vote for him anyway, that got some people very mad! It's also true that there's literally nobody in the world anywhere, especially and including in Palestine, that would benefit from Trump becoming president again! Especially since Biden at the NATO summit recently and explicitly endorsed progress on the ceasefire framework he has been pushing for several months! So unfortunately, we live in a society where shitty choices are necessary, and that is part of being a grownup!

....anyway. Deep breaths. Rant for later. Glad you're here. I have been desperately trying to Not Politic for a bit, since doing so on social media in the year of our lord 2024 is a recipe for swift insanity, but the world keeps taking a large dump directly on those plans, and I guess someone's gotta do it. In more normal times (OH LORD WHEN), you can expect history (I am an academic by trade), random posts, various asks, and sometimes a great deal of fanfic for assorted blorbos, though the Horrors have done a number on that and I am also working on an original fantasy trilogy at the moment. (Still deciding whether I should bother trying to agent it or just publish it on Amazon/Lulu/etc.) I have turned off anon for the moment because otherwise my inbox would be a nightmare beyond comprehension, but I do generally enjoy talking about things and/or answering them as much as I can. I am old, queer, tired, fueled by coffee and spite, have been politically conscious since the first Bush Jr. term and have therefore seen all the Anti Voting nonsense before (quick thought: if it was going to deliver the perfect Leftist Messiah and/or stop a flawed candidate from becoming president, don't you think it would have done so by now?) So yes. Welcome again and I hope you will enjoy (if that is the right word for it) your stay.

[cloudinterlude]

There's a certain tone that bleeds into a lot of MCU fanfiction when talking about Steve's defrosting into the new century and it's bothersome. It's like people don't fully understand why he didn't have to be grateful for being in modern times. There's a serious lack of empathy and it always ends up with some other character ranting to Steve about how he needs to suck it up and move on if he wants to get anywhere in life and somehow that motivates Steve to...realize he was the only one being an asshole and learning to love the current world?

Yeah no.

I've read one (1) - and isn't to say other stories I like got it wrong bc I've certainly read others that are also great - but I've read ONE fanfiction that describes Steve's situation perfectly (in such a meaningful way) and it literally blew my mind when I read it because it was so good to ME.

"Ain't no Grave" by spitandvinegar was amazing. Mind you, I'm not a really Stucky shipper in any capacity (like I see the vision but don't feel it yknow?), but I'm a sucker for satisfying Steve characterization so I inhaled this fic. And y'all...this author did his character justice. It's not even a Steve-centric story! Which made me even more amazed (that the author got him so right) and even more annoyed (that so many people get him so wrong and end up bashing him). I quote the paragraph below but I urge you to read the fic if you're interested!

Like listen, listen. Imagine you live in this country, right? And there's a brutal war, and you witness and maybe participate in a horrific amount of violence, and you lose absolutely everyone you care about. Then you end up in this other country, where the culture and ways of doing things are completely foreign to you, and random assholes make fun of you for how you dress and act and talk while you're still coming to grips with the fact that everyone you love is gone and you can never go home again. Meanwhile, everyone around you is like "smile, motherfucker, you're in the Land of Plenty now, where there's a Starbucks on every corner and 500 channels on TV. You should be grateful! Why aren't you acting more grateful?" So you have to pretend to be grateful while you're dying inside. Sound like an traumatized, orphaned refugee? Also sounds like Steve fucking Rogers, Captain Goddamn America. Except that most refugees were part of a community of other people who were going through the same thing. Steve is all alone, the last damn unicorn, if the last unicorn had horrible screaming nightmares about the time when it helped to liberate Buchenwald.

AMAZING RIGHT? It was very satisfying to read the first time around. Even more satisfying that this was coming from Sam's POV which was just a lovely decision.

Anyways!

This little rant isn't even coming from a place of superiority. I know characterization can be difficult, and it's not so much about the quality rather than the fundamental misunderstanding of Steve's character that makes it obvious that either the author doesn't care enough to try to empathize with him, 2) They're using Steve to prop up some other character or 3) They watched his trilogy with their eyes closed and called it a day.

This post has gotten too long so thats all I'll say for now!

[may--hawk]

some of these days - chapter 2

Summary: After the Second Coming’s come and gone, Crowley moves to the South Downs. Aziraphale stays in London. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t come to visit.

Or, Aziraphale’s his own angel, now. He just has to learn what that means.

When Crowley drops Aziraphale back off at the bookshop the following day, 47 Aziraphale makes himself a cup of hot cocoa, which he immediately forgets about, and sets off to dig up every book he has on dreams, which, if you include the fiction, is - well, all of them, really. Funny, how the humans seem so obsessed with them. Dreams, to Aziraphale’s mind, are something that are wholly human and entirely foreign to him. Like, like hangovers, or waiting in lines, or sexual congress. 48 Aziraphale even goes into the bookshop’s L-space just to make sure he’s really gotten everything, although he knows by now to tie a piece of red thread to his desk and keep the ball end firmly in his palm at all times. 49

He takes a lantern and ventures back. He hasn’t been back there in ages. It’s dark, and gets perceptibly colder as he steps through the shelves, and the smell of old books and mildew becomes almost oppressive; real, this time, and not simply manufactured or enhanced by Aziraphale to keep prospective customers away. Right around the Travel Jokes section he starts to get the feeling that something’s watching him, that warning prickle right between his wings, but as he always gets that feeling around this part, he just keeps his shoulders straight and keeps looking ahead, scanning the poorly-labelled shelves 50 for the section he wants. There’s no dust in L-space, amazingly, as the natural predator of dust often makes its lair there, lured by all the books and their gentle decay. Aziraphale has occasionally, during his yearly dusting of the shop, contemplated, from the depths of despair, moving his entire book collection into L-space just to have a little help with the dust. But it seems a little too much like playing with - well, unspeakable eldritch horrors, really.

Aziraphale finds the nightmare section, which is surprisingly expansive, spanning three whole bays of shelving. The bottom shelf of the third bay is oozing lightly, and he steps over it carefully as he holds the lantern up to the shelves. He knows not to look too closely at the books with his name in the title; elementary rules, in L-space, although he does get waylaid by one titled Do Angels Dream? until he sees the subtitle: Why Don’t You Just Lie Down Right Here and Sleep, Aziraphale, You Must Be So Tired, After Millions of Years. He decides against a set of matching books bound in a soft dark silken covering, with gilt letters. The titles of the set are: Do You Know He Dreams of You, Aziraphale; its sequel, If You Dreamt, Would You Dream of Him, Too? followed by the highly anticipated final book in the trilogy, I Think You Would.

There are many more books on nightmares and dreams that Aziraphale skims over, books chronicling the dreams of great men and ordinary men, books of the dreams of rivers, even a book that purports to list and interpret the dreams of the Almighty. Aziraphale wonders about the Almighty’s dreams, then, and wonders, perhaps, if this is Her dream, here, on earth. He doesn’t take the book off the shelf. It doesn’t seem to be for him. There’s a book that, when he takes it off the shelf and opens it, makes his eyes incredibly heavy. He catches himself rocking slightly in place and snaps it shut, quickly. Practical Dreaming, the book’s called, and he considers it briefly before shelving it.

Finally, Aziraphale selects a few books that seem promising: Daemons and Nightmares; Daemons and Nightmares, Part II, Straight to the Electric Chair for You; and finally, Just Because Your Dream Hasn’t Happened Yet Doesn’t Mean It Doesn’t Tell the Future! Subtitled, Prophetic Dream Interpretation for Dummies. 51

Find the rest (and footnotes) at: A03

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

20 Q's for 20 Authors

i wasn't actually tagged by anyone, but i saw it floating around and i was bored

1. How many works do you have?

on ao3 it's 95, but there are a few more on tumblr that i never posted anywhere else

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

360706

3. What fandoms do you write for?

whew, a ton.

4. What are your top 5 fics by notes?

on tumblr:

tomato faced

teamwork

a little fashion show

just for tonight

the palace guards

on ao3:

sunflower

plum

perfect little toy

teamwork

various spencer reid blurbs

5. Do you respond to comments?

i mostly just respond to the comments made in reblogs (mainly because that is the best way to support a writer here on tumblr)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

maybe the murder at evergreen university? that might be as sad of an ending as i've ever gone.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

hmm... i mean, most of them tbh. i'm a fan of wrapping things up in a nice hug, especially if I've brought the drama.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

luckily, not really, it's extremely rare and the few times it has happened i don't recall it really having anything to do with the story itself. just someone having a tough time took it as an excuse to get it out on someone and something not relevant to what they're going through.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes, i very much do. many many kinds, i think it might be easier to make a list of the few genres of it i don't roll around in then the many i do.

10. Do you write crossovers?

yes. not often, but i have. the murder at evergreen university and its prequel sour summer for one was a major one that took me a long time to write. if i've written others then i don't remember, but i'd love to do more.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge and it is legit one of my worst nightmares.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

never really been a big shipper, so i don't have a go to answer for this, sorry

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

oh boy, there are multiple....

there is this one i've had going for ages, but i've never found the right fictional hottie to center it around. it's a historical one where it's basically farmer's daughter x farmhand

i also have a firefighter!bucky x paramedic!reader series that is essentially all fleshed out, but i've never gotten to

some smutty one shots and blurbs for each of the dudes in the murder at evergreen university. i even reference them in the story, but i never got to finishing them...

and even more, i mean, the list just goes on, but those were just the tops off my head.

16. What are your writing strengths?

dialogue and knowing when to shut up

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i'm dyslexic lol, that brings enough relevant "weaknesses"

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i like it if it makes sense for the story and if the foreign language is grammatically correct and stuff and not just whatever google translate has spat out.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

criminal minds

20. Favorite fics you’ve written?

the eflorr trilogy

lilac

the murder at evergreen university

buttercup

no pressure tags: @chvoswxtch @inklore @fettuccin-e @ghostlyfleur @oncasette @mypoisonedvine @appocalipse @vhagarlovebot @slvttyfied @venuslore @fushic0re

[neatfrog]

~Notes~

~occasional 18+ content 🔞🔞

~queer faggot 🌈

~current things I can’t shut the fuck up about: hazbin hotel/helluva boss, fallout, venom (coming soon)

~my art tag here !

~currently taking commissions ✨

~About~

~you can call me kitchie (pronounced like ‘kicsi’ in Hungarian - it’s a joke bc kicsi means small and I’m 4’11”)

~you might have once known me as venomtots

~3 decades alive on this wretched planet

~married to someone I met on tumblr (follow ur dreams, kids)

~I enjoy cats and languages

~I draw (if the brain worms let me), and am capable of writing but haven’t actually done so in years. my white whale is the venom fanfic from 2018 that I still haven’t finished

~I’m autistic and have adhd so if I do something weird pls just blame it on that

~I’m not kidding when I say I’m obsessed with languages, it’s my special interest since I was like 7

~fluent - English and French

~advanced - Hungarian

~also OK - Norwegian, Spanish (Mexico), German, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin)

~can’t speak/write but can read sorta well enough: Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish (the only words I know are probably all from Antti Tuisku songs)

.

.

The rest is just my likes and shit, no obligation to read

~Likes~

video games

favs: Fallout, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Outer Worlds, Rule of Rose, Clocktower, ReMothered, Visage, The Evil Within, Resident Evil, the Dark Pictures series - most survival horror/horror in general.

I’ll admit that I often don’t have the patience for the horror games where you have to be all sneaky and try to find things & escape while constantly being chased, but I still really love those kinds of games and wish I had the patience to play them, so I’ll usually just watch a let’s play

I’m also a slut for some Mario Party, and my adhd ass can sit and play shit like Powerwash Simulator or House Flipper for hours

books/comics

horror/thriller/mystery mostly, but if it sounds interesting I’ll read whatever. we have several shelves of Stephen King books

favs: The Walking Dead, Venom, GoT, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, The Hunger Games

I still read manga occasionally (FMA will always be my #1 favorite)

movies

horror (any kind), foreign films, indie, comedy - again, if it sounds interesting and I’m in the mood then anything is cool. if you like horror and haven’t watched any Asian horror films, you definitely should do that

series/franchises that could be releasing their 20-quillionth remake/sequel and I would still be going to see it: saw, the purge, friday the 13th, scream, nightmare on elm st, VHS, Killjoy, Terrifier

ok I’d probably watch any Hunger Games movie too tbh

and literally anything ari aster does, I know that man’s some kinda fucked up but damn does he make some Movies

also Tubi has some really awesome shit on there, definitely worth checking out

I found Liza a rókatündér (Liza the Fox Fairy) on there and it’s now one of my all-time favorite movies

tv shows

favs: Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, Fallout, The Walking Dead, The Boys/Gen V, IWTV, Resident Alien, Hannibal, Ted Lasso, Disenchantment, Paradise PD/Farzar, WWDITS, GoT (minus s8), Supernatural (stopped around s14 and then they did That Thing at the end so it’s more of an old fav now)

I love Scandinavian crime thrillers/dramas 🤣

when starting a series it’s honestly whatever my spouse and I decide we feel like watching at the time. I usually prefer comedy or horror, but we’ve been known to watch other things

I’ll admit I’m also a sucker for crime shows like CSI, I had season 3 on dvd as a kid and rewatched it all the time. I used to watch it and Criminal Minds with my parents so it’s kind of nostalgic cause it’s like one of the few things we all did together

(I used to be into anime but I haven’t really been feeling it for a while. My first anime was InuYasha (still holds a special place in my heart). My all-time favorite is Fullmetal Alchemist, and I enjoyed Death Note and JJBA a feral normal amount. Black Butler was also 👌🏻 and I still need to finish the manga)

music

90% of the music I listen to isn’t in English. I don’t really need to understand the lyrics, I just like how it sounds. It does end up being funny sometimes though when you find out you’ve been bopping it to a song that’s repeatedly calling someone’s mom a whore

Most Listened: Antti Tuisku, Apulanta, Evelina, Szakács Gergő, ByeAlex, Intim Torna Illegál, Leander Kills, Dubioza, KYO, Stromae, Siri Nilsen - etc (Linkin Park is still an all-time favorite as far as American music goes)

I admit I’ve been obsessed with the hazbin hotel soundtrack lately

ok I won’t say no to the occasional k-pop or j-rock song (I used to be Obsessed lol)

that said I’ll listen to literally anything if it sounds good (nice beats make brain go brrr). only genre I actively dislike is post-9/11 country music

~Dislikes~

spiders (i’m sorry lil dudes ur rly cool y’all just irrationally scare me), making phone calls, unwarranted rudeness

[sinclairmaxwellao3]

Sneak Peek at my original novel Thaumaturgy! <3

'The Umbra was as soothing as the sun could be stifling. It was a cool, safe place, away from the dangers of the world. I was as familiar to the shadow as it was to me. I had spent thirty-seven years in this place, after all, despite my apparent youth.

                        When I was a child, my papochka told me about how people used to believe that necromancers like us were born in the dark, in the Umbra. They believed that we were the scions of death and mystery. They thought that we were spontaneously birthed out of shade seemed preposterous to me, like a child's nightmare fantasy. I personally thought we were more closely related to demons and witches, if I had to make an inference. My father didn't seem to believe the story, but none of our other kith appeared to put much stock in it either.

                        I had been born when my papochka was at the mature age of seven hundred and fifty-three. We didn't age much, true, but it was notoriously difficult for our kind to reproduce. Bodies built for dying weren't geared for giving life. The governments listed us as Endangered Beings. “Being” was a classification created for the more humanoid creatures that traversed this world because the bureaucrats considered calling us a “species” a preternatural faux pas. Some thought we were no better than the animals they slaughtered for meat. Whichever side of the argument you fell on, with only a scant thirty-one of us in the world, we received certain...political considerations. Thanks to an admittedly overzealous politician, five years ago we were granted Diplomatic Immunity, on par with foreign diplomats or the representatives from the United Planer States (or out of earshot of said representatives, UPS). The extra perks certainly did not endear me to our dear Lieutenant McCoy, however. It was his belief that it gave us too much power, too much leeway to abuse the very law that had given us those benefits. It was my opinion that if someone murdered me, I had the right to eat them.

                        The aphotic atmosphere had washed away all of the tension of the night and the urge to just curl up and take a nap was strong. In this place there was no floor or sky, only the ongoing, eternal shade. It was a world behind worlds, the space within spaces. One only needed to picture the place they wished to go and then give yourself over to it. I came out into the easy familiarity of our home office, stepping out of the shadow of the doorway. Thaumaturgy Security and Investigation was an interesting melding of an invention workshop, occult store and an office cubicle. On one side, we had Eliann's tinkering space and our supply storage where we kept ritual supplies and items as well as ingredients to bind living, warm magic to cold steel and circuitry.'

The Thaumaturgy Trilogy is available on Amazon and Kindle under the name C.L. McReynolds! <3

[lillywillow]

The Call is Coming From Inside the House

Summary: The team watches horror movie to see which is the most messed up of all time.

 Written for: @buckybarnesbingo

 Words: 1163

 Square Filled: U2- FUBAR

 Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader  

 Warnings: Mentions of horror movie violence

 A/N: If you’ve watched any of the movies I’ve mentioned, you’ll know exactly what I’m referring to

 It started off with a conversation about horror movies. Everyone had their own opinion on which was the most messed up of all.

 “I’m telling you, it’s the Re-Animator Trilogy. There’s just a level of misogyny that’s not even in the original H. P. Lovecraft story,” you protested.

 “No way. The Saw movies are way more FUBAR than those cheaply done flicks of the 80’s,” Clint argued.

 “Are you kidding, Clint? Some of the best franchises came out of the 80’s. Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, Friday the 13th just to name a few. Not to mention The Thing. I mean, that was pretty messed up if you ask me,” Nat chimed in.

 “Guys, the foreign market has way more messed up movies than those. Just look at Last Train to Busan for example. Then the original Japanese copies of The Grudge and The Ring,” Tony countered.

 Steve and Bucky had no idea what anyone was on about. Back in their day, horror movies were a lot more sedated in their day. Movies with the likes of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. who were all masters of the craft without going over the top.

 “Well, there’s only one way we’re going to settle this… we’re going to have to watch them all,” you suggested.

…

 So began your mega movie marathon, starting with the 1982 classic The Thing. Bucky thanked all his lucky stars that in all his time fighting aliens, he never came against one so disturbing. Then again, he hadn’t visited Outpost 13 in Antarctica…

 “You know, I once saw a Pingu version of this movie,” you stated.

 “You lie,” Clint huffed.

 “It’s not a lie. Apparently it was pulled from YouTube for being too messed up and I think licencing also had something to do with it being pulled as well,” you explained.

 Before Clint could argue, Tony butted in.

 “No, she’s right,” he said, bringing up the video on the big screen. “It’s supposed to be a parody on both…”

 The video was much shorter than the movie but no less creepy, maybe even more so given that it was based on a children’s show. After that, you watched the first of the Re-Animator Trilogy. When it came to what was perhaps the most messed up scene of the movie, Bucky and Steve couldn’t stand to watch. You followed them out too as it was your least favourite scene.

 “You actually like that stuff?” Bucky asked, feeling rather queasy.

 “That scene in particular? No, I can’t say I do. It has nothing to do with the original story. When I first read there was a movie based on it, I thought it was cool but then I was totally blindsided by that scene. I read up on it and their first choice in actress had to back out because her mother didn’t want her doing it. The scene was taxing on the actor and cost him his marriage… I like certain elements of horror; the jump scares, the suspense, the complex characters and clever use of practical effects but stuff like that I feel is completely unnecessary…”

 Bucky nodded slowly. When you put it like that, it made sense. He too liked a story with a good plot and decent characters but when it came to stuff like that… Before Bucky could say any more, Sam called letting you know that the awful part was over and you could return to the living room.

…

 After watching all three movies (the others agreed the third was the weakest in the trilogy), it was getting late. You decided to squeeze in one last movie before going to bed which was the first of the Saw movies. Bucky felt sick to his stomach at the gory scenes. He had been trained in torture techniques as a part of HYDRA but this was some next level stuff. Feeling overwhelmed, Bucky walked out. You decided to follow him.

 “You can go back and watch the movie if you want,” Bucky sighed as you stood next to him.

 “I think I’d much hang out with you,” you confessed.

 Bucky smiled softly at you. Before he could say anything further, the power was cut. Instinctively, you reached for Bucky’s hand as he pulled you closer to his body. Part Avengers training, part paranoia from the movies, you were both on edge, preparing for danger. The power went back on just as suddenly as it went out.

 “Sorry, everyone. There was tripped power switch,” Tony explained.

 The pair of you sighed in relief, still holding each other as the adrenaline coursing through you started to calm down.

 “I think… I think I might just go to bed,” Bucky sighed.

 “Actually, that sounds like a good idea,” you agreed.

 “Could you… stay with tonight? After all those horror movies, I… I don’t want to be alone,” Bucky confessed.

 “I understand that,” you softly smiled. “Of course, I’ll stay…”

 Bucky smiled back and held your hand as you headed to his room.

 “Hey, you two. You know one of the top rules about horror movies. The couple who goes off together usually are one of the first to get picked off,” Sam teased.

 You flipped him off as you passed by, making everybody laugh and relieving some of the tension built up by the movie.

…

 After you both got changed, you and Bucky cuddled in his bed.

 “Are you okay, Bucky?” you asked, noticing how quiet he was.

 “Yeah… it’s just… today was a lot… I’m not used to that much violence…”

 “You’re an Avenger,” you stated, raising an eyebrow.

 “Yeah, but that’s different. That’s… action violence not… you know…”

 You cuddled close to him, making him smile.

 “I think I understand… There’s only a certain amount of that kind of thing I can watch in a day too… horror movies can be fun and all but I like them in small doses…”

 “Do you want to watch kid’s cartoons until we fall asleep?” you asked.

 “That sounds nice… Not Pingu though. Still feeling a little scarred from that last movie.”

 “Fair enough,” you laughed, putting on a light and cute cartoon.

…

 So that was how your horror movie marathon ended; with you and Bucky peacefully falling asleep to something more wholesome. The next day, the others wanted to continue but you and Bucky turned them down. You both decided to have a movie marathon of your own that was a little sweeter and more comfortable and a whole less FUBAR. If it meant cuddling with Bucky, you wouldn’t ask for it any other way.

[maverick-werewolf]

UPDATES - Current Projects!

Hi, all! It’s been a hot minute since I really said much here. Let me elaborate on why.

Here are only some of the big things I have in the works! A long post follows...

1. Wulfgard: The Curse of Ankhu - novella series

First up, something I posted a preview for a while back: a trilogy of novellas (that I would later publish as a collection in the form of a single novel) set in Wulfgard and starring a character heretofore unseen in my writing: Djedar Rath. And set in the realm of Kemhet (heavily inspired by ancient Egypt), so much unlike my other publications in that way, too.

A synopsis:

Deep in the mysterious desert of the Red Land, Deshret, lies an ancient tomb, the resting place of one of the greatest evils the world has ever known: Pharaoh Ankhu the Endless. Long did he reign and oppress the people of the Black Land, Kemhet. So great and terrible was his power that the gods themselves descended, defeating and cursing him, burying him in foreign land in a labyrinth never to be found by mortals.

Now Ankhu rises again with each darkening of the moon, a walking mummy, searching for that which he may never find… his own still-beating heart, denying him passage into the afterlife. Over untold ages, Ankhu’s tomb remained undiscovered, a secret protected always by the loyal Medjay, an order serving the many pharaohs of Kemhet who came after.

But now a new threat has arisen— Lord Tefnahkt the Red, cultist and warlock, drives his many slaves to uncover Ankhu’s resting place, unlock his evil power, and once more unleash him upon the world. While a small group of Medjay work to stop Tefnahkt’s plans, one slave may become the key to stopping Tefnahkt – and putting an end to his and Ankhu’s evil once and for all.

In a race against time, five Medjay and the rebellious slave Djedar Rath must stop Tefnahkt from opening the tomb before the coming of the new moon, when Pharaoh Ankhu the Endless will awaken once more… for if he escapes, the world will never survive his wrath.

Expect to see the first novella released very soon!

2. Wulfgard: Knightfall - novel revision

In 2015, I published my first book: The Prophecy of the Six: Knightfall, the main series set in mine and my brother’s world of Wulfgard. Well, now I’m revisiting it, expanding it, revising it, and turning it into something truly epic as I prepare to continue writing the Prophecy series: the main thing I want to do with my life (short of filmmaking). Although it is also many other things, this is what you could call my “werewolf series.” Here is the synopsis:

Sir Thomakos “Tom” Drake is a knight of the Achaean frontier city of Illikon. Together with his close friends and fellow soldiers, he wants only to protect his city and its people from any who would threaten them. But the Achaean Empire to which they swear loyalty is always seeking out new conflicts that put his city in danger.

When Sir Scaevius, Left Hand of the Emperor, arrives in Illikon to recruit Sir Drake to help fight the massing barbarian alliance to the North, Drake has no choice but to obey. But he does not obey without protest, and soon he finds himself fighting not only the barbarians, but his own superiors as well. Meanwhile, strange things begin happening to him. He suffers blackouts, and at night he is plagued by terrifying nightmares. Even worse, he finds himself being stalked by horrific monsters... werewolves. Hated by his superiors, hunted by beasts and assassins, Tom Drake must fight for his home, his life, and even his mind. The events that are about to unfold will change his life, and the world, forever.

More info on this later! I truly hope you’ll give Knightfall a chance when the revision is completed. This series comprises the stories absolutely nearest and dearest to my heart. They, above all else, are the tales I want most to tell - and the thing I absolutely must create and share with the world - before I leave this earth.

3. Werewolf Facts: A Guidebook to Folklore vs Pop Culture - folklore book

So there’s a project I announced a while back, which is a published book edition of my Werewolf Facts I’ve written and posted on the blog here. I am very much still planning to do that, and I’ve been working on it! This will be a compilation of my werewolf facts, but each one will also be expanded and come with full citations, as well as a bibliography, expanded comments, and much more. Stay tuned for news on this book, too!

4. Revamping my personal website + general promotion of my existing work

So my personal website is pretty hideous; that’s a fact. One of my other projects right now is to revamp my personal site completely - again - and make it prettier, more accessible, easier to navigate, and do a better job of presenting my books and werewolf facts, along with my other work.

I also want to promote my work in general, and that’s something I’ve been working on and researching. My personal scoop: promoting completely original work is exhausting, disheartening, and grueling - you put your soul out there and, by and large, no one cares; at the most you’ll get a pat on the head and a ‘nice job’ because it’s cute that you’re trying, I guess. I’ve been working at this literally since my childhood, so I’m intimately familiar with how bad putting your work out there can make you feel.

So I suck at promotion! That’s just an issue with me. It’s something I want to work on. I’m currently investigating avenues of doing so, such as posting my writing on more places across the internet, different publishers, and different sites and communities for me to hang out on and spread the word about my creations. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know! I’d appreciate it. I really do want to promote my stuff better, but I’m just not that good at it. I’d rather just be working on the thing itself, instead, but at some point you have to stop and promote.

5. Werewolf Facts on Twitter

Werewolf Facts’ original home was on Tumblr, and they also live on my personal website, but I’d like to expand their reach, too. So I’m hoping to start posting a werewolf fact as a twitter thread every week for a while, starting next week. These will be semi-condensed editions of the werewolf facts you know here on my tumblr.

6. Making custom LEGO figures & experimenting with other things

I’m always making custom LEGO ‘figs, even if I’m super slow at it. I hope to have more Wulfgard ones around soon, as well as maybe some Nova Refuge, and maybe even some builds/models.

You probably saw me post my Shazam! Fury of the Gods fig recently:

I absolutely loved that movie beyond words, by the way. It reached deep into my soul and awoke something in me again that I honestly kind of feared I had lost or was coming dangerously close to losing. Watch it in theaters if you can still find it - if not, watch it at home. Trust me. It’s worth it.

Getting back on track: I’m only just starting to finally find the courage to start chasing my true and ultimate dream, too. It’s something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never known how. I had pretty much given up hope, too, short of a miracle, because I am broke and simply don’t have the means to put myself in any kind of position to enter that world. Well, I’ve found new inspiration recently. I’m not ready to talk about it yet, but let’s just say I am feeling good about the future and starting to dip my toes into the extremely amateur edition of what I want to do. I should’ve done it years ago, but I can’t change that, so I’m gonna do it now. More on that later.

7. Resuming work on Nova Refuge (sci-fi) novels & novellas

A few years ago, I started working in earnest on a sci-fi series called Song of the Stars. That is still very much a thing, and I hope to start publishing the series as novellas soon, as I have enough content written - and some of it even edited, too - to compose several books. Song was always intended to be me trying out a sort of traditional TV show formula, with each novella being a stand-alone “episode” that can also be experienced as a chronological series. I still love Song and I’m very proud of all the work I did on it, and I look forward to sharing it with you in the coming year or two.

I’m also working on a brand new book that is set in Nova Refuge but is extremely cyberpunk in nature, as cyberpunk has always been one of my favorite genres for a million reasons. I’m very excited about this story, and I’ve been working hard on it every weekend for a few weeks now. I’m making fantastic progress, so expect to hear more about it very soon!

8. Running my Patreon

So hey, you know that Patreon thing I run? That’s the best place to get the latest updates from me. I keep that thing updated as best I can. And I am always trying to provide content to my patrons and keep everybody happy and rewarded for showing me so much generous support. I run polls there about what everyone would like to see from me, discuss my writing, my research, and much more. I also post previews of my upcoming work.

I also have been posting a very silly and just-for-fun story there periodically, once a week, for all my Lunatic patrons. My lunatic tiers are my weirder/crazier writing and stuff that will never see the light of day in terms of publishing it as/in any kind of book. The story in question will never leave my Patreon, in fact. I write these always rough draft “lunatic writings” as warm-up sessions to other writing sessions on my major projects or as something just for fun for me to cool down on my day off every week. Feel free to ask me about details regarding Lunatic tiers!

9. Publishing a hardcover edition of The Werewolf: Past and Future

So you know that book I published a while back, the book edition of my master’s thesis? The Werewolf: Past and Future - Lycanthropy’s Lost History and Modern Devolution. It has done some pretty wild sales ever since I published it despite only having 14 ratings!

I’d like to have a hardcover edition available on Amazon, too. It’s on my backburner, so it might not happen anytime terribly soon, but it is on my list and I’d like to get around to that sometime, because I know a lot of people really like hardcover books, and I’d love to see what the hardcover publication is like on Amazon. It’d be my first time checking it out, and it’s something I’d like to investigate for my future books, too.

Also - if you’ve purchased and enjoyed the book, please consider leaving me a review on Amazon (or at least a rating)! Reviews on my books there help me immensely and encourage Amazon to show my book to other people, too. I appreciate every review!

10. Resuming Vampire Facts!?

I might! It might happen! I still see several in my drafts that I am no longer so exhausted and discouraged about. We’ll see if/when that happens and how it’ll work later on sometime, but you might just see folklore posts resume on this blog sometime later this year or next year - or at some random time earlier, we’ll see.

---

Whew! And I think that’s quite enough of just a few of the things I’ve been doing since I stopped posting my regular folklore/werewolf/vampire facts. As you can see, I have a very full plate! And I’m actually a really slow eater. No, really, I am. It’s pretty ironic, I know, for those of you familiar with some of the weirder things I like. Anyway--

I’m working as hard as I can go on everything and I’ve actually been writing up a storm. I have an entire novella series ready to be published once they’re done with my editor and artist. I actually have a backlog of books to pester those who work with me because I’ve been writing so fast, and I don’t want to pressure anyone to try to keep up with my insanity.

I’m inspired, I’m motivated, and I’m determined. I’m gonna make these dreams happen, my friends. So expect a lot more news from me soon, including plenty of books! In the meantime, give me a follow here on Tumblr and my other social media:

Patreon — Ko-fi — Twitter  — My Discord Server

And be sure to check out my Patreon if you’re interested in a lot more updates, behind the scenes stuff, previews, and a whole lot more. You can also join my little Discord and come hang out! Everyone is welcome. I’ve been trying to talk there a little more, because though I do be shy (online, anyway) and a bit of a hermit, I can also be a lonely soul. At any rate, you can also toss me a little donation on ko-fi if you’re in the mood; I’m way too ambitious for how low income I am and I am not afraid to admit that, so every single donation of literally anything is appreciated from the bottom of my heart.

I hope everyone’s still with me here on my blog. I love all you fellas, you’ve been really great to me. Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately.

I’ve been working on the side on compiling my werewolf facts into a proper book, as I mentioned, and I also want to get back to doing some werewolf blog posts, as well as posts about other folklore and mythology. I actually recently considered one on the mythology of Ladon, the dragon from Greek myth, because of Shazam! Fury of the Gods (the movie that breathed new life into me and revitalized my soul; a lightning bolt of inspiration in every sense of the phrase, I love it with all my heart, and it reminded me that there is good in this world and it’s worth fighting for)... we’ll see what happens with that.

Until next time!

[geenawrites]

'Black Widow' and undermining Dramatic Intent (II)

[PART ONE]

The 'Civil War' Effect

4): Elements that could’ve made Black Widow Natasha's personal journey are reduced to quick conversational bites told to Natasha instead of experienced by Natasha and the audience first hand.

The film could've built the story around her family selling her off to the government (on some eugenics mess). It could've set the stage for the subplot regarding her mother’s search for her until she was murdered, and Natasha trying to learn about her past pre-assassin.

For all the moments where we simply see her on her own, a lot of that alone time isn't used to explore how she feels, what she's thinking, or a personal throughline. It's just a montage of her looking gloomy and wearing comfy sweatshirts.

The only time Natasha truly feels like she is the emotional center of the movie is the opening act of the film. There, she’s portrayed by Ever (Gabo) Anderson and not Scarlett Johansson.

And as a film touted-as a vehicle for Johansson, that is bad. But also underlines why Florence Pugh’s Yelena was considered the real protagonist of the movie.

Black Widow could've been about Natasha wanting to reclaim her past from the Red Room (her abductors) because she reunites with her sister and parents (her surrogate family), and needed to finally deal with the consequences of killing Antonia (her ghost).

Instead, Black Widow is really Yelena’s story and emotional journey. Yelena justifies the presence of Alexei and Melina more-so than anything in Natasha’s history. As centered as Natasha was in the prologue, it works more as a establishing point for Yelena versus something like Natasha’s lost family or working with Clint Barton in Budapest.

Yelena being tasked to save the Widows (by the elder Widow who created the mind control cure), killing Dreykov, and destroying the Red Room are immediate issues that directly impact her arc and development as a character. Natasha is largely along for the ride, bringing Yelena where she needs to be in each act.

Natasha isn't as centered in her own her film as she should be. Simply compare the structure of her story to the structure in the Captain America (x2), Ant Man (x2), Thor (x3), and Iron Man (x3) films, and how those narratives focus on Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, Thor Odinson, and Tony Stark. Those films are about their emotional journeys while maintaining a healthy supporting cast that don't overshadow them.

Black Widow in comparison feels more like Captain America: Civil War, which is more of an Avengers film than it is a Captain America story. The emotional center of Civil War is Tony Stark and Zemo. Steve and his cast are simply underpinning Stark and Zemo's arcs. It also tries to introduce a new character (Black Panther) with the exact same story beat (revenge) as Stark and Zemo, and a MCU-wide subplot (Sakovia Accords) that ultimately goes nowhere later on.

The consequences of Civil War "Avengering" a solo film are on display in Black Widow in a big way. It's introducing new characters, and trying to tackle a trilogy's worth of storylines (the Red Room, Budapest, the Widow family, Civil War-fallout).

She doesn't even get a decent postmortem send off. The post credits, wherein Yelena mourns Natasha, is turned into a comedic skit and a teaser for the Hawkeye series. It's not allowed to remain a moment of mourning between two sisters separated by literal death.

As an Executive Producer of the film, I know this was not lost on Johansson. She might be an awful person, but she doesn’t strike me as someone so unaware of her environment that she set the stage to be undermined by her co-star. No, I think, given the timing, Johansson knew this was always going to be about setting up her successor.

Wrong Time, Wrong Place

Choosing to set Black Widow after Civil War was just a poor choice on Marvel’s part. Natasha circa 2016 has more or less come-to-terms with her history as a state-sponsored assassin for both Russia and the United States. Her arc as seen throughout the Avengers and Captain America films has come full circle following the events of The Winter Soldier. Now all she has left going forward is the arc dealing with Thanos' genocide and resurrecting everyone.

There is nothing to mine in terms of personal character drama because, at this point, she has laid it all to rest. It's nothing that torments her akin to Bucky trying to square away with his past as an amnesiac assassin.

All of Natasha’s threads are focused on the break-up of the Avengers. At first, seemed like her arc was going to be about not falling back into bad habits (being mistrustful of everyone). That it was going to deal with how she felt let down by the team (after trying to be the reasonable party among everyone), but the film doesn't really commit.

After that one conversation in Budapest, "getting the Avengers back together" isn't even a focal point. We just get awkward callbacks that tell the audience that Natasha isn't on the same level as Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.

Yelena forgiving her family is used to tack on the sudden parallel idea that Natasha has been convinced she can personally bring the Avengers together again as a surrogate family once things work with her Widow Family.

Again, even in her own film, Natasha is playing the sacrificial matriarch of a Boy’s Club (whose event films she features only as a supporting character. Something I think people are only just realizing). That says to me the MCU never valued her beyond her ties to the male Avenger cast.

”You’re such a mom!” becomes a lot less funny in that context.

If this film was immediately set after The Winter Soldier or even Age of Ultron, wherein all of her history and SHIELD’s was leaked for public record, then there might’ve been a chance for an emotionally resonant story arc.

How would a Natasha scrambling to create new covers, and new ways to protect herself, deal with the sudden public attention of the world knowing that she was a foreign assassin that bought her way into the United States and became a celebrity superhero? How would a post-Winter Soldier solo film deal with Natasha’s past in way that she didn't become overshadowed by her own supporting cast?

How would a post-Age of Ultron solo film handle her past as informed by her nightmare (which stuck closer to her history as a trained dancer in the comics) on top of the events of The Winter Soldier?

But even as a post-Civil War narrative, Black Widow should've really cared to explore how Natasha felt about having to revisit her history with the Red Room, on top of being betrayed by Alexei and Melina. Instead of giving all those emotional beats to Yelena, actually show us Natasha confronting them beyond “it wasn’t real!”

How would the story turn out if parent with the biggest hand in the facilitation of her abuse (Alexei) wasn't turned into a flat comic relief character? What if he actually got chance to really consider her grievances, show remorse for his actions, without being turned into a “ha, ha, he’s do dumb (and fat)!” punchline (after setting him up as the total opposite in the prologue)?

Melina could've been an interesting co-antagonist working with Dreykov, but the film skirts past how she is complicit in the harm that her daughters faced (Yelena especially) with a fake Heel Turn moment that only undermined Dreykov as a threat.

And that’s really the problem with Black Widow. The film, or rather Marvel Studios, doesn’t want to really tackle Natasha’s past or pain like they were willing to do with Steve Rogers in The First Avenger, and The Winter Soldier.

Maybe because that would mean approaching the story with the emotional maturity of The Bourne Identity, a PG-13 film that was plenty violent without being excessive. It was also emotionally resonate by dealing with the fact that Jason Bourne was, pre-amnesia, a US assassin that did awful shit.

Instead we get a plot about mind-control, and magic red dust that can break said mind control (that apparently requires invasive surgery of the brain).

Whedon seemed comfortable with getting close to the actual violence that was asked of Natasha (vs. done to) by the Russian government as a kid. The screenplay for Black Widow can talk past Natasha willingly doing awful things, but doesn’t want to confront that by having her or Yelena deal with an army of assassins who are walking down the same path Natasha did, fighting and killing for another government without any sort of mind control.

This is why Natasha's assassination of “Dreykov’s Daughter” (Antonia) as the thing that happened in Budapest also doesn't land. The movie doesn't want to deal with how Natasha learned to live with murdering a child to buy her freedom into America. They make it so that she didn’t kill her, actually, just gave her a bad case of pizza face. She’s not even the one that pulls the trigger, the film suggests that it was Hawkeye.

Her mustache-twirling villain of a father, who somehow survived the explosion and building collapse with zero burns or broken bones, is the one who does all the truly horrible things to his daughter (turning her into a mindless slave).

The Original Sin that Natasha is defined by is swept under the rug in the same way her history as a killer is blurred by the script. It’s akin to rewriting Xena’s history with Callisto as the killer of her family and village, and deciding, “No, Xena didn’t kill them. They all survived with minor burns! Callisto can now forgive Xena!”

Natasha's Antagonist

Dreykov is a weak antagonist/villain because the screenwriting seems determined to accredit the abuse of the Red Room entirely to him instead of making a systemic issue. What started off as a clandestine organization for the KGB throughout most of the MCU is rewritten in Black Widow as the personal playground of a thinly veiled Harvey Weinstein analogue who puppeteers his personal assassins to do bad things, thus rendering them all innocent of their wrongdoings. It makes them "perfect victims" in way.

(Johansson has gone on record saying that this film was influenced by the #MeToo Movement. Well, celebrification of it, anyway)

Dreykov doesn’t challenge Natasha, or her family. There’s never an immediate danger or stakes being driven by Dreykov. He’s not doing something they have to stop “before time runs out”, he doesn’t have anything on any of the characters that could push their actions.

He takes a backseat to the family hijinks, so the journey to finding and destroying the Red Room has no urgency (Natasha being dead already notwithstanding). As the supposed architect of their misery, he’s about as threatening as Mason (Natasha’s Black Best Friend who buys her things while in hiding).

Dreykov fails like the rest of the MCU’s villains (not named Erik Killmonger) because there's no depth to the character. There's no real loyalty to the character as a demonstration of his power or influence. Again, all his victims are blameless in their violent actions. No one with speaking lines or face time (that isn't a G.I Joe grunt) is working with him because they believe in his goals or ideology.

Complicating that matter is that the script never reveals what his goals or ideologies are besides, "I can create chaos with an army of assassins. I am so evil."

It’s wild to me that so many are rushing to defend the implementation of this sloppily written (and miscast) character because, “he works as a villain because he's a human trafficker” and “he mind controlled his own daughter.”

“He does terrible things”, or a character representing awful things that happen in the real world, isn't enough to make an effective villain. If that was all it took, then 90% the MCU’s villains wouldn’t be so forgetabble.

(He’s not real, I shouldn’t be reading posts like, “he doesn’t deserve screentime b/c he’s an awful human being! He earned his lazy death scene.” Girl, what???)

If you’re gonna tackle human/child trafficking as defined by one antagonist, then really make it part of the story. Make it something that Natasha and Yelena are actively trying to stop. Don’t montage it over a bad Nirvana cover and then shift gears into a G.I. Joe scenario in a floating fortress.

If you're gonna make Dreykov the abuser of so many women, then make it crucial to your protagonist's narrative. Don't add a silly Angry Beavers plot where his stinky musk can control a woman's bodily functions because as a weak analogue to "how men police women's bodies".

Because Natasha has no real conflict with Dreykov, confronting him in the climax goes nowhere. Dreykov is Yelena’s antagonist. It's why Yelena gets to kill him instead of Natasha, so it would've made more sense for her to confront him instead.

The film eventually establishes he's no real threat to Natasha because the writing pulled a Xanatos. The character feels like he exists only so Johansson can sass him, and make a callback to the Loki Interrogation scene (a scene that only worked because of the audience misdirection.)

Dreykov could've been an effective villain if he was anything like the Headmistress characters in the Samee-Waid Black Widow series from 2016.

The Headmistress and Anya (the new Headmistress later on) were characters with emotional connections to Natasha and the Widow children she was trying to save. They taught these girls to believe in the totalitarian philosophy of the ruling class. Natasha and the other Widows couldn't live without them until they were able to escape their influence.

The Headmistresses were women, which makes it plain that women are also perpetrators of abuse. It isn’t just something that men do, which is how this script has approached this subject entirely (Captain Marvel did the same thing as well). Abuse being exclusively a male theater of action.

Antonia's death could've been meaningful in regards to Natasha and Dreykov as characters if Dreykov cared that Antonia was murdered by a Red Room assassin. Natasha admitting that she killed his daughter and regretted it would've made a lot more impact than just having him shrug it off because he's so heartless and so evil.

Or, as other people have said, imagine if it was Antonia who was the antagonist gunning after Natasha because of what she did, not only to her, but her father as well.

It would not only render the mind-control plot pointless, it would re-center the focus on Natasha, and force the writers to do something else with Yelena, Alexei, and Melina (assuming they're even necessary in this scenario). Then, Natasha would have a genuinely threatening antagonist because the stakes are personal on both sides.

It would've been a hellva lot more meaningful than using Taskmasker as a plot-twist (after hyping the character up as the controller of the Red Room and Natasha's personal nemesis).

Callisto’s story as a villain resonates because she cared about what she lost, and Xena knew there was no real forgiveness for what she did to her. Imagine if they approached Natasha’s role in Antonia’s death like that.

(But that's probably asking for too much nuance from Disney and Marvel.)

Conclusions

In story that wants to be about the abused reconciling with their past and family, the film effectively robs the abused of their autonomy by going the extra of mile of making them zombies. In the same way the Star Wars sequel trilogy avoided Finn’s history as an indoctrinated and enslaved Stormtrooper, Black Widow doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of indoctrination.

How people buy into and protect organizations that strip them of their humanity by making them complicit in violent systems. Oh, sure, they’ll nod and wink at it (as they do with Natasha and Melina’s past), but they won’t go any further than that.

Instead of dealing with how a forced hysterectomy effects Natasha physically and emotionally, we get a joke that isn’t any better than Natasha calling herself a monster, or the “time of the month” joke that got rebuked by the director and the cast.

Instead of reflecting on her time with SHIELD and the United States, the United States is portrayed as "the good-guys who gave her a real family” (ignoring even the half-hearted criticism of the US that The Winter Soldier made), while Russia is still out there doing nefarious Cold War Things and ruining people's families. All of which just feeds into uncritical Russian stereotypes and Red Scare that the film’s foundation is built on.

I enjoyed the film, but the more I think about it, the more I realize Black Widow really does nothing except undermine Natasha's darker elements and self-imposed redemption arc (as written by Whedon).

On top of rewriting key elements about the Red Room (the movies being broken as the comics is a true irony), It minimizes Natasha's violent past to make her into a clean, and boring superhero whose solo film thinks lamp-shading sexism is the same as subverting it.

[maria0101]

Pablo Escobar beyond Narcos -Non Fiction

“Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was a devoted family man and a psychopathic killer; a terrible enemy, yet a wonderful friend. While donating millions to the poor, he bombed and tortured his enemies – some had their eyeballs removed with hot spoons. Through ruthless cunning and America’s insatiable appetite for cocaine, he became a multi-billionaire, who lived in a $100-million house with its own zoo. Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos demolishes the standard good versus evil telling of Pablo’s story. The authorities were not hunting Pablo down to stop his cocaine business. They were taking over it. Shaun Attwood’s War on Drugs trilogy – Pablo Escobar, American Made and We Are Being Lied To – is a series of harrowing, action-packed and interlinked true stories that demonstrate the devastating consequences of drug prohibition. Shaun is a London-based bestselling author with 100,000 copies sold.”

Escobar Drugs, guns, Money, power by Roberto Escobar-Non Fiction

“The incredible bestselling true story of the rise and reign of the most wanted criminal in history, told by the one man who was with him every step of the way - his brother Roberto” 

Killing Pablo-Non Fiction

“Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw is a book by Mark Bowden that details the efforts by the governments of the United States and Colombia, their respective military and intelligence”

Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar-fiction

“Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar is a 2007 memoir by Colombian author and journalist Virginia Vallejo about her five-year romantic relationship with Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín Cartel. It was published by Random House Mondadori on 22 September 2007,”

Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar- Non Fiction

“For the first time, legendary DEA operatives Steve Murphy and Javier F. Peña tell the true story of how they helped put an end to one of the world’s most infamous narco-terrorists in Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar―the subject of the hit Netflix series, Narcos.”

Colombia's Narcotics Nightmare: How the Drug Trade Destroyed Peace- Non Fiction

“This history of Colombia's illegal drug trade--and of the extreme violence it created--describes how in the late 1960s narcotics traffickers from the United States convinced Colombians who had no previous involvement in the drug trade to grow marijuana for export to America. By the early '70s, foreign (mostly American) traffickers began requesting cocaine. This book focuses on the decades of crime and violence the illegal drug trade brought to Colombia and how this social upset was ended in the early 2000s”

Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention- Non Fiction

“Over the past half-century, Colombia has been plagued by violence—its people caught in the middle of a civil conflict raging between the army, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, narco-traffickers, and U.S. anti-drug warriors. Killing Peace: Colombia’s Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention provides a timely and much-needed overview of the war that is ravaging Colombia including its root causes in the country’s gross social and economic inequalities.”

Pablo Escobar my father Juan Pablo Escobar - fiction

“More than two decades after the full-fledged manhunt finally caught up with the king of cocaine, Juan Pablo Escobar travels to the past to reveal an unabridged version of his father―a man capable of committing the most extreme acts of cruelty while simultaneously professing infinite love for his family. This is not the story of a child seeking redemption for his father, but a shocking look at the consequences of violence and the overwhelming need for peace and forgiveness.”

Pablo Escobar: Sinner or Saint- fiction

‘Pablo Escobar was one of those people whose actions weren't always very noble, though he had moments of enormous generosity, and yet he still haunts the streets of Colombia today. This book will take you through a journey of what life was like for the apparent 7th richest man In the world”

Surviving Pablo - fiction

“'I’ve begged God for forgiveness, but I won't know till the day I die if He has truly forgiven me …I've paid my dues to society by serving my long sentence, but perhaps I haven't earned His indulgence …Oh my God, I've lived so many different lives!”

Pablo Escobar- Non Fiction

“Pablo Escobar, born on the 1st of December, 1949 and killed on the 2nd of December, 1993 was a notorious drug lord in Colombia. During the height of his career, he supplied an estimated 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. He was widely regarded as the "King of Cocaine", and the wealthiest drug lord in history with a net worth that had exceeded $30 billion by the start of the 90s, and estimated $50 billion including the money hidden in different areas in Colombia.”

Pablo Escobar's Story- Non Fiction

“Pablo Escobar was a mama's boy who cherished his family and sang in the shower, yet he bombed a passenger plane and formed a death squad that used genital electrocution. Most Escobar biographies only provide a few pieces of the puzzle, but this action-packed 1000-page book reveals everything about the king of cocaine. Mostly translated from Spanish, Part 3”

The Life of Pablo Escobar (J.D. Rockefeller's Book Club) - Non Fiction

“Known in history as one of the ruthless Columbian drug lord, the life of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria will remain forever as the ‘King of Cocaine’. He would be remembered throughout Colombia as the toughest criminal of all times. Instead of gaining his authority and power through politics as ‘President’, Pablo became one of the world’s notorious criminal, and ruled not the country but the Medellin cartel. His name rose to fame”

Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco- Non Fiction

“When talking about Colombia, there is usually one thing that instantly comes to mind “cocaine. While this stereotype is not completely true, it is difficult not to associate the country with drugs. 

Naturally, the name Pablo Escobar will come up when reading about the emergence of the drug industry in the country. Escobar and his Medellin cartel once led the drug trade in Colombia, trafficking around 80% of the world’s cocaine supply. “

[padme-parker]

Collide / Anakin Skywalker x Reader (Chapter 6)

[a Star Wars x Avengers crossover]

Summary: You go to Onderon and meet someone you’ve been longing to see. Another call to home ensues and hearts get broken.

Warnings: angst, maybe cursing, I can’t think of anything else. oh and bad plot lmao

WC: 4.0k

A/N: this isn’t proof read so it might be scuffed. 

read chapter 5 here

C O R U S C A N T

After the nightmares began, Anakin was rarely around, only making you more susceptible to the dark side. You truly did want to tell him about what had been keeping you up at night, but how were you going to contact him when he was never around and the connection the two of you shared was seemingly cut off? You weren’t able to feel his emotions nor feel his presence. It was as if he had blocked you off, almost like he was dead, but he wasn’t. You knew that he went on more campaigns as he was barely spending time in the temple, wanting to stay as far away from you. And if the two of you ever were in the same room by sheer luck, he pretended that you didn’t exist.

On days where both Anakin and Obi Wan were gone, you trained with a girl named Xin. In a way, she reminded you of the mandalorian Sabine: intelligent, strong, and creative. She was skilled with her lightsaber, but also greatly skilled in hand to hand combat, making her an excellent training partner. When all three of them were gone, you spent time learning binary after shortly being gifted a droid. R2-KT, or Kaytee as you liked to call her, accompanied you on your walks around the Jedi temple, often telling you random facts about it or Coruscant.

As time passed, you noticed how the council became weary of your presence. After noticing the color of your saber, which wasn’t hard to miss, the Jedi Masters seemed to focus their attention on you whenever you were in the room with them. You would have liked to believe that you had begun to earn their trust, but you understood their cautiousness towards you. Hell, you would’ve probably reacted the same way if someone came to Earth using a big stone hidden in the middle of nowhere claiming that the fate of the universe rested in their hands.

The halls of the temple were empty- excluding the sentinels- as you roamed around with Kaytee at your side. It was still so surreal being in the Jedi temple. Six months ago you were on Earth, spending time with your family. It seemed so long ago since you were first introduced to Star Wars.

You were foreign to the concept of bonding, spending time with your peers. After spending almost 17 years in foster care, you learned to not attach yourself. To become cold, detached, and observant of your surroundings. With your arrival to the tower, it became a shock to you when you found out that the team spent time together willingly. Some nights they played games like Uno and Cards Against Humanity. You would always sit in the corner and watch them, not comfortable enough to be engaging with them in such a way like that. On the nights where they watched movies, you would always sit in the furthest seat away from the group. It stayed like that until Peter started coming to the bonding nights.

Due to the fact that he was still young, he stayed with his Aunt May. Only coming to the tower to help Tony with his projects. So it was a surprise to see him there, but you couldn’t help feel more comfortable knowing that someone else your age was there.

“So, what’re we watching tonight?” He asked. The team let out a couple of groans, unsure of what they were getting into. “How about we watch Star Wars? I bet you those two grandpas haven’t seen it yet.”

“Hey! Watch it, Peter.” Steve said, putting his hand over his heart to feign hurt. All it took for him to apologize was one glance at Bucky. “Sorry Mister Winter- uhh James- Bucky-- no. Sir Barnes. And Steve.”

He goes to sit down, but before he does, he takes a survey of the room. He notices you sitting alone on the couch, “Hey, why don’t you come sit closer?” He asked. You shake your head, telling him that you were alright where you were. “What about you? Have you seen Star Wars?” You quickly shake your head, you see Peter’s eyes widen and he takes off to sit in the empty spot next to you.

“OMG. WHAT? How have you never seen the movies?”

“Not everyone has the privilege to have a normal childhood. I just so happened to be one of those kids.” You informed him.

“Right, sorry.” He apologized, his hand awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “I’m sure you’ll love the movies though.”

Peter was right. After watching A New Hope, the team had retired to their respective rooms, but the two of you had stayed up all night finishing the movies. After watching all three trilogies, you had a new found obsession, especially for a certain Skywalker. Even though some people thought that Anakin was a bad character, and sure the script was really bad, you really did love him. So when he betrayed Obi Wan to save Padme, your heart couldn’t help but break. Poor man was so whipped for the pussy :( I guess you could call it to die for.

Although your time on Coruscant was limited, you did your best to enjoy it. The six months you had spent here so far had been a gift. The environment was truly mesmerizing, and you wanted to share it with Peter. You tried not to call him often, the time difference was just slightly confusing. While six months might’ve passed for you, it had only been a month for your family back home.

You were broken out of your reverie by the buzzing of your holocom, requesting your presence in the council room. Making your way into the room, you told Kaytee to wait by the doors. You stood in the middle of the room with your hands clasped behind your back, waiting for them to address you.

“Nice to see you it is.” Master yoda said. “A task for you, we have.”

A task? What could they possibly want you to do? There was no way they’d be sending you on a mission, they never did.

“We want you to travel to Onderon. They are celebrating their liberation from the separatists. I don’t know why but Anakin and Obi Wan would like for you to be present-” Before Mace can finish his sentence he is cut off.

“I believe what Master Windu is trying to say is that they would both like for you to experience what our galaxy has to offer.” Shaak Ti answered for him. “There will be other Jedi there too, but you will be traveling on your own.” She said. “Oh, and please keep in mind, this celebration is also being held in remembrance for Steela, their fallen leader.”

“Understood, may I leave now?” Master Yoda gave you a nod, allowing you to leave. You made your way to the hangar, Kaytee following close behind you. Well, it looks like it was time to see Anakin again.

-

O N D E R O N

Your journey to Onderon is short, but you take the time to fiddle with Kaytee. Cleaning her up to make her look presentable. Weeks after you were gifted the droid, you took the time to fix her up and reprogram her to your liking. With the touch of a button, you could make her record a hologram, send her your location, or gouge out someone's eye if needed. You truly did love your droid, and you thanked the stars that Stark taught you how to code, program, and build trinkets of your own.

Kaytee lands the ship with a heavy thud, “I know you're excited to see Artoo, but we need to be careful with this ship. It’s not ours.” You told her, and in return you get a series of apologetic beeps. The door opens with a hiss, you signal for Kaytee to follow you. Stepping off, you notice all of the other ships outside of Iziz. It was like all the entirety of the galactic senate was here, which you really didn’t doubt. You felt out of place in your Jedi robes. People were arriving in magnificent, mind blowing outfits. Gowns with tails that trailed far behind them and tuxes with flowy capes. This ball was going to have it all.

The bustle of the market only intensified with the oncomers. You had to make your way to the temple before you got distracted. By the time you reached the temple doors, the crowd lessened, or so you thought. Entering the temple, you were greeted at the sight of hundreds of people. You felt blood rush to your cheeks as people began to turn and stare at you. Screw the Jedi Council for not giving me a nice outfit to change into. Just as you were about to turn around and wander through the market, you heard your voice being called out. You tried to find where the sound was coming from, only to get confused and jolt your head around violently as if you were a loth cat.

“Alyra! Over here!.” Your feet began moving on their own accord. As if you were being drawn to a presence. You come to a screeching halt in front of.. Anakin, of course it's him. Why am I not surprised that the force has literally brought me to him? Along with Obi Wan, R2, and Padme. Oh my god, wait, it’s Padme. I could kiss her right now if I wanted to. But I won’t. That would be weird, won’t it. Kissing her in front of her husband, who is my-

“Alyra, are you alright?” Obi Wan asks, breaking you out of your internal ramble.

“Yeah, I was just...trying to take all of this in. I’ve never seen anything like this.” You responded, pretending to look around the temple.

“It seems like you space out a lot.” He jokes, a smile on his face before he realizes no one else is laughing. He rolls his eyes before continuing, “Anyways, welcome to Onderon. This is my good friend, Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo.” He turns to face her while he introduces you to her. You hold out a hand, expecting for her to shake it. Instead she walks up to you and takes you within her hold. She hugs you tightly, you can feel her protruding belly.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you! Anakin has talked a lot about you.” Both you and Obi Wan furrow your brows at the mention of Anakin speaking of you. Padme is quick to notice this and corrects herself, “I mean of what he’s mentioned to me about you today. Right, Ani?” She validates.

“Yeah, only good things though.” He testified, avoiding your gaze. It was weird that he was mentioning you to his pregnant wife, what was there to talk about? Not to mention the fact that he had been avoiding your presence for months now.

You squinted your eyes at him, “I could only hope so, seeing as though we haven’t spoken in awhile.” you accused. What in the world is he up to now?

You can practically see the gears turning in his head as he tries to come up with a comeback, before he can utter a word, he’s interrupted by Padme.

“C’mon, let’s go to your room and get you changed.” Once again, you furrow your brows.

“Changed, what do you mean changed?” You ask her.

“What, did you think I’d just let you roam around the ball in those ugly Jedi robes? Come, I’ll let you borrow one of my dresses.” She drags you away by the arm, Anakin and Obi Wan shouting at her. Something about Jedi robes not being ugly, you couldn’t really hear with Padme’s giggles silencing them. Kaytee let’s out a giggle of her own as she follows you, Artoo’s personality rubbing off on her.

Padmé all but practically throws you onto your bed as she ushers one of her handmaidens, Teckla, to bring the dresses into your room. Teckla wheels in a rack filled with elegant looking dresses, along with a bunch of different heels. All looking like they could snap your ankle in half if you walked the wrong way. The first dress she hands you is body conforming up until it reaches your knees, from there it fans out creating a mermaid gown effect. While the dress itself was very beautiful, you thought of it to be too plain for an event like this. You and Padme both share a look before agreeing that this was in fact not the dress.

However, the next dress she hands you is a proper ball gown. You slip it on, taken aback by how heavy the dress was. She walks up behind you to tighten the corset of the gown. She does her best to tighten it up without hurting you, but you can’t help let out a wheeze as she gets closer to tying it off.

“Sorry, as much as I love this dress, I also hate it. I’m so glad I’m pregnant so I don’t have to feel it stabbing me at every given chance.” She said, breaking the silence.

“How many months are you?” You asked.

“I’m six months along now, almost seven.” She finishes tying up the corset before stepping aside. “What do you think?”

“Well, it certainly is fit for an event like this and I do think it’s beautiful. But it’s crushing me with every breath I take. I feel like if I sit down, I won’t be able to get back up.”

“Right, well I can fix that.” This time she takes her time picking out the next dress. She lets her fingers brush across the different fabrics, stopping at one that caught her eye. “Here, try this one!” She suggests. By the look on her face, you can already tell that this is the one. The dress is flowy and soft looking. You step into the dress, pleased to find yourself correct. It feels like you have nothing on. Padme helps you zip the dress up, along with clasping together the leather pieces. The light blue tulle layered over the dark blue, almost purple material complimented your skin tone. The dress had a deep v-neck, showing off your cleavage. Right below your collarbone laid a strap of leather, connecting to either side of your thick shoulder straps. From those straps, a thin piece of tulle was stitched on, giving you two separate mini capes for your arms. Aside from a strap of leather covering your spine, the dress is completely backless. It feels like you could go frolicking in this dress. Who am I kidding, Padme probably went frolicking in this dress with Anakin.

“So, what do you think?” Her tone is hushed, as if she was trying to figure out whether you hated or loved the dress.

“It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.” You respond. “Kaytee, what do you reckon?” The droid let’s out a series of delights beeps, showing her contentment towards the dress.

“Great!” Padmé says before ushering you into a chair. “Now, we're going to do your hair and makeup. So sit still.” For once in your life, you shut up and sit still, allowing Padme to work her magic.

“Do you know the gender?” You asked, your question breaking the silence, and while the atmosphere wasn’t exactly awkward, it wasn’t comfortable either.

“Oh no, I’d rather not. It’s not like it matters to me anyways. As long as my child is happy and healthy, then so am I. But it’s ironic because I haven’t been to a check up yet.” Padme gently pulls your hair back, leaving two pieces in the front to frame your face. It was simple, not taking any attention away from the dress.

No check up? Maybe that’s why Padme didn’t know she was having twins. “So you haven’t seen a doctor or a medical droid yet?” Your eyes follow her as she pulls makeup out of her bag, her collection vast.

“No, not really. I don’t have very much time to myself due to the fact that I’m a part of the senate. But I do my best to make sure I stay healthy for my baby and me. I also just want it to be a surprise.” Padme finds a foundation shade similar to your skin tone and blends it in.

“What if you have twins? What will you do then?” You probably weren’t supposed to be asking her questions like these, but you couldn’t help it. Maybe you should’ve asked why she had so much makeup instead.

“Well..” She sighed while blotting powder all over your face. “..I suppose if it happens, then it happens. It’s the will of the force.” She finishes powdering your face before moving to your eyebrows. Padme takes an angled brow brush and begins to fill them in, giving it a naturally fuller look.

“So, you believe in the force?”

“How could I not? I work so closely with the Jedi, I’ve seen what you guys have done. The father is very close friends with the Jedi.” Padme said, implying that the father was in fact a Jedi. It felt like you were intruding, but then again, you weren’t necessarily forcing her to tell you this. You had only met her moments ago and she already trusted you enough with her secrets.

“Really? I thought the Jedi weren’t allowed to form attachments?”

“Oh… we weren’t really together. It was sort of a one night thing. But he’s going to be in the child’s life.” She covered up.

The conversation went on like that for a while before Padme announced that she was finished with you. After finishing your makeup and adding some finishing touches to your hair, she finally stepped aside, letting you see yourself in the mirror.

The second you saw yourself, your mouth fell open in shock. You looked absolutely ethereal. Padme kept your makeup very natural to bring out your features. She also added small, white flowers into your hair. You excitedly thanked her and got up to hug her as a way to show your gratitude.

“Shall we get going now?” She offered

“Oh, if it was alright with you, I was going to stay behind. I have to contact somebody.” You asked

“Of course, I’ll see you later then.” She said before gathering all of her belongings and leaving with Teckla. As Padme arrives, Anakin notices that you weren’t with her.

“Where’s Alyra?” He asked her, eager to see what she would look like out of her Jedi robes.

“She said she had to talk to someone.”

Meanwhile, in your room you were getting ready to call Peter. Honestly, you had no idea if you had connection on Onderon, but you were about to find out. Taking off your necklace, you were pleased to see the green light, indicating that you were indeed connected to the bridge. You scroll through your contacts before finding Peter’s name. You hit the dial button and wait for it to connect.

-

E A R T H

Peter is sleeping when he gets a call, the bracelet on his left hand vibrating. He thinks nothing of it and almost declines the call. That is until he realizes it’s you calling on the bracelet he had designated just for you. He jumps up from his sleeping position and quickly answers your call. Peter can’t help but let out a gasp of awe the very second your face pops onto the hologram.

“What? Is there something on my face?” You move closer towards the camera and inspect your face, only to find no flaws.

“Nothing...it’s just been so long since I’ve seen you like this.”

“Like what?” Your eyebrows scrunch together, the confusion clear on your face.

“All… dolled up.” Peter’s response makes your face blush a hot red. You let out a shy laugh as your hand comes to rest at the back of your neck. He was right, it had been so long since you’ve felt this pretty. It felt good, for once you had felt good.

“Thanks, Pete. It feels good to be in something other than Jedi robes.”

“Not that I’m saying you can’t be dressed up like this, but exactly why are you so dressed up?” He pondered, he knew it wasn’t like the Jedi to go about their duties in exquisite gowns.

“I’m actually on Onderon.” You pan the camera towards the view outside of your window. “The Jedi have invited me to a celebration of Onderon’s liberation. But also in memory of Steela I believe. I really wish you were here with me. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t have sent both of us.”

“I miss you too, but you know I have a duty here on Earth.”

“Duty? So did I Peter!”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that. With me being Spiderman-”

“It’s not like they don’t have any other superheroes. I mean come on, admit it! You know more about Star Wars than I possibly could. You should be here with me.” You huff out before changing the subject, “Anyways, how are you? Did you end up fixing things with MJ?”

“I’m fine, but no, we didn’t. We both agreed that we’d be better off as friends. Besides I’ve already moved on.” He confessed, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. It’s now or never Peter, you’ve gotta tell her.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear about your split. But hopefully you and this new person will work out-”

“It’s you.” He says, abruptly cutting you off. Peter watches you tilt your head as your brows scrunch together again.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s you,” He repeats, taking a deep breath before speaking again, “It’s always been you. I didn’t realize it until you had left… I didn’t think I could miss someone so much.”

“Peter…. I don’t know what to say.” You uttered out,

“Please, say something- anything.” He begged, hoping he hadn’t just ruined years of friendship. Peter watches as you open and close your mouth, searching for the right words.

“...I can’t.” You say as you shake your head. “I can’t be with you, Peter.”

“Why? Is it because of my age? Come on, Y/N, I’m only two years younger than you.” He pleads

“It’s not that. You’re just not the right person for me, Peter. I know it in my very soul.”

“Oh yeah? And who is, Anakin?” He taunts, he can feel his eyes water as he watches you look away from him. “No freakin’ way. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Peter lets out a scoff.

“You’ve got to understand Pete, I love him. I really do.”

“NO! You don’t love him. You’re just obsessed with him. You think you can save him but you can’t! No one can! You can’t change his destiny.”

“What do you even know about love? You can’t tell me who I can and can’t love. It doesn’t work like that. You know nothing about it-”

“I LOVE YOU!” He screams, breaking the silence in his Queen’s apartment, surely waking up May. “Why isn’t that enough?” Peter watches as tears slowly stream down your face as he lets out a few of his own.

“I’ve got to see this out until the end, you know that Peter...I could only wish that it was enough, but it’s not. You’re like a brother to me, don’t do this to me. To our friendship...I’ve got to go now.”

“No, you don’t get to leave again-”

“I’m sorry, goodbye, Peter.” You end the call and Peter is left staring at the wall, mouth hung open in shock. He couldn’t believe this just happened to him. He faintly makes out the sound of Aunt May knocking on his door.

Without waiting for a response, she cracks open his door. She takes notice of the tears falling off of his face and closes her mouth. Aunt May is silent as she makes her way across his room, holding her arms out for him. Peter gratuitously accepts her embrace, his sobs muffled by her clothes.

No words are spoken as Peter cries his heart out, never in a million years did he think you’d be the one to break him.

--

collide tags: @deepcollectionmagazine​ @amesstm​ @haileyybird​

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp Movie Reviewcap! (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! And we have a special review today for two reasons. The first is that this is my second patreon stretch goal review, having hit the 15 dollar goal back in march thanks to my wonderful friend Emma, the same patreon whose responsible for the Green Eggs and Ham Reviews,  who helped me hit the 15 dollar goal.  As a result you fine people are getting three movie reviews each based on a Disney Afternoon Movie with Treasure of the Lost Lamp today, a goofy movie at the end of the motnh for  a weeklong tribute to my favorite dogmandadguy.  Extremley was going to be part of it but the length of this review convinced me otherwise, but I will be doing it this summer so keep an ear out. If you want to help me hit my next stretch goals do yourselve a favor and zip on over to my patreon YOU CAN FIND MY PATREON HERE. My next stretch goal at “OH Look 20 Dollars” would give everyone patreon and not, a monthly review of Darkwing Duck as decided by my patrons, reviews of BOTH season 2 mini series from Ducktales 87, introducing Fenton to the world and blighting it with Bubba before the 2017 series fixed him, and as a brucey bonus added last month a review of Danny Phantom the Ultimate Enemy. And if that wasn’t enough if you help me get to the goal after that at 25 unlocks another trilogy of disney film reviews, this time for the proud family and recess movie and the best kim possible movie, and dcom period, so the drama as well as Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s two stand alone graphic novels, lost at sea and seconds for you Scottaholics in the audience.

The other reason now the shilling’s done. is that the plan WAS to review this back to back with Treasure of The Found Lamp, to the point the orginal review had a whole thing about that, why it was delayed etc... but now that review’s been scrapped all together as something sudden and wonderful happened. After just kinda giving up someone came through with a translation of Della’s first apperance so presumibly i’ll be doing that as part of the build up to mother’s day, and since I still want ot do maternal instincts too, and already had to let the Floyd Gottfredson birthday special slide away as well... it had to go as I want to leave the only open space on the schedule for the lovely person who found the story for me. But this review is still done, i’m very proud of it so join me under the cut won’t you?

Behind The Scenes: Before I get into it i’d just like to note this article from SyFy Wire. It , along with articles I found via wikipedia citations, was an invaluable resource. 

The film was an experiment: It was an experiment to see if one of their tv properties could bring in theatrical money, to see if a movie made on a cheaper budget and still rake in decent money, to see if a film could be made being outsourced to several diffrent places, and to see what one of those places, their recently aquiried french stuido, could handle this kind of work. 

The film, if succesful would be the first of Disney’s MovieToons line, a series of films based on their shows. As you can tell by the fact only this movie and Goof Troop happened and the Movie Toons label wasn’t applied to that one it very much failed. While the film was warmly recevied by people who liked the show general audiences didn’t turn out for it. As a result the MovieToons label was scrapped, future projects with it were canceled.. but the stellar work put in by the french stuidio lead to it perserviering for several more decades and lead to them working on the Goofy Movie, which we’ll get to later this month but needless to say was a MUCH bigger hit with a much bigger budget. 

As for why the film failed... I have two theories. THe first is that parents were stupid back then and didn’t want to pay to see something on the big screen they could see on tv’s. This is a stupid mentality to me as generally a movie of a tv show puts in a ton of extra effort and usually goes bigger and dosen’t go home. It’s a likely theory given most liscened films of the era didn’t do quite well, with all three hasbro films tanking. And look I get Transformers the Movie is cheesy and killed a lot of people’s childhood toys, but damn if it ain’t aweosme.. and also something I need to cover at some point. Thankfully this died out by later in the 90′s with Rugrats getting a hugely succesful if flawed film, a better sequel and a third one that was also a crossover with the wild thornberries. 

And even now in 2020 we’re getting the Loud House and Rise of the TMNT movies sometimes this summer, we were SUPPOSED to have gotten the bobs burgers movie this summer but arne’t because Disney is being a dick about it.

And we got a phineas and ferb movie last year. With this trend hopefully thsi means we’ll get a Ducktales 2017 movie at some point since season 4 left a huge sequel hook laying right there to grab for a feature film.  One final note: The film was conceptually thought up as a 5 part serial like “Treasure of the Golden Suns”, “Catch as Cash Can”, “SuperDucktales” and “Time is Money, something that DOES show as the movie weirdly has act breaks. In a feature film. Yup. 

The Guest Cast:

I won’t go into the full cast since I’ve sung Alan Young and Russi Taylor’s praises PLENTY on this blog before, and I plan to go into Beakly and Launchpad’s actors when they show up in the pilot movie. But i’d be remiss if i didn’t talk about our three guest actors for our three new parts. 

First up is Merlock voiced by legend and if I had a hall of fame, hall of famer Christopher Lloyd.. I need to get me one of those. Lloyd is of course known for playing Doc Brown in back to the future but has done countless other films, voicework, and other good stuff. Among his MASSIVE filmography includes The Back to the Future Trilogy (Already mentioned it but it bears repeating), Star Trek III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit as the pants destroyingly terrifying Judge Doom, The Addams Family duology as fester, a role rip torn would ironcially play for the animated series made to captalize on said movie, Hey Arnold! The Movie, The Oogieloves in The Big Ballon Adventure (Look everybody needs money sometimes okay?), and Art of the Deal: The Movie, which was not, thankfully an ego filating nightmare made by trump himself but a film made by funny or die parodying his terrible book and having Llloyd return as Doc Brown. TV Wise he’s known for Taxi, Back to the Future the Animated Series, Cyberchase and he most recently popped up on Big City Greens. How I missed that ep I.. do know as I haven’t watched season 2. Gonna fix that later this month. Lloyd is utterly awesome, a great guy and thankfully still alive at the time of this writing, so I was happy to have him here. 

Less familiar to me but still known is Rip Taylor, a comedian known for his flamboyant unique way of speech and his marvelous mustache. He showed up in things occasionally and always seemed like the nicest guy and his passing in late 2019 truly is sad. He does a terrific job here but more on that in a moment. 

Finally we have Richard Libertini, a comedian I never really saw in anything besides this who according to IMDB was most famous for his ablility to do a foreign accent. I REALLY hope all of them aren’t as horribly racist as this one. We’ll.. get to that in a sec as it’s time for the plot!

A Treasure Uncovered:

We open our film gorgeously. The animation is great in the film, having some rough edges I chalk up to the film’s hectic production, the studio being new at working at disney properties, and the film not being meant for HD. That being said a few rough spots here and there aside.. the film looks ungodly gorgeous. Like most theatrical films based on a cartoon it takes an already great style and makes it look great. It feels like a more fluid evolution of the cartoons look and it’s a shame we didn’t get more movies in this style for both this show and others, ESPECIALLY Darkwing Duck. Can you imagine a Darkwing Duck movie with this lush animation? Hopefully we’ll get one eventually. 

So our heroes are going to somewhere in the Middle East. That’s.. that’s all wikipedia gives me and all the film gives me. As usual Scrooge is after treasure in this case the Treasure of Collie Baba, the greatest thief there ever was based obviously off Ali Baba from 1001 nights and that one Beastie Boys song. 

It’s here we find the WORST thing about the film, the thing that makes this a hard one to watch depsite otherwise being pretty good, and that makes my skin crawl knowing i’m a white man and a BUNCH of white guys, Ducktales series creator who did the voice casting for this character, the writers who wrote him, the direector disney them fucking selves who thought this was okay. 

The film has some horrible steroytping. It starts with a bunch of backgorund guys surronding Scrooge, with crooked teeth and steotypical voices. This on it’s own is odious. 

It somehow gets worse. Then we meet one of our antagonists. We meet Dijon. 

This Fucking Guy 

Djon is horribly offensive reminding me of other such luminaries in being ungodly offensive yet somehow getting put to film as Jar Jar Binks (With all respeect to his poor actor Ahmed Best, this is not his fault), Rob Schinder as a Sterotypically asian preist, Skids and Mudflap, Rob Schinder as a sterotypically mexican bandit, The Whitewashed cast of The Last Airbender, and Rob Schinder as a stereotypically asian preist. What i’m saying is Djon is an AWFUL, horribly offensive character.. and that Rob Schinder should be shot up into space, not to watch cheesy movies, he’s not funny enough for that, but instead to be sent to a satlitie that’s liveable, but also filled to the brim with spring loaded boxing gloves. Just tons of boxing gloves that feel like getting punched by a heavewight boxer all hidden... they could hit his legs, his face, his nuts, his face and his nuts, the point is he’s in constnat pain unless he moves carefully. 

And lest you think i’m exaggerating for starters this is his design. 

It just screams “vaugely but sterotpyically middle eastern” along with cowardly. The fact he’s also a literal rat is just the icing on the cake made of broken glass, shrapnel and broken DVD’s of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen. They say if you eat a reveng eof the fallen dvd John Tutoro appears at the foot of your bed and watches you while you sleep.. and by they I mean me. It was a bad bet. I got rid of him with some insese and a bribe of five dollars. 

Oh but that’s just design.. when he talks it’s MUCH worse. His voice is like if they took Apu from the simpsons and said “This but MORE offensive”, and his perosnality is WORSE. He’s a thief.. and not in the endearing loveable rogue way but he’s a pick pocket and a running “Gag’ is that he’ll often grab eveyrthing within reahc. As the deisgn shows he’s a coward running at every opportunity. Oh and to top it all off he’s the willing servant of the white coded, given all ducks in this series are white coded and voiced bby white actors, big bad. And the actor is naturally VERY white to make this cocktail of offensivness so complete that if Disney ever got rid of this film I GUARANTEE the republcian party would be running in with accusations of cancel culture gone amok and never shutting up about this like they did the muppets. Which for the record THEY DIDN’T CANCEL THEM, YOUR POINT IS ILLEGITMATE, THEY JUST WANTED TO BE SENSTIVE YOU GHOULS. 

I do have a reason for bringing up Disney’s content warnings... most damming of all given just how DEEPLY uncomfortbale this character is.. there isn’t one for this movie. I double checked: There isn’t even wanring notes on the website. It’s just.. on there. And given just how ghastly a sterotype Djon is.. that’s not right. Seriously they DID put them on certain episodes of the show, theyk now this sort of thing is wrong and they done wrong.. but for NO reason they haven’t done so for a film released 31 years ago. Around the same time as the series and just offensive as that show at it’s worst if not more so. This is flatly inexcusable.. par for the course for Disney’s incompetence but still horribly furstrating, disgusting and shameful.. which has been the theme of the last three days really. I expect better because when it comes to putting that warning label on this stuff, they usually are better. First the scheduling mixup and now this. You already do a handful of things wrong Disney why add this to the list?!

It’s just draining not only to run into another Disney Fuckup after a weekend of dealing with one of their worst in recent memory, but just to watch Djon. To see this horrible caractrure saunter onto the screen and go on with his harmful schtick, to see that THIS is what Ducktales 87 reduced non white people to more often than not.  It’s remarkable just how throughly and awesomely Frank and Matt completely and totally reversed this. Instead of horrible sterotypes in the reboot, we got TONS of loveable people of color, an endearing latino hero, a smart african american buisness woman who takes no shit but is still a consumate professional, and an egyptian HERO with an intresting story and a strong moral code instead of this horrible reminder that racisim in media was such an afterthought not ONE person brought this up during the scyfy wire stuff or in any inteview i’ve seen. No one cared. Djon was POPULAR enough that he got three episode sin the series. THREE FUCKING EPISODES. This film could be GOOD.. but it’s just so bogged down EVERY FUCKING TIME this artists interpreitation of what Tucker Carlson sees when he looks at a middle eastern person I had to pause to compose myself and had to take a break writing this review to avoid tyiping this in all caps and using the phrase YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS every other sentence. And again i’m white, I get this is second hand offensiveness.. I do... but it dosen’t mean I can’t be offended other white people were so callous about other cultures behaviors this happened.

And what makes me feel worse.. is that I just sorta... never thought about white people voicing non white characters. Things like this I noticed sure, I realize now part of the reason I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it was this alex jones version of a looney tune, but I do feel shame for not noticing or caring long before this. Sure I loved it when a character of color got played by a person of color.. but I didn’t realize just how deep that problem was and how LONG it went on for before the outcry post george floyd and the call to action lead to most shows still going course correcting. It’s why stuff like this extra botehrs me: because THIS was just as okay at the time. No one blinked twice about this and odds are the creators involved still haven’t. And that.. that’s just terrible and it hurts to think about and  I still have most of the movie to go.  

The Pyramid of Peril:

So we do get a gorgeous unvewling scene of a box Scrooge found out about from Collie Baba’s horde that should lead them to the treasure. This scene reminds me of Indina Jones.. and I bring this up because the poster was specifically made to mimick an indinia jones poster, to the point of getting drew struzan to do it. THe creator of Ducktales objected..l but I do not get WHY. While I”m not sure if he had yet, Speilberg flat out admits the Carl Barks comics were an inspiration for Indina Jones, with the iconic bolder chase coming from a similar scene in one of Barks Stories. Gotta cover that too. So yeah I don’t get not wanting an indina jones style poster when both were inspiried by the same work and it’s just simple logic and it looks so neat. Thank you. 

Scrooge finds seemingly just clothes.. and a map. Jeff Dunham’s Most Racist Puppet reports to his master, Merlock. Merlock is a.. meh villian. Christopher Lloyd does try.. but Lock is your standard evil overlord wants to take over the world type. He dosen’t have much depth, or personality and only his style saves him from dragging the film down along with Dana Carvey’s most racist disguise in master of disguise. He does have a deent shape shifting gimick and being played by Christopher Lloyd means he’s acted TREMENDOUSLY. Alan Young was apparently in awe watching him work and that’s wonderful to hear. The guy did his best. Weirdly Merlock would show up in tons of other works, mostly video games.. but even weirder he NEVER showed up in ducktales 2017. Both Djon and Gene would, Djon thankfully renamed we’ll get to all of that tommorow thank god. I need it after this. But Frank has outright said they didn’t use Merlock because there simply wasn’t anything they could do with him they couldn’t dow ith magica. My likely guess is the might of found a way to revamp him EVENTUALLY, it’s not like radical revamps weren’t there thing come on, they just had way more stories with Magica and didnd’t get around to it before the show was canceled. Just make him some sort of evil god or something. it’s what I might do. There’s a lot of angles with him. Though I would’ve still gotten christopher lloyd back. I mean most of the recasting is good but he’s still alive and deserved a better shot at things. 

So Merlock sends Djonn to go with scrooge as his guide to find the treasure, as there’s something of imense power within it. And I gotta ask WHY does Merlock need a minon. No really. This isn’t a situation like reboot magica where he’s trapped in another realm. He can shapeshift into any animal. We only see him use falcon, rat, cockroach and bear but theoritically he can become anything and bear alone is still a LOT. Why does he need this sterotype even other sterytopes ar eashamed of? The film dosen’t NEED Djonn. Just let Christopher Lloyd monologue and leave this post 911 propogranda cartoon at home. 

So our heroes nad rejected jar jar prototype head into the desert, and seemingly find nothing before finding a small pyramid all while Merlock follows desecretley as a mighty hawk. 

Scrooge makes the boys and Djon dig... because they clearly forgot the “work hard” part of his ethos. 

Our heroes unveil the pyramid... and while Merlock SAYS he searched the desert and I get it’s hard to see thourgh all of that.. the dude is immortal, had decades to search and had Mickey Rooney there on standby to force him to go comb the desert. I have an artist rendering of that hang on

So our heroes enter the pyramid and it goes.. really how you’d expect: there’s a bunch of traps our brave explorers have to pass, the boys minintpret a juinor woodchuck saying about loosing your marbles to mean using the ones they actually have which geninely comes in handy as they trip the traps and Rob SChinder as a carrot stumbles into one. Also launchpad is wearing a hawaiin shirt and shades. This has no baring on the plot, but it does bring the movie up a notch in my book and I question why the reboot never used this outfit. Then again they also never properly used Donald’s Quack Pack Outfit (Which bad show or not, is objectively awesome), or his Quack Shot Indiana Jones Riff Outfit, so  it’s not like there isn’t a presdecnt for not giving a character a cool costume change from a previous medium. I really should do a top 12 missed opportunities list for the 2017 cartoon.. the ideas for stuff are really piling up. 

OUr heroes eventually find the treasure which has insidiously clever security the more I think about it: at first I thought it had none, just a pit with some... scorpions? I mean their supposed to be but they look like they crawled out of the same stygian hole in the sky Doofus crawled out of. And if your asking me “wait which Doofus” the answer is both. Both these abominations crawled out of a stygian hole in the sky.

But the treasure is on a platform surrounded by scoprions with the only way out being the trap filled way they came in. Unless someone comes in with a full team and a bunch of lootin sacks, they aren’t getting out with EVERYTHING. They can steal SOME of the treasure but there’s no way to get any signifigant portion... and the team thing itself is an issue, something Collie defintely predicted being a thief himself: while some thieves can work well as a team, hence why we have four oceans movies 3/4 damn good, and for the record 12 is the bad one, 8 is how you do a soft reboot and a female led reboot right, a good chunk of professional crooks will turn on each other or try and swinldle... and tha’ts dangerous in a trap filled temple but hey some criminals ain’t so smart.  If they all were Rudy Gulliani wouldn’t have two razzies for preparing to pull his pants down, and have waved his phone around on tv like a dare for future adminstrations to arrest the shit out of him would he? 

But Scrooge has his family so they get loading. But not before Webby finds the lamp. Not knowing about it Scrooge has no intrest in it, but Webby does. We also get a really simple but hilarious gag where SCrooge dickers over the idea for a second.. before Webby picks up a Jeweled tiara to possibly take instead. The best gags to me are often the ones that just let the character’s perosnalities take the lead and bounce off each other. It’s why when I reviewed the four lilo and stitch crossovers recently I harped on character interaction as their biggest weakness: it’s what MAKES a good work for me. It’s why my faviorite comics and shows often follow a loveable group of disfunctional misfits. I like a group of big personalities who despite in theory should NOT be able to work making it work anyway. And it’s honeslty what’s made Scrooge last so long: Scrooge on his OWN is awesome.. but iwth the boys, donald, and in the case of this series and the reivival Webby and Launchpad, with people to bounce off of who he contrasts heavily with, from Launchapd’s buffonery to Webby’s inehrent sweetness in both versions, to the boys genuine honesty and sense of adventure.... it makes him truly stand out. He’s a great character on his own, don’t get me wrong.. but it’s the people around him that give him chances to show WHY. A good character on it’s own is fine and dandy.. a good character with other good characters around them is where it gets truly special. 

Merlock naturally bursts in and in a VERY Black Heron move needlesly outs what micheal bay sees when he closes his eyes as a bad guy... no really he grabs the guy with his talons as he captures the treasure and reveals he’s a bad guy. I don’t even get why keep Djonn alive. He’s done all Merlock possibly could’ve needed and Merlock is ruthless... this makes no sense and only happens because they need Djonn for later in the plot.

Our heroes barely escape, rafting out on the platform itself in a thrilling sequence.. but it’s the one right after that catches my attention. Scrooge utterly defeated, having searched for this treasure for forty years and unresponsive to everyone else. The anmation, coupled with the incomprable Alan young’s acting makes this the highlight of the film for me. Beneath the armor of wealth and skill.. is only a poor old man who just lost something he’s been chasing after most of his life. Scrooge tries his hardest not to be vunerable and both shows and the original comics all use that so when he truly is devistated like this, and i’ts belivible since this treasure is a personal goal of his and as someone who has had things that they seek out specifically, loosing them always hurts. It hurts to ALMOST reach a goal only to have it crumble out under you

But while this alone is good.. what’s next makes it great. Webby sweetly offers up the lamp. Scrooge turns it down, and her genuine gesture reinvgorates him and reminds us of who he is “I’ll find it if it takes another 40 years”> Scrooge may be bitter, mean and selfish a lot of the time.. but deep down, he’s a good man and one who will not give up, and a momentary setback can only stop him so long as long as he has his family to remind him of who he truly is.. and what’s truly important. It’s genuinely sweet and to me is also a reminder of why 87 Webby is a good character: Shes’ not perfect, her main personality trait is often Girl Sterotype”.. but she’s a genuinely sweet small child with a huge heart. It’s telling that while 17′ Webby is almost completely diffren,t and far better, that heart remains her biggest strength. Sure her reboot self could kill a man nad no one would ever find the body, but it’s her heart and empathy that makes that possible and makes her Webby.  That inherent loving nature is what makes Webby webby wether she’s a toddler having a tea party or a tween getting ready to intergoate a guy with a meat tenderizer while saying ‘Cute girl stuff”. 

Gene Genie Let’s Himself Go:

It’s a few days later and this is the point where it REALLY becomes obvious this was written as a bunch of episodes. Though to the film’s credit while it does ake this feel like a compliation movie as a result... it dosen’t hamper the film’s quality, condiment from Rush Limbaghs’ hot dog stand does that just fine, but once you notice it it’s impossible to unotice it. Weirdly though it seems chunked up into four episodes rather than the usual five, likely cutting down an episode, though I can’t see where they cut out material frankly if they did and i’ts just as likely they woudl’ve had to make one to fill in the space.

So Scrooge is in a mood, being grumpy with his secretary Mrs. Featherly, quackfaster in all but name, and having to be sent home. So while Duckworth goes to fetch him Webby polishes her treasure at long last readying for a tea party, something the boys roundly reject because their sexist little twits and swo were the writers or executies who assumed all little boys act the same. It’s easily my biggest pet peeve with the series as a whole: anytime this crops up with the boys it turns them into the worst dicks imaginable. It’s telling this, being mean about her wantin ga tea party with her surrogate brothersi s TAME. Normally they’ll say she can’t do things because she’s a girl or mock her hobies outright instead of just be mildly dickish. And while she dosen’t look much younger Webby is VERY CLEARLY, in this series anyway, supposed to be say 5 or 6 to the boys 8-10. 7 at most. SHe’s a small child and while it is realistic for older kids to bully younger ones, it’s not fun to watch. It’s why I get annoyed at all the big sibling bully characters.. some work, but most aren’t fun to watch because there’s nothing funny or intresting about it. It’s the same deal here. 

Thankfully that quickly goes away as the lamp moves when Webby rubs it and does so again to prove it did move. Huey finishes it and we’re introduced to Gene, the best part of the film.  Gene is a Genie and he takes a second to dart around before messing with the appliances in the kitchen, as he was last around during the time 1001 Nights Came About. Cleverly though, and so we thankfully don’t have 80 dozen fishout of water jokes that have already been done before. As you can probably guess i’m not a huge fan of time travel fish out of water stuff. Now from another dimensoin or planet, i’m on board with with Star Vs, Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan being great examples of this, as is the comic resident alien. (Despite having the wonderous Alan Tuduk the show sounds way more mean spirited and misses the entire point of the comic as given by the author in the credits, i.e. that the alien is supposed to NOT be a threat and just be gently waiting for a ride) The inverse is also good with Amphbia and owl house, taking a human and plopping them into our world. But time travel stuff just usually runs the same beats of “look at the shiny thing” and what not. The only time i’ve sene something SIMILAR work is with thor where their society is SIMILAR to vikings time but still it’s own thing.. it also gave us a classic gag in..

So yeah i’m glad they dropped this and instead had a clever way around it: Gene reads the encylopedia at the mansion. Granted it’s Scrooge so I don’t know how current it is and given this came out in 1990 thus HOW racist it is. It’s not a questoin of IF it was, but how much.

But having caught up the kids confront him with the fact he has to grant wishes. This lamp runs on what I now realize are Aladdin rules: Whoever currently holds the Lamp is the Genie’s master, they only get three wishes, and that dosen’t reset if it changes hands. The only big diffrence from the usual is Gene dosen’t have to TELL them about the wishes like Genie did, and Gene very begrudginly agrees to it. He also seem’s phsyically pained when doing so. 

So since all 12 know about him, each of the kids gets a wish though it seems unfair with HDL. Their one person, they shoudln’t get 9 wishes just because their brain is spread out over three bodies. 

This film continues the weird simliarties to Aladdin by attaching rules though they instead come up as a result of our heroes talking rather than the Genie just flat out tleling them: both share the “you can’t wish for more wishes” thing, a common rule in these stories and usually only broken nowadays as a clever twist as the rule is SO common place, not having it is a twist. But it is there for a reason: to limit the sheer power of a reality warping wish. The wishes can also only go so far. In a nice line, when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests wishing for peace one earth, Gene says “No pipe dreams’ He can’t bend people or reality on THAT scale. He can bend reality as we find out, but it’s smaller scales like turning someone’s possesions over ot someone else, warping the bin into a castle, or bringing inanitamte objects to limited life. Still HUGE feats worth of a genie, so Gene’s power isn’t so nerfed it’s unusuable, but it does explain why his evil pervious ownder Merlock, more ont hat in a bit too, didn’t just wish to have eternal dominon over the earth or something. Gene can do just about anything but he can’t change the world on a fundemental level. 

And I do LIKE having rules in wished based stories like this, I chalk it up to growing up with Fairly Odd Parents... though they eventually went too far in the oppsoitie direction, pulling rules out of their ass to suit the episode, instead of simply having some very standard, very understandable rules that still pose challenges but don’t outright cheat so the episode can happen. 

So Webby does her first wish.. and wishes for a Baby Elephant, something Gene is against as he prefers they keep the wishes small: otherwise he gets found out, and the fight over him begins. So one of the boys wishes him away. Or Webby does. Point is it’s gone though not before Beakly sees it and Scrooge smells something is up. Our heroes try to hide gene, but gene thankfully simply dresses up like a modern kid and thus is able to pass as a friend of there staying for the night. 

So with the rules established and what not the kids find a clever solution: they simply go a ways away from the mansion into the woods, far enough from town to avoid any suspcion, and same iwth the mansion and just wish for all kinds of stuff: a giant bunch of ice cream toys, standard kid wish fufillment but it’s nice... in part because the kids treat Gene like one of them. Wihle they STARTED asking him about the wishes, this starts the bonding process. Soon he will be part of the hive mind.. SOON. 

Until then though after using another wish to make scrooge not mad at them for coming home late and missing dinner, that night we find out Gene’s backstory.... and it’s an utter tearjerker. As it turns out Merlock wants him back because he’s Gene’s former master and as you’d guess.. it was NOT a happy existnace, used contstnatly to do horrible things with no power to stop himself. Pompeii and Atlantis were both directly Merlock’s fault and it was only Collie Baba stealing the lamp that put an end to his hell. He also answers the two obvious questions botht he audeiince and the boys have: How the hell is Merlock still alive and shoudln’t he be out of wishes then? The first is simple. Unlike pretty much every DBZ Villian whose WANTED to do so, Merlock wished for immortality first chance he got, taking the Zamasu route instead and thus leaving him free. 

As for the wishes thing it turns out his amulet, in adition to shapeshifting, also gives him extra wishes becuase fuck it. 

But the boys sweetly offer to protect him. 

The next day, Apu’s Cousin let’s Merlock know the maps in the mansion and Merlock has him help sneak in with Merlock taking rat form. This backfires as Mrs. Beakley notices the form and chases after him with a broom

Meanwhile Webby has her tea party with Gene after he and the boys played cops and robbers earlier, and he’s bored.. though nicely not because it’s a girly thing, but because the stuffed animals aren’t alive and she naively has him fix that. This leads to 

Which sadly is jsut scrooge vs a duck toy but admit it, you want that movie for Disney Plus yesterday. Call Charles Band Disney. CALL CHARLES BAND! 

Whelp Scrooge Still Sucks:

Scrooge takes for a turn for the obnoxious in the next part, but i’ts fine by me as it’s part of the plot. Naturally this reinactment of Cult of Chucky has lead to Scrooge finding out about the Genie. To his credit, Scrooge is tactical about his wishes. As said by the Duck himself “I could wish for a diamond, no the world’s biggest dimaond, no ten world’s biggest diamond, no a diamond mind, no the MINING INDUSTRY!”

The sheer power this gives him is TERRIFYING, both because of his status.. and because unlike the kids who all wished for simple kid stuff and used up their wishes quickly, he both gets how much he can do with this and could conquer the world economy if he truly wanted to. 

The obnoxious part comes in as he treats Gene as not a person, figuring he’s just there and forces him into the lamp despite the kids protests after Gene grants his first wish: Collie Baba’s treasure. It also dosen’t feel like the wishing nor him using the lamp to get the tresure back goes against his hard work ethos: for the former while he is getting all this magically, he’s still having ot use his wits to get the most out of it, and he did earn the lamp itself square. For the latter, he already earned the treasure square too and had it stolen. He’s onlyg etting back what’s by all rights HIS. Granted he plans on giving most of it up for a tax break but still it’s his by right. 

However the reason his assholery works is twofold: first it’s Scrooge. While he’s not a TERRIBLE person, in the comcis and this cartoon he isn’t a GOOD person either. He DOES have a good heart and will usually do the right thing, but his first instnct is always to get more money and to be a cantakerous old bastard to eveyrone and everything. While he’s subtly grew out of “I hate eveyrone and everyone hates me” as his guiding principal, it’s still his defualt reaction to most situations. But he first relents by letting Gene attend the party, part of why the Collie Baba thing stung so bad was that he’s told the historical society he’d get the treasure for years only to come back empty handed, if shrunken. But he still manages to have a good time while Asok and Merlock infiltrate.. well I’mRunningOutofINsultingNIcknamesCanYouTell steals the silverware. Yes... that.. that really happens. 

Look we’re almost done, i’m almost free of this racist mummies curse. Let’s continue. Gene sees melock and freaks and drags SCrooge with him and while at First Scrooge is cranky...

No but now I want a Donkey Kong Country crossover too dammmit. And to talk about those games. Another thing for the list. But Scrooge is righ tot be a bit surly...

Okay now your just pushing it. As Gene whisked him away without telling him anything other than vauge worries... but then he gets a full idea of why Gene’s so terrified when Merlock shapeshifts into a bear and starts breaking the door down. Eh, could be worse. 

Gene shrinks them to escape and Merlock leaves thinking they fled but leaves Skids Minus Mudflap to go look for them. Scrooge sneaks out but bumps into a cart running from the photo you see when you look up stereotype on google. I mean I assume.. let’s try it. 

Huh you know I HOPED but I never expected... 

So Google Proving My Point plans to give his lamp to the master because of his weird Torgo-Esque obession with helping a man who clearly wants to murder him but takes his sweet time doing so because plot, and Gene figuring this COULDN’T POSSIBLY go as bad as Melock getting him urges the dummy to keep him and make his own wishes.

This goes about as well as you’d expect....

Wiped Out With A Wish:

Scrooge returns home to find Watto has wished to take his poessions, fortune, everything and Scrooge gets thrown in jail for breaking into his own house. We get two great moments back to back. The first is Scrooge lamenting loosing his fortune in jail, and realizing the sheer power and risk of the lamp, especially since he worked hard to earn it, every bit of it.. and Sam Wilson’s 70′s Backstory came in and took it all in an instant. 

The second is Scrooge’s family coming for him, including Launchpad , Beakly and Webby obviously and bailing him out. Though Beakly is UNGOLDLY annoying in this scene, sobbing hysterically and adding nothing and it’s not nearly as funny as the  film thinks. Turns out Goliath getting buried wrapped in chains threw them out. 

Scrooge takes a bit to rebound from all this.. but eventually realizes something: he knows the security of the bin inside and out. He had it put in after all. So it’d be easy enough to break in. So they gotta break in to break out the lamp, undo this nightmare, and END THIS MOVIE. Seriously this review has taken two days  as is I do NOT want to miss my invincible review. 

So they break into the bin, and it’s a tightly paced Scene, scrooge going in one way while the kids go the other and we even get a nice callback as the marbels come in handy to get past one of the traps. It’s just a good scene. it’s only real flaw is that Launchapd just sorta disappears as does Duckworth despite the fact their in a plane, and the bin later gets turned into a floating castle. Kinda a plot hole to not have Launchpad crash in to save htem just saying. 

Scrooge eventually does get to Djonn, whose been ignoring the imminent threat of Merlock while Gene sweats it out... and this backfires horribly as Merlock hitched a ride as a roach (Though there was a hilarious scene of him getting fried constnatly by lasers when Louie went through a laser hallway, as while Louie had the directions, it dind’t take into account passengers on your head. 

So Merlock remanifests in full gets the Lamp and unleashes his wrath on Tin Tin in the Congo and turns him into a wild pig. 

Not you sweetie. He then forces Gene to turn the castle into a fortress and float it back to his home in parts unknown. It’s a DAMN cool scene with impressive and horrifiing animation as the bin melts and crumbles into thte castle and the kids barely make it up the stares as they shift and disolve. Really top notch stuff.

Scrooge stands up to Merlock... and this naturally goes poorlyw ith Gene begging Merlock not to respond.. and Merlock having him blow scrooge off the top of the forgtess storm eagle style, though scrooge understands. And this is the true reason why scrooge being a dick didn’t bother me so much. Because it helps create a great contrast between him and Merlock. Both thought of Gene as a tool rather than a person.. but Scrooge grew to realize he was wrong and what he was dealing with wasn’t some magical goodies creator.. but a child forced to constantly grant wishes, in sheer agony to do so no less, likely so sick of it because again and again and again people used him as a slave to get what they wanted and to hell with what Gene wanted. He realized he was terrible for making this poor boy into his slave simply because that’s his job. In contrast Merlock could give no shits and is a malevolent monster who glefully uses Gene despite the pain the wishes put him through and his protests. It’s why Gene is the best part.. he’s  athroughly likeable, throughly inncoent character with tons of personality and a truly tragic and horrifying backstory and Rip Taylor acts the hell out of every scene with the guy. 

Thankfully the marbles come in handy one last time and Huey, Dewey or Louie snipes the lamp away and a struggle for it insues between Scrooge and Merloc mid air. it’s fucking awesome.. and it get sbetter in how scroogewins. He simply gets rid of Merlock’s amulet, taking it then throwing it. Grante dhe COULD’EVE used it for unimited wishes.. but it was too risky to do that and as we’ll see in the ending , Scrooge realized the Lamp was too powerful to keep around for much longer and too much of a tempting target for his rogues.. not that we see them this movie as the crew wanted it to bea ccesaible and thus kept hte cast to the main cast from season 1 and just made new vilians and a new supporting character, but still. 

He does use his second wish though to undue the damage Merlock had done and the bin and clan mcduck are returned to duckburg in good condition.

Time for our ending, which is genuinely and wholly touching. With the lamp too dangerous to use Scrooge considers just sending it to the earth’s core, which horrifies the kids as it’d mean Gene would be trapped there forever... if the molten lava iddn’t just outright destory the lamp and probably kill him. But Scrooge.. isn’t the bastard he likes to potray himself as. Instead he makes Gene into a real boy. He gives the poor kid HIS wish, which designrates the lamp and undoes all the spells... so Merlock is PROBABLY dead but he does return for some games so maybe not? 

And so we end on two things: Gene happily playing cops and robbers with the boys finally free.. and Birth of A Nation grabbing all the loot he can in his patns and running off. Ha ha ha thank god i’m done with this prick. And no I will not be looking at his ducktales episodes unless I have to. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is OKAY. It has a solid plot, gene is a wonderful chacter, the animatoin is pretty prettay pretty good, and the voice acting as usual is excellent, with Rip Taylor being the standout. 

But as my paragraphs of rage shoud’ve made Clear Djonn is just BAD. Easily the worst character i’ve encountered in my year of reviewing and some of the worst writing i’ve ran into. And that writing includes a goblin man voyerstically forcing two teenagers to make out, making jokes about santa renaming himself Clem the sceneafter he tearfully confessed to letting the elves and ms. claus die, accidental transphobia via the u-men, and Bryan Lee O malley thinking we needed more than one volume of Julie Powers being around.  This was disgusting, even by 1990 standards and especially by 2021 standards and it drags the film down considerably. Without it the film is okay.. with it the film is just VERY hard to watch any time he pops up.  He made getting through the movie a nightmare and while I pause a lot becaue it’s a bad habbit I did so more simply because as I said earlier in the review I could not stand him. 

It makes it a hard film to recommend. If you can stomach the racisim, then it might be worth it, but be aware of what your putting up with going in. But if you can’t.. there’s no shame in that, it’s carbombya levels of bad. Which yes was a real fictoinal country. It was so bad Casey Casem quit transformers over it. True story. So yeah, it’s an okay film, on par with the series at it’s best for the most part.. but Djonn just spoils it for me. 

If you liked this review, like it, share it around that sort of thing and if you want MORE disney movie reviews, in addiiton to the goofy movie one later this month, if you help me hit my 25 dollar stretch goal on patroen.com/popculturebuffet, i’ll do reviews of the Recess, Proud Family and Kim Possible MOvies (Well so the drama anyway), so help me out would you and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

[jamlavender]

Babies & bathwater: Marisa, Asriel and Lyra’s impending existence

After writing this post about adult Lyra’s relationships with her parents if they’d survived the trilogy – a piece of character analysis paired with my fic Unholy Ghosts – and really enjoying doing so, I’ve decided to write another one, to match with my latest fic Force of Nature, which tells the story of Lyra’s actual birth (this also relates to much of Silver Bullet too). So much care and analysis go into writing fics and it seems a shame not to share that! Here’s my take on Marisa and Asriel’s feelings about Lyra while Marisa was pregnant and in the immediate aftermath of her birth.

Asriel  

Aside from the logistics of having a baby with his secret lover, I think Asriel would have been very relaxed about the prospect of fatherhood – perhaps even, dare I say it, excited – because he wouldn’t have seen having a child, even under stressful circumstances like these, as any threat to his aims whatsoever. He’s a lord, richer than the king, with an almost supernatural ability to have his needs met with a simple call into the void. For the few months that Lyra is in ‘his’ care, she lives with a nurse in a different house to him (maybe even a different city most of the time, as Ma Costa and Lyra’s cottage was part of Asriel’s estate in Oxfordshire and he likely spent a lot of time in London). For Asriel – like all men of his social class – the daily drudgery and tangible, explicit love that parenthood requires would have been foreign concepts. He could have a child – as, I presume, he’d considered he might one day, should the circumstance arise – and continue his antitheist crusades. Those two things are not in conflict at all. Nor, do I think, he’d have seen Marisa as having to make a choice between her ambitions and motherhood either (if she’d left Edward and joined him) because there’d have been a seemingly endless pot of money and reams of staff to meet Lyra’s needs if her mother would rather have been doing something else.  

I also think that he’d have been pleased to be having a child with a woman that he loved, particularly when there’d no doubt been months or years of push-pull between them, about their relationship, about secrecy, about choosing to be together (or not), about ownership and love and jealousy. He’d have felt that them having a child together was yet another compelling reason she should leave her husband for him, and perhaps even have been hopeful as a result. I also think he’d have been childishly pleased that, after her keeping him and their love in the shadows for so long, there now existed some glaring proof of their relationship. He’s not a man who likes to be overlooked or ignored, after all. And, while I’m probably projecting here, I wonder if the scientist in him might have found something about pregnancy and birth interesting, because while reproduction and childbirth are common, they are also physiological marvels (my reproductive physiology course was my favourite module at university, can you tell?).

I do wonder, though, if the plan for him to take the baby was agreed in advance of her birth, regardless of what the newborn looked like, only because it’s so rare (if it ever happens?) for it to be clear within minutes of birth which of two men might have fathered the new child – unless the two men are of different races, a possibility explored beautifully in the fics The Image of the Father and this be the verse. In fact, the much greater risk would have been that, after being an indistinguishable pink potato at birth, Lyra grew up to be Asriel’s spitting image, when it would have been impossible to spirit her away or fake her death. I could believe that Marisa had decided long before the birth to give the child away regardless, both from her (lack of) personal feelings and the reasonable fear that their secret might instead be discovered years down the line, when the consequences could have been much more severe.

I don’t think Marisa’s suspicion of the child and lack of maternal inclination would have bothered Asriel, particularly relating to her work (I mean, as soon as he loses all the money that enables Lyra’s existence to have no impact on his day-to-day life, he dumps her in favour of his work without a second thought). Rather, he’d have been upset about Marisa’s rejection of Lyra because he’d see it as extension of her rejecting him over and over again. He’d never understood why she wouldn’t leave her husband to be with him – he could provide money, freedom, fascinating work, intellectual partnership, raw love and attraction – and now they’ve had a child together, and still she chooses to walk away. That’s what would have gutted him, I think, especially when it seems obvious to him that they can have their cake and eat it too: they can pursue their ambitions and raise their child, largely because someone else will do the bulk of the latter. Marisa, of course, had always felt differently about the real feasibility of that. His rage at Marisa rejecting him through Lyra would only have been intensified when Marisa surrendered the baby to the Church, which was surely the deepest and worst knife she could twist, leading “all the anger in him to turn against her.” (I forget the exact quote, but I think that’s pretty close). 

Marisa

Marisa would have resented the baby’s existence from the start (I choose to assume that she always knew the baby was Asriel’s, though if she didn’t – which is not out of the realm of possibility at all – that would have been stressful in a different way). Here was proof of her infidelity, proof of her inability to resist the cardinal sin of lust, and a person that might well grow up to have Asriel’s face, who was going to emerge from her body and either be a nightmare to spirit away and keep hidden or a burden (and a secret!) she was forced to bear for the rest of her life. Asriel’s generally blasé attitude about the whole thing would no doubt have infuriated her, as would Edward’s attempts to involve himself in a pregnancy in which he’d played no part. I think she’d have been stressed and miserable and resentful.

Pregnancy and birth must also have been a nightmare for her. The loss of control over her body as another grew inside it, the weight gain and hormones, and, surely most of all, the loss of her ability to use her sexuality to control those around her. The Church might revere motherhood, but they don’t desire it, which would have been a disaster for her, someone for whom manipulating the desire of others was her most beloved political strategy. It’s also very base, a reminder of our animal functions, and as someone who has a complicated relationship with her more instinctive feelings and seems keen to obliterate them as much as possible in favour of repression and manufactured poise, that must have been very uncomfortable. I think she’d have hated it.

Given, though, that she develops an expansive love for Lyra in the end, I did want to sow the seeds for that when her daughter was born (though twelve years is a long time, and I don’t think it’s impossible that she’d have discarded her daughter at birth and simply changed her mind all those years later, but I find it more interesting to make it a little more emotionally complex than that). I think she’d have been in shock, particularly from the pain and vulnerability of birth, but also confronted with an actual person she’d made, with a person she loved deeply, no less. She’d then do an excellent job of repressing those feelings, but I could believe that there was a short time where the fact she’d actually had a child, Asriel’s child, was impossible for her to ignore, despite the chaos, emotional or otherwise, that recognition would cause. That’s how I conceive of both Asriel and Marisa’s immediate reactions to Lyra after her birth, actually: that they’d have spent the pregnancy ignoring their impending arrival, either from glibness about its potential significance (Asriel) or repressing her fears about being discovered or saddled with a baby (Marisa), and only when they were confronted with their actual child did they realise they might have created something here that they couldn’t control as easily as they’d expected. That sums up Lyra’s role in both their lives in the trilogy, I think: she pushes them both because they can’t control her, not what she does nor the emotions she evokes in them, and they both find that unbearable.  

[maxwell-grant]

Downfall of a Dark Avenger Part 1: El Sombra

Having finished reading Al Ewing’s El Sombra trilogy and having had enough time to digest it, I’d like to talk about the trajectory of it’s titular protagonist, the character and series’s relationship with it’s influences. Relating to The Shadow and Zorro and general pulp archetypes, and also the way it incorporates Astro Boy’s Pluto into the mix. My interest in Pluto’s imagery led to me reading Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, and I will go into the correlation between all of these seemingly random sources coming together. 

But before we can talk about what El Sombra becomes, we must talk about what he is, and where he starts.

The very first chapter of El Sombra is dedicated to establishing the happy scenery of the village of Pasito, as a big wedding is drawing the entire town together, eager to see one of it’s greatest heroes marry his sweetheart. We get a great description of said hero Heraclio...and then the reveal that the character we’re gonna be following for the rest of the story is not Heraclio, but instead his loser brother Djego, a morose, slow-witted poet largely considered a joke by the village, currently being rejected and beaten by the love of his life, which is just about the 2nd worst thing that happens to him that day, followed by winged Nazis storming the village, murdering scores of men, women and children, killing Djego’s brother as he watches helplessly, and then said brother cursing Djego with his dying breath as Djego just barely escapes into the desert, with nothing but a sword and a wedding sash in hand. Djego is probably the last man in the village anyone could have possibly expected to become a hero (which may be part of why he ended the way he did). 

Cut to 9 years later, Pasito has been transformed into a mechanized nightmare, a clockwork city of endless toiling and suffering ruled by Nazis, freely enacting their every dark whim on it’s population, revealed to be little more than just a large-scale experiment conducted by the Nazis to increase workforce enough to match Britain’s. After two agonizing chapters with little more than Nazi atrocities to occupy our time, we get our first look at the intrepid hero, Djego. And how does El Sombra introduce himself? Through laughter.

The laughter. Rich and strong, echoing around the square, freezing the milling workers in their tracks. An awful laugh - a terrible laugh of hope and joy and strength! A sound that had not been heard in the clockwork-town for nine years.

as the sound of laughter echoed across the town, the men shuddered and glanced at each other briefly, as though hearing the first sounds of an approaching storm.

The smile on the creature's face was powerful and confident and utterly unafraid. To Alexis, it seemed like the smile the devil might have in the deepest pits of Hell.

For the most part, El Sombra is heavily modeled after Zorro. He’s got Zorro’s swashbuckling fighting style, wields primarily a sword, his main outfit is styled partially after Douglas Fairbanks’s costume, he can be quite friendly and charming and peppers an “amigo” at every sentence. His name is the same as Diego’s minus one letter, his main enemies specifically consist of tyrants who rule over his town, and his mission of vengeance gradually turns him into a rebellious, inspirational figure for the city he strives to liberate. El Sombra is Zorro vs Nazis and it delivers on that.

But nothing is ever quite as it seems in this trilogy, and the first installment of El Sombra goes to great lenghts to establish that El Sombra is a long, long way from being the pure and heroic fantasy that Zorro embodies. He doesn’t live in a world where problems can be solved with guile, luck, good swordplay and a good smile. He doesn’t live in a world where he can show up, humble imperialists and get the people behind him. He lives in a world where the only recourse available to him, to even stand a chance, was nine years of an extended fugue state trip through the desert, ingesting hallucinogens, having his soul shattered and then repaired into something much, much darker. And it’s in those moments that we start to see why exactly his name is El Sombra.

There was something in his voice as cold and unyielding as a gravestone.

"Djego is dead, Father Santiago. He was useless and stupid and pathetic. And he died and left good flesh behind. So I took his place." The eyes behind the mask met Santiago's then, and the priest breathed in sharply. There was nothing of Djego in them. There was nothing human in them.

Something bigger had lodged there, something stronger and faster than a man, something with a laugh that could shake mountains and a spirit like hot iron and fire. Something better.

"I am his shadow. El Sombra."

Atop of his inhuman speed and agility and skill at combat and murder, Djego repeteadly demonstrates skills and traits that, not only did he not have prior, but he couldn’t have picked simply in his desert sojourn. He knows how to apply advanced first aid, he speaks German, in Gods of Manhattan he is able to get the drop on Blood-Spider with a textbook Shadow hypnotic trick, and for all of those, the only explanation he gives is a shrug and “I picked it up somewhere”. Djego had the same trip to the unknown that defined The Shadow and so many other pulp heroes, except Ewing never provides any explanation for El Sombra’s advanced skills other than what the character says. Because there is no explanation. El Sombra is bigger than that. 

El Sombra has to be, because a mere man with training and skills and strength and inspirational heroism isn’t going to cut it against what he’s up to. His brother had all of those things, and he died in the first chapter. Like The Shadow, El Sombra has warped himself to address calamity upon mankind, and morphed into something bigger and darker than just another vigilante. 

In that moment, El Sombra knew himself to be no longer a man. He was, instead, what the ticking clock had made of him. He was a monster.

In fact, with the devil imagery Ewing grants upon El Sombra at points, and the reocurring “itch in the back of the skull” prelude to crucial moments, you can pinpoint exactly the points where El Sombra’s character traits would later manifest in Immortal Hulk, with Ewing’s reinvention of the Hulk plumbing the darkest possible alternatives for said character by digging into the greater horror roots of the character. This will be more relevant when we get to Pluto though.

But to put it plainly, Djego may be Zorro in every aspect at his surface. He may desperately strive to be Zorro, and it may be his Zorro traits that allow him to truly save Pasito. But Djego is not Zorro. He is El Sombra, as illustrated most in the following sequence. The moment where he pulls the most Shadow-esque destruction of a Nazi ever since The Shadow convinced a Nazi general to gut himself with his own sword.

The chained man began to laugh. Softly at first, then louder, the sound rolling through the quiet, cold room like the skeletons of winter leaves in a chill and bitter wind. It was not a laugh of joy, or of hope, or of strength, or of anything associated with sunlight and clean air. It was a laugh that belonged in these dank and fetid conditions, a snide chuckle, a sneering, contemptuous snicker. A laugh like a thousand beetles marching across a sheet of glass.

It was a sound that would have been sickeningly familiar to anyone who had once been a guest of the Palace Of Beautiful Thoughts. The old man started back, looking at the features of his chained captive, breathing in sharply as the handsome face of the terrorist became foreign and strange, warped by the noise emanating from it. He recognised the sound too, recognised the dry, hollow chuckle. And it chilled him.

The chained man turned his head, as though on aged bones, and smiled, a dry and sinister grin. And then he spoke. And the voice that came from his throat did not belong to El Sombra at all.

The chained man spoke with Master Minus' voice.

The chained man's smile froze him in his tracks. It promised terrible cruelty, a mephistophilean love of manipulation, and the eyes sparkled with fire from the depths of Hell itself. The old man sucked in another breath scented with sickly yellow and looked desperately away, to find himself staring once again at the mirror, at the face that was surely not his own...

The old man, who suddenly felt neither old nor a man, raised his hands, fingertips touching the aged, wrinkled face with the unfamiliar eyes. Could he fool himself that his fingertips travelled across soft, worn flesh, lined with years of service? Or was he feeling sterile plastic, soft, loose latex? He shuddered, the motion travelling up his spine, his hands shivering and twitching as he tugged ...

"Take off the mask."

... and the old, wrinkled, false face was torn away, coming off in long strips, pulled away bit by bit to reveal another face underneath. His eyes were wide, unblinking, unable to close as he stared at the face underneath, the face that had been there all the time.

Behind him, the thin beetle-voice spoke once more.

And this is what it said:

"APRIL FOOL! Quién es el hombre? Quién es el hombre? I'm the hombre! I'm the hombre! Now all I need are some pants."

El Sombra grinned down from the vertical rack at Master Minus, slumped on his knees in front of the blood spattered mirror, staring without eyelids at the remains of his face. He had succeeded in tearing all of the flesh from it, and all that remained were a few scraps of muscle clinging to a crimson, bloodstained skull, with two grotesque eyeballs gazing mercilessly at their own reflection. El Sombra smiled and did the voice, again while he made another attempt to work his left hand free of the shackle that held it in place.

"Creatures of the night... what music... they make... I vant to suck your blooood... yeah, you keep looking, amigo. Intense shame boosted by mind-warping drugs, hey? That's very original, I wouldn't know what that's like at all... ah, these bastard cuffs!" He was babbling, a result of the endorphin rush from the intense pain and the thrill of victory. 

The yellow mist coursing through his veins - the mist Master Minus relied on so heavily - had been counterbalanced by the Trichocereus Validus already in his system, the desert cactus that had destroyed and rebuilt his mind. But while El Sombra was in a stronger position than the torturer realised, Master Minus was weaker than he knew, far too used to the easy victories the mist brought him, not realising that his own exposure to it made him ripe for psychological attack. The old man had spent years claiming that he was immune to the yellow mist, but nobody had ever been in a position to test that claim - until now.

In the end, El Sombra is able to drive the Nazis out of Pasito, and he’s succeded in ultimately inspiring the population to rally against them, eventually winning not because of said darkness granting him power, but by turning said darkness into a tool of good. The true victories of El Sombra are not in the violence, but in selfless heroism, in actions big and small. And in the end, He’s given even the opportunity of a happy ending, to settle down in the town he’s wanted so long to rescue. And if this were the story of Djego, the poet turned hero of his hometown, that’s where it would end. 

But this is not Djego’s story. It’s the story of a man who’s destroyed himself to be rebuilt as an avenging force of nature. Someone who’s subsumed as much of his humanity as he could, who now can see and done things much beyond the scope of ordinary man, and now must pay the price of said terrible gifts. Who will pay much, much bigger prices for them in the future. It’s the story of El Sombra, and it’s only just begun:

It was too bad about Djego. El Sombra regretted little, but he regretted denying Djego that one small chance at happiness. But it couldn't be helped.

Until Adolf Hitler was dead, El Sombra could never rest

The man walked west, towards the sinking sun.

[solar-pxwered]

A List Of Norman Reedus Movies/Shows I Have Seen And My Opinions On Them

1. The Boondock Saints

The Best. A classic. Bloody and inappropriate and if I remember my count correctly, contains 194 “fucks” or variations of it (this movie certainly illustrates the diversity of the word). Terrible Irish accents. A KICKASS soundtrack. Willem DeFoe crossdressing. Dropping toilets on people’s heads. Over the top action sequences. Cheesy dialogue. Campy as fuck. I freakin’ love it.

2. The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

Some people didn’t like this one as much as the first one, and I admit that I wasn’t as fond of the new detective in this one as I was of Smecker...but, overall, I really enjoyed it and I drove 2 hours to see it in theaters. I love Romeo more than Rocco. The humor was on point. It was nice to see the original actors for Doc, Dolly, Duffy and Greenley. There was more terrible Irish accents, another KICKASS soundtrack, cheesy dialogue, over the top action sequences, still campy as fuck. I freaking love it.

3. The Walking Dead

Cannot even describe how much I love this show. I have ALWAYS loved zombie related shows and movies so this show was right up my alley from the very beginning all the way back in 2010. I watched it religiously every Sunday. I adore this roller coaster ride of a show and I especially adore Daryl, Carol and Jerry. This show has it all: Comedy, drama (hella lots of that), tragedy and triumph...and it never fails to pulls me in and hold my interest.

4. Mimic

Honestly, I saw this a LONG time ago and I hated it because...well, because I have a cockroach phobia, ok?! Don’t judge. Norman’s part was pretty small, not one of his lasting impressions on me.

5. Six Ways To Sunday

This is a weird one. It’s about an overly innocent 18 year (played by Norman) who gets involved in the Mob and develops an alter ego that’s violent and his complete opposite. There’s murder, prostitutes and good ol’ fashioned mother-son incest and it wasn’t a movie I suggest for the lighthearted or anyone with those sort of triggers. 

That being said, I watched the whole thing and didn’t hate it. It was just uncomfortable...as seems to be a theme with Norman Reedus movies.

6. Dark Harbor

This fucking movie...

Ok, so, I’ll be straight with you: I really enjoyed this dumbass movie. It had me guessing right up to the very end and it took me on a very strange ride along the way. 

If watching someone sexually feed a woman a poisonous mushroom, lots of dark eyed staring scenes or Norman Reedus making out with Alan Rickman is your thing, then go for it. 

7. Let the Devil Wear Black

It’s modern Hamlet. What else is there to say? If you like Hamlet, you’ll like this movie. If you like pre-car accident, baby face Reedus with the black hair, you’ll like this movie. I liked it.

8. 8MM

You know what the best thing about this movie is? Nicholas Cage. He steals the damn show no matter what movie he’s in and no one can even deny that fact. Norman’s part in this one is pretty small too but I liked this movie anyway because...well, Nick Cage. Enough said.

9. Bad Seed

I honestly can’t remember how this movie ends, all I remember was that it wasn’t at all how I expected it. I liked this movie because it’s a psychological thriller and that’s my most favorite genre of all time. The movie’s premise is a guy suspects his wife of having an affair and comes home one night and finds her murdered so he goes after her lover (Reedus) to try and kill him because he believes he was the one who killed her. It’s a cat and mouse chase sort of thing...now I need to rewatch it because I can’t, for the life of me, remember how it ends.

10. Gossip

Ok, no JOKE, this is the best movie I ever randomly discovered and I can’t believe how many people have never heard of it! It’s got some big names in it (Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, James Marsden and Kate Hudson to name a few).

It’s a psychological thriller/mystery drama in which three friends start a rumor at their school as a social experiment for their class. The rumor grows, however, and suddenly it’s out of their hands and spiraling out of control. People start getting hurt, reputations get dragged through the mud and then it escalates to the point of someone losing their life. The three main characters {Reedus, Headey and Marsden) try to figure out the truth behind the out of control rumors and discover more than they ever imagined, or ever wanted.

I HIGHLY recommend this movie. I really, REALLY do. The ending is one of the best twists I’ve seen in a LONG time.

11. The Beatnicks

This movie is so weird. It’s like...it’s just really weird. It revolves around two beat poets who find a magic box that somehow magically helps them get good at being poets but it’s like...an evil box and so they decide to only use it once and then get rid of it. Yeah, it’s a weird movie. Not my highest suggestion.

12. Blade II

Ok, if you’ve never seen the Blade Trilogy then I just don’t even know what to tell you. 

My favorite of the three movies, Blade 2 gives us the glorious Reedus character of Scud, the pot smoking, horrible-shirt-wearing, mechanical genius and Blade’s sidekick. Not only is he precious and adorable, the movie in all is enjoyable and has a fun rave-esque soundtrack. 

The one thing I hate? *SPOILER ALERT* Scud’s scummy betrayal.

13. Tough Luck

This is another one of those movies that I liked but it’s just so freaking weird. 

It’s a psychological drama where a down on his luck con artist, Archie (Reedus), tries to rip off a carnival worker and gets caught. As punishment, he’s hired to work at the carnival  to pay off the debt. He gets involved in a scheme to murder the owner’s wife, but falls in love with her in the process.

Things go to shit. He gets the short end of the stick. More plots and lies develop. It’s all twisted until the end and the answers fall into place.

I really like this movie, it’s one that I kept and still have my copy of. 

A word of warning though, never leave this movie on your movie shelf for your father to find and watch while you’re away at college, resulting in your mother calling you and asking you why you have such a nasty movie. Because the sex scene at the end is OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, it is the FUNNIEST fucking sex scene I have ever seen in my life and I can’t ever watch it without cringing and laughing. My mother, however, didn’t think it was funny at all and my father was too shocked to even form a sentence.

I highly suggest this trippy as hell movie.

14. Octane

Ok, to be fair, this movie is actually alright, although Norman’s character gets the shittiest death possible. I mean, imagine dying because some psycho vampire kisses you and bites your tongue out. That’s one shitty death.

But, overall, this is a good thriller. Johnathan Rhys Meyers plays the villain and he’s always pretty quality. The story is basically a teenager has a disagreement with her mom and gets picked up by this drugged up, blood sucking, vampire wannabe cult and indoctrinated joining them. Her mother joins up with a tow truck driver (Reedus) whose daughter was also kidnapped years ago and who has been hunting the cult down ever since. 

It was a cringe filled, yet interesting, movie and I didn’t hate it.

15. John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns

This is John Carpenter....OF COURSE I liked this one. 

I won’t say what it’s about because that would ruin the story, but it’s part of an anthology and John Carpenter loved Norman’s role so much he STILL talks about it today and suggests Norman to people in the industry.

It’s a good one if you’re into horror shorts or anthologies or the genius of the legend that is John Carpenter.

16. A Crime

I had completely forgotten about this movie until I started making this post, but now that I remember...I REALLY liked this one!!

This is a pretty sad one, but it was very good and Norman’s acting in it is absolutely wonderful. His character’s wife was murdered and the suspect was never found so his neighbor, who really likes him, creates a fake culprit so that he can finally get some closure. 

This is a good one. I suggest this one if you’re in the mood for a strange sort of romance movie that has underlying thriller tones.

17. Moscow Chill

I remember watching this one, and I remember enjoying it, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it except that it’s a Russian film in which Norman plays a computer hacker who gets hired to hack into a Russian bank and gets caught and put in prison. But I honestly can’t remember what happens in detail.

If you like foreign movies with hacking and subterfuge plots, then give it a try because I do remember enjoying it while I watched.

18. Red Canyon

This one is kinda fucked up. Imagine Daryl Dixon mixed with Breaking Bad mixed with Deliverance and you’ve pretty much got the story...

A brother and sister return to their mother’s hometown to settle things and put their horrible past behind them...but upon returning they end up reliving the nightmare all over again.

It’s a good thriller/horror watch, but there are scenes of sexual violence so if that’s not something you can handle, then don’t watch this one.

19. Hero Wanted

This. Is. A. GOOD. Movie.

Cuba Gooding Jr. is the lead and he does an AMAZING job. Gooding’s character is a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who never takes any notice of him. To get her attention, he stages a heist in which he is supposed to jump in, save the day, and win the girl...only the heist turns out to be real and he is shot and the girl is also shot in the process. He sets out for revenge and gets in way over his head.

Norman’s part in this isn’t very big...but HOLY SHIT, was it impactful. His character didn’t have a lot of screen time, in comparison to a lot of other people, but he had a solid backstory and reason for being involved and MY GOD did I cry about it. This was actually the first movie of his I watched AFTER discovering Boondock Saints and it solidified my love for his acting abilities.

A very good watch. Highly suggest.

20. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow

This one is pretty ok, actually, as far as lame horror movies go. 

The plot is simple: Blonde, beardy, corn farmer Norman gets slowly driven insane by the haunted scarecrow in his field that he thinks putting up is a good idea for some damn reason. He starts to get more and more violent and rapey as time goes on until his family is forced to take up arms against him.

It’s not bad. Second part in what I THINK is a trilogy? I’ve only ever seen the first two. If you like horror movies then this one is a good watch. As I mentioned though, there is an attempted rape scene in this one so just be aware.

21: Pandorum

It’s an alien movie. Astronauts run into a species that is stronger and hungry for tasty humans. Shepard (Norman’s character) doesn’t make it out alive. If you’re not in the mood to see Norman get LITERALLY gutted or other characters get nommed by aliens, then don’t watch.

If you ARE, then go ahead and watch, because it was pretty alright.